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TOPIC 16. THE EXPRESSION OF POSSESSION
Possession = state of having sth…
TOPIC 16. THE EXPRESSION OF POSSESSION
Possession = state of having sth as a personal belonging or sth that a person has obtained/achieved.
- In ENG, possession can be expressed by means of a genitive case, possessive pronouns and verbs.
- It can also be
Expressed by the clitic: an apostrophe first introduced in the 15th century and fully accepted in the 18th c. According to Huddleston & Pullum (2002), it's a word that merges phonologically with the adjacent word as it lacks a vowel, unlike other words in ENG.
INDEX
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- THE EXPRESSION OF POSSESSION
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2.2. POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES, PRONOUNS AND THE RELATIVE/INTERROGATIVE WHOSE
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2.1 THE GENITIVE CASE
A) CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GENITIVE CASE
2 cases system:
- Unmarked common case (boy)
- marked genitive case (boy's)
*There are some genitives without any formal sign of genitive: Lady Love
*There are instances where there's a functional similarity and semantic identity that may seem as a genitive whereas it is actually a verb. "What's the ship's name?"
That's why there are 2 variant forms of the genitive case:
- the -s genitive for the inflection: Estrella's face
- the -of genitive for the prepositional form: "The story of our love"
B) FORMS
IN SPEECH
the s-genitive of regular nouns is realised only in the singular, where it takes one of the following forms (following the rules for -s inflection, and pronounced):
- /iz/ after bases ending in voiced or voiceless silibants (horse's)
- /z/ and spelled -s after bases ending in other voiced sounds (dog's)
- /s/ and spelled -s after bases ending in other voiceless sounds (cat's)
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C) MEANINGS
Relationships between elements in a genitive construction cannot be always interpreted in the same way.
According to Quirk, the meanings of the genitive can be shown by sentential or phrasal analogues such as:
- Possessive Genitive (My girlfriend's car) Analogue: My girlfriend has a car
- The -s genitive construction is preferred with the subjective genitive (his parent's consent), and the of-construction with the objective genitive (the writing of the letters)
D) CHOICE
*can be related to gender classes represented by the noun which is to be the genitive. The -s genitive is chosen for the highest classes on the gender scale ( persons or animals with gender characteristics ). The of-genitive is used for inanimate objects or abstract concepts.
- Certain Inanimate nouns also take the -s genitive: geographical and institutional names, temporal nouns, human activity of special interest, when describing parts of the body of a ship/transport, expressions of money/worth, sake expressions or idioms: Europe's future is a week's holiday, and science's influence will repair a ship's mast, which is €100 worth, for God's sake is the journey's edge.
- Animate noun classes normally take the -s genitive following classes such as (personal names or nouns, collective nouns). Sora's island, the cabinet's jurisdiction .
- Gender influences the indefinite pronouns with personal reference that admit the s' genitive while those with non-personal do not (someone's shadow but not something's shadow)
- Information focus: influences the choice of genitive (-s genitive enables us to give end-focus to one noun, whereas the of-genitive centres around another noun).
- Of-genitive used with measure, to avoid oral confussions with the plural or with adjectives with a plural value: "A walk of two hours"
E) THE GENITIVE AS A FEATURE OF NOUN PHRASES
it can be considered as an ending belonging to noun phrases , indicating that the next noun belongs to the one carrying the -s genitive. (every teacher's guide to teenagers)
F) THE GROUP GENITIVE
in postmodified noun phrases(where additional information about the noun comes after it) it's necessary to add an -s genitive to the end of postmodification: the man with the red hat's car.
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H) DOUBLE GENITIVE is used to emphasise possession.
- Of phrase can be combined with an s- genitive into a double genitive. The noun with the -s genitive must be definite and personal (This is an opera of Verdi's — one of Verdi's operas).
- It's commonly used with names and with pronouns like "mine," "yours," "his," "hers," and "ours." This is a friend of mine's.
REFERENCES
- Quirk, R., & Greenbaum, S. (1973). "A University Grammar of the English Language"
- Huddleston, R. and Pullum, G. K. (2002). "The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language". Cambridge University Press.
- Rossiter, A. (2021). "The Importance of Grammar"
2.2. POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES, PRONOUNS AND THE RELATIVE/INTERROGATIVE WHOSE
possession can be expressed by:
- possessive adjectives are Attributive because they appear before the noun they modify, indicating ownership : my/your/our/your/his/her/their/its love.
- possessive pronouns: mine/yours/ours/his/hers/theirs.
They are Predicative because they appear after a linking verb (like "is"), stand alone and replace a noun phrase, often functioning as the complement of a sentence : Those keys are hers.
- There's also a genitive case for the interrogative and relative pronoun who: whose, (for personal and non-personal antecedent) of which (non-personal antecedent) and that (involves the pacing of a preposition at the end of the clause: The book that I was talking about)
2.3. VERBS DENOTING POSSESSION
we can distinguish between:
- lexical verbs (belong, possess, own)
- have in its stative sense: I've a dog.
Informal have got is frequently preferred in the negative and interrogative sentences: Have you got any questions?