Re: Rule about not using possessive? (Take III, and out)

[Joe Sokohl <joe -dot- sokohl -at- iconmedialab -dot- de>]

Richard Combs wrote: 

Now, mind you, I can imagine the language evolving to the point where we no
longer distinguish between singular and plural verb forms. However, _until
that happens_, subject-verb agreement is *not* just a matter of style and is
*not* subject to majority vote.

"It's my opinion and it's very true."
Richard

end quote
------

To respectfully disagree, I submit the following excerpt from Steven
Pinker's great book, "The Language Instinct." I also recommend everyone
devour this book, for he explodes so many myths that have circulated in our
area for far too many years. Too many of our prescriptive rules are really
vestiges of style handbook competititveness of the 18th Century: "Most  of
the  hobgoblins  of  contemporary prescriptive  grammar  (don't  split
infinitives,  don't end a sentence with a preposition) can be traced back to
these 18th Century fads."

PINKER QUOTE STARTS:
Sometimes  an alleged grammatical "error" is logical not only in the sense
of "rational," but in the sense of respecting distinctions made by  the
logician. Consider this alleged barbarism:
      Everyone returned to their seats.
      If anyone calls, tell them I can't come to the phone.
      No one should have to sell their home to pay for medical care. 
The mavens explain: [everyone] means [every one], a singular subject, which
may not serve as the antecedent of a  plural  pronoun  like  [them]  later
in  the sentence.  "Everyone  returned  to [his] seat," they insist.  "If
anyone calls, tell [him] I can't come to the phone."  

 If you were the  target  of  these  lessons,  you  might  be  getting  a
bit uncomfortable. [Everyone  returned  to  his  seat] makes it sound like
Bruce Springsteen was discovered during intermission  to  be  in  the
audience,  and everyone rushed back and converged on his seat to await an
autograph.  If there is a good chance that a caller may be female, it is odd
to ask  one's  roommate to  tell  [him]  anything  (even  if you are not
among the people who get upset about "sexist language"). Such feelings of
disquiet  --  a  red  flag  to  any serious  linguist -- are well-founded.
The logical point that everyone but the language mavens intuitively grasps
is that [everyone] and  [they]  are  not  an antecedent and a pronoun
referring to the same person in the world, which would force them to agree
in number. They are a "quantifier" and a "bound  variable," a different
logical relationship. [Everyone returned to their seats] means "For all X, X
returned to X's seat."  The "X" is simply  a  placeholder  that  keeps track
of the roles that players play across different relationships: the X that
comes back to a seat is the same X that owns the seat that  X  comes  back
to. The  [their]  there  does  not,  in fact, have plural number, because it
refers neither to one thing nor to many things; it does not refer at all.
On  logical grounds,  then,  variables  are  not  the  same  thing  as  the
more  familiar "referential" pronouns that trigger agreement ([he] meaning
to some  particular guy,  [they]  meaning  some  particular  bunch  of
guys).  Some  languages are considerate and offer their speakers different
words for  referential  pronouns and for variables. But English is stingy; a
referential pronoun must be drafted into service to lend its name when a
speaker needs to use a variable.  There is no  reason  that  the vernacular
decision to borrow [they, their, them] for the task is any worse than the
prescriptivists' recommendation of [he,  him,  his]. Indeed, [they] has the
advantage of embracing both sexes and feeling right in a wider variety of
sentences.  
END
SOURCE: http://www.mit.edu/~pinker/tnr.html
 
joe
Joe Sokohl
Human-Computer Interaction
Icon Medialab
Gasstrasse 4
22761 Hamburg Germany
Tel:   +49 (0)40 8979 8403
Cell:  +49 (0)163 334 8230
Fax:   +49 (0)40 8979 8989
email: joe -dot- sokohl -at- iconmedialab -dot- com
"People Propose, Science Studies, Technology Conforms" ....Don Norman
-----------------------------------
Personal Web Stuff:
http://www.cafepress.com/hcistuff
http://jsokohl.blogspot.com/  


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