"of it" vs. "its"

Question

I have the following sentence:

... the root of the document is counted as the beginning of the context and the anchor node marks the ending of it.

I thought I may say it as:

... the root of the document is counted as the beginning of the context and the anchor node marks its ending (or maybe its end).

However the first one seems better.

In general is "its" an equivalent for "of it"? What is the application of each?

user3169 · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-23 22:26:59Z

2

I would use end:

... the root of the document is counted as the beginning of the context and the anchor node marks the end of it.

ending is different as it indicates some passage of events:

The movie was ending, so decided to go to a coffee shop.

In your example end is a fixed point. Same way as you would say "end of the tunnel" not "ending of the tunnel".

You could use its end, but since you already said beginning of, end of matches it and sounds better.

answered Jun 23, 2015 at 22:26

user3169

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Thank you, you right, you say it is usually (beginning, end)? cause I thought if it is "beginning" then that is "ending".
– Ahmad
Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 4:52
It is different. You can say "The movie is beginning" and "The movie is ending", but as a noun its "the beginning of ..." and "the end of ...".
– user3169
Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 5:23
Thank you, however in your post you didn't say much about the general difference of "of it" and "its"
– Ahmad
Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 6:01

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