The genitive has three functions, four forms, and a number of distinct but related meanings. These things will be discussed in the following articles.
A. Attributive Genitive.
This genitive is treated at considerable length in Syntax, 10 II. Attention is directed here chiefly to matters of form and an outline of its functions.a. FUNCTION AND MEANING.
The attributive genitive modifies a noun or pronoun and thus plays the part of an adjective. It expresses many related ideas, origin, possession, subject, object, material, composition, characteristic, measure, apposition, a whole from which a part is taken: Shakespeare's (origin) dramas'; 'John's (possession) hat'; 'mother's (subject) love for us'; 'Caesar's (object) murderers'; 'an idol of gold' ( material); 'a flock of birds' (composition); a child's (characteristic) language'; 'an hour's (measure) delay'; 'the gift of song' (apposition); 'a piece of bread' (whole from which a part is taken).
b. FORM. There are four forms of the genitive.
(1). S-Genitive. An 's is added to a noun not ending in an s-sound: 'the girl's hat,' etc. Of course we write Descartes's, Dumas's, for the s and es before the genitive ending are silent. An 's is added also to plurals not ending in -s: 'men's clothing.' The 's in all these examples is pronounced as a simple s.
An 's is usually added to nouns ending in an s-sound: 'James's hat.' The 's here is never pronounced as a simple s but always as es. This is the survival of older usage when all nouns could take es in the genitive singular. This older usage was still lingering in Shakespeare's day: 'as white as whales bone' (Love's Labor's Lost, V, II, 332). The e of the old genitive ending began to dis appear about 1380 and finally in the early part of the Modern English period disappeared entirely except in the case of nouns ending in an s-sound, where it in general survives although it is not written. In the Middle English and early Modern English periods the s of the genitive ending was often suppressed in nouns ending in an s-sound. This older usage lingers: 'Cards' pride' (Hugh Walpole, Fortitude, p. 80), 'greatly to Charles' surprise' (Hergesheimer, The Bright Shawl, p. 20). This older usage sur vives especially in a few set expressions and a few foreign names difficult to pronounce with the genitive s-ending: for old acquaint ance' sake, for goodness' sake, for conscience' sake, Jesus', Xerxes', Socrates', etc. In general, however, the 's of the genitive ending is more common in nouns ending in an s-sound than it was in early Modern English, and is gradually becoming established. On the other hand, s is never added in the genitive plural to nouns ending in -s in the plural: 'the ladies' club,' 'the girls' hats,' 'the Joneses' garage.'
In compounds the genitive 's is added to the last component: 'Hop-o'-my-thumb's mother,' 'my brother-in-law's new house.' In such compounds as the latter of these examples the plural ending -s, in contrast to the genitive ending -'s, is added to the first com ponent: 'my two brothers-in-law.'
In older English, when there were two s-genitives connected by a coördinating conjunction, the genitive ending was often added only to the second genitive, while present usage requires each genitive to take the ending: 'My wife (now wife's) and children's ghosts will haunt me still' (Shakespeare, Macbeth, V, VII, 16). The apostrophe is not found with the s-genitive in older English: 'in Gods care' (Chettle, Kind- Hartes Dreame, p. 22, A.D. 1592), 'Gods grace' (Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 32, A.D. 1630-1648). The apostrophe began to appear about 1680, gaining ground at first only slowly. Its use cannot possibly rest upon a careful observation of the spoken language. In 'James's hat' the vowel before the second s in James's is not suppressed. The apostrophe before the second s here probably arose from the misconception that James's is a contraction of James his, the old his-genitive (see (4) p. 136), which was still employed at the time when the apostrophe came into use. This theory does not explain the use of 's after a feminine or a plural noun. The 's spread by analogy from masculine nouns to feminines and plurals. The old analogy from masculine nouns to feminines and plurals. The old s-genitive without an apostrophe survives in his, hers, ours, yours, theirs.
(2). Of-Genitive. This form is composed of the inflectional preposition of (17) and a noun. This prepositional phrase indicates exactly the same grammatical relation as the simple s-genitive, and historically has taken the place of the old simple s-genitive and the other old inflectional genitives that in Old English stood after the governing noun. As originally, the of-genitive still always follows the governing noun. The simple s-genitive originally stood either before the governing noun or after it but is now re stricted to the position before it, so that now the simple s-genitive stands before the governing noun and the of-genitive stands after it: 'the man's son' or 'the son of the man'; 'the fox's tail' or 'the tail of the fox.'
