genitivenoun

Genitive noun refers to a noun that is marked by the genitive case or participates in a genitive construction to express a relationship with another noun. In languages with explicit genitive morphology, the form of the genitive noun changes to indicate possession, origin, composition, or other relations. In languages without a dedicated genitive inflection, possessive relations are usually formed by alternative means such as possessive markers on the possessor or by using of-phrases.

Functions and examples: The genitive commonly marks possession, but it can also express part-whole relationships, origin, material, or content. In Latin, donum amici means “a gift of a friend,” with amici in the genitive. In German, des Mannes Buch means “the man’s book,” where Mannes is the genitive singular of Mann. In English, possession is typically shown by adding -’s to the possessor (the man’s book) or by using of-phrases (the book of the man). English generally lacks a productive genitive noun inflection, relying instead on these constructions.

Cross-linguistic variation: The exact use and morphology of the genitive vary by language. Some languages have rich genitive declensions and use the case to mark a wide range of relations, while others use it mainly for possession or partitive meanings. The term genitive itself comes from Latin genitivus, used in grammars to denote a relation of possession, origin, or association between nouns. See also possessive case and genitive construction for related concepts.