For those using the traditional scheme, the two positions may not even
appear to be contradictory. One important difference between the way
that linguistics and traditional grammar treats parts of speech is that
for linguists parts of speech (if they even use the term) are lexical
categories. Traditional grammar, on the other hand, begins by speaking
of parts of speech as word-level categories, but then changes the rules
of the game and uses the same terms for other units. It also makes
little distinction between form and function. Therefore, in books like
Warriner's, anything that modifies a noun is called an adjective, be
they determiners, participial phrases, prepositional phrases, relative
clauses.

So if you're following a book like Warriner's, it would be logical to
conclude that they are both accurate.

Karl

Ronald Sheen wrote:
> My thanks to Johanna, Richard, Martha, Herb, Atchley and Richard (and any
> future contributors) for their useful and often detailed comments.
> 
> It would be interesting to know how many teachers, though aware of the
> possessive pronoun argument, still teach that they're possessive
> adjectives.
> 
> Ron Sheen.
> 
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