objective genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take arguments in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses (see Adverbial genitive). Modern English does not typically mark nouns for a genitive case morphologically — rather, it uses the clitic 's or a preposition (usually of) — but the personal pronouns do have distinct possessive forms.


  • possession (see Possessive case):
  • composition (see Partitive case):
    • substance ("a wheel of cheese")
    • elements ("a group of men")
    • source ("a portion of the food")
  • participation in an action:
    • as a patient ("the archduke's murder") — this is called the objective genitive
  • origin ("men of Rome")




In some languages, nouns in the genitive case may be found in inclusio — that is, between the main noun's article and the noun itself.

Many languages have a genitive case, including Arabic, Armenian, Czech, Finnish, Georgian, German, Greek, Icelandic, Irish, Latin, Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbo Croatian, Slovenian and Turkish. English does not have a proper genitive case, but a possessive ending, -'s (see below), although pronouns do have a genitive case.

The English -'s ending

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 that 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.


The use of an independently written particle for the possessive can be seen in the closely related Dutch language: de man z'n hand (the man's hand, z'n, short for zijn, means his).

The 18th century explanation that the apostrophe might replace a genitive pronoun, as in "the king's horse" being a shortened form of "the king, his horse", is debated. This his genitive appears in English only for a relatively brief time. The construction occurs in southern German dialects and has replaced the genitive there, together with the "of" construction that also exists in English. While modern English speakers might expect that plurals and feminine nouns would form possessives using '-r', such as "*The queen'r children", in fact "his" or "hys" could be used for speakers and writers of either gender throughout most of the mediaeval and Renaissance period.


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


Objective genitive; classifying genitive

  • the Hundred Years' War
  • a dollar's worth
  • two weeks' notice
  • speech of an appropriate tone
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • a man's world
  • runner's high
  • the Teachers' Lounge


  • the war of a Hundred Years
  • the pay of a day
  • notice of two weeks

They introduce the likelihood of misunderstanding.

Genitive of purpose

  • women's shoes
  • children's literature


Appositive genitive


Double genitive

Some writers regard this as a questionable usage, although it has a history in careful English. Some object to the name, as the "of" clause is not a genitive. Alternative names are "double possessive" and "oblique genitive. The Oxford English Dictionary says that this usage was "Originally partitive, but subseq. ... simple possessive ... or as equivalent to an appositive phrase ...".

Adverbial genitive


  • closed Sundays
  • of a summer day

Baltic Finnic "genitives"

In Baltic-Finnic languages, the accusative case -(e)n is homophonic to the genitive case. In Estonian, it is often said that only a "genitive" exists. However, the cases have completely different functions, and the form of the accusative has developed from *-(e)m. (The same sound change has developed into a synchronic mutation of a final 'm' into 'n' in Finnish, e.g. genitive sydämen vs. nominative sydän.) This homophony has exceptions in Finnish, where a separate accusative -(e)t is found in pronouns, e.g. kenet "who (telic object)", vs. kenen "whose", and some of the Sámi languages, where the pronouns and the plural of nouns in the genitive and accusative are easily distinguishable from each other, e.g., kuä'cǩǩmi "eagles' (genitive plural)" and kuä'cǩǩmid "eagles (accusative plural)" in Skolt Sami.

The genitive case in Slavic languages











To express negation



To express partial direct object

The genitive case is used with some verbs and mass nouns to indicate that the action covers only a part of the direct object, whereas similar constructions using the accusative case denote full coverage. Compare the sentences:


Genitive case in German


  • das Heft der Schülerin (the book of the schoolgirl)

An 's' is simply added to the end of the name if the identity of the possessor is specified. For example:

  • Claudias Buch (Claudia's book)


All of the articles change in the genitive case.

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural
Definite article des der des der
Indefinite article eines einer eines einer

Adjective endings in genitive case:

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural
Definite article -en -en -en -en
Indefinite Article -en -en -en -en
No article -en -er -en -er

Genitive case in Turkish


Nominative: Kadın (woman) ayakkabı (shoe)
Genitive : Kadının ayakkabı (the shoe of the woman)


Nominative: Kadın (woman) kıyafet (clothing)
Genitive : Kadın kıyafeti (women's clothing)

Genitive case in Semitic languages


Genitive in Akkadian

Nominative: šarrum (a/the king)
Genitive: aššat šarrim (the wife of a/the king = king's wife)

Genitive in Arabic

Nominative: baytun (a house)
Genitive: bābu baytin (the door of a house) bābu al-bayti (the door of the house)

The Arabic genitive marking also appears after certain prepositions.



e.g. Arabic bayt-ī (my house) kitābu-ka (thy [masc.] book).

Genitive in astronomy



See also

External links

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