I know we have the "'S" genitive and the "X of Y" but I don't exactly understand the rules of using these even as a native English speaker and I'm unsure if English makes other distinctions between animate and inanimate nouns (I would assume He/She/they/it but that isn't always completely clearly definied either) as well as defining what exactly animate and inanimate mean (alive,moving,conscious?)

And how does animacy work in other langauges that you know of (such as French, German, Japanese etc.)