Genitive 's/of
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun.
However, it can also indicate various other relationships than possession: certain verbs may take arguments in the genitive case, and it may have adverbial uses.
However, it can also indicate various other relationships than possession: certain verbs may take arguments in the genitive case, and it may have adverbial uses.
Depending on the language, specific varieties of genitive-noun–main-noun relationships may include:
- POSSESSION:
- inalienable possession ("Janet’s height", "Janet’s existence", "Janet’s long fingers")
- alienable possession ("Janet’s jacket", "Janet’s drink")
- relationship indicated by the noun being modified ("Janet’s husband")
- COMPOSITION:
- substance ("a wheel of cheese")
- elements ("a group of men")
- source ("a portion of the food")
- PARTICIPATION IN AN ACTION:
- as an agent ("She benefited from her father's love") – this is called the subjective genitive (Compare "Her father loved her", where Her father is the subject.)
- as a patient ("the love of music") – this is called the objective genitive (Compare "She loves music", where music is the object.)
- ORIGIN ("men of Rome")
- REFERENCE ("the capital of the Republic" or "the Republic's capital")
- DESCRIPTION ("man of honour", "day of reckoning")
- COMPOUNDS ("doomsday" ("doom's day"), Scottish Gaelic "ball coise" = "football", where "coise" = gen. of "cas", "foot")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case