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Here is a sentence I have trouble parsing:

A member of staff objects to their image being used in a particular way.

I cannot find a grammar reference according to such sentence. Is it passive continuous infinitive? But why do we put their image after to?

Mitch
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anton
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    @Edwin Ashworth thanks for your answer and link. I think I very close to the truth)

    When I followed your link I found one more link possessive pronouns (also known as genitives)

    Where I found one more example: They objected to the youngest girl's being given the command position.

     – anton May 16 '18 at 10:19
  • That corresponds to 'A member of staff objects to their image's being used in a particular way.', the POSS-ing rather than the ACC-ing usage. I'd say that using this variant here is heading towards the unidiomatic, whereas in 'They objected to the youngest girl's being given the command position.' it's not so bad as it precludes a garden path situation (or even a true ambiguity). – Edwin Ashworth May 16 '18 at 10:27
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    "A member of staff objects to their image being used in a particular way."
    I will split it into parts:
    • "A member of staff" - subject;
    • "objects to" - just present simple verb with the preposition 'to';

    "their image" - possessive pronoun 'their' with its subject;

    "being used" - passive gerund

     – anton May 16 '18 at 15:35
  • 'Gerund' is a term many here don't accept, and especially so in a construction like this. And prepositions have objects (unless they're the strange intransitive beasts). – Edwin Ashworth May 16 '18 at 17:01

1 Answers1

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The sentence can be simplified with the same basic structure:

A member of staff objects to something.

Somebody objects, and 'object' expects a prepositional phrase afterwards, the object of the objection. What follows is not an infinitive at all.

What is it that the staff member objects to? It is to a someone using the image, a gerund phrase. But this latter has been passivized. Instead of someone using the image, it is to the image being used.

So this separates into pieces:

(A member of staff) objects (to (their image being used)).

Mitch
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