Re: Possessive and Genitive

En réponse à Peter Bleackley :

>Is there any difference in meaning between the terms possessive an
>genitive? The former tends to be used when referring to English, the latter
>to other languages, but what they refer to doesn't seem to differ much (a
>case of a noun or pronoun indicating that the marked noun or pronoun is the
>owner of another).
Actually, I tend to see the term "possessive" as wider in use than
"genitive". "Genitive" only refers to the noun case for possession.
"Possessive" can be used in places where you can't talk about a case (like
in French or Spanish which have possessive *adjectives* - agreeing in
number and in gender with the noun possessed -, which are not the genitive
case of personal pronouns - those don't even exist in French or Spanish -).

So "possessive" refers to any feature used for possession, while "genitive"
is used strictly as a case name.

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.

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