Feeling Possessed: the Use of the Genitive Case Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff Aybe It’S Just the End of the Winter, but I Always Go a Little Stir M Crazy This Time of Year

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3-2015 Feeling Possessed: The seU of the Genitive Case Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff Concordia University School of Law, [email protected]

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CU Commons Citation Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff, Feeling Possessed: The sU e of the Genitive Case, Advocate, Mar. 2015, at 62.

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at CU Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of CU Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Feeling Possessed: The Use of the Genitive Case Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff aybe it’s just the end of the winter, but I always go a little stir M crazy this time of year. Not like Jack Nichol- son in The Shining, of course. But I do long for a nice long walk in the sunshine with those dogs of mine. Or to do a little gardening with my husband in our yard. Or to get away from my students’ gripes about hav- ing to write a 20-page appellate brief in a mere six weeks. Wow — there was lot of possessing in that paragraph! In fact, we tend to do a lot of possessing in writing (or we write about a lot of pos- When the singular noun ends in The choice between the two geni- sessing). an “s,” still add the ’s. tive markers is mostly a matter of So let’s take a closer look at pos- Mr. Jones’s car is yellow. style. session in the English language. Form the genitive of a plural The car’s name. . . . Possession: A brief lesson noun that ends in an s or es by add- The name of the car. . . . ing just an apostrophe. There are a few expressions, how- In English we use the genitive ever, that sound right only in the of- case of nouns to express possession. My parents’ car is blue. genitive formation. Sometimes the genitive case is called The Joneses’ car is also blue. When his car slid on the black ice, it felt possessive, but that is too narrow a If a plural noun is irregular, the like the end of everything. term. Genitive nouns can function genitive is formed by adding an ’s. in seven different ways. When his car slid on the black ice, it felt The women’s cars were green. The genitive case can show own- like everything’s end. ership (Tenielle’s car), a relationship Compound nouns take the ap- (Tenielle’s assistant), agency (Teni- propriate ending on the last word in Individual and joint possession elle’s real estate agent), the role of the the compound. subject (Tenielle’s application), the Things get a little trickier, howev- My brother-in-law’s truck is red. role of the object (Tenielle’s release), er, when there are multiple nouns in or an idiomatic shorthand form of The Society of Friends’ bus is yellow. a sentence. So let’s move on to how an “of” phrase (one day’s time).1 Indefinite pronouns also take an to differentiate between individual Our focus today will be on the ’s. (Indefinite pronouns refer to no and joint possession. ownership function of genitive specific person or thing: everyone, If two or more people together nouns. someone, no one, something.) own something, mark only the last noun as genitive. Let’s say you’re Someone’s car was ticketed. Possessive formation trying to tell someone about my car. Everyone’s car was damaged during the The genitive case is formed dif- You could write: hailstorm. ferent ways, depending on both the Tenielle and Charlie’s car is white. noun and its usage in the sentence. Sometimes, too, the preposition This is because my husband and I The genitive of a singular noun is of may precede a noun to express own the car together. formed by adding an ’s. possession. But if the nouns are both in the Amanda’s car is white. The windshield of the car was cracked. genitive case, the sentence would tell

62 The Advocate • March/April 2015 you that each person owns a separate The focus above is now on the habit thing. of changing oil, not on Susan. The mechanic worked on Pam’s, Aman- If you were to use pronouns, you da’s, and Bo’s cars. Possessives and gerunds would use possessive pronouns. The mechanic was busy — he ser- Finally, if the noun or pronoun in It was a habit of hers to change her viced three different cars, owned by your sentence modifies a gerund, use oil yearly. three separate individuals. the genitive case or possessive pronoun. Remember, a gerund is a verb Not: Double possessives form ending in ing that functions as It was a habit of she to change her Unfortunately this isn’t about a noun. oil yearly. owning twice as much of something: We had to pay a fine for Chad’s driving She had two luxury cars. Instead, dou- without a license. ble genitives are formed with both We had to pay a fine for his driving the genitive case and the word of. without a permit. It was a habit of Susan’s to change her oil yearly. Here, because “driving without a license” and “driving without a permit” Now, the use of the double geni- Endnotes both function as nouns, the use of tive confounds some people. Why the genitive case, Chad’s, and the pos- 1. The University of Chicago Press, The would you use both genitive mark- sessive pronoun, his, is correct. Chicago Manual of Style, 207 (16th ed. ers — the ’s and of? Shouldn’t you 2010). write instead: “It was a habit of Susan Conclusion to change her oil yearly.”? About the Author No. Think about it this way: Now that you understand a little if you were to use pronouns, you more about possession in the Eng- Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff is an As- would use possessive pronouns. lish language, I will leave you. I see sistant Professor of Law and the Di- rector of the Legal Research and Writ- It was a habit of hers to change her oil the sun peaking out and I need to ing Program at Concordia University yearly. wash my car! School of Law in Not: Sources Boise. She is also It was a habit of she to change her oil Of Counsel at Fish- yearly. l The University of Chicago Press, er Rainey Hudson. Now you know that the double The Chicago Manual of Style, 207-08 You can reach her genitive is correct, but why would (16th ed. 2010). at tfordyce@ cu- you want to use it? It can shift the l Diana Hacker, A Writer’s Reference, portland.edu or focus of the sentence to the object. 150 (3d ed. 1995). http://cu-portland.

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