Possessive pronoun

Dear friend,

the first one is, indeed, very formal, and I would not use it at all, except for reaching a special stylistic effect. However, neither of the sentences is truly 'wrong', as far as I'm concerned. Also, there is no collective noun here - just irregular plural 'children' with an archaic ending '-en' and an intrusive root consonant '-r-'.

Anonymousis it

Echoing to Gleb's comments, both are not wrong, grammatically speaking. However, the thought is better expressed as: " I discovered that the children were hiding chocolates under their beds" as a direct active voice sentence. Or passively: I discover that chocolates were hidden under the beds by the children.

Exactly.

'I saw the crowd crossing the street' is a compression of 'I saw that the crowd was crossing the street'. The words in bold are often called complex object, since not only the crowd was seen (? I saw the crowd), but also its crossing the road. Such constructions (which old-time grammarians would call objective-with-the-participle constructions) are more rec

May I point out that the authoritative The Grammar Book says that verbs of perception

(find, catch, discover, come upon) take only the -ing participle because the subject is discovered

while in the act. The authors say that these verbs NEVER take a complement with a possessive

subject. The -ing is a participle, not a gerund.

Thus, it would appear that only "

Thanks to our anonymous friend we now see that a certain inaccuracy was made (many thanks, dear fellow). It is true that verbs of encounter, which is a more exact term for them, do not admit of a possessive form; in other words, the noun phrase following the superordinate verb cannot take the genitive form. In spite of the obvious fact that this rule is not always observed in speech and even in w

Mr. Chebrikoff,

Thank you for your kind note.

I very much admire the serious, polite, and open-minded approach that you take in your posts.

I was referring to a grammar book that is used by many teachers: The Grammar Book, by Mesdames Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman.

I look forward to reading more of your posts, for you always help me to better understand m

thanks for your explanation.

after reading your thread, I think verbs of senses can also not take the genitive form.

therefore, the example: "I saw their crossing the road." is not acceptable, right.

Anonymous verbs of perception
(find, catch, discover, come upon) take only the -ing participle because the subject is discovered
while in the act

Is "see" a verb of perception? or a verb of sense?

if it is a verb sense, then can it be followed by a noun in genetive form?

May I quote your example from your previous thread?

According to The Grammar Book, sensory verbs (such as "see") take the -ing participle or the base form.

Thus, it seems that you have a choice of:

I saw the crowd/them crossing. (But did not see the completion of the act.)

I saw the crowd/them cross. (Saw the completion of the act.)

Apparently, the genitive would not be "grammatical" in this case.

I wonder if that rule about sensory verbs taking only the -ing participle or the bare infinitive is really true (regardless of the book claims about its correctness).

What about

I don't see its making any difference. (no one will ever say this but it's apparently perfectly good grammar)

I don't see it making any difference. (usually said)

Perhaps the verb see i