(1) Do you know any friends of hers?
(2) Do you know those friends of hers?
(3) Do you know a friend of hers?
Both in (1) and (2), ‘hers’ seems to be ‘her friends.’ But in (3), is it ‘her friend’ or ‘her friends’? If ‘of hers’ has a meaning of ‘among the set of her friends,’ it would be the latter. While if it has a meaning of ‘that is her friend’, it would be the former. But this so called double genitive (CGEL,p.46, fn. 63) makes me wondered.
Best Answer
Nothing to wonder there!
Likewise...
Hers -pronoun's possession.
The sentence reads a friend of... and is singular. Hers there is as defined above.
Good points to note are CopperKettle's and Oerkelens'.