quick question, then –
why do we say “it’s me” and “it’s them” instead of “it is I” and “it is they” when the personal pronoun should take
the nominative. Or are the latter the proper?
“It’s I” and “it’s they” are correct. Of course, it’s me has attained idiomatic status in modern English. However, it’s him and it’s her is much less accepted
Hmm…
Most English speakers I know say “it’s her” and “it’s him.”
“Who’s at the door?” “Oh, it’s her again”
I’ve never heard “Oh, it’s she again.” That just sounds plain weird to my ears.
That’s because “it’s her” is grammatical and “it’s she” is not.
The “rule” that you use the subjective case after the verb to be is another one of those situations where someone tried (fortunately unsuccessfully) to impose Latin grammar on English. In Latin, the nominative case is used for the predicate of esse (to be). English uses the subjective case only for the actual subject of a sentence; in all other situations, the objective case is used.
Please note that this is part of English grammar, not an idiom as Cogitoergosum suggested. If it were only for a specific usage, say “it’s me”, then it would be an idiom. But it applies to all situations where there is a distinct form for the objective: “it’s me”, “it’s him”, “it’s her”, “it’s us”, “it’s them”. That makes it part of regular English grammar.
Thus spake dtilque:
Approaching this from a standpoint of logic, rather than linguistics, in the sentence “It is I”, “I” is the subject, or rather, it’s one of them. In a sense, the verb “to be” takes two subjects and no object. Equating thing A to thing B is equivalent to equating thing B to thing A. On the other hand, though, this argument would also suggest that the correct sentence should be “It am I”, so maybe we should just keep language illogical (hey, it’s late. Cut me some slack)
dtilque wrote:
Why `fortunately?’ If you’re going to be descriptivist rather than proscriptivist, then how is it a problem if people accept a rule and are comfortable with it, even if it is artificial? Artificially imposed rules are also a force that transforms languages, and often for the better. To hold the view that an artificial rule is bad even if speakers of the language accept it is another kind of artificial rule.
Chronos:
You haven’t tortured it enough. In “It am I”, ‘it’ doesn’t agree with the verb. Taking it to its logical conclusion, it should be “I am I”. Try saying that next time someone asks “who is it?”.
But the thing is not that language is illogical but rather that it has a different logic than what you’re applying. In English, the verb ‘to be’ is not a substitute for an equals sign. It has rules all its own and they are difficult to modify, which is why the attempt to change the case of its object to the subjective failed.
Johnny Angel:
I realize that I was not being truly descriptivist by inserting a value judgment, but I had a reason. Please name one artificially imposed syntax rule that has been completely accepted into English. I’d be surprised if you can find any.
All such rules that I know of require grade school teachers to pound the rules into kids heads, only to have three fourths of them forget them once the recess bell rings. This is not what I would call completely accepted into English.
dtilque wrote:
Name any syntax rule that has been completely accepted into English.
“Complete acceptance” won’t do as any kind of criterion, because too much of the language will fail that test. Plenty of artificially imposed rules enjoy wide acceptance, and many natural rules are unacceptable among differing groups. In trying to hang Latinists and snooty language mavens with this rope, you’ll hang every ethnic and regional group too.
The point you raise is well taken, that the claims to superiority of rules which have been artificially imposed on the language are dubious. Also dubious is the rejection of a rule that people accept and use on no account other than that it was once artificially imposed.
Lots of them, they don’t bother to teach them in school because everyone already knows them. Or if they do teach them, they don’t have to spend a significant amount of time on them. One of the simpler ones is that in a noun phrase, the determiner (if any) goes at the beginning, then any modifiers, then the noun.
As far as dialects go, yes they will have a few rules that contradict the general language (although I don’t know any that violate the above rule) but in general, they follow the syntax rules of English. Otherwise they’d be a different language, not a dialect of English.