GENITIVE CASE

In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as

modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of
another noun.

Freddie’s lorry the keyboard of the computer

genitive head head genitive

In English, the case (or function) of a noun may be of two types: the
unmarked common case or periphrastic “of” and the inflected form “’s”. The
periphrastic genitive usually acts as a postmodifier (e.g. the leg of the desk; the
cover of the magazine). On the other hand, the inflected genitive always acts as
a premodifier (e.g. Jacob and Fred’s quarrel; Lucy’s parents), being classified
as determiner (possessive determiner):

Tina’s office  Her office

Socrates’ doctrines  His doctrines (*)

(*) In being phonologically identical with the plural, the regular genitive plural is
sometimes called “zero genitive.” Such a zero genitive is common with names
that end in /s/ in their written forms, especially if they are foreign names.
Examples:

 Archimedes’ Law

 Phoebus’ chariot

 Keats’ poetry

 Copernicus’ heliocentric model

 Dickens’ Oliver Twist

In general, the genitive acts as a postmodifier in Spanish translations

(sintagma preposicional, MI), for instance:
 Tina’s office  La oficina de Tina

 Keats’ poetry  La poesía de Keats

But is it always so? What about the following examples?

 Tom’s sadness  ¿La tristeza de Tom? o ¿Tom está triste?

 Syria’s war  ¿La guerra de Siria? o ¿Siria está en guerra?

The latter translation in both examples is better than the former one. As
perceived, only one possibility in English (‘s), different possible translations or
interpretations in Spanish. This in turn leads us to think that the inflected
genitive in English has different meanings other than those associated with the
mere idea of “possession” (possessive case).

We can interpret, for example, “Tina’s office” as “Tina has an office”

(possession) but it is impossible to associate the idea of possession to the
examples about “Tom” or “Syria.” (INCORRECT: “Tom has a sadness” or “Syria
has a war.”)

Now concentrate in the following example. How would you translate it into
Spanish? Write your translation in the box.

On my way to school, I met Jim, the soldier’s uncle.

Let’s analyse the genitive and see whether your translation is right.

1.I met Jim, the doctor’s uncle.

Who did you meet?

Jim, the doctor’s uncle.

What is the head of this noun phrase?

Most students usually concentrate on Jim here.

According to that, how would you translate it into Spanish then?

They always put forward the following interpretation here: “Conocí a Jim, el tío
del soldado.” (Jim es el tío)
Perfect! But they are only 50% brilliant!

2.What would happen if they considered “uncle” to be the head?

Is the interpretation right?

Yes. The interpretation would have been right as well. In this case, the
translation would be as follows: “Conocí al tío de Jim, el soldado.” (Jim es
soldado).

As you see the inflected genitive is totally ambiguous in English since the
only possibility is (‘s), which may have sometimes multiple interpretations in
Spanish depending on its semantic use, i.e. on the meaning it conveys.

This is just only one example of ambiguous interpretation of the genitive,

but there are still some others.

GENITIVES: SEMANTIC MEANINGS

The multiple meanings expressed by “the genitive” can conveniently be

shown through paraphrase. By using the verb “have/has”, we understand that
the genitive denotes the idea of “possession”; but, as we have seen, not all
cases convey the same meaning.

Let’s start with the meaning of genitive as “possessive” and introduce some
others afterwards.

1.Possessive genitive (or genitive of possession)

This is the commonest and most familiar function of genitive. So key words like
“have/has”, “owns”, “possessed by”, “belong to” will be useful for the
interpretation. Examples:

 Mrs. Anderson’s green dress  Mrs. Anderson has a green dress

 Napoleon’s mighty army  Napoleon has a mighty army

 My friend’s daughter  My friend has a daughter

 I guess this is Mary’s ruler  I guess this ruler belongs to Mary.

 The ship’s funnel  the ship has a funnel. (*)

Cf “the funnel of the ship.”

2.Attributive genitive (or genitive of attribute)
In this case, the head noun “qualifies” the genitive, that’s why it is said that it
has an attributive (or adjectival) function. Examples:

 Tom’s sadness  (means) Tom is sad (attribution or adjective)

 The mother’s beauty  (means) The mother is beautiful (attribution or

adjective)

 Brazil’s immensity  (means) Brazil is immense/huge/enormous

(attribution or adjective)

 The victim’s outstanding courage  (means) The victim was very

courageous (attribution or adjective)

Therefore, whenever the noun as head can be changed into an adjective

the genitive is said to be qualified attributively. That’s why it is called “genitive of
attribute.” In the examples cited:

 sadness – sad

 beauty – beautiful

 inmensity – inmense /huge /enormous

 courage – courageous

3.Partitive genitive
As the name puts forward, a partitive genitive means the noun as head
refers just to “a part” of a whole. So key words like “which is a part of” will be
necessary for the interpretation. Examples:

 the heart’s two ventricles  the heart has two ventricles “the ventricles”
are just a part of the heart, considered as a “whole”.

 the baby’s eyes  the baby has (blue) eyes  “the eyes” are just a part of
the body (the “whole”).

