basic fact

genitive its

contractions

genitive apostrophe and initials

genitive apostrophe and dates

eccentric genitive

genitive nouns, pronouns and -ing nouns

odd one

Basic fact

The apostrophe is a single raised comma with a top curl [’]. It performs two quite different functions in English:

• indicates a genitive relationship;

• indicates that a word is contracted or abbreviated.

 The genitive apostrophe

The genitive apostrophe indicates that certain relationships exist between a noun and another noun. (See the discussion in Chapter 2: genitive-case nouns.)

Placing the genitive apostrophe

The apostrophe after the plural form of a noun  indicates that the noun names several participants and that those participants are in genitive relationship with another named participant:

the girls’ problem: A problem is described as the problem of several girls.

the women’s decision: A decision is described as the decision of several women.

a teachers’ college: There is a category `college' that is for teachers;

the three teams’ captains: Several collective participants: three teams, have captains.

The apostrophe  after the singular form of the noun  indicates that one participant is in genitive relationship with another noun:

the girl’s problems: One participant, the girl, has problems;

the group’s problems: One collective participant, the group, has problems.

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EXERCISE 21 of Exercise and Answer Notes is appropriate here.

The genitive its

We are used to the idea that the apostrophe expresses genitive relationships, so it comes as  a surprise that  its,  the neuter pronoun that expresses a genitive relationship with a noun, does not contain an apostrophe:

the genitive  its
Its coat is the shiniest I have seen on a dog.

One must simply remember that there is an apostrophe in i-t-s only to contract it is to it’s:

‘it is ’ contracted
It’s a long time since we have seen you.

The other pronouns that express genitive relationships are the personal pronouns:

yours  This dog is yours.

ours  Ours are the cleanest shoes in the room.

theirs  Theirs are not well made shoes.

his/hers  The house is his/hers.

whose  We spoke to the girl whose dog is lost.

mine  The error was mine.

The odd one

The only word that stands for a name, can express a genitive relationship and does so with an apostrophe is one’s:

One’s home is one’s castle.

These ones’ prices are acceptable.

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Noting that one behaves just like any noun, some say it is not a pronoun at all: It is a noun.

Genitive pronouns and their homophones

There are words that sound like genitives but are in fact not genitives. They must be carefully distinguished from genitives because their meanings and their spellings are completely different from their genitive homophones:

 EXERCISE 22 of Exercises and Answers Notes is appropriate here.

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The apostrophe as an eccentric genitive

• Genitive relationships are marked as usual in surnames: the Smith’s dog.  Oddly enough, this practice is sometimes suspended when a surname ends in s. The relationship between people called `Jones' and the dog they own is often expressed thus: the Jones’ dog. This is hardly fair: Why make light of someone's surname just because it happens to end with an s?  Surely this is the Jones's due: the Jones’s dog .

On the other hand, convention does requires that we place only an apostrophe after the s of antique names that end in s: Euripides’ beard, Hercules’ strength.

• Another eccentric usage is in expressions that seem to mark a genitive relationship twice, that is, by  the 'of'' + the genitive case-form of the noun, or by the 'of'' + genitive case-form of the pronoun.

'of' + the genitive case-form of the noun

A friend of my daughter’s is a lawyer.

In the foregoing sentence, the genitive relationship my daughter is embedded into the genitive relationship 'friend of daughter'. This structure allows, but is not a pre-condition of, the expression in one sentence of two genitive relationships.

It is perfectly in order to do without the genitive case-form, and thus rely on 'of' as the sole genitive marker, when the genitive relationship into which a second genitive relationship is embedded (in this instance, 'my daughter') is between nouns:

nouns in genitive relationship marked only by 'of'

A friend (noun) of my daughter (noun) is a lawyer.
A friend (noun) of my daughters (noun) is a lawyer.

