Aug 29, 2009
A grammatical anomaly (for me, at least) that changes you are to you is.
This would rarely happen, but adding an adjective before “you,” changes the verb’s conjugation.
For example: Wonderful you is in the picture.
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© 2012 Abuyo. All rights reserved.
So… correct Yoda is?
Ambiguous example . . .
You want it to mean: You are wonderful and you are in the picture.
I read it first as: [It is] wonderful you is in the picture.
You is right.
Didn’t you mean, “Clever you is right.”?
Or would the following be a better context?
A: Clever you.
B: “Clever you” is right.
You is right too.
it’s always been funny to me that we ask “who is it?” and the answer is “it’s me.” why not “i’m me”?
When asked, “who is it?”, I believe the proper response is, “it is I.”
That’s common, but actually an overcompensation.
Since the “is” is connecting two nouns, the predicative noun should be in the object case. “It is me.” is technically better.
Oh, and my terminology is all boggled. I forget what the cases are called in English. Very forgettable since they’re so simple.
i think the predicative rule is true, but i’d generalize more to say that in English, ‘I’ and ‘me’ behave more like the French ‘je’ and ‘moi,’ where I/je are basically used when the first person is a main-clause subject, and me/moi are used any other time one is referring to oneself.
“who’s that in the photo?” “it’s me as a kid.”
“who wants ice cream?” “me!”
“l’etat, c’est moi (“the state, that’s me” or “I am the state”, supposedly said by Louis XIV).
this is different than, say, Spanish, where “yo” (I) is the only way to refer to oneself.
Not an overcompensation, but the old rule. It used to be in English that personal pronouns following a ‘be’ verb would take the subject form. Sentences like “It is I.” or “This is she.” may sound wrong now, but that doesn’t mean they are any worse than your example. (This is a change that demonstrates we’ve got a living language.)
I think that the adjective in this example changes the 2nd person into a 3rd person – the personification of one character trait.
you think too hard. :)
There’s an implied “that” which changes the verb.
I cheerfully retract my prior comment and throw my support behind Nana’s. Would it be fair to say that there is also an implied “it is” at the beginning? “(it is) wonderful you (that) is in the picture”
My question generally: when do adjectives modify pronouns? It seems a usage I’ve never before seen. If one can use (adj.)+(pronoun) like “wonderful you”, one should also be able to say:
-”clever I”
-”fantastic them”
-”umbratic she”
Mmm. Suppose it is something about which I’ve never thought. But the use of a modifying adjective on a pronoun or proper noun as subject tastes unusual enough to be wrong.