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Anonymous Posted 11 years ago
Grammar

Possessive

I am still confused about how to write the right possessive.

In an article I just read, I read "....the Indian goverment..."; in this noun phrase the writer made Indian as the adjective. Then I also read "....the India's leaders...".

Are those two different ways showing possessive correct? Why?
  

Top answer

Anonymous Are those two different ways showing possessive correct? Yes, though there is technically no possessive in "the Indian government". "India's" in your second example is a possessive.

— CalifJim

  • Anonymous Are those two different ways showing possessive correct?
  • Yes, though there is technically no possessive in "the Indian government".
  • "India's" in your second example is a possessive.
  • Anonymous Why?
  • That's just how it is done.
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6 Answers
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AnonymousAre those two different ways showing possessive correct?
Yes, though there is technically no possessive in "the Indian government". "India's" in your second example is a possessive.
AnonymousWhy?
That's just how it is done. Sometimes we use a possessive and a noun; sometimes we use an adjective and a noun; sometim
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Thank you. Yeah, right. I need to get exposed much to native usage of this language. There's almost exception for any rule I have learnt about English. In high school, I was told that abstract nouns must be uncountable nouns, but then I've learnt that there are countable abstract nouns.
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Anonymous I also read "....the India's leaders...".
Drop the definite article. It's just India's leaders.
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Yes, you are right. I went back to the article and noticed that it's "India's leaders" without article the. And it's "the Indian goverment" with article the. Why? Is there any explanation? I thought that India's leader is definite noun so I just automatically added "the" before the noun phrase.
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Orgait's "India's leaders" without the article "the"
India is a proper noun. Proper nouns don't take 'the' in normal circumstances.

CJ
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AnonymousIndia's leaders
Well, "Indian leaders" could be interpreted as any leaders who were Indian. For example, Indira Nooyi is the CEO of PepsiCo and Vikram Pandit is the CEO of Citigroup. These two are both Indian leaders who have nothing to do with the government of India. India's leaders, on the other hand, is clear.
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