In English,
possessive words or phrases exist for
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
s and most
pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...
s, as well as some
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
s. These can play the roles of
determiners (also called possessive adjectives when corresponding to a pronoun) or of nouns.
For nouns, noun phrases, and some pronouns, the possessive is generally formed with the
suffix ''-s'', but in some cases just with the addition of an apostrophe to an existing ''s''. This form is sometimes called the Saxon genitive, reflecting the suffix's derivation from
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
.
Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s, however, have irregular possessives, and most of them have different forms for possessive determiners and possessive pronouns, such as ''my'' and ''mine'' or ''your'' and ''yours''.
Possessives are one of the means by which
genitive construction
In grammar, a genitive construction or genitival construction is a type of grammatical construction used to express a relation between two nouns such as the possession of one by another (e.g. "John's jacket"), or some other type of connection ( ...
s are formed in modern English, the other principal one being the use of the
preposition ''of''. It is sometimes stated that the possessives represent a
grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...
, called the genitive or
possessive case
A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict own ...
, though some linguists do not accept this view, regarding the ''s'' ending, variously, as a phrasal
affix, an edge affix, or a
clitic, rather than as a case ending.
Formation of possessive construction
Nouns and noun phrases
The possessive form of an
English noun, or more generally a
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
, is made by suffixing a
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.
In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...
which is represented
orthographically as ''s'' (the letter
s preceded by an
apostrophe), and is
pronounced in the same way as the regular
English plural
English nouns are inflected for grammatical number, meaning that, if they are of the countable type, they generally have different forms for singular and plural. This article discusses the variety of ways in which English plural nouns are formed ...
ending ''(e)s'': namely as when following a
sibilant sound (, , , , or ), as when following any other
voiceless consonant
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
(, , , or ), and as otherwise. For example:
*''Mitch'' has the possessive ''Mitch's''
*''luck'' has the possessive ''luck's''
*''man'' has the singular possessive ''man's'' and the plural possessive ''men's''
Note the distinction from the plural in nouns whose plural is irregular: ''man's'' vs. ''men'', ''wife's'' vs. ''wives'', etc.
In the case of plural nouns ending in ''-s'', the possessive is spelled by only adding an apostrophe and is pronounced the same (for example:
Peasants' Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt, also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Blac ...
). In the case of singular nouns ending in ''-s'' (or ''-z'' in another sibilant ''-z'' or ''-x'' sound; or ''-se'', ''-ze'', ''-ce'' or ''-xe''. Example,
Verreaux's eagle
Verreaux's eagle (''Aquila verreauxii'') is a large, mostly African, bird of prey. It is also called the black eagle, especially in southern Africa, not to be confused with the Indian black eagle (''Ictinaetus malayensis''), which lives far to t ...
), the possessive was traditionally
also spelled by adding only an apostrophe (despite often being pronounced differently):
*the possessive of ''cats'' is ''cats'', both words being pronounced
*the possessive of ''James'' can be spelled ''James's'' and pronounced -, but the possessive of ''Jesus'' is often spelled adding only an apostrophe (''Jesus'' and is and was usually pronounced the same ().
Singular nouns ending in ''s'' can also form a possessive regularly by adding ''s'', as in ''Charles's'' or ''boss's''. The ''
Chicago Manual of Style'' recommends this style, while stating that adding just an apostrophe (e.g. ''Jesus'' is also correct. ''
The Associated Press Stylebook
The ''AP Stylebook'', also known by its full name ''The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law'', is an American English grammar style guide, style and usage guide created by American journalists working for or connected with the A ...
'' recommends the ''s's'' style for nouns other than proper nouns, but only if the following word does not begin with ''s''.
''
The Elements of Style
''The Elements of Style'' is an American English writing style guide in numerous editions. The original was written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and published by Harcourt in 1920, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage", ten "elementary ...
'' and the ''Canadian Press Stylebook'' prefer the form of ''s's'' with the exception of Biblical and classical proper names (''Jesus' teachings'', ''Augustus' guards'') and common phrases that do not take the extra syllabic ''s'' (e.g. "for goodness' sake"). For more on style guidance for this and other issues relating to the construction of possessives in English, see
possessive apostrophe
The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one o ...
