Genitivepluspossessive

Genitivepluspossessive is a term used in linguistics to describe a noun phrase that bears both genitive case marking and possessive morphology, resulting in a double-marked possessive relationship. The phenomenon arises in languages with explicit case systems or rich affixal possessive marking, and it can also appear as a diachronic layering where historical forms accumulate additional markers over time. In practice, genitivepluspossessive signals a strong or explicit link of possession or association between two nominals, sometimes with functional or emphatic nuances.

In typological terms, genitivepluspossessive constructions typically involve two simultaneous grammatical marks: a genitive marker on the possessor noun (or noun phrase) and a possessive marker on the possessed noun (or on the possessor as a dependent). The markers may be suffixes, prefixes, or clitics, and their order can vary across languages. Such constructions can be noun-noun compounds with inflected forms, or syntactic configurations where a genitive phrase combines with a possessive affix to produce a single DP.

Examples are often hypothetical in descriptions of genitivepluspossessive, but a schematic form can be glossed as: NOUN1-GEN NOUN2-POSS, meaning “the NOUN1’s NOUN2.” The precise morphology and order depend on the language, and in practice, double marking can be rare or stylistically marked in many languages. The phenomenon is of interest for understanding how different possessive strategies interact in a single noun phrase.

See also: genitive case, possessive construction, double genitive, possessive morphology.