"incorrect" possessive pronouns

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:55 AM -0500 10/21/04, Patti J. Kurtz wrote:
>Okay, while I'm mulling over IPA still : ) here's a quick question:
>
>I talked to a prof yesterday who said she had a student who used (her
>words "possessives incorrectly with gerunds" in a paper.  I tried to get
>her to give me an example, and the only thing she could come up with was
>to say the student used "me" instead of "my" with a gerund acting as a noun.
>
>I'm assuming something like "me writing" instead of "my writing."

Yes, but more likely in a context like "He objected to me writing
that letter" with an ACC-ing construction in place of the
prescriptively correct "POSS-ing" "He objected to my writing the
letter".  Just a guess, based on the fact that this is a standard
prescriptivist bugaboo.

larry

>My personal thought is that this could stem from generalizing
>constructions like "look at me writing."   Alternatively, I suspect
>dialect interference (North Dakota again here, though I neglected to ask
>where the student was from-- but the majority of our students are
>local). Does anyone know of a dialect with a  feature that might account
>for the substitution of "me" for "my" in such instances, where "me
>writing" would be correct?
>
>Patti Kurtz (still working on that vowel sound)
>--
>
>Freeman - And what drives you on, fighting the monster?
>
>
>
>Straker - I don't know, something inside me I guess.
>
>
>
>Freeman - It's called dedication.
>
>
>
>Straker - Pig-headedness would be nearer.