1

I can't get this lyric out of my head:

when the man you've scripted's hands are lifted to the sky

— Darwin Deez, "Free"

It seems so grammatically wrong, but I'm not sure. I can't pinpoint what parts of speech everything is; "you have scripted" could be the adjective describing the man, but this adjective in itself is a past participle phrase, and can a phrase like that inherit the possessive (apostrophe + s) in that manner?

Community
  • 1
armani
  • 119
  • 2
    The possessive -'s is actually a *Clitic*, not an inflection. A clitic is a little word or affix that has to attach to a particular word in the sentence or phrase, which may not be what it's really referring to. In English this has happened to the possessive, which now goes at the end of the noun phrase, which may be the head noun, but which may be (as here) the end of relative clause (that) you've scripted modifying the head noun man. Yes, it is weird, and yes, it is grammatical. Similar remarks apply to the King of Denmark's mistress and lots of others. – John Lawler Sep 11 '15 at 18:40
  • 1
    Yeah, today the possessive always comes at the end of the noun phrase. Post-nominal adjectives also illustrate this phenomenon. Consider "god almighty's", "the heir apparent's responsibility", and "time immemorial's terrible flow". – DyingIsFun Sep 11 '15 at 18:50
  • It’s not possible for “you have scripted” to be an adjective: it’s more than one word. It’s a right-branching clause modifying man. That does not make it an adjective. – tchrist Sep 11 '15 at 18:56
  • Yeah, those are the adjectives that go after the noun they modify. Like relative clauses. – John Lawler Sep 11 '15 at 18:57
  • It may be grammatical, but if it is good style is another question. – rogermue Sep 12 '15 at 03:55

1 Answers1

2

In your example,

[...] when the man you've scripted's hands are lifted to the sky...

"the man you've scripted's hands" is the NP subject of the predicate "are lifted to the sky". That NP has a definite determiner, comparable to "the", which is "the man you've scripted's". This determiner consists of a NP with "'s" attached, and that NP is "the man you've scripted".

The structure of this NP is determiner ("the") plus noun ("man") plus noun modifier ("you've scripted") [but see note]. The noun modifier is a reduced relative clause, "you've scripted", reduced from "which you've scripted". The relative clause is from a sentence "you've scripted which" by preposing the "which" relative pronoun.

Notes: McCawley (my standard reference is his The Syntactic Phenomena of English) counts the noun and modifying relative clause together as a N-bar constituent.

The "which" of the relative clause isn't necessarily preposed before being deleted.

Greg Lee
  • 17,406