Kirsten,

I think that what you could do is select an adjective that belongs to the animate world over against the inanimate.  Your example does this to some extent.  Try, "my injured neighbor's car" vs. "my damaged neighbor's car." 

Bruce

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Kirsten Taylor 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2005 5:02 AM
  Subject: Adjective phrase modifying a possessive


  "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

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