[Grammar] What is the function of 'her' in the following sentence?

[TheLoneTEFLTeacher]

Hi all,

A new TEFL teacher to the forum here. I have a quetion that stumped me in class before, and I was wondering if you could help? Thanks.

One of my students had a test which included choosing whether of not a sentence required a verb in the present simple or present continuous. She correctly chose the present simple, but the 3rd person singular instead of the 3rd person plural for the following sentence:

Her favourite flowers ___(to be) lilies.

When we were discussing answers, I explained that it had to be the 3rd person plural instead of the 3rd person singular as both flowers and lilies were in the plural, and she asked why not the singular as the verb referred to the 'her. I explained that it did not in this case, and that the flowers were the subject of the verb, but I then found myself at a loss as to explain the function of the word 'her' in the sentence.

Is it a possessive adjective?

Thanks for the help, and I look forward to hanging round her a lot more in the near future.

 

[Tdol]

You're right- it's one person who has favourite flowers- the subject is flowers. Her is not the subject- it's a possessive adjective IMO.

One thing though- the her favourite fruit is/are apples/the apple example that does the language learning rounds may be behind the learner's confusion.

:up:

I look forward to hanging round her a lot more in the near future.

:crazyeye:

 

[TheLoneTEFLTeacher]

You're right- it's one person who has favourite flowers- the subject is flowers. Her is not the subject- it's a possessive adjective IMO.

One thing though- the her favourite fruit is/are apples/the apple example that does the language learning rounds may be behind the learner's confusion.

:up:

:crazyeye:

Oops! Typo alert! I'm making myself look REALLY good as an English teacher on here! :loling:

Thanks for the help. I shall inform my student of yet another subject area to be studied! ;-) :loling:

 

[Tdol]

Oops! Typo alert! I'm making myself look REALLY good as an English teacher on here!

Just enjoying a rare occasion when it wasn't my typo. :-D

 

[emsr2d2]

Re: Charts I need help please!!

The chart illustrates the diferent levels of post-school qualifications in Australia and the proportion of men and women who held them in 1999.
Firstly we can see that men have 90%, and women have 10% from the lowest qualification witch is skilled vocational diploma.
Secondly as we can see from the second deegre with the name Undergraduate diploma the women have 75% and men have 25%. Also Barchelor's degree witch is the the third qualification shows that the women have 55% and the boys have 45%.
The last 2 highest qualifications are Postgraduate diploma and Master's diploma. the second highest has 75% of men and 25%of women and the first highest has 60% of men and 40%of women.
To sum up, the chart shows that the men choose the lowest qualification and also the highest qualification. On the other hand the women choose the middle qualifications.



Is that correct in grammar and also in vocabulary?? Thanks

Moderators - I believe a troll alert may be in order. This post has been tagged on to the bottom of two other threads.

 

[bhaisahab]

Re: Charts I need help please!!

Moderators - I believe a troll alert may be in order. This post has been tagged on to the bottom of two other threads.

I've deleted the duplicates.