His genitive
Encyclopedia
The his genitive is a means of forming a genitive construction
by linking two nouns with a possessive pronoun such as "his" (e.g. "my friend his car" instead of "my friend's car"). This construction enjoyed only a brief heyday in English in the late 1500's and the 1600's, but is common in some of the dialects of a number of Germanic languages, and standard in Afrikaans
.
, the orthographic
practice developed of marking the genitive case
by inserting the word "his" between the possessor
noun
, especially where it ended in -s, and the following possessed noun. The heyday of this construction, employed by John Lyly
, Euphues His England (1580), in the travel accounts under the title Purchas His Pilgrimes (1602), Ben Jonson's
Sejanus His Fall (1603) or John Donne's
Ignatius His Conclave
(1611), was the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. For example, in 1622, the Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador in London "ran at tilt in the Prince his company with Lord Montjoy". The term "his genitive" may refer either to marking genitives with "his" as a reflexive or intensifying
marker or, much more precisely, the practice of using "his" instead of an -s. Therefore, use of the "his" genitive in writing occurred throughout later Middle English and early Modern English as an intensifier, but as a replacement marker only for a brief time.
was marked most often by an "-es" ending for masculine and neuter nouns. Around 1680, the "his" genitive began to disappear, in contrast to the "-s" genitive. Prior to that period, authors mixed "his" genitives with -s genitives, but employing the "his" genitive as a replacement occurred in the seventeenth century. Essentially, this meant writing, or saying, "Ned his house" instead of "Neds house." As Curme
puts it, "The s-genitive was doubtless felt by many as a contraction of the his-genitive, which strengthened the tendency to place an apostrophe before the genitive endings" (as an indication of an elided "his"). However, the "his" genitive was expressly masculine and could not extend to nouns of neuter or feminine gender
. Prior examples using "her" as a reflexive or intensifying genitive (for example, "Pallas her Glasse" from Sir Arthur Gorges
's English translation of Francis Bacon
's The Wisedome of the Ancients from the original Latin
) were likely analogous
or persistence of an alternate genitive. Furthermore, impersonal and lifeless, though linguistically masculine, nouns were rarely expressed with the "his" genitive.
An Anglo-Saxon "his" genitive occurs occasionally, along with a "her" genitive and "their" genitive, but not as a widespread feature of syntax. This "his" genitive is also present in other Germanic languages
, while it died out quickly in Old English. Therefore, although there are analogous "his" genitives in Low German
and other languages, the Old English "his" genitive is not the source of the early Modern English
form. It is possible that the "his" genitive derived instead from unstressed
forms of the Middle English
"-es" genitive, as, according to Baugh, "the -es of the genitive, being unaccented, was frequently written and pronounced -is, -ys". In other words, it was pronounced as "his" already, and "his" often lost its /h/ when unstressed in speech. Therefore, it is likely that people were already saying "his" after a masculine noun in later Middle English by hypercorrection
, and the "his" genitive may therefore have been an orthographic
anomaly. Samuel Johnson
, among others, recognized that the apostrophe possessive was not due to the contraction of "his".
The "his" genitive as a hypercorrection had a brief literary existence, whatever its prevalence in spoken English. Having only appeared around 1580, it was exceptionally rare by 1700. As printing
became more widespread, and printed grammars informally standardized written English, the "-s" genitive (also known as the Saxon genitive
) with an apostrophe
(as if an "his" had been contracted) had gone to all nominal genders, including nouns that previously had an unmarked genitive (such as "Lady" in "Lady Day
"). This remains the general form for creating possessives in English.
Genitive construction
In grammar, a genitive construction or genitival construction is a type of grammatical construction used to express a relation between two nouns such as the possession of one by another , or some other type of connection...
by linking two nouns with a possessive pronoun such as "his" (e.g. "my friend his car" instead of "my friend's car"). This construction enjoyed only a brief heyday in English in the late 1500's and the 1600's, but is common in some of the dialects of a number of Germanic languages, and standard in Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
.
In English
In Early Modern EnglishEarly Modern English
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English...
, the orthographic
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
practice developed of marking the genitive case
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
by inserting the word "his" between the possessor
Possession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
, especially where it ended in -s, and the following possessed noun. The heyday of this construction, employed by John Lyly
John Lyly
John Lyly was an English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.-Biography:John Lyly was born in Kent, England, in 1553/1554...
