While in Swedish using apostrophe to mark removed letters isn't common. Well, sometimes people with English influence use it, but the short form of "staden" is "stan" but some write it as "sta'n" and it looks a bit ugly. But there are two other forms of contraction markers: sankt→s:t, kyrka→k:a, Henriksdalsberget→H-berget.
English is not our native language but is taught to us. I never heard of "his" genitive nor did i ever question it. The apostrophe "s" was taught as possessive for as long as i remember and possessions are indicated by apostrophe s or simple clauses using "whose". It was later years down the line that i encountered apostrophe s for "ed" shortening when i am watching english movies with subtitles. It looked weird and when i asked someone who is near they taught me it as informal language. It was branded like that and i did not question it till now because informal language has far more custom local rules than a formal one and learning formal language is for wide use/fall back option while informal is for completion/deep understanding.
Totally underrated linguistic channel. I consider myself a big linguistics nerd but you still manage to teach me new things! I hope you keep recording new videos:)
This video makes me feel a lot more forgiving of when people accidentally use or leave out an apostrophe. Turns out it didn't make much sense to begin with.
Manfred Görlach in his book on Early Modern English isolated a passage from Johnson that shows a good example of the "Wild West" that was possessive marking in those days. He has some with apostrophes, some without apostrophes, and several examples of the _his_ construction. Weirdly, though words that already end in -s usually would just be left alone, he sometimes puts an apostrophe in before the -s they already have--an interesting contrast to the Present Day English method of adding a second -s to words that already end in -s (as in _Bridget Jones's Diary._ ) ....I have a peece of Jasons fleece, too, Which was no other, then a booke of alchemie, Writ in large sheepe-skin, a good fat ram-vellam. Such was Pythagora's thigh, Pandora's tub; And, all that fable of Medeas charmes, The manner of our worke: The Bulls, our fornace, Still breathing fire; our argent-vive, the Dragon: The Dragons teeth, mercury sublimate, That keepes the whitenesse, hardnesse, and the biting; And they are gather'd, into Jason's helme, (Th' alembeke) and then sow'd in Mars his field, And, thence, sublim'd so often, till they are fix'd. Both this, th' Hesperian garden, Cadmus storie, Jove's shower, the boone of Midas, Argus eyes, Boccace his Demogorgon...
I wonder how this happened in Frisian too, I always assumed that this developed before they split into different languages, but it looks like Frisian uses this too with the apostrophe as well.
as a german i associate the "dative + possessive article" form with more southern regions and not low german (tho it seems to also have this) but after a quick google search i found that this form is allready used in the merseburg charms which are for one a bit older than 1200s being composed during the early 9th century at the latest and they are also written in old high german, so im not too sure this is of low german origin, at least that isnt a given.... P.S.: funnily enough the merseburg charms have a construction that uses both types of possession in "demo balderes uolon sin uuoz" which would be "Balders Fohlen sein Fuß" instead a uniform form like "Balders Fohlens Fuß" or "(dem) Balder seinem Fohlen sein Fuß" (meanig "the foot of Balder's foal")
Interesting! My mother tongue is Spanish and we don't have anything like an apostrophe showing possession or contractions at all. This is one of the main reasons that confuses Spanish speakers when trying to learn English. When do we use apostrophe or "of" to indicate possession? In Spanish is just "de" to indicate possession, so it makes sense "of = de" but ( ' ) is confusing.
I have a theory about the use of "his" genetive: The Anglo Saxon words for "he" and "she" were a "hē" and "hēo" (pr roughly as "hay" and "hay-uh"). By Middle English both the long vowel "e" and the long diphthong "eo" had coalesced into "he" ("heh" or maybe even "hay" which then, because of the Great Vowel Shift became "hee") so I think that for a time "he" was not just masculine but also gender neutral, so "his" would have been "correct" usage in the "his genitive". And by the way, ,in Pennsylvania German there is no genitive so the "sein" genitive is the only way to say it: ''m Mann sei hus
Definitely an interesting theory, but there are two things I wanna point out. Although in some dialects, we do have evidence of heo merging into he in the nominative, most dialects had already shifted heo to scheo or sche at this point. Keeping them distinct. Second, is that even in dialects that did merge the nominative form, I am unable to find evidence that the accusative or genitive forms of ‘he’ and ‘sche’, ‘his’ and ‘hire’ merged as well. Again, though an interesting theory is worth looking into if one has the time and access to the right corpus.
@@TrueSchwar Well, _his_ as the regular neuter possessive determiner is well documented: "Put your sword into his place," "If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall ye season it?" "Give thy thoughts no tongue,/Nor any unproportioned thought his act," "[C]anacee/ That on hir fynger baar the queynte ryng/Thurgh which she understood wel every thyng/That any fowel may in his leden seyn...," &c. But I'm not sure whether that's down to any merger of pronouns: as far as I know, it's just part of the paradigm of _hit_ and happens to be a homophone of the possessive determiner of _he._ Also, a neuter pronoun is of course not at all the same thing as an ambiguously gendered pronoun (cf. the "third declension adjectives of two terminations" in Latin.)
