Why "Toy Story" and not "Toy's Story"?

It's like "Love Story." A story about Love, a story about toys.

If it belonged to the toys, it would actually be "Toys' Story". The plural -s and possessive -'s combine to become -s'. And we don't drop the possessive ending just because the next word starts with an S. English loves to use nouns as adjectives. Toy Story. Cat food. Kitchen rug. Bird house. Book shelf.

It's not that the story *belongs to* the toys, it's a story *about* toys. It's a toy story. EDIT: To put it in linguistic terms, the word "toy" is being used as an adjective to modify "story", not as a genitive (possessive).

It's not the story of a toy it's a story about toys ie a Toy Story. You don't say a Toy's store. Its a store of toys a toy store, not the store of a toy. Grocery Store. etc. Someone smarter will come in and say some fancy jargon about singular forms being used to denote the general "adjectiverbial supplemental yada yada", but i think i gave you the jist.

Noun adjunts. You can combine nouns - and the earlier one/s modify the later ones. For instance... "She is a biology teacher." It provides more specific information. What kind of teacher is she? A biology teacher.

It’s like if your kid asks you to tell/read a story and they don’t know the name of it, or there isn’t a name. Tell me the Toy Story! Tell me a mermaid story! Read me a Harry Potter story.

It's the question that has been confusing me as well. Now, your answers help me with clearing it. Thanks.

Someone else explained but, essentially, try thinking of it as '[a] Toy Story'. Perhaps that will help. It's a story about a toy or toys. If it were a specific toy's story, it would be 'Toy's Story'. If it were a specific group of toys' story, then it'd be 'Toys' Story' [A] Toy Story [The] Toy's Story (singular) [The] Toys' Story (plural)

This is just one example of ambiguous English compounding. For instance, a “stone wall” would be more accurately described as a compound despite the fact that the words are written separately. The base noun, “story” exists in an ambiguous case relationship with “toy” such that it needs to be interpreted as if it were a compound (specifically, a *karmadhāraya* compound). A “stone wall” is a “wall [(made) of] stones” and “Toy Story” is a “story [(told) about] toys”. Edit: Whoops! I realized after I posted that this was r/EnglishLearning. Sorry if I went too technical, but if it helps, I’m glad!

A Toy Story

"Toy" in this case is what we call a noun adjunct. It is a noun taking on the role of an adjective. It's not who the story belongs to, it's what kind of story it is.

It's a story about toys. Like love story is a story about love.

And here I thought the primary reason was because it’s a play on “Toy Store”.

It is a story about toys, not written or told by them. Good question though.

Because it sounds better.

Even if it *were* possessive, it'd be **Toys'**, because they're plural.

Because it is a play on the phrase "Toy Store" not "Toy's Store".

The story does not belong to the toys,  it is about the toys, the word toy is descriptive the same way you would say “red car” or “fake story”

if the story belonged to the toys, it'd be *toys' story* not *toy's story*.