PSAT Glitch

[Baker, John]

        Since my original purpose in posting the link to the Washington Post article was to criticize journalism teacher Kevin Keegan and his purported rule that a possessive cannot serve as a pronoun's antecedent, I was surprised to find myself ranked among his defenders.  However, I am sympathetic to the argument that students should not be penalized for applying prescriptive grammar manuals, though to my mind a manual's credibility is undercut when it gives such guidance.  Do any of the better-regarded texts take this position?

        Note that in our example sentence, "Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels," the pronoun clearly does not refer to the sentence's subject (even aside from the issue of gender).  We can see this by changing words.  In the sentence "Toni Morrison's genius secretary enables her to be on time for every appointment," there is no ambiguity as to whether it is Toni Morrison or the secretary who is on time.

        The College Board says that its "panel of experts" consisted of three experts, whom it did not name.  From its press release, at http://www.collegeboard.com/press/article/0,3183,22960,00.html:

        >>Two of the three experts consulted indicated that the question had two possible answers, A {"her" is wrong} and E {no error}, though they personally preferred the E option, the intended answer. The third expert more emphatically approved of E, while noting the possible second answer, A, is supported by more prescriptive grammarians. As one of the reviewers pointed out, the rule on which the teacher's challenge is based is presented as valid in a number of well-respected and widely used grammar and usage handbooks.

As noted above, the intended answer was E. The teacher argued that A is the correct response. The question is whether "Morrison's" can serve as the noun antecedent for the pronoun "her." Since "Morrison's" is a possessive, some experts asserted, it cannot properly be considered the referent. Others said the sentence is idiomatic English and that a possessive sometimes is used as a substitute for a noun. Therefore, the question is testing "usage" or descriptive grammar.<<

John Baker