2

I was working on some grammar schoolwork, some pronoun revisions and it states that the pronoun 'it' has no possessive, it has an adjective possessive, but not as a possessive pronoun. I'm confused. Isn't 'it's' the possessive pronoun? I've seen and heard it used in sentences like, 'The dog has it's ball' so wouldn't that mean the pronoun 'it' has a normal possessive like 'I' or 'her' or 'you'? The list is laid out like this in a table,

  • Subject Pronoun: I, you, it, he, etc.

  • Object Pronoun: me, you, it, him, etc.

  • Possessive Pronoun: mine, your,(none), his, etc.

  • Possessive Adjective: my, your, its, his, etc.

Am I correct in my thinking? That the 'it' pronoun does have a possessive like 'mine'?

tchrist
  • 134,759
  • 2
    John brought John's/his gloves. // The dog/Fido fetched the dog's/Fido's/its ball. //// The anaphors used to show possession (his; its // my; her; your; one's) if used before a noun group (gloves / ball / bright red dispatch case), are now analysed by all grammarians as possessive determiners. See for instance OALD; The Farlex Grammar Book. //// Some grammars (books on grammar) are antiquated, not well thought out, unhelpful ... just wrong. – Edwin Ashworth May 24 '22 at 14:17
  • @EdwinAshworth 'Determiner' is a function The items you cite ("his, my" etc.) function as determiners but they belong to the word category (POS) pronoun. It's important to distinguish form (category) and function. – BillJ May 25 '22 at 13:21
  • "BillJ It's still allowable to see determiner function as so different from prototypical pronoun function that lumping possessive determiners into the pronoun class would be considered untenable. – Edwin Ashworth May 25 '22 at 15:31
  • @EdwinAshworth You're still conflating word class (POS) and function. All constituents in a clause are assigned two labels; one indicates their function in the clause, the other gives their class (POS). In, for example, "My car was stolen", "my" belongs in the word class 'pronoun' and its function is that of 'determiner'. – BillJ May 25 '22 at 18:12
  • @BillJ This relevant article by Puckika, while saying that the H and P (and accepted by others) analysis is possibly the best one available to date, it (as all finite grammars must) makes assumptions: All grammars leak (Sapir). The article ends with 'Over the centuries, however, the items that may be used both pre- and pronominally have been the object of constant reanalyses and reclassifications and the debate is certainly far from being closed.' Some speak as if the last word has been spoken. – Edwin Ashworth May 25 '22 at 18:45
  • @EdwinAshworth There's no assumptions, and we're not talking of reanalysis here. No one is denying that "my" in "My car was stolen" is a determiner -- that's its function, of course. But its word class is pronoun. The problem is that some traditional grammars fail to mention the distinction between class (POS) and function. – BillJ May 26 '22 at 09:24
  • @EdwinAshworth It's not just words but also phrases that can belong to a single class (POS) and yet have several functions. This is illustrated in "I saw her this morning", where "this morning" is an NP: NPs typically function as subjects or objects (complements), but in this example "this morning" is functioning as adjunct. – BillJ May 26 '22 at 09:46

0 Answers0