A practical english grammar - Vyssaja skola 1978
The possessive
Sound symbols
Nouns in English can be inflected for possessive case. In speech, the possessive ending is the same as that of regular noun plurals, namely /s/ after voiceless consonants (except sibilants), /iz/ after sibilants, and /z/ elsewhere. The plural possessive is identical with the ordinary plural. In spelling, the singular possessive is indicated by’s and the plural by the apostrophe after the s:
the boy’s hat
the boys’ hats
John’s book the witch’s broom
If the noun has an irregular plural (not ending in s), the plural possessive is formed by adding’s (representing different sounds according to the rule given above).
the men’s hats
the children’s toys
A prepositional phrase introduced by of is usually equivalent in meaning to the possessive case: the mens hats, the hats of the men; the ladies’ umbrellas, the umbrellas of the ladies. In the case of inanimate objects, the of-phrase is usually preferred to the possessive case:
the roots of the tree the dog’s tail
the waves of the sea the horse’s mane
the top of the mountain that cow’s calf
In meaning, the possessive has several uses. It expresses actual ownership, as in John’s car, their house. It may express various other kinds of connection between the possessive noun and the following noun, such as John’s seat (the one he is occupying temporarily at this meeting), John’s father (family relationship), Johns departure (the possessive noun names the actor), John’s murder (the possessive noun names the victim), John’s photograph (ambiguous: it may mean a photograph belonging to John, or it may mean a photograph of which John is the subject).
Non-specific possessive, with OF. The possessive noun is usually a specifying modifier; that is, it is equivalent to the definite article the. When we say John’s car we imply that he has only one; at least, there is only one car that we are interested in at the moment. Likewise with their house, my uncle, etc. If we want the reference to be non-specific, that is, if we want it to be equivalent to the indefinite article a or to mean “one of a class of objects,” then we use a construction consisting of the preposition of and a possessive noun after the head noun in the phrase. If the possessive is a pronoun, the independent form is used.
a friend of mine an uncle of mine
a cousin of his wife’s some friends of the Joneses’
The of-phrase is also used when it is necessary to use a specifying noun determiner and a possessive at the same time.
those students of my father’s
several dresses of my grandmother’s
The same meaning can usually be expressed by rearranging the elements in such a way that the noun determiner becomes a substitute noun, followed by an of-phrase with an ordinary possessive.
one of my friends one of my wife’s cousins
one of my uncles several of my grandmother’s dresses
one of the Joneses’ friends
Avoidance of possessive in awkward constructions. If the noun to be made possessive has "modifiers that follow it, the possessive case is avoided and the of-phrase is used instead.
the phone number of the girl you met last night (instead of: the girl you met last night’s phone number)
However, a few stereotyped phrases can be used in the possessive regardless of their length: the King of England’s crown.
The possessive in compounds. The possessive often acts as a classifying modifier, and the combination of possessive and head noun then becomes a compound. These expressions are always stressed on the first word. Some of them are no longer written as possessives:
men’s room cow’s milk cat’s-paw
bird’s nest beeswax stone’s throw
peacock’s feather houndstooth hair’s breadth
Possessive with time expressions. The possessive is regularly used with nouns expressing units of time.
a day’s journey
an hour’s delay
in two hours’ time
In the plural, this construction is usually replaced by the numbered noun modifier.