at my sister's, of my sister's.

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#181533 - 01/07/09 05:24 PM Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: ParkinT]
Joined: Jun 2008 Posts: 8,944 LukeJavan8 Carpal Tunnel
LukeJavan8 Carpal Tunnel Joined: Jun 2008 Posts: 8,944 Land of the Flat Water	I believe it, emotional attachment. ----please, draw me a sheep----

#204467 - 02/01/12 03:39 PM Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: ]
Joined: Jun 2008 Posts: 8,944 LukeJavan8 Carpal Tunnel
LukeJavan8 Carpal Tunnel Joined: Jun 2008 Posts: 8,944 Land of the Flat Water	Hi -back at you. Welcome. ----please, draw me a sheep----

#204490 - 02/04/12 12:34 PM Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: LukeJavan8]
Joined: Nov 2011 Posts: 1,075 Rhubarb Commando old hand
Rhubarb Commando old hand Joined: Nov 2011 Posts: 1,075 Lancaster, UK	Good to have you here, zeun. We're a mad bunch, but mostly harmless! I'm immortal until proven otherwise

#204494 - 02/04/12 04:41 PM Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: Rhubarb Commando]
Joined: Jun 2008 Posts: 8,944 LukeJavan8 Carpal Tunnel
LukeJavan8 Carpal Tunnel Joined: Jun 2008 Posts: 8,944 Land of the Flat Water	Be careful with that statement RC. ----please, draw me a sheep----

#204505 - 02/05/12 03:01 PM Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: LukeJavan8]
Joined: Nov 2011 Posts: 1,075 Rhubarb Commando old hand
Rhubarb Commando old hand Joined: Nov 2011 Posts: 1,075 Lancaster, UK	Careful? Me? C'mon, now - I have a reputation to maintain. I'm immortal until proven otherwise

#204510 - 02/05/12 07:01 PM Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: BranShea]
Joined: Dec 2000 Posts: 13,803 Faldage Carpal Tunnel
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Joined: Dec 2000 Posts: 13,803	Incidentally, getting back to the original question: Back when case meant something in English and we actually marked it in nouns different prepositions took different cases in their noun objects. We have dumped all case markings in nouns except the genitive. So, the one case where it is shown we think is abnormal. Really, it's all the instances where it's not shown that are the abnormal ones.

#204512 - 02/06/12 06:56 AM Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: BranShea]
Joined: Jun 2006 Posts: 5,295 BranShea Carpal Tunnel
BranShea Carpal Tunnel Joined: Jun 2006 Posts: 5,295 Netherlands, the Hague	I dug up the initial post Originally Posted By: BranShea Here's a little thing I longtime wanted to ask. You say: I will be at my sister's. She's a friend of my sister's. In the first sentence this seems clearly to mean: "At my sister's " house or place. The second form always struck me as odd. "a friend of my sister's" ... what? Maybe I am making mistakes here, but I just would like to know the details about this. (thanks) I reread the Michael Quinion article from Jim's link and keep on using the double genitive anyway as it's stuck in my head since schooldays. > link

#220035 - 01/27/15 11:04 AM Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: BranShea]
Joined: Dec 2008 Posts: 287 Bazr enthusiast
Bazr enthusiast Joined: Dec 2008 Posts: 287 Victoria, Australia	Originally Posted By: BranShea I dug up the initial post Originally Posted By: BranShea Here's a little thing I longtime wanted to ask. You say: I will be at my sister's. She's a friend of my sister's. In the first sentence this seems clearly to mean: "At my sister's " house or place. The second form always struck me as odd. "a friend of my sister's" ... what? Maybe I am making mistakes here, but I just would like to know the details about this. (thanks) I reread the Michael Quinion article from Jim's link and keep on using the double genitive anyway as it's stuck in my head since schooldays. > link "a friend of my sister" is good. live in the moment

#221425 - 06/28/15 01:44 PM Re: Double genitive [Re: BranShea]
Joined: Oct 2010 Posts: 893 A C Bowden old hand
A C Bowden old hand Joined: Oct 2010 Posts: 893 London, UK	I have been looking back over this discussion, and there is one possible explanation that no-one has mentioned. "A friend of my sister's" implies that my sister has two or more friends and we are referring to one of them. So we mean "a friend of [= from among] my sister's friends". "Of" here means not "belonging to my sister's friends" but "part of the group of her friends". This is why we cannot say "the friend of my sister's" � there cannot be a group if she has only one friend. So I think the double genitive is perfectly logical.

#221568 - 07/11/15 10:23 PM Re: Double genitive [Re: A C Bowden]
Joined: May 2010 Posts: 958 Tromboniator old hand
Tromboniator old hand Joined: May 2010 Posts: 958 Alaska	Thank you, A C. That's my sense of the thing exactly.

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