In Ancient Greek, the genitive case is rivaled only by the dative for pointless complexity. Bear with me here, this is going to get a little tricky.

Again, Latin crossover is uncertain, but assumed to be there.
in Latin, The Genetive case is that which is used to show poessession.

For Example:
English: "The woman's house is beautiful."
Latin: "casa feminae pulchra est."

English: "The women's houses are beautiful."
Latin: "casae femeniarum sunt pulchrae."

In Latin, the Genetive case uses the endings:
      Sing  Plur
1Dec   -ae   -arum
2Dec   -i    -orum
3Dec   -is   -um*
4Dec   -us   -uum
5Dec   -ei   -erum

* - Third Declension plural Nouns can have what's called an 'i-stem' that makes the plural form '-ium'...

back to Latin...

Gen"i*tive (?), a. [L. genitivus, fr. gignere, genitum, to beget: cf. F. g'enitif. See Gender.] Gram.

Of or pertaining to that case (as the second case of Latin and Greek nouns) which expresses source or possession. It corresponds to the possessive case in English.

 

© Webster 1913.


Gen"i*tive, n. Gram.

The genitive case.

Genitive absolute, a construction in Greek similar to the ablative absolute in Latin. See Ablative absolute.

 

© Webster 1913.

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