Hmmm,
Someone correct what I was taught if my teaching is wrong:
I was taught that the traditional use of the apostrophe is to show that
characters have been omitted. (I have found this to be true in English,
French and German.) I was also taught that older forms of English used "es"
to form possessives for nouns except pronouns, and that over time, people
stopped writing the "e" in this "es" ending. To show that the "e" was
omitted, they wrote an apostrophe in its place. (I just confirmed this with
a trip to the dictionary as well.) This is how the apostrophe-"s" ending so
called "crept in" for possessives in today's English. Not really a creeping
in, but another instance of the traditional use of the apostrophe to show
contraction.
I think that it is far fetched that it has anything to do with Norman ruler=
s
imposing a contraction for possessives because of how they formed
possessives with =B3de=B2 or =B3of=B2.
As for German not using apostrophes to show contraction, what about "Wie
geht es?" becoming "Wie geht's" and "Kurfuerstendamm" becoming "Ku'damm"?
German even uses apostrophes to show contraction in some possessive forms
such as "Felixs Auto" becoming "Felix' Auto", or "Alices Haus" becoming
"Alice' Haus".
Just some thoughts,
Jim
"Some people's idea of [free speech] is that they are free to say what they
like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage."
--Winston Churchill
> From: eric engle <engleerica_at_yahoo.com>
> Reply-to: newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
> Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2002 03:31:50 -0700 (PDT)
> To: newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
> Subject: [NTLK] OT: Whence "genitive s" (=3D's)? (Was: AUGUST UPDAT
>=20
>=20
> 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".
>=20
> Thus "Erics Gedanke" or "Eric's thoughts".
>=20
> As you may realize there are litterally millions of
> German immigrants in america.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> 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" =3D "mine",
>=20
> So: The possesive pronoun is thus indicated:
>=20
> Eric's thoughts "Les pens?es d'Eric" or "La pens?e du
> Eric". I.e. you use the preposition "de" ("from" or
> "of") to indicate possession.
>=20
> 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.
>=20
> So the error is, IMNSHO, not "dropping" an originally
> non existing apostrophe! Rather it is imposing a
> non-existant contraction!
>=20
> Q.E.D.
>=20
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
> My Web sites:
> http://www.geocities.com/engleerica/ (law)
> http://www.geocities.com/newtontechspecs (Newton!)
>=20
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>=20
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>=20
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