UNIT 16

THE EXPRESSION OF POSSESSION

0. INTRODUCTION: THE CONCEPT OF POSSESSION.

1. THE HISTORY OF THE GENITIVE CASE.
2. EXPRESSING POSSESSION: THE 'S GENITIVE:
2.1.- The Genitive Inflection.
2.2.- The Zero Genitive. 2.3.-
With Animate Nouns. 2.4.-
With Inanimate Nouns.
3. CLASSES OF GENITIVE IN TERMS OF MEANINGS:
3.1.- Possessive Genitive.
3.2.- Subjective Genitive.
3.3.- Objective Genitive.
3.4.- Genitive of Origin.
3.5.- Descriptive Genitive.
3.6.- Genitive of Measure.
3.7.- Genitive of Attribute.
3.8.- Partitive Genitive.
4. THE GRAMMATICAL STATUS OF THE GENITIVE:
4.1.- Genitive as Determiner.
4.2.- Genitive as Modifier.
5. EXPRESSING POSSESSION: THE OF-GENITIVE.
6. ADVANCED POINTS: NOUN + NOUN EXPRESSIONS
7. SPECIAL CASES OF GENITIVE.
7.1.- Elliptical Genitive.
7.2.- Locative Genitive.
7.3.- Double Genitive.
8. EXPRESSING POSSESSION: VERBS.
8.1.- Extrictly Possessive Verbs.
8.2.- Verbs Related to Possession.
8.3.- Expressions and Syntactic Structures.
9. POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES AND PRONOUNS:
9.1.- Possessive Adjectives.
9.2.- Possessive Pronouns.
10. CONCLUSION.
11. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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Throughout this unit we shall address the different means of expressing possession in the
English language.
As such we are going to trace back to OE, ME and Modern English in order to analyse the
origins of the two main structures in English that express this communicative function,
mainly the Genitive case and the Of-construction.
Furthermore, we will also deal with other different ways of expressing possession such as
some verbs, other syntactic constructions and expressions and by means of the possessive
adjectives and possessive pronouns.
Finally, we will also study some special cases of the genitive in the English language such as
the Elliptical genitive, the Locative genitive and the Double genitive.
This unit has been foregrounded on some of the most influential and relevant scholars in the
field, namely ,Greenbaum, Leech, Quirk and Svartvik 's A Comprehensive Grammar of the
English Language (1985), Swan's Practical English Usage (1995.) and Thomson & Martinet's
A Practical English Grammar, (1995).

0. INTRODUCTION: THE CONCEPT OF POSSESSION.

First of all, and as our unit deals with different grammatical constructions to express
possession in the English language, it is worth mentioning different approaches to grammar,
for us to frame our unit.
Nowadays, the traditional and mechanic prescriptive use of the language has changed into a
more functional use following the communicative approach, which sees language as
something else than a mere set of grammatical rules. Therefore, we have framed our unit
under a communicative perspective in order to express possession in the English language
for the learner to be in contact with different grammatical structures that will systematically
relate to different meanings, uses and situations.
Being more specific in the idea of possession we have to say that it belongs to the human
psychology and behaviour, in short, we could say that it is in our minds and is part of our
most primitive everyday life and instincts. Furthermore, possession is expressed in every
language by different structures and English is not an exception as we are going to see in
this unit.

1. THE HISTORY OF THE GENITIVE CASE.

Looking at the origin of the Genitive Case in the English Language, we have to start saying
that obviously there was a time when English was a / an Inflectional System.
If we trace back to OE, the inflection of each English noun depended on its grammatical
gender (masculine, feminine and neuter) and within them we found singular and plural
number together with four distinctive cases: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive and Dative.
As such the Genitive Case survives through Old English, Middle English and Modern English
adopting different forms till the present time. Nowadays the Genitive case is formed by
adding ('s) to the possessor. Therefore it appears in the sentence to express possession, that
is, something belongs to somebody. For instance, "Mary's car" but also we can express other
kinds of intimate relations that do not express possession strictly. For instance,
"Mary's birthday"

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Furthermore in the English language there are also other forms of expressing possession, for
instance, by means of the of-construction. Besides, if we look back to the history of the
English language we can see that this structure has its origin in the influence of the French
"de periphrasis'" used in French literature and it tends to substitute the inflected genitive
after the noun. For example, "The House of parliament"

2. EXPRESSING POSSESSION: THE 'S GENITIVE.

Whenever we want to express possession in the English language we use the genitive form
among other structures.

2.1.-THE GENITIVE INFLECTION.

