Possessive or accusative?

[Anonymous]

What's the logic in all this...
I remember him going there
and
I rememer his going there

I regretted his doing that
but not
I regretted him doing that

It seems that quite a few verbs won't accept him as an alternative to his

 

[Tdol]

Because the gerund is a kind of noun, the grammatical choice of purists is the possessive, but the majority don't seem to have picked up on this. I'd say they're both fine. I use both, but many only use one. You could call the possessive more formal. ;-)

 

[Casiopea]

What tdol said plus this,

you can remember a person, so 'remember him doing something' is often heard. But, since you can't regret a person, 'regrert his doing something' is always heard. Whether or not a given verb takes a pronoun or gerund depends on the verb's meaning.

All the best,

 

[Tdol]

It's a pity we can't regret a person-there are some people we should be allowed to regret. ;-)