 The bird’s wings  the bird has (short) wings  “the wings” represent just a
part of a whole (body).

Sometimes, partitive genitives require genitives to be premodified by a

nuance indicating “portion” (some, one, a part, tenth, and the like). Examples:
 two-thirds of the world’s population  “two-thirds” is a mark indicating just “a
part” of “the whole” (world).

4.Nominalized genitive
It refers to a noun phrase as genitive which may have two different
functions in a sentence.

a-Subjective genitive: In some grammars, this is considered a special

subdivision of the possessive genitive. In this case, the genitive refers to a noun
that implies the activity performed by the head noun, which is “the doer of the
action.” Examples:

 the boss’s signature  the boss signed…

genitive subject (doer of the action)

 the parents’ consent  the parents consented…

 John’s arrival  John arrived.

 My friend’s visit  My friend visited us.

b-Objective genitive: The genitive noun functions as the direct object of the
verbal idea implicit in the head noun. Examples:

 the prisoner’s release  the police (someone) released the prisoner.

genitive DO

 Mr. Lynton’s trial  They (someone) tried Mr. Lynton.

Sometimes, we can also use the passive construction where the DO

becomes the subject of the sentence. Let’s read the following examples:

 The prisoner was released.

 Mr. Lynton was tried.

5.Genitive of origin
It is in a certain way similar to subjective genitive, but the “head noun” does
not represent an activity and the genitive noun marks the source from which
anything has its origin. That’s why it is also called “genitive of source.”

Examples:

 the hen’s eggs  the hen laid some eggs

 Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet  Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare and

Juliet

 France’s perfumes  France makes/exports…. perfumes

 Mary’s love story  Mary wrote/told/read … a love story.

6.Descriptive genitive
It concerns the rephrasing of the genitive in such a way that it becomes a
prepositional phrase; for example:

 the sailor’s uniform  uniform worn by sailors

genitive prepositional phrase

 a girls’ school  a school for girls. / a school attended exclusively by girls.

 men’s sports  sports for men /sports played by men

 the airplane’s speed  the speed of the airplane

7.Genitives of time and measure

Some grammarians include them as a subcategory of descriptive genitives.
As the name implies, the genitive refers to any specific time or kind of measure
(length, weight, duration, etc.)

 Time: today’s newspaper; tomorrow’s exam; this year’s events

 Duration: two months’ imprisonment; an hour’s ride; ten days’ absence

 Distance/ length: a mile’s walk; at arm’s length

 Monetary value: thirty pounds’ worth; two hundred dollars’ debt

8.Double or redundant genitive
The relation between the two nouns is marked twice:

 by means of case ending (a possessive form of a noun or a possessive

pronoun)

 the preposition of

 In addition to this, it is used whenever another determiner besides the

genitive is needed.

Let’s analyse these items in the following picture:

1.He isn’t a friend of Mr. Pontellier’s.

determiner possessive form of a noun

preposition “of”

2.He’s a friend of mine.

determiner possessive pronoun

preposition “of”

As seen in both examples, the possession is signaled twice: first with the
preposition “of” and then with the apostrophe + s. It sounds terribly awkward,
but it is grammatically correct.

What do these examples imply?

1.a friend of Mr. Pontellier’s  one of Mr. Ponntellier’s friends

2.a friend of mine  one of my friends

Here there are some more examples:

 Rosie is a former teacher of Sam’s.  one of Sam’s former teachers

 He is a neighbour of my sister-in-law’s.  one of my sister-in-law’s

neighbours

 Naty is a friend of ours.  one of our friends

 She is a friend of Joan’s and a client of Marlowe’s  one of Joan’s friends

and Marlowe’s clients

 This was a good idea of Jack’s  one of Jack’s ideas was good

IMPORTANT:

Read the following examples carefully. Do they mean the same?

1.We met a friend of Caroline’s in Spain.

2.We met Caroline’s friend in Spain.

Of course, not! They do not convey the same meaning. The first sentence
represents an example of a double or redundant genitive. Consequently it
refers to “one of Caroline’s friends”, who may or may not be known to the
hearer (generic reference). In contrast, the second one is an example of a
dependent genitive. It refers to “one specific friend”, who is assumed to be
known to the hearer (specific reference).

9.Group Genitive
It is a genitive formed by adding the inflected genitive (‘s) to the last word of
a phrase. Examples:

 Amanda is the man we met last week’s wife.

