I y o 2 . grammatical disquisitions. 275 



Wherever a partiality of this kind prevails, trifles 

 are often magnified into matters of importance ; and 

 subjects which would be plain of themselves, if not 

 warped by system, become the cause of long and intri- 

 cate discufsions. On this principle it has happened that 

 our grammarians, however much they may differ as 

 to other particulars, have all concurred in acknow- 

 ledging that the Englifli nouns admit of a particular 

 inflection, which they in general have denomina- 

 ted a genitive case, or at least a particular caje of the 

 Englifli noun. I doubt if this distinction is well 

 founded, for the following reasoiis. 



For though it be allowed that in the Engliih lan- 

 guage, there is a certain clafs of words, evidently de- 

 rived from nouns by a particular inflection, which 

 words have the same meaning, in certain circum- 

 stances, as the genitive case of the Latins, such as 

 John's staff, ZTi^ William's house ; in which phrases 

 the words John's and William's are equivalent to the 

 phrases tf/John or 0/ William; and as the preposi- 

 tion of, in Englifh,.is in general the translation of 

 the Latin genitive, it has been concluded that, as that 

 preposition can be supprefsed, and the same meaning- 

 conveyed by adding to the noun an apostrophised V, 

 that this forms a true and genuine inflected genitive 

 case. • 



Dr Lowth, however, sensible of the difficulties-, 

 that accompany this hypothesis, has hesitated about . 

 adopting the phrase genitive, and wiflies rather to 

 call it the pofsejsive- case ; but this rather tends to - 

 augment instead of removing the difficulties, as. II 

 Ihall have occasion to fhow in the sequel. 



