Hi folks -
 
The belief that the {'s} stands for his is mistaken, but has a very long
history, as is shown by the Shakespeare quote. The breakdown of the OE
case system resulted in the phonetic merger of {-as} (nominative &
accusative plural of masculine a-stems} and {-es} (genitive singular).
By Middle English, things were a bit messy, since there were a number of
competing ways of making a genitive (not all nouns in OE were masculine
a-stems, and the reflexes of the other declensions were there as
competition). The system we have now is the result of one pattern, the
-s genitive, out-competing the others except for in certain fixed
expressions (e.g. Lady Day). 
 
However, I don't know of any evidence (yes, I'm hedging here!) that
speakers of Middle English thought there was a "missing vowel" - after
all, literacy in Old English virtually disappeared after the Norman
Conquest, so by the time people were writing Middle English, the vast
majority of them would have had no idea what the Old English form would
have been in the first place. Also, stable use of the apostrophe is a
much, much later development (and may be temporary, judging by my
students' writing); MidE writers definitely used contractions, but more
as a paper-saving device. Even in the early 1800s, people frequently
omitted predictable parts of high-frequency words to save space (hence,
"y'r obn't srv'nt" as a letter closing). Since using an apostrophe to
show possession actually increases the amount of space necessary, it
isn't motivated in the same way.
 
Bill Spruiell
 
Central Michigan University
 
 
---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??? 
 
Jane Saral
The Westminster Schools
Atlanta, GA
[log in to unmask]
 
 
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
"Join or leave the list" 
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ 
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select
"Join or leave the list" 
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/