"incorrect" possessive pronouns

[Patti J. Kurtz]

Thanks Arnold-- I'll do that-- and excuse the faux pas, but what does
MWDEU stand for, please?

Patti

zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU wrote:

>check out the sane and scholarly discussion of the issue in MWDEU,
>under "possessive with gerund" (where you will learn that the earliest
>commentators on NP+gerund constructions rejected the *possessive*
>versions, that Fowler insisted on the possessive, and that Jespersen
>wrote a tract against Fowler on this very issue).  MWDEU also lists
>some cases where the possessive is virtually barred (Flannery O'Connor:
>...to find out what is responsible for my feet swelling), though they
>missed my favorite, the expletive pronoun "there", which (as David
>Perlmutter pointed out decades out) doesn't *have* a possessive, so you
>really have to say "He objected to there being no fishforks on the
>table".
>
>to think of the distinction as merely a choice between marking the
>subject of a gerund with a possessive/genitive (POSS-ing) or an
>accusative/unmarked form (ACC-ing) doesn't really do justice to the
>matter, though.  as Rob Malouf argues in several places (see esp. his
>2000 book, Mixed Categories in the Hierarchical Lexicon), the two have
>different structures/functions; POSS-ing NPs are pretty much just NPs
>in their external syntax, but ACC-ing NPs act externally a lot like
>(nonfinite) clauses.
>
>arnold
>
>

--

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.