People are told to follow in the footsteps

[wrongnumber]

"People are told to follow in the footsteps of Jesus; to shape their behavior upon his. Ethical leaders hold before their followers his consecration to duty as he saw it."

Could you please tell me what his and he and as he saw it refer to in the second sentence ?

 

[emsr2d2]

Before we answer, you must tell us where you found that quote and who wrote it. This is a legal requirement on the forum due to copyright laws.

 

[Tarheel]

Say:

Could you please tell me what "his" and "he" refer to in the second sentence?

 

[BobK]

Say:

Could you please tell me what "his" and "he" refer to in the second sentence?

@wrongnumber Note that the quotation marks make it clear what you are asking about - the quoted words.

In answer to your question, 'he' and 'his' refer to Jesus. 50 years ago, when I was into this stuff, believers would have written 'He' and 'His'; I imagine they still do.

 

[wrongnumber]

The texts are from the book titled The Art of Selfishness by David Seabury.
Both his and he are not in capital letters as in the book.

 

[probus]

I have edited the immediately preceding post to add the author's name, which is required. The title alone does not suffice.

 

[jutfrank]

They all refer to Jesus. Who else did you think it could be?

 

[Tarheel]

They all refer to Jesus. Who else did you think it could be?

I could have said that, but I wasn't supposed to. 🫤

 

[jutfrank]

I could have said that, but I wasn't supposed to. 🫤

We have the source information now so I thought it was fine to go ahead and answer.

 

[wrongnumber]

@wrongnumber Note that the quotation marks make it clear what you are asking about - the quoted words.

In answer to your question, 'he' and 'his' refer to Jesus. 50 years ago, when I was into this stuff, believers would have written 'He' and 'His'. imagine

 

[wrongnumber]

I could have said that, but I wasn't supposed to. 🫤

I thought that ‘he’ and ‘his’ refer to the individual leaders.

 

[emsr2d2]

"People are told to follow in the footsteps of Jesus; to shape their behavior upon the behavior of Jesus. Ethical leaders hold before their followers Jesus' consecration to duty as Jesus saw it."

Could you please tell me what his and he and as he saw it refer to in the second sentence ?

In bold above, I've replaced those words with what they refer to.

 

[Tarheel]

I thought that ‘he’ and ‘his’ refer to the individual leaders.

What name appears in the first sentence?

Suppose we change the name.

People are told to follow in the footsteps of John, to shape their behavior upon the behavior of John. Ethical leaders hold before their followers his consecration to duty as he saw it.

What does "his" and "he" refer to?

 

[wrongnumber]

I got your point.
But what confuses me is how to tell 'his' and 'he' refer to John not individual leaders. In order words, what words can be used to replace 'he' and 'his' in order to make these pronouns to refer to individual leaders,for example they and their respectively?

I am asking this to know the logic behind the surface problem to distinquish a similar pronoun reference on my own in the future.

 

[Tarheel]

The word "their" refers to the leaders. You already have a word that does that. As for "he" and "his", there is no way they could refer to "leaders" if only because that is plural and "he" and "his" are singular.

 

[jutfrank]

But what confuses me is how to tell 'his' and 'he' refer to John not individual leaders.

In this case, the first place to start is with the grammatical number. The words he and his apply only to a single person whereas the noun leaders is plural. This alone is enough to rule out any reference between them.



[cross-posted—Sorry, Tarheel, I didn't notice your answer until just now]

 

[BobK]

Aha Perhaps @wrongnumbner's mother tongue doesn't distinguish between third persons sing/plural e.g son/sa/ses, suo/sua/su(i? my Italian's a bit sketchy), su/sus, seu/sua/seus/suas.... - they all mean "his", "her" or "their", and they agree with the number of the thing/s possessed. English isn't like that.