English Language & Usage Asked on March 11, 2021
If someone says, “I want to sit with you,” is the response, “And I you,” acceptable? I believe a better choice would be, “And I with you,” but is “with” strictly necessary or does it just add clarity?
An existing question covers the correctness of the general use of “And I you,” but in those examples “you” is the direct object. If omission of the verb is acceptable, can the preposition be omitted as well?
According to The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL), the version without with is not grammatical.
Per chapter 15 "Coordination and supplementation", § 4.2 "Gapped coordination (Kim is an engineer and Pat a barrister)", p. 1338:
One limitation is that the antecedent cannot end with a preposition or infinitival to, so that the underlined items cannot be omitted in [9] even though they appear in the first clause too:
[9] i I went by car and Bill __ by bus. -- ii Kim was hoping to go to university and Pat __ to join the family business. --
(where the "antecedent" is the part that the gap refers back to; "went" in the first example, "was hoping" in the second).
Correct answer by ruakh on March 11, 2021
"And I with you" sounds very formal.
"And I you" also sounds very formal, and is probably incorrect. It would be correct if the original statement was something like "I love you" (without any proposition "with").
You could say "I want to sit with you too", or in colloquial American English the response could simply be "Me too".
Answered by ghostarbeiter on March 11, 2021
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