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From: grass@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: It's Day After - (nf)
Message-ID: <4146@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Nov-83 22:28:12 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4146
Posted: Fri Nov 25 22:28:12 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Nov-83 04:15:51 EST
Lines: 24

#R:ihnss:-180800:uiuccsb:10500013:000:1003
uiuccsb!grass    Nov 25 14:40:00 1983

It seems to me that using "it's" as a possessive is a matter of confusing two
paradigms, the possessive of nouns, and the possessive of pronouns.

     nouns:   John's  dog's dogs'   etc., etc.
     pronouns: his  her/ hers  its

"her" and "it" can occur alone, so there is a temptation to apply
the noun paradigm to them.  (giving possesive *"her's" and *"it's").
(example sentence: *"This book is her's").
**"hi" never occurs alone, so NO (or virtually no) native English speaker ever
makes the mistake of writing **"hi's book" or **"This book is hi's")

Usually if you point out to people that "its" is part of a set
that includes "his",  they are less tempted to make that error.
 
Possessives are nasty... consider:
    This is Jane's toy.    This is her toy.   This toy is hers.
    This is the dog's toy.  This is its toy.  ??This toy is its.
I suspect the last one (??) is ungrammatical.  At that point, you
have to supply the poor dog with a gender.  I don't blame anyone
for getting confused.