I know most nouns don’t visibly inflect when changing from case to case, but pronouns do, and “these” is a type of pronoun.
I want to say “outside these” because these makes a harder contrast than “them” would when the succeeding sentence is considered, but obviously if that’s incorrect then I’ll just use them.
“These” is a demonstrative plural adjective (of “this”) which can be used pronominally. (Translation: it’s a modifier used for pointing out specifics, i.e., items nearby (physically or metaphorically) as opposed those further off, that can also be used as a substitute for the noun it would normally modify). It’s one of a handful of English adjectives that must agree in number with their noun. And like all nouns and adjectives and many pronouns, it does not change form to denote nomninative vs. objective case.
“There are no more roses besides these,” the florist said apologetically. Or perhaps, “I’ve found none of those powders eliminate vermin half so well as the results I’ve had with these.”
With the exception of a small handful of personal pronouns, it is nonsense to talk about case in English. My colleague who grew up in Germany (he left at age 16 in 1939) says that when he studied English in Germany, he was taught that English had four cases: “book”, “of the book”, “to the book” and “book”. All nonsense, of course. Even the possessive is not a case: “Queen of England’s crown”. English grammar (like that of any language) is sufficiently complicated that it is best not to introduce spurious structure. For example, English does not have 6 tenses, as I was taught. It actually has none. Temporal relations must be implemented by other words, auxiliaries or adverbs usually. It has two forms, properly called the imperfect (the so-called “present”) and perfect (the so-called past). ESL learners would have less trouble with things like the progressive if they were taught properly.
Me think you post be silly. Us ought not propopulate that sorts of error.
(Or in other words, English has a very simple, highly analytic grammar – but don’t make the mistake of inter[preting the absence of case endings for no grammar.
Just because pronouns inflect doesn’t mean that all the inflected forms have to be different. There is nothing preventing both the nominative and objective forms of a certain pronoun from being spelled and/or pronounced identically. Indeed, you see this in German with, for example, sie, which can be nominative third person singular feminine, accusative third person singular feminine, nominative third person plural, or accusative third person plural. Disregarding the spelling, it can also be nominative second person formal singular, accusative second person formal singular, nominative second person formal plural, or accusative second person formal plural.
Grammarians and linguists everywhere will be surprised at the news that English no longer marks case in relative and interrogative pronouns, and in sentences generally through word order.
That’s strange; I usually inflect the main verb for the present and past, but save auxiliaries for the other times, moods, and aspects. Are you speaking some strange dialect which doesn’t inflect at all for English’s two tenses?
So which of the two forms is “give,” which of the two is “gave,” and which of the two is “given?”
The grammar of English is simple only when compared to its vocabulary. Henry Sweet’s Modern English Grammar consists of seven volumes published over a forty-year period; compare this to the similarly comprehensive Oxford English Dictionary, which was in ten volumes and also took forty years to publish (not including some twenty years of pre-publication compilation).
Contemplate “to be” for the most discrete forms: am, is, are, art, was, were, wast, wert, be, beest, been, being.