Re: Basque genitives

>rather say that Japanese 'no' is like a merge between Basque "-en" and
>"-ko". The point is that like French 'de', Japanese 'no' can be used for
>pure possession, but also for noun-to-noun relationships that have nothing
>to do with possession. Temporal and spatial relationships for instance can
>be given with it. English can do that to I think. For instance, I think an
>expression like "yesterday's dinner" where the genitive indicates a
>temporal rather than possessive relationship, is perfectly valid in
>English. Am I wrong?
Yes, "yesterday's dinner" is a perfectly valid expression in English.  It
means "the dinner that we had yesterday."  I had never thought of it as
expressive a temporal rather than possessive relationship, but I suppose
that you're right about that.

>  At least, in French "le dîner d'hier" is perfectly valid, as is Japanese
> "kinou no bangohan" (well, not sure about the translation of "dinner",
> but sure about the construction :)) ).
Isidora

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