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Anonymous Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

Modification

Hello teachers! Thanks for your help.
Today, I would like to know whether the following sentences are grammatical for the native speakers of English.

(1) a. John's explaining it carefully relieved her.
b. John's careful explaining it relieved her.
c. John's careful explanation relieved her.

(2) a. Mary's quick leaving surprised us.
b. Mary's quickly leaving surprised us.
  

Top answer

From a purely structural grammatical point of view, all the sentences are okay, except for 1b. " However, these 5 sentences, even if they are structurally okay from a theoretical grammatical point of view, would be considered sub-standard in English. The problem is the use of the possessive as an adjective modifying a verbal functioning as a substantive: John's explaining, Mary's leaving.

— Anonymous

  • From a purely structural grammatical point of view, all the sentences are okay, except for 1b.
  • " However, these 5 sentences, even if they are structurally okay from a theoretical grammatical point of view, would be considered sub-standard in English.
  • The problem is the use of the possessive as an adjective modifying a verbal functioning as a substantive: John's explaining, Mary's leaving.
  • In these, the - ing form of the verb functions as a noun and the possessive of the proper name functions as and adj.
  • modifying the noun.
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1 Answers
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From a purely structural grammatical point of view, all the sentences are okay, except for 1b. 1b should have the word "of" between "explaining" and "it." However, these 5 sentences, even if they are structurally okay from a theoretical grammatical point of view, would be considered sub-standard in English. The problem is the use of the possessive as an adjective modifying a verbal functioning
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