Genitives :

Spelling :

To make the genitive or possessive case of nouns, ’s is added to a singular and apostrophe' to a plural.

But irregular plurals have 's'.

1. My mother's house
2. My parent's house
3. My children's future
4. Demis's new car
5. Demis' new car
6. Charles's car
7. Charles' car

Note : The genitive 'S' can be attached to a whole phrase.

1. The Duke of York's mansion
2. Queen Elizabeth the First's domestic policy
3. The man next door's wife

The genitive can be used in many different ways.

1. My mother's car (Possession)
2. My mother's sister (relationship)
3. John's landlady (Proprietrix)
4. The dog's tail
5. The five year plan's importance
6. Five days' travel

1. "Whose is that?" - 'Ram's
2. War is neither in Pakistan's interests nor in India's.
3. "Where is Sita?"
4. She is at the hairdresser's.

Note : The S genitive can be used as a pronoun with no following noun as in the above sentences.

The possessive of a proper name or of a noun, denoting a profession, trade, business or relationship may be used to denote a building or a place of business, temple, church, mosque, house, school, college, shop hospital, theatre etc.

1. The memorial service will be held at St-Paul's.
2. Tonight I dine at my aunt's.
3. I go to the Municipal High School but my sister attends St-Paul's.
4. I am educated at Queen Mary's.
5. He's a friend of my father's.
6. Where's the brother of yours?
7. We had a lovely dinner at Peter's.

Note :

1. St. Paul's = St. Paul's church
2. Aunt's = aunt's house
3. St. Paul's = St. Paul's School
4. Queen Mary's = Queen Mary's College
5. A friend of my father's = one of my father's friends
6. Brother of yours = your brother
7. Peter's = Peter's house

Study the following.

Noun’s case……Singular……Plural

1. Nominative case……boy……boys
2. Genitive case……boy's……boys'
3. Accusative case……boy……boys
4. Nominative case……man……men
5. Genitive case……man's……men’s
6. Accusative case……man……men

Ravi, our captain, made fifty runs.
(Our captain refers to Ravi.)
(Here our captain is said to be in apposition to the noun, Ravi).

1. Kabir, the great reformer, was a weaver.
2. Yesterday I met the Prime Minister, Mr. Singh.
3. Have you seen Laxman, the artist's paintings?

(i) The great reformer and Kabir are in nominative case.
(ii) The Prime Minister and Mr. Singh are in accusative case.
(iii) Laxman and the artist are in the genitive case.


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