Possessive/Genitive Case

The genetive case barely exists in English today.

You may still hear someone say something like "The mother of the bride.", but it could equally be said as "The bride's mother."

The possessive case is used especially to indicate a relation of ownership or association. Both nouns and pronouns are inflected in the possessive case.

For example:

• The car's door is open. This example shows that one noun belongs to another noun. The noun "door" belongs to the car, so "car's" is put into the genitive case. The noun "door" is the nominative case because it's the thing which is open -- it's the subject of the verb "is".

Singular and plural nouns that don't end in 's' take -'s.

For example:-

Lynne's web site.

Plural nouns that end in " s " take an apostrophe ( ' ).

For example:-

The girls' dresses.

Pronouns and determiners are inflected to show the possessive case.

For example:

• This is Lynne's web site.
• Have you seen her book?
• I think it's hers.