genetivus

Genetivus is a term used in Latin grammar and historical linguistics to denote the genitive case, a grammatical form that marks a relationship such as possession, origin, or description between nouns. The word derives from Latin genetivus and is used in scholarly descriptions to label the genitive across languages that employ a case system.

In Latin, the genetivus expresses possession (for example, liber patris, the book of the father), partitive relations (pars libri, part of the book), and various descriptive or relational meanings such as origin or material. The form is typically indicated by noun endings that vary by declension, rather than by separate words, and it interacts with adjectives and other modifiers in agreeing forms.

Beyond Latin, genetivus is used in linguistic descriptions of other languages that have genitive-like constructions. In such contexts, the genitive may be expressed by noun endings, prepositions, or clitic markers, depending on the language. The genetivus is distinct from English possessive constructions, which are usually expressed with the ’s or with the preposition of rather than a dedicated genitive ending.

In contemporary grammar, the term genetivus remains chiefly a tool of philology and language description. It provides a concise label for discuss­ing how relations of possession, part-whole connections, and other aboutness relations are encoded morphologically or syntactically in a given language.

See also: Genitive case, Latin grammar, Case (linguistics), Declension.