Kirk Mahoney . com

I heard this the other day, and it struck me as odd — mostly because there is a bad habit among many American children to say “mines” instead of “mine”.

Problem:
A pronoun may not be converted into a possessive simply by adding apostrophe-”s”.

Explanation:
The archaic use of the word “mine” as a pronoun is as a substitute for “my” — as in (quote) “Mine eyes have seen the glory …” (unquote).

But the word “mine” as a pronoun has two modern meanings:

1. a predicate-adjective form of the possessive case of the pronoun “I”, as in (quote) “The green car is mine.” (unquote);
2. something belonging to me, as in (quote) “Mine is the purple towel.” (unquote).

I am unsure whether the “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine’s mother” (unquote) more closely follows definition #1 or definition #2.

Concentrating on the first part of the phrase, one could argue that the “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine” (unquote) follows definition #1 because one could say (quote) “The student is mine.” (unquote).

Or one could argue that the “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine” (unquote) follows definition #2 because one could say (quote) “Mine is the student.” (unquote).

No matter which argument makes more sense to you, it is clear that “mine” in (quote) “a student of mine’s mother” (unquote) is a pronoun.

And a pronoun may not be converted into a possessive simply by adding apostrophe-”s”, so the phrase must be rewritten.

Solution:
“the mother of one of my students”
OR
“one of my students’ mothers”

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