Korean Job Discussion Forums

[penny357]

Hello all
My knowledge of grammer is appalling I am the first to admit it. I almost feel sorry for my students. So if someone could help me on a particular question I'd appreciate it. A co-teacher asked me today if the sentence "John or I am to blame" is correct. I said no, it should be "John is or I am to blame." She got out her dictionary and it said in her dictionary "John or I am to blame."
This sounds wrong to me but I can't really explain to her the grammer why and now the dictionary is contradicting me so perhaps I am wrong. Is anyone out there better at english grammer than me and can help.
Cheers

[CBP]

John or I am to blame.

John is to blame.

I am to blame.

John, Susan, Jeffrey, Sam and I are to blame.

We are to blame.

John and I are to blame.

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Either John is to blame, or I am to blame.

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Thinking: If you must write such an incredibly awkward sentence -- one that I'd NEVER ever say because of how odd it sounds -- you might view it as chopping off "is to blame" in my above example, which then becomes implied when shortening the example sentence to your sentence: "John or I am to blame."

The temptation to switch "am" with "are" comes from lists created with the word "and." You never say "I are going to the store." But with the following list, you would: "John, Susan and I are going to the store." The pronoun "I" becomes simply another item in the list, which is why you use the plural form of "to be."

But connecting objects with "or" plays them off against each other. So each item in that list becomes a stand-alone item, which is why it would be correct to say "John or I am to blame."

Yes?

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Neither is technically wrong, but 'John or I would be to blame' sounds better.

BTW,

[John Henry]

BTW, you misspelled grammar.

[CBP]

BTW, grammar questions always stump me, although they're great fun. I've got a growing list of the buggers.

[Woland]

Both of the following sentences are grammatical:

a) John or I is to blame

b) John or I am to blame

Technically speaking, conjoined phrases (like "John or I") are headless, which means that the properties of neither member of the phrase govern verb agreement. The conjoined phrase itself has its own properties which will govern agreement. Since these properties are not explicitly marked on the phrase, it's basically open what they are. In a) above, the conjunction as a whole is assumed to be third person; in b), it is assumed to be first person.

Technically speaking, there is no reason to argue against the following sentence being grammatical:

c) John or I are to blame

The conjunction must have some person and number status, but that is not determined in any way by its members. So any combination of person and number is possible. (When I presented this problem to a colleague, he was unable to decide between 'is' and 'are')

Differences here are then largely a matter of personal preference. This will not satisfy test makers who demand a single answer. TO me this suggests that this is the kind of item that should not be on grammar tests. To them it will suggest a need to impose an answer and make up some false (and often absurd) justification for it.

There are cases where a purely social (non-linguistic) preference for certain combinations in conjunctions has arisen, and this needs to be taught and respected because students will be judged on this usage. For example, assignment of case within conjunctions falls into this area. Take the following sentences:

d) Me and Bob are going to the mall.

e) Bob and me are going to the mall.

f) I and Bob are going to the mall.

g) Bob and I are going to the mall.

Given that conjunctions are headless and case is assigned to the conjunction as a whole, there is no need for the members of the conjunction to reflect that case particularly. Nor is there any particular natural order to members of a conjunction. This is why all four of these sentences are produced naturally by native speakers of English (I know the objection and I'll return to this claim in a moment.)

However, there is a clear social preference for g) built around two prescriptive rules for English. First, there is a rule that claims the members of prepositions should assume the case of their position. Second, there is a rule that says that first person pronouns should occupy second position in a conjunction ("Put your friend first" is what I heard as a child).

I don't deny the reality of these social rules and their effect. Students who produce forms violating them will be judged as less educated, and so we should teach a preference for g). But the fact that native speakers do actually produce all these forms does supply evidence that in a descriptive linguistic sense, all of them are grammatical.

[Okay, I know that the "I and Bob" form is very rare, probably only occuring in children's speech or possibly in the speech of very low educated adults. The power of the social rules does not provide a complete explanation for this, I feel. One possible explanation for the dominance of 'Me and Bob' when the pronoun comes first is that accusative case forms seem to be preferred in many situations. For example, 'you' is historically an accusative form that has replaced it nominative counterpart 'ye' (and even the nominative singular 'thou'). That's my best guess.]

This is all probably TMI for most people. Sorry. For more info on the headlessness of conjunctions, see Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct (pp. 390-392).

PS to OP: To remember that the spelling is grammAr, remember that it is linked to the word 'grammAtical'. English spelling preserves morpheme structure.

[CBP]

See what I mean? People eat this stuff up.

Well done!

(Now please excuse me while I cancel my flight to Korea.)

[Boodleheimer]

grammar is easy.

grammer i'm not sure about. i mean, i know he was a bit of an alcoholic during his years on "Cheers", but i think he cleaned up his act during "Frasier"

[matthews_world]

I'd take this thread seriously if the header was spelled correctly!

[Kimchi Cowboy]

[matthews_world]

Your not from the States?

[SirFink]

[SirFink]

[Boodleheimer]

[mindmetoo]

Either John or my sisters are going.

Either my sisters or John is going.

Use the verb that agrees with the final item after the "or".