Genetiivinen

Genetiivinen, or genitive, is a grammatical category used in many languages to indicate a relationship between nouns, most commonly possession or close association. It can also express origin, content, component parts, or measurement, depending on the language and context. The genitive is typically realized by inflection, suffixes, or clitic markers, and it participates in noun phrases to designate the possessed item or related attribute.

In Finnish, the genetiivi (genitive) is a noun case used to indicate possession or a close relationship within a noun phrase. It has singular and plural forms and is often found when one noun modifies another. For example, talon ovi means the door of the house; kirjan sivu means the page of the book. Finnish genitive is used without articles and interacts with word order and other grammatical markers to convey relationships. Possession can also be expressed by possessive suffixes on the possessed noun and by periphrastic constructions, depending on context.

Across languages, the genitive is a defined case or possessive construction. In Latin, German, Russian, and other languages, it typically uses a specific ending or article to mark the genitive. In English, the possessive is generally expressed with the ’s or with of-phrases (the book’s cover / the cover of the book), rather than a dedicated case form.

The genitive thus functions as a key tool for marking ownership, relationship, and related attributes in many linguistic systems, while its exact form and usage vary widely across languages.