A subject, an object and how the two relate

In English, subjective pronouns often take drastically different forms from their objective counterparts.

Take the subjective “I”. The objective form is “me”, But how can the word “me” be even remotely related etymologically to the word “I”? To remind you, a subject is a noun, pronoun or phrase that, in a sentence, represents the person or thing performing the (verbal) action. For its part, an object is that which receives that action.

The example I have given reduces to an embarrassing absurdity; the headline “Raila used to carry Uhuru and I on his back”, which I culled from a news page of the latest number of the Sunday Nation.

If “Raila” is the grammatical subject and “used to carry” is the verbal action which it controls, then “Uhuru and I” must be the object.

But how can that be, when, as we have just seen, the pronoun “I” can serve only as a subject?

To objectify the subject’s action, what the sub-editor should have written is: “Raila used to carry Uhuru and me”. For, in his sentence, if we elide (leave out) the words “Uhuru and” and turn the sentence to the simple present tense, what we get is: “Raila carries I”. But that is an impossible thought in any language.

For, in grammar, a subject cannot carry another subject (except in what grammar calls “reflex action” concerning certain verbs. For instance: “I wash myself”).

In normal circumstances, a grammatical subject carries only a grammatical object. That is why — since here the words “Raila” and “I” are both subjects — “Raila” cannot carry “I”.

ARCHAIC FORMS OF EXPRESSION

“Raila” (the subject) can only carry “me” (the objective form of “I”). This difference of form between subjective pronouns and their objective counterparts is manifest in other Indo-European languages, including especially the Latin ones (like French) and the Teuto-Germanic ones (like modern German).

There are, for instance, thou (subjective) and thee (objective) in Old English, tu and te in French and du and dich in German.

Churches, mosques and the shrines of other theistic religions studiously seek to preserve these archaic forms of expression — especially in liturgy and prayer — (a) because they apparently bring the supplicant psychologically closer to the deity and — as students of mythology have noticed — (b) because they have powerfully mystificatory effects on the mind.

But the difference between subject and object is salient also in the Nilotic languages.

In my own mother tongue Dholuo, all subjective pronouns have an “n” ending. But an (I), in (singular you), en (he, she, it), wan (we), un (plural you) and gin (they — where the “g” has the same hard sound as the “g” in gun) — all drop the “n” to respectively become a, e, i, wa, and gi when used objectively.

For instance, while an-tie (note the “an”) means “I am present” or “I am alive”, ng’iya (note the “a”) means “take a look at me”.

In short, the an in antie is the subjective “I” but the “a” in ng’iya is the objective “me”.

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