To me, they both sound okay (the pronoun part, that is--I might want to
rephrase to avoid the serial prepositional phrases).
 
There is a grammatical rule that our brains unconsciously follow about
when we use personal pronouns to represent noun phrases: When two
identical noun phrases occur in different clauses within a sentence (or
both in the same clause if one is a possessive noun phrase like
"Hrothgar's"), we can turn either the second one or the lower one into a
pronoun. 
 
In other words, we can always pronominalize the second identical noun
phrase:
 
In Hrothgar's speech, he made jokes.
When Hrothgar spoke, he made jokes.
 
We can also pronominalize the noun phrase in the lower clause or
possessive phrase:
 
In his speech, Hrothgar made jokes.
When he spoke, Hrothgar made jokes.
Hrothgar made jokes in his speech.
Hrothgar made jokes when he spoke
 
But we can't pronominalize the noun phrase when it is neither second nor
lower:
 
*He made jokes in Hrothgar's speech. 
*He made jokes when Hrothgar spoke. (Both are ungrammatical if "he" is
supposed to refer to Hrothgar.)
 
Dick Veit
________________________________
 
Richard Veit
Department of English
University of North Carolina Wilmington
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jane Saral
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 1:29 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Syntax question
 
So I have a question--
 
A student wrote the following sentence:
 
In Hrothgar's speech to Beowulf, he gives warning of the corruption of
the desire for fame.
 
Can anyone explain why it sounds better to say instead:
 
In his speech to Beowulf, Hrothgar gives warning of...
 
I can explain that sometimes the antecedent will follow rather than
precede a pronoun, but that doesn't address why it sounds/is preferable
in this case. 
 
Jane Saral
Atlanta, GA
 
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