possessive

Question

0  Hi,    Please tell me some things that are not allowed to be made a possessive of? Or some things that are frowned upon?     Possible cases of being frowned upon?  1) for inanimate objects  Any other??  Possible cases of being not allowed?  1) I don't know this is the right words -- "Roman" language??    0-

Mr Wordy · Accepted Answer

0Are you asking about forming a possessive by the addition of apostrope-s? If so, then here are some thoughts. I just wrote this stuff off the top of my head, so it's not meant to be any sort of definitive analysis. 02br
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00There is no problem with making possessives from inanimate nouns. For example: 01i00the Earth's atmosphere02i00; 01i00the computer's memory02i00. However, as a very rough rule of thumb, it seems that nouns that refer to concrete objects are more likely to be made into possessives in this way, and nouns that refer to abstract concepts are less likely. For example, 01i00fright's02i00, 01i00completeness's02i00, 01i00congratulation's02i00 and 01i00disappearance's02i00, while all theoretically possible I suppose, are unlikely. There is no hard-and-fast rule though. For example, 01i00hunger's pangs02i00, 01i00jealousy's rage02i00 and 01i00Christianity's origins02i00 are all perfectly acceptable expressions that include the possessive form of an abstract noun. And there is one special expression that takes apostrophe-s words that would otherwise be unusual: 01i00for 01u00 02u00's sake02i00 (expletive in this case 01i00not02i00 deleted!). For example, while 01i00comprehensibility's02i00 generally seems very unlikely, you could say 01i00for comprehensibility's sake02i00. There may be other special cases that don't immediately come to mind. 02br
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00When the apostrophe-s possessive of a noun seems unwieldy, a possessive can be formed with "of"; for example, 01i00the consequences of his disappearance02i00 rather than 01i00his disappearance's consequences02i00.02br
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00I don't really understand what you mean by "Roman language". Perhaps you mean "Romance language" (i.e. a language derived from Latin)? I guess it's true that many longer abstract English nouns ultimately derive from Latin, and these are the ones that are, as a rough rule of thumb, less likely to have apostrophe-s forms. But there is no rule that says a word of a particular origin should or shouldn't form a possessive.0-

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