PSAT Glitch (fwd)

[Dennis R. Preston]

>Ys I remember when I read that "Sosa's bat helped him break the
>record" I was puzzled as to how a furry winged nocturnal creature
>might play such a role in baseball. Woe to young writers if they are
>being tutored by people whose pragmatic devices are flat-out broke.

dInIs





>Perhaps one last contribution on this now well-worn subject, from a
>colleague here:
>
>Would that this were the major pronoun-antecedent problem I face in my
>students' writing!  But it is one that has always interested and bothered
>me.  I tend to accept the "context" guideline, with some restrictions and
>reservations.  It can't just be the "well, everyone knows what he means"
>kind of context, for that line of argument leads ultimately to the
>disappearance of much correct and good usage.  But "Toni Morrison's" IS a
>noun according to our grammar even though it has modifying properties; so I
>reluctantly accept this usage as correct by the context rule.  However, I
>do want to call attention to the ambiguity here.  "Genius," the noun
>closest to the pronoun, strives to usurp the role of antecedent, as all
>nouns so placed do.  Therefore, one might understandably speculate about
>just who Toni Morrison's genius is, and how closely she and Toni consult on
>Toni's novels:
>
>"Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create novels that arise from and
>express the injustice African Americans have endured."
>
>I don't accept the accompanying analysis that essentially argues there's no
>clearer way to express the idea.  His argument about the ambiguity of "the
>writer" applies just as well to "genius."  Do what all good writers do:
>Just write around it.  This information doesn't have to appear in a single
>sentence.  However, the point is not whether the writer might have done
>better, but whether the sentence as written on the PSAT should be
>considered correct.  It should not have appeared on the PSAT.  But it did,
>and it should be scored as correct.  The high school sophomore who is ready
>to ponder the ambiguities of a possessive case noun serving as an
>antecedent does not exist.  But if she does, I hope she comes to Linfield.

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290