Genitive Case

The English grammar is full of terms and words that we are rarely familiar about but still use them in our everyday language and speaking. Talking about grammatical cases is giving meaning to such a thing. We may use the correct grammatical cases in our sentences but not know what they mean and what are they called.

Today we will discuss about the genitive case, its usage, identification and examples.

Genitive Case:

The genitive case of English grammar is the case in English language which portrays possession of someone or something. It is applied on nouns, pronouns and adjectives.

By definition, a noun, pronoun or an adjective is said to be in genitive case if they show possession or ownership in the sentence.

Example:

My bag is missing.

In the above example, the pronoun my referring to the noun bag is showing the possession of the bag that it belonged to the subject. Thus my is in genitive case.

He washed his car.

In this example, he is the subject who washed (verb) his car. The pronoun his is the one showing possession of the car. So the pronoun his is in genitive case.

Sometimes in English language, the use of apostrophe and an s also depicts the meaning of possession of one thing over another.

Example:

Sara’s dress is beautiful.

Sara’s is the showing possession of noun Sara on the noun dress. So the noun Sara’s is said to be existing in genitive case.

Likewise, for plural nouns, the apostrophe comes after the s.

Example:

The airplanes’ windows were very dusty.

In this example, more than one subject (airplanes) is used. So the noun airplanes’ windows showing that the windows belong to the airplanes is in genitive case.