Why word 'my' has pos=adj, not pron?

[[e-mail]]

When I pass the sentence:
But my efforts to win his heart have failed
through relex-1.2.0 I get this for the word 'my':
pos=adj possessive_flag=T gend=person

Why pos=adj? 'my' is a pronoun in a possessive form.

-- jerry

[linas (linasvepstas)]

Is it? That doesn't seem to be the consensus after a quick google:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/my

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. says:
my (m)
adj. The possessive form of I1.

while Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006 says:
my [maɪ]
determiner

Kernerman English Learner’s Dictionary © 1986-2008
my
adj my [mai]
of or belonging to me

Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2005 by Wiley Publishing, Inc.
my (mī)
possessive pronominal adjective

OK, so websters is the most refined: its an adjective of pronomial type ...

The english-as-a-second-language sites call this a possesive adjective:
Its a Possessive Adjective:
http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/possessive-adjective.html
which is a kind-of determiner:
http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/determiner.html

And another:
http://eslus.com/LESSONS/GRAMMAR/POS/pos4.htm

================================
I could not find anything which called it a "pronoun", although webster
came close by calling it a "pronomial adjective".

For the use of reasoning/logic, I like
http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/determiner.html

the best.

[[e-mail] (jerrry94087)]

Ok, if that's not a consensus I withdraw my PR then.

-- jerry

[[e-mail] (jerrry94087)]

I actually assumed that based on other languages.
In German my=mein is classified as pronoun: http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/mein
In Russian my=мой and is also classified as pronoun: http://slovarozhegova.ru/word.php?wordid=14688

Looks like in English they classified it differently.
So be it.

[linas (linasvepstas)]

OK, seems like the english wiktionary calls it a pronoun, but I fail to see how its noun-like; I asked on the talk page.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/my

right now, relex does this kind of possessive/reflexive/gender/determiner tagging in a somewhat ad-hoc manner, based on need. I can provide additional tags or rationalize the tags, based on need (i.e. a good reason to do it some other way...)

[linas (linasvepstas)]

I also made a syntactic argument on the wikitionary page:

I mean ... syntactically speaking, it acts as a determiner, and never as a noun (and thus, cannot be a syntactic pronoun). So, for example, one can say:

This is the book.
This is my book.

so, syntactically, its a determiner, like "the". Now, other pronouns behave much like nouns:

This is I.
This is me.
This is him.

But "my" cannot behave like a noun: you can't say:

*This is my.

nor could you say:

*This is the.
*This is a.

Perhaps its a noun modifier ("_nn") ? No. For example, the noun "goal" can be a noun modifier:

He stood on the goal line.

But pronouns can never be noun modifiers -- you can't say:

*He stood on the him line.
*He stood on them line.

while "my" can be used in this way:

He stood on my line.

I cannot think of a single example where "my" behaves like a noun or other pronouns, syntactically speaking. As a part of speech, calling it a pronoun sure seems wrong to me.

[[e-mail] (jerrry94087)]

Well, 'my' is derived from 'I' and is closely related to it. Like 'his'/'he', 'its'/'it'.
It behaves as a determiner or adjective.
In some languages they chose to classify it as a pronoun. Even though it never behaves like one. But they just stretched the pronoun definition.

A bit of a controversy.

-- jerry

[linas (linasvepstas)]

The following appears to give a decent, syntactically correct overview of parts of speech:
http://www.usingenglish.com/resources/language-tips.html

I've concluded that wikitionary is wrong for english, and its probably wrong for the other languages as well.