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Re: YAEGT: 's (was Re: Standard Average European (was: case system))

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Sunday, April 13, 2008, 19:56
Huh? Apostrophe-S on inanimates is perfectly cromulent in English, at
least IML.  The car's wheel, the chest's drawer...



On 4/13/08, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:
> Hallo! > > On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 13:49:28 -0500, Eric Christopherson wrote: > > > I read somewhere that at one time the possessive suffix <'s> was > > reinterpreted as being a contraction of <his>; some grammarians at > > that time thus commented that it was illogical to use <'s> for a > > female possessor, preferring something like "the queen her crown". I > > think they also sometimes expanded the "contraction", writing things > > like "the king his castle". I'm not sure how they treated inanimate > > possessors. > > _the house its door_? But the _'s_ genitive is avoided with > inanimate possessors generally. > > > In any event, that analysis of <'s> didn't last. > > Actually, a contraction of "his", later generalized to the > feminine, seems a more likely origin of _'s_ to me than the > Old English (< PIE) genitive suffix _-s_. Modern English _'s_ > is a clitic attaching to the last element of the genitive NP > (see _the King of England's castle_) rather than a true suffix; > and clitics usually form from words and not from suffixes. > > ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf >
-- Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>