@@zakesters ‘its’ is actually a fairly new construction, only appearing after the 15th-16th century or so. Before and during the early life of ‘its’, ‘his’ was used for both masculine and neuter words due to English’s ancestor, Proto-Indo-European. See, most PIE languages with three genders, will generally only distinguish between the masculine and neuter in the nominative and accusative cases, with the other cases being identical between masc and neu. This was especially clear on pronouns or adjectives. So in OE, Masc. hē, hine, him, his Neu. hit, hit, him, his Notice how even the dative form “him” was the same between the two pronouns, although ‘him’ is now only masc in modern English.
@@TrueSchwar Ah good: I remembered right, though I didn't know the dative was the same, too--or if I once did, I forgot at some point! It makes sense, of course.
4:11 ji is the second person plural subject pronoun (and depending on the region is/was also used as polite singular second person subject pronoun, like ye once was in English). The feminine possessive pronoun would he ear/ehr (or sometimes with rounded vowel, (h)öär). Also the definite article der?? That should just be "de" or maybe "dee" as far as I know. Source: I speak Low German. Of course I don't speak Middle Low German so I could be way off, but this sentence looks really strange to me..
I don’t how I messed up with ji instead of ehr. Fun fact, hör and it’s variants are apparently loans Frisian. But as for der fro, this is indeed me trying to emulate a form of middle Low German to the best of my abilities as there aren’t many resources I can find. If you have any, feel free to link them, they can can also be in German or Dutch.
@@TrueSchwar but a lifter is one of the priciest people to move them, only used for emergencies. things can be moved more efficiently by using science. if the iciest ancient glaciers can move for free, surely keith can give mercies to his financier
In some dialects of Middle English, the old English hē and heo merged, but in most places, heo was still distinct or had shifted to the equivalent of 'she'. And the genitive was quite different between the two, the hē having the form 'his' and the feminine having the form 'hire'
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Interesting! I never heard of the genitive “his” before
While in Swedish using apostrophe to mark removed letters isn't common. Well, sometimes people with English influence use it, but the short form of "staden" is "stan" but some write it as "sta'n" and it looks a bit ugly. But there are two other forms of contraction markers: sankt→s:t, kyrka→k:a, Henriksdalsberget→H-berget.
Interesting, though the hyphen as a contraction marker is quite ugly.
God, I love English so much. Such a rich history.
Absolutely fascinating!
English is not our native language but is taught to us. I never heard of "his" genitive nor did i ever question it. The apostrophe "s" was taught as possessive for as long as i remember and possessions are indicated by apostrophe s or simple clauses using "whose". It was later years down the line that i encountered apostrophe s for "ed" shortening when i am watching english movies with subtitles. It looked weird and when i asked someone who is near they taught me it as informal language. It was branded like that and i did not question it till now because informal language has far more custom local rules than a formal one and learning formal language is for wide use/fall back option while informal is for completion/deep understanding.
Totally underrated linguistic channel. I consider myself a big linguistics nerd but you still manage to teach me new things! I hope you keep recording new videos:)
This video makes me feel a lot more forgiving of when people accidentally use or leave out an apostrophe. Turns out it didn't make much sense to begin with.
Wow! Such complicated history just for a tiny mark( ' ) ! That's why I love languages.They're frustrating and fascinating at the same time.
Illuminating...
So how did we get
Fascinating
Manfred Görlach in his book on Early Modern English isolated a passage from Johnson that shows a good example of the "Wild West" that was possessive marking in those days. He has some with apostrophes, some without apostrophes, and several examples of the _his_ construction. Weirdly, though words that already end in -s usually would just be left alone, he sometimes puts an apostrophe in before the -s they already have--an interesting contrast to the Present Day English method of adding a second -s to words that already end in -s (as in _Bridget Jones's Diary._ )
....I have a peece of Jasons fleece, too,
Which was no other, then a booke of alchemie,
Writ in large sheepe-skin, a good fat ram-vellam.
Such was Pythagora's thigh, Pandora's tub;
And, all that fable of Medeas charmes,
The manner of our worke: The Bulls, our fornace,
Still breathing fire; our argent-vive, the Dragon:
The Dragons teeth, mercury sublimate,
That keepes the whitenesse, hardnesse, and the biting;
And they are gather'd, into Jason's helme,
(Th' alembeke) and then sow'd in Mars his field,
And, thence, sublim'd so often, till they are fix'd.
Both this, th' Hesperian garden, Cadmus storie,
Jove's shower, the boone of Midas, Argus eyes,
Boccace his Demogorgon...
I wonder how this happened in Frisian too, I always assumed that this developed before they split into different languages, but it looks like Frisian uses this too with the apostrophe as well.
The man his car! Like in Spanish!
Woah
Thanks!
I was really excited when I saw you'd made another video. Not disappointed! Very cool
as a german i associate the "dative + possessive article" form with more southern regions and not low german (tho it seems to also have this) but after a quick google search i found that this form is allready used in the merseburg charms which are for one a bit older than 1200s being composed during the early 9th century at the latest and they are also written in old high german, so im not too sure this is of low german origin, at least that isnt a given....
