On genitive antecedants.

Do you find anything grammatically incorrect about these sentences?

Newton's genius allowed him to deduce this law as the common explanation for why an apple drops to the ground and the moon orbits the earth.

http://celestrak.com/columns/v01n01/

Fortunately Enheduanna's genius allowed her to integrate the influx and indicate how others could cope with a similar potential catastrophe.

http://www.zyworld.com/DrBernardSButler/Clinical%20Aspects.htm
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"Grammar should not be articles of faith handed down to us from those on high who never split infinitives but always split hairs,"

Seem normal to me...

No, these are perfectly grammatical to my ears, both in my own dialect and in standard English.

In the second one, there should be a comma between "Fortunately" and "Enheduanna's".

I know they are correct indeed, but they do sound incorrect to my ears. I'm not a native speaker of English, though. But it's the same in French:

- La mère de Gegory lui a dit de se taire. (with "lui" = Gregory) (Gregory's mother told him to be quiet)

I can't say this sentence is incorrect because it is supposed to be correct. But to my ears this sentence is ruled out because "Gregory" is introduced indirectly, not mentioned beforet he occurrence of "mother".
Exactly the same thing with:

- Sa mère a dit à Gregory de se taire. (with "sa" = "Gregory") (His mother told Gregory to be quiet)

Because when I first read "sa mère" I don't know whose mother it is; then i read "Gregory" and for me it has to be someone else than Gregory. Even though they are to be accepted, these sentences are highly ungrammatical to my poor ears.

But Newton is first mentioned in this paragraph, Jeremy:

"Now, let's get down to the topic of this column: Orbital Propagation. Although the fundamental concepts of how objects move under gravitational attraction has been understood since the time of Isaac Newton"

Did you access the link provided?

MollyB is a name that I used to dread in the antimoon forum. This topic opens with the heading of "On genitive antecedants". But actually provides two sentences and asks if they are grammatically correct or not. So, the Topic is not discussing 'Genitive antecedants', whatever they might be.

I followed one of the links, the more obscure one about "Enheduanna's genius". The site that it comes from is about "C G Jung Australia".





Google: Did you mean: Genitive antecedents




The topic of "Genitive antecedents" is indeed obscure. There is very little on it in Google. However there is this:

"In the question the students were required to identify a grammatical error, if there was one, in a sentence. The sentence in question was as follows:

Toni Morrison’s genius enables her to create novels that arise from and express the injustice African Americans have endured.

The correct answer, as originally scored by ETS, was that there is no error in this sentence. Keegan disagreed, believing that the was an error in the pronoun her and its antecedent. According to Keegan, a pronoun cannot take a noun in the genitive case as its antecedent. Keegan cited several usage manuals backing up his claim."

http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/more/911/

So, this is a very obscure discussion. Perhaps it is best to discuss first what is meant by 'genitive' and 'antecedents'.

genetive:

Noun

1. (grammar) (uncountable) The genitive case; the inflection pattern (of any given language) that expresses origin or ownership and possession.
2. (grammar) (countable) A word inflected in the genitive case; a word indicating origin, ownership or possession.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/genitive


antecedents:

4 a: a preceding event, condition, or cause
b: plural : the significant events, conditions, and traits of one's earlier life

5 a: predecessor

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antecedents




TO CONCLUDE

In the words of Richard R. Hershberger, regular participant in the Wordorigins.org discussion group:

"I, on the other hand, find the whole affair rather inspirational. I still live in a country were a person can make up a rule of English and, through the sweat of his brow, get it accepted by a pseudo-authority."


http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/more/911/







So, this is an obscure discussion about an obscure grammatical subject that is barely relevant to English as it is spoken and written. To answer the original question, both examples are perfectly grammatical!


Personally I think that it is a big mistake to 'split hairs'. Far from being a sign of someone who is very clever. I think that it is a sign of someone who cannot tell the wood from the trees. Someone who has an academic interest in English but no real interest in English as it is spoken or written.

The only time I would have a problem with a genitive antecedent is when both nouns would take the same pronoun, since that leads to ambiguity. "Bob's mother crashed his car" is fine, but "Bob's father crashed his car" is not, as that leaves the reader wondering whether Bob's father crashed Bob's car, or whether Bob's father crashed Bob's father's car.

"I, on the other hand, find the whole affair rather inspirational. I still live in a country were a person can make up a rule of English and, through the sweat of his brow, get it accepted by a pseudo-authority."

Presumably the misspelling of "where" was introduced by the person quoting him.

<<Presumably the misspelling of "where" was introduced by the person quoting him. >>

If you look, the misspelling of 'where' was in the original quote. I just cut and pasted.



