In German (and may I remind you English is despite the
normans a Germanic language) there is no apostrophe
for the genitive which in the masculine is formed with
"s".
Thus "Erics Gedanke" or "Eric's thoughts".
As you may realize there are litterally millions of
German immigrants in america.
The more interesting question is how did that
apostrophe creep in their in the first place? Because
if you look at middle English I doubt you will find it
and if you look at old English you won't find it.
As we all know apostrophe is used, in every language
with which I am familiar, to indicate a contraction.
Thus the correct form "It's" should be "It is". OR
"qu'on". German however does not use apostrophes to
indicate contractions.
How is the possesive indicated in French? Since French
no longer has cases (apart from a couple personal
pronouns, e.g. je - I , moi - me (accusative), me -
to me reflexive (dative) and in all events has no
genitive (though you can sort of approximate it in
personal pronouns with "le", e.g. "le mien" = "mine",
So: The possesive pronoun is thus indicated:
Eric's thoughts "Les pensées d'Eric" or "La pensée du
Eric". I.e. you use the preposition "de" ("from" or
"of") to indicate possession.
So, how did that apostrophe creep in? Since "Eric's
thoughts" could translate into "The thoughts of Eric"
I presume that the norman rulers and their descendants
imposed a contraction where none would ever exist in
German.
So the error is, IMNSHO, not "dropping" an originally
non existing apostrophe! Rather it is imposing a
non-existant contraction!
Q.E.D.
=====
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