Say there is a group which includes several members, and some noun is genitive to one of those members; how would the apostrophe be used? Say:
(1) "I borrowed one of the group's members' book"; (2) "I borrowed one of the group's member's book"; or (3) is the sentence grammatically unstructurable in such a form in the first place?
I tend to say (1), as the group includes more than a single member and therefore the genitive suffix apostrophe-s is actually applied to the subject of the clause, "one". Am I mistaken in this assumption?
Posts: 2978 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
So you're advocating a paraphrase? It's a legitimate option, and I'd normally tend to paraphrase if it comes to that need in order to avoid unneccessary mistakes; but if confronted with the grammatical conflict of the first two options, what's to be done?
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posted
I can't answer in strict grammatical terms, being too deficient in my book learnin', so hopefully someone else will come around and answer. However, it seems to me that stringing a couple of possessive "'s" usages together like that is too tortured, and might not have a correct form. I can't find an equivalent example in the several web pages I just read about genitive case.
I'd much prefer even "I borrowed a member of the group's book." But I'm speaking only about what makes a clear, easy to understand sentence and not really about grammatical correctness. I don't actually know which of the 3 options you originally listed is correct.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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The sentences are confusing. The phrase "one of" can refer either to the member of the group, or to the book. In #1, the "one of" refers to the person - "one of the group's members." In #2, the "one of" refers to the book. In which case, it should be, "I borrowed one of the group's member's books."
In writing, "I borrowed a group member's book" would seem best to me. In speaking, it won't matter where you put your apostrophe - no one will know.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Another unambiguous rendering would probably be something like "I borrowed a book from one of the group's members."
I am having a terrible time finding an applicable rule for the original question. I did find a definition that said:
quote:double possessive
1. (grammar) Two or more consecutive nouns in the possessive case, as with "St. Paul's Cathedral's vergers"; discouraged on grounds of style.
Unfortunately this isn't much of an authoritative source, and it says that it is discouraged, but not by whom.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Hmm, I guess the issue is stylistic primarily. I'll probably have to take the Q up to a linguist or a philosopher. Thanks for the research, scifibum et al... :-)
Posts: 2978 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
In common usage, no one says "one of the group's members" but would rather say "one of the group members". "Group member", "Church Member", "Club Member", "Board Member" are all common usage. There is no need from the 's declination since it is not in common usage.
Hence, I would recommend
I borrowed one of the group members' books.
As a side note, "one of the group member's", definitely seems wrong since one would never say "one of the group member".
[ July 22, 2008, 05:54 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I generally try to avoid double possessives. There's always a way to rephrase it better.
"One of the group member's books" "A book from one of the group's members" "A book from one of the members of the group" etc.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I would rewrite the sentence like scifibum suggested. There is too much ambiguity no matter what you do with the apostrophes.
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