Right, in English you have to rephrase the sentence because the pronoun you need doesn’t exist. There’s just a pronoun for “male person” not one for “subject” or “object” of the sentence.
That’s why I replied with it to a “what word would you make up?” Question, because that’s what I would bring into English
Im not sure if the example sentence is legitimate or not but its uncomfortable for my brain.
I probably would have said “Tom gave Steve his phone back” (steve ownership) or “Tom gave his phone to Steve” (tom ownership)
Right, in English you have to rephrase the sentence because the pronoun you need doesn’t exist. There’s just a pronoun for “male person” not one for “subject” or “object” of the sentence.
That’s why I replied with it to a “what word would you make up?” Question, because that’s what I would bring into English
Also, for what it’s worth, it feels a lot more natural with mixed genders here to me:
Steve gave Christina his phone