![]() In standard practice, however, both objective and possessive forms appear before gerunds. ![]() Several readers were delighted at the author's (not author ) taking a stand on the issue. Usage guides have long insisted that gerunds, being nouns, must be preceded by the possessive form of the pronouns or nouns ( my your her his its our their child's author's ) rather than by the objective forms ( me you him her it us them ): The landlord objected to my (not me ) having guests late at night. When a verb form ending in -ing functions as a noun, it is traditionally called a gerund: Walking is good exercise. ![]() She's no faster than he is at getting the answers. When the pronoun is the subject of a verb that is expressed, the nominative forms are used: Neither did I. Me and other objective forms have also replaced the subjective forms in speech in constructions like Me neither Not us Who, them? and in comparisons after as or than: She's no faster than him at getting the answers. It had been she at the window, not her husband. My brother was the one who called our attention to the problem, but it wasn't he who solved it. In formal speech or edited writing, the subjective forms are used: It was I who first noticed the problem. are almost universal in speech, the context in which they usually occur. Some 400 years ago, owing to the feeling that the postverb position in a sentence is object rather than subject territory, me and other objective pronouns ( him her us them ) began to replace the subjective forms after be, so that It is I became It is me. A traditional rule governing the case of personal pronouns after forms of the verb to be is that the nominative or subjective form ( I she he we they ) must be chosen. ![]()
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