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Why not I without you ?

asked 2017-04-29 00:43:53 -0400

Why do we say "Me without you" instead of "I without you" ? Shouldn't it be "I without you" following the classical grammar rules as we can identify I as a subject and you as a complement?

Following other languages the logic seems to differ all the time. French people would say: "Moi sans toi" ("Me without you") as well. As well as Italians with "Io senza te" ("Me without you")

But others languages as spanish, swedish or german would respectively say "Yo sin ti", "Jag utan dig" or "Ich ohne dich" ("I without you"). We so can't identify "I without you" as a pattern of germanic languages and "Me without you" as a pattern of latin languages as spanish people say "I without you".

Is "Me without you" just a common mistake than has been accepted with the centuries as it has probably been "I without you" in old english ?

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answered 2017-09-20 23:00:10 -0400

I can't really speak for the other languages, but with English I really cannot think of a situation where you would really use "me without you". Could you give me an example?

My thinking is that it comes down to "me without you" being the direct opposite of "me and you" which is (generally speaking) grammatically correct.

The grammatically correctness depends on the noun phrase's role in a sentence. If it was the subject of a sentence, then "me and you" would be replaced with "you and I" (NEVER "I and you" though. I think this might be a collocation thing but I'm not sure, sorry). If it were the object of a sentence, it would be "me and you" or "you and me".

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Asked: 2017-04-29 00:43:53 -0400

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Last updated: Apr 29 '17