[X and Ⅰ] in Object Position and [me and Ⅹ] in Subject Position

[X and Ⅰ] in Object Position and [me and Ⅹ] in Subject Position

  This article deals with the mismatch between the morphological case form and the grammatical function of an English personal pronoun, especially the objective me appearing in subject position. It is argued that the [me and Ⅹ]Subj./Obj. pattern is produced by the so-called [me and Ⅹ] rule, one of the grammatical virus rules. A virus rule, proposed by Sobin (1994, 1997), is a language-particular rule producing the usage(s) not predicted by the UG system. Along with Sobin’s “...and Ⅰ” rule, the [me and Ⅹ] rule will account for the unexpected case-mismatch phenomena of English personal pronouns. To accommodate the [me and Ⅹ] rule under the notion of grammatical viruses, however, we will revise the notion of a grammatical virus. Our revision is that a grammatical virus rule produces a socially inferior usage and so a virus-infected inferior usage should be cured by the UG system later in an effort for a speaker to get social prestige within a speech community. This revision is opposite to the original notion of grammatical viruses that they produce socially prestigious usages.