[Grammar] Three days' trip

[teechar]

That construction sounds fine to me. I (a native speaker) use it occasionally,

Perhaps it's not regionality but age. I wonder if that usage may be getting a bit dated. That grammar text that you've cited is almost a century old.

 

[Waawe]

I found an instance in Michael Swan's Practical English Usage, too. Published 2017.

 

[jutfrank]

I found an instance in Michael Swan's Practical English Usage, too. Published 2017. View attachment 3860

What do you mean, Waawe? What is that supposed to be an example of?

 

[Waawe]

Isn't twenty minutes' delay the same structure as two weeks' trip? That is, the measurement of time using the 's structure?

 

[jutfrank]

If you won't accept Curme's endorsement, let me know and I shall find other grammarians who also endorse it, as well as fine examples in literature.

As I said, I don't see it as correct. I don't really see how a grammarian is entitled to endorse anything. Aren't they just meant to make observations of usage?

I don't particularly mean to push an argument that I'm not greatly interested in, but I am happy to discuss this further if you wish. Plus, I always greatly enjoy your excellent examples from works of literature.

 

[jutfrank]

Isn't twenty minutes' delay the same structure as two weeks' trip? That is, the measurement of time using the 's structure?

I think you've gotten confused. Yes, twenty minutes' delay is the same structure as two weeks' trip, but the former is correct and the latter isn't, in my opinion, for the reasons I gave in my lengthy explanation. However, you've obviously noted that some people disagree with my opinion.

What I'd consider to be incorrect usage is if there were an indefinite article in a twenty minutes' delay.

 

[Phaedrus]

Perhaps it's not regionality but age. I wonder if that usage may be getting a bit dated. That grammar text that you've cited is almost a century old.

Curme's grammar (1933) is pretty old, but Quirk et al. (1985), DeClerck (1991), and Huddleston & Pullum (2002) are not. All of them endorse it.

If the moderators of Using English consult grammar books, the phrase to search for is "genitive of measure."

"Note that the function of the genitive is not determinative in two uses: descriptive genitive, eg: a girl's school . . . and genitive of measure, eg: an hour's delay."

- A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, p. 1276. Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik. Longman, 1985.

"The genitive can be found with nouns denoting duration, value or distance (= the so-called genitive of measure). There is no alternative construction with of. . . . When such a phrase begins with the indefinite article, the latter is a determiner to the noun in the genitive, not to the noun head. Since this is not possible when the genitive is a plural, phrases consisting of a followed by a plural genitive phrase and a noun head (e.g. a five minutes' talk) are not normally used. (They are occasionally found but not not generally considered 'correct'.) Instead we normally use the construction in which the noun is uninflected."

Declerck, Renaat. A Comprehensive Descriptive Grammar of English, p. 253. Kaitakusha, 1991.

I disagree with Declerk's analysis of the indefinite article as being a determiner to the noun phrase in the genitive. I understand it as a determiner to the head noun in the possessive construction (the possessee). That's why native speakers understand a three-days' journey as a journey of three days, not as [strike]journey of a three days[/strike].

(b) Measure genitives

[46] [an hour's delay], [one week's holiday] this [hour's delay], a second [one hour's delay], the [one dollar's worth of chocolates] he bought

Genitives of this kind measure just temporal length or value: we do not have, for example, *They had [a mile's walk] (spatial distance) or *We bought [a pound's carrots] (weight)."

- The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, p. 470 (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002)

 

[GoesStation]

Like GoesStation, I don't agree that a three days' trip or a five minutes' talk or a three hours' delay are correct. By what criteria are you judging these to be so?

Curme's book from 1933. :-?

 

[Phaedrus]

Curme's book from 1933. :-?

Somebody seems not to have seen post #27.

 

[jutfrank]

I disagree with Declerk's analysis of the indefinite article as being a determiner to the noun phrase in the genitive. I understand it as a determiner to the head noun in the possessive construction (the possessee).

I see exactly where we're disagreeing now. I completely agree with Declerk's analysis. I find it very hard to parse it your way. It doesn't make sense to me that way.

That's why native speakers understand a three-days' journey as a journey of three days, not as [strike]journey of a three days[/strike].

Sure. But to many I'm equally sure, such a construction sounds conspicuously ungrammatical.

 

[Waawe]

No. You can say a day's journey or a one-day trip. You can't combine the constructions.

Does the journey belong to the day? A day's journey is fine? I thought it was the expression of measurement of time, not the expression of possession. Need to give it a break, meditate, then check some alternative resources and may come back later. It is obviously not easy to describe the nuances to a non-native. Feeling a bit thick at the moment. Thank you for your time and effort. Might come back in a few weeks' time. Cheers.

 

[jutfrank]

It occurs to me that a simple test that could locate the parsing of an indefinite article as either determining the head of the possessive construction or determining the head of the whole noun phrase would be this:

? I took a one week's holiday.

If you take the article to be determining holiday, then I assume the sentence is grammatical. Could you confirm whether I have that right, Phaedrus?

 

[Phaedrus]

I find it very hard to parse it your way. It doesn't make sense to me that way.

Nevertheless, it makes perfect sense to many other native speakers. Surely you don't have any trouble at all parsing the numeral five in the phrase five lady's gloves (He bought five lady's gloves) as applying to gloves, not lady's. What keeps you from parsing a three day's journey analogously?

 

[GoesStation]

I found an instance in Michael Swan's Practical English Usage, too. Published 2017. View attachment 3860

I'm afraid you didn't. Swan's example doesn't include the indefinite article.

 

[jutfrank]

Nevertheless, it makes perfect sense to many other native speakers.

Right. I wonder what the split is, though.

Surely you don't have any trouble at all parsing the numeral five in the phrase five lady's gloves (He bought five lady's gloves) as applying to gloves, not lady's.

No. :-D

What keeps you from parsing a three day's journey analogously?

But couldn't I ask you what keeps you from counting a lady's gloves as incorrect?

I'd also like to know whether you consider I had one weeks' holiday as ungrammatical, since there ought to be an indefinite article determining the head of the singular countable noun holiday (i.e., I had a one weeks' holiday.)

 

[GoesStation]

Curme's book from 1933. :-?

I hadn't when I posted the above. Now that I have, I see that Quirk et al. provide "an hour's delay" as an example. Unlike a two hour's delay, that works fine for me. I have no idea why. :-(

Declerck and Renaat recommend against the usage after noting that it exists.

Cambridge seems to be fine with it.

 

[jutfrank]

I see that Quirk et al. provide "an hour's delay" as an example. Unlike a two hour's delay, that works fine for me. I have no idea why. :-(

This is because of the way you're parsing the construction—the same way as me. In our minds the word an goes with hour so an hour is correct whereas an hours is not. We're seeing that as an agreement error. (By the way, you mean two hours' with the apostrophe after the 's'.)

Other people (including our esteemed fellow member Phaedrus) see an as going with delay, which probably seems as strange to you as it does to me.

 

[Phaedrus]

Plus, I always greatly enjoy your excellent examples from works of literature.

Finding examples of the highest quality will take some time. To begin, here is an example from Charles Dickens's preface to David Copperfield:

"It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years' imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever."

- Charles Dickens

 

[GoesStation]

Dickens wrote that a hundred and seventy years ago. It's not relevant to current usage.

 

[Phaedrus]

Dickens wrote that a hundred and seventy years ago. It's not relevant to current usage.

Dickens's usage was not ungrammatical, so it is, at the very least, relevant in that respect to current usage.