Talk:Genitive case

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I'm not a professional or amateur linguist - I am a humanist who uses and has taught langauges (I taught high school Latin for 8 years). None of these case descriptions is general enough to pass muster. The PRIMARY function of words in the genitive case is possession. There are other uses of the genitive. Lots of them.

I recognize that this is just a start. In the long run I think the case entries should be edited by a linguist or philologist - at the very least we need a reasonably complete description of case in Indo European, and that doesn't complete the essay. Then they could be linked from target languages. The description of the cases in specific languages should be in that language entry or (heaven forfend) on a subpage (English/Possession; Old English/Genitive Case). --MichaelTinkler

What is the etymology of english's 's ? FvdP

Contents 1 An adjectival form? 2 Extraneous material 3 Correct use of genitive with words ending with s and x 4 Why use the preposition of? 5 "A common misconception"? 6 Her long fingers? 7 English Genitive Archaisms 8 の 9 Other forms? 10 Merger/Seperation 11 Platonism 12 English?! (insert interrobang here) 13 s' vs. s's 14 A couple of usages that are not mentioned 15 Strange example 16 Latin genetive, and terms thereof 17 Separate article for English -'s ending 18 King of Sparta's Wife

[edit] An adjectival form?

The article begins "The genitive case is an adjectival form of a noun". Surely this is incorrect - an adjectival form of a noun would be an adjective, no? I presume the point being made is that a noun in the genitive case will often describe another noun, but that does not make it "adjectival". In addition, adjectives and pronouns can also be in the genitive case, so the genitive case (or any other case) is more than a form of the noun.

Unless anyone is able to convince me from a position of knowledge that this is a reasonable description of the genitive then I'm looking to re-write the first para in the near future. Valiantis 23:29, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

---

Is there someone with more liguistic expertise than me who would be willing to re-write the explanation of why we have -'s instead of -es? The definition now makes it sound like it's a spelling change and not a sound change, but I don't know how to rewrite it. --UnDeadGoat

[edit] Extraneous material

I don't think it's really necessary to have an explanation of astronomical notation in a linguistics article. The paragraphs about English -'s are very well, but also seem a bit out of place -- they should be a sub-article to English grammar at most. This page also definitely needs attention (examples). --Pablo D. Flores 17:57, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Correct use of genitive with words ending with s and x

What is correct?

Alex' uniform or Alex's uniform?

Girls' best friend or Girls's best friend?

Thanks, --Abdull 15:22, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

"Alex's uniform" is correct... also,

"(one, a) girl's best friend" and "(more than one) girls' best friend"

Hope this helps.

Thank you very much for your help - now I have another one - words ending on s in singular form, like business (this business's costs or business' costs) and pancreas (this pancreas's cells or this pancreas' cells). Bye, --Abdull 16:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why use the preposition of?

I am not a linguist or anything like one, but this article seems odd to me. I don't understand the difference between the use of the preposition of in the example "men of Rome" and the form "Roman men". I think the second example expresses the same idea. Is it a matter of the second phrase being in a different case? Similarly for the "wheel of cheese" example wouldn't "cheese wheel" serve to express the same thought? Can someone explain why one is genative and the other isn't and what the difference is between the two? TIA - Vivafelis 03:59, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Some languages distinguish these two. For example, Finnish origin-indicator "roomalaiset miehet" (men living in Rome) vs. genitive "Rooman miehet" (men that are "owned by" Rome, that is, come from Rome, such as Italian state officials, irrespective of their place of dwelling or origin). Likewise, compound words are different. --Vuo 12:26, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I don`t think English makes this distinction (I could be wrong). Would that mean that the genetive case is in use in the phrase "Roman Men", or is there some other case at work? Could it be that it is just a dative (or whatever) with "Roman" acting as an adjective? TIA - Vivafelis 17:01, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to clarify a few concepts. This article treats case as a synonym for word function. This is a general definition. But a more strict definition says that case is a bound morpheme that attaches to a noun (or adjective), and has several other common features. There's no genitive case in "Roman men" in any reasonable sense; it's just a noun with an attribute shown by an adjective. There may be a genitive relationship in "men of Rome", shown by the preposition of, but there's no genitive case either, in the latter sense (which is what most linguists understand as case). The -'s ending looks like a genitive case mark, but it is not — though it does show a genitive relationship, it's not a case but a clitic.

Another thing... In "cheese wheel" we find a sort of genitive relationship expressed by compounding (English does all kinds of things with compounding). "Wheel of cheese" is the same relationship, shown differently. "Cheese's wheel" is nonsense, but if pressed to interpret it, I'd say it means a wheel that belongs to someone called Cheese... ;) I think the most common way to show a genitive relationship in English is with of, since compounds are idiosyncratic and the possessive -'s is a bit restricted. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 19:01, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, this is a use of the ablative, and languages that have a seperative ablative case will not use the genitive here at all --Alwynvd 16:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "A common misconception"?