P.S.: funnily enough the merseburg charms have a construction that uses both types of possession in "demo balderes uolon sin uuoz" which would be "Balders Fohlen sein Fuß" instead a uniform form like "Balders Fohlens Fuß" or "(dem) Balder seinem Fohlen sein Fuß" (meanig "the foot of Balder's foal")
Interesting!
My mother tongue is Spanish and we don't have anything like an apostrophe showing possession or contractions at all.
This is one of the main reasons that confuses Spanish speakers when trying to learn English.
When do we use apostrophe or "of" to indicate possession?
In Spanish is just "de" to indicate possession, so it makes sense "of = de" but ( ' ) is confusing.
I have a theory about the use of "his" genetive: The Anglo Saxon words for "he" and "she" were a
"hē" and "hēo" (pr roughly as "hay" and "hay-uh"). By Middle English both the long vowel "e" and the long diphthong "eo" had coalesced into "he" ("heh" or maybe even "hay" which then, because of the Great Vowel Shift became "hee") so I think that for a time "he" was not just masculine but also gender neutral, so "his" would have been "correct" usage in the "his genitive". And by the way, ,in Pennsylvania German there is no genitive so the "sein" genitive is the only way to say it: ''m Mann sei hus
Definitely an interesting theory, but there are two things I wanna point out.
Although in some dialects, we do have evidence of heo merging into he in the nominative, most dialects had already shifted heo to scheo or sche at this point. Keeping them distinct.
Second, is that even in dialects that did merge the nominative form, I am unable to find evidence that the accusative or genitive forms of ‘he’ and ‘sche’, ‘his’ and ‘hire’ merged as well.
Again, though an interesting theory is worth looking into if one has the time and access to the right corpus.
@@TrueSchwar Well, _his_ as the regular neuter possessive determiner is well documented: "Put your sword into his place," "If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall ye season it?" "Give thy thoughts no tongue,/Nor any unproportioned thought his act," "[C]anacee/ That on hir fynger baar the queynte ryng/Thurgh which she understood wel every thyng/That any fowel may in his leden seyn...," &c. But I'm not sure whether that's down to any merger of pronouns: as far as I know, it's just part of the paradigm of _hit_ and happens to be a homophone of the possessive determiner of _he._ Also, a neuter pronoun is of course not at all the same thing as an ambiguously gendered pronoun (cf. the "third declension adjectives of two terminations" in Latin.)
@@zakesters ‘its’ is actually a fairly new construction, only appearing after the 15th-16th century or so. Before and during the early life of ‘its’, ‘his’ was used for both masculine and neuter words due to English’s ancestor, Proto-Indo-European. See, most PIE languages with three genders, will generally only distinguish between the masculine and neuter in the nominative and accusative cases, with the other cases being identical between masc and neu. This was especially clear on pronouns or adjectives.
So in OE,
Masc. hē, hine, him, his
Neu. hit, hit, him, his
Notice how even the dative form “him” was the same between the two pronouns, although ‘him’ is now only masc in modern English.
@@TrueSchwar Ah good: I remembered right, though I didn't know the dative was the same, too--or if I once did, I forgot at some point! It makes sense, of course.
Great channel, by the way: always love to see more linguistics content on RUclips! I was lured in by your video on OE strong verbs.
So let's revive some of those like manis car
4:11 ji is the second person plural subject pronoun (and depending on the region is/was also used as polite singular second person subject pronoun, like ye once was in English). The feminine possessive pronoun would he ear/ehr (or sometimes with rounded vowel, (h)öär). Also the definite article der?? That should just be "de" or maybe "dee" as far as I know. Source: I speak Low German. Of course I don't speak Middle Low German so I could be way off, but this sentence looks really strange to me..
I don’t how I messed up with ji instead of ehr. Fun fact, hör and it’s variants are apparently loans Frisian.
But as for der fro, this is indeed me trying to emulate a form of middle Low German to the best of my abilities as there aren’t many resources I can find. If you have any, feel free to link them, they can can also be in German or Dutch.
i before e, except after c.
Except when your foreign neighbor Keith brings fifty caffeinated weight lifters carry beige sleighs. Weird.
@@TrueSchwar but a lifter is one of the priciest people to move them, only used for emergencies. things can be moved more efficiently by using science. if the iciest ancient glaciers can move for free, surely keith can give mercies to his financier
thank you schwar for reminding me what video i made that comment on
Here you go:
grep -iE '[^c]ei|cie' words_alpha.txt
That's 4,737 words, from *abbacies* thru *zuleika.* You're welcome!
In Old English and Middle English, he him his could refer to a man or woman.
In some dialects of Middle English, the old English hē and heo merged, but in most places, heo was still distinct or had shifted to the equivalent of 'she'.
And the genitive was quite different between the two, the hē having the form 'his' and the feminine having the form 'hire'
Every time you use an apostrophe to indicate a plural, a kitten dies.
Seems a bit excessive
But that's just using the middle English form of writing
ok i'll use it for the sin'gular instead