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Modern English Grammar English 2126		Contact Form

Possessive Apostrophe Error / Genitive Case

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Introduction to the problem

Although the apostrophe has many uses in written English (for example the use of the apostrophe in contractions, such as it's), this week's tip focuses solely on the use of the apostrophe to indicate "possession." This concept is better termed the genitive case.

The possessive apostrophe actually has a much wider range of meaning than merely to indicate "possession." Notice how the single use of the "possessive" apostrophe in the sentence below can have several different interpretations, as we see in (1) through (4).

John has Dave's letter.

1. John has a letter from Dave. [Dave is the source of the letter, even if he did not write it himself.]
2. John has a letter for Dave. [John intends to deliver the letter to Dave, but Dave may not have been the original recipient.]
3. John has a letter by Dave. [Dave authored of the letter. John may or may not be the intended recipient.]
4. John has a letter to Dave. [Authorship of the letter is not stated. Dave was the intended recipient of the letter. John now possesses the letter.]

There are still more meanings associated with the "possessive" apostrophe. Consider the examples below.

John has a doctor's appointment.

5. John has an appointment with a doctor. [indicating a relationship in space and time]

John scratched the car's door.

6. John scratched the door of the car. [indicating a relationship of a part to the whole]

Those different interpretations in (1) through (6) suggest that the concept of "possession" is clearly part of what the genitive case expresses semantically, but "possession" is not the only meaning expressed by the genitive case — this particular use of the apostrophe. Hence, many grammarians prefer not to use the term "possessive apostrophe" at all, preferring instead "genitive case" because this use of the apostrophe means so much more than "possession."

…many grammarians prefer not to use the term "possessive apostrophe" at all, preferring instead "genitive case"…

Examples

Examine the sentences below and see if you can find the apostrophe error in each sentence. Then hover your mouse over the sentences to see my comments about the problems illustrated by each example.

7. I like my Kelpie, and the dogs' kennel is very nice.
8. Dickens first novel was Pickwick Papers.
9. My neighbors car is blocking my driveway.
10. I bought a suit of clothes, and it came with two pair's of pants.

Discussion

As we can see in the examples above, the so-called "possessive" apostrophe errors often arise in one of four situations, which we will examine in greater detail below.

Confusion of the Singular and Plural Uses

As writers, we have the choice of using either 's or s', but those two inflections have different meanings. The 's is the singular form, while s' is the plural form. For example,

• the doctor's letter means the letter from one doctor, and
• the doctors' letter means the letter from several doctors.

For another example, compare

• my brother's car, meaning the car used by one of my brothers, and
• my brothers' car, meaning the car shared by several of my brothers.

Those examples show us that the position of the apostrophe is significant. Its position makes a meaningful difference to the reader, and, as writers, we should think about the implications of the apostrophe's position in the phrase.

Confusion with Words Ending in an /s/ or /z/ sound

Words ending in an /s/ or /z/ sound can use either the bare apostrophe ['] or the apostrophe s ['s] inflection. This is a case of divided usage, however. Contemporary writers seem to prefer to use only the bare apostrophe ['], while more traditional writers prefer the apostrophe s ['s]. Using Mark Davies' (of Brigham Young University) excellent 410 million word Corpus of Contemporary American Usage and 400 million word Corpus of Historical American Usage, we can see that contemporary American writers use both forms, with a slight preferences for the 's form. Compare:

Table 1: Frequencies of the bare apostrophe and the apostrophe s after seven words ending in an /s/ or /z/ sound in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (1990-2010). bare apostrophe [' ] form apostrophe s ['s ] form Charles' 266 Charles's 398 Davies' 32 Davies's 29 Jones' 1,033 Jones's 653 Paris' 136 Paris's 170 Thomas' 585 Thomas's 933 Alex' 3 Alex's 700 Sanchez' 9 Sanchez's 97 TOTAL 2,064 TOTAL 2,980

