everybody...their

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:04 AM -0400 4/19/01, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>>>>"No mother should be forced by federal prosecutors to testify against
>>>>their child." -- Monica Lewinsky's mother's attorney
>
>In case this slipped by: as this sentence reads, it appears that the child
>referred to is the child of the federal prosecutors (who presumably work
>very closely together).
>
>For comparison: "No federal prosecutor should be forced by parents to bring
>charges against their child."
>
>>>>Man is the only mammal that is embarrassed by his {nakedness/sexuality}
>>>>#Man is the only mammal that is embarrassed by his pregnancy.
>>>
>>>I would prefer "its" instead of "his" in these (in fact I consider "its"
>>>correct). ...
>>
>>Well, I myself don't get "its" as a sex-neutral animate in such cases, at
>>least not for human reference.  "its pregnancy?"
>
>In the phrase "the only mammal that is embarrassed by his nakedness" I
>think the antecedent of "his" is "[the only] mammal"; therefore I prefer
>"its" to "his":
>
>Is there any mammal that is embarrassed by its [own] nakedness?
>Man is the only mammal that is embarrassed by its [own] nakedness.
>The hermit crab is the only crustacean that is embarrassed by its [own]
>nakedness.

love it ;)

>The only mammal that is embarrassed by its [own] nakedness is man.
>No mammal is embarrassed by its [own] nakedness ... except for man.
>
Point taken (although I still don't like "its" terribly well in the
original examples, ); in fact I [these are my examples, so my
co-author and fellow ads-er, Steve Kleinedler, is hereby absolved
from blame for them] should rephrase these to avoid the problems Doug
notices that stem from the complications of subjecthood in
constructions including "only..." relatives and other quantified
antecedents.  Let's change them to e.g.

Unlike other mammals, man is embarrassed by his
{nakedness/sexuality/#pregnancy}.
Unique among the mammals,...

And of course the disjunctive examples, with "the candidate", "every
child", etc., are unaffected by these issues; the impossibility of
getting "he"/"his" as the possessive when a female referent has been
rendered salient in the discourse context still convincingly (to me,
anyway) argues against the standard view of "he"/"his" as common
gender pronouns.

larry