Monday, October 3, 2016

possessives - double genitive: a friend of hers



(1) Do you know any friends of hers?
(2) Do you know those friends of hers?
(3) Do you know a friend of hers?



Both in (1) and (2), ‘hers’ seems to be ‘her friends.’ But in (3), is it ‘her friend’ or ‘her friends’? If ‘of hers’ has a meaning of ‘among the set of her friends,’ it would be the latter. While if it has a meaning of ‘that is her friend’, it would be the former. But this so called double genitive (CGEL,p.46, fn. 63) makes me wondered.



Answer




Nothing to wonder there!



This is my friend
That is yours, and
Here is hers.



Likewise...



Friend of mine
Friend of yours, and

Friend of hers



Hers -pronoun's possession.



Do you know a friend of hers ~ Yes, I know a friend of hers (fit in the above example).



The sentence reads a friend of... and is singular. Hers there is as defined above.


Good points to note are CopperKettle's and Oerkelens'.


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