Each of these views has respectable supporters. The former is decidedly preferred by the present writer.

[§ 398]. What, however, are thine and mine? Are they adjectives like meus, tuus, and suus, or cases like mei, tui, sui, in Latin, and hi-s in English?

It is no answer to say that sometimes they are one and sometimes the other. They were not so originally. They did not begin with meaning two things at once; on the contrary, they were either possessive cases, of which the power became subsequently adjectival, or adjectives, of which the power became subsequently possessive.

[§ 399]. In Anglo-Saxon and in Old Saxon there is but one form to express the Latin mei (or tui), on the one side, and meus, mea, meum (or tuus, &c.), on the other. In several other Gothic tongues, however, there was the following difference of form:

Mœso-Gothicmeina = mei as opposed to meins= meus.
þeina= tui-þeins= tuus.
Old High Germanmîn= mei-mîner= meus.
dîn= tui-dîner= tuus.
Old Norse min= mei-minn= meus.
þin= tui-þinn= tuus.
Middle Dutchmîns= mei-mîn= meus.
dîns= tui-dîn= tuus.
Modern High Germanmein= mei-meiner = meus.
dein= tui-deiner= tuus.

In these differences of form lie the best reasons for the assumption of a genitive case, as the origin of an adjectival form; and, undoubtedly, in those languages where both forms occur, it is convenient to consider one as a case and one as an adjective.

[§ 400]. But this is not the present question. In

Anglo-Saxon there is but one form, min and þin = mei and meus, tui and tuus, indifferently. Is this form an oblique case or an adjective?

This involves two sorts of evidence.

[§ 401]. Etymological evidence.—Assuming two powers for the words min and þin, one genitive, and one adjectival, which is the original one? Or, going beyond the Anglo-Saxon, assuming that of two forms like meina and meins, the one has been derived from the other, which is the primitive, radical, primary, or original one?