<p>Is it:</p>
<p>His diction resembles that of Carla's ... </p>
<p>or</p>
<p>His diction resembles that of Carla ...</p>
<p>Thanks :)!</p>
<p>The first one! * His diction resembles that of Carla’s*</p>
<p>It would be Carla’s because you are not comparing “His diction” and “Carla”, you are comparing “His diction” and “Carla’s diction”.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So what’s the difference between:</p>
<p>His diction resembles that of Carla </p>
<p>and</p>
<p>His diction resembles Carla</p>
<p>I’m kinda leaning towards the second option, but I’m honestly pretty stumped. The “that of” seems to make Carla possessive anyway so I don’t really see why it needs to be “Carla’s”…that seems redundant.</p>
<p>Both would have the same (incorrect) meaning, so no difference. It’s basically saying that you are comparing diction to the actual human being Carla. </p>
<p>As far as I know, you can’t compare words (aka diction) with a human being. You can only compare things that are the same, like for example, Blair’s painting resembles that of Serena’s painting, in which both things being compared is a painting. But it would be more correct to write it as, Blair’s painting resembles that of Serena’s. The 's at the end of the sentence is important when comparing.</p>
<p>“diction” is the antecedent for the relative pronoun “that”. </p>
<p>When you say “that of Carla”, you mean the “diction” of Carla. “of Carla” implies possession so no apostrophe is needed with Carla.</p>
<p>So “His diction resembles that of Carla” would be correct.</p>
<p>“His diction resembles that of Carla’s” would be redundant. Literally, you would mean (the diction) of Carla’s (diction).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A purist would say the latter is correct. However, double possessives are generally accepted when used appropriately. I personally wouldn’t use them in any formal writing.</p>
<p>^How would you revise the sentences to avoid double possessives?</p>
<p>It seems that for objects that are “definite and human”, double possessives are generally acceptable.</p>
<p>
Since the object of the preposition “of”, Jeffery, is “definite and human”, double possessive in this case is acceptable.</p>
<p>However…
is incorrect, and the correct version is “the security guard of the school”.</p>
<p>I must say, though, that I don’t like any of these double possessives. I prefer the plain and simple “Jeffery’s friend” and “the school’s security guard”. I’m even okay with “friend of Jeffery”. I think the use of double possessives creates some ambiguity as to which friend I mean because for me, “friend of Jeffery’s” can mean “a friend of Jeffery’s friend”.</p>
<p>So ultimately there isn’t a definite rule that answers the original question. Both are right. The discussion of which is better has entertained grammarticians for hundreds of years. Surely this kind of question would never appear on the SAT??</p>