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It seems like 'my sister and her' are both subjects so it should be 'my sister and she'... And it would be if they worked on something specific together (the obvious object). Eg: My sister and she work on this project.

But the "together" at the end changes everything right? Unbundling the sentence it is clear that it is actually saying "my sister works with her", making 'her' the object. In this case should it be my sister and her work together? Does the together really change the object?

Not a teacher of English
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  • Do you think "together" is an adverb? – GEdgar Jun 20 '23 at 00:32
  • I don't follow. Do you mean together is the obvious object here which I've misunderstood to be an adverb? Or that this sentence incorrectly uses together as an adverb. – Not a teacher of English Jun 20 '23 at 00:42
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    No, I mean the sentence has no object. An adverb is not an object. The verb "work" (in this sense) is intransitive, it takes no object. Even if you say "They work together on this project", the prepositional phrase "on this project" is used adverbially; it is not an "object" for the verb "work". – GEdgar Jun 20 '23 at 00:52

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No, "together" does not change it.

If the desired sentence is

My sister works with her

you should say that.

The correct sentence is

My sister and she work together

although, actually, I would normally expect

She and my sister work together.

That's a matter of style and rhythm more than grammar.

Mary
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    Just to clarify, She and my sister work together sounds right to me because 'she and my sister' is a valid answer to who works together. But 'my sister and she' doesn't sound right to me because it seems like it should be ' my sister and her'. Right? – Not a teacher of English Jun 20 '23 at 00:29
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    It may sound invalid to you because it is unusual, but it is valid. – Mary Jun 20 '23 at 00:31
  • Ok thanks, so to understand it absolutely clearly, 'My sister works with her' and ' my sister and she work together' both mean the same thing but the former has an object while the latter doesn't. – Not a teacher of English Jun 20 '23 at 00:34
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    @NotateacherofEnglish Even the former version doesn't technically have an object, since "with her" is yet another adverbial phrase modifying the intransitive 'work.' 'Work' never takes an object unless the object is the word shift (as in day shift or night shift). You can work a shift, but other than that, 'work' is always intransitive. – Quack E. Duck Jun 20 '23 at 00:56
  • Unless you mean that 'her' is the object of the preposition 'with,' which would be correct! – Quack E. Duck Jun 20 '23 at 00:57
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    The sharecropper and his wife work the land* together, but The bachelor baker works the dough all on his own.* – FumbleFingers Jun 20 '23 at 17:15
  • @FumbleFingers Nice counterexamples! I guess I should never say never :D – Quack E. Duck Jun 20 '23 at 18:04
  • In all fairness, although "work the land" came to me straight away, it took me a while to come up with another one that was equally idiomatic. So far as I'm concerned, you were quite right to suggest that the construction is relatively uncommon. (Which I wasn't consciously aware of until I'd plugged away to eventually come up with the second counter-example! :) – FumbleFingers Jun 20 '23 at 19:53