EXERCISE on the Formation of the Genitive or Possessive Case.Write the following nouns in the Genitive Case, followed by such nouns as they can appropriately modify. Man, singular and plural. Brother. Brothers. Brethren. Hero, singular and plural. William. James. Agnes. Mary. The tailor. The shoemaker. The carpenter. My father. Mother. Wisdom. Beauty. Virtue. Goodness, &c. Each of these may be applied as genitive modification of several other nouns, if this should be thought expedient.

$75. We now return to the enumeration of the several modifications of nouns and verbs.

(1) We direct our attention first to that modification of the noun (or complement of the subject), which consists of a noun in the genitive or possessive case prefixed to limit it. (2) This we may call the Genitive or Possessive Case Modification of the Noun. (3) Or, more briefly, the Genitive Modification (abbreviated, Gen. Mn.) (4) The noun in the genitive case usually expresses what stands in the relation of possessor, or some kindred relation to what the noun which it modifies expresses. We give a number of examples which the learner will analyze as an exercise. We mark, by using Italics, the words which the learner is prepared by the instructions already given to analyze. He may pass over, for the present, the words printed in Roman characters.

(5) It will be remembered that this, like other modifications, is not limited to the noun employed as subject noun, but may be applied to a noun whatever function it happens to perform in the construction of a proposition.

EXAMPLES TO SERVE AS AN EXERCISE IN ANALYSIS.-His father's house stands a ruin. In God's sight, man's strength is weakness; man's wisdom is folly; man's hopes are vanity. Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness; her paths are peace. Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice. Minerva's temple stood a landmark to the mariner. That man's haste to grow rich became the cause of his reverses. one or both as cases of you, or as determinative adjectives formed from you, have in like manner superseded the old singular forms.

§ 75. (1) Describe the modification of the noun here first presented. (2) How do we name this modification? (8) Give a shorter name, and the abbreviation. (4) Repeat what is said of the noun in the genitive case.

(5) Repeat remark.

The fool's prosperity becomes his destruction. John's escape seemed a miracle. William's energy secured him an independence.

(6) The principal noun in this species of construction is often suppressed, when clearly indicated by the modifying noun in the possessive case. (7) Thus, St. Paul's, St. Peter's, &c., are used to signify the churches named in honor of the Apostles Paul and Peter; The bookseller's, The stationer's, The grocer's, instead of The bookseller's shop, The stationer's shop, &c. (8) The possessive cases mine, thine, hers, ours, yours, theirs, are never, in the present usage of the language, followed by the noun which they limit. (9) In other words, these possessive forms are never used except when (to avoid ungraceful repetition) we wish to suppress the principal noun. (10) Thus we say, That book is MINE, OURS, YOURS, HERS, &c., to avoid the ungraceful repetition of book in the predicate of the proposition which would be necessary if we employed the forms my, our, your, &c. That book is my book; except we omit (as is often done) the noun of the subject, and say, That is my book. (11) This is the real distinction between the forms mine, ours, thine, yours, hers, theirs, on the one hand, and my, our, thy, your, her, their, on the other; the first-mentioned class are always used when the principal noun the noun which they limit-is suppressed, the last mentioned when the principal noun is expressed.* (12) It follows that

*The word his is used both when the principal noun is suppressed, and when it is expressed; thus we say both, That horse is HIS, and That is HIS horse. In other words, the form us performs the double function of a possessive case of HE, and of a determinative adjective pronoun. Its we suspect is seldom employed to perform the double function of a possessive case of rrs, namely, both to indicate and limit a suppressed noun. The grammars, which we have examined give no examples; and we cannot think of a case in which its could be gracefully and appropriately employed with its principal noun suppressed. If no examples can be found of this use, its should be degraded from the place which it occupies in our grammars as possessive case of it, that is, in those grammars which exclude my, our, &c., from this place. Its is a word that (even as an adjective pronoun) has no long stand

(6) What often happens in reference to the principal noun in this construction? (7) Repeat examples. (8) What is said in reference to the possessive cases, mine, ours, &c.? (9) Vary the expression. (10) Repeat examples, and illustrate them. (11) State the real distinction between mine, ours, thine, yours, &c., on the one hand, and my, our, thy, your, &c., on the other. (12) What follows from what has been said of mine, ours, &c. ? (18)

mine, ours, &c., (and all other possessive cases when the principal noun is suppressed), serve not only to limit the principal noun, but to indicate it. (13) Thus in the example, That knife is MINE; mine at once indicates knife and limits it-That knife is my knife, where knife is denoted by its own name, and limited by the determinative my. So, in the example, I called at your FATHER's this morning; the possessive case father's at once indicates and limits the principal noun house.

(14) The possessive case thus indicating the principal noun, which it limits, often stands in the place of subject noun in a proposition, and of the noun complementary of the neuter verb, or predicate noun, as some call it. (15) For example: Your horse runs fast, but MINE runs faster, and our FRIEND's runs faster than either. Here MINE in the second, and FRIEND's in the third proposition, represent or stand in the place of the subject noun. This house is MINE, and yonder house is your FRIEND's. Here MINE and FRIEND's stand in the place of nouns complementary of the verb is.

ing in the language. Till the times of James I., and perhaps later, His served for neuter as well as masculine possessive case, and possessive adjective pronoun. It is so used in the authorized version of the Scriptures, and in the older editions of Shakspeare. "When it giveth his color in the cup."—Prov. 23:31. "Its is not found in the Bible, except by misprint."-Brown. We suspect the same might be said in respect to Shakspeare and Spenser, save where the text has been changed by the officious meddling of editors. Ir was also spelled hit as late as the times of Shakspeare, being really a neuter form of he, hit for het, as his for hes-a regular genitive of he. But more of this in additional remarks on the personal pronouns. (§ 155.)

