OF vs 's

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Belly

#425221 Sat, 29 Sep 07 05:50 PM

I've seen these sentences:

John bumped into a friend of his yesterday (1)

and

The second meeting of the commitee will be held on Friday (2)

Why on sentence (1), they use his but on sentence (2), they use the commitee but not commitee's?

I'm so confused

Belly

Joined on Mon, Feb 19 2007

Regular Member (595)

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Ant_222

#425226 Sat, 29 Sep 07 05:55 PM

When a posessive pronoun doesn not preceede a noun ("my car"), it should still be posessive:

«...and you ain't no friend of mine.»

"Commitee" is not a pronoun at all.

EDIT: Article on your question:
[link]

Ant_222

Joined on Sun, May 21 2006

Podolsk, Russia

Contributing Member (1,584)

Articles, Nouns, Pronouns

Belly

#425233 Sat, 29 Sep 07 06:08 PM

Micheal Swan said in his book: The structure has a variant in which a noun does not have posseisive 's: this is sometimes used when talking about relationships:

He's a cousin of the Queen (etc)

But he took no mention of "commitee", the second meeting of the commitee does not relate to "relationships", does it?

Belly

Nouns

Cool Breeze

#425498 Sun, 30 Sep 07 11:23 AM

Hi Belly

Swan is right but the genitive (committee's) is impossible in your sentence because of the definite article (the) that qualifies meeting. We cannot say:

I am the friend of his.

Only I am a friend of his is possible. (= I am one of his [many] friends.)

There are other correct ways to use of his/mine/ours/theirs. Examples:

I met two friends of his.
I don't want to see any friends of his.
Some friends of his give me a headache.

Cheers
CB

Cool Breeze

Joined on Fri, Apr 7 2006

Helsinki, Finland

Senior Member (3,006)

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.- Mark Twain

Articles, Definite Articles, Genitives

Yoong Liat

#425569 Sun, 30 Sep 07 05:35 PM

user="Belly"

John bumped into a friend of his yesterday (1)

The second meeting of the commitee will be held on Friday (2)

Why on sentence (1), they use his but on sentence (2), they use the commitee but not commitee's?

The legs of the piano are curved. You cannot say The legs of the piano's are curved. The reason is a piano is an inanimate thing.
Similarly, The second meeting of the commitee's will be held on Friday will be incorrect because a committee is an inanimate thing.

Yoong Liat

Joined on Mon, Sep 4 2006

Singapore

Veteran Member (6,100)

Yoong Liat

Belly

#425723 Mon, 01 Oct 07 07:03 AM

But some say commitee is a group of people, so it's an animate thing?

Belly

Boyonfire

#425758 Mon, 01 Oct 07 10:31 AM

I dont want to post a new topic, but this is related..

The book of david's is sold.

Does that work since david is animate?

Boyonfire

Joined on Mon, Oct 1 2007

New Member (12)

Feebs11

#425783 Mon, 01 Oct 07 01:42 PM

It is incredibly cumbersome, and you will probably never hear someone say this. In any case, the possessive of "of David", so falls within this restrictive direction that only sensate beings can be possessive.

David's book is sold.

Feebs11

Joined on Thu, Nov 23 2006

Veteran Member (5,003)

Possessives

Yoong Liat

#425875 Mon, 01 Oct 07 06:14 PM

Belly wrote:
But some say commitee is a group of people, so it's an animate thing?

Please treat my earlier post as cancelled.

John bumped into a friend of his yesterday is correct because John is a person.

The second meeting of the committee's will be held on Friday is incorrect because a committee is not a person.

Yoong Liat

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