attributive genitive
- noun
- /əˈtrɪb.jʊ.tɪv ˈdʒɛn.ɪ.tɪv/
- Specialized
:
genitivo atributivo
- I was just working on my father's car.
Examples
-
He just needed one thing, the keys to his father's car, which were surprisingly easy to acquire.
-
The teacher praised the student's project for its creativity.
-
The dog's collar had a tag with its owner's name on it.
-
I borrowed my sister's book for the reading assignment.
Synonyms
1
3.8
A form of a word that shows something belongs to someone
1
7.7
Showing that something belongs to someone, for example 'the girl's book'
A noun with 's that shows who owns or is closely connected to something
A grammatical form that shows possession or a close relationship, usually shown with 's
Surface Forms
Morphology
The term is compositionally built from 'attributive' (modifying a noun) and 'genitive' (case of possession), so its meaning — a genitive form used as an attributive modifier to show possession/association — is directly derivable from the constituents. Although somewhat technical, this analytic structure is cross-linguistically common (e.g. 'John's book'), making it understandable to a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
Attributive genitive comes from the simple idea of putting a name before a thing to show who it belongs to. For example, in John's book, John's describes book like a short label that shows 'ownership' or a close relationship.