[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: JK Rowling pens a Harry Potter prequel / War of Roses/Holmes?Figg/Walpurga

[Lee Kaiwen]

Skipping right to the point...

Carol:
Carol, resting her case (pun intended)

But the case you've rested is not the case under discussion. I don't 
think anyone has disputed that many, even most, modern authorities have 
subsumed the accusative and dative cases into the catch-all objective case.

This discussion started with Geoff's observation that "thee" is the 
accusative (and, I added, the dative) case form of "thou". You countered 
that since modern English has no accusative or dative "thee" must 
therefore be called "objective" case. To which I responded that "thee" 
is an archaism from a time when English DID have accusative and dative 
cases (and long before anyone had ever heard of the "objective case"), 
and thus "thee" can no more be called "objective case" than can OE 
"hine". Certainly grammarians of the time would "object".

 From there the discussion branched out into whether the subsumption by 
modern grammarians of the accusative and dative into the objective case 
is problematic and whether attempts to anachronistically recast the 
remaining accusative and dative features of English syntax in 
"objective" terms is helpful or merely obfuscatory. I provided examples 
of points at which I believe it obscures and confuses, rather than 
enlightens.

I'm still trying to determine the history of the modern objective case 
construct. So far, I can't find any reference predating the early 20th 
century, and the two 19th century authorities I have located (Coleridge 
and Clark) do discuss the accusative and dative cases.

Does anyone know when the "objective case" first appeared in the 
grammatical authorities?

CJ