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When translating a sentence like "It has been you." in Italian, should I use the subjective case for you, or the objective case?

In other words, should I say sei stato tu or sei stato te?

I would use sei stato te, but it sounds strange to my hears. I interpret is as tu sei stato for which the subject is then moved at the end of the sentence. Is it correct?

2 Answers 2

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“Sei stato te” is an ungrammatical sentence, “te” being the objective-case form, to be used only as the direct or indirect object of a verb (“(non ho visto Gianni,) ho visto te”, “(non l'ho dato a Maria,) l'ho dato a te”), and even so, mostly when you want to put the stress on “you” (otherwise you'd say “ti ho visto”, “te l'ho dato”).

By the way, in a sentence like “sei stato tu”, “tu” is actually the subject.

(This said, it is not too uncommon to hear people using “te” in the above ungrammatical way.)

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The correct form is

Sei stato tu?

as tu is the subject of the phrase and it's grammatically equivalent to

Tu sei stato?

even though with a significant different emphasis and meaning.

However it's not uncommon tu use te in place of tu in such a phrase. Many native speakers would say

Sei stato te?

probably without even being aware of its incorrectness.

So it's still incorrect, but it's surely very used and - personally - it doesn't particularly bother me when I hear it.

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