1.6.1 Possessive with parts of the body, clothing

Rule: Possessive adjectives are used before names of parts of the body, articles of clothing, and some other nouns.

Examples of errors:

1. When she talks, she plays with the hair.
2. This was the only way for him to get over the broken heart.
3. If someone has once made a mistake, you cannot condemn him for the whole life.
4. Having an abortion isn't good for the woman's health and the mind.
5. Women wanted to be equal to men, even in the outer appearance.
6. Thinner people look better physically, which is better for the self-confidence.
7. Eating too much has bad effects on the health.
8. To be fat is not good for health.
9. Lorries and bulldozers easily do the work that many workers had to do before using hands and shovels.
10. It's not fair that a woman has to obey a law whereas a man is free in decision.
11. Many young people do not get their chance to work in the field of their choice.
12. Parents cannot always help young people to find their right way in society.

It is impossible, of course, to specify all the uses of possessive adjectives in a single rule, but articles of clothing and parts of the body are mentioned specifically in Rule 1.6.1 because in many languages the definite article is used in these cases. The use of the possessive with nouns like life in (3), mind in (4), appearance in (5), self-confidence in (6). health in (7)-(8), and decision in (10) may indicate that they share a semantic feature with nouns denoting parts of the body and articles of clothing, although it is not clear how this feature should be described--perhaps in terms of "inalienable possession". as some would have it. Get a/the chance (cf. (11)) means 'have an/the opportunity, but get one's chance implies that the opportunity is expected, for example:

Let him be captain today. You'll get your chance next week.

You'll get a chance next week does not have this implication that the opportunity is expected. In (11) ,it is inappropriate to imply that the chance to work is expected. Find one's way, as opposed to find the way (cf. (12)), implies a more active participation by the subject, and also that the way found is idiosyncratic, more or less created by one's own efforts. This last implication is incompatible with the idea of the "right" way, that is, a way which already exists and needs only to be found.

Nor is it particularly clear under what conditions the possessive is used, even in the case of names of parts of the body and articles of clothing. For example, in prepositional phrases the definite article is often used instead, particularly in passive constructions and when the possessor appears as the object of the verb rather than the subject, e.g.:

He cut his chin.

*He cut the chin.

He fell to his knees.

*He fell to the knees.

He stood there with his chin in his hands.

*He stood"there with the chin in the hands.

but

*He cut himself on his chin.

He cut himself on the chin.

*He was cut on his chin.

He was cut on the chin.

*He hit me on my chin.

He hit me on the chin.

The asterisk in the last examples should be taken with a large grain of salt, since they do occur; in Black English, for example, He cut me on my chin would be the normal form. The acceptability--or perhaps it is better to say frequency of occurrence here--may depend on the proximity of the prepositional phrase to the verb (and the corresponding subject). He bled from his chin may sound odd, or at least more odd than He bled from the chin, but the more separated the prepositional phrase is from the verb the more likely the article is to occur. Compare:

He was bleeding profusely last night from his chin.

He was bleeding profusely last night from the chin.