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 it 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???
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