NOUN + ‘s (possession) – English Grammar Profiler
Noun + ‘s is a common way to form possessive nouns in English.
For example, “How can this be God’s plan for me?”, 's is added to the proper noun “God” to indicate possession. This means that the plan belongs to God. The entire sentence expresses a question about how this could possibly be the plan that God has for the speaker.
In the sentence “He’s the team’s best player”, there are two instances of 's and each has a different function:
- He’s: Here,
'sis a contraction of “is”. So, “He’s” is short for “He is”. - team’s: In this case,
'sis added to indicate possession. It shows that the best player belongs to the team. So, “team’s best player” means “the best player of the team”.
In iWeb corpus, a search for _N 's_GE is producing errors, so here we just did _N 's which means it might not be the genetive… Note some of these are not singular…
1 WORLD’S 549927
2 COMPANY’S 518978
PELIC STUDENT:
As for a businessman like a CEO,
a high-class car might be needed
because the car could express their or their company‘s trust.
Korean, Male, level 4, writing class
*This example gets hidden under other grammar.
3 YEAR’S 464891 4 WOMEN’S 454301 5 CHILDREN’S 373984
6 GOD’S 324851
playphrase.me
oh for god’s sake(154) for god’s sake don’t(38) oh for god’s sakes(30) for god’s sake man(24)
god’s plan (58)
Sarah, how can this be God‘s plan for me?
listen
god’s love(43) in god’s hands(40) one of god’s(35) it’s god’s will(27) god’s truth(26)
god’s gift to (25)
how in god’s name(22)
7 PEOPLE’S 281880 8 CITY’S 276293 9 MEN’S 263092 10 CHILD’S 237117 11 COUNTRY’S 213722 12 TRUMP’S 189898
13 AMERICA’S 188782
You have been chosen to become members of America’s most secret society.
listen
14 NATION’S 180046 15 STATE’S 179299 16 MAN’S 173795 17 PERSON’S 173684 18 CANADA’S 156771 19 GOVERNMENT’S 155459 20 MASTER’S 151495
21 TEAM’S 151206
He‘s the team‘s star player.
listen
22 WEEK’S 138378 23 AUSTRALIA’S 137299 24 FATHER’S 136426 25 MOTHER’S 136333 26 STUDENT’S 132058 27 BACHELOR’S 131405 28 UNIVERSITY’S 116256 29 DRIVER’S 113202 30 SCHOOL’S 112171
31 KING’S 109141
32 PATIENT’S 103226 33 USER’S 102844 34 FAMILY’S 100471 35 WOMAN’S 95078 36 EARTH’S 93773 37 JOHN’S 93690 38 GROUP’S 92806 39 UK’S 88968 40 CHINA’S 88453 41 SHERIFF’S 88100 42 NIGHT’S 85587 43 BODY’S 81326 44 GAME’S 80666 45 BRITAIN’S 80138 46 CLIENT’S 78536
47 CUSTOMER’S 77878
48 APPLE’S 77060
49 PRESIDENT’S 74869
With all due respect, sir, our president‘s patience is wearing thin.
The Last Samurai
50 ORGANIZATION’S 74723 51 ALZHEIMER’S 69953 52 OBAMA’S 67900 53 LONDON’S 67826
54 CLUB’S 66878
55 BABY’S 66427 56 MARY’S 66382 57 DAY’S 64651 58 IRELAND’S 63993 59 GOOGLE’S 63631 60 PARTY’S 62788
61 QUEEN’S 62575
62 INDIVIDUAL’S 61363
63 SON’S 60588
64 DEPARTMENT’S 60080
I‘ve been (I was) a captain of my department’s basketball team
when I studied in college, and I’ve led my team to win several games.
Chinese, Male, level 4, grammar class
*This example gets hidden under other grammar. Also, the present perfect feels awkward with the past clause.
65 FIRM ‘S 58746 66 DOG ‘S 58350 67 COUNCIL ‘S 58235 68 LIFE ‘S 57377 69 FRIEND ‘S 57332 70 PLAYER ‘S 57211 71 MONTH ‘S 56446 72 PAUL ‘S 55593 73 BAND ‘S 55395 74 OWNER ‘S 55235 75 DOCTOR ‘S 55177 76 INDUSTRY ‘S 55039 77 SHOW ‘S 54376
78 VALENTINE ‘S 53727
79 COLLEGE’S 53616
Korean, Female, level 4, writing class
If the college’s tuition is very expensive, and the students can’t pay, they can’t go to that college.
80 EUROPE ‘S 52311 81 BANK ‘S 52305 82 MANUFACTURER ‘S 51447 83 SATURDAY ‘S 51415 84 REGION ‘S 50912 85 EMPLOYEE ‘S 50860 86 COURT ‘S 50343 87 CHRIST ‘S 50257 88 HUSBAND ‘S 50174 89 WIFE ‘S 49547 90 FILM ‘S 48708 91 CAR ‘S 48351 92 MCDONALD ‘S 48018 93 SUNDAY ‘S 47582 94 DAUGHTER ‘S 47361 95 LORD ‘S 47232 96 MICROSOFT ‘S 46983 97 AGENCY ‘S 44736 98 SEASON ‘S 44717 99 COUNTY ‘S 44156
100 AUTHOR ‘S 44080
A2 vocabulary:
(club|college|company|customer|department|god|king|queen|team)’s
*there are over 140 hits in PELIC for these.