The Genitive case with a present participle?

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How do you determine when to use the genitive case with a participle and when not to?

Here are two examples based on my understanding of the Chicago Manual of Style (which is at my office, so I cannot quote directly Sad

).

"He was impressed by Charles's having been there."

Note the genitive case in the word "Charles."

vs.

"He was happy to see Carrie reading the book."

I imagine

"He was impressed by Carrie's reading of the book" would be correct with "Carrie" in the genitive, but I don't really understand why, and often I cannot tell when to use the genitive with a participle and when not to.

Help, please. Thanks.

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Dupre, I've got the CMS right in front of me. Here's what it says:

Charles's having been there.

In this example, the genitive Charles's "possesses" the gerund having. Should the following word be a participle. or gerundive, however--that is, a verb form used as an adjective--the case is not the genitive and the apostrophe and s are not used.

Peter was annoyed by Carrie's reading the letter.

But

Max was delighted to see Carrie reading the letter.

So it boils down to noun vs. adjective. Possessive with noun; no possessive with adjective.

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Thanks. I think I've got it now.

What a hassle. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the verb form is functioning in the sentence as a noun or as an adjective.

I appreciate your specific response.

Thanks, again!

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You know, this is the stuff that gives me flashbacks to my days in Catholic school with Sister Attila "the Nun". Wed have to do things like diagram sentences and worry about this kind of thing . To this day I wake up at night in a sweat until I realize Im out free.

"He was glad to see Charles" or did he just have a banana in his pocke?t

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HaHaHaHaHa!!!!!! Attila the Nun!!!!!!!!!

It was an Episcopal school for me: a one Mrs. Hore, Mistress of English.

The stories I could tell . . .

A speaking of bananas . . . I got fed up in etiquette class and threw one across the room.

Had to kneel in the hall for that one.

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I never learned any of this stuff in school. My knowledge, and lack thereof, of English I got on the job. I have little knowledge of what things in grammar are called. Genitive? Never hoid of it.

The job sparked an interest. And it gave me practical understanding of the language.

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Roberta, I'm with you. Jobs in typesetting, proofreading, copyediting, and an odd enjoyment in just reading the CMS at lunchtime... I'm fairly fluent.

I've even hoid of genitive case. And nominative, and dative. Latin has them all and in Latin, there's a difference in the words used. Grammarians tried to force English to behave like Latin, and so certain usages are "genitive" even tho, in English, there's no way to tell by the words themselves... confoosin', if you ask me.

Kinda like the "split infinitive" -- it's been declared outlaw in proper English, because it's not proper in Latin. But in Latin, the infinitive form is one word -- it can't be split!

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Wy, Split infinitives are no longer no-nos. Avoiding them makes things too awkward.

I never studied Latin. Never studied grammar. Never studied geography. I don't know nuttin'.

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Quote:

Using Possessives with Gerunds
Do we say "I can't stand him singing in the shower," or do we say "I can't stand his singing in the shower"? Well, you have to decide what you find objectionable: is it him, the fact that he is singing in the shower, or is it the singing that is being done by him that you can't stand? Chances are, it's the latter, it's the singing that belongs to him that bugs you. So we would say, "I can't stand his singing in the shower."

On the other hand, do we say "I noticed your standing in the alley last night"? Probably not, because it's not the action that we noticed; it's the person. So we'd say and write, instead, "I noticed you standing in the alley last night." Usually, however, when a noun or pronoun precedes a gerund, that noun or pronoun takes a possessive form. This is especially true of formal, academic writing.

There are exceptions to this. (What would the study of language be without exceptions?)

When the noun preceding the gerund is modified by other words, use the common form of that noun, not the possessive.
Federico was pleased by Carlos's making the Dean's List for the first time.
but
Federico was pleased by Carlos, his oldest son, making the Dean's List for the first time.

When the noun preceding the gerund is plural, collective, or abstract, use the common form of that noun, not the possessive.

Professor Villa was amazed by her students working as hard as they did.
The class working collaboratively was somebody else's idea.
It was a case of old age getting the better of them.
There are certain situations in which the possessive and the gerund create an awkward combination. This seems to be particularly true when indefinite pronouns are involved.

I was shocked by somebody's making that remark.
This would be greatly improved by saying, instead . . .

I was shocked that somebody would make that remark.
This is also true when the "owner" of the gerund comes wrapped in a noun phrase:

I was thankful for the guy next door shoveling snow from my driveway

.

Source to follow.

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Hi. The above should've been in a box as a quote. Sad

It comes right off Charles Darling's web site, an excellent online guide to English usage.

http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/gerunds.htm#possessive

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Thanks, Dupre. Good advice--and practical.

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It's the exceptions that make me cringe. Maybe I altered someone's words in proofs, when the modifying noun was plural.

Yeeikes!

Oh well, live and learn. . . .

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Don't worry about that kind of stuff. It happens. In the long run, the mistakes you correct far outweigh the few mistakes you make.

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What a comfort.

I'm picking up my red pencil again . . .

Thanks.

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The Genitive case with a present participle?

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