Possessives

Thanks for the information about Harrowdown Hill and 'the ministry', Antonio. I'll definitely listen to the song.

Don't worry about the timing of your posting. I realised today that I could talk about any of your previous pieces of writing. The only problem with this idea is that you make so few mistakes, it's often hard to find enough to comment on!

Your remarks about the differences between Italian and English grammar are interesting. Did you study Italian grammar when you were at school? I didn't and only started learning when I became an English teacher and my students asked me difficult questions! Ideas about literacy have changed in the UK since then, and my son and daughter do study grammar at school now.

I'd like to comment on your use of possessives. In the penultimate and final paragraphs of your posting yesterday you put two nouns together: 'research's results' and 'adjective's position'. In English there are three main ways of putting nouns together: noun + noun (a war film), noun + 's + noun (my daughter's school), and noun + preposition + noun (a man from York, the top of the page).

Usually an idea is expressed in only one of these three ways, though sometimes there are two possibilities: 'a war film', not 'a war's film' or 'a film of war'; 'the top of the page', not 'the page's top, though 'the page top' is OK; 'a man from York', not 'a York's man', though 'a York man' is OK.

This is a complicated area of grammar, but a good dictionary should show which combinations are allowed.

To go back to 'research's results' and 'adjective's position'....these are two examples of noun combinations which need: noun + preposition + noun. Although no reader will misunderstand your meaning, 'the results of the/my research' and 'the position of the adjectives', sound better.

How do you decide whether to use noun + 's + noun, or noun + preposition (of) + noun? Well, sometimes either is OK; for example, 'the writing's accuracy' and 'the accuracy of the writing' are equally correct. Sometimes, it's necessary to use 'of'; for example, 'the back of the book', not 'the book's back'. On the other hand, sometimes only the possessive 's sounds OK; for example, 'my son's name', not 'the name of my son'.

Again, a good dictionary should show which combinations are possible.

This is an example of when it's good to learn chunks of English from films, songs, books etc. Then, without having to analyse the grammar of a chunk, you can just concentrate on combining it with other chunks!

I hope you have a good weekend!

I'll do a summary on Saturday or Sunday of some of the language points that have come up this week.

Rachel

Thanks for all your contributions. This blog has now closed and can no longer accept new comments.