Questions about 's

The Second Moon · Oct 22, 2020

I have a question about 's that is probably super basic grammar, but here I go.

How should this sentence be? I've bolded the part of interest.

1) Holly licked her canned breakfast off her whiskers, glancing at her brother, Leif’s, bowl that was on the other side of the kitchen.

OR

2) Holly licked her canned breakfast off her whiskers, glancing at her brother's, Leif, bowl that was on the other side of the kitchen.

OR

3) Holly licked her canned breakfast off her whiskers, glancing at her brother's, Leif’s, bowl that was on the other side of the kitchen.

I think it should be 1 but my gut feeling may be wrong. Thanks for any help you can give.

lizmonster · Oct 22, 2020

The problem is less the apostrophe than the comma.

"brother Leif's" is what you want here.

(And now I'll wait patiently for the grammar gurus to tell me I'm wrong.

)

Maryn · Oct 22, 2020

I would do that, if you were wrong, but you are not. She has only one brother of that name, so the comma is wrong.

The word brother identifies who Leif is, not who owns the bowl, so it should not have the possessive apostrophe.

Often native speakers who read a lot get this sort of thing right almost by instinct, but if anyone needs to look this up and write themselves a little how-to for this particular grammar issue, you want appositive, restrictive and non-restrictive. An appositive is the word that renames or further identifies or explains the noun or pronoun immediately before it. The restrictive aspect is whether it's necessary or not.

Maryn, who learned some stuff once

The Second Moon · Oct 22, 2020

Thank you, you two.

I'll correct it right away.

Questions about 's

The Second Moon

lizmonster

Possibly A Mermaid Queen

Maryn

Baaa!

The Second Moon