In writing, the inflection of regular nouns is realized in the singular by apostrophe plus s, for
instance "boy's colour" and in the regular plural only by adding the apostrophe to the plural
of the noun (-s), for instance "boys' clothes".
In pronunciation, the singular number of the genitive morpheme ('s) is regularly realized in
three ways:
- /s/ After bases ending in voiceless consonants other than sibilants such as: /f, 0, p, t, k/.
"Dick's bar" "The dentist's drill"
"The ship's crew" "His wife's lover"
- /z/ after bases ending in voiced sounds or vowels except sibilants: /b, d, g, v, d, m, n, n, l, r, j, w/.
"Fred's salary" "Brother's cottage"
"Play's title" "The firm's losses"
- /iz/ after bases ending in sibilants: /s, z, S, 3, tS, d3 /.
"A horse's tail" "The village's population"
"Keats's poetry" "The church's readings"

As a result, the spoken form /spaiz/ may be realized in three forms of the noun spy as
follows:
- "The spies were arrested" (plural, common case)
- "The spy's companion was a woman" (singular, genitive case).
- "The spies' companions were women" (plural, genitive case).

2.2.-THE ZERO GENITIVES.

Since the genitive adds nothing to a regular plural noun in speech, and nothing except the
final apostrophe in writing, this plural genitive, may be called Zero Genitive. In contrast,
some nouns with irregular plural like child-children preserve ('s) in its singular and plural
form, for instance, Child - Child's - Children's.
In addition to its normal use with regular plurals such as boy- boys- boys', the Zero genitive is
used to avoid repetitive and awkward combinations of sounds in the following cases:
- Greek names of more than one syllable ending in -s, pronounced /z/:
"Euripides'plays" "Sophocles' speech" "Socrates' wife"
- With many other names ending in /z/ where, in speech, Zero is a variant of the regular /iz/
genitive. There is vacillation both in the pronunciation and in the spelling of these names,
but most commonly the pronunciation is /iz/, and the spelling is an apostrophe only (').

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 Written forms Spelling forms
"Bridget Jones' diary" (Bridget Jones's diary) /'d3dvnziz/ (d3dvnz)
"Dickens' novels " (Dickens's novels) /'dikinziz / (dikinz)
"Burns' poems " (Burns's poems) /'b3l rnziz/ (b3l rnz)

2.3.-WITH ANIMATE NOUNS.

Generally speaking, the genitive ('s) is favoured by those nouns that refer to human beings,
higher animals and animate nouns.
- Personal names: "Shakespeare's plays"
- Personal nouns: "My uncle's jumper."
- Animal nouns or "higher animals": "The cat's mouth"
- Collective nouns, in particular those denoting authoritative or organizational
bodies: "The United Nation's Troops"

2.4.-WITH INANIMATE NOUNS.

The genitive ('s) is favored by those nouns that refer to inanimate entities:
- Geographical names and Institutions:
Continents: "Africa's future", "North's Pole climate"
Countries: "Spain's capital."
States: "New York's main city "
Cities and towns: "Murcia's department store"
Universities: "Warwick's Post-Graduate Course"
- Temporal nouns: "A three month's job"," a moment's thought", "today's post"
- Nouns related to human activities: "My heart's development"

3. CLASSSES OF GENITIVE IN TERMS OF MEANINGS.

The meaning expressed by the genitive can be best shown by the following sentences and
classification presented below:
- Possessive Meaning: express ownership
"Mrs. Armistead's passport"
"Mrs. Armistead has a passport"
- Subject Genitive: Can be replaced by subject-verb structure.
"The boy's decision"
"The boy decided"
- Objective Genitive: Can be replaced by a verb-object structure.
"The family's support"
"(...) supports the family"
- Genitive of Origin: The possessor originates the thing possessed.
"The girl's story"
"The girl told a story."
- Descriptive Genitive: the possessor marks a kind of thing among the group
described by the thing possessed.
"A summer's day"
"A summer day"
- Genitive of Measure:

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 "Ten day's holidays"
"The holidays lasted 10 days"
- Genitive of Attribute: Can be replaced by an attributive sentence.
"The girl's beauty"
"The girl was beautiful"
- Partitive Genitive: the thing owned is part of the possessor.
"The baby's eyes"
"The baby has (blue) eyes"

Furthermore Attribution and Partition are usually more appropriately expressed by the of-
construction. In addition where both the ('s) genitive and the of-genitive are grammatically
possible, sometimes, the decision depends on a matter of emphasis, since, normally the end
of the sentence is usually emphasized.
"The company's policy" "The policy of the company"

4. GRAMMATICAL STATUS OF THE GENITIVE.

4.1.- GENITIVE AS DETERMINER.

Syntactically speaking, the genitive functions as a determiner such as the definite article in
relation to a noun phrase. And this is so whenever the genitive is a possessive pronoun, a
single noun, or a noun accompanied by its own modifiers:
- Genitive as a possessive pronoun: Her book.
- Genitive as a single noun: Mark's (book).
- Noun and Modifiers: My uncle's book.

4.2.- GENITIVE AS A MODIFIER.

Sometimes, there are some examples where the genitive acts as modifier rather than as a
determiner and these are of the kind listed as Descriptive Genitive in point number four of
this unit. Example: "There are several women's universities in Tokyo" (several universities for
women).

5. THE OF-GENITIVE

As we have seen before there are other forms of expressing possession in the English
language apart from the genitive case. As such we have the “of-“ Genitive construction.
It is also important to mention that in many cases there is a similarity of function and
meaning between a noun in the genitive case ('s) and the same noun as head of a
prepositional phrase with of, (of-genitive):
- "The ship's name"
- "The name of the ship"
Syntactically speaking, the genitive inflection ('s), normally, precedes and determines the
head noun name and, on the contrary, the prepositional phrase usually postmodifies the
head name. For instance: "The bottle's name" and "The name of the bottle"
We also have to take into account that the uses of the genitive are determined by a
combination of structural and semantic conditions, so we have to bear in mind the following
conditions:

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 a) The meanings expressed by the relations between the genitive noun and its head
noun (see genitive meanings in point 4).
b) The type of noun taking the genitive (see points 2.3 and 2.4).
c) The type of noun acting as a head, which determines that genitive constructions
can be described in terms of specific lexical noun heads. For instance:
- Expressions with edge, end, surface, for... sake permit the alternative of-
construction:
"She stood at the water's edge" "He did it for clarity's sake"
"She stood at the edge of the water" "He did it for the sake of clarity"
Similarly: at the river's edge, at his journey's end, for art's sake, the water's surface,
for heaven's sake...

6. ADVANCED POINTS: NOUN + NOUN STRUCTURE

A. Although we use the 's structure to talk about parts of people's and animals'
bodies : a man's leg ; an elephant's trunk , we use the noun + noun structure or the
of structure to talk about parts of non- living things: a table leg ; or the roof of the
house
B. With words like top, bottom, back, side, edge or end we usually prefer the “of”
structure although as we have seen above there are a number of exceptions: the
Water's edge.
C. With words that refer to units (partitives) we also prefer the “of” structure: piece,
lump, bunch, etc.
D. The s' structure can be used as a classifying adjective to refer to a person or an
animal in the sense of something that is "used by": children's clothes, women's
magazines, although sometimes the s' structure is omitted and a noun + noun
structure is preferred: baby clothes, a birdcage. Furthermore, at times British and
American English differ: A baby's bottle (GB) OR a baby bottle (US)
E. The s' structure is often used for products from living animals: cow's milk, lambs'
wool however when the animal is killed to produce something we use the noun +
noun structure: calf skin, a lamb chop, etc.
F. The noun + noun structure is used for particular type of container: a matchbox, a
paint tin, a coffee cup, but we use the of structure to talk about a container together
with its contents: a box of matches, a cup of coffee
G. The noun + noun structure is normally used to say what things are made of: a silk
dress, a stone bridge however in older English the “of” structure was more common
and still today we can find it in metaphorical sense or in a literary context: he rules
his family with a rod of iron.
H. The noun + noun structure is used in measurements, with a number before the
first noun: a six pound chicken or a three mile walk, however the use of the s'
structure is use in expressions with worth: a pound's worth of walnuts
I. The s' structure is often used to say how long things last: a day's journey, three
hours' journey however, noun + noun structures are also possible: a three hour
journey

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7. SPECIAL CASES OF GENITIVE.

7.1.- ELLIPTICAL GENITIVE.

The noun possessed can be omitted if it has been already mentioned or it is included in the
context of speaking. E.g.: "My hair is longer than Mary's" (hers).

7.2.- LOCATIVE GENITIVE.

The local genitive is used in the following three cases:
- For normal residences: "She is staying at my aunt's"
- For institutions such as public buildings, where the genitive is usually a saint's
name:
"St Paul's" (cathedral) "St James' " (palace) "Queen's" (college)
- For places where business is conducted:
"The barber's"
"The butcher's"
"The hairdresser's"
"The grocer's"
7.3.- DOUBLE GENITIVE.
Both constructions, the genitive and the “of-“ construction can be combined to form what is
called the double genitive. Here the independent genitive acts as prepositional complement
following of. For instance:
"The burlesque tone of Shakespeare's plays" "He
turned up wearing an old jacket of Michael's"
Furthermore, with this construction we express indefiniteness whereas with the normal determinative genitive
we express definiteness. E.g.:
"Ann's book" (definiteness) "Peter's pupil" (definiteness)
"A book of Ann's" (indefiniteness) "A pupil of Peter's" (indefiniteness)

8. EXPRESSING POSSESSION: VERBS.

So far we have seen two main ways of expressing possession in the English language, by
means of the inflected genitive ('s) and by means of the of- genitive construction.
Furthermore we have also pointed out that these two ways are not the only ones existing, as
such by the use of some verbs we can also express the same communicative function. In
English we have strictly possessive verbs, other verbs related to possession and some other
expressions and syntactic structures.

8.1.- STRICTLY POSSESSIVE VERBS.

As strictly possessive verbs we consider the followings: "Belong", "Possess", "Own" or "Have
got":
"Mary possesses one of the most extensive fortunes in the world"
"This side of the mountain always belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Smith"
"Paul owns the shop around the corner"
"Diana has not got a lot of new clothes"

8.2.- OTHER VERBS RELATED TO POSSESSION.

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Some other verbs also convey the idea of possession to certain extend, for instance verbs
such as "hold", "grip", "enjoy", "dispose of", "boast", "monopolize", "hog" etc..
"Benjamin always enjoyed an endless wealth"
"London boasts a world-famous modern art
museum" "Suzana holds 50% of the company"
"Colin grips 2000 bugs a month from his uncle"
"Virgin monopolizes the communication market all over the world"
"She is such a good player that she always hog the limelight"
"Let us dispose of your services"

8.3.- CERTAIN EXPRESSIONS AND SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES.

In the English language we can also express possession by using the following rather fixed
expressions and syntactic structures:
"She pointed at the car as if it was among her possessions."
"The library is for the student's own use."
"I have nothing that I can call to be mine."
"Who is the owner of the car?" "They
have taken over the shop"

9. EXPRESSING POSSESSION: ADJECTIVES AND PRONOUNS

Another way of expressing possession in English is by means of Possessive Adjectives that

syntactically function as determiners and by Possessive Pronouns that function as Noun
Phrases. Therefore, we have:
- Possessive Adjectives: My, Your, His, Her, Its, Our, Your, Their.
- Possessive Pronouns: Mine, Yours, His, Hers, Ours, Yours, Theirs.
Within the class of possessive pronouns we can distinguish two subclasses:
a) Those which function dependently, that is as determiners in the structure of the
noun phrase. (Possessive Adjectives) E.g.: "Is this your present?"
b) Those which function independently, that is as heads of noun phrases. (Possessive
Pronouns) E.g.: "What about mine?" (my present).
We can also make another distinction by saying that in the English language possessive
adjectives are commonly used to refer to parts of the body and to personal belongings, for
instance:
"I broke my legs into a thousand pieces"
"He had her nails done yesterday"
On the contrary, possessive pronouns are specially used when we talk about the same type
of thing that has just been mentioned, but we want to indicate that it belongs to somebody.
For instance:
"I have got my house, he has got his (object)"
Furthermore, it is also used to contrast two things of the same type which belong to or are
associated with different people. For instance:
"My essay was much better than hers (comparison)"
Also they can appear in front position and some other times they can be preceded by the
preposition of. For instance:
"I have got a beautiful car but his is more flashy"
"A friend of mine won the lottery last year"
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10. CONCLUSION.

All in all, we have dealt with different ways of expressing possession in the English language.
As such we have analyzed the origins of the genitive case and the of-structure as they are
the main ways of expressing one of the most primitive and settled communicative functions
as far as the study of languages is concerned.
Moreover, we have also gone thorough other different structures and grammatical
categories as the verb and the possessive adjectives and pronouns which can also express
possession in certain communicative contexts.
Furthermore we have addressed to special cases of the genitive case for our students to
have a wider scope of how to express possession in English. In this way they become more
aware of the different structures they can use when encountering certain communicative
uses and situations.
Finally this unit is of major importance as the genitive case ('s) used to express possession
cannot be found in Spanish. Therefore our students will be prone to make errors when
approaching the English language. In this way we, as their teachers, should be aware of the
difficulties our students are going to face in order to provide them the necessary material
and tools for them to construct their grammatical and communicative competence in the
target language, English.

11. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

- GREENBAUM, S. LEECH, G. QUIRK, R. SVARTVIK, J. "A Comprehensive Grammar of the

English Language", Longman Group Limited, London, 1985.
- HYMES, DEL. "On Communicative Competence". Penguin, 1972.
- LEECH, G. and SVERTVIK, J. "A Communicative Grammar of English". Longman. Singapore,
1986.
- SWAN, M. "Practical English Usage" New Edition, OUP, 1995.
- THOMSON, A. J. & MARTINET, "A Practical English Grammar", fifth impression, OUP,
Oxford, 1995.
- ZANDORVOORT, R.W, "A handbook of English Grammar". Longman. London, 1972.

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