genitivephrase

A genitive phrase is a syntactic unit used to express a genitive relation between a possessor and a possessed noun. It typically functions within noun phrases to convey possession, association, or related relations such as measurement or part-whole. In many languages, the genitive relation is realized by a dedicated morphological or prepositional strategy, while in English it is most often expressed in two main forms: the s-genitive (the possessor with an -'s or -s) and the of-genitive (the possessed noun followed by of and the possessor).

In English, examples include John’s hat, where John is the possessor marked by ’s, and the hat of John, where the relationship is expressed with of. Genitive phrases can modify a head noun, as in John’s hat, or function as noun phrases in larger structures. They can also combine with determiners and adjectives, as in the big red umbrella of the students, depending on the sentence context. When multiple possessors are involved, English can use joint or individual possessive forms, such as John and Mary’s car or John and Mary’s cars, which encodes different scopes of ownership.

Cross-linguistically, genitive phrases are common and may be realized by genitive case marking on the possessor noun, possessive affixes, or prepositional constructions, each with its own syntactic properties and possible ambiguities. The study of genitive phrases intersects with how languages encode relationships of ownership, association, measurement, and kinship, and with how determiner and noun phrases interact within larger syntactic structures.