nominativgenitiv

Nominativgenitiv is a term used in German-language linguistics to refer to the relationship between the nominative and genitive cases, rather than to a single grammatical category. It serves as a shorthand for discussing how sentences mark who is performing an action (nominative) and how possession or close relation is expressed (genitive).

The nominative case in German marks the subject of a sentence. For example, in Der Hund bellt, der Hund is in the nominative and functions as the actor of the verb bellt. The genitive case marks possession, association, or other close relationships within a noun phrase. In Das Auto des Mannes ist neu, des Mannes is the genitive possessive form showing that the car belongs to the man.

In practice, genitive usage includes forming possessive constructions with nouns and determiners, as in the man’s car or das Auto des Mannes, and it also appears after certain prepositions and in some nominal neighborhoods. German genitive endings vary by gender and number, with examples such as des Mannes, der Frau, des Kindes in the singular, and der Männer, der Kinder in the plural. The genitive can also express parts of a whole, measurements, or characteristic descriptions.

In contemporary usage, genitive forms are sometimes supplanted by periphrastic expressions like von + Dativ, especially in informal speech, though the genitive remains common in formal writing and set phrases. Cross-linguistically, nominative and genitive correspond to the subject-marking and possessive or relational functions, but many languages differ in how they realize possession and argument structure.

See also: Nominative case, Genitive case, German grammar, Possession, Prepositional phrases.