Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Detail #420: Ambiguous Reference with Possessive Pronouns

English has some ambiguity with its possessive pronouns, but the level of ambiguity could be taken to a weirder level in this way:

reflexive third person ownership or other third person referent: singular possessive pronoun

Thus "he sees his house" can have 'his' either be reflexive or not, but "they see his house" also can signify reflexive possession.

reciprocal ownership uses a third person plural possessive pronoun

Thus "they see their house" can mean 'they see some other persons' houses' or 'they see each other's houses'.

I don't think this kind of idea is entirely unrealistic.

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