Timeline for "My friend's, Tom's, object" vs. "My friend, Tom's, object"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 28, 2013 at 19:49 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | There is a difference between “My friend Tom” and “My friend, Tom”. The former is quite unproblematic to add clitics to; the latter impossible (in writing). The real solution is to recast the phrase to avoid having to cliticise it at all: “The bike that belongs to my friend, Tom” or the likes. | |
| Aug 28, 2013 at 17:31 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | @EdwinAshworth Yes, that’s exactly correct: it’s a clitic that attaches to the entire NP, not to the head noun. Native speakers know this automatically, although for some reason ESL students often get the wrong idea about it. Not sure why. | |
| Aug 28, 2013 at 16:13 | history | edited | terdon | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Aug 28, 2013 at 15:50 | vote | accept | danielmhanover | ||
| Aug 28, 2013 at 15:48 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | OP is seeing the appositive as a parenthesis (hence the two commas) and thus My friend's bike would be the matrix phrase. However, the rule here is as given by Wikipedia: [T]he -'s morpheme can be attached finally to noun phrases, even if the head noun does not end the phrase. For example, the phrase the king of Spain can form the possessive the king of Spain's, and the phrase the man we saw yesterday can form the man we saw yesterday's.>> Here, 'My friend Tom' is treated as a single noun phrase. | |
| Aug 28, 2013 at 15:40 | history | answered | terdon | CC BY-SA 3.0 |