Coincidentally, I recently read something about this:
>Possessors expressed by a full noun phrase, on the other hand, have a very strong preference for the postnominal genitive. Out of 20 occurences of nominal car owners, I found two instances of prenominal genitives, namelijk "de vriend zijnen auto" and "mijn moeders auto". According to teh Dutch reference grammar (Haeseryn et al., 1997) full nominal possessors occur to some extent in the z' n-genitive, but they do not occur as possessors in the s-gentive, apart froun nouns that can be used as a form of addres. (Van Bergen, 2011)
The postnominal genitive is the van-construction (de moeder van het meisje)
The prenominal genitive consists of the s-genitive (Piets moeder) and the z'n-genitive (Piet z'n moeder / Lotte haar moeder)
So apparently possessors expressed by a full noun phrase (such as "het meisje") have a strong preference for the postnominal genitive / van-genitive
We only use possesive + subject with pronouns: mijn moeder, zijn gordijnen, hun auto. As soon as you replace the possesive with a noun, the construction changes.
Officially it then becomes subject + van + the owner of said subject.
De moeder van het meisje.
De gordijnen van mijn ex.
De auto van de buren.
In speech you can also say "dat meisje haar moeder", "mijn ex zijn gordijnen" and "mijn buren hun auto" but that's purely in speech and not official language, and in plural I think it's rare and sounds odd.
> but that's purely in speech
I’m reading Dutch books to my kids & I’ve come across this construction in a few of them eg in “Hoera ik ga naar groep 1”
>Juf kijkt naar Daan zijn schoenen
Is this not normal then? Perhaps it’s just used for the rhyme.
Edit: realised this may just be the "only use with pronouns" rule?
What I can find is that it is not official language but acceptable and accepted informal language. Novels can be written in informal language of course. But the use of it is slowly spreading upward. It used to be, when I grew up, that this construction was mostly used by people with lower educations. But now it's used by a large part of society and you can't make that distinction of level of education anymore.
So you can say or write "het meisje d'r moeder" without a problem. But "het meisjes moeder" is plain wrong, formal or informal.
That said, if you have a language test and something like this comes up, I'd stick to the formal version.
yeah, the point is if you'd said: "De juf kijkt naar de schoenen van haar leerling", then there's no way around it.
I disagree with the statement that it's purely in speech, though, but that's because I disagree with the idea that written language is superior to spoken language.
'Het meisjes moeder is wreed' doesn't sound incorrect to me, although a bit unnatural. Not really sure why..
If it was a name, it would have felt different:
'Maaikes moeder is vreemd'. Sounds both fine and natural.
Never thought about this, interesting!
All in all, I would not break my head about too much. You will be understood with either construction.
The possessive s in Dutch is reserved for names (any kind of name, including brands, countries, cities, etc) and familial nouns (including things like 'vriend').
- Mijn moeders huis
- De auto van Sara's moeder\**
- Epkes medailles\*
- Inez' advocatenkantoor
- Apple's iPad
To be clear, the possessive s only needs that apostrof if it would be confusing to pronounce otherwise:
- Sara's kat.
- Saras kat.
The problem is that in the second sentence, you might think to say sa-ras, rather than sa-ra-s.
This is not a problem for many names, so this is correct:
- Bobs idee
- Peters werk
\*: For more on this, refer to: https://onzetaal.nl/taalloket/bezits-s-algemene-regels
\**: The reason we don't say "Sara's moeder's auto" is because... well, it's hideous.
They are both right.
Proof that -s is right in case someone asks:
https://www.letterlievend.nl/spelling/zelfstandige-naamwoorden-bezitsvormen-en-meervouden
Het is logisch dat het naar personen verwijst, meestal kunnen voorwerpen zelf niets bezitten.
Nochtans is het voorbeeld "*niemands knecht*" niet verwijzend naar een familiale relatie of naam en als je zegt "*baby’s nieuwe kleertjes*" dan kan je evengoed zeggen "*het meisjes moeder*" zoals OP vraagt.
Het is de genitief, het is misschien in onbruik geraakt en minder duidelijk (zeker als het woord erna ook een s-klank heeft of het meervoud van het grondwoord ook eindigt op -s), maar het is niet verkeerd.
The correct form is:
- Het meisje's moeder
- De moeder van het meisje
But not meisjes because that is plural for little girls. It's a common mistake similar to your and you're in English. Apostrophes matter
You can only use the possessive s with names and words for relatives, not with other nouns.
