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| Non-positive marker | |
| 3>
Some uses of English genitive are enclitic, since in these uses the -'s applies to a phrase rather than a single word. An example is "The King of Sparta’s wife was called Helen." The strictly genitive of the phrase would be: "Sparta's king's wife," but the correct title is not "Sparta's king" but the King of Sparta, so the strictness of the grammar is sacrificed for a more idiomatic expression. Thus in "The King of Sparta’s wife" the -’s indicates possession not by Sparta, the word to which it is attached, but rather by the entire phrase the King of Sparta as if it were a single word.
Despite the above, the English possessive did originate in a genitive case. In Old English, a common singular genitive ending was -es. The apostrophe in the modern possessive marker is in fact an indicator of the e that is "missing" from the Old English morphology.
The 18th century explanation that the apostrophe might replace a genitive pronoun, as in "the king’s horse" being a shortened form of "the king, his horse", is doubtful. This his genitive appeared in English only for a relatively brief time, and was never the most common form. The construction occurs in southern German dialects and has replaced the genitive there, together with the "of" construction that also exists in English. One might expect on the basis of "her" and "their" that plurals and feminine nouns would form possessives using -’r, such as "the queen’r children": "his" or "hys" could be used for nouns of any gender throughout most of the medieval and Renaissance period, but this does not clearly explain the total absence of such forms.
Remnants of the genitive case remain in Modern English in a few pronouns, such as whose (the genitive form of who), my/mine, his/her/hers/its,[dubious – discuss] our/ours, their/theirs, etc.[citation needed] (See also declension in English.)
[edit] Tags:Noun,English,Possession,German,Old English,Morphology,Modern English,Who,Declension In English,Declension,Essive,Possessive,Elative,Lative, | |
| English uses | |
| 3>
The English construction in -’s has various uses other than a possessive marker. Most of these uses overlap with a complement marked by "of" (the music of Beethoven or Beethoven’s music), but the two constructions are not equivalent. The use of -’s in a non-possessive sense is less prevalent, and more restricted, in formal than informal language.
[edit] Tags:Beethoven, | |
| Origin | |
| 4>
In the genitive of origin, the marker indicates the origin or source of the head noun of the phrase, rather than possession per se. Here "of" can often be replaced with "from".
Men of Rome
[edit] Tags: | |
| Subject | |
| 4>
When the noun is related to a verb, the genitive is subjective, because it represents the subject of the verb when the noun phrase is turned into a sentence.
Beethoven’s music (Beethoven composes music)
Fred Astaire’s dancing (Fred Astaire dances)
my mother’s teaching (My mother teaches)
Most of these phrases, however, can still be paraphrased with of: the music of Beethoven, the teaching of my mother.
[edit] Tags:Fred Astaire, | |
| Object | |
| 4>
In the objective genitive, the marker modifies a noun that can be rephrased as a verb, and the marker represents the object of that verb.
love of my mother (I love my mother)
[edit] Tags: | |
| Classification | |
| 4>
In the classifying genitive, the marker specifies or describes the head noun.
the Hundred Years’ War
a day's pay
two weeks’ notice
speech of an appropriate tone
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
a man’s world
runner’s high
the Teachers’ Lounge
The paraphrase with of is often un-idiomatic or ambiguous with these genitives, introducing the likelihood of misunderstanding.
**the war of a Hundred Years
**the pay of a day
**notice of two weeks
[edit] Tags: | |
| Purpose | |
| 4>
In the genitive of purpose, the marker identifies the purpose or intended recipient of the head noun. In this case, the genitive must be paraphrased with for rather than of: shoes for women.
women’s shoes
children’s literature
[edit] Tags: | |
| Genitive of measure | |
| 4>
Forms such as "a five mile journey" and "a ten foot pole" use what is actually a remnant of the Old English genitive plural form which, ending in /a/, had neither the final /s/ nor underwent the foot/feet vowel mutation of the nominative plural. In essence, the underlying forms are "a five of miles (O.E. gen. pl. mīla) journey" and "a ten of feet (O.E. gen. pl. fōta) pole".[1]
[edit] Tags:Nominative, | |
| Apposition | |
| 4>
In the appositive genitive, the marker represents something equal to the main noun.
