Also, the PAP is an error of confusion when it occurs in parallel  
structure as in this SAT test question:
Unlike her sister Heather, who would always put spiders safely  
outside if she found them in the house, Joanne’s fear kept her from  
going anywhere near the creatures.

A.     Joanne’s fear kept her from going anywhere near the creatures

B.     Joanne’s fear is what kept her from going anywhere near the  
creatures

C.     fear is why Joanne had not gone anywhere near them

D.     Joanne was too afraid to go anywhere near the creatures

E.     they scared Joanne too much to go anywhere near them





On May 27, 2009, at 8:30 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:

> This supposed error is an instance of what Arnold Zwicky has called  
> the Possessive Antecedent Proscription (PAP) (see http:// 
> listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0306B&L=ADS- 
> L&P=R3281&I=-3 and other articles in that thread for extensive  
> discussion on the American Dialect Society List (ADS-L)).  PAP is  
> found in a fair number of handbooks now, and it was mentioned in  
> some 18th c. language advice books.  It doesn’t appear in a modern  
> handbook till 1941, so it is for all practical purposes a fairly  
> recent invention.  The problem is not that one cannot have a  
> pronoun refer to a preceding possessive noun but that one should  
> avoid doing so if ambiguity would result.  In “Mary’s father sent  
> her to Radcliffe,” there is no problem of reference, and many  
> careful writers have written such sentences.  In “Mary’s mother  
> paid her tuition,” it’s not entirely clear whose tuition was paid,  
> and the sentence should be revised.  The problem is not the  
> possessive noun as antecedent but the ambiguity that results from  
> having a possessive noun and a head noun both of which are female.   
> The PAP is another instance of a grammatical proscription, like  
> “Don’t start sentences with ‘Because’” or “Don’t end sentences with  
> a preposition,” that represents the sort of teaching shortcut  
> participants in this thread have expressed concern about.  A small  
> side note:  “Jamie’” is not an adjective.  Possessive constructions  
> behave like determiners, which puts them in a category with “the.”   
> I’m aware that some definitions of parts of speech for English do  
> not separate adjectives from determiners, but most grammarians have  
> rejected such a conflation of categories.
>
> Herb
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar  
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jordan Earl
> Sent: 2009-05-27 20:03
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Sentences beginning with conjunctions
>
> Can I throw in a question here?  The revised version seems to me to  
> create a new problem... we have only one sentence with a varying  
> start now, and in it, the subject is a pronoun referring back to an  
> adjective in the previous sentence.  I realize that this phenomenon  
> is acceptable in spoken speech and probably happens a lot in  
> writing, but I'm wondering if others out there teaching would point  
> this out to students or let it go...
>
> <Landon is comparing Jamie’s weight to leaves falling.  She has  
> become so sick that she has lost a lot of weight, and he has really  
> started to notice it.>
>
> It seems to me that *she* would work well if Landon were female;  
> alternately, one might begin the second sentence with *Jamie* and  
> solve the problem, as the 2nd *she* would then be clear.
>
> Curious what others think --
> --Jordan
>
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