All breathing human passion far beyond."
316. After an interrogative adjective, the preposition is also often thrown to the end of the sentence. As, for example:
- What men are the people talking about?
- Which person did you write to?
With these few exceptions, however, the preposition usually precedes its object, as:
- We were astonished at the news.
- He arose from his sleep.
POSSESSIVE PHRASES
317. Review Lesson 4, in which we studied the possessive use of nouns. You will recall that we make the possessive form of the nouns by the use of the apostrophe and s. But instead of using the possessive forms of the name of inanimate things; that is, things without life, we generally denote possession by the use of a phrase. Thus we would say, The arm of the chair, instead of, The chair's arm; or, The roof of the house, instead of, The house's roof.
318. We also use a possessive phrase when the use of a possessive form would give an awkward construction. As, for example: Jesus' sayings. So many hissing sounds are not pleasant to the ear and so, we say instead, The sayings of Jesus.
319. We use a phrase also where both nouns are in the plural form. In many words, there is no difference in the sound between a single noun in the possessive form and a plural noun in the possessive form. We can readily tell the meaning when it is written, because the place of the apostrophe indicates the meaning, but when it is spoken the sound is exactly the same. As, for example:
- The lady's hats.
- The ladies' hats.