Either, neither, nor and too

[faiuwle]

In the pro-drop thread, Torco corrected someone's también to tampoco and it reminded me of how tampoco was taught to me as the negative version of también (=too/also), but it was never really given a satisfying one-word English translation, because English has these confusing idiosyncratic-sounding things that happen in those circumstances, and the prescriptively correct forms don't correspond to the colloquial ones, and I'm not sure what's going on with the latter.

IMD, possible responses to someone saying "I don't..." without repeating the predicate are:

[Prescriptively correct]
"I don't either."
"Neither do I."
"Nor [do] I."

The first two back up what I originally learned about either/neither, which is that neither = not + either and either = logical or, but they are clunky and people rarely use them in conversation. I don't think I've ever heard anyone use "nor" (which is [prescriptively] the same as neither, except that it comes only in the later clause...) in natural spoken English, and it sounds weird and archaic in this context.

[Colloquially ok]
"Me either."
"Me neither."

[Not ok]
*"Me too."
*"I [n]either."

No distinction between either and neither, and "me" for some reason, instead of "I". I could understand why you wouldn't use "I" before either, because of the vowels, but not for the neither.

So, what is the descriptive explanation for "me [n]either"? Are they just merging into a single thing that means the same thing as tampoco? Why is it "me" instead of "I"? Where did the pro-verbal "do" go?

[Yng]

I use 'nor' and 'or' sort of interchangeably in contexts where 'nor' is acceptable. 'Nor me' is also something I would colloquially say. 'Me either' borders on ungrammatical although I know a lot of people (generally USAians) say it.

[Salmoneus]

To me, "me either" is just plan ungrammatical nonsense.

Personally, I'd say either "me neither" or, more likely, "nor me".

[Curiously, 'neither' in that context has to have /i/, whereas it's normally in free variation with /aI/]

It's clearly an old established thing, though. cf Shakespeare, "man delights not me... nor woman neither".

I'd be tempted to not see it as a transformation of anything at all, but just as a simple operation in its own right: "nor X neither" just provides an alternative potential argument to the preceding verb. And in many contexts is reduced to simply "nor X" or "X neither".

As to why it's often 'me' - well, 'me' is taking over all uses of 'I' except the most central.

[vec]

Fun fact:
When I was first learning English I used to always parse "me neither" as "mean either" and I thought mean was some awesome negative pronoun.

[nebula wind phone]

The interesting question here is not "Why is I neither ungrammatical?" — it's "Why are nor I and not I acceptable to some people?" The general pattern is for "I" to be ungrammatical in this sort of verbless answer.

* I [n]either.
* I too.
* Also, I.
* And I.
* Even I.
* Only I.
etc...

But I'm not sure you're going to find a reasonable answer to that. There are so many layers of hypercorrection and hyper-un-correction and general sociolinguistic FUD surrounding me and I in English that even just getting genuine grammaticality judgments — not "What did your mom tell you to say," not "What did your English teacher tell you to say," not "What did your violently anti-prescriptivist Linguistics professor tell you to say," not "What did you have to say to make your friends stop making fun of you," but "What are you naturally inclined to say?" — is basically a lost cause.

[nebula wind phone]

(Also — I'm pretty sure we said "me either" in Michigan when I was growing up in the 80s. Since then I switched to "me neither" at some point, and now I share the intuition that "me either" sounds 'incorrect'. So I'm guessing that the either/neither distinction is also carrying some sociolinguistic baggage — that it's not just a logical or grammatical rule governing them, but rather an association with race or class or education or regional identity or some damn thing like that.)

[Declan]

I'm a "me neither" person too, and that's normally /i/ not /aI/ similar to Salmaneus. I use nor all the time, such as, "neither x nor y are true" etc., but absolutely never as nor me or anything of the sort. "Me either" is impossible for me, and I'd always say "me too".
A French friend of mine always got those confused I noticed too. For me, the correct response to "I didn't do that" is "Me neither", where he would always say, "Me too".

[faiuwle]

But I'm not sure you're going to find a reasonable answer to that. There are so many layers of hypercorrection and hyper-un-correction and general sociolinguistic FUD surrounding me and I in English that even just getting genuine grammaticality judgments — not "What did your mom tell you to say," not "What did your English teacher tell you to say," not "What did your violently anti-prescriptivist Linguistics professor tell you to say," not "What did you have to say to make your friends stop making fun of you," but "What are you naturally inclined to say?" — is basically a lost cause.

Yeah, good point.

(Also — I'm pretty sure we said "me either" in Michigan when I was growing up in the 80s. Since then I switched to "me neither" at some point, and now I share the intuition that "me either" sounds 'incorrect'. So I'm guessing that the either/neither distinction is also carrying some sociolinguistic baggage — that it's not just a logical or grammatical rule governing them, but rather an association with race or class or education or regional identity or some damn thing like that.)

I have a vague feeling that neither is more correct, simply because it is negative and I learned that either isn't negative in an English class a long time ago, but unless I'm actually thinking about it like that it doesn't sound wrong. Probably different in different places, though.

"Me either" is impossible for me, and I'd always say "me too".

In general, or in this context specifically? "Me too" is just fine IMD too, if you're responding to a positive sentence; it's just wrong for the negative.

(Also, [n]either are always /i/ for me, although I have heard them with /aI/ too.)

[Salmoneus]

There's no such thing as a natural inclination in language!

[Jipí]

Ah, that reminds me of something I said on #isharia the other day:

I used neither X, Y, or Z, then corrected myself to neither X, Y, nor Z, upon which someone commented that I was right originally. Is that so?

[Salmoneus]

No. Emphatically, definitely, absolutely no.

I mean, I guess troglodytes may say the former... but would they even use 'neither' at all?

[Astraios]

Ah, that reminds me of something I said on #isharia the other day:

I used neither X, Y, or Z, then corrected myself to neither X, Y, nor Z, upon which someone commented that I was right originally. Is that so?

It sounds better (to me) to say neither X nor Y; but once you add a Z in, I would prefer something like not X, not Y, and not Z.

[tezcatlip0ca]

Up to three elements can take "neither X, Y, nor Z" for me. Four or more, I use "none of X, Y, Z, A, B, C,..."

As for words, "either", "neither" (/i:/), and "nor" are all natural for me...