An objective case is marked on the
English personal pronouns and as such serves the role of the accusative and dative cases that other Indo-European languages employ. These forms are often called
object pronouns. They serve a variety of grammatical functions which they would not in languages that differentiate the two. An example using first person singular objective pronoun
me: • in an
accusative role for a direct object (including
double object and
oblique ditransitives): ::
Do you see me? ::
The army sent me to Korea. • in a
dative role for an indirect object: ::
Kim passed the pancakes to me. ::
Kim passed me the pancakes. • as the
object of a preposition (
except in possessives): ::
That picture of me was blurry. ::(cf.
double genitive as in
That picture of mine was stolen.) • in
copular deixis: ::[referring to a photograph]
This is me on the beach. • in
existentials (sometimes, but not always, replaceable by the nominative—in very formal style): ::''It's
me again.'' ::(
cf. Once again, it is I. [formal]) ::''Who is it?—It's
me.'' ::(
cf. It is I [
to whom you are speaking].) ::''It's
me who should fix it.'' ::(
cf. Since I made it, it is I who should fix it.) • in a nominative role with predicate or verbal
ellipsis: ::
Who made this bicycle?—Me. ::(
cf. Who made this bicycle?—I did.) ::
I like him.—Hey, me too. ::(
cf. I like him.—Hey, I do too.) ::''Who's gonna clean up this mess?—Not
me!'' • in
coordinated nominals: ::
Me and him are going to the store. (only in colloquial speech) ::(
cf. Is he going? Yes, he and I are going.) • as a
disjunctive topic marker: ::
Me, I like French. The pronoun
me is not
inflected differently in any of these uses; it is used for all grammatical relationships except the
genitive case of possession (in standard English) and a non-disjunctive
nominative case as the subject. • It may also be used as a comedic stylistic effect of blatant error (
nonstandard,
pidgin,
baby or foreigner talk or "
broken English"): ::[spoken by
Cookie Monster]
Me so hungry. ::(
the above example also employs copula deletion to similar effect) ==French==