Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[David Wright]

On Fri 17 Nov 2017 at 07:45:58 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> Hi all,
> 

> [Am 17.11.2017 um 08:55 schrieb Henning Hraban Ramm:]

> > An apostrophe in German is a sign for something left out like "so’n Ding" 
> > (short for "so ein Ding"), similar to English use in "don’t" (do not).
> 
> It's the same in English, naturally.

It's just one of its uses, true. But the following sentence said:

«"While it would make some sense to use it in "mein’s" ("meines"), while still 
being unnecessary, it makes no sense at all to use it in a genitive like 
"Lisa’s" except in cases like "Jens’s" (oldfashioned but complete would be 
"Jensens").»¹

implying that something *has to be* omitted for an apostrophe to make
sense, but that is not true in English.

> Even the possessive "Kieren's" is derived from old English "Kierenes" (though 
> even most native speakers don't know that).

Of course, they don't need to know that because English accepts
's tacked onto almost anything to indicate a possessive relationship.²

Native speakers don't learn the language by studying its derivations,
but by being immersed in it. At school, they are taught "rules" that
make it easier to cope with the areas where immersion is less than
total (eg writing, formal constructions).

Only specialists have to worry about derivations. They can't be
ignored when trying to tease out what the underlying rules of a
language really are; similarly, the mistakes made by children are
an important aspect of searching for those rules.

¹ I have no view on the section in guillemets as it's about German.
Would it be appropriate to move the more in-depth discussions of
German to a .de forum? Here it's rather (OT)².

² There is a heavily disputed "rule" that possessives should only
be used with animate nouns. I don't know whether this is related
to the derivation mentioned here, or perhaps to the "his genitive"
that some teachers peddle.

Cheers,
David.