Also, one would never confuse a possessive pronoun with a possessive adjective: no one would imagine phrases like "yours book" or "mine power drill". Historically, this wasn't always the case. The choice between my and mine depended on the following sound just as with the articles a and an, my preceding consonant sounds and mine preceding vowel sounds. Witness a late survival in the song verse "mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." Best, Clint Clinton Atchley, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English Director, Master of Liberal Arts Program Box 7652 Henderson State University Arkadelphia, AR 71999 Phone: 870.230.5276 Email: [log in to unmask] URL: http://www.hsu.edu/atchlec ________________________________ From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Johanna Rubba Sent: Sun 10/7/2007 2:02 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Part of speech query These pronominal forms are actually what linguists call "determiners", along with such traditional classes as articles. They have particular restrictions; for instance, only one can appear per noun phrase. One can have multiple adjectives in a noun phrase ("my brand-new, big, red balloon") but only one determiner ("my the balloon" is impossible). In any case, they are not pronouns; they cannot stand in place of a noun phrase. The possessive pronouns are the forms "mine, ours, yours, his, hers", which _can_ take the place of noun phrases. For instance: A: My car has broken down. B: Take mine. (Take _my car_.) A: You have a power drill; use it. B: But yours has better torque. (But _your power drill_) "Possessive adjectives" was the better traditional term, as these do occupy a slot in which they modify a noun. But by modern linguistic definitions, they are not adjectives. I don't know why anyone ever called them possessive pronouns. It's odd that any formal grammarian would, since, even though they resemble the actual possessive pronouns, they behave quite differently. (I mean "formal" here in the sense of a traditional grammarian who is punctilious about such distinctions.) Also, one would never confuse a possessive pronoun with a possessive adjective: no one would imagine phrases like "yours book" or "mine power drill". Dr. Johanna Rubba, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Linguistics Linguistics Minor Advisor English Dept. Cal Poly State University San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Ofc. tel. : 805-756-2184 Dept. tel.: 805-756-2596 Dept. fax: 805-756-6374 E-mail: [log in to unmask] URL: cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba 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/ 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/