Re: Reply Dangling modifier or faulty pronoun reference or okay?
Firstly, your answer is inconsistent. You suggest cheetah's can be an antecedent but pie can't, after your explanation that neither is an adjective.
I did not say that. I said that the noun phrase "the cheetah's" can be an antecedent, not just "cheetah's".
I said that antecedents are noun phrases. "The pie" is a noun phrase, but "pie" is not, it's a nominal. Noun phrases include the article "a/the".
There is nothing at all wrong with your first example. "Its" relates to "the cheetah's".
I suggest you take the time to read my answer thoroughly.
Secondly, when everyone else in the world is using Mickey Mouse grammar, professional grammarians ought to align themselves to it more because the grammar rules are there to capture what the masses do in language. When the masses change their habits, the rules need to change. Moreover, if you submit something that only you know is right, it might as well be wrong. It's about writing safely as well as correctly, so you have to play to the audience.
No, the only people who are using Mickey Mouse grammar are clueless ignorant people like you who know nothing about grammar, yet pretend they do.
And who said anything about rules? There are certain rules, of course, but the syntactic analysis we're talking about here is based on how words, phrases and clauses are behaving and the relationship between various elements.