adverbial genitive
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

In
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
, an adverbial genitive is a
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, ...
declined in the genitive case that functions as an
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
.


English

In Old and
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 genitive case was
productive Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
, and adverbial genitives were commonplace. While Modern English does not fully retain the genitive case, it has left various relics, including a number of adverbial genitives. Some of them are now analyzed as ordinary adverbs, including the following: * ''always'' (from ''all way'') * ''afterwards'', ''towards'', and so on (from their counterparts in ''-ward'', which historically were adjectives) * ''once'', ''twice'', and ''thrice'' (from the roots of ''one'', ''two'', and ''three'') * ''hence'', ''thence'', and ''whence'' (related to the roots of ''here'', ''there'', and ''where'') Some words were formed from the adverbial genitive along with an additional parasitic ''-t'': * ''amidst'' (from ''amid'') * ''amongst'' (from ''among'') * ''midst'' (from ''mid'') * ''whilst'' (from ''while'') The adverbial genitive also survives in a number of stock phrases; for example, in "I work days and sleep nights", the words ''days'' and ''nights'' are analyzed as plural nouns but are in fact derived historically from the genitive or instrumental cases of ''day'' and ''night''. (That they function as adverbs rather than as direct objects is clear from the rephrasing "I work during the day and sleep at night.") The modern British expression "Of an afternoon I go for a walk" has a similar origin, but uses the periphrasis "of + ''noun''" to replace the original genitive. This periphrastic form has variously been marked as used "particularly in isolated and mountainous regions of the southern United States" and as having "a distinctly literary feel".Entry of.3, page 680, ''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage'', Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 1994


German

German uses the genitive as a productive case, in addition to adverbial genitive expressions. The adverbial suffix ''-erweise'' added to adjectives is derived from the feminine singular genitive adjective ending ''-er'' agreeing with the noun ''Weise'' 'manner'. For example, the adverb ''glücklicherweise'' 'fortunately' can be analyzed as ''glücklicher Weise'' 'fortunate way enitive, i.e. 'in a fortunate way' or more explicitly ‘in a manner of good fortune’ (which also hints at the possessive role of the case). The conjunction ''falls'' ('if') is the genitive of ''Fall'' 'case'. Likewise for ''keinesfalls''/''keineswegs'' ('by no means of'), ''andernfalls'' ('otherwise' i.e. ‘another way of’). The preposition ''angesichts'' ('in view of') is the genitive of ''Angesicht'' ('face'). The time expressions ''morgens'', ''mittags'', ''abends'', ''nachts'', ''eines Tages'' (one day) and ''eines Nachts'' (one night; analogized with ''eines Tages'', though ''Nacht'' is feminine) use the adverbial genitive.


See also

*
English grammar English grammar is the set of structural rules of the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, Sentence (linguistics), sentences, and whole texts. This article describes a generalized, present-day Standard English ...
* Genitive case *
History of the English language English is a West Germanic language that originated from Ingvaeonic languages brought to Britain in the mid-5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands. The Anglo-Sa ...
* Wiktionary list of adverbial genitives


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adverbial Genitive Genitive construction Parts of speech English grammar German grammar