 The teacher of Music’s room is closed by key.

 The old woman next door’s dogs are quite dangerous.

Now pay attention to the following examples.

1.Peter and Cecily’s new cars are in the parking lot.

2.Peter’s and Cecily’s new cars are in the parking lot.

When two nouns possess something, the (‘s) placement depends on

whether the nouns are acting separately or together.

Example 1: The construction tells us that Peter and Cecily share ownership of
these cars. The possessive indicated by (‘s) belongs to the entire phrase, not
just to Cecily.

Translation: Los autos nuevos de Peter y Cecily están en el estacionamiento.

________

Example 2: This means that each of them has at least one new car and that
their ownership is a separate matter.

Translation: El auto nuevo de Peter y el de Cecily están en el estacionamiento.

When one of the possessors in a group genitive (or compound possessive,

as some grammarians refer to it) is a personal pronoun, we have to put both
possessors in the possessive form or we end up with something silly.

Read the following example:

 Bill and my car had to be towed last night. (this means that Bill himself got
towed together with the car). INCORRECT

 Bill’s and my car had to be towed last night. CORRECT

10.Appositive genitive
Let’s go back to the example of appositive genitive cited in one of the first
pages.

On my way to school, I met Jim, the soldier’s uncle.

Remember that this is a clear example of ambiguous interpretation, depending

on the noun of the nominal phrase we consider as head: the head of the DO or
the head noun of the nominal phrase in apposition.

When a possessive noun is followed by an appositive (a word or phrase that

renames or explains even further that noun), the (‘s) is always added to the
appositive, not to the possessive noun. Examples:

 This is Ann Taylor, my best friend’s mother.

 I met John Bidwell, my friend’s father-in-law.

 When I walked past the bank I saw Liz, my teacher’s daughter. She is a
secretary at the bank. (*)

(*) Again in this example, we may have different interpretations; consequently,

ambiguity arises:

1.Liz is the daughter if we pose Liz as the head of the noun phrase as DO.

2.Liz is the teacher if we pose daughter as the head.

11.Independent genitive
When the reference is contextually clear, some genitive phrases involve
ellipsis, i.e. they ellipt the noun following the genitive. Examples:

 Jennifer’s is the only face I recognize here.> i.e. Jennifer’s face

 He has a devotion to work like his father’s. > i.e. his father’s devotion to
work.

 Those aren’t my jeans; they are Martin’s. > i.e. Martin’s jeans.

 All the boys preferred boys’ toys to girls’. > i.e. …to girls’ toys.

Some independent genitives have also become conventional referring to

places of business, people’s homes, clubs, companies, and so on. As they ellipt
the redundant names of places or buildings, some grammarians like Quirk also
refer to this special use of independent genitives as “locative genitives.”

Examples:

 When I arrived at Jackeline’s, I found I’d come on the wrong day.

 My grandmother is still at the dentist’s.

 My butcher’s stays open late on Fridays.

 He was baptized at St. Paul’s.

 I ran into Jim in Salsbury’s last weekend.

The omitted nouns to refer to “house” – “surgery” – “shop” – “cathedral” –

“supermarket”, respectively.
12.Fixed collocations
Genitives also tend to occur in fixed collocations, as in the following
examples: for God’s sake, for goodness’ sake, for heaven’s sake, for old time’s /
times’ sake.

Within this group, we can include some names of diseases, syndromes,

religious or legal affairs and heavenly bodies involving the inflected genitive.
Examples: Down’s syndrome, Halley’s comet, Parkinson’s disease, Noah’s ark,
Adam’s apple, the devil’s advocate, St. Valentine’s Day, Achilles’ heel,
Pandora’s box, and so on.

Also, we shall place here some common idioms: tied to your mother’s apron
strings, in my mind’s eye, a nine day’s wonder, it’s a dog’s life, for donkey’s
years, the bee’s knees, to stir up a hornet’s nest, and others.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Close, R.A. (1975). A Reference Grammar for Students of English. London:

Longman.

Greenbaum, S. and Randolph Quirk (1990). A Student’s Grammar of the

English Language. Great Britain: Longman.

Hadlich, R. (1971). A Transformational Grammar of Spanish. Englewood Cliffs,

NJ: Prentice Hall.

James, C. (1980). Contrastive Analysis. Harlow: Longman.

Jespersen, O. (1933). Essentials of English Grammar. New York: Henry Holt.

Nessie School of Languages (2007). Genitive case and possessive pronouns.

http://blocs.mesvilaweb.cat/Subirats/?p=60605

Nordquist, R. (2017). Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms.

Independent genitive. https://www.thoughtco.com/independent-genitive-
possession-1691158