génitive

The génitive, or genitive, is a grammatical case or construction used to express a close relationship between a noun and another noun, most often possession. It can indicate ownership, origin, description, or composition. Genitive forms may be realized as inflections on the possessor or as analytic constructions using a preposition, depending on the language and its terminology.

In English, the genitive is most familiar as the possessive form with the suffix -'s attached to the possessor: John's book. For plural possessors, the pattern is -'s or -' with the base noun: the teachers' lounge. When the possessor is inanimate or to avoid ambiguity, English typically uses an of-phrase: the color of the car, the title of the book. Pronouns have independent genitive forms, such as mine, yours, his, hers.

Many languages mark the genitive with distinct endings or articles. In German, the genitive is shown by forms such as das Auto des Mannes (the man's car). In Latin, the genitive is a true case with endings, for example liber puellae (the girl's book). In Russian and other Slavic languages, genitive endings change with gender and number and appear after numerals and with certain prepositions. The genitive contrasts with other grammatical relations, and different languages realize possession and related meanings through a variety of morphological and syntactic strategies.