Hello, Could some one tell me why ‘he’ is not creating confusion here. ‘He took his stick’. Both ‘he’ and ‘his’ look unclear to me. Why is it just ‘his’ please?
The reason the confusion is about “his” and not “he” is because:
In the sentence “He took his stick — no, not John’s, but his own”, the word “he” clearly refers to one person who is doing the action (the speaker is describing what someone did).
The confusion happens when we get to “his stick” — whose stick is that?
Is it his own stick?
Or is it John’s stick?
Or is it someone else’s stick?
That’s where the real ambiguity lies. The speaker even tries to clarify by saying:
“No, not John’s, but his own.”
Which shows that “his” was the source of confusion — not “he.”
With this clarification, we know that the person took their own stick, whereas until the speaker made the clarification, we didn’t know whose stick the person took.
So the correct answer is (B):
It is unclear to whom the word “his” refers the first time it is used.