genitivedependent

Genitive dependent is a linguistic term used to describe a noun or noun phrase within a larger noun phrase that is marked in the genitive case and depends on another noun (the head) to form a genitive construction. The dependent typically expresses a possessive, relational, or attributive link to the head noun, such as ownership, association, or part-whole relationships.

In languages with explicit case marking, the genitive dependent appears in the genitive form while the head noun remains the main noun being described. The relationship is often realized through inflection rather than a separate preposition. Word order can vary between languages, with some allowing pre-nominal or post-nominal genitive dependents depending on syntactic conventions.

Common functions of genitive dependents include possession (the girl's book), measurement (a day's pay, in languages with appropriate morphology), and attribution (the king's crown). They can take different grammatical shapes across languages; in some languages the dependent is a proper noun, in others it may be a noun phrase with its own modifiers.

The concept is frequently discussed alongside related ideas such as genitive attributes, possessive constructions, and of-genitives (phrases meaning “of the”). In contrast to other modifiers of the head noun, genitive dependents carry the genitive case or possessive meaning, which helps distinguish possession from descriptive adjectives or other attributive elements. The exact syntax and morphology of genitive dependents vary cross-linguistically, but the underlying idea remains a dependent element within a genitive noun phrase that marks a relational tie to the head noun.