The double possessive is so called because the preposition of, the possessive pronouns hers and theirs, and the s all signal possession. So for example why cant we use i am a fan of you instead of i am fan of yours. Contractions worksheets pdf apostrophes saxon genitive. In particular, this paper will focus on the format, syntactic structure, the possible semantic roles of double genitive and the differences between double genitive and other genitive constructions in english. When and why we use doublegenitive with respect to the. It is valuable for consolidating apostrophe s and genitive s vs of expressing possession in english, and is excellent for working on your students speaking skills. Link 1 link 2 link 3 3 now, lets do some practice with this set of exercises. However, it is considered to be better english to use s. Double possessive exercise esl worksheet by ivanenglish. Double genitive definition and examples in english grammar. Double genitive definition of double genitive by the. Introduction double genitives are postnominal genitive phrases which are marked with the preposition of. Netflix series carmen sandiego and one dissertative that could be a speaking exercise. Contractions exercises genitive case exercises home.
This is so as using the word of itself meant that the noun mentioned first before of already belongs to the second noun after of. Generate double puzzles your students will love hours of fun. Personal pronouns, possessives whose and use possessive idioms pronouns and determiners possessive adjectives doubleclick on words you dont understand. I did so to help elt professionals become more aware of why that form of the genitive is used in certain circumstances and how. Hebrew genitive clauses generally have certain syntactical features that delimit how they relate to their main clauses. In the sentence she is a friend of my sisters, possession is signaled twice.
Keep in mind, as pointed out in merriamwebsters dictionary of english usage, that the 18thcentury grammarians simply had a horror of anything double, because such constructions did not occur in latin. In english grammar, the double genitive is a phrase in which possession is indicated by the preposition of followed by the possessive form of a noun or pronoun, as in a friend of erics. Double genitives in english mit, 29 january 1998 karlos arreguiurbina department of linguistics and philosophy mit 1. Show that the structure of double genitives involves movement, as in 2b. We can also start with the subject followed by a verb and potentially by an object followed by of and a possessive pronoun. These can play the roles of determiners also called possessive adjectives when corresponding to a pronoun or of nouns for historical reasons, this case is misleadingly called the possessive case. The noun with the s genitive inflection must be both definite and personal. Exercise 1 exercise 2 exercise 3 exercise 4 exercise 5 4 note that we can use possessive nouns like possessive pronouns when we are talking about two things of the same type which belong to different people, thus avoiding the. Online exercises english grammar and courses free tutorial genitive s possessive s. The term double genitive is used to refer to using both types of genitive constructions for one word. The double possessive construction is sometimes called the postgenitive or of followed by a possessive case or an absolute possessive pronoun from the oxford english. The possessive form is used to talk about things that belong to a person, object or animal.
Learn english grammar we will try to answer these questions. Type in the articles, adjectives, and nouns in the genitive form. Practise your english grammar in the english classroom. This is a worksheet for teaching or revising genitives at intermediate level. Primarily, the genitive designates a relationship between two nouns in which one of them belongs to the other. We start with the subject followed by a verb and potentially by an object followed by of and a noun in the possessive case s. Exercise on possessives genitive s in english englischhilfen. We find the possessive case with double genitive in the same sentence to clarify the relation of possession the structure is. For exercises, you can reveal the answers first submit worksheet and print the page to have the exercise and the answers. Possessive case worksheets category is where youll find a number of free print ready. Possessive case with double genitive english grammar b1 level. Genitive case german free german exercises and lessons.
The double genitive is a phrase in which possession is indicated by the preposition of followed by the possessive form of a noun or pronoun. Do we say a friend of my uncle or a friend of my uncles. Write the correct form of the possessives into the gaps apostrophe s. Double genitive definition is a syntactic construction in english in which possession is marked both by the preposition of and a noun or pronoun in the possessive case as in a friend of bobs is a friend of mine called also double possessive. Theres a brief explanation followed by 2 activities in which students are asked to rewrite the sentences using genitives and rearrange the words to form sentences. It is certainly used less than one or two centuries ago, but it still occupies an important position. In english, possessive words or phrases exist for nouns and most pronouns, as well as some noun phrases. The above downloadable printable is a great resource for at elementary a1 and preintermediate a2 level. Genitive s possessive s with free online exercises, examples and sentences, questions and genitive s possessive s negative sentences. Historically, this construction is sometimes called the cumulative genitive, the pleonastic genitive, or the double possessive. A world of complexity, i outlined most of the complexities in meaning behind the use of that english grammatical form. This occurs when an inflectional genitive serves as the object of the periphrastic genitive. Evidence for this comes from extraction from double.
It was called the genitive until the 18th century and in fact expresses. Is the possessive case the same as the genetive case. By richard firsten retired esol teacher, teachertrainer, columnist, author. Note that when you want to form the sgenitive for a name that ends on s, you have two possibilities. English esl genitive worksheets most downloaded 31 results. In spite of the fact that a friend of my uncles seems to overwork the notion of possessiveness, that is usually what we say and write. Germans will often assert that the genitive is disappearing from the language. A collection of downloadable worksheets, exercises and activities to teach saxon genitive, shared by english language teachers. Other quantifying words trigger either genitive singular for mass nouns like water or plural for nouns that can be counted. Processabilityandhuman involvement rolf kreyer university of bonn on the basis of 698 instances of saxon genitive and ofconstruction, the present paper explores the use of these modi. Put f next to the sentences where the double genitive is wrong. Write the correct form of the possessives into the gaps. English partitives and double genitives alya asarina december 28, 2009 1 introduction this paper explores the properties of the english double genitive construction1 example 1a in comparison with the partitive construction example 1b. A collection of english esl worksheets for home learning, online practice, distance learning and english classes to teach about genitive, genitive.
Exercises to improve your english writing skills whether youre a native speaker of english or an advanced esl student, these exercises will help you identify and. Double genitive extracto an ofgenitive can be combined with an s genitive in a construction called the double genitive. Double genitive definition of double genitive by merriam. Therefore, you should stick to that in the exercises below. Family trees saxon genitive english esl worksheets for. The double genitive is the peculiarly english combination where two different possessive markers are employed simultaneously. The double genitive occurs when we find two possessives together. Exercise on the double genitive hes a friend of my fathers.
Grammar worksheet all things grammar grammar focus possessive. To be used with the ppt uploaded yesterday double possessives. I saw pictures of johni of hisi in the adjunct analysis this is unexpected, since the genitive phrase does not ccommand the complement of. Type in the genitive form of the dependent possessive pronoun to match the underlined subject. Possessive case with double genitive english grammar b1. Double possessive examples jack is an old colleague of mine. It sounds terribly awkward, but the grammar is correct. It features the vocabulary topic of describing people, family and people. The construction is also called double genitive and post genitive. Binding theory and double genitives the genitive phrase in double genitives can bind a complement of the head noun. But this is english, of course, not latin, and despite its apparent redundancy, the double genitive is a wellestablished idioma functional part of the language dating back to. Genitive case a free german exercise to learn german. I wouldnt normally refer to that construction as a double genitive.
Also called a double possessive, an oblique genitive, and a postgenitive some linguists argue that the double genitive is not a true genitive but rather a type of partitive construction. Online english grammar exercises for students practice of the double genitive such as he is a friend of my fathers. Apostrohpe, genitive, possessive, english online exercise. I wanted to know why and when to use doublegenitive.