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I would like to know the difference between these sentences:

I have never seen any of his father's cars (I think it's correct).
I have never seen any cars of his father (I think it's wrong).

In my opinion this is definitely incorrect.

I have never seen his father's any cars.

What is the commonest way to write the sentence? What's better? An apostrophe to show the possession or a preposition?

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I have never seen any of his father's cars

This is correct. This is the one that any native speaker would use.

I have never seen any cars of his father

This is wrong, however "I have never seen any of the cars of his father" is, as far as I am aware, grammatically correct. But please never write this, it sounds incredibly awkward and no native speaker would speak or write this way unless they were intentionally trying to sound like a Norse god or something.

I have never seen his father's any cars.

This is completely wrong, I couldn't even understand it without seeing the other two sentences.

In general, we use an apostrophe for possession. There are, however, times when a preposition is used (particularly when trying to sound important). Things like titles (The Lord of the Rings rather than The Rings' Lord) or announcements (Will the owner of the blue car outside please move their vehicle) are places that you might use a preposition.

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  • Thanks. As far as I know, we can't say "I have never seen any of John's cars", am I right? Do you think "I have never seen any of the cars of John" is a correct sentence?
    – Fire and Ice
    Commented Jul 11, 2018 at 16:55
  • No, "I have never seen any of John's cars" is perfectly fine. "I have never seen any of the cars of John" sounds, like I said above, artificially 'old-timey'.
    – Omegastick
    Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 1:03
  • Thank you. I actually knew it but I just got confused. I have one more question. "My son took my money without any consent of mine" sounds correct to me. What do you think about this sentence? I searched on Google and it seems like it is not wrong to say "of mine." here.
    – Fire and Ice
    Commented Jul 14, 2018 at 16:45

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