Re: "It's me"



"jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx" wrote:
>
> Lars Eighner wrote:
> > In our last episode,
> > <43A12C94.708@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
> > the lovely and talented Janithor
> > broadcast on alt.usage.english:
> >
> > > x-no-archive: yes
> >
> >
> > > Isn't me a objective pronoun? That would make "It's me" incorrect,
> > > since "is" is intransitive? But "it's I" doesn't sound right at all.
> >
> > The subject-object model, largely borrowed from Latin and
> > related languages, simply is not entirely accurate when applied
> > to English.
>
> I believe that "It is I" and similar expressions were normal in Early
> Modern English and its ancestors, and there's no reason to think they
> were borrowed from Latin or anywhere else.
>
I think he means the model was taken from Latin not that the language
itself necessarily borrowed the concept from Latin.


> However, if you're saying that most people's current English has no
> rule that intransitive verbs take subjective pronouns, I agree with
> you.
>
What makes the copula "intransitive" other than that it doesn't take a
direct object? It's predicate nominative therefore it is intransitive.
If that breaks down, why can't it be called transitive? Maybe there's
something more that I'm missing.


> In fact, "be" is the only verb I can think of where the question
> comes up (except in the extremely rare, perhaps non-existent, situation
> of "And that little boy became me/I," where I would unhesitatingly use
> "me"). So there's no reason for a rule about a whole class of verbs.
>
There's a list of verbs that function like the copula in Latin. It might
be interesting to look at them in English.



--
He and Evie soon fell into a conversation of the "No, I didn't; yes, you
did" type--conversation which, though fascinating to those who are
engaged in it, neither desires nor deserves the attention of others.
-+E.M. Forster, "Howards End"
.

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