Search results for 'tag:Possessives tag:Accusative' matching tags 'Possessives' and 'Accusative'

Re: Me or my?

Monalisatuan — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:51:13 GMT

Hi,

As far as I know , both possessive and accusative forms can be used after a number of adjectives followed by prepositions , e.g. be bored with , be happy about , be interested in , be keen on , be concerned about, be afraid of etc.The possessive forms ( our,your ,,,) are formal and the accusative forms (us ,you..) are informal.

I am not sure of his/him agreeing

I'm surprised at your/you not having noticed .

Best wishes

Re: I'm thinking about his doing it / I'm thinking of his doing it

Inchoateknowledge — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:58:26 GMT

If you think about something, you are more engaged in cogitating about it than when you only think of it.
The pronoun after the preposition (of/about) may be either in possessive (his, their, your, etc.) or accusative case (him, them, you, etc.).
The former is more formal.

Re: Grammatical Cases and the English Language

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 14:33:34 GMT

None of these names for cases applies much to Modern English; we have neither an accusative nor a dative case and many linguists might argue we do not even have a true genitive (just a "clitic s").

Nouns have an all-purpose "base case" and a possessive form.

My dog is big/I see a dog. (base)

My dog's bed is in the corner. (possessive)

Some pronouns have a "subject case" (a true nominative) and an "object/instrumental case" which indicates the direct/indirect object or is required after prepositions.

He likes that dog. (subject)

The boy sees him. (object - direct object)

The boy gives him the book. (object - indirect object)

JJM

The boy gives the book to him. (instrumental - indirect object).

Grammatical Cases and the English Language

Crux_online — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:08:50 GMT

Good day, all!

Read through....the question is at the end.

English cases, though no longer taught as such, are still somewhat present and remnants of the cases in Old English. During the time between say, 1300 and the present, we lost most of the inflections that were present before 1300, but some of the words -- particularly the possessive pronouns -- retained their inflections.

The four cases of Old English are:

Nominative
Genative
Accusative
Dative/Instrumental

The Nominative case gets its name from the idea that it is the 'naming' case. It identifies the subject of the sentence by name.

The Genative case gets its name by pointing out the 'genesis' of the noun. "Brother of mine", "Goblet of silver". Generally, anywhere 'of' is used, the object of the preposition will be in the Genative case.

Now Accusative and Dative leave me baffled. How did they get their names?

Accusative seems to bring to mind one accusing another. Even in Russian, ÐÐ¸Ð½Ð¸ÑÐµÐ»ÑÐ½ÑÐ¹ (vi-NI-tyl-ni) is the name of the Accusative case and the root verb of that is ÐÐ¸Ð½Ð¸ÑÑ (vi-NIT), to blame, accuse. But how does that apply to the case of a noun in the general role of Direct Object? Or is the premise of Accusative case being equivalent to the Direct Object faulty altogether?

Dative conjures in me the idea of dates. In linguistics, the Dative case is generally used to indicate the Indirect Object. The question becomes, "how/where does the concept of date intersect with the idea of Indirect Object?

Now naturally there are prepositions that require a specific case. In English all prepositions require the Accusative case (the Dative case seems all but lost in Modern English). In German hilfen, to help, requires the Dative, whereas sehen, to see, requires an Accusative object. Whereas this makes perfect sense, there are other that make no sense. This is not the thread for that discussion.

My question, after all that, is this:

Where did the different grammatical cases get there names?

Thanks!

Re: Possessive before a gerund.

Skater — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 14:45:06 GMT

Paco, I too was taught the "one's doing" formulation in the sixties and have never stopped using it, and neither have any of my friends and family whom I consider careful speakers of English. I have also found it to be universally followed in American formal writing (anything from newspapers to scholarly publications). I have never found it awkward to use the same grammatical rules in speech as one would find in a scholarly article, but perhaps that's because I grew up in Berkeley and am now surrounded by fellow lawyers. If someone tried to persuade me to speak otherwise, I would be inclined to ignore it.

CailfJim, there needn't be a reason why English uses an accusative subject with an infinitive but a genitive with a gerund -- it just does. It is the same in Latin, which may account for why the English rule (at least in America) was settled the same way, although ultimately the reason Latin uses those rules is probably the same -- it just does.

Re: Possessive before a gerund.

CalifJim — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 02:42:54 GMT

Have we considered thoroughly enough the possibility that what is to blame for this conundrum is the poverty of terminology for talking about such structures. I mean, why should it have to be either a participle or a gerund? Just because textbooks don't use a term like "geriple" or "particiund"?

