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From: ran@ho95b.UUCP (RANeinast)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Re: Death for we who deserve it
Message-ID: <287@ho95b.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Jan-85 10:57:03 EST
Article-I.D.: ho95b.287
Posted: Fri Jan  4 10:57:03 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Jan-85 02:48:34 EST
Organization: AT&T-Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
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I had a feeling this hadn't made it out (Dec 19), but
michael ellis' comments confirm it.  Here goes another try.



Well, the results are in, and only one person said that
all sentences were ok.  To recap, the sentences were

  1a. Death for we who deserve it is one thing.
  1b. Death for us who deserve it is one thing.

and the similar sentences [to lyn cole: they are similar
in that both sets address common mistakes(?) in choosing
the cases of pronouns with attached phrases]

  2a. My father objects to me picking my nose.
  2b. My father objects to my picking my nose.

Everyone else said that both "a" sentences were wrong.
The reason I posted this in the first place is that,
until about 3 years ago, for case "2", I thought so too.
I thought so, that is, until I looked it up (something we
on the net do all too rarely).  At that time, I discovered that
"2a" is acceptable.  I quote from the "Harbrace Handbook
of English," by John Hodges (1941):

"A noun or pronoun preceding the gerund is usually in the
possessive case.

RIGHT  *His* coming was not expected.
RIGHT  He objected to *Mary's* accepting the position.
RIGHT  The *army's* camping along the river caused much anxiety.

In these sentences the verbals ending in *ing (coming, accepting)*
are used as nouns and are called *gerunds*.  But the verbal
ending in *ing* is also used as an adjective, called a
*participle*.  Compare the following:

RIGHT  Just imagine *Mary's flying* [possessive + gerund] an airplane.
       [Emphasis is on the act of flying.]
RIGHT  Just imagine *Mary flying* [objective + participle] an airplane.
       [Emphasis is on *Mary*.]"

"Strunk and White" agree with this:

"Gerunds usually require the possessive case.

    Mother objected to our driving on the icy roads.

A present participle as a verbal, on the other hand,
takes the objective case.

    They heard him singing in the shower.

The difference between a verbal participle and a gerund is not
always obvious, but note what is really said in each of the following.

    Do you mind me asking a question?
    Do you mind my asking a question?

In the first sentence, the queried objection is to *me*,
as opposed to the other members of the group, putting the question.
In the second example, the issue is whether a question may be
asked at all."

My original question was whether a similar distinction could be made for
the two sentences "1a" and "1b".  Consider the sentence

    I will talk to whoever listens.

*Whoever* is correct (nominative case) since it is the subject of *listens*.
[I realize that "1a" isn't quite parallel.]
Can the *we* in "1a" be considered correct (if that is what you really mean),
as the subject of the phrase *we who deserve it*, and then the whole
phrase is the object of the main clause?  Neither of my texts explicitly
states this construction as wrong, but it still makes me uncomfortable.
*Who* is the subject of *deserve* for the adjective phrase modifying *we*;
if *who deserve it* is a phrase, can *we who deserve it* also be one?
Maybe my misunderstanding is that *we who deserve it* just can't be considered
a phrase in this fashion.

------

lyn cole says:

>I had expected many people to jump on this one
>immediately.  Since no one seems to have noticed
>(or cared about?) the real grammatical issue here,
>i'll jump in.
>
>>"Death for (we who deserve it) is one thing."
>>In this case, the object of the preposition
>>is a gerund phrase (so that "we" is correct as
>>nominative case).
>
>First of all, in the original sentence quoted above,
>there is no gerund in sight.  A gerund in English is
>a verb form, ending in "ing", used as a noun.

Boy, is my face red.  When I read her comment, I just
sat there thinking, "I know that."  I haven't the
foggiest idea of what I was thinking when I called that
a gerund.  I know better.  Really.  (Stop chuckling!)

Oh, well.  He who lives by the word, dies by the word.


-- 

". . . and shun the frumious Bandersnatch."
       Robert Neinast (ihnp4!ho95b!ran)
       AT&T-Bell Labs