Learn English – Which one is right: “somebody’s else” or “somebody else’s”

phrase-usage

My gf (american) claims it's "somebody else's" while I tend to think "somebody's else" is right. What do you think?

Best Answer

In modern English, genitive 's is a clitic that attaches to an entire noun phrase, as in example 1 below.
It doesn't attach to an individual noun, as in example 2:

 1. [ The King of England ] 's pants
 2. *The King's of England pants　　　　(ungrammatical)

The postmodifier else can attach to an indefinite pronoun like somebody, as in example 3 below.
It can't attach to a genitive noun phrase like somebody's, as in example 4:

 3. [ somebody else ]
 4. *[ somebody ] 's else　　　　(ungrammatical)

Since somebody else is a complete noun phrase, 's can attach to it:

 5. [ somebody else ] 's

This is the correct choice.

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