English Language & Usage Asked by marq on December 18, 2020
When a compound possessive is formed with "and," I think the rule is that both terms become possessive when there are multiple separate objects that are owned, as in "John’s and Dave’s cars" (John’s car and Dave’s car). Only the last term becomes possessive when you’re talking about a shared object, as in "John and Dave’s house" (one house where John and Dave both live).
Is there a similar rule with "or"? Like is there a difference between saying "That house on the left is either John or Dave’s house" versus saying "That house on the left is either John’s or Dave’s house"?
The same rule would normally apply, except that the following doesn't make any sense:
Because of the rule, that is expressing joint ownership of the house between the two people; however, you can't have any kind of joint ownership in that sentence—unless you interpret the or as being inclusive and only referring to the situation where both are true. But I've never seen or used in that way, and it would be identical to and anyway.
In order to use or, and have it make sense, you would need to use one of the following:
Or, if you want to include the possibility of an inclusive or, you could add that explicitly:
The use of either (or both) in various places in these sentences is also possible. They might provide clarity, but they aren't essential.
Correct answer by Jason Bassford on December 18, 2020
is a deleted form and absolutely standard.
is of the same form as
and is illogical in structure, and not a permitted deletion.
.............
There is a situation we can contrive where ownership of the house is known to be in question, where say John and Dave are arguing over ownership in court:
(we don't know if it's Sue's, or the one whose ownership is being disputed).
Answered by Edwin Ashworth on December 18, 2020
Get help from others!
Recent Answers
Recent Questions
© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP