Some linguists don't think that the possessive
s in English is a genitive case. Whatever you call the feature (in English), the Wikipedia on the genitive (
link) has a nice list of the different uses:
- possession (see Possessive case):
- inalienable possession ("Janet's height", "Janet's existence", "Janet's long fingers")
- alienable possession ("Janet's jacket", "Janet's drink")
- relationship indicated by the noun being modified ("Janet's husband") - composition (see Partitive case):
- substance ("a wheel of cheese")
- elements ("a group of men")
- source ("a portion of the food") - participation in an action:
- as an agent ("my leaving") — this is called the subjective genitive
- as a patient ("the archduke's murder") — this is called the objective genitive - origin ("men of Rome")
- description ("man of honour", "day of reckoning")
- compounds (Scottish Gaelic "ball coise" = "football", where "coise" = gen. of "cas", "foot")
As far as the naming of churches in English goes, the Saint-Name's seems a well-established usage: e.g., St Paul's Cathedral in London. But this is my favorite punctuational prescript in a long time.
