English has two common ways of expressing possession:
- the ‘Saxon genitive’ form adds -’s to the end of the last word in a noun phrase referring to the possessor:
the king’s wife
the King of England’s wife
the man over there’s wife
For more on the Saxon Genitive, please see Does English really have case? – Language Miscellany - the prepositional genitive places the noun phrase referring to the possessor in a prepositional phrase starting with (and headed by) the preposition of.
the wife of the king
the wife of the King of England
the wife of the man over there
Bauer, Lieber and Plag (2013, pages 146-149) discuss when people use the Saxon genitive (s-genitive) or the prepositional genitive (with of), as summarised below.
When only Saxon genitive is possible
In some contexts, only the Saxon genitive is possible:
- with persons as the possessor, eg my house.
In some cases, the prepositional genitive is also possible, but has a different meaning:
the thought of me [a thought about me] / my thought [a thought by me];
the picture of me [a picture in which my image appears]/ my picture [can also mean a picture I own] - ‘post-genitive’, eg a friend of mine
Bauer, Lieber and Plag mention they what they call the ‘oblique’ genitive (a friend of Laurie’s), but don’t discuss it. - ‘local genitive’: at Laurie’s [ie at Laurie’s place]
- ‘independent genitive’: your house is bigger than Fred’s
When only prepositional genitive is possible
In some other contexts, only the prepositional genitive is possible:
- in partitive contexts, in which the ‘possessum’ (the item ‘possessed’)—eg a slice or some—narrows down the quantity or number of the ‘possessor’ (eg bread or students):
a slice of bread [not *a bread’s slice]
some of my students [not *my students’ some] - prepositional phrases complementing a non-nominal non-head, such as that in my house is as big as that of the mayor (not *my house is as big as the mayor’s that)
- of-phrases modifying a pronominal head:
[Bauer, Lieber and Plag provide no examples of this one, and it isn’t clear to me what they have in mind.
When either variant is possible
In other contexts, where either variant might be possible, several factors influence which variant is selected. Here is a summary of the factors Bauer, Lieber and Plag discuss:
- animacy. the higher up the ‘animacy hierarchy’ the possessor is, the more likely the Saxon genitive is. Thus, the Saxon genitive is more likely for an animal possessor than for an inanimate possessor, and is even more likely for a human possessor.
- grammatical role: subject /object. In encoding possession by the subject, the Saxon genitive is more likely. In encoding possession by the object, the prepositional genitive is more likely. And if the same noun phrase (NP) contains both a subject possessor and an object possessor, the Saxon genitive marks the subject and the prepositional genitive marks the object: The newspaper’s publication of the story
- possessor denotes time or space. The Saxon genitive is particularly likely if the possessor denotes time or place, eg the country’s population
- length of sentence. The longer the sentence, the more speakers or writers prefer the prepositional genitive.
The prepositional possessor is placed at the end of the noun phrase. Bauer, Lieber and Plag suggest that placing the possessor there (at the end) makes processing easier if the sentence is long. - length of possessor phrase. For longer possessor phrases, speakers tend to prefer the prepositional genitive: the analysis of the full data set.
Bauer, Lieber and Plag suggest that placing a long prepositional possessor at the end of the noun phrase makes processing easier. - length of possessed noun phrase. the Saxon genitive is more likely if the noun phrase denoting the possessed item is long:
Germany’s first two very successful attempts [long (series of) prenominal modifier(s), modifying the noun attempts]
The committee’s decision to withdraw the proposal [long complement of the noun decision] - final sibilant. if the final consonant of the possessor is a sibilant, the chances rise that the prepositional genitive is used.
Bauer, Lieber and Plag suggest that the main reason may be to avoid difficulty in planning how to produce 2 adjacent sibilants.
They also suggest that a minor reason may be to avoid ambiguity when the Saxon genitive sounds the same for both a singular and a plural possessive: the school’s doors (‘the doors of the school’, with singular door) sounds the same as the schools’ doors (‘the doors of the schools’, with plural doors). - previous use of the same type of genitive. If one type of genitive has already been used, the same type is more likely to be used when the next genitive choice arises.
Bauer, Lieber and Plag suggest that this is a form of ‘priming’: using the form once predisposes someone to use it again.
I wonder, though, whether some of this effect might come from different preferences in different genres, or from different preferences by different individual writers and speakers. - lexical density. Texts with a higher lexical density (measured by type-token ratio—the ratio of the number of different words used to the total number of words used) have more Saxon genitives than texts with lower lexical density.
- nesting one genitive within another. Within a noun phrase, sequences of more than one Saxon-genitive possessive are rare, but sequences of prepositional-genitive possessives are not rare.
the ethnic background of people’s parents.
not *people’s parents’ ethnic background. That phrase would nest people’s within the larger possessive phrase ((people’s) parents). - fixed lexical items. Some phrases have become fixed idioms—eg decency’s sake, Republic of France, king of kings, love of life
- regional preference. The prepositional genitive is more frequent in North America than in Britain. Within Britain, it is more common in the Hebrides, the Midlands and Wales than in southeast England.
- change over time. The Saxon genitive is becoming more widely used.
Advice for writers and editors
I think Bauer, Lieber and Plag’s analysis misses 2 other factors that are very important for writers and editors:
- distinguishing new information from old information
- emphasis
New information and old information
Many languages, including English, tend to place old information before new information:
- Information is old (or given) if the writer can reasonably assume that the reader already has this information and that it is already salient in the reader’s mind.
- Information is new, if the writer assumes that the information is new to the reader, or is not already salient in the reader’s mind.
Thus:
- the Saxon genitive is more likely to be appropriate if the possessor is old information and the item possessed is new information. So, the king’s wife is more suitable if the writer: (a) can reasonably assume that the reader is already thinking about the king; and (b) the reference to the wife conveys new information to the reader.
- The prepositional genitive is more likely to be appropriate if the possessor is new information and the item possessed either: (a) is old information; or (b) is not particularly important. So, the wife of the king is more suitable if the writer: (a) thinks that referring to the king will convey new information to the reader; and (b) information about the wife is either old or not particularly important.
Emphasis
The Saxon genitive tends to put more emphasis on the item possessed. So, the king’s wife tends to emphasise the wife.
In contrast, the prepositional genitive tends to put more emphasis on the possessor. So, the wife of the king tends to emphasise the king.
New information tends to receive more emphasis than old information. So, there is some overlap between: (a) the concepts of new information versus old information; and (b) emphasis.
Consequences for writers and editors
When writers or editors are deciding whether to use the Saxon genitive or the prepositional genitive, there is an important factor for them to consider: which item should they highlight as new, emphasised information: the possessor or the possessed item?
In my working life, people often gave me draft text containing wording such as:
‘A company shall disclose the assets of the company.’
In many cases, the intended emphasis was on the assets (possessed item), not on the fact that the assets were assets of the company (possessor). In most of those cases, better wording would usually be:
‘A company shall disclose the company’s assets’.
Reference
The Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology, by Laurie Bauer, Rochelle Lieber and Ingo Plag (2013)