Re: Genitives NPs as Relative Clauses

Christophe Grandsire scripsit:

> English
> (like Modern French) has only subjective genitive: "my fear" is equivalent
> to "I am afraid", "I fear" or "the fear that I experience", never to "somebody
> is afraid of me", "the fear that somebody feels towards me". In Middle French,
> possessives could also have an objective meaning (the second one I showed you),
> but it was mostly restricted in poetry (I know a few examples in theater plays
> in verse). I don't know if English ever allowed such a construction.
Actually, the objective genitive is quite alive in English:

my acquittal = X acquitted me
his tormentor = X tormented him
Irene's adoption = X adopted Irene
Caesar's murder = X murdered Caesar
the love of God = God loves X (subjective) or X loves God (objective)
hatred of war = X hates war
punishment of the criminal = X punishes the criminal
        (as opposed to "punishment of the law" (subjective))

> In my Azak, I solved this problem by having two different genitive cases: a
> genitive subjective and a genitive objective
English can use its two genitive forms in this way.  While in general
there is no distinction between "X's Y" and "the Y of X" except that
one is usually more felicitous than the other, in the double-barreled
form "X's Y of Z", as in "John's adoption of Irene", X is always
subjective genitive and Z is always objective genitive.
(In Early ModE this was not always true, and we had "the king's son of Ireland"
for "the son of the king of Ireland".) Can any other natlang make these
double genitives?

It is also possible to use "Y of Z" vs. "Y of Z's" to make a distinction
between subjective/objective genitives and other kinds.  Thus,
many a philosopher today is a student of Kant (= X studies Kant), but
a student of Kant's would have to have been dead for a century.
In this case, "Kant's student" is parallel to "a student of Kant's"
except that it is definite.

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
Please leave your values        |       Check your assumptions.  In fact,
   at the front desk.           |          check your assumptions at the door.
     --sign in Paris hotel      |            --Miles Vorkosigan

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