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I was always taught that if you can replace a participle with a pronoun, then you should use the possessive case. So instead of "I saw him eating", because I can substitute "it" and say "I saw it", I should say "I saw his eating." "His eating" is the object here, and it can be moved around as such. For example, I might say "His eating is good," but it would be incorrect to say "Him eating is good." This rule of "Can I substitute 'it'?" has proven helpful in most cases.

That said, when I come to very long participial phrases, using the possessive can seem awkward. For example, even "I saw him eating a donut" sounds much more natural than "I saw his eating a donut", even though I can still substitute it for the entire phrase and say "I saw it." But if "I saw him eating a donut out on the front lawn yesterday morning with a friend," then it seems even more awkward to use the possessive, even though it still seems more grammatically correct.

Any thoughts on this? What is the rule? When is it proper to use a possessive in combination with a participial phrase, such that the entire thing acts as an object, and when is it proper to use the phrase to modify the object?

meesterguyperson
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    him eating is object+ object complement combo. his eating is the object (pronoun+gerund) of the transitive verb saw. The meanings are slightly different. – user405662 Nov 05 '21 at 13:53
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    Does this answer your question? When is a gerund supposed to be preceded by a possessive adjective/determiner? 'I saw his eating', while grammatical, would be far less likely than 'I saw him eating' and sound ridiculously rarefied in most contexts. But the ACC-ing/POSS-ing issue has already been covered here in depth. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 05 '21 at 15:09
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    There is no such rule. "I saw his eating" sound very odd due to the semantic properties of the verb "eating". Where both forms are genuinely possible, the difference is one of formality, the genitive being, as usual, more formal than the nominative. Btw, "his eating" would be the object of "saw" only if it is considered a noun phrase. Leaving aside one or two special constructions, clauses are never objects. – BillJ Nov 05 '21 at 15:26

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After thinking about this a bit, I'm thinking that maybe it just depends on the focus of the statement. If the action of a person's eating is my focus, then I would say, "I saw his eating." But if the person is my focus and he also happens to be eating, I would say, "I saw him eating."

The rule here seems to be, "If I can remove the participial phrase and still have the statement make sense, then I should use the objective instead of the possessive." If my focus is "him", then "eating" is just extra info and can be removed, so "I see him eating" would be correct. But if my focus is "eating," then removing it would make the sentence nonsensical, so "I see his eating" would be correct.

So the final answer is, both could be correct, and which should be used depends on context.

meesterguyperson
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    You hit (your own) nail on the head. "I was disgusted by his lunch." "I was disgusted by his eating!" (you could even get exotic with "by his eating it.") Beware, though, of rules of thumb. As you just proved, they sometimes need to be revised. They're not Rules with a capital R, just convenient shortcuts and explanations. – Andy Bonner Nov 05 '21 at 15:07
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    What does "I saw his eating" even mean, really? I saw his eating as [something]. I saw him eating on the lawn. – Lambie Nov 05 '21 at 17:25
  • @Lambie It means that you saw him eaten. – tchrist Nov 06 '21 at 01:43
  • @tchrist I guess that would have to be "licensed" by Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49). – Lambie Nov 06 '21 at 13:50