double genitive: a friend of hers

Question

(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.

How could the meaning of (3) imply multiple friends? The word friend there is in the singular. — CowperKettle, Sep 23 '14 at 08:23
Why would "among the set of her friends" imply a plural? "first among equals" is "among a set of equals", but it is certainly singular. One element from a set is still one element, however big the set is. — oerkelens, Sep 23 '14 at 08:36
Note that these are both possible: He is a friend of my dad's., He is a friend of my dad. — Damkerng T., Sep 23 '14 at 09:33

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 23 '14 at 08:46

Nothing to wonder there!

This is my friend
That is yours, and
Here is hers.

Likewise...

Friend of mine
Friend of yours, and
Friend of hers

Hers -pronoun's possession.

Do you know a friend of hers ~ Yes, I know a friend of hers (fit in the above example).

The sentence reads a friend of... and is singular. Hers there is as defined above.

Good points to note are CopperKettle's and Oerkelens'.

double genitive: a friend of hers

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