Table 2: Frequencies of the bare apostrophe and the apostrophe s after seven words ending in an /s/ or /z/ sound in the Corpus of Historical American English (1810-2000). bare apostrophe [' ] form apostrophe s ['s ] form Charles' 318 Charles's 935 Davies' 55 Davies's 38 Jones' 421 Jones's 657 Paris' 216 Paris's 43 Thomas' 336 Thomas's 514 Alex' 10 Alex's 231 Sanchez' 11 Sanchez's 14 TOTAL 1,367 TOTAL 2,432

The historical data in Table 2 above shows us that this usage issue has divided American writers since the early 19th century. Interestingly, we can see a shift toward the bare apostrophe for words ending in /s/ or /z/ sounds when we compare contemporary data to historical data. However, the apostrophe s ['s] still seems the more frequent (though diminishingly so) form for contemporary writers.

'Sins' of omission

Writers will occasionally miss an apostrophe in the genitive case for at least three reasons: (a) they do not understand the use of the genitive case, or (b) they are confused about the use of the genitive with -ing clauses, or (c) they reanalyze noun₁ as a common case premodifying noun in a noun₁+noun₂ string. Consider the examples in (11) through (19).

11. John is that teachers pet.
12. I lost Bills gloves.
13. Marys Christmas card is early this year.
14. No one will contest Dave running in two elections simultaneously.
15. Mark complaining to the boss won't fix anything.
16. I won't tolerate Sam screaming at the kids one more minute.
17. Business lobbyists seem likely to back the new legislation, since they wrote it themselves.
18. Teacher representatives are likely to see stiff opposition to the plan in this troubled economy.
19. Holiday bonuses seem to be on the rise again for some international bank employees.

In sentences (11) through (13), we see simple goofs in noun phrases that traditionally would have the genitive marker 's on the premodifying noun. A commonly used test for the genitive premodifier is periphrasis — the use of a longer structure in place of the shorter, inflected word ending. For example, the sentences in (11) through (13) each have prepositional or relative clause corresponding forms, as we can see in (20) through (22) below.

20. John is the pet of that teacher.
21. I lost the gloves that belong to Bill.
22. A Christmas card from Mary is early this year.

Moreover, in sentences (14) through (16), we see a relatively common problem with the use of the genitive case. Case problems are situations where it is unclear which form to use, for example between the subject case and the object case (as in who versus whom) or between the object case (among the pronouns) or common case (among the nouns) and the genitive case (as in him versus his or Mary versus Mary's). Contemporary writers sometimes have problems distinguishing between the object case or common case and the genitive case as in the the examples (14) through (16) above. (Note that examples (14) through (16) only illustrate the common case.) Traditionally, proponents of edited standard written English (ESWE) recommend that we prefer the genitive case for pronouns preceding the -ing clause. Therefore, the traditional advice is to use the genitive case in (14) through (16), as we see in (23) through (25).

23. No one will contest Dave's running in two elections simultaneously.
24. Mark's complaining to the boss won't fix anything.
25. I won't tolerate Sam's screaming at the kids one more minute.

There are two classes of exceptions. First, if the main clause verb is a form of find, keep, or leave, the object case is preferred, as in examples (26) through (28).

26. I found Dave studying before the exam.
27. I left John watching TV in the living room.
28. I won't keep Mary waiting one more minute.

Second, if the verb expresses a sense of perception, prefer the object case, as we see in examples (29) through (31) with the verbs hear, see, and feel.

29. I heard Dave practicing the guitar.
30. We all saw Mark cheating on the exam.
31. She felt the baby shivering in the night air.

Finally, in sentences (17) through (19) above, we see examples of a reanalysis of noun₁ + noun₂ structures, where noun₁ appears not as a genitive premodifier but rather as an uninflected noun premodifier. This is not surprising since English has always used nouns as uninflected premodifiers of other nouns, as in check book or street sweeper or paperback writer or newspaper editor.

We can use corpora data to compare the relative frequencies of noun₁ + noun₂ compared to noun₁'s + noun₂. See Table 3 below.

