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Demonstratives and Possessives

This stinks

Articles are certainly not the only kind of word which can be found in the determiner position in noun phrases Most of the others can function as pronouns--that is, they can take the place of a noun in occupying an nominal function like subject. There are a variety of such determiners/pronouns. The most important of these always serve as central determiners and cannot appear in the same noun phrase with another central determiner, and the most common of these are demonstratives and possessives.

Demonstratives: There are four demonstratives, two used with singular nouns (this, that) and two used with plural nouns (these, those). Some call them demonstrative pronouns even when they are functioning as determiners. Others prefer to call them demonstrative determiners in such cases. We'll just call them demonstratives, rather than decide who is right. This and these suggest something relatively closer than that and those, but the distinction is not always clear:

(1) This bear dances.
(2) That bear flies.
(3) Those songs rock.
(4) These songs stink.

Demonstratives can also function as pronouns, replacing nouns in even the simplest of sentences:

(5) This stinks.
(6) That rocks
(7) Those dance.
(8) These fly.

The only problematic demonstrative is that, which is also used as a relative pronoun and as a complementizer, uses we'll discuss later.

Possessives There is a special set of possessive personal pronouns--my, your, his, her, its, our, their--which only appear in the determiner position. None of these comes with an apostrophe, not even its. Save the it's with an apostrophe for contractions of it is. Try not to confuse the possessive their with the contraction they're either. The determiner position can also be occupied by possessive nouns and noun phrases headed by them, as in sentences (16) and (17). These are characterized by the apostrophe--and can also be confused with contractions:

(9) My birthday rocked.
(10) Your plane flew.
(11) His breath stinks.
(12) Her music rocks.
(13) Its value sank.
(14) Our dog bites.
(15) Their shirts match.
(16) George's time is over.
(17) This evening's martini packed a punch.

Possessive constructions are sometimes called genitives. This term is taken over from Latin grammar, and those who use it prefer it because many of the uses to which we put these constructions have nothing to do with anything one could call "possession." The "martini" in sentence (17) above certainly doesn't belong to "this evening." Most or many of the same relationships can be expressed by the of-genitive, a possessive prepositional phrase headed by of:

(18) The time of George is over.
The use of the of-genitive is increasing, as part of a general trend in English to replace inflections with other expressions.

Exercise 1: Kinds of Central Determiners

Say whether the underlined determiners below are (A) articles, (B) demonstratives, (C) possessives:
1.01 An onion a day keeps people away.
1.02 Give me your hand.
1.03 He gave me his word.
1.04 I wish this night could last forever.
1.05 I remember the taste of her lips.
1.06 My dame hath a lame, tame crane.
1.07 Our love will keep us warm.
1.08 Shake that booty.
1.09 Tammy's dress is a bit too revealing.
1.10 There's no use talking to those people.
1.11 These days everyone dares call everything treason
1.12 Who let the dogs out?
1.13 You are once, twice, three times a lady.

Where the antecedent (the noun or noun phrase referred to) is clear, possessives can appear by themselves serving nominal functions like subject:

(19) Which cake should I eat? George's stinks.
(20) How were the speeches? George's rocked.
(21) Which martini got to you? This evening's did it.
One way to account for this is to assume that in such sentences there is an "understood" noun in our responses. Understood nouns are a bit like imaginary friends, but we may sometimes have to resort to them.

Before doing so, however, we might look again at personal pronouns. We have already seen that there are a set of personal pronouns used as subjects: I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they. But there is also a set of possessive personal pronouns which can be used as subjects in the kind of situation in which we used George's in sentences (19) and (20) or this evening's in sentence (21):

(22) Mine rocked.
(23) Yours stank.
(24) His flopped.
(25) Hers succeeded.
(26) Its died
(26) Ours won.
(27) Theirs lost.
These pronouns are quite distinct in form from I, you, he, etc. Except for his and its, they differ slightly in form from the possessive personal pronouns used as determiners. They exist to serve simultaneously as stand-alone pronouns and as possessives.

How Much of This Will be on the Test?
The principal central determiners are articles, demonstratives, and possessives, and only one of these can appear in a given noun phrase. You should be able to remember the demonstratives, since there are only four--this, that, these, those. They can be used as both determiners and as pronouns serving nominal functions like subject. Possessive noun phrases can occupy the determiner position within other noun phrases, as can possessive personal pronouns like my. The independent possessive pronouns (like mine) are used as pronouns in nominal functions. We'll have more to say about these genitives and the of--genitive later.