Dublin’s fair city
This is not a common usage. The more usual expression is the fair city of Dublin.[2]
[edit] Tags: | |
| Double genitive | |
| 4>
that hard heart of thine ("Venus and Adonis" line 500)
this extreme exactness of his ("Tristram Shandy", chapter 1.IV)
Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby’s is a Friend of Mine
a picture of the king’s (that is, a picture owned by the king, as distinguished from a picture of the king, one in which the king is portrayed)[3]
Some writers regard this as a questionable usage,[4] although it has a history in careful English. "Moreover, in some sentences the double genitive offers the only way to express what is meant. There is no substitute for it in a sentence such as That’s the only friend of yours that I’ve ever met, since sentences such as That’s your only friend that I’ve ever met and That’s your only friend, whom I’ve ever met are not grammatical."[5] "[T]he construction is confined to human referents: compare a friend of the Gallery/ no fault of the Gallery."[6] Some object to the name, as the "of" clause is not a genitive. Alternative names are "double possessive" and "oblique genitive".[7] The Oxford English Dictionary says that this usage was "Originally partitive, but subseq. ... simple possessive ... or as equivalent to an appositive phrase ...".[8]
[edit] Tags:Venus And Adonis,Tristram Shandy,Any Friend Of Nicholas Nickleby’s Is A Friend Of Mine,Oblique, | |
| Adverb | |
| 4>
Main article: Adverbial genitive
The ending "-s" without the apostrophe, used like an adverb of time, is considered to be a remnant of an Old English genitive. There is a "literary" periphrastic form using "of".[9]
closed Sundays
nowadays
of a summer day
The ending "-ce", forming genitives of number and place:
once, twice, thrice
whence, hence, thence
[edit] Tags:Adverbial, | |
| Finnic genitives and accusatives | |
| 2>
Finnic languages (Finnish, Estonian) have genitive cases.
In Finnish, prototypically the genitive is marked with -n, e.g. maa – maan "country – of the country". The stem may change, however, with consonant gradation and other reasons. For example, in certain words ending in consonants, -e- is added, e.g. mies – miehen, and in some, but not all words ending in -i, the -i is changed to an -e-, to give -en, e.g. lumi – lumen "snow – of the snow". The genitive is used extensively, with animate and inanimate possessors. In addition to the genitive, there is also a partitive case (marked -ta or -a) used for expressing that something is a part of a larger mass, e.g. joukko miehiä "a group of men".
In Estonian, the genitive marker -n has elided with respect to Finnish. Thus, the genitive always ends with a vowel, and the singular genitive is sometimes (in a subset of words ending with a vocal in nominative) identical in form to nominative.
In Finnish, in addition to the uses mentioned above, there is a construct where the genitive is used to mark a surname. For example, Juhani Virtanen can be also expressed Virtasen Juhani ("Juhani of the Virtanens").
A complication in Finnic languages is that the accusative case -(e)n is homophonic to the genitive case. This case does not indicate possession, but is a syntactic marker for the object, additionally indicating that the action is telic (completed). In Estonian, it is often said that only a "genitive" exists. However, the cases have completely different functions, and the form of the accusative has developed from *-(e)m. (The same sound change has developed into a synchronic mutation of a final m into n in Finnish, e.g. genitive sydämen vs. nominative sydän.) This homophony has exceptions in Finnish, where a separate accusative -(e)t is found in pronouns, e.g. kenet "who (telic object)", vs. kenen "whose".
A difference is also observed in some of the related Sámi languages, where the pronouns and the plural of nouns in the genitive and accusative are easily distinguishable from each other, e.g., kuä'cǩǩmi "eagles' (genitive plural)" and kuä'cǩǩmid "eagles (accusative plural)" in Skolt Sami.
[edit] Tags:Partitive Case,Estonian,Finnish,Finnic Languages,Telic,Skolt Sami,Accusative, | |
| Slavic languages | |
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In Slavic languages such as Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, etc., both nouns and adjectives reflect the genitive case using a variety of endings depending on whether the word is a noun or adjective, its gender, and number (singular or plural).
[edit] Tags:Polish,Russian,Croatian,Slavic Languages,Serbo-croatian, | |
| Possessives | |
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To indicate possession, the ending of the noun indicating the possessor changes to а, я, ы or и, depending on the word's ending in the nominative case. For example:
Nominative: "Вот Антон" ("Here is Anton").
Genitive: "Вот карандаш Антона" ("Here is Anton's pencil").
Possessives can also be formed by the construction "У [subject] есть [object]":
Nominative: "Вот Сергей" ("Here is Sergei").
Genitive: "У Сергея есть карандаш" ("Sergei has a pencil").
In sentences where the possessor includes an associated pronoun, the pronoun also changes:
Nominative: "Вот мой брат" ("Here is my brother").
Genitive: "У моего брата есть карандаш" ("My brother has a pencil").
