| Genitive Case |
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The genitive case is a Grammatical Case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of 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:
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 , Arabic , Latin , Irish , Georgian , Greek , German , Dutch , Polish , Slovenian , Russian , 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 nouns have a genitive case, marked by the possessive ''-'s'' ending (known as the Saxon Genitive ). Some Linguists believe that English possessive is no longer a case at all, but has become a Clitic , an independent 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 , 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 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).
A few remnants of the genitive case do remain in Modern English in a few Pronoun s as ''whose'', the genitive form of '' 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
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
Genitive of purpose
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 Constellation s, 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"
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