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Special Genitive: Measurement and Quality







Question

I am preparing a class and I get in the book as follows:

hour's workout
day's Illness

I think it is a Saxon genitive use but it is very strange because, first, there a person possessing it to use the Saxon genitive is strange and, second, because it sounds backwards:


work an hour a day
disease
guess the real translation would be an hour of work and a sick day . I am writing this to see if anyone can explain why it appears that, if plain English or if it is normal .... Thanks







*********** Answer: Answer

our partner Gareth Jones.

Thanks for the question. First I want to tell you that this use of "s" possessive ( 'S ) is normal and not colloquial. Above, Monica has dealt with two applications of this 's - membership and conversion to the subject of a verb - but may consider a couple of other uses:

1. Genitive of measurement

2. Genitive of quality or attribute


And what these terms mean?

1. measurement genitive is used

's when it comes to measuring one thing, how long something. The name that represents the time period, p. eg. one hour, one day, etc. brings' s and will followed by the name of what he describes.

The two examples you have given us are in this category:

An hour's workout - A one-hour training

A day's Illness - illness a day


Another example:

A week's course - U No course of a week


But:

A one-week course - U No course of a week

A three-week course - U n three-week course

When using the number, unlike the indefinite article ( a, an ) to describe the period of time, often use a compound adjective (two words joined by a hyphen) and since it is an adjective, does not bear the 's . ******





2. Genitive of quality or attribute

is used 's or of when it comes to the quality or attribute of something.

For example:

The party's policy - Party policy

The policy of the party - Party policy

This is not radically different from the idea of \u200b\u200bpossession because can say that politics belongs to the party but this is the thing that is described, in this case "policy" has a certain quality or a certain attribute, for example, what kind of policy is?


Another example:

The Government's strategy - The government's strategy

The strategy of the government - The government's strategy

The government has some sort of strategy. ******





Where it is possible to use either the 's or of , I always say if it is something ordinary, use the 's and when it is something that has more importance, more greatness, something you want to stand out or to be bombastic, use of .


For example:

The President of Spain:

The President of Spain (highlights)

Spain's President (ordinary)


I hope you have cleared your doubt.


Regards, Gareth Jones



Contributor to "The Blog to Learn English."