246 ffi tlje personal pronajitis. Oct. r^* 



be admitted, that we here meet with a very capital 

 defect in a radical part of our language, which re- 

 quires to be corrected. 



One observation here obtrudes itself upon us, and 

 must not be omitted. Many Englifh grammarians 

 have supposed, from the accidental circumstance of 

 the word his ending with the letter 3, and afsuming 

 something like a genitive signification,, that those 

 v/ords which have been called Englifh genitives have 

 been formed by adding this letter to the noun, and 

 *' '^ames^ shQuse'*''\iZ.i been supposed to mean " 'Jameshis 

 house ,-" the word his, being softened by elisis into 'j : 

 and some of our best writers have an occasional re- 

 finement founded upon this principle. It has, how^- 

 ever, teen justly observed by others, that this could 

 not be the case, seeing our feminine nouns admit of 

 the same inflection, though the word her, and not hersy 

 is used in that sense, which has been called the geniu 

 live case. Thus, we say equally ♦' 'James'' s house" 

 or " y4nn''s bouse ,-" though, were we to try to form 

 the genitive on the same principle, we would be ob- 

 liged to say, " Ann hers house," and not " jinn her 

 house. This idea therefore is sufficiently refuted from- 

 this consideration alone. 



From the view we have taken of this subject, we 

 are enabled farther to observe, that in the whole list 

 of pronomial definitives, my, thy, See. it happens in*- 

 variably that this definitive, or genitive^ as it has been 

 called, does not at all admit of the final S. unlefs it 

 be in the two words his and tts, already taken no- 

 tice of, as being obliged to perform, alike, the office 

 •f the definitive and the po/sefsive. Whereas the^o/1 



