Substantives in the English tongue, have only two terminations for case: the nominative, which merely expresses the name of the thing, and thepossessive, or genitivecase, made by the addition of's, with an apostrophe before it, which denotes property: all other realtions between substantives, as this also very often, are expressed by different prepositions: for example---a freeman's rights; or the rights of a freeman.
When one thing is expressed as belonging to another, then one of the substantives is said to govern the other in the genitive, orpossessive case; thus,Milton's poems;the king's gift;William's book. Here the former substantive, ending in's, marked with an apostrophe, is the word governed; asMilton's: the latter is the word that governs; as,poems: the former is in the genitive case, which is marked thus,'s, which mark is called the possessive 's.
