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Which of these two sentences are correct?

a) My other sister is taller than me
b) My another sister is taller than me

3 Answers 3

5

Each noun phrase has one determiner slot. It can't have two determiners in a row.

[My other sister] is taller than me.

This sentence is fine.

In the noun phrase my other sister, the determiner slot is filled by my, a genitive pronoun. The following word other is an adjective, not a determiner.

[Another sister] is taller than me, too.

This sentence is also fine.

In the noun phrase another sister, the determiner slot is filled by another, a determinative. This word was formed by compounding an + other.

I'm sure you already know you can't put my and an together, because that would be two determiners together. For the same reason, you can't put my and another together.

*[My another sister] is taller than me.

This sentence is ungrammatical.

Why? Because the noun phrase only has one determiner slot, but you've tried to fill it twice.


In this answer, the * symbol marks a sentence as ungrammatical.

(Reference: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (2002), p.391)

2

a) is correct. You could say "Another sister is taller..." but not "My another sister..."

0

b) is incorrect. another as used in b) is a pronoun (def. 4). You can't use two pronouns (my, another) together like this.

a) is OK. In this example, other is an adjective (def. 1).

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