The article seems to have adopted the POV that "linguists" generally reject the notion that English still has a genitive case, and argues that English no longer does since the marker -'s has been cliticized. I question whether this is true: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage and the Oxford English Grammar both refer to an English genitive case. Moreover, I've tried to expand the several uses to which the particle is put in English, showing that it continues to function as a genitive case. -- Smerdis of Tlön 20:08, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

"Of" marks both possession and many things which genitive cases in languages which have them mark. Does that make "of" a genitive case in English? Not at all: A genitive case is first and foremost a case, and to be one it must be an affix. The English ’s is not an affix, but a clitic, for reasons discussed elsewhere, therefore it is not a marker of a genitive case, but simply a clitic. (It would seem inaccurate though to call ’s a "possessive marker"; perhaps "genitive marker" is more suitable, I'm not sure.) —Felix the Cassowary 00:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Collective plurals seem to have a genitive construction: pair of shoes, herd of sheep, set of tableware, flock of birds, pack of cards, school of fish, bunch of grapes, yoke of oxen, etc. etc.

Is this possibly a vestige of an Indo-european feature which has survived at least in several Slavic languages when enumerating things? one takes nominative; two, three or four take genitive singular; five or more take genitive plural? Did Old English have something similar which was largely lost along the way?

It is not OK to remove a section that provides reasonable arguments without providing any explanation on the discussion page. Somebody removed the following section without explanation, and i've reinstated a shorter version that however lacks some of the arguments provided here against the clitic theory:

However, this can also be seen as a misinterpretation that confuses the tool used to notate language, writing, (notoriously deficient in the case of English) with the actual, living language. In speaking, "kingofsparta" is in fact a single word, as is its genitive "kingofspartas". It is a mere convention to write this and most other English words in several parts. This convention can be defended in such cases of long words, but although "king of sparta" is easier to read, it is as clearly a single word as the following cases: Web site / website, tool bar / toolbar, etc. (in which, incidentally, modern usage is moving away from unnecessary segmentation).

--Espoo 18:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

A phonological word has nothing to do with a written word. You can write "kingofsparta" without spaces, but it's still three words (or two, if "of" is considered a clitic). "Web site" doesn't sound the same as "website" (in "web site" you can distinguish and emphasize "site". English is of course rather inconsistent when it comes to compounds, but "King of Sparta" is clearly not an example of that. In short, implying that "King of Sparta" is viewed as three words because of the way is written is itself "a misinterpretation that confuses the tool used to notate language with the actual language". That paragraph is going away, because of the above, and because it's rather amateur original research. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 19:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It's quite amusing that even professional linguists are often as influenced and even misled by writing conventions as laypeople are. When a native English speaker says "kingəspartə", that is very definitely a single compound word; that's exactly why it can inflect as a single entity. When you say it in three parts as "king ə spartə" or especially clearly "king ov sparta", you are actually saying something else, and this construction cannot take an -s (-z) -- irrespective of whether you call that addition a clitic, suffix, ending, or some other term -- without this meaning something completely different ("the king of Sparta's enemies" = "the king of the enemies of Sparta").

Your fixation on the seeming separateness of "of" in the middle of "king of Sparta" can also be shown to be a spelling fixation not based on the real, living language by such constructions as "these kinD of men". Here, "kind of" is in fact a one-word adjective that could just as well and better be spelled "kindof" or "kinda". Lack of understanding of this has been the "reason" for attempts to ban this and similar constructions by unscientific grammarians and teachers for centuries. "These kinD of men" has been recorded since the 14th century and is correct, living English. I have not seen any studies or any reason to believe that people were not also using constructions like "the woman i saw yesterday's car" in the 14th century and earlier, long before any grammarian or linguist came up with the idea of banning that use and before the period in which English lost its genitive according to some or many linguists. Modern linguists no longer tell people how they should speak and instead describe the actual forms used in the living language, but there is no guarantee that the clitic theory was not a smart way to make oneself and one's publications more interesting and more quoted. I wouldn't be surprised if whoever first came up with it had such non-linguistic motives and was not at all misled by English spelling conventions and would not have made the elementary mistake you made above ("the king of sparta's enemies" ≠ "the kingofsparta's enemies").

The same lack of understanding of basic concepts and processes is the attempt to distinguish between "Web site" and "website", but the other way around. Here the natural development is towards writing as one word as soon as the concept is widely known *because* it is pronounced as one compound word as soon as it becomes widely known, as demonstrated by very many similar examples. Since the term is both very new and ubiquitous, the development is still underway, but it is clear that no dictionary will be spelling it in two parts 20 years from now. Especially since this age-old trend in English spelling to write compounds separately originally but to combine them when used a lot has increased in modern usage, which is moving away from unnecessary segmentation.

