When you are showing possession with compounded nouns, the apostrophe's placement depends on whether the nouns are acting separately or together.
* Miguel's and Cecilia's new cars are in the parking lot.
This means that each of them has at least one new car and that their ownership is a separate matter.
* Miguel and Cecilia's new cars are in the parking lot.
This construction tells us that Miguel and Cecilia share ownership of these cars. The possessive (indicated by 's) belongs to the entire phrase, not just to Cecilia.
Another example:
* Lewis and Clark's expectations were very much the same.
This construction tells us that the two gentlemen held one set of expectations in common.
* Lewis's and Clark's expectations were altogether different.
This means that the expectations of the two men were different (rather obvious from what the sentence says, too). We signify separate ownership by writing both of the compounded proper nouns in the possessive form.
When one of the possessors in a compound possessive is a personal pronoun, we have to put both possessors in the possessive form or we end up with something silly: "Bill and my car had to be towed last night."
* Bill's and my car had to be towed last night.
* Giorgio's and her father was not around much during their childhood.
If this second sentence seems unsatisfactory, you might have to do some rewriting so you end up talking about their father, instead, or revert to using both names: "Giorgio and Isabel's father wasn't around much . . . ." (and then "Giorgio" will lose the apostrophe +s).
Possessives & Compound Constructions
This is different from the problem we confront when creating possessives with compound constructions such as daughter-in-law and friend of mine. Generally, the apostrophe -s is simply added to the end of the compound structure: my daughter-in-law's car, a friend of mine's car. If this sounds clumsy, use the "of" construction to avoid the apostrophe: the car of a friend of mine, etc. This is especially useful in pluralized compound structures: the daughters-in-law's car sounds quite strange, but it's correct. We're better off with the car of the daughters-in-law. See the section on Compound Nouns and Modifiers for additional help.
Possessives with Appositive Forms
When a possessive noun is followed by an appositive, a word that renames or explains that noun, the apostrophe +s is added to the appositive, not to the noun. When this happens, we drop the comma that would normally follow the appositive phrase.
* We must get Joe Bidwell, the family attorney's signature.
Create such constructions with caution, however, as you might end up writing something that looks silly:
* I wrecked my best friend, Bob's car.
You're frequently better off using the "of-genitive" form, writing something like "We must get the signature of Joe Bidwell, the family attorney" and "I wrecked the car of my best friend, Bob."
Double Possessives
Do we say "a friend of my uncle" or "a friend of my uncle's"? In spite of the fact that "a friend of my uncle's" seems to overwork the notion of possessiveness, that is usually what we say and write. The double possessive construction is sometimes called the "post-genitive" or "of followed by a possessive case or an absolute possessive pronoun" (from the Oxford English Dictionary, which likes to show off). The double possessive has been around since the fifteenth century, and is widely accepted. It's extremely helpful, for instance, in distinguishing between "a picture of my father" (in which we see the old man) and "a picture of my father's" (which he owns). Native speakers will note how much more natural it is to say "He's a fan of hers" than "he's a fan of her."
Generally, what follows the "of" in a double possessive will be definite and human, not otherwise, so we would say "a friend of my uncle's" but not "a friend of the museum's [museum, instead]." What precedes the "of" is usually indefinite (a friend, not the best friend), unless it's preceded by the demonstratives this or that, as in "this friend of my father's."
0 comments