By Genitives

Hi everybody, What is the difference between saying: a friend of Tom or a friend of Tom's? Wouldn't be the sentence right if I took the 's out? I have been studied the genitive saxon for quite long time such as Peter's house, Tom's Bar, and things like that but I don't cleary undestand...

This genitive form is causing me trouble: a friend of Nora's is correct right ? but then people say "a friend of Nora Smith" with no use of 's same goes for "I'm a fan of yours" and then I see "I'm a fan of Steve George" again without the 's does the double genitive form disappear when...

The committee's second meeting will be held on Friday Here, why does comittee have the genitive form?

Yoong Liat wrote: 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...

Hi, You are not asking an easy question. The 'apostrophe ess' form is called the Saxon genitive, which is derived from 'Old English', so it's a very old feature of the English language. It indicates possession or close association. Perhaps it's easier to see/feel close association when you are...

Hi BellySwan 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 friends.)There are other correct ways to use of...

Thank you, Clive. Can you give me the reason why it is not attractive to form the genitive out of an uncountable noun? What is it about an uncountable noun that makes it less attractive or make it less popular in terms of its usage in the genitive form?

Thanks Clive. That's an excellent example of what I was thinking about. So, I was wrong.

Hi, You mean something like 'He stood at the water's edge'? This is fine. Clive

Is it correct that you cannot have a genetive ('s or ') case of an uncountable noun? I think this is true but I have not seen it written anywhere. TIA. CSV.