英语专业语法书答案Lecture 5 Genitive Nouns.docVIP

Lecture 5 Genitive Noun CASE is a grammatical category. It denotes the changes in the form of a noun or a pronoun showing its relationship with other words in a sentence. As modern English is basically an analytic language, English nouns have not a complicated case system like that of Latin, German, or modern Russian. The different grammatical functions of English nouns in a sentence are mostly determined by the word order, not by any case form. It is in this sense that the genitive case may be viewed as a relic of the old case system. The genitive was traditionally labelled as the possessive case; however, in view of the fact that possession is just one of the meanings expressed by the genitive, we prefer to use the present name rather than the traditional term. 5.1 Formation, meanings and uses of genitive nouns 1) Formation of genitive nouns Rules of formation are as follows: a) The genitive is formed in writing by addings to singular nouns and to those plural nouns that do not end in -s, eg: my mothers arrival womens clothes b) Plural nouns ending in -s take an apostrophe as genitive marker, eg: the girls dormitory a teachers college c) In compound nouns or a postmodified noun phrase, the genitive ending is added to the end of the compound or to the end of the noun phrase, eg: my mother-in-laws death an hour and a halfs talk somebody elses opinion the University of Minnesotas president d) In coordinate nouns, the genitive ending is added to each of the coordinate elements when denoting respective possession, and only to the last coordinate element when denoting common possession. Compare: Marys and Bobs books Mary and Bobs books e) In the construction of noun phrase + appositive, the genitive ending is added to the end of the appositive. It can also be added both to the end of the noun phrase and to the appositive. Basel the booksellers Basels, the booksellers f) In personal names ending in sibilant / z /, the genitive ending can either bes or an apostrophe o