Saxon genitive

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"Saxon genitive" is the traditional term used for the ’s (apostrophe-s) possessive clitic^[1] in the English language. In traditional grammar, it is considered a word-ending, or suffix. For further information about usage, see apostrophe.

In older English there are examples of it being spelt as "his" as a folk etymology, e.g. "St. James his park", see his genitive.

[edit] The English possessive

Modern English forms the Saxon genitive as follows:

	Regular noun not ending in "s"	Regular noun ending in "s"	Irregular noun
Singular	-’s (e.g. cat's)	-’s or -’ (e.g. class's or class')	-’s (e.g. child's, ox's, mouse's)
Plural	-s' (e.g. cats')	-es' (e.g. classes')	-'s (e.g. children's, oxen's, mice's)

Traditionally, many writers added only an apostrophe for the singular possessive of a noun ending in "s" (e.g. "Dickens' Secret Lover" ^[2]) , and this habit is still widespread especially with Biblical names (e.g. Jesus'). This is now often considered nonstandard although it was originally essentially the norm (even in formal writing). Some respected style guides such as The Chicago Manual of Style recommend the more modern addition of an s but specifically state that both habits are correct.^[3] Other references such as The Elements of Style and the Canadian Press Stylebook hold that the s is mandatory with only two exceptions: classical and Biblical proper names (e.g. "Jesus' teachings", "Augustus' guards") and common phrases that do not take the s (e.g. "for goodness' sake"). In all other cases, it is incorrect to omit the s.^[4][5]

With the exception of one's, pronouns do not combine with ’s to form possessives; a range of possessive pronouns used instead, for example his and its. While its is originally derived from the pronoun it combined with ’s, it is now only standard to write it as its. In standard usage, it's always means it is or it has.

In Old English, nouns declined according to grammatical gender. The modern Saxon genitive is derived from the strong masculine and neuter genitive case of Old English. The plural forms are a relatively modern innovation, and are not derived directly from Old English.

Gender	Singular	Plural
Strong masculine	-es	-a
Weak masculine	-an	-ena
Strong feminine	-e	-a
Weak feminine	-an	-ena
Strong neuter	-es	-a
Weak neuter	-an	-ena

The term "Saxon genitive" is in analogy to the genitive in classical Latin.

While traditional grammar considers  ’s to be a case ending, it is usually analyzed as a clitic by linguists: it gets separated from its noun in modern usages such as "the King of Spain’s hat", which in theory is ambiguous between "the hat of the King of Spain" (intended meaning) or "the King of the hat of Spain".^[6] (Older usage had "the king’s hat of Spain" or, rarely, "Spain's king's hat"; an example in literature is "The King's daughter of Noroway" in The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens.)^[7]. It can also be used in phrases such as "the man you met yesterday's bicycle"^[8], which is not ambiguous.

[edit] See also

• Apostrophe
• English personal pronouns
• Genitive case
• Possessive adjective
• Possessive case
• Possessive pronoun

[edit] References