What is genitive case?

Genitive case is a case in which the referent of the marked noun is the possessor of the referent of another noun.

In some languages, genitive case may express an associative relation between the marked noun and another noun.

• The man's foot
• The man's brother
• The man's singing
• The man's book
• The man's picture

• What is case?

Crystal 1980 161

Hartmann and Stork 1972 94–95, 180

Pei and Gaynor 1954 82, 172

Anderson, S. 1985 185

Mish 1991 511

Fleming 1988 10

Context for this page:

• Concept module: genitive case
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): G
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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