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In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. Grammar is the field of Linguistics that covers the Rules governing the use of any given natural language. In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take arguments in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses (see Adverbial genitive). For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. A syntactic verb argument, in Linguistics, is a Phrase that appears in a relationship with the Verb in a Clause. In Grammar, an adverbial genitive is a Noun declined in the Genitive case that functions as an Adverb. Modern English does not typically mark nouns for a genitive case morphologically — rather, it uses the clitic 's or a preposition (usually of) — but the personal pronouns do have distinct possessive forms. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent Word.

Depending on the language, specific varieties of genitive-noun–main-noun relationships may include:

Depending on the language, some of the relationships mentioned above have their own distinct cases different from the genitive.

Possessive pronouns are distinct pronouns, found in Indo-European languages such as English, that function like pronouns inflected in the genitive. A possessive pronoun is a Part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something They are considered separate pronouns if contrasting to languages where pronouns are regularly inflected in the genitive. For example, English my is either a separate possessive adjective or an irregular genitive of I, while in Finnish, for example, minun is regularly agglutinated from minu- "I" and -n (genitive). In Linguistics, agglutination is the morphological process ofadding Affixes to the base of a Word.

In some languages, nouns in the genitive case also agree in case with the nouns they modify (that is, it is marked for two cases). In Languages agreement is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase This phenomenon is called suffixaufnahme. Suffixaufnahme ( German for "suffix-absorption" is a linguistic phenomenon whereby prototypically a genitive noun declines to match

In some languages, nouns in the genitive case may be found in inclusio — that is, between the main noun's article and the noun itself. Inclusio is a term with two distinct but analogous meanings in Grammar and Literature.

Many languages have a genitive case, including Arabic, Armenian, Czech, Finnish, Georgian, German, Greek, Icelandic, Irish, Latin, Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbo Croatian, Slovenian and Turkish. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language The Armenian language (hy հայերեն լեզու hajɛɹɛn lɛzu —, conventional short form) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside Georgian (ka ქართული ენა kartuli ena) is the Official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Icelandic ( is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. Irish (ga ''Gaeilge'' is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Latvian language (latviešu valoda is the official state language of Latvia. Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. Romanian or Daco-Romanian ( dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation limba română, ˈlimba roˈmɨnə is a Romance Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical The Serbo-Croatian language or Croato-Serbian language (cрпскохрватски језик srpskohrvatski jezik) is a South Slavic Diasystem Slovene or Slovenian ( slovenski jezik or slovenščina, not to be confused with Slovenčina) is a South Slavic language Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. English does not have a proper genitive case, but a possessive ending, -'s (see below), although pronouns do have a genitive case.

Contents

The English -'s ending

Main article: Saxon genitive

Possessive marker

Some argue that it is a common misconception that English nouns have a genitive case, marked by the possessive -'s ending (known as the saxon genitive). " Saxon genitive " is the traditional term used for the ’s ( Apostrophe -s word-ending in the English language. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States " Saxon genitive " is the traditional term used for the ’s ( Apostrophe -s word-ending in the English language. Some linguists believe that English possessive is no longer a case at all, but has become a clitic, an independent particle that is always pronounced as part of the preceding word. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields In Linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent Word. In Linguistics, the term particle is a word lacking a strict definition but has the function of changing the relation of the parts of the sentence to one another and is therefore This is claimed on the basis of the following sort of example: "The king of Sparta's wife was called Helen. " If the English -'s were a genitive case mark, then the wife would belong to Sparta; but the -'s attaches not to the word Sparta, but to the entire phrase the king of Sparta.

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. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words

The use of an independently written particle for the possessive can be seen in the closely related Dutch language: de man z'n hand (the man's hand, z'n, short for zijn, means his). Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname

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 debated. This his genitive appears in English only for a relatively brief time. The his genitive was a linguistic phenomenon in the Syntax of the English language. The construction occurs in southern German dialects and has replaced the genitive there, together with the "of" construction that also exists in English. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. While modern English speakers might expect that plurals and feminine nouns would form possessives using '-r', such as "*The queen'r children", in fact "his" or "hys" could be used for speakers and writers of either gender throughout most of the mediaeval and Renaissance period.

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, our/ours, their/theirs, etc. Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift, completed in roughly 1550 In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or The Pronoun who, in the English language, is the interrogative and Relative pronoun that is used to refer to Human See also declension in English. Old English nouns were declined – that is the ending of the noun changed to reflect its function in the sentence

Uses of the marker in English

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 more prevalent, and less restricted, in formal than informal language.

Genitive of origin; subjective genitive

In these constructions, the marker indicates the origin or source of the head noun of the phrase, rather than possession per se. Ludwig van Beethoven ( English ˈlʊdvɪg væn ˈbeɪtoʊvən, 16 December 1770 &ndash 26 March 1827 was a German Composer and Pianist. Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 &ndash June 22, 1987) was an American Academy Award Confucius ( lit " Master Kung " September 28, 551 BC - 479 BC) was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher Most of these phrases, however, can still be paraphrased with of: the music of Beethoven, the teaching of Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth (7–2 BC / BCE —26–36 AD / CE)

Objective genitive; classifying genitive

In these constructions, the marker serves to specify, delimit, or describe the head noun. The paraphrase with of is often un-idiomatic or ambiguous with these genitives:

They introduce the likelihood of misunderstanding.

Genitive of purpose

Here, the marked noun identifies the purpose or intended recipient of the head noun. Of cannot paraphrase them; they can be idiomatically paraphrased with for: shoes for women.

