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Absolute Possessive

THE CATEGORY OF CASE

The case is a grammatical category which shows the relation of the noun with other words in a sentence. English nouns have two cases: the common case and the Possessive case. The common case has no inflexion.

The formation of the Possessive case of nouns

1) Nouns in the singular and irregular plurals take the apostrophe s (‘s) inflexion

the boy’s toy [z]

the student’s paper [s]

a women’s magazine

children’s toys

deer’s horns

the prince’s wife [iz]

2) Proper nouns ending in –s take the apostrophe only (‘) or the apostrophe s (‘s). But “s” is always pronounced.

Dickens’ (Dickens’s) [dikensiz] novels

Burns’ (Burns’s) poems

Note. Greek proper nouns ending in –s of more than one syllable take the apostrophe only(‘) and [iz] is not pronounced.

Socrates’ [sokrэtiz] wife

Euripides’ [juэripidi:z] plays

3) Regular plurals take the apostrophe (‘) inflexion only

Boys’ toys

The students’ exercises

4) Compound nouns have apostrophe s (‘s)joined to the final component

the editor-in-chief’s office

my mother-in-law’s garden

a passer-by’s comment

Group Possessive

The possessive case inflexion ‘smay be added to a whole group of words. It is called group possessive.

1) It may be a group of people owing something jointly:

Nick and Mary’s flat

Mum and Dad’s room

But John’s and Tom’s cars

2) It may be a group of people united by the idea of authorship:

Ilf and Petrov’s novels

3) It may be a phrase in which the last word is not a noun at all:

somebody else’s book

the man I saw yesterday’s son

the Prime Minister of England’s statement

an hour and two’s time

She is the boy on the left’s sister.

Absolute Possessive

There are some cases of the so-called Absolute Possessive. It is called "absolute", as it is used absolutely, without the noun, and it stands for the whole noun phrase.

Absolute Possessive is used:

1) to avoid repetition

My son would like to have a bike, like Steve's.

Her smile was sweet and innocent like a child's.

Here eyes were sharp and black as a bird's.

I heard a voice. It was my boss's, but in my confusion I took it for someone else's.

He opened the envelope, his fingers shaking like a schoolboy's.

2) after the preposition of in the meaning one of:

Bess is a friend of my mother's.

Is she a client of Ms Morgan's?

He married a classmate of Andy's.

I am a fan of Paul's.

3) in emphatic constructions after a demonstrative pronoun:

How I dislike that new boyfriend of Susan's!

That dress of Margie's was something!

I'm trying to knock some sense into that very thick head of Peter's before it's too late.

3) to express some locality (with local meaning: a house, a shop, a clinic, an auction, etc.)

the baker's, the barber's, the hairdresser's, the vet's

the optician's, the tailor's, the dressmaker's, the flourist's,

the newsagent's, the greengrocer's, the confectioner's,

the ironmonger's, the doctor's, my aunt's, the butcher's,

the dentist's, McDonald's, Christie's, Sotheby's,

but: Harrods.

After work I dropped in at the greengrocer's and the cleaner’s

We got all the information at the travelling agent's.

Переглядів: 1892