Pretend with us, if you will:
You are calling a queen. You two are close and you have a direct number to the phone on the table next to the armchair she’s sitting on and waiting for your call.
She replied and said, “Hello?”
You say: “May I speak to the Queen?”
She replied, “This is ___.”
And there we will stop: what does she say?
She can choose to respond with her title: “This is the Queen.” Or she could go the pronoun route.
Being queen and all, that could mean being completely royal: “This is Us.” Or will it be “This is us”? (We’re assuming uppercase, but that’s really up to her.) But what if she prefers personal (and lowercase) pronouns? Will her answer be “This is her”? Or “This is her”?
And what if you were calling her to talk about ‘This Is Us’?
It all depends on how she treats that little verb To be. Such a common verb, but even queens (who are English speakers anyway) have to use it. Its infinitive form is To bebut of course it also has other forms: To be, To be, used to be, used to, Present, To be. To be is the most common of the linking verbs (also known as copulas or linking verbs). A linking verb is a type of verb that, instead of expressing some kind of action like verbs like “run” and “digress,” connects a subject with an adjective (or adjective phrase) or noun. word (or noun phrase) that describes or identifies that subject. For example, in “The queen is waiting for my call”, the linking verb To be thread connection (queen) with a phrase describing the object in her predicted state.
For a long time, grammarians have asserted that when you have a subject followed by a linking verb, the thing behind the linking verb (adjective or noun) must be in the field. nominative—that is, in the form used in the subject position. We can think of the affirmative like this: a linking verb is like an equal sign. Just as we say “She is the Queen”, we must also say “She is the Queen.” There is a fancy grammatical term for this: the nominative predicate. It refers specifically to an adjective (or adjective phrase) or noun (or noun phrase) that follows a linking verb to complete its meaning and is required to be in the nominative case.
Most of the time we don’t have to think about whether what follows a linking verb is in the nominative or objective case (the form used in the object position). In “The Queen is very funny” and “The Queen is an excellent conversationalist” the adjective and noun phrases that follow the linking verb have the same form whether they are in the nominative or objective form. But when we want to use a pronoun after the linking verb, we have to choose.
If the nominative predicate stays the same, the Queen will say “This is her” (or “This is We”, if she goes with the glorified pronoun that kings sometimes use). This connected through the linking verb To be to the pronoun that identifies the speaker in the nominative case. Instead, if the Queen replies “This is her”, she is negating the nominative predicate and dealing with the connected pronoun via the linking verb. To be as if it comes after a regular old verb such as alikeas in “I like her.”
And what about the rest of us? Should we reject the predicate nomination, or embrace it?
The answer is, we assure you, purely a matter of style.
While there was some heated debate on the matter in the 18th century—mostly a I’m here defenders are quickly overwhelmed by some influencers it is me people—in the early 20th century, most people who made recommendations on such things admitted that I’m here is perfectly fine, especially in informal use. Both forms have existed for centuries, with I’m here tend to appear in more relaxed contexts for a long time. That means you — and the Queen — can choose whatever you like whenever you want.
Of course, the demonstrative predicate also works with other pronouns, and when it does, it often sounds especially fitting for the regal among us: “If I were him… “; “I heard a knock—maybe they…”; “hope it’s her…” Without the complement, we have “If I were him…”; “maybe they …”; “hopefully it’s her…” Again, the choice is up to you. For our part, we reserve the right to reserve the preceding section exclusively for our conversations with the Queen.
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