And in sentences denoting negative possession, the ending of the object noun also changes:
Nominative: "Вот Ирина" ("Here is Irina").
Genitive: "У Ирины нет карандаша" ("Irina does not have a pencil").
[edit] Tags: | |
| To express negation | |
| 3>
The genitive case is also used in sentences expressing negation, even when no possessives are involved. The subject noun's ending changes just as it does in possessive sentences:
Nominative: "Мария дома?" ("Is Maria at home?").
Genitive: "Марии нет дома" ("Maria is not at home," literally, "Of Maria there is none at home.").
Use of genitive for negation is obligatory in Slovene, Polish and Old Church Slavonic. Russian, Belarussian, Ukrainian optionally employ genitive for negation. In Czech, the negative genitive is perceived as archaic, as is in Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian.[10]
[edit] Tags:Czech,Bosnian,Serbian,Slovene,Old Church Slavonic,Belarussian, | |
| Partial direct object | |
| 3>
The genitive case is used with some verbs and mass nouns to indicate that the action covers only a part of the direct object (having a function of non-existing partitive case), whereas similar constructions using the Accusative case denote full coverage. Compare the sentences:
Genitive: "Я выпил воды" ("I drank water," i.e. "I drank some water, part of the water available")
Accusative: "Я выпил воду ("I drank the water," i.e. "I drank all the water, all the water in question")
[edit] Tags:Verbs,Mass Nouns,Direct, | |
| Prepositional constructions | |
| 3>
The genitive case is also used in many prepositional constructions.
Czech prepositions using genitive case: od (from), z, ze (from), do (into), bez (without), kromě (excepting), místo (instead of), podle (after, according to), podél (along), okolo (around), u (near, by), vedle (beside), během (during), pomocí (using, by the help of), stran (as regards) etc.
[edit] Tags:Prepositional, | |
| German | |
| 2>
The genitive case is used in the German language to show possession. For example:
das Buch der Schülerin (the book of the schoolgirl) - Feminine
das Buch des Schülers (the book of the schoolboy) - Masculine
An s is simply added to the end of the name if the identity of the possessor is specified. For example:
Claudias Buch (Claudia's book)
There is also a genitive case with German pronouns such as 'dein' (your) and 'mein' (my).
The genitive case is also used for objects of some prepositions (e.g. trotz [despite], wegen [because of], [an]statt [instead of], während [during]), and is required as the case of the direct object for some verbs (e.g. gedenken, sich erfreuen, bedürfen, ermangeln; Usage: wir gedachten der Verstorbenen - We remembered the dead; wir erfreuen uns des schönen Wetters - We're happy about the nice weather.).
All of the articles change in the genitive case.
Masculine
Feminine
Neuter
Plural
Definite article
des
der
des
der
Indefinite article
eines
einer
eines
(no article)
Adjective endings in genitive case:
Masculine
Feminine
Neuter
Plural
Definite article
-en
-en
-en
-en
Indefinite Article
-en
-en
-en
-en
No article
-en
-er
-en
-er
The following prepositions can take the genitive: außerhalb, innerhalb, statt, trotz, während, wegen, and dank.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Altaic languages | |
| 2>
(Altaic is a proposal; on this point of grammar, the included languages behave similarly.)
[edit] Tags:Altaic, | |
| Japanese | |
| 3>
The Japanese possessive is constructed by using the suffix -no 〜の to make the genitive case. For example:
Nominative: 猫 neko ('cat'); 手 te ('hand, paw')
Genitive: 猫の手 neko-no te ('cat's paw')
It also uses the suffix -na 〜な for adjectival noun; in some analyses adjectival nouns are simply nouns that take -na in the genitive, forming a complementary distribution (-no and -na being allomorphs).
[edit] Tags:Complementary Distribution,Allomorphs, | |
| Korean | |
| 3>
The possessive in Korean can be formed using the ending -ui '의'.
This is a car. igeoneun jadongchayeyo. 이거는 자동차예요.
This is the man's car. igeoneun namja-ui jadongchaeyeo. 이거는 남자의 자동차예요.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Turkish | |
| 3>
The Turkish possessive is constructed using two suffixes: a genitive case for the possessor and a possessive suffix for the possessed object. For example:
Nominative: Kadın ('woman'); ayakkabı ('shoe')
Genitive: Kadının ayakkabısı ('the woman's shoe')
[edit] Tags:Turkish,Possessed, | |
| Semitic languages | |
| 2>
Genitive case marking existed in Proto-Semitic, Akkadian, and Ugaritic. It indicated possession, and it is preserved today only in literary Arabic.