If we can have clauses with accusative subjects when the verb is an infinitive ("I want them to help me."), why not clauses with accusative subjects when the verb is an "-ing" - another non-finite form ("I like them helping me.") ?

Strangely, sometimes a structure becomes more acceptable just because it has a name! Right?

CJ

Re: Possessive before a gerund.

Skater — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 14:36:17 GMT

Thanks, All.

First, I am a native English speaker (from California, but now living in London).

Second, in "We watched him cooking the dinner," "him" is clearly the intended object of "watched," and "cooking the dinner" is a participial phrase modifying "him." That is, "cooking" is not used as a gerund in that example, but a participle. In the line of "The teacher disliked the pupil('s) whispering to his classmate" examples, it is clear that "pupil" is not the intended object of "disliked," so the direct object can only be "whispering" (as a gerund, modified by "pupil's") or the phrase "pupil whispering to his classmate," but it is still my belief that in standard American English we do not use phrases with a participle and an accusative subject, certainly not in formal writing. I know it occurs in speech, but that does not make correct.

Re: Possessive before a gerund.

paco2004 — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 00:31:42 GMT

Mr P
In other words, #2 emphasises the 'whispering'; but in #1, the object of dislike is the whole picture: 'the-boy-whispering'. I would read the ING in #2 as a gerund, and the ING in #1 as a participle.
(I'd be interested to know why a participle string shouldn't follow the object. In Latin or Greek, for instance, the participle would simply be put into the accusative case.)

English is basically a Teutonic language and as a basic rule of Teutonic languages, an adjective usually pre-modifies a noun. An example sentence : "I hate my wife shopping a lot". I think this was originally rather "I hate [my wife (on shopping a lot)]". If this analysis is right, the 'shopping' in the example sentence is not a true present participle such as seen in 'shopping wives', but rather a 'gerund-derived' present participle.

paco

Re: Possessive before a gerund.

MrPedantic — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 23:16:04 GMT

...whether they just don't fuss about grammar...

BrEs on the whole tend to take the Marlon Brando approach to fussing â 'What are you fussing about?' 'What have you got?' â but I'd say that this particular usage (object pronoun + ING) isn't among the more fussed-about. (Which is surprising, in many respects.)

I find myself that sometimes 'possessive + ING' does seem to suit the sentence; but at other times, 'object + ING' feels more accurate. For instance, in our example, I find a difference between these two:

1. The teacher dislikes the boy whispering to his classmate.
2. The teacher dislikes the boy's whispering to his classmate.

In #1, it seems to me that what the teacher dislikes is 'the-boy-whispering-to-his-classmate'; whereas in #2, it's 'the boy's whispering-to-his-classmate'.

In other words, #2 emphasises the 'whispering'; but in #1, the object of dislike is the whole picture: 'the-boy-whispering'. I would read the ING in #2 as a gerund, and the ING in #1 as a participle.

(I'd be interested to know why a participle string shouldn't follow the object. In Latin or Greek, for instance, the participle would simply be put into the accusative case.)

MrP

Re: Possessive before a gerund.

paco2004 — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 19:48:15 GMT

OED

The gerund still retains one feature of the verbal noun, namely, that of admitting of a preceding possessive case or possessive pronoun, as in "after John's behaving so strangely", "upon my readily granting it". In the literary language this construction is regularly retained with a pronoun, and very generally with a single personal substantive; but, with names of things, and phraseological or involved denominations, the sign of the possessive began to be dropped already by 1600. "By each at once her choppy finger laying upon her skinny lips" [Shakespeare ]. No other treatment is now possible in such constructions as "in default of one or other being accepted", "on the general and his staff appearing", "in the event of your expectations not being at once realized", "in consequence of much snow having fallen".

And, in current spoken English, the 's is commonly omitted with all nouns. "I insist upon Miss Sharp appearing" [Thackeray: Vanity Fair xi. 348], where "Miss Sharp's'" would now sound pedantic or archaic. Even a pronoun standing before the gerund is put in the objective, in dialect speech, and, when the pronoun is emphatic, this is common in ordinary colloquial English. "Papa did not care about them learning" [Thackeray ]. "But who ever heard of them eating an owl?" []. "That is no excuse for him beating you"[Reade (1863)]. So "What is the use of me speaking?".

In such constructions the objective noun or pronoun seems to stand in simple apposition to the gerund, the two forming a kind of combined object of the preposition, reminding us of the Greek infinitive with an accusative after a preposition as in "Âµet? t? pa?ad????a? t?? ???????" (=after John being delivered up). But in Eng. there has probably been analogical influence from the construction of the present participles. Cf., for instance, "John was digging potatoes" -> "Who saw John digging potatoes?", and "Who ever heard of John (= John's) digging potatoes?".