the genetive clitic

Travis   Saturday, March 19, 2005, 19:23 GMT
"Question 2 : if so, do you agree with what Travis mentioned ? – that <the room’s door> and <the house’s roof> would be acceptable only if both phrases were considered semantically more expanded than <the door of the room> and <the roof of the house> due to stylistic variation ?"

Well, greg, I didn't really say anything about acceptability of the use of the genitive clitic being limited in use in such a fashion, I just said that it can't be used in cases in which one wants to use a determiner or like on that which is being possessed (hence why one has to say "a friend of mine" if one wants to use "a" with "friend" here), and that in pretty much all other cases it's more a matter of style, and certain phrases and phrase forms being in more common usage than others, rather than being particularly hard and fast allowed or not allowed in specific cases at a grammatical level. Trying to actually specify a particular set of rules as to when the genitive clitic is or is not allowed, besides the above thing with determiners, would probably be rather difficult, it seems. It's like trying to figure out why certain prepositions are used with some things, and others with other things, even though there is no apparent semantic differences between their usage in the give cases, in English.
greg   Saturday, March 19, 2005, 20:48 GMT
Travis : sorry for the misinterpretation. However, I'm intrested in those 'rules' because they are called so in English grammars for foreigners and because it's worth trying, isn't it ? Or at least, it's worth considering.
Travis   Saturday, March 19, 2005, 20:58 GMT
That's what I meant about it being more a matter of style than anything, in that certain forms tend to get preferred or others, but other forms aren't exactly ungrammatical per se, but rather just sound somewhat weird overall; it's not absolute, but rather relative overall, with some forms just tending towards being preferred over others. For example, "the bathroom's door" to me is functionally equivalent to "the door of the bathroom", and is not ungrammatical per se, at least for me, but the latter, or the compound noun "the bathroom door" just tends to be preferred over it. It's similar to how in German one can say "die Tür des Badezimmers" or "die Tür von dem Badezimmer", and while they functionally are equivalent to each other, in most speech the latter, to my knowledge, would probably be preferred over the former.
greg   Saturday, March 19, 2005, 21:47 GMT
All right.

What do you think about <men of Rome> and <Rome's men> ?

Are the phrases semantically interchangeable ?

If so, are they equivalent to <Roman males> or <men from Rome> or, rather, to <men on the Roman side> or <men belonging to the Roman party> ?
american nic   Saturday, March 19, 2005, 21:51 GMT
Both sound like you're refering to them soldiers under a guy named Rome...in that case they are interchangable. However, if you are refering to men who are from the city of Rome, then only the first one makes sense.
Travis   Saturday, March 19, 2005, 22:19 GMT
I'd say that both are interchangeable equally if one is referring to soldiers from Rome (or under a guy named Rome, as nic said), however, I'd say that the former is preferable if one is referring to just any men who happen to be from Rome, but the latter is still allowable, even though I'd probably not use it myself under most circumstances.