Hey, today we’ll be talking about personal pronouns again. This time we’ll have a look at personal pronouns after linking verbs, so pronouns that function as subject complements to linking verbs.
Table of Contents
Linking Verbs
What are linking verbs in the first place? Well, these are verbs that usually don’t stand on their own. Have a look at these sentences:
She is.
They seem.
They don’t look complete. This is because verbs like TO BE or TO SEEM are usually followed by an adjective or noun phrase.
What about these:
She is a teacher.
They seem tired.
Now the sentences look complete. In the examples above the verbs TO BE and TO LOOK link the subject with the subject predicative, so the noun phrase A TEACHER and the adjective TIRED respectively. This is why we call them linking verbs. Another name that is also frequently used is copular verbs.
If you want to learn more about copular verbs, read my article Transitive Verbs, Intransitive Verbs and More where I discuss different valency patterns, among others copular verbs.
As mentioned before, linking verbs may be followed by noun phrases and those may consist of pronouns. In one of the previous articles we were talking about all the different forms of personal pronouns, so feel free to read about them first if you like.
Now, which forms should we use after linking verbs? The answer is not that obvious…
Personal Pronouns After Linking Verbs
… Or maybe it is if you know the difference between prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. I have a separate article on my blog where I explain the difference between the two, so feel free to check it out.
Or you can watch this video on my Prospero English YouTube channel.
To be brief, prescriptive grammar tells us how we should speak and descriptive grammar explains how we actually speak.
So, here are some typical examples of sentences with pronouns after linking verbs. You may come across similar examples in everyday conversation.
It was him who asked her out.
It was her who hesitated.
It’s them who now run together every morning.
– Was it really me who asked you out?
– Yes, it was definitely you.
– So, is it us who are going to get married?
– Maybe it’s you, but it definitely isn’t me.
As you can see, in all the examples above the pronouns are in objective case.
And this is how they are often used, especially in less formal spoken language. So, this belongs to the domain of descriptive grammar.
But what does prescriptive grammar to say about it? Well, it says: USE SUBJECTIVE CASE after linking verbs. Having said this, let’s rewrite the sentences above so that they comply with this rule.
It was he who asked her out.
It was she who hesitated.
It’s they who now run together every morning.
– Was it really I who asked you out?
– Yes, it was definitely you.
– So, is it we who are going to get married?
– Maybe it’s you, but it definitely isn’t I.
So, this is the more correct form, so to speak. That’s why you should use it rather than objective case forms in more formal speech or in official written language.
Subjective Case Test
There is a simple test that will tell you whether you should use the subjective form in more formal language. All you have to do is reverse the order of the linking verb and pronoun. If this is possible, by which I mean not just technically possible, which it always is, but the new sentence is also grammatically correct and makes sense, then the subjective form is the one to use.
Let’s try it out with some of the sentences above.
So, here’s the first sentence:
It was him/he who asked her out.
Now let’s reverse the order. We also have to slightly modify the sentence by adding the guy, the one or something like that depending on the context.
*Him was the guy who asked her out.
He was the guy who asked her out.
As you can see, the first sentence is incorrect. The second one is correct, so we should use the subjective form.
Another example:
It’s them/they who now run together every morning.
*Them are the people who now run together every morning.
They are the people who now run together every morning.
Again, only the second sentence is correct, so the subjective form is more correct according to prescriptive grammar.
INFO
If you like the article and would like to see more content like this, make sure to subscribe to my Prospero English YouTube channel and visit my blog at prosperoenglish.com.
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EXERCISE
And now I have an exercise for you. In the comments below write some examples of sentences with personal pronouns following linking verbs. Write each sentence in two versions: the more formal one and the conversational one.