I gave a quick answer to part of this question which had not been covered by previous answers, trying to clarify the reason you would say time of decoding but not decoding’s time. I said it was ’s usually indicates possession, but of course there were several counterexamples that would have occurred to me after a moment’s consideration, and these where helpfully supplied:
- Britain’s climate
- two days’ time
- a day’s work
- the sun’s rays
I am still of a mind to say that possession of some sort is what allows the ’s. Even though the sun does not have title to its rays, they do belong to the sun. Now, at the risk of duplicating the original question and/or being pigheaded, I am curious as to why time of decoding but not decoding’s time is correct, if not for the reason I gave.
Answer
In The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, the late Burchfield offered a guide to the use of possessive s and of with inanimate nouns. It is the most comprehensive and well founded stylistic advice I could find on the subject. He had worked on the Oxford English Dictionary and knew a lot about language and style. A summary:
A noun that is possessive or preceded by of modifies another noun: in my mother's bed / the bed of my mother, bed is the head noun, modified by my mother's / of my mother. Usually, inanimate modifier nouns should be preceded by "of"; but there are many possible exceptions, some of which are given here.
An important exception is the so called thematic genitive: if a noun has gained strong topical value, because it is central in a discussion or description, it may get the possessive s.
- That is a beautiful teapot. And those teacups must be Meissen. Notice the teapot's ornate lid and slender figure.
Nouns defining a specific quantity of time or space, as used in many semi-fixed expressions, may get the possessive s.
A day's work
A hair's breadth
Words modifying the word sake.
- For heaven's sake
Words modifying the word edge.
- The cliff's edge
Words for a ship or boat (and probably other vehicles; these could be classified as thematic genitives, or as cases of personification: see 1 and 7, and compare the use of she for vessels).
The ship's crew
The plane's left wing
The train's front car
Other fixed expressions, usually monosyllabic nouns.
Out of harm's way
The sun's rays
A personified inanimate noun; i.e. whenever a thing is invested with a will or the ability to act (this exception is an addition of my own). This is related to the use of she for certain countries and vehicles.
Britain's might
Fear's claws
The pronoun its is by definition reserved for inanimate objects and hence universally possible. The use of whose with inanimate objects appears to be much less restricted than the possessive s, perhaps because relative clauses always express elaboration on a central theme (thematic genitive). This is not surprising, since the essence of a pronoun is that it refers to existing information, i.e. it is highly topical.
The relevant passages from Burchfield:
For inanimate nouns, and particularly for such nouns consisting of more than one syllable, the of-construction is customary (e.g. the roof of the church, not the church's roof: the resolution of the problem, not the problem's resolution).
...
There is general agreement that the non-personal genitive is frequently used with nouns of time (e.g. the day's routine, an hour's drive) and space (e.g. the journey's end, a stone's throw, at arm's length). It is also often used before sake (e.g. for pity's sake, for old times' sake), and in a number of fixed expressions (e.g. at death's door, out of harm's way, in his mind's eye). Jespersen noted the prevalence of 's genitives before the word edge (the cliff's edge, the water's edge, the pavement's edge, etc.). He also noted that ship, boat, and vessel tend to turn up with an 's genitive when we might expect of (the ship's provisions, the boat's gangway, etc.).
In 1988 Noel Osselton demonstrated that the somewhat unexpected types the soil's productivity and the painting's disappearance (as well as others) represent a legitimate class of what he called thematic genitives. When a noun that cannot 'possess' is of central interest in a particular context, it tends to acquire the power to 'possess', and is therefore expressed as an 's genitive.
One major genitival area remains virtually untransformable into 's genitives. Only the of-construction is appropriate for partitive genitives: e.g. a glass of water cannot be re-expressed as a water's glass, and try converting a dose of salts.
I tested these rules against my files and found them largely in accord with my own evidence. The great majority of 's genitives still occur with
animate nouns. ... It does seem from the evidence available to me that the 's genitive for inanimate nouns is commoner now than it was a century ago[.]
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