From The Economist (Feb. 22): "Indeed, the idea that [trade deals] will not do much to help the economy is one excuse for Democrats undermining their president." I would have written "for Democrats' undermining their president," but the possessive before gerunds seems to be getting rare in both speech and writing. I hear a lot of "That's no excuse for them speaking rudely." So in parsing such sentences, do we consider the -ing words to be participles modifying the preceding noun? How many teachers out there still try to teach that gerunds are preceded by possessives? Thanks.
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