PSAT Glitch
P2052 at AOL.COM
P2052 at AOL.COM
Thu May 15 05:43:07 UTC 2003
I can remember a rule from traditional grammar, which stated that pronouns
replace nouns, which, are, generally, in the nominative/accusative/dative
case. Possessive words, including nouns that end in apostrophe s, are in the
genitive case. Thus, according to traditional grammar, the sentence is
incorrect since "Toni Morrison's" is
genitive and clearly not a candidate for antecedent of the pronoun, "her."
The problem, however, is that neither is the subject, "genius," which, in
this context, does not share the semantic features of "her", which are
[+human, +animate, +feminine]. Rather, "genius" (in this context) is
referring to the "outstanding talent," "exceptional ability," or
"intellectual or creative achievements," all characteristics, or skills.
This rigid traditional definition works for sentences such as the following
(borrowed from an exercise on pronouns): "Our neighbor's lawnmower is very
noisy. This makes sleeping late impossible on Sunday mornings, when he
mows." In this example, "[t]his" refers to the noise; however, there is no
explicit noun, "noise," only the predicate adjective, "noisy." Also, as in
the Toni Morrison example, the pronoun, "he," refers to the noun, "neighbor,"
but, again, there is only the possessive noun, "neighbor's." Thus, the
references are considered vague and must be corrected, probably as follows:
"The noise from our neighbor's lawnmower makes sleeping late impossible on
Sunday mornings, when [our neighbor] mows [his lawn]."
The problem with the traditional definition is that, while it might apply in
most cases, there are exceptions. For example, in the sentence in question,
"Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels," traditional grammar
would not even consider the discourse features of topic and theme. Clearly,
the general topic is Toni Morrison. Moreover, logically, it is the only
possible antecedent in this sentence (In a larger context, the antecedent
might be more difficult to pinpoint) since it shares the semantic features of
the pronoun, "her." Thus, while traditional grammarians would declare the
possessive, "Toni Morrison's," ineligible for replacement by the pronoun,
modern grammars, particularly those that focus on discourse features and/or
logical form, would find this construction acceptable, since the pronoun can
replace the topic, "Toni Morrison." "Middle-of-the-roaders" would argue
that this error type is not even worth the bother. Others might suggest
that students revise the sentence to read, "Toni Morrison's genius [is what]
enables Morrison to create novels" (which some might argue contains needless
repetition) or "It is the genius of Toni Morrison that enables her to create
novels" (which some might argue puts too much of a focus on the skill).
Probably the best revision is the following: "It is sheer genius that enables
Morrison to create [such + ADJ] novels."
The bottom line, though, is that there is such a rule. I've seen it in many
of the older grammar books (The newer ones avoid the issue altogether.)
However, because it seems clear that the antecedent is Toni Morrison--no
matter which school of grammar the reader espouses--this error type would not
be very high on my priority list.
P-A-T
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