Possessives

On 16.5.2007 T. A. McLeay wrote:
 > In general, is Swedish more like English or German with
 > cases? In particular, how is the genitive normally formed?
 > (I think it's just a suffix -s, but is it like English's
 > 's, or a proper inflexion?

It's exactly like English, or even worse. There is a long-
standing debate whether the possessive of 'The king of
Denmark' is _Kungens av Danmark_ or _Kungen av Danamarks_,
occasioned by the name of a brand of canned sardines. I
haven't seen such a can in ages, so I don't even remmember
which form they use. Anyway the bone is whether it's the
noun designating the possessor or the whole noun phrase
which takes the -s.

There are prepositional possessives too, but unlike English
different prepositions are used with different possessors,
although _på_ '(up)on' and _i_ 'in' are the most common.
Also unlike English there's no preposition which is used
only for possessives, although I guess you can view the -s
as a postposition though.


--


/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

    a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot

                                 (Max Weinreich)