can i use a reflexive pronoun in this instance?

[ouyang]

Reading all these comments on the case of pronouns reminds me that I sometimes attempt to teach the social class connotations of grammatical preferences. My prime example is the subjective case for predicate nouns.

We're taught to say, "This is I." Would you ever show a photograph and say "This is I blowing out the candles."? Would you first say, "This is I." and then say "This is me blowing out the candles."? Or would you need the complete prepositional phrase found in "This is a photograph of me blowing out the candles."?

Language is a very social class conscious activity. I think Malinowski's mode of action interpretation of language encourages an anthropological approach to linguistics. However, that really can't form much of your content in a class for young students. I think if you can point out to students which phrases trigger social class, you can let them decide which ones they want to use.

[jotham]

It always seems to me that Americans are on the whole rather fond of imprecision, as a rule, and use, like, a lot of, y'know, expressions and stuff that indicate the speaker doesn't actually know everything, and thus precision is a waste of time.

Well, yeah, of course we have our valley girls and equivalents. Again, this is precisely what I'm not talking about; I mean communication between professionals rather than that of teenagers. Our teenagers are good at being hip and cool, and our professionals are good at being mature and precise.

Precision, by the way, isn't really the point

Well, no, I wasn't conflating that with the specific disjunctive issue. I brought that up when you mentioned the broader issue of English being inherently excellent.

- no language has a major problem with precision, it depends on the user and their relationship to the reader/listener.

Exactly my point. And when users of a certain population are, on the whole, imprecise, then the language will naturally be used that way.

[woodcutter]

What ought to be accepted is the class factor in establishing and using any standard language. You can't do it without reinforcing class barriers as far as I can see, and the only way for the barriers to eventually lower would be for whole populations to accept the elite standard as desirable and start using it. And yet all the class warriors that have passed this way have very carefully used the elite educated standard language in their posts (at least when being serious) - they wanted to look clever, and they wanted everyone to understand.

[jotham]

Reading all these comments on the case of pronouns reminds me that I sometimes attempt to teach the social class connotations of grammatical preferences. My prime example is the subjective case for predicate nouns.

We're taught to say, "This is I." Would you ever show a photograph and say "This is I blowing out the candles."? Would you first say, "This is I." and then say "This is me blowing out the candles."? Or would you need the complete prepositional phrase found in "This is a photograph of me blowing out the candles."?

Oh, now this is a different case. Perhaps this was what you meant when you said earlier that grammarians have conceded the point on me versus I. I can agree with that. But this has been conceded at least a hundred years ago — i.e., not "recently."

[donnach]

We don't say, "She thinks my sister is much prettier than herself." We can say, "She thinks my sister is much prettier than she is." and if you have been conditioned to believe that the word "than" or "as" cannot be a preposition then you can say, "She thinks my sister is much prettier than she.", but only say and write that sort of sentence around academics. The word "is" is not optional IMO.

Ok, I am missing something. If we have been conditioned to believe that the word "than" or "as" cannot be prepositions, then we must belive them to be conjunctions, correct? Which must then mean that they tie together independent clauses, and that means we always have to include a verb, like "is". Why would we say "than she" if we were conditioned to believe that "than" cannot be a preposition? Are you saying that "than she" would be elliptical construction with "than" used as a conjunction? And wouldn't it be "than her" if we use "than" as a preposition anyway?

What am I misunderstanding? I am not a linguistics expert like most others on this board. I am just trying to understand the basics of grammar.

Thanks,

Donna

[ouyang]

My comment was about the number of options for phrasing an elliptical clause in a comparative structure. If I ask, "Who is the owner of this website?" You can simply replace the interrogative pronoun with the name "Dave" and repeat the same predicate that I used to ask the question.

Alternately, you could form the elliptical response, "Dave is.", and you have the option of omitting the "is" and simply saying "Dave". I'm saying that in a comparative elliptical dependent clause, it is often taught that you also have these same three options. However, to avoid confusion with alternative comparative structures, most people naturally avoid omitting the "is".

I wouldn't say "I think he is better at sports than myself" or "I think he is better at sports than I."
I would say either "I think he is better at sports than me" or "I think he is better at sports than I am." and "He plays better than I do." not "He plays better than I."

[donnach]

Thank you for the explanation Ouyang.

When you say that the prepositional phrase (or elliptical clause) complements an adjective rather than a verb, are you meaning to say that you are following a rule that states reflexive pronouns cannot be used in prepositional phrases (or elliptical clauses) unless they complement a verb, not an adjective?

So, if the word "as" can be a preposition, then why can't we use a reflexive pronoun in your example? Because it's being used in a prepositional phrase (or elliptical clause) which is complementing an adjective (really the adverb of an adjective, the 1st "as") rather than a verb.

Thanks,

Donna

[ouyang]

I'm saying as a native speaker from America it doesn't sound right to me to hear a reflexive pronoun used to make comparisons. Then I'm pointing out that the prepositional phrases in which it sounds OK to me to use a reflexive pronoun have relationships with different parts of a sentence. So, it would be more accurate to say that I'm making up a rule to support my own grammatical preference.

However, I'd re-word the rule. It's not necessary to mention "elliptical clauses". Reflexive pronouns can't be used as subjects in any type of clause; so whichever connector word precedes these pronouns, "than" or "as" must be a preposition. Reflexive pronouns cannot be used in prepositional phrases to complement adjectives and adverbs, only verbs.