Description

In English, the grammatical form that commonly indicates possession is also used to indicate a variety of relationships between people and objects or people and other people. In English, that grammatical relationship is shown by using the word “of,” by using an apostrophe and the letter “s”, or by using a possessive pronoun. The following examples are different ways to indicate that my grandfather owns a house.

• the house of my grandfather
• my grandfather ’s house
• his house

Possession is used in Hebrew, Greek, and English for a variety of situations. Here are a few common situations that it is used for.

• Ownership — Someone owns something.
• The clothes of me - my clothes — The clothes that I own
• Social Relationship — Someone has some kind of social relationship with another.
• The mother of John — John's mother - the woman who gave birth to John, or the woman who cared for John
• A teacher of Israel - Israel's teacher — a person who teaches Israel
• Association — A particular thing is associated with a particular person, place, or thing.
• The sickness of David - David’s sickness — the sickness that David is experiencing
• the fear of the Lord — the fear that is appropriate for a human being to have when relating to the Lord
• Contents — Something has something in it.
• a bag of clothes — a bag that has clothes in it, or a bag that is full of clothes
• Part and whole: One thing is part of another.
• my head — the head that is part of my body
• the roof of a house — the roof that is part of a house

In some languages there is a special form of possession, termed inalienable possession. This form of possession is used for things that cannot be removed from you, as opposed to things you could lose. In the examples above, my head and my mother are examples of inalienable possession (at least in some languages), while my clothes or my teacher would be alienably possessed. What may be considered alienable vs. inalienable may differ by language. In languages that mark the difference, the expression of inalienable possession and alienable possession will be different.