.
More generally, the ''s'' morpheme can be attached to the last word of a noun phrase, even if the
head noun
In linguistics, the head or nucleus of a phrase is the word that determines the syntactic category of that phrase. For example, the head of the noun phrase ''boiling hot water'' is the noun ''water''. Analogously, the head of a compound is the s ...
does not end the phrase. For example, the phrase ''the king of Spain'' can form the possessive ''the king of Spain's'', and – in informal style – the phrase ''the man we saw yesterday'' can form ''the man we saw yesterday's''. Both ''John's and Laura's house'' and ''John and Laura's house'' are correct, though the latter is more common, especially in idiomatic speech. See below.
Scientific terminology, in particular the Latin names for stars, uses the Latin genitive form of the name of the constellation; thus, ''
Alpha Centauri'', where ''Centauri'' is the genitive of constellation name ''Centaurus''.
Pronouns
Unlike other noun phrases which only have a single possessive form,
personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s in English have two possessive forms:
possessive determiners (used to form noun phrases such as "''her'' success") and
possessive pronouns (used in place of nouns either as an object, as in "I prefer ''hers''", or as a predicate pronoun, as in "the success was ''hers''"). In most cases these are different from each other.
For example, the pronoun ''I'' has possessive determiner ''my'' and possessive pronoun ''mine''; ''you'' has ''your'' and ''yours''; ''he'' has '' his'' for both; ''she'' has ''her'' and ''hers''; ''it'' has ''its'' for both; ''we'' has ''our'' and ''ours''; ''they'' has ''their'' and ''theirs''. The archaic ''thou'' has ''thy'' and ''thine''. For a full table and further details, see
English personal pronouns.
Note that possessive ''its'' has no apostrophe, although it is sometimes written with one in error (see
hypercorrection) by confusion with the common possessive ending ''-'s'' and the
contraction ''it's'' used for ''it is'' and ''it has''. Possessive ''its'' was originally formed with an apostrophe in the 17th century, but it had been dropped by the early 19th century, presumably to make it more similar to the other personal pronoun possessives.
The
interrogative and
relative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. It serves the purpose of conjoining modifying information about an antecedent referent.
An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the r ...
''who'' has the possessive ''whose''. In its relative use, ''whose'' can also refer to inanimate antecedents, but its interrogative use always refers to persons.
Other pronouns that form possessives (mainly
indefinite pronouns) do so in the same way as nouns, with '' 's'', for example ''one's'', ''somebody's'' (and ''somebody else's''). Certain pronouns, such as the common
demonstratives
Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...
''this'', ''that'', ''these'', and ''those'', do not form their possessives using ''s'', and ''of this'', ''of that'', etc., are used instead.
Syntactic functions of possessive words or phrases
English possessives play two principal roles in
syntax:
*the role of
possessive determiners (more popularly called possessive adjectives; see ) standing before a noun, as in ''my house'' or ''John's two sisters'';
*the role of
possessive pronouns (although they may not always be called that), standing independently in place of a noun, as in ''mine is large''; ''they prefer John's''.
As determiners
Possessive noun phrases such as "John's" can be used as determiners. When a form corresponding to a personal pronoun is used as a possessive determiner, the correct form must be used, as described above (''my'' rather than ''mine'', etc.).
Possessive determiners are not used in combination with
article
Article often refers to:
* Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
* Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication
Article may also refer to:
G ...
s or other definite determiners. For example, it is not correct to say *''the my hat'', *''a my hat'' or *''this my hat''; an alternative is provided in the last two cases by the "double genitive" as described in the following section – ''a hat of mine'' (also ''one of my hats''), ''this hat of mine''. Possessive determiners can nonetheless be combined with certain quantifiers, as in ''my six hats'' (which differs in meaning from ''six of my hats''). See
English determiners
English determiners (also known as determinatives)
are words – such as ''the'', ''a'', ''each'', ''some'', ''which'', ''this'', and ''six'' – that are most commonly used with noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name ...
for more details.
A possessive adjective can be
intensified with the word ''own'', which can itself be either an adjective or a pronoun: ''my own (bed)'', ''John's own (bed)''.
