Her.—For this word, as well as for further details on me and my, see the Chapters on the Personal and Demonstrative Pronouns.
[§ 293]. When all traces of the original dative signification are effaced, and when all the dative cases in a language are similarly affected, an accusative case may be said to have originated out of a dative.
[§ 294]. Thus far the question has been concerning the immediate origin of cases: their remote origin is a different matter.
The word um occurs in Icelandic. In Danish and Swedish it is om; in the Germanic languages omme, umbi, umpi, ymbe, and also um. Its meaning is at, on, about. The word whilom is the substantive while=a time or pause (Dan. hvile=to rest), with the addition of the preposition om. That the particular dative form in om has arisen out of the noun plus the preposition is a safe assertion. I am not prepared, however, to account for the formation of all the cases in this manner.
[§ 295]. Analysis of cases.—In the word children's we are enabled to separate the word into three parts. 1. The root child. 2. The plural signs r and en. 3. The sign of the genitive case, s. In this case the word is said to be analysed, since we not only take it to pieces, but also give the respective powers of each of its elements; stating which denotes the case, and which the number. Although it is too much to say that the analysis of every case of every number can be thus effected, it ought always to be attempted.
[§ 296]. The true nature of the genitive form in s.—It is a common notion that the genitive form father's is contracted from father his. The expression in our liturgy, for Jesus Christ his sake, which is merely a pleonastic one, is the only foundation for this assertion. As the idea, however, is not only one of the commonest, but also one of the greatest errors in etymology, the following three statements are given for the sake of contradiction to it.
1. The expression the Queen's Majesty is not capable of being reduced to the Queen his Majesty.
2. In the form his itself, the s has precisely the power that it has in father's, &c. Now his cannot be said to arise out of he + his.
3. In all the languages of the vast Indo-European tribe, except the Celtic, the genitive ends in s, just as it does in