formgenitive

Formgenitive is a term used in linguistics to refer to the grammatical form used to express possession and related relations between nouns, typically realized as a genitive case or a possessive construction. The formgenitive encompasses synthetic forms, where a noun or determiner carries a genitive marker (for example, English possessive -'s or the German genitive case des Mannes), and analytic forms, where a separate word or preposition marks possession (as in English the book of the man). Some languages use both, with subtle differences in function.

In typology, the formgenitive serves several functions beyond simple possession, including marking origin, part-whole, measurement, description, and attribution. The particular markers and their distribution vary widely across languages and can interact with other grammatical categories such as number, gender, or case alignment.

In English and German, the genitive expresses possession; in Turkish, possessive suffixes on the possessor produce the equivalent of a genitive construction (adam-ın kitab-ı). In languages with rich case systems, the genitive case on the possessor is the primary means of encoding this relationship, while many languages prefer periphrastic constructions.

The term formgenitive appears mainly in typological and theoretical discussions to contrast morphologically marked genitives (form-genitive) with syntactic or semi-analytic possessive constructions. It is not always used consistently, and some grammars simply label these constructions as genitive, possessive, or partitive, depending on scope.