(Forgive me if this is the wrong place for this, this is my first time posting)
If I say, "I am going to the store", what is the "I" in that sentence? It's a pronoun referring to the proper noun Ryan King.
If I say, "Ryan is going to the store", I'm an illeist.
If I say, "Ryan am going to the store", I'm actually still referring to myself in the first person, but just not using the pronoun.
Has anyone heard of this being used? It seems to make more sense than the redundant, "I, Ryan, am going to the store".
- Ryan King
Dear Ryan: Without meaning to seem unfriendly I think it sounds dialectical, uneducated,
not very useful, though easily understood.
As for dialectical - I haven't heard it anywhere, so I wouldn't even call it that. =)
However, as for "uneducated" - I think it only sounds that way because it's unfamiliar. If you think of "I" as merely a pronoun, and consider that pronouns should be able to substitute for the noun they stand for, it seems to work.
And as for not-very-useful - I can think of at least one case. The legalese of "I, Ryan, hereby declare that..." could be refactored to merely: "Ryan hereby declare that...".
Well, thanks, Ryan for the new word for me: illeism - ( )
The practice of referring to oneself as "he" or "she", or by one's name .
I've heard small children executing this illeism, most notably a little five-year-old boy who was instructed to sit down along with the other children, and he said,
"Jeremy don't want to.
Of course, to make his use of illeism a bit more grammatical (under the circumstances), he should have said,
"Jeremy doesn't want to..
Back to your question about "I." "I" is simply a first case singular pronoun, and it takes the first case singular verb "am" in order to have subject-verb agreement. "I" functions as the subject of the sentence and "am" as the verb.
Does this answer part of what you're asking?
I would say your "illeist" example of "Ryan's" taking a first case singular verb is simply ungrammatical. In order to be grammatical, the word "Ryan" requires the third case singular verb. "Ryan is going to the store" is a grammatical sentence, but becomes illeist only if you, Ryan, speak it.
Hope this helps a little!
BEst regards,
WW
It comes down to this question: What, precisely, does "first person" mean?
Is it any time the author refers to the author, or only when doing so by use of the pronoun "I"?
If the latter, well, that would explain why we've never heard anything like "Ryan am going to the store", as well as making the term "first person" disappointingly simplistic.
If the former...
yeah, I think it's interesting when verb form changes because of pronoun use. to me it means that pronouns are a little more than they purport to be.
Ryan,
These are basic English grammar questions you're asking. I'll bet there's a good grammar site online you can check out, but I'll give you some basic answers to your questions:
Ryan: It comes down to this question: What, precisely, does "first person"
mean?
Response: When making verbs agree with their subjects, you consider which "person" the subject of the sentence is. A list that is memorized in school is: "I, you, [he, she, it], we, you, they." Some of those pronouns are singular and others are plural. This is how you can break them down into a visual list:
Singular:
First Person -- I
Second Person -- you
Third Person -- it
Plural:
First person -- we
Second Person -- you
Third Person -- they
Now back to first person. First person singular refers to yourself. The pronoun that takes the place of yourself is "I." That first person singular requires a specific kind of verb agreement. Take the verb "to be." You must use the verb "am" with the pronoun "I." You can't use "is" or "are," for instance, and maintain a sentence that is grammatically correct with regards to standard English. But you can (and some do) say "I is" if you want to; you're just not using standard English.
Now what is the plural of "I"? What would the first person plural be? You just think of yourself in a group of people, with yourself in the middle of it. How would you refer to what your group wants, for instance? You wouldn't refer to them as "they" because you're part of that group. You would say, "We want" whatever it is you want.
Second person singular is kind of the opposite of "I." One person opposite you would be "you." And the plural form of you is "you" again.
Third person singular (he, she, it) refers to either a singular person or thing that you are not directly addressing (as you were in the case of "you"). The third person plural would be "they."
The important thing about understanding first, second, and third person (whether singular or plural) is that it helps cause your subjects to agree with your verbs, sometimes a hard task in complex sentences.
You asked, "What does first person singular mean?" It simply means you as you refer to yourself. And your refer to yourself, when you are the subject of a sentence, as "I." Period. Not as Ryan. Just plain ol' "I." That's what it means.
Hope this helps.
Ryan: Is it any time the author refers to the author, or only when doing so by
use of the pronoun "I"?
Response: Ryan, anytime anyone refers to himself, whether in writing or speaking, first person singular form functioning as the subject of a verb would be "I."
Ryan: If the latter, well, that would explain why we've never heard anything
like "Ryan am going to the store", as well as making the term "first
person" disappointingly simplistic.
Response: It would be very rare for me to write a sentence in which I refered to myself as "Wordwind" here. I would refer to myself consistently, if the subject of my own sentence, as "I." It may be simplistic, but it works. In very formal appeal, however, I, Wordwind, could add my name "Wordwind" as I just did. But it's a bit weighty and would be used only for very serious or very humorous situations.
These are basic English grammar questions you're asking.
