Analysis of case can become complicated. In fact, linguists have a hard time
agreeing on just how many cases exist in English. Everyone recognizes nomi-
native and objective case, but some linguists argue that others exist, such asda-
tive(indirect objects) andgenitive(possessive) cases. For our purposes, it is
sufficient to recognize just three cases—nominative, objective, and posses-
sive—illustrated in the following examples:
- Shestopped the car. (nominative)
- Fred kissedher.(objective)
- The book ishis.(possessive)
Teaching Tip
A few English nouns retain inflection for gender. Consider, for example, the
two spellings available for people with yellow hair: “blond” and “blonde.” Al-
though pronounced the same, the former is used for males, the latter for fe-
males. “Actor” and “actress” are two other words that retain inflection. Over
the last several years, there have been concerted efforts to eliminate all gen-
der inflections, such that female performers increasingly are referred to as ac-
tors rather than actresses. An engaging activity for students is to have them
form teams and observe how inflected forms are used for gender and by
whom. They can report their findings and explore whether inflected forms are
still useful and whether these forms should be retained.Usage Note
Nonstandard usage commonly reverses nominative case and objective case
pronouns, resulting in sentences like 8 and 9 below:
- ?Fritz and me gave the flowers to Macarena.^3
- ?Buggsy asked Fred, Raul, and I to drive to Las Vegas.
Formal standard usage is illustrated in sentences 8a and 9a:8a. Fritz and I gave the flowers to Macarena.
9a. Buggsy asked Fred, Raul, and me to drive to Las Vegas.Note that sentences 8 and 9 are not ungrammatical, but they do violate stan-
dard usage conventions. Even though we mayhearpeople violate these con-
ventions on a regular basis, teachers are rightly concerned when the problem
appears in students’ speech and writing.
TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR 63
(^3) The question mark at the beginning of the sentence signals that the sentence is nonstandard. This
convention will be used throughout from this point on.