Replacing The Commnon Case with The Possesive Case

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AlexAD

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Hi, there.

I did some excercises that said that I had to replace The Common Case with The Possesive Case, whenever it was possible. Here are the sentences where The Common Case cannot be replaced with The Possesive Case, according to the answers:

The walls of the room (I wrote: The room's walls)
The pages of the book
(I wrote: The book's pages)

I however can't find the rule which confirms that my answers are wrong.
Could you please help. Thanks.

I would be grateful if you would highlight my mistakes in the post.

Thanks.
 

bhaisahab

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Hi, there.

I did some exercises that said that I had to replace The Common Case with The Possessive Case, whenever it was possible. Here are the sentences where The Common Case cannot be replaced with The Possessive Case, according to the answers:

The walls of the room (I wrote: The room's walls)
The pages of the book
(I wrote: The book's pages)

I however can't find the rule which confirms that my answers are wrong.
Could you please help. Thanks.

I would be grateful if you would highlight my mistakes in the post.

Thanks.
There is, to my knowledge, no rule. The versions with the possessive 's are not natural English, in my opinion.
 

AlexAD

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Not natural means rarely used? You meant my versions not all of versions where Possessive Case is used, didn't you?
 

TheParser

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Hi, there.

I did some excercises that said that I had to replace The Common Case with The Possesive Case, whenever it was possible. Here are the sentences where The Common Case cannot be replaced with The Possesive Case, according to the answers:

The walls of the room (I wrote: The room's walls)
The pages of the book (I wrote: The book's pages)

I however can't find the rule which confirms that my answers are wrong.
Could you please help. Thanks.

I would be grateful if you would highlight my mistakes in the post.

Thanks.


***** NOT A TEACHER *****


(1) The moderator has given you and me an excellent answer.

(2) By chance, do you have a copy of Mr. Michael Swan's

Practical English Usage? He spends many pages discussing

this matter. He is soooooo right when he comments:

"This is one of the most difficult areas of English grammar."

And he gives us all some good advice:

"Consult a good dictionary."

I might add: post a question here at usingenglish.com.

(3) I shall end my post with some advice from Mr. Raymond Murphy's

Grammar In Use:

With things we normally [usually] use ... of ...:


The door of the room (NOT: the room's door)

Sometimes you can use 's when the first thing is a noun:

The book's title/ the title of the book.

It is also possible to use 's with places:

The world's population.

We can also use 's with time words:

Tomorrow's meeting has been canceled.

NOTE:

(a) Mr. Murphy says that "the book's title" is OK.

So why isn't your "book's pages" OK, too?

Maybe a teacher will tell us why.
 

Mr_Ben

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This is a really thorny topic and I wish I could find the CPE preparation book I used last summer because there was a nice, short advisory statement about when to use 's, of or just make it a noun phrase (instead of saying the door of the car we usually say the car door). The book was Objective Proficiency.

I'm having trouble finding information about the topic (most searches around possession yield results for spelling) but I found a couple good pages.

First, a confirmation that there are no rules from the Chicago Manual of Style.

To further show how fickle this issue can be, why do we have the Chicago Manual of Style, the Guardian Style Guide and the BBC Styleguide?

The next link gives what I think is good practical advice, again from Michael Swan. I don't want to steal the poster's thunder so I won't quote it all but here is the comment that strikes me as particularly useful:

The rule that Michael Swan gives in Practical English Usage is that "we cannot usually put a possessive before another determiner and a noun. We can say 'my friend', 'Ann's friend' or 'that friend', but not 'a my friend' or 'that Ann's friend'(1). Instead, we use a structure with 'of' + 'possessive'." "That policeman is a friend of mine."
 
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bhaisahab

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Not natural means rarely used? You meant my versions not all of versions where Possessive Case is used, didn't you?
Yes, I meant your two examples.
 

Mary Bright

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Excuse my interfering with the topic but my post somehow concerns it.

A friend of mine is a tricky question for English learners, too. For me, at least. What does it mean? 'It is my friend but not a close one'? In what sense do you use it?
 

5jj

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A friend of mine is a tricky question for English learners, too. For me, at least. What does it mean? 'It is my friend but not a close one'? In what sense do you use it?
It implies nothing about the closeness of the friendship. It means approximately the same as "one of my friends".
 

AlexAD

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Murphy's book says that for things, ideas, etc. we normally use of:
the door of the garage, the name of the book, the owner of restaurant

But the most exciting thing is that they specifed a list of occassions where The Possesive case is used. Now, I am happy with the explanation.
I wish I had flipped through Murphy's book at first.
Thank you, however, for keeping up the conversation.
 

AlexAD

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TheParser, I'm also referring to Murphy's "English Grammar In Use" book, 2nd edition, the blue one, but there is no example with The book's title/ the title of the book in it.But I guess there it is OK as soon as both versions are correct.
Offtopic: You wrote about consulting a good dictionary and I'm going to buy the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 8th edition. It's the best dictionary I have looked at so far (at least this is my impression after reading the brochure).
What desktop/on-line dictionaries do you use? What could you advice?
Thanks.
 