The simple s-genitive and the of-genitive always have the same grammatical function but do not always have exactly the same meaning. When there are two forms for the same thing there is a tendency for them to become differentiated. Today the s-genitive has become associated with life and cannot usually be used with nouns that denote lifeless things. Thus today we say 'a boy's leg' but not 'a table's leg.' For things we usually employ the of-geni tive: 'the leg of the table. The s-genitive is used with names of things only when in lively language they are thought of as having life: 'the ocean's roar,' 'Duty's call,' 'for the sake of the mind's peace.' 'A book's chances depend more on its selling qualities than its worth.' On the other hand, with reference to persons and other living beings both genitive forms are used without a difference of meaning: the man's son' or 'the son of the man.'
It is interesting to see how we lost the old s-genitive that in the Old English period stood after the governing noun. In Old English it became ever more common for the s-genitive to stand after the governing noun, and in this position it was at that time a perfectly clear form: 'ba leaf bæs treowes' 'the leaves of the tree.' In Old English the article bæs before the s-genitive was inflected, had an s-genitive form itself, so that the thought was clear. When the article later lost its inflection the old s-genitive in this position disappeared, since its reduced form'the leaves the trees'- con veyed no meaning. It was replaced by the of-genitive: 'the leaves of the tree.' In (3) below we shall see that the s-genitive in some what changed form later came back into use in the position after the governing noun. It cannot, however, be so freely used in this position as the of-genitive.
(3). Double Genitive.
The s-genitive that in the Old English period stood after the governing noun disappeared in Middle English, as described in the last paragraph of (2) above. It had scarcely disappeared when its loss was keenly felt. About 1300, attempts were made to restore it. To avoid the lack of clearness that had come into the s-genitive in the position after the govern ing noun the new genitive sign of was placed before the old s-geni tive so that there arose a clear new somewhat changed s-genitive, a double genitive, a form having the same force as the simple s-genitive and, like it, referring to persons: 'a friend of my father's,' 'this only son of our mayor's,' 'this remark of Carlyle's,' 'after quoting a word or two of Shakespeare's,' 'an admirer of Mary's.' This form is common also with possessive pronouns, which are old genitive forms: 'He is no friend of mine.' 'That is no business of yours.' 'What business is that of yours?' We say 'a beautiful picture of hers' (i.e. belonging to her) in contrast to 'a beautiful picture (i.e. likeness) of her.' The double genitive is often associ ated with emotional this and that (10 3 i), so that it is a common feature of lively language expressing praise and censure, joy and displeasure: 'that dear little girl of yours,' 'that old dog of yours," 'this broad land of ours,' 'that ugly remark of her father's,' 'that kind wife of yours,' 'that ugly nose of his.'(4). His-Genitive.
In older English instead of an s-genitive a genitive formed with his, her, their, was often used: 'John his book,' 'Mary her book,' the boys their books.' This genitive was occasionally used in Old English. It became common between 1500 and 1700, and later gradually disappeared from the literary language. It survives in popular speech.B. Predicate Genitive.
After the verbs be, become, seem, feel, a predicate genitive is used to express several ideas found also in the attributive genitive, namely, characteristic, origin, possession, material, and the partitive idea: 'I am quite of your opinion.' 'We are of the same age.' 'He was not of the poor class.' 'Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's' (Matthew, XXII, 21). 'The floors are of tiles.' 'But ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep' (John, X, 26).
The genitive is used also as objective predicate: 'He showed himself of noble spirit,' or 'He showed himself to be of noble spirit.'
C. Adverbial Genitive.
In Old English the s-genitive of nouns was often used adverbially: 'He com to him anes nihtes' = 'He came to him one night. As can be seen by the translation we now employ the accusative here. But the old genitive survives here and there: always, nowadays, must needs, etc. The old s-genitive survives in many adverbs: once (from ones), twice (from twies), thrice, unawares, afterwards, etc. The old s-genitive has been replaced in certain expressions by the newer of-genitive: 'of late years,' 'of a Sunday afternoon,' etc.: 'He often comes in of an evening.Notice that there is now, as originally, no apostrophe with the s-genitive in adverbial use.
