[General] Possessive without 's

[luz35]

Hi, thanks for having this forum, it's my first time here.

My question: I think I once heard that it was possible to omit the apostrophee in certain cases, and still have a genitive. The examples were more or less like these:

the morning newspaper (instead of "the morning's newspaper")
last Tuesday workshop (instead of "last Tuesday's workshop")
Last Monday meeting (same as above)

Although it looks more like a case of adjectives (Monday as a modifier of meeting. So I wonder what, from a grammar point of view, is this? adjectives or possessives withoug apostrophee?

thanks for your feedback.

 

[freezeframe]

Hi, thanks for having this forum, it's my first time here.

My question: I think I once heard that it was possible to omit the apostrophee in certain cases, and still have a genitive. The examples were more or less like these:

the morning newspaper (instead of "the morning's newspaper")
last Tuesday workshop (instead of "last Tuesday's workshop")
Last Monday meeting (same as above)

Although it looks more like a case of adjectives (Monday as a modifier of meeting. So I wonder what, from a grammar point of view, is this? adjectives or possessives withoug apostrophee?

thanks for your feedback.

You have to distinguish between possessive and an attributive noun.

You can have two nouns together with the first one acting as an adjective that modifies the second one. It's called an attributive noun.

So, is the first noun showing a possession or is it acting like an adjective? If the answer is the latter, you cannot replace it with a possessive form.

That said...

the morning newspaper (instead of "the morning's newspaper") = I believe "morning" here is an attributive noun. The version with an apostrophe sounds unnatural to me.

last Tuesday workshop (instead of "last Tuesday's workshop")
Last Monday meeting (same as above)

Is it "last (Tuesday workshop)" or "(last Tuesday) workshop". If the answer is the second, you need an apostrophe. This is the more likely meaning.
If you actually mean you had several Tuesday workshops and this is the last one of them, you don't need an apostrophe.
Same for the other example.

 

[billmcd]

Hi, thanks for having this forum, it's my first time here.

My question: I think I once heard that it was possible to omit the apostrophee in certain cases, and still have a genitive. The examples were more or less like these:

the morning newspaper (instead of "the morning's newspaper")
last Tuesday workshop (instead of "last Tuesday's workshop")
Last Monday meeting (same as above)

Although it looks more like a case of adjectives (Monday as a modifier of meeting. So I wonder what, from a grammar point of view, is this? adjectives or possessives withoug apostrophee?

Thanks for your feedback.

Your first example is OK with "morning" used as an adjective.
I have never heard/read your second and third examples used as such. Context would help to form a definitive answer, but an example, "I missed you at the last Monday meeting". (Indicating that it was the last of the Monday meetings ever to be held. But note the use of the article "the".

 

[luz35]

thanks a lot for your replies. I didn't think of attributive nouns, that helps.
re context, something like:

"(On) last Tuesday workshop we started learning Graham tecnique"
(the workshop we attended last Tuesday)

or a teacher saying at the beginning of her/his class, as a warm up and to help everybody to get down to work:
"Last Tuesday class we started reading As You Like It, remember?".
(on the class we had last Tuesday we started reading the play)

Yes, I know he/she might probably simply say "last class..." but still, is it totally weird like that?
thank you.

 

[philo2009]

Although, as single nouns, days of the week can serve attributively (e.g. our Tuesday physics lesson), entire phrases such as 'this/last/next/... Tuesday' cannot.

Thus in last Tuesday's lesson would be the only acceptable way to express your intended meaning.

 

[billmcd]

thanks a lot for your replies. I didn't think of attributive nouns, that helps.
re context, something like:

"(On) last Tuesday workshop we started learning Graham tecnique"
(the workshop we attended last Tuesday)

or a teacher saying at the beginning of her/his class, as a warm up and to help everybody to get down to work:
"Last Tuesday class we started reading As You Like It, remember?".
(on the class we had last Tuesday we started reading the play)

Yes, I know he/she might probably simply say "last class..." but still, is it totally weird like that?
thank you.

"Last Tuesday class......" "Totally wierd"? Maybe not "totally" but slightly. I would not expect to hear the sentence expressed that way.