Yes, exactly. A mind, to keep itself fresh, should constantly churn, revisiting new and old concepts in the same moment.
It simply means you as you refer to yourself. And your refer to yourself, when you are the subject of a sentence, as "I." Period. Not as Ryan. Just plain ol' "I."
English seems to have fewer periods (".") than it has Periods ("Period.").
In reply to:
And your refer to
yourself, when you are the subject of a sentence, as "I."
Sorry about the superfluous "r" in the above. It should have read: "And you refer to yourself..."
And, Ryan, I was not being sarcastic or insincere about the "period" part of my sentence. I was making an honest attempt to be helpful. I simply meant that there is only one grammatically correct first person singular pronoun that I can use to replace my own name in a sentence and that pronoun is "I" (standard English).
Period.
Period is a nice word, I think, for indicating that the writer in no way means to waffle.
In reply to:
And, Ryan, I was not being sarcastic or insincere about the "period" part of my sentence. I was making an honest attempt to be helpful. I simply meant that there is only one grammatically correct first person singular pronoun that I can use to replace my own name in a sentence and that pronoun is "I" (standard English).
I was being a little sarcastic about "Period"s. But the sarcasm was directed at the English language:
What we have here, apparently, are these rules:
- Pronouns are used in place of nouns.
- First person is when the author refers to the author
- All pronouns can be re-replaced with the noun they replaced, except the grump of a pronoun, "I"
Which of those rules seems inelegant to you?
Eventually I'll learn to accept the chaos of the English language, but every now and then I forget.
In reply to:
Which of those rules seems inelegant to you?
None of them. Those rules seem elegant to me. Simple as straw and as elegant. But I've internalized them and they are as familiar as family. Don't mean to imply here that my family is simple.
re:All pronouns can be re-replaced with the noun they replaced, except the grump of a pronoun, "I"
well, as you pointed out, I can be replaced, i can say "Of troy has blond hair"-- but once i replace I with my name, I also have change the verb...
Using this form of address, (refering to yourself, using your own name and the third person verb form is illeitst.. (il eet ist) it sound like elitist! not just the word elitist, but speaking in this form sound like you consider your self elite! it sounds self centered, and egotistic.
(of course that is just my opinion!) the form is generally not used (and who knows, that too could change) because my opinion, is shared-- many think the style to be one used by self centered pompous idiots -- and in movies and television, this style is often employed as a short hand to learn a persons 'character'.
Can you use "Name (thirdperson verb)" and not be egotistic? Sure! but you're still going to sound that way!
i suppose once or twice in a live time, it is the clearest form, but for the most part, when talking about yourself, you use I.
Dear of troy,
Where did you find the pronunciation of the adjective form of illeism? I found the noun form in two places on onelook.com, but no adjective form or pronunciation.
Thanks for letting me in on your reference.
WW
> illeitst
I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that that's an exclusive ot spelling (and pronunciation). <grinace>
edit: it turns out that illeism is a nonce-word coined by Coleridge from L. ille, that man, he; after egoism. it's pronounced IL-i-iz-em, so (best guess) IL-i-est.
WordWind, I think I see what Ryan is getting at.
It does seem funny that "I am..." is proper grammar, until you re-replace the pronoun with the noun it was originally replacing (!); that is, you substitute "WordWind" for "I". Then, even though you may still be talking about yourself, the verb changes to third person singular! Why should it - you're still talking about yourself! (Just pointing out the failure in logic here and waiting for Faldage to make some dry remark about logic and English being mutually exclusive...)
I find the example of "Jeremy don't want to" very interesting, and that construction is possibly more logical than "Jeremy doesn't want to" when talking about oneself. Jeremy's logic must have gone something like this:
"I don't want to" -> I'd like to make this more emphatic, I think I'll use my name instead of I, but I'll keep don't because I'm still referring to I here, and that's the verb that goes with the concept of I -> "Jeremy don't want to"
So somehow Jeremy forms that sentence from a deeper understanding of the concept of I in the language. He thinks that the verb form don't, pointing to himself, is more important than the pronoun used to do the pointing. Interesting, hey?
waiting for Faldage to make some dry remark about logic and English being mutually exclusive
I wouldn't go that far. I do think that logic can be pushed too far in attempts to analyze any natural language. I also think that RK's question deserves some serious discussion. Unfortunately*, I am not able to spend much time on it right now.
*Or maybe, fortunately.
Much of the problem here seems to be that we practically never use anything but pronouns in first and second person. There's the additional matter of our having conflated all present tense, indicative conjugations except the third person singular in almost all verbs. In this case it means that we expect a single name, e.g., Ryan, to go with a third person singular verb and it doesn't sound right if we hear it some other way. That this is approximately the same argument that gives us nucular for nuclear may be dismissed by some, but it does fit with Safire's Law, "if it sounds funny, the hell with it." Still, it seems somehow to go against the simple notion that a pronoun is a word used in the place of a noun or noun phrase. To put it in another context, which is correct?
A) It is I who is the House Fool,
or
2) It is I who am the House Fool?