's vs Of-Phrase
Choose the more natural possessive form: 's for people, animals, and organisations; of-phrase or compound nouns for inanimate objects and their parts — 12 exercises.
's vs Of-Phrase: Choosing the Natural Possessive
English has two main possessive structures — the Saxon genitive ('s) and the of-phrase — and native speakers do not use them interchangeably. The choice is governed by a principle linguists call the animacy hierarchy: nouns higher on the scale (people, animals, organisations) strongly prefer 's; nouns lower on the scale (inanimate objects) prefer the of-phrase or a compound noun. Corpus data from the British National Corpus confirms that over 85% of 's genitives in written English have a human or institutional possessor, while physical parts of inanimate objects appear almost exclusively with of-phrases or compound nouns.
Use 's For
- People: the director's office, my boss's desk, the manager's decision
- Animals: the dog's lead, the cat's bowl
- Organisations and institutions: the company's strategy, the government's policy, the team's captain
- Geographical and global entities (set idiom): the world's economy, the city's population
Use Of-Phrase or Compound Noun For
- Parts of objects: the roof of the house (not the house's roof), the beginning of the film
- Physical features of landscapes: the top of the mountain, the colour of the sky, the banks of the river
- Object components — compound noun is often best: table leg, car door handle, window frame
the legs of the table / the table legs (object part — of or compound)
the colour of the sky (natural phenomenon — of-phrase only)
Common Mistakes
✗ I can't find the car's door handle. → ✓ I can't find the car door handle.
✗ The beginning of the director agreed. → ✓ The director's decision was final.