quote:Gerund and possessives (fused participle). Some people insist that when a gerund is preceded by a noun or pronoun, the noun or pronoun must be in the possessive case. Accordingly, it is correct to say I can understand his wanting to go, but incorrect to say I can understand him wanting to go. But the construction without the possessive, sometimes called the fused participle, has been used by respected writers for 300 years and is perfectly idiomatic.
Moreover, there is often no way to “fix” the construction by inserting the possessive. This is often the case with common nouns. Thus you can say We have had very few instances of luggage being lost, but not … of luggage’s being lost.
Sometimes syntax makes using the possessive impossible. Consider the sentence What she objects to is men making more money than women for the same work. Changing "men making" to "men’s making" not only sounds awkward, but it requires "women’s" at the other end to keep the sentence parallel, and "women’s" simply does not work. Perhaps for these reasons 53 percent of the Usage Panel finds the phrase "men making" acceptable in this sentence, and another 36 percent find it acceptable in informal contexts. Only 11 percent reject it outright.
However, when the construction is more complicated so that a word or phrase intervenes between the noun and the gerund, the panel is less sanguine. Only 25 percent accept the sentence I can understand him not wanting to go, where the negative not intervenes between the pronoun and the gerund. Thirty-one percent say this sentence is acceptable in informal contexts, leaving 44 percent who are naysayers. Panel acceptance drops even further when the syntax gets more complicated. Only 16 percent accept the sentence Imagine a child with an ear infection who cannot get penicillin losing his hearing, where both a phrase and a clause intervene between the noun child and the gerund losing. And only 17 percent find this sentence acceptable in informal contexts, so that 66 percent reject it roundly.
Be aware that sometimes nouns ending in -s can be confused with a singular noun in the possessive. Thus I don’t approve of your friend’s going there indicates one friend is going, and I don’t approve of your friends going there indicates that more than one friend is going.
I was going to say something tacky about the grammar of a thread title on this board, but something made me look into the grammar in question, and I discovered this dilemma. So what do you use with gerunds (present participles)? I personally use the possessive exclusively, inasmuch as I'm aware.
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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I would rewrite it as: He wants to go, and I can understand that. Or maybe not. That does change the meaning a bit.
I wonder how many people would object to the sentence I can understand her wanting to go.
What about the sentence I agree with him saying no? If you changed it to I agree with his saying no would it mean the same?
I would say that with "him," you're agreeing with something that's going to happen in the future. With "his," you're agreeing with something that's already happened.
[ February 22, 2005, 03:19 PM: Message edited by: advice for robots ]
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I think it has to do with people not differentiating between the pronominal adjective "his" and the possessive pronoun "his". There isn't a difference in the masculine, but there is with the feminine "hers" and "her". Also "mine" vs. my.
I understand his wanting to go.
I understand her wanting to go.
I understand Kathy's wanting to go. Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I think the issue is between looking at grammar as descriptive or proscriptive. We create rules to describe what we already do, absent the rules. Then we force this codification on people, and call variations incorrect. I don't have a problem with this; I think it's worthwhile to slow down drift and to encourage uniformity. It keeps us all speaking the same language.
But we will inevitable find apparent discrepencies in the rules and real usage, because the rules are not what is truly at the bottom of our language use. This does not mean that there is no consistency to our usage (note my use of "apparent" above): it just means our rules are to vague to describe what we actually do, and when. To me, the sentences "I can understand his wanting to go," "We have had very few instances of luggage being lost," and "What she objects to is men making more money than women for the same work" are substantially different, and so it's not that the rule is wrong, it's that there is a greater complexity to what is going on here than merely a gerund preceded by a noun or pronoun. For instance, in the first case, the noun is a person who actually "performs" the verb: he "wants." It's active. Not so with the baggage.
I don't know if what I'm seeing makes sense to anybody but me, but it does to me.
An analogy: The director of our community theatre's production of Man of La Mancha wants certain characters, including Aldonza, to speak with a Spanish accent. (Let's not focus on the silliness of this, like supposing that French people in France speak English with a French accent. *shrug* ) Cor is auditioning for the part of Aldonza, but she has never learned to do a Spanish accent, so I am attempting to help her learn. I can naturally and instinctively do the accent, without giving it any thought, but I am trying to formulate "rules" for when certain sounds are replaced by others. Except we find contradictions. These don't mean that the rules I've come up with are incorrect, but that they were not detailed enough to describe what was happening, and they need amplifying.
Same goes for those people who study the grammar of Ebonics (and yes, according to article I have read, it has grammar).
Does that make any sense at all?
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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As an aside, I think it makes more sense to have Aldonza speak with a cockney or rural American accent, but that's just me...
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Or maybe not. That does change the meaning a bit.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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