without it / its being fully assembled

[HaraKiriBlade]

My English teacher gave the class the following sentence as the correction to an ungrammatical sentence: "Do not sit in a chair without it being fully assembled"

I then asked her if I could substitute "it" with "its". She thought for a while and said no. I didn't argue further because, who am I to argue with an English teacher about English?

Well, given that my suggestion of 'its' is wrong, could you explain why it is wrong? it's just that I've seen other similar constructions with the possessive and her correction conflicts with my own lexicon. Explaining this would help me a lot.

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by HaraKiriBlade

My English teacher gave the class the following sentence as the correction to an ungrammatical sentence: "Do not sit in a chair without it being fully assembled"

I then asked her if I could substitute "it" with "its". She thought for a while and said no. I didn't argue further because, who am I to argue with an English teacher about English?

Well, given that my suggestion of 'its' is wrong, could you explain why it is wrong? it's just that I've seen other similar constructions with the possessive and her correction conflicts with my own lexicon. Explaining this would help me a lot.

Your teacher was wrong. This area of English has been discussed many times, but it is important. "Without" is a preposition, so it must have a noun or pronoun as its object. In this construction, one has two choices:

its being fully assembled = possessive adjective-gerund (noun)-adverb-predicate adjective (complement of the linking gerund)

it being fully assembled = pronoun-participle (adjective)-adverb-predicate adjective (complement of the linking participle)

Traditionally, the first construction has been preferred. It has not been that long that the second construction has achieved any degree of respectability at all.

By the way, while I often prefer the second type, I prefer the gerund form in this sentence.

Teachers can make mistakes. Don't be too hard on him/her (unless it becomes a habit).

[Tdol]

Mind you, it's still an ugly sentence either way.

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by Tdol

Mind you, it's still an ugly sentence either way.