In some languages, nouns change according to what role they play in a sentence! Latin, German, Russian, Icelandic, and many other languages have cases, which are kind of like verb tenses but for nouns, pronouns, articles like a and the, and sometimes other words. Learning one of these languages means memorizing not just different verb forms (I go, she goes) but different forms of other words too.
For example, Latin has six cases:
Nominative, for the subject of a sentence
Genitive, for possession
Dative, for indirect objects
Accusative, for direct objects
Ablative, which is too complicated to describe here1
Vocative, for addressing someone
This might seem strange to an English speaker—but did you know that English has cases too? There are three cases that change the forms of English pronouns: the subjective, the possessive, and the objective.
The subject of a sentence uses the subjective case, and can use pronouns like I, you, he, she, we, they and who. When you ask who let the dogs out, the subject of the sentence is who. The subjective case has the same role as the nominative case in Latin, so called because it names something.2
The possessive case takes two different forms and does the same job as the Latin genitive case. With the possessive, you use pronouns like my/mine, your/yours, his, her/hers, its, our/ours, their/theirs, and whose. If I ask whose dogs you let out, whose dogs is the object. If I ask whose dogs escaped, then whose dogs is the subject. But both sentences use the possessive form of who.
Direct and indirect objects use the objective case, which works like a combination of the Latin dative and accusative cases. With the objective case, you use pronouns like me, you, him, her, us, them, and whom. If I ask why you let them out, them is the direct object, and uses the objective form of they.
This whole area of grammar is confusing to most people, who don't think of English as having cases—or don't think of cases at all.
One common error is hypercorrection. A sentence like The dogs ran past you and me is correct. Because you and I are the indirect object, you use the objective you and me rather than the subjective you and I. You can see why if you decompose this into two sentences: The dogs ran past you and The dogs ran past me. You probably wouldn't say *The dogs ran past I.3 But people have been conditioned4 to correct you and me to you and I, so they hypercorrect to The dogs ran past you and I.
Another problem: people don't know when to use whom. The traditional answer is that you should use whom in direct and indirect objects. Although that's technically correct, I favor going with who in any situation where whom might be confusing or pretentious. No one needs you to say To whom should I give these dogs, when Who should I give these dogs to is just as clear and sounds natural these days.
If there is one takeaway from today's installment, it is not about how to use whom, and it's not about hypercorrection. I don't even care if you memorize the names and uses of the cases. I just want you to remember the fact that the nominative case names something, because I'm planning to use that word in a later piece5 and I want you6 to know it.
The ablative case is actually a combination of three older cases that are used for separation (from), instrumentality (by means of), and location (at or in). The ablative's usage shifted and merged over time, which has led to ambiguity in modern translation.
From the Latin nomen, meaning name, as you will have guessed.
In most forms of English, this is true. However, the Iyaric dialect, spoken by members of the Rastafari religion, does not use me or my. Rastafarians created this new dialect and its vocabulary consciously as a rebellion against English as a colonial language and the corrupt and decadent society it represents. Start at the Wikipedia article about Iyaric. For more about why the pronoun I is important in Rastafarian beliefs, see Palmer, Delano Vincent, Pronominal ‘I’, Rastafari, and the Lexicon of the New Testament with Special Reference to Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, University of South Africa (2007).
This happens early in our English learning, when we try out sentences like *You and me should go look for the dogs. We are rightly corrected to the subjective you and I. This trains some of us to misapply the correction when you and me appears as an object.
I could have said post, but there’s cake!
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