CASES OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS
[Sidenote: _Double and triple possessives._]
87. The forms _hers_, _ours_, _yours_, _theirs_, are really double
possessives, since they add the possessive _s_ to what is already a
regular possessive inflection.
Besides this, we have, as in nouns, a possessive phrase made up of the
preposition _of_ with these double possessives, _hers_, _ours_,
_yours_, _theirs_, and with _mine_, _thine_, _his_, sometimes _its_.
[Sidenote: _Their uses._]
Like the noun possessives, they have several uses:--
(1) _To prevent ambiguity_, as in the following:--
I have often contrasted the habitual qualities of that gloomy
friend _of theirs_ with the astounding spirits of Thackeray and
Dickens.--J.T. FIELDS.
No words _of ours_ can describe the fury of the conflict.--J.F.
COOPER.
(2) _To bring emphasis_, as in these sentences:--
This thing _of yours_ that you call a Pardon of Sins, it is a bit
of rag-paper with ink.--CARLYLE.
This ancient silver bowl _of mine_, it tells of good old times.
--HOLMES.
(3) _To express contempt, anger, or satire_; for example,--
"Do you know the charges that unhappy sister _of mine_ and her
family have put me to already?" says the Master.--THACKERAY.
He [John Knox] had his pipe of Bordeaux too, we find, in that old
Edinburgh house _of his_.--CARLYLE.
"Hold thy peace, Long Allen," said Henry Woodstall, "I tell thee
that tongue _of thine_ is not the shortest limb about
_thee_."--SCOTT.
(4) _To make a noun less limited in application_; thus,--
A favorite liar and servant _of mine_ was a man I once had to
drive a brougham.--THACKERAY.
In New York I read a newspaper criticism one day, commenting upon
a letter _of mine_.--_Id._
What would the last two sentences mean if the word _my_ were written
instead of _of mine_, and preceded the nouns?
[Sidenote: _About the case of absolute pronouns._]
88. In their function, or use in a sentence, the absolute possessive
forms of the personal pronouns are very much like adjectives used as
nouns.
In such sentences as, "_The good_ alone are great," "None but _the
brave_ deserves _the fair_," the words italicized have an adjective
force and also a noun force, as shown in Sec. 20.
So in the sentences illustrating absolute pronouns in Sec. 86: _mine_
stands for _my property_, _his_ for _his property_, in the first
sentence; _mine_ stands for _my praise_ in the second. But the first
two have a nominative use, and _mine_ in the second has an objective
use.
They may be spoken of as possessive in form, but nominative or
objective in use, according as the modified word is in the nominative
or the objective.
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