Sentence correctness
Hi
Please tell me if this sentence is correct.
The football team's winning its first game of the season excited the student body.
I think the sentence is incorrectly constructed because "its" requires the antecedent "football team", which is not there in the sentence.
Top answer
It's OK: the fact that "football team" appears as a possessive is not a problem for the use of "its". This "possessive + participle/gerund" pattern is restricted to formal English, and to some people it may seem a bit pedantic. It is formally correct though.
- It's OK: the fact that "football team" appears as a possessive is not a problem for the use of "its".
- This "possessive + participle/gerund" pattern is restricted to formal English, and to some people it may seem a bit pedantic.
- It is formally correct though.
Get the Weekly English Kit 📬
New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.
It's OK: the fact that "football team" appears as a possessive is not a problem for the use of "its". This "possessive + participle/gerund" pattern is restricted to formal English, and to some people it may seem a bit pedantic. It is formally correct though.
0vsureshI think the sentence is incorrectly constructed because "its" requires the antecedent "football team", which is not there in the sentence.
Actually not. It's poorly constructed because nearly all of the informational content of the sentence is squeezed into the non-finite clause at the beginning. The following should be considered as a possible imp
0
Related Questions