Table 3: Frequencies of selected noun1 + noun2 structures in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (410 million words, 1990 – 2010). uninflected noun1 + noun2 forms inflected apostrophe s ['s] forms business + noun 27437 business'(s) + noun 40 / 105 businesses + noun 126 businesses' + noun 45 sun + noun 4384 sun's + noun 1364 teacher + noun 8817 teacher's + noun 1588 teachers + noun 1019 teachers' + noun 1908 adjective + business + noun 2558 adjective + business'(s) + noun 4 / 8 adjective + businesses + noun 55 adjective + businesses' + noun 8 adjective + teacher + noun 566 adjective + teacher's + noun 130 adjective + teachers + noun 126 adjective + teachers' + noun 155 adjective + noun + noun more than 10,000,000 adjective + noun' + noun 1110 adjective + noun + noun more than 10,000,000 adjective + noun's + noun 6354

In Table 3, we can see that in most cases, the uninflected form is preferred. For example business decisions is far more common than business' decisions or businesses' decisions. We might hypothesize, therefore, that writers might miss a genitive inflection because they are reanalyzing genitive premodifiers of nouns as noun₁ + noun₂ structures. The same trend is true for both the Corpus of Contemporary American English (Table 3 above) and the British National Corpus (Table 4 below).

Table 4: Frequencies of selected noun1 + noun2 structures in the British National Corpus (100 million words, 1980s – 1993). uninflected noun1 + noun2 forms inflected apostrophe s ['s] forms business + noun 6297 business'(s) + noun 9 / 42 businesses + noun 24 businesses' + noun 6 sun + noun 1746 sun's + noun 292 teacher + noun 1141 teacher's + noun 384 teachers + noun 114 teachers' + noun 659 adjective + business + noun 542      adjective + business'(s) + noun 0 / 2 adjective + businesses + noun 15 adjective + businesses' + noun 3 adjective + teacher + noun 186 adjective + teacher's + noun 41 adjective + teachers + noun 26 adjective + teachers' + noun 111 adjective + noun + noun more than 10,000,000 adjective + noun' + noun 769 adjective + noun + noun more than 10,000,000 adjective + noun's + noun 1906

Interestingly, both corpora show that the genitive inflection is preferred when the premodifying noun is both [+human] and [+plural], such as teachers' + noun and adjective + teachers' + noun over teachers + noun and adjective + teachers + noun. Examples of these structures include largest teachers' unions or average teachers' salary. The difference appears only in the plural of teachers in both corpora. For example, compare the phrases in Table 5 below.

Table 5: The influence of the semantic features [+plural] and [+human] on the relative frequencies of the genitive inflection with selected noun1 + noun2 structures in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (410 million words, 1990 – 2010). uninflected noun1 [+plural] [+human] + noun2 forms inflected noun1 [+plural] [+human] + noun2 (['s]) forms teachers union 2 teachers' union 133 teachers salaries 6 teachers' salaries 64 soldiers weapons 1 soldiers' weapons 3 players union 131 players' union 121 firefighters + noun2 [+plural] 8 firefighters' + noun2 [+plural] 25 By comparison look at these [-human] examples of noun1: dollars + noun2 [+plural] 64 dollars' + noun2 [+plural] 3 businesses + noun2 [+plural] 29 businesses' + noun2 [+plural] 17 cars + noun2 [+plural] 57 cars' + noun2 [+plural] 26

With the single exception of players(') union, which was nearly a 50/50 result, it appears that contemporary writers prefer the genitive inflection in noun₁ + noun₂ constructions when noun₁ is marked as both [+plural] and [+human]. There also appears to be some shift toward the genitive inflection when noun₂ is [+plural] as well. (This merits further research, and it seems to be an example of the kind of result we can only uncover by analyzing real data, as represented by corpora and concordancing tools.)

'Sins' of commission

Writers occasionally add an unnecessary apostrophe for three reasons: (a) coordinated genitive noun premodifiers, (b) plural nouns, and (c) simple goofs. Consider (32) through (34) below.

