Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Genitivo sassone?!

Ciao a tutti,
perdonate l'ignoranza, perň:
io su tutte le grammatiche inglesi ho sempre letto: il genitivo sassone
 es.: Mary's book ) si usa *solo* con esseri animati (nel caso specifico:
Mary).
Spesso, perň, lo vedo usato pure per cose non animate.
Altre volte vedo qualcosa del genere: "The book back". Cioč una specie di
genitivo sassone senza " 's " usato con cose non animate. Ma sulle
grammatiche non si trova.
Qualcuno saprebbe chiarirmi un po' le idee?
GRAZIE
Daniele.

Daniele.
No prob!
Raymot
========
Brisbane, Australia
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[


Ho notato che a volte si usa questo tipo di costruzione anche con nomi di
persona, ad es:
 
  a Wood Allen film
Qual è la differenza di significato tra questa e
  a film of Wood Allen's
  a film by Wood Allen
Grazie,
Max


Sě, ha ragione Raymot. Il sostantivo davanti ad un altro sostantivo (bus
stop, word processor) funge da aggettivo, come anche il nome personale (a
Fellini film, an Armani suit).
Chris

Max
Nothing, if Woody Allen is the director or producer.
But you can use the former for an actor etc:
"a film of Sophia Loren's" or "a Sophia Loren film", but not
"a film by Sophia Loren".
It depends on the context, for example, whether "La Dolce Vita"
is a Fellini film or a Mastroianni film. It was a film *of* them
both, but only *by* Fellini.
Raymot
[[[[[[[

 >  a film of Wood Allen's
non potrebbe significare "uno dei film di Woody Allen" ?

non potrebbe significare "uno dei film di Woody Allen" ?
In quel caso penso che andrebbe meglio "one of Woody Allen's films".
Bye,
-- 
Isa
Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching

Qualcuno saprebbe chiarirmi un po' le idee?
A questo proposito, ti posto una piccola riflessione (reperita non so piů
dove) sulla differenza di uso fra possessive case e noun modifiers:
The Problem
In English, we frequently find constructions where a noun qualifies
other(s), acting rather like an adjective (called noun modifiers, in some
grammars):
door handle
car design
cat food
We may also find possessives used for a similar purpose:
water's edge
leg of the table
This may rise two questions:
1. When do we use the 's instead of an 'of-something' for a possessive?
2. When can we use the noun modifier construction, instead of a possessive,
for qualifying a noun?
1. Possessives: Use of Genitive ('s) vs. 'of-phrases'
Hare some rules from Greenbaum's Oxford English Grammar. As you will see,
these are the rules except when there are exceptions, but perhaps they are
better than no rules at all.
The genitive ['s] is preferred to the corresponding of-phrase when the noun
phrase denotes persons, animals, or human institutions.
The genitive is commonly used with noun phrases referring to time or place.
The genitive is also commonly used with noun phrases that denote entities,
states, and activities associated with human beings.
The genitive sometimes occurs with noun phrases where none of the above
conditions apply.
If the noun that might take the genitive has restrictive postmodification,
the of-phrase is preferred to the group genitive.
The of-phrase may be preferred for reasons of communicative importance. The
more important information tends to be placed last.
(from Collins Cobuild English Grammar)
The genitive is most often used with a noun referring to a person or an
animal. Ex.: my sister's boots, the cat's tail
The genitive is used to say that something belongs to or is associated with
a group of people or an institution. Ex.: the university's budget, the
paper's political editor
The genitive is sometimes used with an object when talking about a part of
it or a feature or quality. Ex.: the computer's behaviour, the car's design
The genitive is used after nouns or names referring to places. Ex.:
Britain's most popular pop-star
2. Noun Modifiers vs. Genitive vs. 'of-phrases'
(Also excerpted from Collins Cobuild English Grammar)
Nouns can be used as modifiers in front of other nouns, to add specific
information
When these nouns are fixed expressions, they are called compound nouns
(compound nouns can indeed be a grouping of more than one noun, adjectives
and nouns, etc.). Ex.: address book, swimming pool, baby-sitter
When they are not fixed expressions, they are called noun modifiers. Ex.:
car door, door handle, cat food
Compare the following sentences:
1. The bedroom door was shut.
1a. * The bedroom's door was shut.
2. The bedroom's owner was not available for comment.
2a. *The bedroom owner was not available for comment.
Mr Greenbaum's rules do not cover all cases. Why should the unchanged
modifier-form 'bedroom' be allowable in (1) yet impossible in (2), with the
reverse being true of the possessive-case determiner-form? Both, after all,
are denoting a relationship that would generally be regarded as
'possessive'. The only reasonable answer seems to be that they are actually
denoting two different kinds of possession. For convenience, let's label the
first noun in each construction 'A', and the second , 'B'. We could then
characterise the two types as follows:
POSSESSIVE RELATION TYPE (1): B is a physical constituent of A.
POSSESSIVE RELATION TYPE (2): B legally, or in some related sense, actually
possesses A.
We then note that, where noun A is INANIMATE, a possessive-case form will
tend to be employed only in relation-type (2), type (1) generally preferring
the noun-modifier construction. Where noun A is ANIMATE - and, especially,
human - however, no such distinction is normally made. Thus, we have
The old slave's hair was turning grey. (poss. rel. type (1) - the hair is a
'physical constituent' of the slave)
and
The old slave's master was a kindly man. (type (2): the master 'owns' the
slave).
Although this will be seen to apply in many cases, however, it should be
regarded as a strong tendency rather than as a hard-and-fast rule, and that
potential problems involving inanimates may often be avoided by using the
'of'-construction. Thus 'the car door' and 'the car's designer' can be
turned, respectively, into 'the door of the car' and the 'designer of the
car'. With animates, however, the possessive-case form tends to be
obligatory, except (as Greenbaum notes) where a further qualifying phrase
follows, making
*The hands of the mechanic were large and powerful.
so unnatural as to be considered ungrammatical, yet
The hands of the mechanic who repaired our car were large and powerful.
highly acceptable
Spero che ti possa essere utile.
Cordialmente
Arturo

A questo proposito, ti posto una piccola riflessione ...
Grazie mille a te per averla postata. A Bambi, non pensi che sia il
caso di incorporarla nelle FAQ. sotto "thorny issues"? :-)
Ciao,


 caso di incorporarla nelle FAQ. sotto "thorny issues"? :-)
Dear Isabella,
Detto, fatto. (Who says I never write in Italian on the newsgroup?)
Thorny issue it shall be.
--
I remain, as always,
Bambi
dtb