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Genitiv-meaning

 

Prosím mohli byste mi říci, zda John and Mary were drawing some pictures of facial expressions. Some noses of Mary’s were really bad. (Meaning= nose that does not belong to Mary)

Peter made Mary some cakes but they were so nice that he ate them all himself and eventually there were none left. The cakes of Mary were decorated with chocolate bars. (Meaning=cakes that were for Mary)

Yesterday John and Paul were attacked by (different) groups of dogs. Unfortunately some dogs of John were pitbulls. (Meaning= dogs that attacked John)

John and Mary delivered leaflets in the streets of New York. Unfortunately, some streets of John could not be found. (Meaning= streets where John delivered the leaflets)

Odkaz na příspěvek Příspěvek od marki001 vložený před 4 lety

Prosím mohli byste mi říci, zda John and Mary were drawing some pictures of facial expressions. Some noses of Mary’s were really bad. (Meaning= nose that does not belong to Mary)

Peter made Mary some cakes but they were so nice that he ate them all himself and eventually there were none left. The cakes of Mary were decorated with chocolate bars. (Meaning=cakes that were for Mary)

Yesterday John and Paul were attacked by (different) groups of dogs. Unfortunately some dogs of John were pitbulls. (Meaning= dogs that attacked John)

John and Mary delivered leaflets in the streets of New York. Unfortunately, some streets of John could not be found. (Meaning= streets where John delivered the leaflets)

Prosím mohli byste mi říci, zda jsou věty s významem v závorkách správně. Předpokládám, že nejsou, ale potřebovala bych zjistit, co vyjádřit nelze. Moc děkuji za pomoc.

  • Some noses of Mary’s were really bad. That's acceptable (i.e. not actually “wrong”) in the context, at a pinch, but unlikely to be said.
  • Some of Mary's noses were really bad. That sounds ok to me in the context.
  • Some of the noses (that) Mary drew were … (Preferred version)
  • The cakes of Mary were decorated with chocolate bars. That doesn't sound acceptable to me.
  • Mary's cakes were decorated … That's ok.
  • The cakes for Mary were decorated … Ok.
  • … some dogs of John. Not acceptable.
  • … some of John's dogs. Not acceptable, sounds like they belonged to John.
  • … some of the dogs that attacked John … Preferred version.
  • … Some streets of John Not acceptable.
  • … some streets of John's sounds acceptable.
  • … some of John's streets … Ok.

I can see that there is an academic interest in trying to define where the boundaries of the use of the possessive 's are, what the criteria are for deciding what is and isn't possible or acceptable. But of course looking at the bigger picture in terms of using English idiomatically, no-one is going to use an “acceptable” or “barely acceptable” version when the preferred – natural – versions are available.

Odkaz na příspěvek Příspěvek od DesperateDan vložený před 4 lety
  • Some noses of Mary’s were really bad. That's acceptable (i.e. not actually “wrong”) in the context, at a pinch, but unlikely to be said.
  • Some of Mary's noses were really bad. That sounds ok to me in the context.
  • Some of the noses (that) Mary drew were … (Preferred version)
  • The cakes of Mary were decorated with chocolate bars. That doesn't sound acceptable to me.
  • Mary's cakes were decorated … That's ok.
  • The cakes for Mary were decorated … Ok.
  • … some dogs of John. Not acceptable.
  • … some of John's dogs. Not acceptable, sounds like they belonged to John.
  • … some of the dogs that attacked John … Preferred version.
  • … Some streets of John Not acceptable.
  • … some streets of John's sounds acceptable.
  • … some of John's streets … Ok.

I can see that there is an academic interest in trying to define where the boundaries of the use of the possessive 's are, what the criteria are for deciding what is and isn't possible or acceptable. But of course looking at the bigger picture in terms of using English idiomatically, no-one is going to use an “acceptable” or “barely acceptable” version when the preferred – natural – versions are available.

Thank you very much for your answers. I really appreciate it and it helps me. I know that the distinction natural/non-natural would be much better but this is unfortunatelly not very preferable in syntactical analyses. I will try to support my findings with some corpus searches where these barely acceptable cases do not occur. Thank you again.

 

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