By Genitives, Determiners

That's a question. Before any native speakers' responses, I'd like to list out what I've checked out in some dictionaries: American heritage: adj & interj Cambridge Advanced Learner's: determiner & exclamation (old exclamation) Oxford English Dict.: 1、pron.:The possessive genitive of I...

Hi, Please tell me what the marked/underlined "a" is modifying? School I thought that when you have something in the possessive form, the determiner is not needed. The genitive is used here to describe a 'characteristic' of the school. Compare 'a lion's footprint'. I am going to a boys'...

This is the most attractive piece (not pieces) of clothing I have seen so far. It means nothing is more attractive than ... . This is a most attractive piece (not pieces) of clothing. here most means very Among the most significant early explanations was that of Hernando De Soto (why...

1. When is it right to put the before the determiner the before the word "future" and when not? The first sentence is Nona's: Phew, this is a long one Believer, it might be better if you split these things up into several posts in future. In the future, you can ask him help. Somewhere in...

Hello Teo and Pieanne"There's a girls' high school near here". This "girls'" is a "descriptive genitive" according to the terms used by some grammarians. Unlike the possessive s-genitive, the descriptive genitive behaves like an adjective rather than like a determiner so that it can be compatible...

In English, it is a rule to reckon a Saxon genitive as a kind of possessive determiner like "his". So your phrases should be "(a poor invalid)'s diet" and "(the poor invalid)'s diet" because you cannot say "a poor his diet" and "the poor his diet".paco

Dave, First of all, and even when everyone is surely aware of this, I must insist that even when I believe my knowledge of the English grammar is good, I'm not a grammarian or a linguist. It would be completely absurd for me to try and analyse a language that is not even my own in depth when I...

Hi, Bews’, James’ Smiths’… The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar possessive (n. & adj.) (A word or case) indicating possession or ownership. The possessive case of nouns is also called the GENITIVE case, e.g. boy's, boys', Mary's, the Smiths'. Pronouns in the possessive case are the series...