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Group genitive (not sure of the name)

Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2005 6:08 pm
by Brazilian dude
This is something I read in the British English book I'm using which I found quite interesting:
I had quite a funny experience just the other day in a small newsagent's near my house. Well, when I say 'funny' it wasn't really funny at all! There were these two youngsters, probably about ten and eleven years old, and while the woman behind the counter's back was turned I saw them taking handfuls of sweets off the shelves and stuffing them into their pockets. I was just about to say something when a couple more customers came in and in the end I didn't say anything. I wish I had now.
When I saw the words in bold, I thought that the woman was behind the counter's back (which I would have referred to as the back of the counter, anyway) and then thought that couldn't be right, it simply wasn't logical. Then it dawned on me that they were talking about a woman behind a counter who had turned her back to the youngsters, which reminded me of something I had read in an old English grammar (written in Portuguese) years before but had actually never encountered in real life: the group genitive (not sure of the name, though. I tried to track the book but was unsuccessful). Once thing I do remember, though, is that the book didn't have a very high opinion of this construction and recommended rephrasing it. Is this a typical British thing or have any of the non-Brits here read/heard this before and how acceptable do you deem it, if acceptable is the right word to use?

Brazilian dude

Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 12:44 pm
by tcward
It isn't something you see written very often, because it does lose something without the flow of speech to guide the listener. In daily life, though, you would hear it quite often.

I would have rewritten the phrase, probably to "...and while the woman behind the counter had her back turned..."

-Tim

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 2:32 pm
by anders
It's easier in mathematics:

"(the woman behind the counter)'s back".

Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 3:04 pm
by HectorInspector
or with compound words woman-behind-the-counter's back

Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 11:32 am
by English Rose
Hi folks,
This phrase is very clumsy, and to me, indicates colloquial use. The apostrophe is used correctly, though, which pleases me! :)

The idea of a maths style equation is good, but I beg to differ. It would make better sense as:

the woman (behind the counter)'s back

What d'you think?

- English Rose

Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 2:19 pm
by anders
Hector, Rose,

Welcome!
It would make better sense as:

the woman (behind the counter)'s back

What d'you think?
In a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances and if having redefined brackets, it might work.

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 2:20 pm
by jackquin
The entire noun phrase is the possessor, as in The Queen of England's son, the butcher at Alpha Beta's apron. It might lead to stylistic dissonance, but it is grammatically okay, isn't it?

Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 3:14 pm
by M. Henri Day
Anders (in his first posting on the topic) is certainly right about the syntax, and Tim regarding what to do about phrases of this type....

Henri

Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 9:22 am
by Davekent
It's called a "Saxon Genitive." And it clearly does not work here. . .Mary's merriment, Mike's microhone, and Peter's peter are fine examples.

If people would just read their prose aloud these abominations would be caught before going to print.

The author's genitive of choice should have been the "of-genitive" ...the back of the woman standing behind the counter...

Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:04 am
by sluggo
It's called a "Saxon Genitive." And it clearly does not work here. . .Mary's merriment, Mike's microhone, and Peter's peter are fine examples.
Ah, Dave....?

I'm lost.....

Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 11:32 am
by hotshoe
I was lost directly after Tim's post. And I think certain of those apostrophe placements are suspect. I could be mistaken . .

Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 6:26 am
by bnjtokyo
The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber et al., 1999) refer to this construction as the Group Genitive. It explains

"The genitive suffix is attached to the last word of a genitive phrase. In the majority of cases, the last word is the head of a noun phrase: the prince's brother . . . . When the head of the genitive phrase is followed by a postmodifier, the suffix is attached at the end of the phrase, the so-called group genitive:

"She would be pleased to get back to her mother-in-law's house. (FICT)
I have to accept the clerk of the course'as decision. (NEWS)
The father of five's face was so badly busted he had to be fitted with a metal cage to keep the bones in place until they set (NEWS)"

And other examples. They have examples from news, conversation, fiction and academic writing, but they don't supply frequency notes on this structure. I suspect it is equally (un)common in the UK and the US

Cheers,

Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 9:20 am
by Huia Iesou
Eeek. I read it as 'the woman standing behind the counter's back was turned'- no indication of which way she was turned.

Phrasal Affixes

Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 11:41 am
by Dr. Goodword
An interesting thing about language that has been discussed vigorously and heated lin linguistics over the past 10 years or so is the nature of clitics and their relationship to affixes (prefixes and suffixes).

Clitics are unaccented particles that attach themselves to words at the beginning (proclitics) or end of phrases (enclitics) very much like the way affixes attach themselves to words.

The difference is that the semantic scope of a clitic is the entire phrase, not just one word. The scope of the plural -s, as in bag-s is the single word bag. The scope of -s in the woman's bags is only bag; it does not imply more than one woman.

In the phrase my friend from New York's bag, the -'s attributes possession to the entire phrase my friend from New York and the possession is passes on to the head of that phrase, my friend, as Longman's correctly points out. If the possessive -s were a suffix, it would imply that the bag belongs to New York We know that it doesn't, not because we can logically figure that out, but because the grammar of English makes that clear.

The plural -s in English is a suffix; the possessive -s is an enclitic. The so-called infinitive "to" is another one; that is why "want to", "have to", and "going to" contract into wanna, hafta and gonna. This to has no accent normally and attaches to the preceding word. In fact, it may be a suffix by now; clitics often become affixes.

The unclarity of the example under discussion is another matter. Whenever you have a long phrase of any kind, you run the risk of murkiness. However, the scope of the possessive -s is well known and well documented. Avoiding it is virtulaly impossible since it is a legitimate component of English grammar.

Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:39 pm
by tcward
I couldn't have said it... let alone better.

Thanks, Doc!

-Tim