We in English have an odd and useful tool: a possessive that can be appended to an entire phrase, rather than to just one word. Look at the following:
Il figlio del re d’Inghilterra (Italian)
Le fils du roi d’Angleterre (French)
Der Sohn des Koeniges von England (German)
In each case, the possessive applies to the noun alone. In the Romance languages, the possessive must be marked by a prepositional phrase: The son of the king. In German, the possessive is typically marked twice, by the word order, and by our well-known s on masculine or neuter singular nouns. It’s how we form our possessives: we add an s, but unlike the Germans, we add it to all nouns: It’s women’s night at the Colonnade. The Germans can say, too, Des Koeniges Sohn, the king’s son, but that’s unusual, and for special emphasis.
What none of those languages can do is what we do all the time:
The King of England’s son.
Now, let’s stop and look at that. He isn’t England’s son, the Prince of Wales; he’s the king’s son. So why don’t we put the ending on the word King? That would seem logical. The fact is, that’s what we used to do:
The King’s son of England.
But that, you see, caused a little confusion. Notice the difference:
The man on the street’s wife
The man’s wife on the street
That won’t do. So we have a phrasal possessive. But one shouldn’t be too reckless about using it:
The fellow I saw yesterday at the Burger King in Farmville’s Cadillac
Best then to use an adjectival phrase to show possession:
The Cadillac belonging to the fellow I saw yesterday at the Burger King.
What he was doing with a Cadillac at the Burger King, I’ll never know.
December 18th, 2012 | 10:56 am
Dr. Esolen, please keep these posts going for the rest of your life, may it be long and joyful.
December 18th, 2012 | 12:21 pm
I seem to remember that the Scandinavian languages also sport this useful feature.
December 18th, 2012 | 4:36 pm
“The King of England’s son”
How about Latin? Isn’t it the same?
December 18th, 2012 | 6:43 pm
Yes! This new series must continue. I love the explanations with reference to other languages.
The Latin would be:
filius regis Angliae
But it isn’t the same. I don’t believe there is a way to make a whole noun phrase genitive in Latin.
December 19th, 2012 | 10:07 am
Dr. Esolen, I treasure posts like this.
Re. the ‘s after King of England. It is as if King-of-England were one word, with the ‘s appended at the end. We English-speakers are quite clever! But we are clever enough to add the plural ‘s’ to the original noun (e.g. Kings of England, Secretaries of State, Attorneys General). I think adding the ‘s to the end of the noun phrase makes it easier to distinguish the possessive from the pural.
Thank you for your post – it reminds me that ‘In the beginning was the WORD!’
December 19th, 2012 | 9:14 pm
Thanks, Dawn and everybody! I have a lot more of these ready to go — I’ve been jotting down a couple of them a day for the last two months …
English sure has some odd features, one of which is the -s, which serves as the ending on third person singular present tense verbs, the ending for the possessive, and the ending for plurals. Not one of those uses, historically, is related to any of the others, except that they fell together by analogy. The plural in OE was formed in quite a few ways, depending on the noun; the most common was probably the -as ending on certain masculine and neuter nouns, for nominative and accusative plural: tha weras, the men; tha thegnas, the servants. The genitive in Old English was -es for most masculine and neuter singular nouns; not for feminine nouns, and not for plurals. The ending for third person singular verbs in the present tense was -th, not -s; the -s crept in through northern influence, via the Danes and other Scandinavians. Now we have -s for all three, and for plural genitives and for feminine nouns.
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