The point that I was trying to make was that grammatical rules are artificially created and argued about. Your example is actually a very good one, as it shows the need for a rule to avoid ambiguity. However in practice, if there was ambiguity, the listener would simply ask the speaker what he meant. In written English this option is not available so comprehensibility becomes more important.

<<Presumably the misspelling of "where" was introduced by the person quoting him. >>

I find the construction of this sentence a little bit odd. But don't worry, I know where you are coming from.

What I meant was that, presumably, Richard R. Hershberger said this verbally, and the writer of the article incorrectly transcribed the sentence. And grammatical rules are not completely artificial. Just because one "rule" was created by pedants does not mean all were.

<<So, this is an obscure discussion about an obscure grammatical subject that is barely relevant to English as it is spoken and written.>>
<<The point that I was trying to make was that grammatical rules are artificially created and argued about. Your example is actually a very good one, as it shows the need for a rule to avoid ambiguity. However in practice, if there was ambiguity, the listener would simply ask the speaker what he meant. In written English this option is not available so comprehensibility becomes more important. >>



More excuses from Robin Michael. You're not even a native speaker, who are you to tell us not to study IN DETAIL our native language? That's what linguists do. Sure for an ESLer it's not important, but people actually write tomes about this stuff, and not in vain either (well, who knows, but if it were for nothing why would people keep dishing out cash for people to study it?)


<<<<Personally I think that it is a big mistake to 'split hairs'. Far from being a sign of someone who is very clever. I think that it is a sign of someone who cannot tell the wood from the trees.>>


Splitting hairs is what keeps knowledge moving forward. Take what you know and dissect it down to the bare minimum and try and glean whatever minuscule hints you can about how it works at an even deeper level. Imagine if Newton had thought "hmm, an apple falling. Oh well, I guess stuff just falls. That's how it works! Ok, next!" instead of splitting his hairs and inventing a new world of physics and mathematics.


<<Someone who has an academic interest in English but no real interest in English as it is spoken or written. >>>>


What's wrong with that?

<<More excuses from Robin Michael. You're not even a native speaker, who are you to tell us not to study IN DETAIL our native language?>>


I find it interesting that you think that I am not a native speaker. I could quite easily arrange to meet up with Damian but I have no need to prove anything. As you know, people can make all sorts of absurd contributions to antimoon or even advertise Jordan shoes.

On coming back from a short holiday, I was really disappointed to see the poor level of content on antimoon. However now that I am back, find it easy to slip into the habit of contributing to antimoon again. So why do I do it. My partner is Polish and I find that I am interested English and in helping people to learn English. I would quite like to teach English as a Foreign Language and I am taking an interest in English grammar etc. I have got a book in front of me, Collins "Complete Writing Guide" which I will plod through when I have more time.

I am an English person living in Scotland. There is a linguistic debate going on in Scotland against a background of Scottish nationalism. I was rather disappointed that Damian did not make a more spirited defence of Scotland the brave under my topic heading "Why is Scotland shite?" If you read this you will read about my travels to the south of England and more recently Germany.

One of the links that I followed up was idiolect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideolect

<<

In linguistics, an idiolect is a variety of a language unique to an individual.

Every individual's language production is in some sense unique.

This view contrasts with a common view among non-linguists, especially in North America, that languages exist as ideal systems of grammar and vocabulary, and that individual usage derives from this external language system.

>>

One of the things that I object to in antimoon is people being rude and insulting. I have been surprised in the past that the Moderator has not been more active. On the other hand, you could argue that this is an example of free speech and that contributors have an opportunity to give as good as they get. The problem is the standard can sink to a very low level.

<<Someone who has an academic interest in English but no real interest in English as it is spoken or written. >>>>


My criticism of some of the learners of English as a Foreign Language is that they have very academic interest in English grammar and no interest in English culture as expressed in English spoken and written. I believe that one of the things that I can offer is an insight into English and indeed British life. That is why I have posted links before on the comedy "Little Britain".

I have noticed when I am studying 'English Grammar' that I sometimes wonder about the logical inconsistencies. But I think that the most important point to remember is that most speakers of English do not learn English grammar. Scottish people in particular defend the right to speak and write ungrammatically as part of their cultural heritage.

Still Game - Bar Banter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5-z4iMBFZA

Still Game: "Oot" Series 3 Episode 5 (part 1 of 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrvmTnnzuEY

When you realize your ambition and become a teacher of EFL, please advise all your students to contribute to Antimoon. It'll be a pleasure to read their posts.