Why do we avoid sequential possession? For example, why don't we write 'My friend's wife's necklace was stolen' Instead we write, 'The necklace of my friend's wife was stolen. '
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We tend to avoid a complex embedding because it is a little bit awkward.– Mohd Zulkanien SarbiniCommented May 2, 2021 at 1:18
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@user178049: I thought that if we write 'my friend's wife's necklace', then going by the path of logic, 'necklace' is related to 'wife', 'wife' is related to 'my friend' by apostrophe. Then 'necklace' is directly related to 'my friend'. Like the simple logic, if A is related to B, B is related to C, then it implies that C is also related to A. But that's not certainly the case. The 'necklace' is not of my friend, but her wife's. Am I right?– AshutoshCommented May 2, 2021 at 1:31
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1 Answer
You can say "my friend's wife's necklace was stolen," at least in casual English. People will understand what you are saying, and I don't think anyone would think it was weird, except maybe an English professor or the Queen of England.
In written or formal English, you don't want to use this pattern, because it's imprecise. The precise phrase you want to use is my friend's wife -- not my friend's wife's. The latter phrase is a little confusing, and yes, a little awkward. I don't think there's much reason to try to analyze it more deeply than that.
