Re: Possessive and Genitive

PB = Peter Bleackley
CG = Christophe Grandsire

PB> Is there any difference in meaning between the terms possessive an
PB> genitive?

CG> I tend to see the term "possessive" as wider in use than
CG> genitive".

I tend to think of it more the other way, but in reality I think they
are just two different terms with a lot of overlap.  There are areas
where each one applies and the other doesn't.

The genitive case occurs in many languages and has a wide variety
of uses.  The set of applications almost always includes a possessive
meaning, but often there are others as well - frequently inherited
from other, now extinct, cases.  The best English translation of the
genitive is frequently the preposition "of", which, besides being
a synonym for the more specific possessive construct ('s), can be
used in most of the other instances where other languages use the
genitive.  For instance, consider the common use of the genitive
as a partitive:

        Three of the men have returned.

The English possessive version has a completely different meaning:

        The men's three have returned.

On the other hand, as Christophe said, many languages have both the genitive
case and an alternate means of indicating possession.  Latin's possessive
adjectives are a good example - they are adjectives, not nouns in the
genitive, and only appear in the genitive case for agreement (when the
possessed noun is itself in the genitive).

-Mark