his another boy

[eeshu]

Can I say "His another boy is in catering business." or should I say "Another boy of his is in catering business"?

 

[Khosro]

Can I say "His another boy is in catering business." or should I say "Another boy of his is in catering business"?

"his other son" and "another son of his". Your second sentence is correct. If you say "his other son is in ..." it sounds like he has only two son.

 

[BobK]

:up: Note that 'other' here needs only one determiner, specifically 'his' or 'an'. I you use 'an' you join it to the 'other' to form a single word. So 'his another' in any plausible context is wrong. (The words might occur together in that order if someone thought he was giving too much information and started to say 'his <object>' and thought better of it: 'He was taking his... another suitcase...'

b

 

[eeshu]

:up: Note that 'other' here needs only one determiner, specifically 'his' or 'an'. I you use 'an' you join it to the 'other' to form a single word. So 'his another' in any plausible context is wrong. (The words might occur together in that order if someone thought he was giving too much information and started to say 'his <object>' and thought better of it: 'He was taking his... another suitcase...'

b

"his other son" and "another son of his". Your second sentence is correct. If you say "his other son is in ..." it sounds like he has only two son.

I did agree with you two until I reread Quirk et al.'s "A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language" today and learned that personal pronouns like "his", "my" etc. belong in the central determiner category, while general ordinals like "another" belong in the postdeterminer category. According to his research, central determiners can cooccur with and usually precede postdeterminers. That is, theoretically "his another son" is a permissible concatenation.

As you two also regarded such cooccurrences as of erroneous use, I then googled "his another *". Much to my surprise, I find many hits. I then followed it up with some reputable newspapers in case google findings are not reliable. Again I find the following sentences (I might have done even better if I could get access to large corpora like the BNC.):

1. He was working on his another book, Too Much Money, at the time of his death from cancer. ("The Times", 28 August 2009)
2. Pennock injured his another pitcher's battle from Cleveland pitching hand when he stopped a line drive by Sewell and had to retire. ("The New York Times", 16 July 1921)

So, how would you explain the above two? Personal idiosyncrasy?

 

[Coolfootluke]

He was working on his another book, Too Much Money, at the time of his death from cancer. ("The Times", 28 August 2009)

1. Pennock injured his another pitcher's battle from Cleveland pitching hand when he stopped a line drive by Sewell and had to retire. ("The New York Times", 16 July 1921)

So, how would you explain the above two? Personal idiosyncrasy?

I am not a teacher.

The first one is a mystery. It is not English. The writer meant "working on his next book" or "working on another book". My guess is that he changed his mind after writing the one and forgot to remove the other.

The next one is some sort of cut-and-paste error. The words "another pitcher's battle from Cleveland" do not belong there. They sound suspiciously like a title or headline.

"His another noun" is not possible, no matter how much analysis anyone applies to the question.

 

[birdeen's call]

In case anybody read my previous post, I deleted it because I started to doubt if I wrote the truth.

 

[BobK]

I did agree with you two until I reread Quirk et al.'s "A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language" today and learned that personal pronouns like "his", "my" etc. belong in the central determiner category, while general ordinals like "another" belong in the postdeterminer category. According to his research, central determiners can cooccur with and usually precede postdeterminers. That is, theoretically "his another son" is a permissible concatenation.

As you two also regarded such cooccurrences as of erroneous use, I then googled "his another *". Much to my surprise, I find many hits. I then followed it up with some reputable newspapers in case google findings are not reliable. Again I find the following sentences (I might have done even better if I could get access to large corpora like the BNC.):

1. He was working on his another book, Too Much Money, at the time of his death from cancer. ("The Times", 28 August 2009)
2. Pennock injured his another pitcher's battle from Cleveland pitching hand when he stopped a line drive by Sewell and had to retire. ("The New York Times", 16 July 1921)

So, how would you explain the above two? Personal idiosyncrasy?

'Theoretically' ;-) I'd guess that those two newspaper occurrences are simple typoes, resulting from hasty editing - a bit like the spoken case I mentioned.

b

PS Possible scenario leading to such typoes:

In the first one, perhaps the original text was 'his <ordinal> book'; maybe the writer didn't have time to check, couldn't be sure it was his Nth book, and hastily substituted 'another' - overlooking the 'his'. (20 years' technical writing - having to incorporate comments from dozens of people with an impossible deadline - makes this sort of slip very familiar to me!)

 

[eeshu]

Thank you all so much. Now I'm 100% sure that "his another noun" is absolutely wrong no matter what.
BTW, Coolfootluke, I like your defiant tone "no matter how much analysis anyone applies to the question.":lol: