Nancy,
I think I would trust to your pedagogical sensitivities on this.
Certainly the distinction between meaning and form is crucial, and
pretty easy to demonstrate. So whether you call it the genitive or the
-'s form, you're distinguishing the form from the meaning possessive.
It's when we call the -'s a possessive suffix that we start to get into
trouble, since that's only one of its meanings. Whether you want to use
the term "genitive" instead depends on your sense of your audience. It
would be excellent if we could somehow point out that when two nouns
have a particularly close grammatical relationship, this is frequently
expressed either by an -'s construction or by an "of" prepositional
phrase. The two are not identical or equivalent, as examples like the
following will illustrate, where sometimes one or the other or both may
be grammatical.
1. Jane's house
?the house of Jane
?a house of Jane
?the house of Jane's
a house of Jane's
2. Sam's friend
?the friend of Sam
a friend of Sam
?the friend of Sam's
a friend of Sam's
3. The car's bumper
the bumper of the car
?a bumper of the car
?the bumper of the car's
?a bumper of the car's
4. My shirt
*the shirt of my
*a shirt of my
?the shirt of mine
a shirt of mine
5. My arm
*the arm of my
*an arm of my
?the arm of mine
?an arm of mine
6. The cup's contents
the contents of the cup
contents of the cup
?some contents of the cup (unstressed "some")
*the contents of the cup's
*some contents of the cup's
contents of the cup's
I've use this sample of constructions as a handout in UG grammar classes
just to get across the variety of constraints applying to genitive
constructions. Set 5, for example, illustrates the very strict rules
governing inalienable positions, which, in English, are largely body
parts.
One of the tasks I use with this handout is asking groups to come up
with contexts in which the questionable or even the ungrammatical
phrases might work perfectly well. This sort of context creation also
works well for discussing instances where the -'s genitive, the of
genitive and the double genitive are all possible.
The genitive vs. attributive distinction is a blurry one, but you have
to have a way of referring to non-genitive nominal pronominal modifiers,
and attributive is certainly better than the phrase I just used. I
think it works to your advantage pedagogically.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nancy Tuten
Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2006 5:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Genitive, Partitive, Objective
So now I wonder: would I be helping folks or just confusing them further
if
I introduced these distinctions in an article meant for a general
audience?
Herb, in the article you read in which we distinguish between possessive
and
attributive nouns, are we misleading/deceiving our readers or simply
failing
to make a rather esoteric distinction?
Regardless of whether this information would be appropriate for our
article,
I am grateful that you have broadened my understanding of the topic.
Thanks,
Nancy
Nancy L. Tuten, PhD
Professor of English
Director of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Program
Columbia College
Columbia, South Carolina
[log in to unmask]
803-786-3706
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2006 3:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Genitive, Partitive, Objective
Sorry. I got a bit carried away with the terms. Partitive refers to a
part-whole relationship, in which the genitive expresses the part, as in
the car's bumper
a pint of milk
a year's salary
Objective describes a genitive that is semantically the thing that
undergoes
the action expressed by a deverbal noun or other noun that can have such
a
relational meaning, as in
Jack's appointment by the president
The Unibomber's capture
This is in contrast to a subjective genitive, like
The president's appointment of Jack
The FBI's capture of the Unibomber
Genitive is a case label. Since English makes only minimal use of case
in
its morphosyntax, we tend to use the term possessive instead, but that,
as
you can see, expresses only one of the many meanings carried by genitive
case. As a case label it refers to morphologically distinct forms of
nouns
that have the meanings described above.
I hope this helps. If I've been too terse, please let me know.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Jan
Kammert
Sent: Sun 5/14/2006 1:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Genitive, Partitive, Objective
Can someone give me a simple definition of genitive, partitive, and
objective? I think I'm not the only person on this list who would like
explanations of these terms.
Jan
> Genitive of possession: My car (provided the bank doesn't own it)
> Partitive genitive: Two-thirds of the population
> Genitive of measure: A five foot board, a three year appointment
> Genitive of contents: A cup of coffee
> Subjective genitive: My claim that the train hit the car
> Objective genitive: My arrest for speeding
> Genitive of patient: My experience of teaching
>
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