There is a kind of compromise position between "if it's not acting as a noun, it can't be a pronoun" and "if it's anaphoric, it's a pronoun" -- but it's a bit weaselly. With regular possessives, it's apparent that a noun or noun phrase is being used as a determiner, with the genitive -s acting as a marker of this status: John John's daughter The king of England the king of England's daughter I don't think there's any disagreement that "John" is basically a noun, but the suffix -s turns it into a determiner. Now for the weaselly part: for forms like "my" and "your," we can just argue that there is, in fact, a full pronoun in there somewhere -- but the genitive marking folds into the form itself so it's hard to see. So, just like many linguists would like to treat "went" as "go+ed," we can treat "my" as "I+s." The "I" part is an anaphoric pronoun, but the suffix makes it a determiner. Bill Spruiell Dept. of English Central Michigan University 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/