Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun. The genitive case typically has other uses as well, which can vary from language to language: it can typically indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take arguments in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses (see Adverbial genitive). 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.

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

• possession (see Possessive case):
  • inalienable possession ("Janet's height", "Janet's existence", "Janet's long fingers")
  • alienable possession ("Janet's jacket", "Janet's drink")
  • relationship indicated by the noun being modified ("Janet's husband")
• composition (see Partitive case):
  • substance ("a wheel of cheese")
  • elements ("a group of men")
  • source ("a portion of the food")
• participation in an action:
  • as an agent ("my leaving") — this is called the subjective genitive
  • as a patient ("the archduke's murder") — this is called the objective genitive
• origin ("men of Rome")
• description ("man of honor", "day of reckoning")
• compounds (Scottish Gaelic "ball coise" = "football", where "coise" = gen. of "cas", "foot")

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. 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 pronoun or an irregular genitive of I, while in Finnish, for example, minun is regularly agglutinated from minu- "I" and -n (genitive).

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). This phenomenon is called suffixaufnahme.

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.

Many languages have a genitive case, including Arabic, Croatian, Czech, Finnish, Georgian, German, Greek, Icelandic, Irish, Latin, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian and Slovenian. English does not have a proper genitive case, but a possessive ending, -'s (see below), although pronouns do have a genitive case.

The English -'s ending

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). Some linguists believe that English possessive is no longer a case at all, but has become a clitic, an independent particle which, however, is always pronounced as part of the preceding word. 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.

The use of an independently written particle for the possessive can be seen in the closely related Dutch language: de man zijn hand (the man's hand, zijn means his).

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 construction occurs in German dialects and has replaced the genitive there, together with the "of" construction that also exists in English. 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/hers/its, our/ours, their/theirs, etc. See also Declension in English.

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

• Beethoven's music
• Fred Astaire's dancing
• Confucius's teaching

In these constructions, the marker indicates the origin or source of the head noun of the phrase, rather than possession per se. Most of these phrases, however, can still be paraphrased with of: the music of Beethoven, the teaching of Confucius.

Objective genitive; classifying genitive

• the Hundred Years' War
• a dollar's worth
• two weeks' notice
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• a prisoner's release

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:

• the war of a Hundred Years
• the pay of a day
• notice of two weeks

They introduce the likelihood of misunderstanding.

Genitive of purpose

• women's shoes
• children's literature

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.

The genitive case in Slavic languages

In Slavic languages such as Russian, Croatian, Polish, etc., nouns in the genitive case are indicated by their endings. The following examples are from Russian.

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 the house.").

Baltic Finnic "genitives"

In Baltic-Finnic languages, the accusative case -(e)n is homophonic to the genitive case. 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", 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.g., kuä'cǩǩmi "eagles' (genitive plural)" and kuä'cǩǩmid "eagles (accusative plural)" in Skolt Sami.

The 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. 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. Many references on constellations list the genitive for each constellation.

See also

• Possessive case
• Saxon genitive

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