Certainly in Modern Norwegian, the structure works:
Johan, hans far er Johannes. or
Johan sin far er Johannes. or
Johans far er Johannes. All mean the same:
" Johan's father is Johannes."
Sara
At 01:57 PM 1/26/2007, Linda DiDesidero wrote:
> Someone who has studied German linguistics can probably answer this
> better than I, but let me throw a factoid and question into the pot.
>
>In German, you can say:
>--Max dessen Vater (Max his father/ Max's father)
>--Helga deren Vater (Helga her father/ Helga's father)
>
>As I understand it, these are rather old fashioned constructions, but
>people still use them.
>
>It would make sense to think that "Mars his sword" derives from the same
>place. And Dallin's comment about the 'es' in Old English genitive would
>be consistent with 'dessen' for masculine in German. Does anyone know more?
>
>Linda
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [log in to unmask]
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 1:17 PM
>Subject: Re: his genitive
>
>Jan. 23, 2007
>
>Hi,
>
>I think that rather than either/or, we may have a case of two different
>currents feeding into our current apostrophe form for the genitive. In
>the Old English of over one thousand years ago, the genitive (possessive)
>singular suffix form for what is termed “the masculine a-stem nouns”
>(the largest noun class in their elaborate case language) was es. I have
>seen iit explained that our modern apostrophe plus “s” comes from that
>earlier case form (the “e” was dropped, and the apostrophe marks that
>deletion) . But I have also seen the explanation that you gave. Given
>that both forms “his” plus the noun that is possessed, and the earlier
>form “-es” inflected on the noun preceding the possessed noun, I think
>it is possible that both forms may have contributed to our current form.
>
>Dallin D. Oaks
>Brigham Young University
>
>
>----------
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jane Saral
>Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 8:49 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: his genitive
>
>A colleague has sent us the following query, and I thought I'd see what
>the experts of this body have to say on the matter:
>
>Folks, I was enmeshed in Shakespeare's sonnet #54 and pointed out that
>"Mars his sword" reminds us the possessive apostrophe is there to show
>letters have been omitted, whereupon one student said he understood that
>was an urban legend. "John's Mini Cooper" did not historically replace
>"John his Mini," he said. I love it when students teach the teacher, but
>this one is new to me. Anybody know the real scoop???
>
>Jane Saral
>The Westminster Schools
>Atlanta, GA
>[log in to unmask]
>
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