From: Andrew Jarrette
Message: 44506
Date: 2006-05-08
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette
wrote:
>
>
>
> tgpedersen wrote:
>
> How about this:
>
> N1- N2 is actually N1 es(j)o N2; 'N1's N2' is 'N1 his/its
> N2' as in Norwegian and Dutch today.
>
>
> Torsten
> ------------------
>
> I find it funny that you have suggested this, since it is
>identical to the reason why English spells its genitive singular
>with an apostrophe before the s: it was held to be a reduced form
>of his, e.g. "The King's English" was held to actually stand
>for "The King his English".
Not really. My idea was that went back to at least Proto-Germanic.---------------I apologize, but I don't quite understand what you are saying here.
>But I believe most scholars have rejected this idea,
Please mention one scholar who has considered the idea for Proto-
Germanic and rejected it.------------I wrote this rather hastily and off-the-cuff, so when I said "believe", I really meant "believe" and not "know". I am operating from memory, and it's a distant one. I think I meant that no scholars today believe that the idea that -'s arose from his is true, as some may have thought formerly. But I cannot offer you any quotes, I am not sufficiently well-read and do not have the books at hand. But I don't know why you introduce Proto-Germanic, I made no reference to it and was talking only about the situation in English (which is reminiscent of the idea of Proto-Germanic a-stem genitive singular coming from IE *es(j)o "his/its", but in English the idea of its genitive ending going back to his was limited to the timespan of English, not suggested to be inherited from Proto-Germanic, if that is what you are saying.).
>and believe that the apostrophe-s is the modern reflex of the Old
>English genitive singular ending -es.
And the latter was the one we were debating, not the former.
-----------I'm not sure what you are referring to by "the former" here, my apologies.--------------Andrew