Iversen wrote:I can't see the point in merging (direct) objects and subject predicatives.
It's not a matter of whether there's a "point" or not -- it's simply whether it has happened or not.
The distinction between direct objects and the predicatives is found in all the languages I know, and even though the consequences of mixing them up may seem minor in English because of its minimal use of cases ("me" in "it's me" has the same form - the oblique - as the object in "he saw me"), the consequences would be unbearable with languages that distinguish nominatives and accusatives (mixing the instrumental into the soup in the case of Russian).
Except that English is not Russian, and just because something exists in Russian, doesn't mean it exists in English. The distinction in English is nominative-oblique, not nominative-accusative. Subject predicatives are a feature of n-a languages, not n-o languages.
So I don't feel any urge to drop the distinction - I like my categories to be functional across language borders unless there are compelling reasons not to do so
One of the simplest patterns in linguistics is this: if there is no difference between two things, then they are one thing. The mind of a monolingual doesn't care that these things would be translated differently in a language they don't speak.
There is no such thing as a subject predicative in ergative-transitive languages either.
And what then about your example "soy yo"? Well, if it had been an object you would expect "me". So either it is the subject or a subject predicative.
I gave a possible explanation for that, but here's another one: fossils.
English "there is" is a fossil of the Germanic "verb second" rule, but that doesn't make English a verb second language.
Similarly, a lot of English speakers don't use the subjunctive any more, except in the phrase "if I were you" -- the existence of that single form doesn't mean there's a true subjunctive in their dialect.
And subjects can be dropped in Spanish, but not the subject predicative that comes with a form of the copula verb "ser". So let's cross the border and look at French that doesn' practice subject dropping. Here the parallel would be something like "c'est moi", where "ce" hardly can be anything but the subject .
Including a subject in Spanish is essentially emphatic. "Soy yo" is effectively "I am". (And "I am" is a possible response to "who's there?" in English too, of course.)
And the comparison to French doesn't really prove much of anything, because French is a different language.
So I have to insist that subject predicatives do exist, even in Spanish, and that the form "lo" can be that thingy as well as an object - but I salute a Cainntear for asking the bold question whether there really is any reason to retain the distinction.
Again, it's not about a "reason" -- it's whether the language in the wild does retain the distinction or not. English doesn't and French doesn't (hence "c'est moi", not "c'est je") -- Spanish may not have fully lost it yet, but it's well on its way.