On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:30:30 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Stephen wrote:
>> On 18/01/2011 7:02 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 09:42:52 -0800, Darren New wrote:
>>>
>>>> There's no infinitive in either version.
>>>
>>> True, I did misname it - but I found the sentence structure awkward as
>>> originally written.  Just misidentified why it was awkward. :-)
>>>
>>>
>> Cause it sounds wrong.
>> How do non-native speakers identify wrong grammer, I wonder?
> 
> "It will be John and I coming tomorrow" sounds fine to me in answer to
> "Who will be coming tomorrow?"

OK, I now know (after talking with my boss, who studied linguistics and 
language in college) what the problem is with that response.

"It will be John and I coming tomorrow" is passive voice, and to get to a 
passive voice, it goes through some significant grammatical gymnastics to 
get there.

The rule of thumb Dave (my boss) says he was taught was this:

Make the subject of discourse the subject of the sentence.

"It" in that particular sentence refers to something other than "John and 
I", who are the subject of the discourse.  By mixing the subject of 
discourse and the subject of the sentence different, the sentence becomes 
awkward.

Then adding a passive verb in the mix makes it a softer sentence.  A lot 
of times, people mix "passive" with "formal", but that isn't necessarily 
the case.  Formality does not need to be passive, and more often than not 
isn't.

That's why it would be more correct/proper to answer "John and I will be 
attending" (still passive voice, but the subject is unified between 
discourse and sentence).

There's also no grammatical gymnastics necessary to get there, even 
though it is still passive.

Jim

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