[edit] Tags:Arabic,Proto-semitic,Akkadian,Ugaritic,Literary Arabic, | |
| Arabic | |
| 3>
Called المجرور al-majrũr (meaning "dragged") in Arabic, the Genitive case functions both as an indication of ownership (ex. the door of the house) and for nouns following a preposition.
Nominative: بيت baytun (a house)
Genitive: باب بيت bābu baytin (the door of a house) باب البيت bābu l-bayti (the door of the house)
The Arabic genitive marking also appears after prepositions.
e.g. باب لبيت bābun li-baytin (a door for a house)
The Semitic genitive should not be confused with the pronominal possessive suffixes that exist in all the Semitic languages
e.g. Arabic بيتي bayt-ī (my house) كتابك kitābu-ka (your [masc.] book).
[edit] Tags: | |
| Names of stars | |
| 3>
Names of astronomical constellations are Latin, and the genitives of their names are used in naming objects in those constellations, as in the Bayer designation of stars. For example, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo is called Alpha Virginis, which is to say "Alpha of Virgo", as virginis is the genitive of virgō.
[edit] Tags:Latin,Bayer Designation, | |
| Scientific names of species | |
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Scientific names of living things sometimes contain genitives, as in the plant name Buddleja davidii, meaning "David's buddleia". Here Davidii is the genitive of Davidius, a Latinized version of the English name, not capitalized because it is the second part of a scientific name.
[edit] Tags:Latinized, | |
| References | |
| 2>
^ The Origins and Development of the English Language, Volume 1, John Algeo, Thomas Pyles Cengage Learning, 2009, p 96
^ Quirk, Randolph; Greenbaum, Sidney; Leech, Geoffrey; Svartvik, Jan (1985). "§ 5.116 note [b]". A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London and New York: Longman. p. 322. ISBN 05-8251-734-6.
^ Fowler, Henry W.; Burchfield, R.W. (2000). "double possessive". The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage (revised third ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 227. ISBN 01-9860-263-4.
^ Quinion, Michael. "Double Possessive". World Wide Words. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-dou3.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-19.
^ American Heritage Book of English Usage: A Practical Guide to Contemporary English. Boston: Houton Mifflin. 1996. p. 26. ISBN 0-39576786-5.
^ page 162 under the heading double genitive in Pam Peters (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.
^ Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002). "5: Nouns and noun phrases § 16.3 Type III". The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 468–9. ISBN 05-2143-146-8.
^ "of XIII.44". The Oxford English Dictionary. 10 (2 ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. p. 715. ISBN 01-9861-186-2.
^ "adverbial genitive". Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster. 1994. pp. 35–6. ISBN 978-0877791324. http://books.google.com/books?id=2yJusP0vrdgC. Retrieved 2009-05-16. "Also see entry of.3 page 680."
^ http://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/11298/1/salt_17_kagan.pdf
[edit] Tags:Springfield, Ma, | |
| External links | |
| 2>
Look up genitive case in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
German genitive case A lesson covering the genitive case in the German language
Russian genitive: [1], [2], [3]
Genitive Case In Arabic
v
d
e
Grammatical cases
List of cases
Declension
Morphosyntactic alignment
Cases
Core
Absolutive
Accusative
Direct
Ergative
Intransitive
Nominative
Oblique
Adpositional
Ablative
Antessive
Dative
Distributive (–temporal)
Essive (–formal, –modal)
Formal
Genitive
Instructive
Instrumental (–comitative)
Ornative
Possessed
Possessive
Postpositional
Prepositional
Pertingent
Prolative
Prosecutive
Proximative
Sociative
Temporal
Vialis
Locative
Ablative
Adessive
Allative
Apudessive
Associative
Comitative
Delative
Elative
Exessive
Illative
Inelative
Inessive
Intrative
Lative
Locative
Perlative
Subessive
Sublative
Superessive
Superlative
Terminative
Translative
Comparative
Comparative
Equative
Evaluative
Aversive
Benefactive
Evitative
Other
Abessive
Addirective
Adelative
Adverbial
Caritive
Causal (–final)
Final
Modal
Multiplicative
Partitive
Pegative
Privative
Postelative
Postdirective
Postessive
Separative
Subdirective
Vocative
Declensions
Czech
English (Middle English)
Finnish
German
Gothic
Irish
Latin
Latvian
Lithuanian
Serbo-Croatian
Slovak
Tags:Grammatical Case,Slovak,Irish,Latvian,Lithuanian,Grammatical Cases,List Of Cases,Absolutive,Ergative,Intransitive, | |
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