'my picture' - ownership vs. depiction
Consider the sentences:
- Take my picture [handing over a frame]
- Take my picture [handing over a camera]
(Photo vs. picture being insignificant - a more contrived example could avoid it; as is the verb 'take', we could even have no verb, but I think it helps to illustrate.)
What is grammatically different between the first, in which the speaker owns the picture, and the second, in which the speaker is to be depicted?
I've considered:
- Actually I thought of this example reading about oblique (aka objective) case, after encountering it in another language; is (2) oblique ('as the object of preposition' per Wikipedia examples) I wondered, or is it significant that all of Wikipedia's examples use me; not my?
- Certainly (1) is genitive/possessive - is (2) also, but with the sense of belonging somehow reversed, the speaker belonging to the picture, and if so is there a term for this?
- So God created man in his owne Image [Genesis 1:27] is another well known example, which I thought might help me find some discussion; unfortunately it didn't. (It's surely not the same construction as if he created man in the image of his {possession-goes-here}?!)
- (1) really holds place for picture of mine; (2) for picture of me (and in the Genesis example, him and his respectively) - i.e. independent possessive and object personal pronoun, respectively, and shortened to dependent possessive
- So (2) is posessesive? Was shortening it from picture of me 'valid' in the first place, or is the issue that it's a (widely used) informal form?
Solution 1:
The difference between the sentences is the meaning of the components, which may be determined from context. As Kris notes, the sentences are grammatically the same.
When presented with a photograph, "take" means to receive, and "my picture" is a picture you own.
When presented with a camera, "take" means to capture via camera, and "my picture" is a depiction of you.
What if you present someone with both a camera and a photograph?
- You want the photograph you own to be captured on camera?
You want the photograph you own to be received and for your depiction to be captured on camera?
You want your depiction captured on camera to resemble the photograph?
You want to find out how someone will respond?