, Euphues His England (1580), in the travel accounts under the title Purchas His Pilgrimes (1602), Ben Jonson's
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
Sejanus His Fall (1603) or John Donne's
John Donne
John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...
Ignatius His Conclave
Ignatius His Conclave
Ignatius His Conclave is a 1611 work by 16th century metaphysical poet John Donne. The work satirizes the Jesuits. In the story, St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, is found to be in Hell:...
(1611), was the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. For example, in 1622, the Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador in London "ran at tilt in the Prince his company with Lord Montjoy". The term "his genitive" may refer either to marking genitives with "his" as a reflexive or intensifying
Intensifier
Intensifier is a linguistic term for a modifier that amplifies the meaning of the word it modifies. Examples are "very," "quite," "extremely," "highly," and "greatly." An intensifier is the opposite of a qualifier, a modifier that weakens the word modified: "fairly," "somewhat," "rather," "a...
marker or, much more precisely, the practice of using "his" instead of an -s. Therefore, use of the "his" genitive in writing occurred throughout later Middle English and early Modern English as an intensifier, but as a replacement marker only for a brief time.
Origins and history
In Old English, the genitive caseGenitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
was marked most often by an "-es" ending for masculine and neuter nouns. Around 1680, the "his" genitive began to disappear, in contrast to the "-s" genitive. Prior to that period, authors mixed "his" genitives with -s genitives, but employing the "his" genitive as a replacement occurred in the seventeenth century. Essentially, this meant writing, or saying, "Ned his house" instead of "Neds house." As Curme
George Oliver Curme
George Oliver Curme, Sr. was an American grammarian and philologist. He is best known for his Grammar of the German Language , andA Grammar of the English Language ....
puts it, "The s-genitive was doubtless felt by many as a contraction of the his-genitive, which strengthened the tendency to place an apostrophe before the genitive endings" (as an indication of an elided "his"). However, the "his" genitive was expressly masculine and could not extend to nouns of neuter or feminine gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
. Prior examples using "her" as a reflexive or intensifying genitive (for example, "Pallas her Glasse" from Sir Arthur Gorges
Arthur Gorges
Sir Arthur Gorges , was a sea captain, poet, translator and courtier.-Early life:He was born the son of Sir William Gorges of Charlton and his wife Winifred Budockshede, heiress to the manor of Budockshede.Sir William Gorges died in Dec 1584, in the Tower of London: he was knighted in Ireland in...
's English translation of Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
's The Wisedome of the Ancients from the original Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
) were likely analogous
Analogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
or persistence of an alternate genitive. Furthermore, impersonal and lifeless, though linguistically masculine, nouns were rarely expressed with the "his" genitive.
An Anglo-Saxon "his" genitive occurs occasionally, along with a "her" genitive and "their" genitive, but not as a widespread feature of syntax. This "his" genitive is also present in other Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
, while it died out quickly in Old English. Therefore, although there are analogous "his" genitives in Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
and other languages, the Old English "his" genitive is not the source of the early Modern English
Early Modern English
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English...
form. It is possible that the "his" genitive derived instead from unstressed
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
forms of the Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
"-es" genitive, as, according to Baugh, "the -es of the genitive, being unaccented, was frequently written and pronounced -is, -ys". In other words, it was pronounced as "his" already, and "his" often lost its /h/ when unstressed in speech. Therefore, it is likely that people were already saying "his" after a masculine noun in later Middle English by hypercorrection
Hypercorrection
In linguistics or usage, hypercorrection is a non-standard usage that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of grammar or a usage prescription...
, and the "his" genitive may therefore have been an orthographic
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
anomaly. Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
, among others, recognized that the apostrophe possessive was not due to the contraction of "his".
The "his" genitive as a hypercorrection had a brief literary existence, whatever its prevalence in spoken English. Having only appeared around 1580, it was exceptionally rare by 1700. As printing
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
became more widespread, and printed grammars informally standardized written English, the "-s" genitive (also known as the Saxon genitive
Saxon genitive
In English language teaching, the term "Saxon genitive" is used to associate the possessive use of the apostrophe with the historical origin in Anglo Saxon of the morpheme that it represents...
) with an apostrophe
Apostrophe
The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...
(as if an "his" had been contracted) had gone to all nominal genders, including nouns that previously had an unmarked genitive (such as "Lady" in "Lady Day
Lady Day
In the western Liturgical year, Lady Day is the traditional name of the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin in some English speaking countries. It is the first of the four traditional English quarter days. The "Lady" was the Virgin Mary. The term derives from Middle English, when some...