Appositive genitive

This is not a common usage. " Molly Malone " (also known as " Cockles and Mussels " or " In Dublin's Fair City " is a popular song set in Dublin, Ireland The more usual expression is the fair city of Dublin. [1]

Double genitive

Some writers regard this as a questionable usage, although it has a history in careful English. I Sing the Body Electric! is a 1969 collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury. Some object to the name, as the "of" clause is not a genitive. Alternative names are "double possessive" and "oblique genitive"[3]. The Oxford English Dictionary says that this usage was "Originally partitive, but subseq. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English . . . simple possessive . . . or as equivalent to an appositive phrase . . . ". [4]

Adverbial genitive

Main article: Adverbial genitive

The ending "-s" without the apostrophe, to form an adverb of time, is considered to be a remnant of an Old English genitive, and there is a "literary" periphrastic form. In Grammar, an adverbial genitive is a Noun declined in the Genitive case that functions as an Adverb. [5]

Baltic Finnic "genitives"

In Baltic-Finnic languages, the accusative case -(e)n is homophonic to the genitive case. The Baltic-Finnic languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people are a branch of Finnic languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric group The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive In Estonian, it is often said that only a "genitive" exists. Estonian (; ˈeːsti ˈkeːl is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1 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. Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside g. kenet "who (telic object)", vs. kenen "whose", and some of the Sámi languages, where the pronouns and the plural of nouns in the genitive and accusative are easily distinguishable from each other, e. Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Finnic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway g. , kuä'cǩǩmi "eagles' (genitive plural)" and kuä'cǩǩmid "eagles (accusative plural)" in Skolt Sami.

The genitive case in Slavic languages

In Slavic languages such as Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, etc. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages The Serbo-Croatian language or Croato-Serbian language (cрпскохрватски језик srpskohrvatski jezik) is a South Slavic Diasystem Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. , 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).

Possessives

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").

To express negation

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. ").

To express partial direct object

The genitive case is used with some verbs and mass nouns to indicate that the action covers only a part of the direct object, whereas similar constructions using the accusative case denote full coverage. In Linguistics, a mass noun (also uncountable noun or non-count noun) is a common Noun that presents entities as an unbounded mass The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive 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 available water")

Genitive case in Turkish

Unlike in Germanic languages, there are different modalities of genitive in Turkish, such as definite and indefinite. Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. The definite genitive case in Turkish is constructed using two suffixes, one for the possessor and for the possessed object, for example:

Nominative: Kadın (woman) ayakkabı (shoe)
Genitive  : Kadının ayakkabısı (the shoe of the woman)

In the indefinite form, only the possessed word gets a suffix:

Nominative: Kadın (woman) kıyafet (clothing)
Genitive  : Kadın kıyafeti (women's clothing)

Genitive case in Semitic languages

Genitive case marking existed in Proto-Semitic, Akkadian, and Ugaritic. Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical Proto-language of the Semitic languages. The Ugaritic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 is known only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit, near the modern It indicated possession, and it is preserved today only in literary Arabic. Literary Arabic (ar اللغة العربية الفصحى "the Eloquent Arabic language" or Standard Arabic is the literary and standard variety

Genitive in Akkadian

Nominative: šarrum (a/the king)
Genitive: aššat šarrim (the wife of a/the king = king's wife)

Genitive in Arabic

Nominative: baytun (a house)
Genitive: bābu baytin (the door of a house) bābu al-bayti (the door of the house)

The Arabic genitive marking also appears after certain prepositions.

e. g. 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 bayt-ī (my house) kitābu-ka (thy [masc. ] book).

Genitive in astronomy

In the case of constellations, it is useful to know the genitive of the constellation's Latin name, since this is used to make the Bayer designation of stars in that constellation. In common usage a constellation is a group of celestial bodies that are connected together in some arrangement typically stars to form a visible figure or picture A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek letter, followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's For instance, since the genitive of the Latin word virgo ("virgin") is virginis, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo is known as Alpha Virginis. Spica (ˈspaɪkə (also known as α Vir / α Virginis / Alpha Virginis is the brightest star in the Constellation Virgo, and the 15th brightest star Many references on constellations list the genitive for each constellation.

References

  1. ^ § 5. 116 note [b], page 322, Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, Jan Svartvik, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, London and New York: Longman, 1985. ISBN 0-582-51734-6
  2. ^ double possessive, page 227 in H. W. Fowler and R. W. Burchfield, The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, Oxford: Oxford University Press, revised third edition, 2000. ISBN 0-19-860263-4
  3. ^ Chapter 5, § 16. 3 Type III, pages 468-469, Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-521-43146-8
  4. ^ of XIII. 44, volume 10, page 715, The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1989, second edition ISBN 0-19-861186-2
  5. ^ Entry adverbial genitive, pages 35-36 in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 1994 ISBN 0-87779-132-5. Also see entry of. 3 page 680.

See also

External links

The possessive case of a language is a Grammatical case used to indicate a relationship of possession. " Saxon genitive " is the traditional term used for the ’s ( Apostrophe -s word-ending in the English language.

Dictionary

genitive case

-noun

  1. (grammar) Noun case used to express some relationship such as possession or origin. It corresponds roughly to the English preposition "of." Though similar to the possessive case, it is not the same: the possessive case shows possession, while the genitive is much broader: John’s milk is possessive as well as genitive; glass of milk is only genitive, since the milk does not possess the glass. Some languages that make use of the genitive case include Armenian, Croatian, Dyirbal, Finnish, German, Greek, Latin, Polish, Quechua, Russian, Sanskrit and Slovenian.
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