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A disjunctive pronoun is a stressed form of a personal pronoun reserved for use in isolation or in certain syntactic contexts.


Examples and usage

Disjunctive pronominal forms are typically found in the following contexts. The examples are taken from
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, which uses the disjunctive first person singular pronoun ''moi''. The (sometimes colloquial)
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
translations illustrate similar uses of ''me'' as a disjunctive form. *in syntactically unintegrated disjunct (or "dislocated") positions :''Les autres s'en vont, mais moi, je reste.'' :: The others are leaving, but me, I'm staying. *in elliptical constructions (often "sentence fragments") with no verb (e.g. short answers) :''Qui veut du gâteau ? Moi.'' :: Who wants cake? Me. (cf. "I do") :''Il est plus âgé que moi.'' :: He is older than me. (cf. "I am") *in the main clause of a cleft sentence :''C'est moi que vous cherchez.'' :: It's me that you're looking for. Disjunctive pronouns are often semantically restricted. For example, in a language with
grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...
, there may be a tendency to use masculine and feminine disjunctive pronouns primarily for referring to
animate Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...
entities. :''Si l'on propose une bonne candidate, je voterai pour elle.'' :: If someone proposes a good candidate, I'll vote for her. :''Si l'on propose une bonne loi, je voterai pour elle.'' :: If someone proposes a good law, I'll vote for her (it).


"It's me"

In some languages, a personal pronoun has a form called a disjunctive pronoun, which is used when it stands on its own, or with only a copula, such as in answering to the question "Who wrote this page?" The natural answer for most English speakers in this context would be "me" (or "It's me"), parallel to ''moi'' (or ''C'est moi'') in French. Unlike in French, however, where such constructions are considered standard, English pronouns used in this way have caused dispute. Some grammarians contend that the correct answer should be "I" or "It is I" because "is" is a linking verb and "I" is a predicate nominative, and up until a few centuries ago spoken English used pronouns in the
subjective case In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
in such sentences. However, since English has lost noun inflection and now relies on word order, using the objective case ''me'' after the verb ''be'' like other verbs seems natural to modern speakers. "It is I" developed from the
Old Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England * Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, M ...
and
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old Englis ...
form "It am I". "It" was used as the complement of "am", but in modern English "it" is the subject.


See also

*
English personal pronouns The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to number, person, case and natural gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns or adjectives, to the point where some authors descri ...
* French personal pronouns * Intensive pronoun * Irish morphology * Subjective pronoun * Weak pronoun * Copula


References

* {{lexical categories, state=collapsed Personal pronouns