"). This remains the general form for creating possessives in English.
Parallels in other Germanic languages
Constructions parallel to the "his" genitive are found in other Germanic languages.- In dialects of GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, equivalent constructions like dem Mann sein Haus ("the man-dativeDative caseThe dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....
his house" instead of genitive case: das Haus des Mannes, or des Mannes Haus, which is archaic) are found. This use has spread to some varieties of colloquial German, but heavily violates standard German grammar. By those who do not employ it, the construction is widely perceived as unaesthetic. Usage of the construction is commonly ridiculed or even scorned, especially as revealing lack of education, by those speakers. The construction is deliberately used as a pun in the titles of three very popular books, including Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein TodDer Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein TodDer Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod is a series of books by Bastian Sick which deal in an entertaining manner with areas of contention in grammar, orthography, and punctuation, and unappealing and clumsy uses of the German language.-Origins:The books are collections of the author’s column...
, on common German language mistakes, critically acclaimed for their humour, by German journalist and author Bastian SickBastian SickBastian Sick is a German journalist, translator and author.- History :Sick was born in Lübeck in 1965. He studied history and Romance philology, then became a literary editor and later columnist for German news magazine Der Spiegel....
.
- The modern Saxon languageOld SaxonOld Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is the earliest recorded form of Low German, documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in the Netherlands by Saxon peoples...
, commonly known as Low GermanLow GermanLow German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
, developed this form of Genitive as early as in the Middle AgesMiddle AgesThe Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. Early stages included mixture forms of Genitive and his-construction: Des fischers sin hus (the fisherman's his house). Later development brought forth two kinds of Dative constructions existing alongside the proper Genitive: Deme fischer sin hus (the fisherman his house) and dat hus van deme fischer (the house of the fisherman) next to des fischers hus (the fisherman's house). Not every class and dialect used both forms with equal part. Some of the German speakers making the aforementioned mistakes might trace this back to the time when Low German (or, in some regions, Dutch) was the language of the lower classes, before High German was established as first language in all regions and classes.
- In DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
the construction is common in the spoken language, and dependent on the gender of the possessor (and in most Belgian Dutch dialects on the gender of the object as well). In the Netherlands, the possessive pronouns are represented as they are spoken, in their informal, unstressed form: Jan z'n fiets, "Jan his bicycle" meaning Jan's bicycle; Anja d'r tas, "Anja her bag". In Belgian Dutch, the full form is common: Jan zijn fiets, Anja haar tas, and the standard form Jans fiets is not used in spoken language. Although discouraged in written Dutch, the construction has found its way into literature as early as the mid-19th century poetry of Piet PaaltjensPiet Paaltjensthumb|right|François Haverschmidt.François Haverschmidt was a Dutch minister and writer, who wrote prose under his own name but remains best known for the poetry published under the pen name of Piet Paaltjens.- Life and career :Haverschmidt read Calvinist theology at Leiden University, graduating...
and in proverbProverbA proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim...
s such as De een z'n dood is de ander z'n brood (lit. "One man's death is another man's bread", i.e. "One man's breath, another's death"/"One person's loss is another person's gain").
- In AfrikaansAfrikaansAfrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
the construction die man se kinders ("the man's children") is standard. The possessive element se appears to derive from sy "his", but contrary to Dutch it is used with all genders and numbers: e.g. die vrouens se kinders "the women's children".
- NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
, especially colloquial such, uses reflexiveReflexive pronounA reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that is preceded by the noun, adjective, adverb or pronoun to which it refers within the same clause. In generative grammar, a reflexive pronoun is an anaphor that must be bound by its antecedent...
possessive pronouns extensively. These are declined according to gender and number of the object (rather than that of the possessor), e.g. "Ola sin hund" ("Ola his dog"); "Per si(n) klokke" ("Per his clock"); "Hilde sitt hus" ("Hilde her house"); "Tina sine bøker" ("Tina her books"). In nynorskNynorskNynorsk or New Norwegian is one of two official written standards for the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. The standard language was created by Ivar Aasen during the mid-19th century, to provide a Norwegian alternative to the Danish language which was commonly written in Norway at the...
one may also use "hans" and "hennar", e.g. "Klokka hans Per" ("The clock his Per"); "Huset hennar Hilde" ("The house her Hilde").