Gizmos grammar thread.

[mothy]

I used to think every problem in english education in Japan came from how it's taught in junior high school. Then I taught at jhs. Now I know it's their fault.

[Jiggit]

I feel pretty dumb about this one but:

This is a book whose author is unknown
This is a girl whose hair is brown.
This is a house whose roof is red.

Why are the first two acceptable but not the third? I know it's something about being a possessive relative pronoun but I can't think how to explain it.

[Gizmotech]

No, there's nothing wrong with third, except we would prefer to say "with the red roof" because we want to compress into modifiers rather than subordinate sentences.

[Jiggit]

Seriously? It sounds incredibly wrong. I usually don't go by that kind of argument but in this case... My gorge rises at it!

I can't find any online using two objects, except for in Japanese language explanations. It's always a person or animal of some sort.

[Gizmotech]

We have no other possessive tool for that, but I can totally understand if you've programmed yourself out of doing it.

[Jiggit]

Yeah I suppose it makes sense considering I couldn't think of a reason why. God knows why they feel they have to test on this stuff.