TheParser

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TheParser, I'm also referring to Murphy's "English Grammar In Use" book, 2nd edition, the blue one, but there is no example with The book's title/ the title of the book in it.But I guess there it is OK as soon as both versions are correct.
Offtopic: You wrote about consulting a good dictionary and I'm going to buy the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 8th edition. It's the best dictionary I have looked at so far (at least this is my impression after reading the brochure).
What desktop/on-line dictionaries do you use? What could you advice?
Thanks.


***** NOT A TEACHER *****


(1) My copy is red. Grammar in Use/ Reference and Practice for

Intermediate Students of English, 1990, page 150. Cambridge University

Press. He also gives credit to Roann Altman and William E. Rutherford.

(2) I am sure that you will get many online dictionary recommendations.

(a) I think that many people like OneLook Dictionary Search. It connects

you to dozens of dictionaries. You probably know this already.

(b) And just in case you haven't discovered them yet, many people

like: (i) Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary.

(ii) Macmillan Dictionary.

(3) And -- of course -- you can post a specific example here. The

teachers and moderators (one of whom is a professional writer) can

be counted upon to give you an informed (accurate) answer.
 

AlexAD

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Here are some more examples about it:

1. a school for girls => a girls' school
2. a magazine for women => a women's magazine.
3. Charles's room

I guess, the Indefinite Article from the first example is addressed to the noun in the Possessive Case girls', isn't it? If so, then we use the Indefinite Article before singular noun girls'. Is it correct?

Should we add 's or simply ' in the third example? If the given example is correct, should we then read it putting iz at the end?
 

Soup

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NOTE:

(a) Mr. Murphy says that "the book's title" is OK.

So why isn't your "book's pages" OK, too?

Maybe a teacher will tell us why.
The fundamental idea is that "things" (e.g., books, tables, etc) are made up of parts that are integral to the whole. A book's title, for example, is not an integral part of the book (with or without a title, the book still exists). The same, however, cannot be said for the pages of a book; they are an integral part of the book (they make up the book and without them there wouldn't be a book, which is why the phrase the book's pages is deemed awkward (by some, but not by all, as there are speakers who do in fact use such phrases in spoken English). The boundaries begin to get fuzzy when a part of the whole is deemed integral by some and non-integral by others; e.g., both of these are possible: the book's cover; the cover of the book. To some the cover is an integral part of the book, whereas to others it is nothing more than a cover and the book would still exists whether or not it had a cover.


Hope that helped some.
 

Soup

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Here are some more examples about it:

1. a school for girls => a girls' school
2. a magazine for women => a women's magazine.
3. Charles's room[

I guess, the Indefinite Article from the first example is addressed to the noun in the Possessive Case girls', isn't it? If so, then we use the Indefinite Article before singular noun girls'. Is it correct?
The indefinite article (a) goes with the nouns school and magazine, not the possessive adjectives girls and women's:


1. a school -> + adjective = a girls' school
a school that is for girls

2. a magazine -> + adjective = a women's maganize.
a magazine that is for women
 

AlexAD

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The indefinite article (a) goes with the nouns school and magazine, not the possessive adjectives girls and women's:


1. a school -> + adjective = a girls' school
a school that is for girls

2. a magazine -> + adjective = a women's maganize.
a magazine that is for women

Let me argue with that.
If you're right with your explanation then taking into account a fact that we can't put more than one determinative before a noun and both a and girls' are determinatives we lead to the conclusion that a can't be the article for the school.
That simple rule has a result that such shots as
many my
friends, each your mistake, some his remarks aren't right.

I would be grateful if you would correct my grammar in the post.
 
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philo2009

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Let me argue with that.
If you're right with your explanation then taking into account a fact that we can't put more than one determinative before a noun and both a and girls' are determinatives we lead to the conclusion that a can't be the article for the school.
That simple rule has a result that such shots as
many my
friends, each your mistake, some his remarks aren't right.

I would be grateful if you would correct my grammar in the post.

The possessive-case nouns cited here function as modifiers, not determiners.

The modifying function of possessives is limited to a small group of nouns, most notably boys', girls', men's, women's.

You might like to note, in any case, that there is no absolute rule prohibiting the combining of determiners. Cf. e.g. all such problems.
 

Soup

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Let me argue with that.
...we can't put more than one determinative before a noun... .
There is, however, another slot, that of the adjective:


  • the five books

  • all the five books

  • the women's books

  • all the women's books

  • all the five women's books


Note that, all of the above are examples of phrases that appear to have multiple determinatives. Determinatives are:


  1. Articles
  2. Demonstrative determiners
  3. Interrogative determiners
  4. Possessive determiners
  5. Quantifiers
  6. Numerals


 
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