Which is correct?
or
I’m assuming that ESL book is one you are using to teach others, but that you yourself are a native speaker of English. In which case, here’s the first response most grammar questions of this sort should receive: You’re a native speaker of at least one dialect of English. You should be able to determine a great deal about the facts for that one by just reflecting upon your own natural speech and that of your peers. (The facts may be that both are acceptable, perhaps with some differences in meaning (or perhaps without)).
My intuition, as a speaker of American English, is that 1) is much more natural than 2) [but that “prevented him from coming” is just as good]. Some quick Googling seems to support the hypothesis that the construction found in 2) is almost entirely limited to British publications.
Yes, I’m a native speaker teaching English. My Google searches support the possessive pronoun, but note that it’s a rule often broken. Where did you find the cite about British publications? Is it not a rule for them, or do they just break it more often?
I’m British and no 2 sounds more natural to me, although both are fine.
ETA On second glance “prevented him from coming” sounds best to my ear.
“Prevented his coming” is technically correct according to grammar Nazis like myself, though most folks now say it doesn’t matter. The “him coming” form is called, if memory serves, a fused participle.
Let me see… yup, here we go:
My comments above were more narrowly drawn than the topic of fused participles in general; it is specifically the construction “prevent him ing” which seems to be something of a Britishism (Google it and see where the hits come from, and then try some variants as a control. While at least somewhat empirical, I’ll admit this isn’t the most rigorous scientific method, and the impressions I am drawing are probably influenced by unconscious biases of mine (the main drawback of starting off from linguistic introspection), so I am open to criticism, education, and suggestions for improvement).
I was going to offer my suggestions, but a loose parenthesis fell off and lodged in my eye, and now I’m off to hospital. Cheerio!
Oh. Immigration. Nevermind then…
I remember discussing this point in a linguistics course I was sitting in on. The general principle is that the possessive is used to mark either the subject or object of a verbal noun. Consider the phrase, “the army’s destruction by/of the enemy”. However, in many contexts, especially with pronouns, this rule seems to be losing force. In any case, the class split over the question of which they would use. In the present case, I would prefer “prevent him from coming” over either.
I think the difference may be the tenses.
Subtle difference, but maybe it depends on the context.
I’m not a grammar Nazi, but #2 is simply jarring. At least in writing. In spoken speech, I wouldn’t utter it, nor would I cringe upon hearing it. But seeing it in non-idiomatic writing causes an itch I can’t scratch.
What was prevented? “Him”? Or “His coming”? You can’t say that “he was prevented.” You don’t prevent people, but rather events, which in this case is his coming.
The difference depends on what you are trying to say.
#1 stresses “coming.” It implies that there is a blanket rule. “Coming into the country” is what’s being prevented.
#2 stresses him. It implies there is a reason they are singling out him. It’s a gloss from “The immigration officials prevented him [from] coming into the country.”
So the answer depends on what you want to stress in the sentence, not the rules of grammar.
OK, got something,
“his coming into the country” is a noun-phrase.
and “him coming into the country” is a adverb- phrase.
…although neither supports the ESL book answer.
Thank you.
On a related note, “prevent from” has always sounded clunky to me. I feel like you can prevent something, or you can keep it from happening, but you can’t prevent it from happening.
I can’t prove this, though. It just seems like the “from” is redundant. Once you’ve decided to “prevent explosions,” it doesn’t seem necessary to “prevent explosions from happening.”
They’re both awkward. Wouldn’t ‘prevented his entry’ be better than ‘prevented his coming’?
Of course, that doesn’t answer the technical question (others have anyway), but shouldn’t a writing guide coach against awkwardness as well as promoting correctness?
Just goes to show that prescriptivism isn’t nearly the cohesive system of right and wrong that its proponents claim it to be. I mean, the guy’s cite is “Still sounds too casual? Get over it.” Come on.
I grew up with “prevent him coming” which I always assumed was a contraction of “preventing him from coming”. It seemed right to me because I [subject] was preventing him[object].
Then upon moving to Australia I was accosted by a grammar Nazi while writing some reports. Apparently, the object in this sentence is the “coming”, and the “his” is the correct possessive pronoun for the object. Still sounds meh to me, but I have conformed for formal writing. In speech I say what I want.
The missing “from” is why I wouldn’t worry about it in spoken speech. I’d understand that it’s a contraction. In spoken speech, there’s no visual representation of a contraction. When written, though, of the two examples in the OP, number two sucks. Yes, I understand that we’re assuming a “from”; but when writing, there’s no excuse – other than quoting or other idiomatic use – to eliminate the “from.”