It's interesting that you avoided answering the comments about the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage and the Oxford English Grammar. Trying to accuse them of amateurism would show where you in fact stand. --Espoo 14:43, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a professional linguist, if that was implied. I didn't "avoid" answering those comments because I didn't read them; I was only replying to your ideas about the contested paragraph. I'm not into the latest findings of linguistics, but I'm pretty sure no linguist considers "King of Sparta" one word. If of is a clitic, then phonologically it's two words. In any case my objection was formal: the paragraph is speculation based on alleged bias or confusion ascribed to prescriptive linguists, and undoubtedly original research, as I said above. If mainstream linguistics comes to consider "King of Sparta" one word, 20 years from now, then let somebody change this article then. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 15:45, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

You avoided the uncomfortable information and arguments in my post too. Very many linguists consider "kind of" a single word in the construction "these kinD of men" (which should be spelled "kindof" or "kinda"). This centuries-old fact about the living language has even finally filtered down into general dictionaries. This fact is also very uncomfortable for many professional linguists because it exposes the lack of consistency in claiming that "king of sparta" always consists of three words when in fact this is based on a spelling convention that ignores that the actual, living language distinguishes very clearly between "the king of sparta's enemies" ≠ "the kingofsparta's enemies". I will look for references to professional linguists that have realised that "kingofsparta's" is in fact as much a single word (in the genitive case) as "kind of" is in the sense of "these kindof men". --Espoo 12:21, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

It couldn't possibly be that "king of Sparta" is a noun phrase? I could certainly accept that "kind of" is now one word, because in many cases it patterns as an adjective (as in the example that you gave.) But "king of Sparta" as a single word has a couple of (acupla) problems with it, not least of which is that it can be made plural, and the plural marking goes on king, not Sparta: "kings of Sparta," not *"kingofSpartas." That to me is the smoking gun; if 's is a case marker and attaches to a single word, you'd think a plural marker would too. So the set of dishes would be several sets. - Montréalais 23:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Assuming for the sake of argument that the 's of the English genitive indeed does now function as a clitic, does this in itself mean that the genitive case no longer exists in English? The 's has its origins in one of several possible inflections of the genitive case in Old English, and continues to mark the same sort of grammatical relationships. FWIW, the -s genitive now functions similarly in Swedish, where kungen av Sveriges slott means "the king of Sweden's castle." It used to be that you were supposed to say kungens av Sverige slott, attaching the -s to the king, but this is no longer the way it is done colloquially. Here, too, the case marker is no longer bound to the head noun, but this doesn't mean that the case itself no longer exists. For that matter, the easiest way to understand the Japanese particle no is that it marks the noun phrase it affects as being in the genitive case; once marked, the phrase can move relatively freely within a Japanese sentence. This genitive marker was never a bound noun inflection AFAIK. Smerdis of Tlön 15:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The -'s clearly attaches to the end of a full NP: "The woman wearing the red hat's little dog..."

[edit] Her long fingers?

Her long fingers is given as a case of inalienable possession. Unlike her existence or her height, though, surely fingers can be removed, and thus alienable? - 131.111.8.102 16:17, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

But if you remove my fingers, you gain no benefit from the fact of having my fingers, only the benefit that I may no longer make use of those fingers. I think. UnDeadGoat 17:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

And the finger's are still Janets, even if you have them floating in your jar. The qeustion Who's fingers are those? would still be answered with Janet's, even though she is no longer in possesion of those fingers. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 01:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English Genitive Archaisms

Regardless of the above debate about the viability of the genitive case in English, there is still the remnant found in the pronouns, as discussed at the end of the paragraph discussing that. I, however, have a question about that. Mine, hers, yours, and theirs are listed as being genitive forms of these pronouns, but I believe that their usage in English is more in keeping with the dative case, as seen in usages such as the "dative of possession" and the "dative of reference" (from Latin and ancient Greek and possibly other languages). The only times I believe that those pronouns are used are in phrases such as "the book is mine", which mirrors Latin's dative of possession and "'To which book are you referring?' 'Mine.'", which mirrors both languages dative of reference (ancient Greek is often taught as having a "dative of possession", but actual usage appears more often to resemble the dative of reference). Thoughts? KraDakar 01:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] の

Perhaps the Japanese の could be worked in there somewhere, it seems like a perfect example of a genitive case. PS: That's "no", in case you don't have Jap fonts installed. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 13:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

の is an enclitic postposition, not a morphological case mark. See Talk:Japanese language#Japanese and cases for my answer to the same question. I think it's unwise to give so much emphasis to the English -'s marker in this article, and の falls into the same pattern. It all depends on what you call "case". —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I see. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 04:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other forms?

