possessive [form of a] pronoun

[Robert Whiting]

On Tue, 29 Feb 2000 ECOLING at aol.com wrote:

> It has taken some time to get to the bottom of the
> differences in the use of terminology here,
> but I think we have arrived:

> To summarize into its most succinct form:

> The relation:

> he :: his

> is from syntactic and semantic points of view
> essentially the same as the relation

> the man we met yesterday :: the man we met yesterday's

This is the man we met yesterday's book.
This is the book of the man we met yesterday.

This is his book.
This is the book of he.*

The two forms do not transform in the same way, therefore they are not
equivalent.  Even if it is claimed that the preposition 'of' requires
the objective case for which 'the man we met yesterday' cannot be marked,
the expression 'This is his book' still does not transform:

This is the book of him.*

The expression 'This is his book' only transforms to:

This is a book of his.

or

This is the book of his (that he lost).

Therefore:

the man we met yesterday :: the man we met yesterday's

as

his :: his

in this instance.

The English noun does not behave in the same way as the English pronominal
system (that's one way you can tell the difference).

You have simply tried to slide one past us by using a form where the
determiner 'his' and the possessive pronoun 'his' are isomorphic.  Try
using 'my' and 'mine' or 'their' and 'theirs' and you will see the
difference.

This is my book.

This is a book of mine.

Try using 'the men we met yesterday' and 'they' in your analogy and see
how it works out.

This ends the argument as far as I am concerned.  Any responses will be
referred to this message (whether appropriate or not).

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi