Читать книгу The Etymology and Syntax of the English Language Explained and Illustrated онлайн

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Now the English genitive being formed by annexing to the nominative the letter s, with an apostrophe, several critics, among whom is Mr. Addison, deliver it as their opinion, that this termination is a contraction for the possessive pronoun his. This opinion appears to be countenanced by the examples which occur in the Bible, and Book of Common Prayer, in which, instead of the English genitive, we find the nominative with the possessive pronoun masculine of the third person; thus, “for Christ his sake,” “Asa his heart was perfect.” Dr. Lowth considers these expressions as errors either of the printers or the authors. That they are not typographical mistakes I am fully persuaded. They occur in the books now mentioned, and also in the works of Bacon, Donne, and many other writers, much too frequently to admit this supposition. If errors, therefore, they are errors not of the printers, but of the authors themselves.

To evince the incorrectness of this phraseology, and to show that Addison’s opinion is erroneous, Dr. Lowth observes that, though we can resolve “the king’s crown” into “the king his crown,” we cannot resolve “the queen’s crown” into “the queen her crown,” or “the children’s bread” into “the children their bread.” This fact, he observes, ought to have demonstrated to Mr. Addison the incorrectness of his opinion. Lowth, therefore, refers the English to the Saxon genitive for its real origin, and observes, that its derivation from that genitive decides the question[20]. Hickes, in his Thesaurus, had previously delivered the same opinion. Speaking of the Anglo-Saxon genitive in es, he observes, “Inde in nostratium sermone nominum substantivorum, genitivus singularis, et nominativus pluralis, exeunt in es, vel s.” From the introduction of the Saxons into this island, to the Norman conquest, the Saxon genitive was in universal use. From the latter period to the time of Henry II. (1170), though the English language underwent some alterations, we still find the Saxon genitive. Thus, in a poem, entitled “The Life of St. Margaret,” in the Normanno-Saxon dialect, we find the following among other examples, “chrisꞇes angles,” and the pronoun hyꞅ (his) spelled is; thus, “Theodosius was is name.”—See Hickes, Thes. vol. i. p. 226.