I may be wrong, but I believe there are more remnants of the genitive case from Old English in uses like "Physics class" or "Linguistics book"... The "s" at the end is comparable to the apostrophe-s in English possessive, I believe, and not a plural form. It's not like one studies more than one physic and reads about more than one linguistic.

Hmmmm. Neither physics nor linguistics are really good candidates for Old English survivals, in that both are learned Greco-Latin terms. They are theoretically plural in form, but singular in construction: physics is hard, not *physics are hard. Physic is a perfectly good word, but means something else. Linguistic as a noun seems rarer, but it is possible it has been used in some senses such as Chomsky's linguistic; in this it could resemble dialectic / dialectics. So physics book and so forth are simple attributive uses of ordinary nouns, parallel with astronomy book, not true genitives. Smerdis of Tlön 14:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a bit late to answer the question, especially as the article doesn't seem to reflect any confusion about it, but the forms are plural, not possessive. The reason they are plural is that words like physics, mathematics, linguistics and many others were coined on the model of Greek neuter plurals 'ta phusika' etc, things relating to life etc. These are nominative in Greek, and were doubtless intended to be so in English. They also, despite being plural forms, take a singular verb in Greek, and this was and still is reflected in English usage. CIngram99 16:13, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger/Seperation

[edit] Platonism

It is ridiculous to say 'lots of languages have the genitive case' or the like. The gentive case has no existence outside of specific languages. It is not that a particular language has or doesn't have a case, but rather that things in particular languages are labelled 'genitive' in English. This Platonism should be avoided here and in all other articles.Tibetologist 06:28, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English?! (insert interrobang here)

I dont think that there is any place for discussing english here as english is an UNDECLINED language it has no bearing on the topic at hand. Discussion of english should be left for an article about english grammar not a discussion about a gramar for that is not even present in english. Not to mention that it would be better to not even be discussing this in enlish but in a declined language because then it might make more sence to all you uni-lingual people out there. Hali.schatz 19:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)HMS

Not present in english? How do you propose one would say 'wikipedia's article', or the 'this is the article of whom?' both require the use of the genitive case, and although it is true that in recent times people's use of the dative (and even in some cases the accusative!) has become increasingly sloppy, the use of the genitive can hardly drop out of usage! MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 22:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Neither of those involve case. The former uses the possessive enclitic, while the latter involves a prepositional phrase. — Gwalla | Talk 03:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I will give you the first time, but the second instance is in the gentive. It is 'whom', because the preposition 'of' triggers the genitive. MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 18:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Debatable. "Whom" is the accusative of "who", and prepositions govern the accusative in English. The closest thing to a genitive that English has is the first and second person possessive pronouns. — Gwalla | Talk 06:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] s' vs. s's

Enzedbrit recently made an edit to the article, changing "Confucius' teaching" to "Confucius's teaching", with the comment, Names that add in 's' still require "'s" (though I'm presuming he or she meant names that end in 's'). As far as I'm aware, there is no such hard and fast rule on this and that it is more common for people to use the form, "Confucius' teaching", on the basis that "Confucius's teaching" is unwieldy. In my opinion, it should stay as "Confucius' teaching". Any thoughts? -- Hux 06:26, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A couple of usages that are not mentioned

First - should there be a note about the "appositive" use, as in "the city of Chicago"? This seems to be treated in traditional grammars.

Second - what about the "double possessive" in English? As in "this heart of mine". It seems to be rather puzzling.

TomS TDotO 11:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strange example

@"de man zijn hand" - to me this sound very odd. Normally you'd say "de hand van de man", but even the very outdated "'s mans hand" sounds more normal somehow. Shinobu 21:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Latin genetive, and terms thereof

I actually came here in the hope I'd find a link target for genetive of quality. Perhaps you can use this excellent Project Gutenberg text to improve the article. Thanks, Shinobu 21:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separate article for English -'s ending

I suggest creating a separate article for 's since it's not a real case ending. Also, other articles refering to 's now point to Saxon genitive, but most of the information is here instead. The information from this article should at least be moved to the so called "main article" - Saxon Genitive. --V111P 10:48, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] King of Sparta's Wife

I believe that one could just as easily say "Sparta's king's wife" instead of "King of Sparta's wife", so that "wife" doesn't attach to "Sparta", so I don't think that this is good example. --Se Cyning 21:54, April 20 2008 (UTC)

You can, but it's usually frowned upon in formal writing. You can replace "of" with the 's construction in most cases, but that hardly matters here. The point of the example is that the 's is phonologically attached to "Sparta", but grammatically modifies the entire phrase "King of Sparta", therefore it is a clitic. Using "Sparta's King's wife" would not demonstrate this, and would therefore be a poor example in this case. — Gwalla | Talk 19:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)