(Blodgett and Schneider, 2018) detail the application of this scheme to English possessive constructions: the so-called s-genitive, as in #001, and of-genitive, as in #003:

• the Smith family's/their house (Possessor) 001

• the tea's/its price (Gestalt) 002

• the house of the Smith family (Possessor) 003

• the price of the tea (Gestalt) 004

Note that the s-genitive is realized with case marking (clitic 's or possessive pronoun¹) rather than a preposition, and the case-marked NP in the s-genitive alternates with the object of the preposition in the of-genitive. (This may feel unintuitive: annotators looking at the s-genitive construction are often tempted to focus on the role occupied by the head noun rather than the case-marked noun.)

The s-genitive and of-genitive are particularly associated with Possessor (which applies to a canonical form of possession) and the more general category Gestalt; both supersenses are illustrated above #001, #003. In addition, both genitive constructions can mark participant roles and other kinds of relations, including Whole and SocialRel relations. When the s-genitive is used, the function is always either Gestalt (most cases) or Possessor (when the possession is sufficiently canonical). While overlapping in scene roles with the s-genitive, of is considered compatible with some additional functions, including Whole, Source, and Theme; thus of-genitives with such roles do not need to be construed as Gestalt or Possessor:

• SocialRel↝Gestalt:

  • the grandfather of Lord Voldemort 005

  • Lord Voldemort's/his grandfather 006

• the hood of the car (Whole) 007

• the nose of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (Whole) 008

• the car's/its hood (Whole↝Gestalt) 009

• He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's/his nose (Whole↝Gestalt) 010

• the arrival of the queen (Theme) 011

• the queen's/her arrival (Theme↝Gestalt) 012

• Shakespeare's/his works (Originator↝Gestalt) 013

• These are children's clothes.² [clothes intended for use and possession by children] (Beneficiary↝Possessor) 014

The literature on the genitive alternation examines the factors that condition the choice of construction; important factors include the length and animacy of the possessed NP. In addition, of participates in certain constructions that are not really possessives—e.g. this sort of sweater (Species).

Some difficult cases are clarified below.

Person in relation to a place or travel#

In relation to an act of travel, the person is treated as a (possibly non-volitional) participant in a motion event. Otherwise, a person in relation to an associated place is Gestalt.

• my destination/journey/travels (Theme↝Gestalt) 015

• my hometown/birthplace (Gestalt) 016

Idioms#

Certain idioms require an s-genitive argument that does not participate in any transparent semantic relationship; for these, `$ is used (`$).