In some expressions the possessive has itself taken on the role of a noun modifier, as in ''cow's milk'' (used rather than ''cow milk''). It then no longer functions as a determiner; adjectives and determiners can be placed before it, as in ''the warm cow's milk'', where idiomatically ''the'' and ''warm'' now refer to the milk, not to the cow.
Possessive relationships can also be expressed
periphrastically, by preceding the noun or noun phrase with the preposition ''of'', although possessives are usually more idiomatic where a true relationship of
possession
Possession may refer to:
Law
* Dependent territory, an area of land over which another country exercises sovereignty, but which does not have the full right of participation in that country's governance
* Drug possession, a crime
* Ownership
* ...
is involved. Some examples:
* ''the child's bag'' might also be expressed as ''the bag of the child''
* ''our cats' mother'' might be expressed as ''the mother of our cats''
* ''the system's failure'' might be expressed as ''the failure of the system''
Another alternative in the last case may be ''the system failure'', using ''system'' as a
noun adjunct
In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is an optional noun that modifies another noun; functioning similarly to an adjective, it is, more specifically, a noun functioning as a pre-modif ...
rather than a possessive – this is common when the possessor is more
abstract in character.
As pronouns
Possessives can also play the role of nouns or pronouns; namely they can stand alone as a
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
, without qualifying a noun. In this role they can function as the
subject or
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ...
of verbs, or as a complement of
prepositions. When a form corresponding to a personal pronoun is used in this role, the correct form must be used, as described above (''mine'' rather than ''my'', etc.).
Examples:
*''I'll do my work, and you do yours.'' (here ''yours'' is a possessive pronoun, meaning "your work", and standing as the object of the verb ''do'')
*''My car is old, Mary's is new.'' (here ''Mary's'' means "Mary's car" and stands as the subject of its clause)
*''Your house is nice, but I prefer to stay in mine.'' (here ''mine'' means "my house", and is the complement of the preposition ''in'')
Double genitive
The genitive can be combined with an ''of'' construction to produce what is often called a ''double genitive'', as in the following examples:
*''that hard heart of thine'' (
''Venus and Adonis'', line 500)
*''this extreme exactness of his'' (
Sterne,
''Tristram Shandy'', chapter 1.IV)
*''that poor mother of mine'' (
Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray (; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1848 novel ''Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portrait of British society, and th ...
,
''Barry Lyndon'', chapter I) and uses of the title ''
Mother of Mine'',
*''
Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby's is a Friend of Mine'', and frequent uses of the title ''
Friend of Mine''
*''a picture of the king's'' (that is, a picture owned by the king, as distinct from ''a picture of the king'' – a picture in which the king is portrayed)
Some object to the name ''double genitive'' because the "of" clause is not a genitive. Alternative names are "oblique genitive", "post-genitive", "cumulative genitive", "pleonastic genitive", and "double possessive".
Some writers have stigmatized this usage.
However, 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."
Cf.
The abbreviation ''cf.'' (short for the la, confer/conferatur, both meaning "compare") is used in writing to refer the reader to other material to make a comparison with the topic being discussed. Style guides recommend that ''cf.'' be used onl ...
"That's the only one of your friends that I've ever met" "
e construction is confined to human referents: compare ''a friend of the Gallery / no fault of the Gallery.''"
The ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...
'' says that this usage was "Originally
partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...
, but subseq
ently became anbsp;... simple possessive ... or as equivalent to an
appositive
Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side so one element identifies the other in a different way. The two elements are said to be ''in apposition'', and one of the elements is c ...
phrase ...".
Subject complements
When they are used as
subject complements, as in ''this is mine'' and ''that pen is John's'', the intended sense may be either that of a predicate pronoun or of a
predicate adjective; however, their form (''mine'', ''yours'', etc.) in this case is the same as that used in other sentences for possessive pronouns.
Use of ''whose''
The following sentences illustrate the uses of ''whose'':
*As the possessive of interrogative ''who'': ''Whose pen is this? Whose do you prefer? For whose good are we doing it?''
*As the possessive of relative ''who'' (normally only as determiner, not pronoun): ''There is the man whose pen we broke. She is the woman in whose garden we found you.''
*As the possessive of relative ''which'' (again, normally only as determiner): ''It is an idea whose time has come'' (preferably to ''...of which the time has come'').