But we cannot avoid the double marking ('of' + genitive pronoun) when that genitive relationship is between a noun and a pronoun:

'of' + the genitive case-form of the pronoun

A friend (noun) of mine (genitive pronoun) is a lawyer
A poem  (noun) of his (genitive pronoun) was published recently.

It is noteworthy that:

(i) no second genitive relationship is embedded into the above structure; and

(ii) the double marking of the sole genitive relationship is obligatory.

Why is the double-marking obligatory in this structure ('of' +the genitive case-form of the pronoun) but not in the foregoing one (nouns in genitive relationship marked only by 'of')? Simply, there is neither a syntactic nor a semantic reason; we have an eccentrically behaving genitive here.

When choosing to use the structure that double-marks the genitive relation of nouns embedded by a separate genitive relationship, the writer must be careful to place the apostrophe where meaning requires that it be placed. Note the difference in meaning when the apostrophe of the previous sentence is placed after the s :

A friend of my daughter’s is a lawyer.
A lawyer is the friend of my only daughter or of one of my daughters.

A friend of my daughters’ is a lawyer.
A lawyer is the friend of several or all of my daughters.

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The apostrophe and dates

It is wide-spread malpractice to place an apostrophe before or after the s in a numerical noun that is not in a genitive relationship. This misplaced apostrophe is as offensive there as it is a word where it has no role.

It is easy to distinguish numerical nouns in genitive relationships from those not in that relationship:

genitive relationship
Much of the 1960s’ style of clothing is in evidence today.
Much of the nineteen-sixties’ style of clothing is in evidence today.

no genitive relationship
Universities are more conservative since the 1980s,  according to him.
Universities are more conservative since the nineteen-eighties,  according to him.

The apostrophe and initials

The condition that applies to the correct use of the apostrophe with initials is the same as the condition that applies to its use with numerical nouns: Use the apostrophe only when the initials express a genitive relationship with another noun. If not, not.

Again, it is easy to distinguish an initial that is in a genitive relationship with another noun from one that is not:

genitive relationship
This  AGM’s agenda  includes a debate on pre-selection procedures.
This  Annual General Meeting’s  agenda includes a debate on pre-selection procedures.

no genitive relationship
A career politician should attend all the AGMs of his party.
A career politician should attend all the Annual General Meetings of his party.

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Genitive nouns, pronouns and -ing nouns

(This discussion has already occurred in the Chapter `The Simple Sentence'.)

There is a genitive relationship between two nouns when one is the performer and the other the performance. In the next sentence John is the performer and decision his performance:

John's decision to go upset us.

The same genitive relationship holds when the performer is named by a pronoun. The naming is done by one of the genitive pronoun forms: my, your, his, hers, their, its:

His decision to go upset us.

Writers have no difficulty with this item of syntax. But it is remarkable how things go off the rails when the noun with which a pronoun is in genitive relationship is an -ing word. It is all too often that one hears and reads expressions like:

this is an illiteracy
Him leaving made things difficult for us.
Us leaving made things difficult for him. 

Once the -ing noun appears people seem to forget that there is a genitive relationship between performer and performance. Or, not realising that words ending in -ing can be nouns, they do not know they are dealing with a genitive relationship of pronoun and noun. That -ing nouns exist should be clear in every writer's mind. 

No reasonable case can be made for avoiding the genitive noun or pronoun. This is so because a notable power of making meaning is lost to our language if we abuse the genitive pronoun out of existence. For example, we say something significantly different in:

John, leaving, annoyed us.
As he was leaving, John did something that annoyed us.

and in:

John’s leaving annoyed us
The fact that John left annoyed us.

The illiteracy John leaving annoyed us, used in an attempt to say that John’s leaving annoyed us is just that: an illiteracy. Given the foregoing point, it follows that the appropriate pronoun to represent the genitive construction John’s is the genitive pronoun his, not the objective pronoun him nor the subjective pronoun he. No writer can afford to be cavalier about this syntactic issue. Shortfalls in its application are eyesores that repel esteem.

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