his or him?

Question

"He caugt him stealing money.""He caught his stealing money."

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

Him

Anonymous · Answer

Why not his? I'd heard that it should be "his".

AlpheccaStars · Answer

AnonymousWhy not his? I'd heard that it should be "his".

Because they caught him, when he was stealing money from a bank or another person.
They didn't catch his money.

Compare with these:
The woman picked up her crying baby. (The baby was crying. The baby belongs to her. The woman picked up the baby.)
The police found his smoking gun. (The gun was emitting smoke. The gun belongs to him. The police found the gun.)

Now think about this:
They caught his stealing money. (The money was stealing. ???? The money belonged to him. Can money steal things?)

Anonymous · Answer

OK. Thank you

How about this one?

"He caught him stealing money from the case."
"He caught his stealing money from the case."

AlpheccaStars · Answer

The answer does not change when you add a prepositional phrase.

They caught him. He was stealing money (from a case) (in the middle of the day) (in plain sight) etc.

They did not catch his money that was stealing from a case.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Here are some gerunds that do work:

Stealing money is a crime. (Subject of the verb)
You can be put in jail for stealing money. (Object of a preposition)

Anonymous · Answer

I appreciate your helping others. (an object of a verb)

AlpheccaStars · Answer

AnonymousI appreciate your helping others. (an object of a verb)

There is a limited list of catenative verbs that can take a gerund (or infinitive) complement. ( See: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_catenative_verbs )
"Appreciate" is one of these verbs. "Catch" is not.
That is the reason that we have these two different patterns.

I caught you helping others. (Not a catenative verb)

Catenative verbs:
I appreciate your helping others.
I remember your helping others.

his or him?

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