When we say above that the forms my, our, your, &c., must always be followed by the noun which they limit, an apparent exception may be noticed in such expressions as, That book is MY OWN. Here indeed the noun is

suppressed, but it is indicated by own; or it is own—the last adjective (as in all similar cases), which is to be considered as employed substantively. My, therefore, does not here perform the function which distinguishes mine -the function of indicating the suppressed principal or limited noun, but precedes, as usual, what stands for the noun.

Repeat the illustration by an example of a possessive case of a pronoun and of a common

noun.

(14) What purposes does the possessive case thus come to serve? (15) Repeat examples and illustration.

(16) In the same way the possessive case represents the noun which it is designed primarily to limit in other forms of modification.* (17) But in all such cases (indeed in all cases of ELLIPSIS—that is SUPPRESSION of words), the proper mode of analysis is to supply the suppressed (or omitted) word, and then analyze the proposition as filled up. At least this plan should be adopted in the commencement. (18) Thus we fill up the proposition, This house is MINE, by substituting the words MY HOUSE instead of mine. Then house is the predicate noun, or noun complementary of the verb is, and MY modifies or limits house, and belongs to a class of modifying words. to be described hereafter. (See § 91.) Again, in such examples as, This horse is my FRIEND'S, we supply horse after FRIEND's, and proceed as before. (19) When familiar with this elliptical construction, the learner can say in analyzing the above example, that the verb Is is modified or completed by the complementary noun horse implied in the possessive case FRIEND's, which at the same time limits and represents horse.

[(20) Of this elliptical use of the genitive, both of nouns and pronouns, there are examples in which the suppressed noun is not so obvious, nor so readily supplied as in those already presented. (21) Such, for instance, as "gay hope is THEIRS." We cannot here supply the ellipsis in a satisfactory manner by repeating hope. Gay hope is their hope. This does not express the poet's meaning. His meaning is, that gay hope belongs to them-is their possession. (22) Here possession, or some similar word, is to be supplied in order to complete the construction. (23) So, in the following example, "All things are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." This is equivalent to the assertion, All things belong to you, &c. Some such word

*For instance, in the noun and preposition modification, as That horse is one of my FATHER's one of my father's horses, or one of the horses of my father.

(16) Does the possessive case represent its principal noun in other forms of modification? (17) What is recommended as the proper mode of analysis in such cases? (18) Illustrate by an example of a possessive case of a pronoun and of a noun thus employed. (19) What shorter mode of analysis may be adopted, when this construction is familiar to tho learner?

[(20) Repeat the remark about this elliptical use of the genitive. (21) Give the example. (22) What word must be supplied in this example? (23) Repeat the examples, and tell what nouns are to be supplied.]

as property, inheritance, possession, is implied in these several genitives.]

NOTE-We have here perhaps an example of the insensible perversion of a form of construction from its original purpose, to serve a purpose not contemplated when the form was first adopted. This is a very common occurrence in the progress of all languages, and one which has given origin to many of those puzzling idiomatic expressions which the grammarian finds most difficult to analyze. It is obvious that the suppression of the principal noun after a genitive case, was used at first only when it saved the ungraceful repetition of the principal noun, and when this noun, being already used in the construction, and plainly indicated by the limiting genitive, could be readily supplied; as, This horse is mine. But this, and similar expressions, are equivalent to saying that This horse belongs to me, and come to have this sense affixed to them. Hence they come to be used (in a manner not contemplated at first) in such propositions as that quoted above from Gray (gay hope is theirs), to express that something simply belongs to the party represented by the noun in the genitive, and not, as originally intended, to avoid an ungraceful or unecessary repetition. is, that the manner in which hope belongs to the boys (represented by The difficulty theirs), and in which the horse belongs to his owner, is not the same-the kind of possession is altogether different. And though I can complete the first example by introducing the word horse-That horse is my horse, I cannot, in the same way, appropriately fill up the other construction by saying, Gay hope is their hope, nor in the other examples by saying, All things are your things, You are Christ's ye, and Christ is God's Christ. There is in all these examples a manifest extension of this elliptical construction to cases not contemplated when the ellipsis was originally adopted. This is no solitary instance of this species of perversion, or to call it by a softer name, extension of a form of construction to purposes different from those which it was originally adopted to serve. The history of all such cases is somewhat like the one considered. We forget, in the progress of language, the origin and first precise purpose of a form of expression (sometimes, not always, an elliptical form), our mind seizes on the meaning which it happens generally to convey, and when we have occasion to convey this meaning, or something approaching to it, we lay hold of the form of expression, as the most convenient or first suggested to our thoughts. In this way words and phrases stray far from their original meanings, and come to be used in a way which would appear barbarous, or, in some cases, would be unintelligible to the generations which first employed them. Examples of this kind are numerous in all languages, and give much trouble to the grammarian, because they are the product of accident, caprice, sometimes ignorance, and not, like most constructions in language, founded on rational principles. As specimens in our own language, we may give the form of expression, there is, there are,