Swedish correspondences to different meanings of the english "of"-genitive

Abstract

The English of-genitive is interesting because of its diversity in meanings, and in relation to Swedish, since the Swedish language does not have an equivalent. In this essay it is investigated, by use of four source texts (two English and two Swedish) and their translations, what Swedish correspondences there are to the of-genitive. The of-genitive is divided into seven categories of meaning, and it is investigated whether there is a correlation between the English genitive meaning and its Swedish correspondent forms. The results show that the main Swedish correspondences are s-genitives and prepositional phrases, and imply that there is something of a correlation between genitive meanings and Swedish correspondences; genitives of attribute, subjective genitives, possessive genitives and genitives of measure correspond to a great extent to Swedish s-genitives, whereas objective genitives and genitives of origin correspond greatly to Swedish prepositional phrases.