In grammar, a genitive construction or genitival construction is a type of grammatical construction used to express a relation between two nouns such as the possession of one by another (e.g. "John's jacket"), or some other type of connection (e.g. "John's father" or "the father of John"). A genitive construction involves two nouns, the head (or modified noun) and the dependent (or modifier noun). In dependent-marking languages, a dependent genitive noun modifies the head by expressing some property of it. For example, in the construction "John's jacket", "jacket" is the head and "John's" is the modifier, expressing a property of the jacket (it is owned by John). The analogous relationship in head-marking languages is pertensive.
Methods of construction
Genitive constructions can be expressed in various ways:
By placing the dependent noun in the genitive case
This is common in languages with grammatical case, e.g. Latin. For example, "Cicero's father" is expressed by pater Cicerōnis or Cicerōnis pater, where the dependent noun "Cicero" (Latin Cicerō) is placed in the genitive case (Latin Cicerōnis) and then placed either before or after the head noun (pater "father"). A similar construction occurs in formal German: das Buch des Mannes "the man's book", where das Buch means "the book" and des Mannes is the genitive case of der Mann "the man".
Using an adposition or other linking word
This is common in languages without grammatical case, as well as in some languages with vestigial case systems.
English uses the preposition "of" to express many genitival constructions, e.g. "the father of John" or "the capital of the nation". Informal German also prefers a preposition, except with proper names, e.g. der Vater von meinem Freund "My friend's father" (lit. "the father of my friend") but Johanns Vater "John's father". Mandarin Chinese uses a linking word de 的, e.g. Yuēhàn de fùqīn 约翰的父亲 "John's father", where Yuēhàn means "John" and fùqīn means "father". The word de in Chinese is not a preposition (for example, Chinese prepositions precede their dependent nouns, just as in English), but rather a special particle with its own syntax (a bit like the "'s" modifier in English). Japanese similarly uses no の, e.g. Jon no chichi ジョンの父 "John's father". Turkish uses -in/-ın/-ün, e.g. Ayşe'nin kedisi "Ayşe's cat".
In some languages, the linking word agrees in gender and number with the head (sometimes with the dependent, or occasionally with both). In such cases it shades into the "his genitive" (see below).
In Egyptian Arabic, for example, the word bitāʕ "of" agrees with the head noun (masculine bitāʕ, feminine bitāʕit, plural bitūʕ), e.g. il-wālid bitāʕ Yaḥyā "John's father" (Yaḥyā is Arabic for "John") il-wālida b(i)tāʕit Yaḥyā "John's mother" il-wālidēn bitūʕ Yaḥyā "John's parents". Hindi is similar, using the postpositions kā/kē/kī (का / के / की), which agree in case, gender and number with the head noun, e.g. Jôn kā bēṭā — जॉन का बेटा — John's son (nom. sg.) Jôn kē bēṭē — जॉन के बेटे — John's sons / John's son (nom. pl. / obl. sg.) Jôn kē bēṭō̃ — जॉन के बेटों — John's sons (obl. pl.) Jôn kī bēṭī — जॉन की बेटी — John's daughter (nom. sg. / obl. sg.) Jôn kī bēṭiyā̃ — जॉन की बेटियाँ — John's daughter (nom. pl.) Jôn kī bēṭiyō̃ — जॉन की बेटियों — John's daughters (obl. pl.)
Using a clitic
For example, the English so-called "Saxon genitive" (the "s" modifier, as in "John's father" or "the King of Spain's house"). Note that the two genitive constructions in English (using "of" and "'s") are not synonymous. In some cases, both can be used ("John's father", "the father of John"; "the capital of the nation", "the nation's capital"), but some constructions feel natural one way, but expressed the other way will feel awkward or ungrammatical, or may even have a different meaning ("I found John's coat" but not I found the coat of John; "We need to encourage the love of music" but not We need to encourage music's love).
Sometimes the seemingly discordant construction may be the right one, such as in the idiom will be the death of (e.g. "She'll be the death of me", meaning something close to "She'll be my downfall"—even though the latter sentence uses a possessive pronoun, the former uses a prepositional genitive).