How to Use the Partitive Genitive Case in Latin

How to Use the Partitive Genitive Case in Latin The  genitive case  is most familiar to English speakers as the case in which nouns, pronouns and adjective  express possession, says the clear-thinking  Classics Department  at the Ohio State University. In Latin, it is used to indicate relationships that are most frequently and easily translated into English by the preposition of: love of god, the driver of the bus, the state of the union, the son of God. In all these instances, the prepositional phrase modifies a noun; that is, the prepositional phrase acts like an adjective: love of God equals Gods love equals divine love. Genitive Genetic Relationship The last example shows the genetic relationship that gives the genitive case its name. Linguists who have studied this case have concluded that it is a convenient way of indicating relationships between nouns, or, put in more grammatical terms, the genitive case turns any noun into an adjective. There are several categories of the genitive, depending mainly on their function. The partitive genitive is one of these categories. Partitive Genitive: How It Works The partitive genitive case, or the genitive of the whole, shows the relationship of a part to the whole of which it is part. It starts with a quantity, such as a numeral, nothing (nihil), something (aliquid), enough (satis) and the like.  This quantity is part of a whole, which is expressed by a noun in the genitive case. The simplest example is  pars civitatis   part of the state. Here, of course, the state (civitas) is the whole, and this party is the part (pars). This [is] a useful reminder that the English expression all of the state is  not  partitive, since all is not a part; consequently, you cannot use the genitive in Latin here, only an adjective:  omnis civitas, says OSU. If you have a part of something, the thing  thats the whole is in the genitive case. The fractional part can be a pronoun, adjective, noun or numeral designating quantity, with a noun or pronoun showing the whole to which the some (or many, etc.) belongs. Most of the following examples show the part in the nominative case. The whole is in the genitive since it signifies of the whole. The English translation may or may not have a word like of marking the genitive case. Partitive Genitive: Examples satis temporis   enough of time or enough time.nihil clamoris   none of the shouting or no shoutingnihil strepitus   none of the noise or no noisetertia pars solis   the third part of the sunquorum primus ego  sum   of whom I am chiefquinque millia hominum   five thousand [of the] menprimus omnium   first of all (with omnium in the genitive plural)quis mortalium   who of mortals (with mortalium in the genitive plural)nihil odii   nothing of hatred (with odii in the genitive singular)tantum laboris   so much work (with laboris in the genitive singular) vs. tantus labor so great a labor which has no genitive and therefore is not the partitive genitivequantum voluptatis   how much delight (with voluptatis in the genitive singular)