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The his genitive is a relatively brief linguistic phenomenon in the syntax of the English language in the late 17th century. For a period of roughly 20 years, the orthographic practice developed of marking the genitive case by inserting the word "his" between the possessor noun and the following possessed noun.

In Old English, the genitive case was marked most often by an "-es" ending for masculine and neuter nouns. Around 1680 (Curme), the "his" genitive began to appear, in contrast to the "-s" genitive. Prior to that period, authors mixed "his" genitives with -s genitives, but employing the "his" genitive as a replacement occurred in the 17th century. Essentially, this meant writing, or saying, "Ned his house" instead of "Neds house." As Curme puts it, "The s-genitive was doubtless felt by many as a contraction of the his-genitive, which strengthened the tendency to place an apostrophe before the genitive endings" (as an indication of an elided "his") (Curme 73). However, the "his" genitive was expressly masculine and could not extend to neuter or feminine nouns. Furthermore, impersonal and lifeless, though linguistically masculine, nouns were rarely expressed with the "his" genitive.

An Anglo-Saxon "his" genitive occurs occasionally, along with a "her" genitive and "their" genitive, but not as a widespread feature of syntax (Curme 71). This "his" genitive continued and developed in other Germanic languages, while it died out quickly in Old English. Therefore, while there are analogous "his" genitives in Old Norse descendants, the Old English "his" genitive is not the source of the early Modern English form. It is possible that the "his" genitive derived instead from unaccented forms of the Middle English "-es" genitive, as, according to Baugh, "the -es of the genitive, being unaccented, was frequently written and pronounced -is, -ys" (Baugh 290). In other words, it was written already as an unaspirated "his," and "his" often lost its /h/ when unstressed in speech. Therefore, it is likely that people were already saying "his" after a masculine noun in later Middle English, and the "his" genitive may therefore have been an orthographic anomaly. Samuel Johnson, among others, recognized that the apostrophe possessive was not due to the contraction of "his" (Baugh 291).

The "his" genitive had a brief literary existence, whatever its prevalence in spoken English. Having only appeared around 1680, it was exceptionally rare by 1700. As printing became more widespread, and printed grammars informally standardized written English, the "-s" genitive (also known as the Saxon genitive) with an apostrophe (as if an "his" had been contracted) has gone to all nominal genders, including nouns that previously had an unmarked genitive (such as "Lady") (Curme 74). This remains the general form for creating possessives in English.

Parallels in other languages

Constructions parallel to the "his" genitive are found in other Germanic languages.

• In dialects of German, constructions like dem Mann sein Haus ("the man (dative case) his house") are found. This use has spread to some varieties of colloquial German.
• In Dutch this construction is common in colloquial use (Jan zijn fiets, "John his bicycle"). Although discouraged in written Dutch, it has found its way into e.g. the nineteenth-century poetry of Piet Paaltjens.

References

• Albert C. Baugh (1959). A History of the English Language. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
• George O. Curme (1931). Syntax. D.C. Heath.
• Piet Paaltjens (1867). Snikken en grimlachjes. Querido. ISBN 90-214-9765-4.
• Bastian Sick (2004). Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod. Kiepenheuer und Witsch. ISBN 3-462-03448-0.

• Syntax
• English language
• History of the English language