A Grammar of the English Tongue - ESL Teachers Board

A Grammar of the English Tongue 23Scholar, Gen. Scholar's. Plur. Scholars.These genitives are always written with a mark of elision, master's,scholar's, according to an opinion long received, that the 's is a contractionof his, as the soldier's valour, for the soldier his valour: but this cannot bethe true original, because 's is put to female nouns, Woman's beauty; theVirgin's delicacy; Haughty Juno's unrelenting hate; and collective nouns, asWomen's passions; the rabble's insolence; the multitude's folly: in all thesecases it is apparent that his cannot be understood. We say likewise thefoundation's strength; the diamond's lustre; the winter's severity: but inthese cases his may be understood, he and his having formerly been appliedto neuters in the place now supplied by it and its.The learned and sagacious Wallis, to whom every English grammarianowes a tribute of reverence, calls this modification of the noun an adjectivepossessive; I think with no more propriety than he might have applied thesame to the genitive in equitum decus, Trojæ oris, or any other Latingenitive. Dr. Lowth, on the other part, supposes the possessive pronounsmine and thine to be genitive cases.This termination of the noun seems to constitute a real genitive indicatingpossession. It is derived to us from the Saxon's who declined smith, asmith; Gen. smither, of a smith; Plur. smither or smithar, smiths; and so intwo other of their seven declensions.It is a further confirmation of this opinion, that in the old poets both thegenitive and plural were longer by a syllable than the original word: knitisfor knight's, in Chaucer; leavis for leaves, in Spenser.When a word ends in s, the genitive may be the same with the nominative,as Venus temple.The plural is formed by adding s, as table, tables; fly, flies; sister, sisters;wood, woods; or es where s could not otherwise be sounded, as after ch, s,sh, x, z; after c sounded like s, and g like j; the mute e is vocal before s, aslance, lances; outrage, outrages.