32. Adam's and Eve's original sin cast them from the Garden of Eden.
33. This boat belongs to my three son's.
34. The teachers's style in an academically high-powered class is often didactic.¹

In (32), the genitive inflection on Adam is unnecessary. The tradition of ESWE prefers that writers use a single genitive inflection at the end of the coordinated noun phrase, as in Adam and Eve's. However, if the coordinated element is a nonrestrictive modifier or in apposition to the first noun phrase, and punctuated as such, the genitive case inflection on both nouns seems acceptable. Compare (32) to (35) or (36):

35. Adam's, and Eve's, original sin cast them from the Garden of Eden.
36. Adam's (and Eve's) original sin cast them from the Garden of Eden.

Second, writers will on occasion mistake a plural noun as needing a genitive inflection. One might hypothesize that this mistake is more common with the high frequency nouns like son or girl, but I haven't the corpus data to show this at this time.

Finally, writers are humans and will make mistakes. Consider the example in (34). I am sure that we can mark up such errors as "slips of the fingertypes fingertips" when competent writers make such errors.

Two Tests for Using the Possessive Apostrophe / Genitive Case: Paraphrase & Pronoun Substitution

The Paraphrase Test for Possessive Apostrophes / Genitive Case

As mentioned above, a common test for the genitive inflection is to look for the possibility of periphrasis with a prepositional phrase or a relative clause. For example,

if by Daves letter	we mean "a letter (for/to/by/from/etc.) Dave,"	then use Dave's letter;
if by the kittens toys	we mean "the toys (for/to/near/etc.) the kitten,"	then use the kitten's toys (singular kitten);
if by the kittens toys	we mean "the toys (for/to/near/etc.) the kittens,"	then use the kittens' toys (plural kittens);
if by my fathers watch	we mean "the watch (for/from/etc.) my father" or "the watch that my father (made/gave/etc.) me,"	then use my father's watch.

However, this test will not help us find genitive case problems that arise with the use of -ing clauses. The next test for the genitive case will help us in that regard.

Pronoun Substitution Test for Possessive Apostrophes / Genitive Case

Another test is the use of pronouns to substitute for noun phrases. Pronouns, as we know, are (generally) marked for three cases — subject, object, and genitive. Nouns, on the other hand, have but two cases — common and genitive. If ever we find ourselves puzzled about whether to use the common case or the genitive case with a noun, we can try the pronoun substitution test. For example,

if we are puzzled by a structure like Daves letter	and we understand that the genitive pronoun his (as in his letter) is preferred here than are the subject or object pronouns (he or him),	then we should use Dave's letter;
or if we are unsure about my fathers watch	and we understand that his watch is preferred over he watch or him watch,	then we use my father's watch;
or if we are wondering about Mark complaining to the boss won't fix anything	and we understand that His complaining to the boss is preferred over He complaining … or Him complaining …,	then we use Mark's complaining to the boss….

Corpora can give us insight into which pronoun and noun forms are preferred in such structures.

More resources

Darling, Charles. Possessive Forms

Brians, Paul. Apostrophes

The Purdue OWL. The Apostrophe

Note

¹Freeman, Joan. "Gifted school performance and creativity." Roeper Review. 1994 (17:1), p15.

The context for this example:

…academic school achievement can inhibit creativity: It encourages any latent perfectionism in the gifted student's personality, inhibiting the open-minded basis of creative endeavor. It discourages personal interests by demanding conformity to set subjects, curriculum, and educational goals, inhibiting the motivation to be creative. The student's individual learning style may be disregarded in the urgency to push information for high examination grades. The pressure of the learning schedule may leave little time for consideration of the philosophy, principles, and context of the subject matter, encouraging a relatively superficial acquisition of knowledge. The teachers's style in an academically high-powered class is often didactic, rather then that of a guide or stimulating mentor who can inspire creative thought. An overly academic approach to information, in which students are expected to learn and reproduce considerable amounts of information, can inhibit the vital aspect of creativity, emotional involvement with the subject matter. It can interfere with general emotional development, long recognised in the folk-saying: - " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy ". …

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