A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

§9.1 Genitive NPs as subject-detenniner 109

Underlining here marks the genitive dependent, while brackets enclose the NP in
which it functions. The genitive dependent is an NP: we have one NP functioning
in the structure of another. Thus the first division of the bracketed NP in [ia], for
example, is the teacher's + car (not the + teacher's car). This is particularly clear
in examples like those in [ii].

• In [iia] plural these obviously belongs with plural people, not singular fa te.


• And in [iib] the person I met was the son not of the State but of the Secretary of
  State.

The. 's suffix occurs at the end of the genitive NP; the latter usually has the head in
final position, as in [ia] and [iia], but it can contain a relatively short post-head
dependent, like of State in [iib]. Compare, similarly, someone else's responsibility
or the guy next door's voice.

Dual function of the genitive NP

The genitive NPs in [60] combine the functions of detenniner and complement. The
construction is semantically equivalent to one where the two functions are realised
separately, by a definite detenniner and a post-head of phrase complement. Compare:

[61] i a. the patient's condition
ii a. one patient'sfather

b. the condition ofthe patient

b. the fa the r of one patient

The single dependent of the [a] examples does the work of the two dependents of
the [b] examples.

• As a detenniner, the genitive is always definite. Note, for example, that [iia]
  corresponds to the fa ther of one patient, not qfather of one patient.
  .. As a complement, the genitive is comparable to the subject of a clause. It occurs
  before the head nominal as a clause subject occurs before the head VP. And
  where the noun is morphologically related to a verb the genitive has the same
  role as a clause subject. Compare Kim 's criticism of the report and Kim criticised
  the report, and so on.

For this reason we refer to the genitive NPs in [60-61] as subject-determiners.

'Genitive' vs 'possessive'

The tenn 'possessive' is often used instead of 'genitive', especially for pronouns,
but it is important to see that the semantic relation between the genitive NP and the
following head is by no means limited to that of possession. Consider these cases,
and think about which of them (if any) could possibly be said to have something to
do with possessing:

[62] her fa ther, her friends, her birth, her infancy, her anger, her lack of money,
her acceptance of your offe r, her refusal to compromise, her rapid action

Not one of these pennits a natural paraphrase with possess , in the way that her car can
be paraphrased as the car she possesses. Often there will be a range of interpretations