Dictionary of Meaning

<<Back
Please select a letter:
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0-9

Genitive case

*** Shopping-Tip: Genitive case
{{Table_Cases}} The '''genitive case''' is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession (linguistics) possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. In a more general sense, this genitive relationship may be thought of as one thing belonging to, being created from, or otherwise deriving from some other thing. (The relationship is usually expressed by the preposition ''of'' in English.) The term ''possessive case'' refers to a case that is similar, though usually more restricted in usage, to the genitive. Specific varieties of genitive relationships include: * origin ("men ''of Rome''") * relationship ("''Janet's'' husband") * subjectivity ("''my'' leaving") * objectivity ("the ''archduke's'' murder") * description ("man ''of honor''", "day ''of reckoning''") * composition ("wheel ''of cheese''") — partitive case partitive * number of distinct items (Old English language Old English "fÃ©ower ''manna''"; literally, "four ''of men''") — partitive * part of a mass ("a pound ''of beef''") — partitive * inalienable possession ("''my'' height", "''his'' existence", "''her'' long fingers") * alienable possession ("''his'' jacket", "''my'' drink") The last two relationships are the most commonly expressed by the genitive. A distinct partitive case is used in the languages supporting it. The partitive applies to number of distinct items, composition and part of mass, as in Finnish ''kilo juustoa'' "a kilogram ''of cheese''". In some languages, nouns in the genitive case also agree in case with the nouns they modify (that is, the head noun is marked for two cases). This phenomenon is called suffixaufnahme. One form in which genitive cases may be found is inclusio. Many languages have a genitive case, including Lithuanian language Lithuanian, Arabic_language Arabic, Latin, Irish_language Irish, Georgian language Georgian, Greek_language Greek, German language German, Dutch language Dutch, Polish_language Polish, Slovenian_language Slovenian, Russian_language Russian, Finnish_language Finnish and Sanskrit. English does not have a proper genitive case, but a possessive ending, ''-'s'' (see below).

The English ''-'s'' ending

The possessive marker
Some argue that it is a common misconception that English_language English nouns have a genitive case, marked by the possessive ''-'s'' ending (known as the saxon genitive). Some Linguistics linguists believe that English possessive is no longer a case at all, but has become a clitic, an independent grammatical particle 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 language 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 language Old English Morphology (linguistics) morphology. The use of an independently written particle for the possessive can be seen in the closely related Afrikaans language: ''die man se hand'' (the man's hand). The 18th century explanation that the Apostrophe (punctuation) apostrophe might replace a genitive pronoun, as in "the king's horse" being a shortened form of "the king, his horse", is erroneous (a construction which actually occurs in German language German dialects and has replaced the genitive there, together with the "of" construction that also exists in English). Indeed, it would be expected that plurals and feminine nouns would form possessives using '-r': "*The queen'r children" would be short for "the queen, her children". Since this is different from the plural, it would provide a useful distinction. The fact that that is not how English speakers form possessives shows that the above explanation is incorrect. A few remnants of the genitive case do remain in Modern English in a few pronouns as ''whose'', the genitive form of ''Who (pronoun) who''; likewise, my/mine, his/hers/its, our/ours, their/theirs. ''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'' 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'', and *''notice of two weeks'' 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 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.

Baltic Finnic "genitives"
In Baltic-Finnic languages, the accusative case ''-(e)n'' is homophonic to the genitive case. In Estonian language Estonian, it is often described 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 ''sydÃ¤men'' vs. nominative ''sydÃ¤n''.) This homophony has only exceptions in Finnish language Finnish, where a separate accusative ''-(e)t'' is found in pronouns, e.g. ''kenet'' "who (telic object)", vs. ''kenen'' "whose".

External links

- Genitive Case In Russian Category:Grammatical cases als:Genitiv bg:Ð Ð¾Ð´Ð¸Ñ‚ÐµÐ»ÐµÐ½ Ð¿Ð°Ð´ÐµÐ¶ ca:Cas genitiu cs:Genitiv da:Genitiv de:Genitiv es:Caso genitivo eo:Genitivo fa:Ø§Ø¶Ø§Ù?Ù‡ (Ø¯Ø³ØªÙˆØ± Ø²Ø¨Ø§Ù†) fr:GÃ©nitif gl:Xenitivo hr:Genitiv is:Eignarfall it:Genitivo nl:Genitief ja:å±žæ ¼ no:Genitiv nn:Genitiv pl:DopeÅ‚niacz (przypadek) ro:Cazul genitiv ru:Ð Ð¾Ð´Ð¸Ñ‚ÐµÐ»ÑŒÐ½Ñ‹Ð¹ Ð¿Ð°Ð´ÐµÐ¶ fi:Genetiivi sv:Genitiv zh:å±žæ ¼

*** Shopping-Tip: Genitive case