What is the possessive form of blocked when used as a verb. For example:
Remove the friend I blocked’s material.
-
2What you have is fine — just like the Queen of England’s hat. The clitic applies to the entire noun phrase, not to the head noun.– tchrist ♦Aug 24, 2015 at 21:23
-
4It's technically OK but sounds sucky. School of Rock has the right idea.– Hot LicksAug 24, 2015 at 21:30
-
2In case the crux of tchrist’s point was not clear: blocked is the past tense of the verb block in your sentence here, and verbal forms do not have possessive forms. Possession (also called the genitive) is a notion that does not apply to verbs, only to nominal elements (basically nouns and adjectives, but in English most particularly noun phrases). The possessive in your sentence does not apply to blocked, but to the entire noun phrase the friend I blocked.– Janus Bahs JacquetAug 24, 2015 at 21:49
-
The terms 'grammatical' and 'fine' seem not to overlap precisely.– Edwin AshworthAug 24, 2015 at 22:06
-
Only a noun can have a genitive-s. You can't add a genitive-s to verbs or other word classes.– rogermueAug 25, 2015 at 5:32
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
Write, "Remove the material of the friend I blocked."
-
1This answer doesn't actually address OP's question. It's just (related) writing advice, which would have been better posted as a comment. Aug 24, 2015 at 22:42
There is a stylistic problem, as the reader needs to recognize instantly that you are using 'friend-I-blocked' as a phrase. It's not strictly comparable to 'Queen of England', where there is a noun at the beginning and end of the phrase and where the phrase is in any case well established.
