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matthewwoodford · Joined: 01 Oct 2003 Location: Location, location, location.

Same words, just changed the object from 'you' to third person cos it helps me remember it's an object pronoun:

1. "I don't like him smoking here."

2. "I don't like his smoking here."

Ok, so both are correct, 2 is more formal, and most of us would say number 1. How to explain the grammar?

After thinking about this until my brain hurts, I think 'smoking' is a gerund in #2 so it functions just like a noun would (e.g. "I don't like his car here", etc). However, in #1 I don't know the right word to call it. An adjective?

Desultude said...

visviva · Joined: 03 Feb 2003 Location: Daegu

Turning, against my better judgement, to Leech & Svartvik's A Communicative Grammar of the English Language, 3rd Edition, I find this construction mentioned in item #728, "Verb + object + -ing form."

Leech and Svartvik, at any rate, don't seem to find anything wrong with the "I don't like him smoking here" construction. Along with "like", they list a number of other verbs taking the object + -ing, such as: imagine, leave, resent, catch, find, hate, love, (don't) mind, prefer, see, and stop. Among the examples is "I can't imagine Burt interrupting anybody." I can't imagine anyone saying "I can't imagine Burt's interrupting anybody."

So if we want to get all paradigmatic about it, we can slide a lot of other verbs into that slot:

I can't imagine him smoking here.
I don't mind him smoking here.
Did you just leave him smoking there?
You'll never catch him smoking here.
I've never seen him smoking here.
I really resent him smoking here.

Although Leech and Svartvik are wise enough not to say, I think the -ing form here can only be the present participle. Or as I like to call it, the "bare progressive."

In writing, there are some reasons to prefer the possessive-gerund construction ("his smoking"). It flows a little more smoothly, because there is no chunking ambiguity. However, in speech, where chunking is usually transparent, the object-participle construction sounds much more natural.

desultude · Posted: Tue May 17, 2005 5:46 pm Post subject:

Wow!

Thanks for the grammar lesson, guys.

Grammar feels like a cross between rocket science and political science- rocket science in its complexity and exactitude, and political science in its ambiguity.

Thanks for the correction on gerund- it seemed so right!

So, is the "ing" here a present participle (bare progressive)?

Interesting. Now I had better do some reading.

Okay, I've just looked again in Doing Grammar (p. 168) and it looks like that is exactly what it is. In fact the whole construction is shown there.

Thanks again, everyone.