Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / April 2006

OK, KC, this one goes back to you. TOEFL prep stufff is notorious for
overemphasizing the possessive pronouns and adjectives as the proper
subject of the gerund. ETS, the company that produces the TOEFL, has a
long history of emphasizing this form in its many tests. The most
spectacular example of the problem can be found in the GMAT's Verbal
section. Anyone familiar with ETS but not too familiar with the TOEFL
in general can be counted on to pound the possessive form in what they
write...and since the bulk of TOEFL prep material is put together
cheaply by contract writers, there's a lot of overemphasis on the form
in TOEFL prep.

There are good reasons for ETS's preference which are based on US/UK
English language snobbery, namely, American usage manuals generally
insist on possessive subjects in comparison with British usage manuals,
which are not so fussy about it.

Denny's point above is technically correct, but KC, you are never going
to see that form tested on the TOEFL in that way, and you will not be
forced to produce language of that complexity to do well on the TOEFL.

Let's try to clear this up:

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Here's the general rule you probably learned in your TOEFL prep:

An ing-form acting as a noun-like word (which is more or less what a
gerund is) when modified by a subject that comes in from of it, should
take a possessive form as that subject, as in:

I object to his smoking at home. (more proper)
I object to Jim's smoking at home. (more proper)
I object to Jim smoking at hime. (less proper)
I object to him smoking at hime. (less proper)

The subject of the gerund is "Jim/Jim's" here.

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The fire was smoking when I woke up.

"Smoking" here acts as a verb. There's no confusion here, because
there's no pronoun in front of it, and it's clearly part of a past
continous verb tense.

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In your example, hear somebody saying something, is "saying" acting as
a noun? No. Therefore, it wouldn't take a possessive subject.

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So, while Denny is right, I think what's actually happened is that
you've taken a general guideline regarding gerunds that was
overemphasized in your TOEFL prep work by an incompetent author (some
kind of [Red Alert! All Hands to Battle Stations!] section, I'll bet)
and expanded it to include all ing-forms that are not clearly part of
continuous verb tenses.

Good luck.