Pronoun Doubt

by **DCE** Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:24 am

Hi

Sentence: You knew perfectly well that it was me.

I think the above sentence is incorrect and the correct sentence should use 'I' instead of 'me'.
Can you please throw some light on the rule that is coming into picture and the strategy to work this out?

Thanks and Regards,
DCE

by **Guest** Wed Jul 02, 2008 7:12 pm

This is a basic grammar condition.. .Subject and object of a verb..

So lets start with the verb.. in this case it is know..
Subject is the 'doer' of the verb, so here 'you' is the subject as the sent. says you know... SO he is the performing the action of knowing...
Object is the rciever of the action.. .Here the action is knowing, so I is the object.. The object case of I is me hence the above sentence has me...

Hope this helps

by **DCE** Thu Jul 03, 2008 12:52 pm

This has something to do with Predicate Pronoun.

The correct sentence is

You knew perfectly well that it was I

Can someone explain the Predicate Pronoun thing?

Regards,
DCE

by **esledge** Sat Jul 12, 2008 3:34 pm

The earlier comment by Guest was close, but not completely right. There are actually two subject-verb pairs in this sentence:

1) You knew perfectly well that (something)...

2) ...it was I.

On #2, the predicate pronoun thing shows up. Is the subject of the verb "was" the pronoun "it" or "I"? In a way, they both are, because the meaning is that "it" equals "I." I think that is the logic that dictates the use of the subject pronoun "I" rather than "me." However, I must admit I have never seen this particular rule, and would have chosen "me," reasoning that it's placement after the verb made it the object by default.

GMAT take-away: this is probably rather obscure by GMAT standards.