"When I was about ten years old, I vehemently swore that I did not spit watermelon juice and seeds into the open passenger-side window of my intensely cruel and unusually nasty
neighbor's shitty car."
I've heard the rule that a
possessive cannot be a pronoun's antecedent (*
Toni Morrison
's genius enables her to...).
Is it also true that an adjective phrase cannot modify a possessive? Here, the ambiguity is whether the adjective phrase "
intensely cruel and unusually nasty" modifies the possessive "neighbor's" or the noun "car" that the possessive itself modifies. Would this error be called a dangling modifier?
Can you think of an example of an adjective phrase unambiguously modifying a possessive?
Thanks, Kirsten
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/