a/the friend of my father's who

[2006]

Originally Posted by Raymott

I don't know whose post you're referring to, but you could at least engage with the argument.
A friend of your father's acquaintance?

So, do you say "a friend of mine"? A friend of my what?

It's the post prior to my last one, and there is nothing to engage. We are not talking about "my" and "mine", which is clear enough.
"father('s)" is a different topic, and in my opinion "a friend of my father's" is illogical.
Do you say "a friend of my father's"?

[engee30]

Originally Posted by 2006

nonsense

a friend of your father's what?

As far as I know, anything that one cannot understand and accept is nonsense.

Originally Posted by 2006

... and in my opinion "a friend of my father's" is illogical.

Something about double genetives:

..... a friend of Bertha's is certainly preferable to a friend of Bertha. The situation looks less clear when the associative noun is not proper: a friend of the family seems not to differ in acceptability from a friend of the family's, though the latter is probably more idiomatic. In some cases, however, a meaning difference seems to emerge between the periphrastic associative and the combined associative with proper noun associatives:

(a) several students of Chomsky PERIPHRASTIC ASSOCIATIVE
(b) several students of Chomsky's COMBINED ASSOCIATIVE

(b) seems to imply that the students actually study with Chomsky in his department, while (a) seems to imply that they study Chomsky's works but do not study with him personally. Said of people now living, several students of Aristotle is quite acceptable, but several students of Aristotle's sounds distinctly odd. This difference seems to follow from the requirement that the associative noun in the combined associative be a human noun. As a result we interpret Chomsky's in (b) as referring to the man himself, but no such requirement holds for the periphrastic associative, so in opposition to (b), (a) is interpreted as referring to Chomsky's works.

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by 2006

It's the post prior to my last one, and there is nothing to engage. We are not talking about "my" and "mine", which is clear enough.
"father('s)" is a different topic, and in my opinion "a friend of my father's" is illogical.
Do you say "a friend of my father's"?

No, you answer my question first.
We are also not talking about logic; we're talking about language, specifically English in this case.

[2006]

Originally Posted by Raymott

I don't know whose post you're referring to, but you could at least engage with the argument.
A friend of your father's acquaintance?

So, do you say "a friend of mine"?
A friend of my what?

Yes, I say 'a friend of mine/his/hers'. As English has these possessive pronouns we use them. (and that's why we don't say things like 'a friend of me')

But the question here is about a noun, "father".
Of course we say "my father's friend", but when we change the grammar should we say "friend of my father" or "friend of my father's"?

My assertion is that it is questionable to say "friend of my father's" when there is no noun following "father's".
Of course if "friend of my father's" is widely used in British English, I am sure that nothing I say here will change that.

But would British speakers also say, and maybe you don't know the answer to this, things like the following?

coach of my team's (instead of 'coach of my team')
president of the company's (instead of 'president of the company')

[Barb_D]

Are you saying you have never seen this double genitive before?

A friend of Laura's.

A favorite of my sister's.

An old trick of Peter's.

It's very common usage, and I'm surprised to see you insist it's wrong.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/54/D0355435.html
http://www.novalearn.com/grammar-glo...e-genitive.htm
http://www.aolsvc.merriam-webster.ao...ble%20genitive
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29...EGENITIVE.html

[2006]

Originally Posted by Barb_D

Are you saying you have never seen this double genitive before?

A friend of Laura's.


It's very common usage, and I'm surprised to see you insist it's wrong.

Something common can sound correct, but I can only repeat that I think it's strange grammar and illogical.

It can also lead to confusion or misunderstanding. If you hear someone say "president of the company's", are they talking about one company or more than one?
Because if you say "friend of Laura's", you should say "president of the company's".

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by 2006

Yes, I say 'a friend of mine/his/hers'. As English has these possessive pronouns we use them. (and that's why we don't say things like 'a friend of me')

But the question here is about a noun, "father".
Of course we say "my father's friend", but when we change the grammar should we say "friend of my father" or "friend of my father's"?

My assertion is that it is questionable to say "friend of my father's" when there is no noun following "father's".
Of course if "friend of my father's" is widely used in British English, I am sure that nothing I say here will change that.

But would British speakers also say, and maybe you don't know the answer to this, things like the following?

coach of my team's (instead of 'coach of my team')
president of the company's (instead of 'president of the company')

Yes, I do say "a friend of my father's". This is normal in Australia.
I asked about "a friend of mine" because you seemed concerned about the logic (and because you dismissed engee's argument as nonsense). But it's the same construction -- a friend of my [possessive term].
You have to agree that there is no logic in using "a friend of mine" for "a friend of me"; and that saying that the word is already there merely invites a response that " 'father's' is already there as well".

I won't bother refuting it, but your argument that "a friend of mine" is OK, and "a friend of my father's" is not, is not logical. In both cases, you're using a possessive pronoun or noun where you'd expect to use a word in the dative case - "a friend of me, a friend of my father".
The reason I won't make a logic argument out of it, is that, as I implied last time, it's a question of language, not logic.

[Raymott]

Originally Posted by 2006

Because if you say "friend of Laura's", you should say "president of the company's".

See, this is a good example of the difference between language and logic.
Language is for communication - to transmit an idea faithfully from someone's mind to another's.
Yet, you are suggesting that if you say "a friend of Laura's" (which is not ambiguous), you should, by the laws of logic (analogy, perhaps, though that is not exactly a law), say "a president of the company's" (which is ambiguous), rather than following a less consistent rule, but one more fitting to communication, language.
You want logic at the cost of misunderstanding. That is never what language has been about.

[Barb_D]

Yes, common does not necessarily mean correct, but if you'd read any of the links you'd see that the double genitive has a role in standard English.

I'm quite surprised you claim to have never experienced this usage before.

I won't argue about it any longer - if you don't like it, don't use it, but don't tell others that it's incorrect.

[naomimalan]

Originally Posted by Barb_D

Yes, common does not necessarily mean correct, but if you'd read any of the links you'd see that the double genitive has a role in standard English.

I'm quite surprised you claim to have never experienced this usage before.

I won't argue about it any longer - if you don't like it, don't use it, but don't tell others that it's incorrect.

I wholeheartedly agree. In any case, this same subject was discussed in this forum about six months ago. The exchange became so heated (like this one) that I finally appealed to the moderators to settle the dispute. One did (I can't remember who), saying - surprisingly enough - that both were acceptable.

Anyway, we've moved away from the original question in this thread:

He was a/the friend of my father's who had introduced him to my mother, years ago, in London.

Are both a and the fine for this sentence? Which is better? Any difference?

If you use a, you are giving the listener/reader new information in the relative clause: He/she didn't know that the friend had introduced the father to the mother.

If you use the, you are reminding the listener/reader (in the relative clause) about something he/she already knew (he/she already knew that the father and mother had been introduced to each other by the friend in question)*.

MALAN, N., La proposition relative en anglais contemporain. Une approche pragmatique. Gap/Paris, Ophrys, 1999.