HELP - Possesive form.
<<All very impressive.
But it's really entirely a matter of opinion. You've simply made up a rule for English here.
I can make up rules too>>
And you are guilty of doing the same in the thread "A concept of time" by applying a rule steadfastly. You insisted that the simple and progressive can never be interchanged but I showed otherwise. Twice you asked "If the meanings of the simple and progressive are interchangeable, why do these two verb forms exist then?", ignoring my point that this guideline isn't perfect. You had no retort to my examples and decided to conclude with your preconceived rule that "They mean different things in all cases.".
http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t494-105.htm
"Twice you asked 'If the meanings of the simple and progressive are interchangeable, why do these two verb forms exist then?'"
I'm still asking.
The shades of meaning between the two forms must be significant enough for them to have developed in the language in the first place. Otherwise, why would they exist? Why couldn't English just get along happily with one form like many other languages?
<<"Twice you asked 'If the meanings of the simple and progressive are interchangeable, why do these two verb forms exist then?'"
I'm still asking.>>
They're not normally interchangeable.
That was my message above.
The point is, sometimes they are interchangeable, and this can be shown by using conjunctions as I demonstrated.
>>"In constructions such as "the person and their spouse" only the latter noun needs to be inflected for the genitive to show mutual possession, eg, "the person and their spouse's house."<<
Well, of course - this is just because -"'s" in Modern English is a clitic rather than a case marking. You simply wouldn't be able to do what you describe were it a case marking, except if somehow some words had were unmarked for genitive case and some were marked for genitive case, as in, say, German; however, as there is no basis for such an idea at all in the case of English in the first place, one cannot try to invoke such here. I'm not "making up rules here", but rather it is that I understand the difference between a case marking and a clitic and you don't. Actually, I'm not making up rules at all, but actually doing the opposite, as I'm using the appropriate terms to describe this particular morphological phenomenon, which would be the term "clitic", whereas you insist on arbitrarily using the term "case" even though it is not actually applicable here at all.
"Try saying this:
"the cat's food"
Now say this:
"the cats' food"
Do they sound any different? "
No.
That's why in spoken English you will probably then go on to tell the person if there is one cat or more than one cat, if they don't already know.
But in written English, you don't need to do that, because the apostrophe does it for you, and it stops you from writing more words.
"'s is added only to names"
Well , in British English is true, but in the USA I hear a lot added to any kind of word or not added at all.
You hear here in the US "street name" with no 's at all.
I would say correct is your daughter's number.
Chamonix, care to elaborate? What do you mean by "you hear in the US 'street name' with no 's at all"?
At least here, yes, "'s" is used very often with any kind of noun phrase, and is in no fashion limited to use with names at all.
Guest,
Correct would be street's name
Oh I see; Chamonix means "the street-name" which is perfectly acceptable.
I agree with you Guest, but I don't believe it's very correct, just acceptable
Chamonix, this is how it's used universally all over the English-speaking world. Sorry, but you will rarely hear "street's name" in place of "street-name".
yes, I hear it in high society.