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In the following sentence from Lolita, Humbert Humbert, in describing with maximum condescension the character of his new wife, states:

'I had always been aware of the possessive streak in her, but I never thought she would be so crazily jealous of anything in my life that had not been she.'

Why is it 'anything that had not been she' and not 'anything that had not been her'? I understand that 'she' is a third person pronoun and cannot function as the object of a sentence, i.e. The message was for her, not The message was for she, but I'm still unsure of its use here.

I tried to swap she with a noun, because I thought if a noun worked there, then so would her, like 'anything in my life that had not been house, or car', which obviously do not, but found that abstract nouns sort-of work?

She was so crazily jealous of anything in my life that had also inspired sadness.

Ironically, he was wearied by anything in his life that had not been work.

Or even like place nouns:

On the topic of holidays, she dismissed any suggestions that did not include Europe

These are unnatural sentences but I don't think them grammatically incorrect, and I feel like I've kept the subject/object patterns as the initial one.

Thanks as always for your valuable insights.

x30
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  • Note that pronouns (contrary to their name) replace complete noun phrases (NPs), not just nouns. But house and car without an article aren't full NPs, so you can't swap them for she, whereas abstract nouns are NPs even without an article. If you add the article, anything in my life that had not been [the house], or [the car] works just as well as anything that had not been [sadness], or [work]. – Schmuddi Oct 11 '21 at 06:26

3 Answers3

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anything in my life that had not been she.'

she is the nominative complement of "to be".

It is technically correct and stylistically means "herself".

Compare:

A: "Who is there?" B: "It is I, Greybeard."

Greybeard
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  • I feel like this is the correct answer but I'd still have trouble recognising it in other places. In your example, why is 'I' taken to be the pronoun but not 'it'? 'It is home.' 'It is work.' 'It is Paris.' I guess with 'home' and 'work' you could say that although they are nouns they are functioning more like adjectives and could be substituted by words like 'good' or 'large'. But what about the last example? Could you clarify? – x30 Oct 10 '21 at 12:59
  • why is 'I' taken to be the pronoun but not 'it'? Hmm... both I and it are pronouns. Unfortunately, your examples lack context but fortunately are grammatically correct. – Greybeard Oct 10 '21 at 16:56
  • This is wrong. The she is one of the two referents of jealous of, and therefore takes the accusative case. – TonyK Oct 10 '21 at 21:50
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    This is correct. The she is the object of had not been, and can therefore take the nominative case. – Dawood ibn Kareem Oct 10 '21 at 22:54
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    I think a more accurate statement would be "some people use 'she' as the nominative complement of 'to be'". There's no grammatical basis for using subjective pronouns as the complement of the copula, other than a special "rule" declaring it to be so. – Acccumulation Oct 11 '21 at 01:23
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    @TonyK No, "she" is within the clause introduced by "that", which then modifies the object of "jealous of". Being part of a clause that modifies the object of preposition doesn't make a word the object of the preposition. – Acccumulation Oct 11 '21 at 01:25
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    @x30 In It is home and It is work, home and work are both also nominative complements — it's just that in English the only words that change form between nominative and objective case are pronouns. – Chris Bouchard Oct 11 '21 at 03:18
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You’re right - the object case should be her rather than she.

The author is bending normal grammar for rhetorical effect, placing the emphasis on the marked word.

Lawrence
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    I've seen third-person personal pronouns appear to function as sentence objects in other places - 'he was not as strong as she'- but I always assume that these sentences have had the second verbs omitted (he was not as strong as she was). I also see them as objects of dummy pronouns ('it is they who should be blamed for this*'). Is it correct to use third-person pronouns in these contexts or is it another case of the author playing with grammar rules? – x30 Oct 10 '21 at 12:10
  • Those are grammatical. – Lawrence Oct 10 '21 at 12:54
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    'Be' is never, to my knowledge, seen as taking an object. "It's just not me" using 'me' as the modern replacement for the ridiculous-sounding 'I', a complement in the objective case, is of course totally idiomatic. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 10 '21 at 16:35
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    It's a bit archaic to use a nominative pronoun as the object of the verb to be. But it's not wrong. Sentences like "It is I" and "I am he" are generally considered correct; and this example is a more complicated variant of the same principle. – Dawood ibn Kareem Oct 10 '21 at 22:52
  • @DawoodibnKareem If "It's not you, it's me" and many similar phrases such as "The real idiots turned out to be us" are idiomatic, I would have thought that current usage is to use me, him, her, us, you, them in this case and that is what is now grammatically correct. – Henry Oct 11 '21 at 00:19
  • @Henry Yes, me, him, her, us you, them are object pronouns. A subject pronoun used in its place (today) is considered marked. When used with verbs to be (is, be, am, was, etc), subject pronouns can be used (as predicate nominatives) where object pronouns are expected. The result in today's English is that the marked form tends to be more dramatic / draw attention / emphasise the pronoun. Compare: "It is me" vs "It is I". – Lawrence Oct 11 '21 at 00:37
  • @Lawrence If anybody said "It is I" I would assume they were trying to be pretentious, and if they said "It is we" I would treat that as unidiomatic and essentially an error – Henry Oct 11 '21 at 01:11
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    @Henry Regarding how “It is I” sounds - exactly, that’s the point. About “It is we”, agreed, as it stands. But “It is we who were wrong” highlights the quirkinesses of predicatives. It’s a lot more straightforward with say have than with is. – Lawrence Oct 11 '21 at 01:30
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I largely concur with @Greybeard that she is "technically correct", which I take to mean "grammatically correct but actually less natural than her". To be precise, the nominative is more formal than the accusative in this kind of usage.