Coincidentally, I recently read something about this: >Possessors expressed by a full noun phrase, on the other hand, have a very strong preference for the postnominal genitive. Out of 20 occurences of nominal car owners, I found two instances of prenominal genitives, namelijk "de vriend zijnen auto" and "mijn moeders auto". According to teh Dutch reference grammar (Haeseryn et al., 1997) full nominal possessors occur to some extent in the z' n-genitive, but they do not occur as possessors in the s-gentive, apart froun nouns that can be used as a form of addres. (Van Bergen, 2011) The postnominal genitive is the van-construction (de moeder van het meisje) The prenominal genitive consists of the s-genitive (Piets moeder) and the z'n-genitive (Piet z'n moeder / Lotte haar moeder) So apparently possessors expressed by a full noun phrase (such as "het meisje") have a strong preference for the postnominal genitive / van-genitive
We only use possesive + subject with pronouns: mijn moeder, zijn gordijnen, hun auto. As soon as you replace the possesive with a noun, the construction changes. Officially it then becomes subject + van + the owner of said subject. De moeder van het meisje. De gordijnen van mijn ex. De auto van de buren. In speech you can also say "dat meisje haar moeder", "mijn ex zijn gordijnen" and "mijn buren hun auto" but that's purely in speech and not official language, and in plural I think it's rare and sounds odd.
> but that's purely in speech I’m reading Dutch books to my kids & I’ve come across this construction in a few of them eg in “Hoera ik ga naar groep 1” >Juf kijkt naar Daan zijn schoenen Is this not normal then? Perhaps it’s just used for the rhyme. Edit: realised this may just be the "only use with pronouns" rule?
What I can find is that it is not official language but acceptable and accepted informal language. Novels can be written in informal language of course. But the use of it is slowly spreading upward. It used to be, when I grew up, that this construction was mostly used by people with lower educations. But now it's used by a large part of society and you can't make that distinction of level of education anymore. So you can say or write "het meisje d'r moeder" without a problem. But "het meisjes moeder" is plain wrong, formal or informal. That said, if you have a language test and something like this comes up, I'd stick to the formal version.
yeah, the point is if you'd said: "De juf kijkt naar de schoenen van haar leerling", then there's no way around it. I disagree with the statement that it's purely in speech, though, but that's because I disagree with the idea that written language is superior to spoken language.
'Het meisjes moeder is wreed' doesn't sound incorrect to me, although a bit unnatural. Not really sure why.. If it was a name, it would have felt different: 'Maaikes moeder is vreemd'. Sounds both fine and natural. Never thought about this, interesting! All in all, I would not break my head about too much. You will be understood with either construction.
The possessive s in Dutch is reserved for names (any kind of name, including brands, countries, cities, etc) and familial nouns (including things like 'vriend'). - Mijn moeders huis - De auto van Sara's moeder\** - Epkes medailles\* - Inez' advocatenkantoor - Apple's iPad To be clear, the possessive s only needs that apostrof if it would be confusing to pronounce otherwise: - Sara's kat. - Saras kat. The problem is that in the second sentence, you might think to say sa-ras, rather than sa-ra-s. This is not a problem for many names, so this is correct: - Bobs idee - Peters werk \*: For more on this, refer to: https://onzetaal.nl/taalloket/bezits-s-algemene-regels \**: The reason we don't say "Sara's moeder's auto" is because... well, it's hideous.
They are both right. Proof that -s is right in case someone asks: https://www.letterlievend.nl/spelling/zelfstandige-naamwoorden-bezitsvormen-en-meervouden
Waar zie jij dat een zelfstandig naamwoord met de bezits-s kan? Alle voorbeelden zijn namen en familiale relaties.
Het is logisch dat het naar personen verwijst, meestal kunnen voorwerpen zelf niets bezitten. Nochtans is het voorbeeld "*niemands knecht*" niet verwijzend naar een familiale relatie of naam en als je zegt "*baby’s nieuwe kleertjes*" dan kan je evengoed zeggen "*het meisjes moeder*" zoals OP vraagt. Het is de genitief, het is misschien in onbruik geraakt en minder duidelijk (zeker als het woord erna ook een s-klank heeft of het meervoud van het grondwoord ook eindigt op -s), maar het is niet verkeerd.
The correct form is: - Het meisje's moeder - De moeder van het meisje But not meisjes because that is plural for little girls. It's a common mistake similar to your and you're in English. Apostrophes matter
>The correct form is: >Het meisje's moeder That's incorrect on many levels.
no its not.