Semantics
Possessives, as well as their synonymous constructions with ''of'', express a range of relationships that are not limited strictly to possession in the sense of ownership. Some discussion of such relationships can be found at
Possession (linguistics)
In linguistics, possession is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which (the possessor) in some sense possesses (owns, has as a part, rules over, etc.) the referent of the other (the possessed).
Possessio ...
and at . Some points as they relate specifically to English are discussed below.
Actions
When possessives are used with a
verbal noun
A verbal noun or gerundial noun is a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The sacking of the city was an epochal event" (''sacking'' is a noun formed from the verb ''sack'').
...
or other noun expressing an action, the possessive may represent either the doer of the action (the
subject of the corresponding verb) or the undergoer of the action (the
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ...
of the verb). The same applies to ''of'' phrases. When a possessive and an ''of'' phrase are used with the same action noun, the former generally represents the subject and the latter the object. For example:
* ''Fred's dancing'' (or ''the dancing of Fred'' – Fred is the dancer (only possible meaning with this verb)
* ''the proposal's rejection'' or ''the rejection of the proposal'' – the proposal is rejected
* ''Fred's rejection of the proposal'' – Fred is the rejecter, the proposal is rejected
When a gerundive phrase acts as the object of a verb or preposition, the agent/subject of the gerund may be possessive or not, reflecting two different but equally valid interpretations of the phrase's structure:
* ''I object to Ralph destroying the barn.'' (Ralph is the subject of the gerundive verb "destroying".)
* ''I object to Ralph's destroying the barn.'' (Ralph is the genitive of the verbal noun "destroying".)
Time periods
Time periods are sometimes put into possessive form, to express the duration of or time associated with the modified noun:
*''the Hundred Years' War''
*''a day's pay''
*''two weeks' notice''
The paraphrase with ''of'' is often un-idiomatic or ambiguous in these cases.
Expressing ''for''
Sometimes the possessive expresses for whom something is intended, rather than to whom it physically belongs:
*''women's shoes''
*''children's literature''
These cases would be paraphrased with ''for'' rather than ''of'' (''shoes for women'').
Appositive genitive
Sometimes
genitive construction
In grammar, a genitive construction or genitival construction is a type of grammatical construction used to express a relation between two nouns such as the possession of one by another (e.g. "John's jacket"), or some other type of connection ( ...
s are used to express a noun in
apposition
Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side so one element identifies the other in a different way. The two elements are said to be ''in apposition'', and one of the elements is ...
to the main one, as in ''the Isle of Man'', ''the problem of drug abuse''. This may be occasionally be done with a possessive (as in ''
Dublin's fair city'', for ''the fair city of Dublin''), but this is a rare usage.
History
The ''s'' clitic originated in Old English as an
inflexion
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and def ...
al
suffix marking
genitive case. In the modern language, it can often be attached to the end of an entire phrase (as in "The king of Spain's wife" or "The man whom you met yesterday's bicycle"). As a result, it is normally viewed by linguists as a
clitic – that is, a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but depends phonologically on another word or phrase.
An identical form of the clitic exists in the
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also ...
, and in the
North Frisian sister language of Old English. But the accepted linguistic history of the clitic possessive in these languages is very different.
In
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th cen ...
, ''-es'' was the ending of the
genitive singular
Singular may refer to:
* Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms
* Singular homology
* SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS)
* Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
of most
strong declension nouns
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
and the
masculine and
neuter genitive singular of strong
adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
s. The ending ''-e'' was used for strong nouns with Germanic ō-stems, which constituted most of the
feminine strong nouns, and for the feminine genitive singular form of strong adjectives.
