Non-finite having/being in a sentence

Question

Dear members!Could you tell me if there are correct choices please? What might need a  correction and why?That's due to you/your having doubled the prices.That's due to the prices/prices' being doubled.Thank you in advance!Aaron

BillJ · Accepted Answer

It's a little complex: in simple terms your first example is fine, but the genitive noun phrase the prices' in the second is not possible. Nouns with a genitive marking like prices' act as dependent to a head noun, cf. the teacher's car, where car is the head and the teacher's is the genitive dependent. But in your example the prices' has no head to relate to hence the unacceptability of *That's due to the prices' being doubled.

CalifJim · Answer

Given BillJ's remarks, I don't know what to say about the following possessives. Grammatical? Or not grammatical? (All were found in the online collection "Google Books".)

Given how many of these can be easily found, editors seem to be letting a lot of ungrammatical sentences slip by. Or I don't understand what BillJ is saying. I wonder which of the following examples are in the category "no head to relate to" (and therefore ungrammatical), and which, if any, are not.

... the natural workings of other natural objects, as with the water's being hot and the wool's being black.
... although that feature is not a necessary or sufficient condition for the work's being good or bad.
...a necessary precondition of their work's being concrete and scientific.
The reason for the man's being suspected is given or implied in the text.
... resulting in the man's being held in custody for six months.
... asked him if the news was true of the men's being killed at Lexington.
... a supervenience base property of the table's being a table ...
... is not a presupposition of the theory's having content.
... written about the theory's having been set aside or proved to be without foundation.
... due to the theory's having made a brilliant guess at how to ...
We know that the table's having been two feet to the left is not among the things that are intrinsically impossible.
The man's having been a successful physician for many years secured him the confidence of ...
... a collateral question as to the man's having committed a crime.
...  the existence of lawful connections between the thing's having that kind of structure and its breaking easily under certain conditions.
... the thing's having object value for you is a reason for you to enjoy that thing.

CJ

Non-finite having/being in a sentence

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