City, country and the genitive

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Occhinuovi

New member
Joined
Jan 28, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Using genitive is possible with:
-people
-time expressions
-geographic expressions
-distance expressions

can words such as "the city" or "the country" be cosidered as geographic expressions?

So,do I have I to say:

The city's crime rate OR the crime rate of the city?
The country's clean air OR the clean air of the country?

and what about consider these words as adjectives?
"the city crime rate AND the country clean air"
 

Linguist__

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2009
Member Type
Student or Learner
Using genitive is possible with:
-people
-time expressions
-geographic expressions
-distance expressions

can words such as "the city" or "the country" be cosidered as geographic expressions?

So,do I have I to say:

The city's crime rate OR the crime rate of the city?
The country's clean air OR the clean air of the country?

and what about consider these words as adjectives?
"the city crime rate AND the country clean air"

(Not a teacher)

Yes, you can use the genitive apostrophe with both 'city' and 'country'.

As for the adjectives, 'city' can't be used as an adjective. Perhaps 'city-like', but it doesn't fit with 'crime rate', really. 'Country' can't be an adjective in the sense of 'a country' - USA, Iran, Russia, Japan etc. 'Country' as an adjective refers to 'rural'. This would fit with 'clean air', but remember it's referring to rural land, not a country.
 
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