In
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
the ''es'' ending was generalised to the genitive of all strong declension nouns. By the sixteenth century, the remaining strong declension endings were generalized to all nouns. The spelling ''es'' remained, but in many words the letter ''e'' no longer represented a sound. In those words, printers often copied the French practice of substituting an
apostrophe for the letter ''e''. In later use, ''s'' was used for all nouns where the /s/ sound was used for the possessive form, and when adding ''s'' to a word like ''love'' the ''e'' was no longer omitted. The ''s'' form was also used for
plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
noun forms. These were derived from the strong declension ''as'' ending in Old English. In Middle English, the spelling was changed to ''-es'', reflecting a change in pronunciation, and extended to all
cases of the plural, including the genitive. Later conventions removed the apostrophe from subjective and objective case forms and added it after the ''s'' in possessive case forms. See
Apostrophe: Historical development
![ElishaCooke bookplate](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/ElishaCooke_bookplate.jpg)
In the Early Modern English of 1580 to 1620 it was sometimes spelled as "his" as a
folk etymology, e.g. "St. James his park"; see
''his'' genitive.
The verse Genesis 9:6 shows the development. The
Wycliffe Bible
Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of English theologian John Wycliffe. They appeared over a period from approximately 1382 to 1395. These Bible translati ...
(1395) contains the word "mannus" ("Who euere schedith out mannus blood, his blood schal be sched; for man is maad to the ymage of God."). In the original
King James Bible (1611) there is "mans" ("Who so sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man."). In the plural, the 1611 King James has ''mens'', but the older Wycliffe Bible uses ''of men''.
Another remnant of the Old English genitive is the
adverbial genitive
In grammar, an adverbial genitive is a noun declined in the genitive case that functions as an adverb.
English
In Old and Middle English, the genitive case was productive, and adverbial genitives were commonplace. While Modern English does n ...
, where the ending ''s'' (without apostrophe) forms adverbs of time: ''nowadays'', ''closed Sundays''. There is a literary periphrastic form using ''of'', as in ''of a summer day''. There are also forms in ''-ce'', from genitives of number and place: ''once, twice, thrice''; ''whence, hence, thence''.
There is also the "genitive of measure": forms such as "a five-mile journey" and "a ten-foot pole" use what is actually a remnant of the Old English genitive plural 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".
Status of the possessive as a grammatical case
Historically, the possessive
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.
In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...
represented by s was a case marker, as noted in the previous section, and the modern English possessive can also be analysed as a
grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...
, called the "possessive case" or "
genitive case". However, it differs from the noun inflection of languages such as German, in that in phrases like ''the king of England's horse'' the ending is separated from the
head noun (''king'') and attaches to the last word of the phrase. To account for this, the possessive can be analysed, for instance as a clitic construction (an "enclitic postposition") or as an inflection of the last word of a phrase ("edge inflection"). (The form ''the king's horse of England'' was the correct form in old times, but not now.)
For instance,
* ''The Oxford English Grammar'', under the heading "Case", states "In speech the genitive is signalled in singular nouns by an inflection that has the same pronunciation variants as for plural nouns in the common case."
* ''
A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language
''A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language'' is a descriptive grammar of English written by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. It was first published by Longman in 1985.
In 1991 it was called "The greate ...
'', under the heading "The forms of the genitive inflection", similarly refers to the "genitive inflection with regular and irregular plurals",
but later – especially with regard to the "group genitive" – revises this to clarify that the ''-s'' ending is not a case ending as in German or Latin but is "more appropriately described as an enclitic postposition".
* ''
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language
''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (''CGEL'') is a descriptive grammar of the English language. Its primary authors are Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum. Huddleston was the only author to work on every chapter. It was publ ...
'' discusses the possessive in greater detail, taking account of group (or phrasal) genitives like ''the King of England's'' and ''somebody else's'' and analyses the construction as an inflection of the final word of the phrase (as opposed to the head word). The discussion in support of this inflectional analysis includes:
** the personal pronouns, where "no other analysis is possible",
** the fact that the genitive ''s'' cannot stand alone, unlike ''m'' in ''I'm'', which can be expanded to ''am''
** the varying form of the genitive suffix (/ɪz/, /z/, /s/) depending on "the phonological properties of the base to which it attaches"
** the sensitivity of the genitive formation to the internal morphological structure of the noun.
Other views are (1) that the possessive can be regarded as having elements of an affix and elements of a clitic, which are seen as ''idealized'' categories, and (2) that the possessive form can be an affix or a clitic, but only one of the two in any given example.
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Notes
{{reflist, 30em
External links
Using the possessive in EnglishA guide for learners of English
Possessive
Possessive
Genitive construction
fr:Génitif#Génitif saxon