genitivie

The genitive case, sometimes called the possessive, is a grammatical category used to indicate a relationship between a noun and another element. It is common in many languages and can denote possession, origin, measurement, description, or association. In analytic languages, the genitive often appears as a prepositional phrase (for example, of in English), while in synthetic languages it is expressed through inflection on the head noun or its modifier.

Morphology and syntax vary by language. In Latin, possession is shown with the genitive ending on the noun of the possessor or possessed, as in libri pueri “the boy’s books.” In German, the genitive marks relationships with articles like des Mannes “of the man.” In Russian, the genitive forms nouns and adjectives to express possession or partitive meanings, as in kniga kucheraya “the book of a teacher.” English typically uses either the possessive marker ’s (the cat’s whiskers) or a of-phrase (the color of the sky).

Functions of the genitive extend beyond possession. It can indicate part-whole relationships (a piece of cake), description or attribution (the city’s history), source or origin (the works of Homer), and various other semantic relations depending on the language.

Not all languages have a dedicated genitive case; some use prepositions, possessive adjectives, or other constructions. Where present, the genitive is a fundamental tool for expressing relational meaning between nouns across diverse linguistic systems.