Saxon genitive

 Saxon genitive

The Saxon genitive is the grammatical construction used in English to express possession, that is, to indicate that something belongs to someone.

The Saxon genitive is a construction that does not exist in Spanish, since for these cases, the only thing we do in Spanish is to indicate that "something" is "someone's". However, in English, that "of someone" is contracted in an apostrophe + s or in a simple apostrophe if the noun is in the plural

 

-There are two ways of forming the Saxon genitive, depending on whether the noun is in the singular or in the plural. The components that form a phrase expressing possession in both cases are constructed as follows:

• My sister’s son (El hijo de mi hermana)
• The possessor noun + apostrophe + s + the noun that is possessed

-If the noun is in the singular, all we have to do is add an apostrophe +s to the noun designating the possessor

Examples:

• Woman + dog =  The woman’s dog  (El perro de la mujer). 
• Boy + little chair = The boy’s little chair (La silla pequeña del niño ) 

 

-If the noun is in the plural, it will be even easier, since we will only have to add the apostrophe after the last letter of the noun designating the possessor.

Examples:

• Birds + egg = The birds’ egg. (El huevo de los pájaros)
•  Parents + car = It’s my parents’ car. (Es el coche de mis padres)

 

-In the following table I will give you more examples of the Saxon genitive:

Saxon genitive exercises link:

https://www.englishspanishlink.com/ejercicios-ingles/saxon-genitive_1.htm