Grammatical pattern: VERB + POSSESSIVE ADJ + GERUND

In the sentence “We appreciated Sam’s being honest with us,” the verb is “appreciated,” the possessive adjective is “Sam’s,” and the gerund is “being.” This pattern is really the same as the general pattern [VERB + GERUND], but the pattern here includes a word that is the agent of the verbal idea expressed in the gerund; that is, the person or thing doing the action expressed by that word.

In sentences such as “I like to eat” and “I enjoy eating,” the person doing the eating is the same person who “likes” or “enjoys.”  However, sometimes we want the doer of the second action to be somebody else, as in “She wants him to get into medical school,” “They celebrated my sister’s getting into medical school.” In the first example, the doer of the action expressed by the infinitive is “him.”  In the second case, the case of the gerund, the doer of the action (getting into medical school) is expressed by the possessive form “my sister’s.”  The reason for using the possessive adjective before the gerund is that, grammatically, a gerund is a noun, and, therefore, it technically needs to be modified by an adjective.

Any verb that is followed by a gerund can have an inserted “subject” before the gerund. This subject should, technically speaking, be in the form of a possessive adjective (e.g, “my,” “his,” “our,” “someone’s,” “John’s,” “the dog’s”). However, this is not a pattern that all English speakers feel comfortable using, or at least they are not comfortable using it in every case that strict grammar might dictate. Very often, in ordinary speech, a simple object pronoun (or ordinary noun) is inserted instead of the possessive form; e.g., “We appreciated them telling us the truth,”  “I was going to suggest everybody letting us know by Friday,” “They prevented the suspect leaving the building.” This is particularly common when the subject of the gerund is somewhat long. (For further discussion of this issue, see POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE in the Grammatical Patterns Glossary.)

Again, any verb following the pattern [VERB + GERUND] can potentially have an inserted “subject” for the gerund.  However, we list the pattern [VERB + POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE + GERUND] for verbs where the occurrence of an inserted possessive adjective is fairly common in ordinary speech and writing.

Verbs that follow the pattern [VERB + POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE + GERUND]

anticipate, appreciate, bear, celebrate, defend, despise, dislike, dread, endure, entail, excuse, forgive, involve, justify, like, mean, necessitate, pardon, prevent, recollect, save, stand, tolerate

Additional examples of the pattern [VERB + POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE + GERUND]

The police prevented their leaving the building.

This job entails your making several trips overseas each year.

I dreaded his asking me about the incident.

She had not anticipated their arriving so early.

I cannot defend my son’s acting this way.

Doing this now will save my having to do it next week when I’ll be much busier.