by RonPurewal Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:11 pm
you probably picked answer choice (a), but i'll give a brief treatment of all of them, just to be sure.
(a)
you cannot write "proof of ... fields ... posing".
sorry.
this is going to annoy a lot of people, because this sort of construction is bread and butter in spoken language,
BUT:
if the focus of the construction is the ACTION, then you must use the POSSESSIVE form for the noun/pronoun preceding the "-ing" participle. since that's fatally awkward to say in words, i'll provide an example:
everyone laughed at me accidentally walking into the girls' bathroom --> WRONG. sorry. this sentence would actually mean that everyone laughed at me as they were walking into the girls' bathroom.
everyone laughed at my accidentally walking into the girls' bathroom --> CORRECT, because it's the action (my walking into the bathroom, not really me) that they're laughing at.
so, incredibly enough, the correct version of the sentence here would actually be "the fields' posing ...". but then you just have bad writing (for stylistic reasons, which aren't tested here).
incidentally, if the focus of the construction is the NOUN (or pronoun) itself, then you don't use a possessive. for instance:
i saw him walking down the street --> correct, because it was him i saw, not his walking action. (in SPOKEN english, this sentence is ambiguous, because either he or i may have been the one walking down the street. in formal written english, though, he's the one walking.)
i saw his walking down the street wouldn't be incorrect, but it would be a bit strange, unless i'm a modeling scout who actually analyzes the gait of random strangers as they walk down the street.