Re: YAEGT: 's (was Re: Standard Average European (was: case system))

On 13.4.2008 Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
 > Actually, a contraction of "his", later generalized to the
 > feminine, seems a more likely origin of _'s_ to me than
 > the Old English (< PIE) genitive suffix _-s_. Modern
 > English _'s_ is a clitic attaching to the last element of
 > the genitive NP (see _the King of England's castle_)
 > rather than a true suffix; and clitics usually form from
 > words and not from suffixes.
 >

Modern Swedish possessive _-s_ is also a clitic attaching to
the last element of the genitive NP -- nobody says _Kungens
av Danmark sardiner_ anymore, but _Kungen av Danmarks
sardiner_ --, and here a derivation from an elided pronoun
is out of the question -- as is an Anglicism, in case
anybody suspected that. The change began in the 16th century
with _landsens_ 'the land's' changing to _landens_ and then
to _landets_ after the _-s_ had spread to the plural, and
_landens_ had become ambiguous between singular and plural,
so both English and Scandinavian possessive _-s_ is a true
example of an ending of a particular inflection class
becoming a generalized clitic!


/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient
   à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil
   ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*,
   c'est qu'elles meurent."           (Victor Hugo)