the persistence of syntax

[Lionel Mandrake]

3. I'm a dinosaur.

Nominative absolutive constructions sound normal to me.

In American English, "shall" has not so much merged with "will" as disappeared. I've been assured by a linguistics professor that youngsters never ask "shall I open the door for you?". Maybe that's because, in such questions, "shall" and "will" can't be interchanged.

I can't believe we've entirely lost the subjunctive, although some forms of it are now not much used in speech. "If I had been paying attention, maybe I wouldn't have fallen for the scam" sounds normal to me. "Had I been paying attention ..." sounds stilted. I believe "subjunctive" in English isn't syntax, it's semantics. Maybe we call it subjunctive because we used to wish that English, like Latin, had subjunctive forms, and similarly for "future".

I say "these data" (not "this data&quot , "these criteria", "this bacterium", etc. But note that "datum" is only a technical term in surveying.

The last vestiges of the case system in English are breaking down. "It's me" is standard. To avoid gender bias, many people now say and write "they", "them", and "their", as singular forms. I much prefer "he or she", etc.