genitiivpluuri

Genitiivpluuri, or genitive plural, is a grammatical category used in some languages to mark possession or a close relationship involving more than one referent. It signals that the head noun belongs to multiple entities or stands in a possessive or descriptive relation to them.

The genitive plural can be realized in different ways. In some languages it appears as a dedicated plural form of the noun in the genitive case (a synthetic approach). In others, possession is expressed analytically with a possessive marker or a preposition, such as an “of” construction, or with a separate possessive pronoun. Many languages offer both options, allowing nuance in how the relation is expressed.

Formation and use vary widely across languages. In synthetic systems, the genitive plural is formed by suffixes or internal changes to the noun. In analytic systems, possession is expressed with a word-for-word possessive marker or with a prepositional phrase. Some languages preserve both possibilities to convey different shades of meaning.

Examples illustrate the range. In English, there is no single noun-specific genitive plural suffix; possession is shown with ’s for singular nouns and with an apostrophe after the plural when the head noun is plural, as in the girl’s book and the girls’ books. In German, the genitive plural is expressed with the appropriate article and noun form, as in die Bücher der Lehrer. In languages with explicit case systems like Latin or Russian, the genitive plural attaches to the noun with endings that agree with its declension.

Genitive plural commonly marks possession, part–whole relations, measurements, and origin in multi-referent phrases.