genitive casegrammar
Main
Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
Assorted References
-
American Indian languages
( in North American Indian languages: Grammar )
...ɣĩ-tsaɣ is “he cried,” and ɣwa-tsaɣ is “he will cry.”In noun forms, the concept of possession is widely expressed by prefixes indicating the person and number of the possessor. Thus Karok has ávaha “food,” nani-ávaha “my food,”...
-
Armenian language
( in Armenian language: Morphology and syntax )
...of nouns and verbs. It was close typologically to Greek, though the shapes of words were very, even surprisingly, different. The nominal and pronominal declension had seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, instrumental, and locative. However, many of these forms overlapped so that usually only three or four different forms existed; e.g., žam...
-
Basque language
( in Basque language: Grammar )
...etxe berri-a “the new house,” and etxe berri-a-ri “to [for] the new house.” Suffixes, under certain restrictions, may be heaped upon one another. Theoretically, genitival endings indicating possession may be added to one another without limit. This is similar to the case in English of “the button of the coat of the son of the Major of York”; in...
-
Oceanic languages
( in Austronesian languages: Pronouns )
Probably the most spectacular pronominal feature in Austronesian languages is the expression of possessive-marking in Oceanic languages. In many of the languages of Melanesia, nouns are marked for one of two types of possessive relationship, generally called “inalienable” and “alienable.” Inalienable categories include body parts, certain kinship relationships, and such...
-
South American Indian languages
( in South American Indian languages: Grammatical characteristics )
...or absent, sitting or standing, and so forth occur in Guaycuruan languages and Movima. Case relations in nouns are generally expressed by suffixes or postpositions; the use of prepositions is rare. Possession is indicated predominantly by prefixes or suffixes, and systems in which possessive forms are the same as those used as the subject of intransitive verbs and as the object of transitive...
-
Uralic languages
( in Uralic languages: Noun inflection )
...the house,’ kudo-t′ńe-sə ‘in the houses’). Nearly all the more eastern members have a definite marker that is identical with the third- or second-person possessive suffix (Komi kerka-ys/yd ‘the house’ or ‘his/your house’).
Citations
Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.
If you think a reference to this article on "genitive case" will enhance your Web site,
blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article,
and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.
You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.
-
American Indian languages North American Indian languages
...ɣĩ-tsaɣ is “he cried,” and ɣwa-tsaɣ is “he will cry.”In noun forms, the concept of possession is widely expressed by prefixes indicating the person and number of the possessor. Thus Karok has ávaha “food,” nani-ávaha “my food,”...
-
Armenian language Armenian language
...of nouns and verbs. It was close typologically to Greek, though the shapes of words were very, even surprisingly, different. The nominal and pronominal declension had seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, instrumental, and locative. However, many of these forms overlapped so that usually only three or four different forms existed; e.g., žam...
-
Basque language Basque language
...etxe berri-a “the new house,” and etxe berri-a-ri “to [for] the new house.” Suffixes, under certain restrictions, may be heaped upon one another. Theoretically, genitival endings indicating possession may be added to one another without limit. This is similar to the case in English of “the button of the coat of the son of the Major of York”; in...
-
Oceanic languages Austronesian languages
Probably the most spectacular pronominal feature in Austronesian languages is the expression of possessive-marking in Oceanic languages. In many of the languages of Melanesia, nouns are marked for one of two types of possessive relationship, generally called “inalienable” and “alienable.” Inalienable categories include body parts, certain kinship relationships, and such...
-
South American Indian languages South American Indian languages
...or absent, sitting or standing, and so forth occur in...
-
characteristics of Slavic languages Slavic languages
...the old Proto-Slavic pattern of seven case forms (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, instrumental, vocative), which occurred in both the singular and the plural. There was also a dual number, meaning two persons or things. In the dual, the cases that were semantically close to each other were represented by a single form (nominative-accusative-vocative, instrumental-dative,...
-
major reference Romance languages
Notable characteristics of Classical Latin
-
Latin language Latin language
Latin of the Classical period had six regularly used cases in the declension of nouns and adjectives (nominative, vocative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative), with traces of a locative case in some declensional classes of nouns. Except for the i-stem and consonant stem declensional classes, which it combines into one group (listed in grammar books as the third declension), Latin...
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.