Re Personal pronouns

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear John and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Dr. John E. McLaughlin" <mclasutt at brigham.net>
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 1999 11:41 PM

> I love jumping into the middle of a discussion without having read in detail
> the previous discussion, but this is just too tempting.

> I've been reading quite a number of introductory syntax books lately for
> teaching purposes, and every single one of them lists the possessive
> pronouns as straightforward determiners.  They aren't even classed as
> "components of a determiner" in the way that "The little poor child" is a
> component of a determiner in the sentence, "The little poor child's
> Christmas was quite happy."  This really isn't a point of contention among
> linguists.

If the question had been framed as such, I would understand your position
completely.

But, if I understand the issue clearly, the question is really different.

I have no problem with Larry's definition of 'determiner' as recorded in his
dictionary; and I have no problem acknowledging the usefulness of
categorizing several different kinds of words
("articles...demonstratives...quantifiers...", etal.) as 'determiners'.

But Larry seems to me to be denying the validity and usefulness of the term
'possessive pronoun' altogether though, of course, "possessive" is included
as one of the various categories of 'determiners'.

Larry's definition of pronoun contains all the classses traditionally
considered pronouns *except* possessive pronouns though it seems odd in the
extreme that, in  spite of the rejection of possessive pronouns,
demonstrative pronouns are included *as well as* being listed under
'determiner' as "demonstrative".

Perhaps you could explain to me why you think "demonstrative" may occur in
both classifications but "possesive" may not.

Finally, I think it useful to retain the term "possessive pronoun" because
it overtly identifies the fact that the pronoun stands for a noun in the
possessive --- in addition to its function of deteremination.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ek,
at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu, geiri undapr . . . a ~eim meipi er
mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)