It is I. (nominative: formal)

It is me. (accusative: informal)

Formal can be natural when used in a formal setting:

It is I, Thor, son of Odin. (nominative: formal, more natural)

It is me, Thor, son of Odin. (accusative: informal, less natural)

In Greybeard's context, which seems informal, Greybeard's reply It is I, Greybeard sounds either awkward or could have been uttered in a joking manner. But this does not to say that it's ungrammatical.

Therefore, the issue boils down to whether the cited text of the OP is in a formal or informal setting. The text sounds like a first person narrative by Humbert, so there shouldn't be any reason why it has to be formal. In fact, word choices such as crazily jealous give away its informal style. Then, why did the author use she instead of her?

We should realize that English was not the first language of the author, and more importantly that the author was born in 1899 and Lolita is a 1955 novel. The English as we know it is called Present-day English, which is the English that has been used since around World War II, so it's entirely possible that the author's English is not exactly the English we use today. I suspect that one aspect of the difference could be using the nominative as a predicative complement even in an informal setting.

JK2
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  • I don't think you should be using PDE in the way you do in the last paragraph. Language periods don't have starting points. Some authors use PDE to describe the language of the second half of the 20th century, but others use the term for the English of the Industrial Revolution and onward. Most would agree is that PDE is "the English we use today" (apart from the fact that this expression ignores all regional, social, and inter-generational variation), but saying that a 1955 novel may (or may not) be considered PDE is almost impossible to justify. – Schmuddi Oct 11 '21 at 06:47
  • @Schmuddi If you don't like the term PDE, you can suggest some other term. But the fact of the matter is, the English used in a 1955 novel is not exactly the same English we use today. – JK2 Oct 11 '21 at 10:00
  • If this was a review for a linguistic journal, I'd suggest to replace the sentence "The English as we know it is called Present-Day English, which is the English that has been used around World War II, so it's entirely possible that the author's English is not exactly the English we use today" and replace it by "Languages change, so it's entirely possible that the author's English doesn't conform to contemporary use." HTH – Schmuddi Oct 11 '21 at 10:34
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    One of the most respected grammarians of the last 50 years has said "Ignore anyone saying 'It is I' when you ask a visitor at the door 'Who is it?' " [paraphrased]. And "It's we" is incorrect per se. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 11 '21 at 11:25
  • @Schmuddi Just because linguists don't agree 100% with each other about when exactly PDE starts doesn't mean I (or anybody else) shouldn't be using the term. That's especially when I have clearly noted what I mean by PDE. In fact, many linguists do agree with me on this definition of PDE. Moreover, "contemporary" isn't any better unless you define what it means. At any rate, there's virtually no concept all linguists can agree upon, so if you had to use those universally accepted concepts only then you may not be able to use any. – JK2 Oct 12 '21 at 06:26
  • I'm not saying that you or anybody else shouldn't use PDE. Let's be blunt: what I'm saying is that you misuse the term (which does have its place in linguistics and can be used appropriately) when you suggest Nabokov's use of she is possibly not PDE. And even suggesting that my issue is that linguists don't agree upon the precise definition shows to me that you completely missed my point. I am aware that communicative failures are often the fault of the speaker, and as I don't think that I can express myself clearer, there's nothing that I can add to this apparently fruitless discussion. – Schmuddi Oct 13 '21 at 11:48
  • @EdwinAshworth What was the reasoning of this grammarian? I agree that 'It is I' sounds ridiculous but aren't there times where the nominative + 'to be' sounds a bit stuffy? 'Do you know whom I am?' vs 'Do you know who I am?' – x30 Oct 24 '21 at 17:26
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    He's a descriptivist, and thinks that if 95+% of native speakers consider the usage archaic/rarefied, it's archaic/rarefied. // The 'whom' question is a separate issue. 'Who' must be seen as having largely replaced 'whom' except immediately after prepositions; this is very generally acknowledged. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 24 '21 at 19:21