Saxon genitive
The term Saxon genitive (see also genitive attribute ) designates a grammatical phenomenon, namely a genitive construction in which the dependent part (in the genitive) precedes the governing noun (e.g. his luck smith , Hauff's fairy tale ). In this context, “Saxon” means “Anglo-Saxon”, as the term originally comes from the English grammar. In English it is called “ Saxon genitive ” or “ apostrophic genitive ” (e.g. Fisherman's friend, Peter's mother's lover's son ).
term
In English , the equivalent to the German genitive can be formed on the one hand by adding apostrophe-s to the declined noun and on the other hand by a prepositional construction with of :
- the car's inventor
- the inventor of the car
The genitive s variant comes from Anglo-Saxon and is therefore also called the Saxon genitive . In many non-academic German-language publications, the term is limited to the sometimes incorrect spelling of the construction with an apostrophe in German .
Linguistic peculiarities
It is characteristic of the Saxon genitive that the entire construction always definite in the expression: is interpreted Peter's car / Peter's car (namely owns the only car that Peter in the situation) a particular car targeted, although no definite article in addition appears. So it is not possible to read any of Peter's cars here. With other genitive variants, however, definite and indefinite genitives would be possible. In order to differentiate, unlike in the Saxon genitive, an article is required for the overall construction.
- the car Peters / a car Peters
- the designer of a car / a designer of cars
In the English language , the Saxon genitive is morphophonologically marked by a clitic " s ", which is attached to the entire governed phrase on the right (phrase boundaries in the example are marked by square brackets):
- [[Peter] 's car] (Peter's car)
- [[The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom] 's office] ( The Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom )
- [[The policeman who hit the demonstrator] 's car] ( The car of the policeman who hit the demonstrator )
In the last example, the meaning is not clear if the phrase boundaries are not known: The policeman who hit the demonstrator's car would then also be a grammatically possible interpretation.
orthography
In the English language, the Saxon genitive is written by an apostrophized s at the end of the ruled phrase:
- Peter ’s car.
Spelling with an apostrophe was not uncommon in German in the 19th century. The Duden initially only disapproved of it: It is “not necessary” to put an apostrophe in genitive cases. However, this was abolished in the reform of the German spelling of 1901 - the spelling of the Saxon genitive with an apostrophe was therefore generally to be regarded as incorrect. However, this was not fully adopted in everyday (written) language ; Even in the 1920s, the apostrophized spelling was the common choice of many companies ( Meier's Weltreisen , Hütter's neue Wohnwelt etc., cf. also Beck’s , Brehm’s ), which subsequently changed their names. Since the spelling reform of 1996 , this use has been permitted if it is intended to clarify the basic form of a proper name (e.g. Andrea's Blumenecke ).
literature
- Helmut Glück (publisher and author of the article Sächsischer Genitiv ): Metzler-Lexikon Sprache. 2nd revised and expanded edition. Metzler, Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-476-01519-X (digital library, Berlin 2004).
- Helmut Glück, Wolfgang Werner Sauer : Contemporary German. 2nd Edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1997.
Individual evidence
- ↑ z. B. in: Jochen Bölsche: Everywhere fly dirt. In: Der Spiegel. 26, (2000). (online) , as of January 17, 2011
- ↑ Christoph Seidler: Anti-Apostrophism: What's the point? In: Spiegel online. July 26, 2001. (online)
- ^ Alan Scott, David Denison and Kersti Börjars: Is the English possessive 's truly a right edge phenomenon? Handout of ICLCE2, Toulouse on July 2nd, 2007 ( pdf , English)
- ↑ See Zoff about the apostrophe on buurtaal.de