Genitive case

The genitive case isform ofnoun that indicatespossessive case ofnoun, i.e.object thatnounreferencingowning or possessing some other object.

Several languages have genitive cases, including Latin, Greek, German, Russian, FinnishSanskrit. Compare nominative case, accusative case, dative case, ablative case, vocative case, ergative case.

In modern English, only pronouns havedistinct genitive declination (my/mine, his/hers/its, our/ours, their/theirs.)

It iscommon misconception that English nouns havegenitive case, marked bypossessive " 's " ending. Linguists however have shown thatEnglish possessiveno longercase at all, but has becomeclitic, an independent particle which howeveralways writtenpronounced as part ofpreceding word. This can be shown byfollowing example: "The KingSparta's wife was called Helen". Now ifEnglish " 's " weregenitive, thenwife would belongSparta; but" 's " attaches not toword "Sparta" but toentire phrase "KingSparta".

Thatnotsay thatEnglish possessive did not have its origins asgenitive case; buthas developed into beingclitic instead. In Old English,possessive formban (bone)banes. This developed, later, intomodern English possessive mark" 's " as"bone's." The 18th century explanation thatapostrophe might replacegenitive pronoun, as"the king's horse" beingshortened form"the king, his horse,"erroneous. Rather,apostrophereplacing"e" fromOld English morphology.

In astronomy, itimportantknowgenitive form ofLatin namesconstellations, because theseused alongletters ofGreek alphabetname stars. For example, sincegenitiveGeminiGeminorum,star Castor, brightest inconstellation Gemini,named α Geminorum. For more details see Bayer designation.