Your being?

Question

Is it your being or you being here?

Aileen · Accepted Answer

Maybe we need some more context.

Taiwandave · Answer

Here's an example in which both are correct:

[1] I can't stand you being here.
[2] I can't stand your being here.

The second sentence is more formal than the first.

Traditionally, "being" would be analyzed as a verb in [1] and a gerund in [2]. But there are strong grounds for analyzing it as a verb in [2] as well, and for making a distinction between such words and those words ending in -ing that genuinely are nouns.

This alternative analysis proceeds as follows. The traditional reason for analyzing "being" as a gerund in [2] is that it appears to be the object of the possessive adjective "your". In a normal noun phrase, a possessive determiner cannot be omitted:

I regretted his decision.
I regretted decision.

The sentence becomes ungrammatical with the removal of "his". In the sentence "I can't stand his being here", however, the possessive adjective can be omitted without the sentence becoming ungrammatical:

I can't stand being here.

We interpret the above to mean "I can't stand MY being here". The significant point here is that the presence or absence of the possessive is not like that in noun phrase structure. It is more like the presence or absence of a subject in a to-infinitival:

I can't stand to be here.
To be here is awful.

The issue is resolved by reanalyzing the possessive adjective in "I can't stand his being here" as a clause subject.

This resolves another ambiguity: if "I can't stand him being here" and "I can't stand his being here" are analyzed as two different constructions, as they traditionally would be, then which of the two constructions would "I can't stand being here" belong to?

I'd be interested in getting comments from Miriam and others on the above. This analysis is from a new book: "The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language" by Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum.

This book takes a different position from traditional authorities such as Quirk, et al on certain fundamental grammar concepts. For example, the authors eschew the traditional definition of noun, adjective and adverbial clauses, claiming that extrapolating the properties of individual parts of speech to clause level is misleading and inaccurate.

This book is sure to create controversy among traditionalists and will no doubt gather a large following. Anyone who is interested should obtain a copy right away.

Aileen · Answer

Hi taiwandave! Wow! What a brilliant post! Though I’m not a grammar student, I found most of your answer pretty easy to follow. There’s just one concept that I need to reference, that is, a to-infinitival.

Maybe I’m being too pedestrian for advanced users of the language by pasting the following info; however, I dug it up from Oxford Reference Online to help me appreciate your great work here.

The infinitive is a form of a verb expressing the verbal notion without reference to a particular subject, tense, etc. (e.g., see in we came to see, let him see).
Writers who insisted that English could be modeled on Latin long ago created the “rule” that the English infinitive must not be split: to clearly state
was wrong; one must say to state clearly. But the Latin infinitive is one word, and cannot be split, so the “rule” is not firmly grounded, and treating
two English words as one can lead to awkward, stilted sentences.

The to of the to-infinitive is not a preposition, as is shown by the fact that prepositions, including to, cannot be followed by an infinitive but require
the -ing form of the verb (e.g. They resorted to violence or to attacking him, not *they resorted to attack him). Nor does this to share the characteristics
of any other word class. It therefore has a label of its own.

Also, I checked up on your book and found sample pages on the net.
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language
Sample chapters

Nice to meet you, have a great weekend! I sure hope the guest is happy withsomething close to pure serendipity!

Miriam · Answer

It is true that non-finite clauses (infinitival, gerundive or participial) don't show tense.
Infinitival clauses, however, are seen by some authors as likely to have a subject:

"He wants her to come." (to-infinitive)
"I saw her come." (bare infinitive)

In both examples, the direct objects ("her to come" and "her come"), can be said to be infinitival clauses with subject ("her" being the subject in both cases).

Thank you for the link to Cambridge new grammar. I'll have a look at it.

Maj · Answer

Woudn't you also say 'I saw her coming'?

Miriam · Answer

Yes, I would, maj.
But not when I'm talking about infinitival clauses.

Aileen · Answer

Thanks

Miriam · Answer

Dave,
I apologise. I've only just seen my name in your post.
I've read your post several times and found a few things that are not completely clear to me. One of my colleagues, fond of using words her students won't understand when she corrects their work, would be yelling "non sequitur!!" right now if she had read the post. I'm going offline now, but I will post my comments and doubts (probably more doubts than comments!) when I come back online in the evening.

Taiwandave · Answer

Aileen -- many thanks for your comments, and for providing the site for the Cambridge Grammar book. I'm on the third chapter and have have found it fascinating so far.

Miriam -- here's another example I'd like you to take a look at.

Consider this sentence:

I can't stand his drinking beer.

Should "drinking" be analyzed as a gerund or a verb? Let's do a couple of experiments with this sentence and see what happens.

On one hand, "drinking" looks like it is the object of a possessive, something that shows it to be a noun. On the other hand, it seems to be taking a noun object, "beer", which shows it to be a transitive verb. Which is it?

If "drinking" were a noun, it couldn't take an object such as "beer" without the preposition "of". If we add an adjective, we force it to become a noun:

I can't stand his constant drinking of beer.

But look what happens when we add an adverb instead:

I can't stand his constantly drinking beer.

Here, "drinking" must be a verb since it's being modified by the adverb "constantly". The preposition "of" has been dropped, and "beer" has been moved back into its earlier position as the object of "drinking". But the possessive adjective "his" is retained! Since the sentence is grammatical, this supports the notion that a possessive can sometimes act as the subject of a present participial verb.

If one accepts this reanalysis of the possessive adjective "his", a case can thus be made that "drinking", in the original sentence, is a verb:

I can't stand his drinking beer.

Pemmican · Answer

Now I'm swamped with this I think...
I have a problem with your sentence "I can't stand his drinking beer." because I cannot really analyze what "his" is referring to.

"his" as you said is a possessive pronoun, therefore requires a word, usually a noun or an equal phrase that it would refer to - in this case "drinking beer" - am I right?

If I understood that correctly, this would mean that "drinking beer" were indeed a noun, and now I've come to a point where I can't follow anymore:

With my Sprachgefühl (feel for language), I would also classify "beer drinking" as a noun rather than a verb the way you do - see, I wouldn't have a problem if the sentence was "I can't stand him drinking beer" (this one is clear so far, "drinking" here, is a gerund as "can't stand" always requires a gerund) but this of course does not work in "I can't stand his drinking beer", where "drinking" from my (maybe wrong(?)) point of view would be a noun, sort of a verbal noun: "'the' drinking(-beer)".

BUT: If I was correct in this case, I'd rather say that the noun had to be "beer-drinking" rather than "drinking-beer": "I can't stand his beer-drinking". Here, it is obviously a verbal noun: the (beer-)drinking, which is required because of the possessive pronoun.
AND: If you widened the sentence, the preposition 'of' would become necessary: I can't stand his way of drinking beer - but in that case, drinking is a gerund which is required because of the preposition 'of'.

I'm sort of confused now, but maybe you can help me out a bit and enlighten me?!
The more I think about it, the more complex it gets... but I'll post this for the beginning though as I was already dealing with it for a certain time!

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