>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".
Etc., etc., etc.
Nice try, Eric, but you forgot to explain how English, as opposed to
German with its more elaborate case system, has no other way to
distinguish the "genitive 's" from a plural form and that the apostrophe
probably arose to do just that.
But this is just an educated guess. Maybe someone more knowledgeable in
these matters can give a better explanation
Chris Searles
-- Read the List FAQ/Etiquette: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Read the Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ This is the NewtonTalk mailing list - http://www.newtontalk.net/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Thu Sep 05 2002 - 10:02:21 EDT