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Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: ParkinT] #181533
01/07/09 05:24 PM 01/07/09 05:24 PMJoined: Jun 2008
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Land of the Flat Water LukeJavan8![]()
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Land of the Flat Water
I believe it, emotional attachment.
----please, draw me a sheep----
Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: ] #204467
02/01/12 03:39 PM 02/01/12 03:39 PMJoined: Jun 2008
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Land of the Flat Water Hi -back at you. Welcome.
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Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: LukeJavan8] #204490
02/04/12 12:34 PM 02/04/12 12:34 PMJoined: Nov 2011
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Lancaster, UK Good to have you here, zeun. We're a mad bunch, but mostly harmless!
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Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: Rhubarb Commando] #204494
02/04/12 04:41 PM 02/04/12 04:41 PMJoined: Jun 2008
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Land of the Flat Water Be careful with that statement RC.
----please, draw me a sheep----
Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: LukeJavan8] #204505
02/05/12 03:01 PM 02/05/12 03:01 PMJoined: Nov 2011
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Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: BranShea] #204510
02/05/12 07:01 PM 02/05/12 07:01 PMJoined: Dec 2000
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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.
Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: BranShea] #204512
02/06/12 06:56 AM 02/06/12 06:56 AMJoined: Jun 2006
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Netherlands, the Hague BranSheaOP
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Netherlands, the Hague I dug up the initial postOriginally Posted By: BranSheaHere'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
Re: at my sister's, of my sister's. [Re: BranShea] #220035
01/27/15 11:04 AM 01/27/15 11:04 AMJoined: Dec 2008
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Victoria, Australia Bazr![]()
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Victoria, Australia Originally Posted By: BranSheaI dug up the initial postOriginally Posted By: BranSheaHere'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
Re: Double genitive [Re: BranShea] #221425
06/28/15 01:44 PM 06/28/15 01:44 PMJoined: Oct 2010
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London, UK A C Bowden![]()
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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.
Re: Double genitive [Re: A C Bowden] #221568
07/11/15 10:23 PM 07/11/15 10:23 PMJoined: May 2010
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Alaska Thank you, A C. That's my sense of the thing exactly.
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