Note 96 — Chapter XIX · ORIGIN OF GRAMMATICAL ELEMENTS

While it is difficult to see the relation between a demonstrative pronoun or a deictic particle and genitival function, it would be easy enough to understand the latter if we started from a possessive pronoun (ejus, suus), and, curiously enough, we find this very sound s used as a sign for the genitive in two independent languages, starting from that notion. In Indo-Portuguese we have gobernadors casa ‘governor’s house,’ from gobernador su casa (above, Ch. XI § 12, p. 213), and in the South-African ‘Taal’ the usual expression for the genitive is by means of syn, which is generally shortened into se (s) and glued enclitically to the substantive, even to feminines and plurals: Marie-se boek ‘Maria’s book,’ di gowweneur se hond ‘the governor’s dog’ (H. Meyer, Die Sprache der Buren, 1901, p. 40, where also the confusion with the adjective ending -s, in Dutch spelt -sch, is mentioned. For the construction compare G. dem vater sein hut and others from various languages; cf. the appendix on E. Bill Stumps his mark in ChE 182 f.).