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The genitive case denotes a possessive relation with another noun phrase in a clause. Formed:
1. – s
2. “zero” genitive (‘) plural nouns, with Greek names of more than 1 syllable (Achilles’ heel), for…sake (for old times’ sake)
3. With many names ending in (-z) where, in speech, zero is a variant of the regular (iz) genitive: Burns’ or Burns’s poems
4. In compound noun –s to the final component
The genitive case is used with:
1. personal names (Mary’s house)
2. personal nouns ( the little girl’s doll)
3. collective nouns ( the committee’s decision)
4. the names of higher animals (a cat’s tail)
5. geographic names (China’s population)
6. names of newspapers and institutional names (The Gardian’s editorial)
7. temporal or distance nouns (a day’s work)
8. nouns of special interest to human activity (science’s influence)
9. some inanimate nouns in set expressions (a stone’s throw away)