itive and the dative
are expressed in English by the possessive, if the former are governed by
the verb, there seems to be precisely the same reason from the nature of
the expression, and an additional one from analogy, for considering the
latter to be so too. But all the annotators upon the Latin syntax suggest,
that the genitive thus put after _sum_ or _est_, is really governed, not by
the verb, but by some _noun understood_; and with this idea, of an ellipsis
in the construction, all our English grammarians appear to unite. They
might not, however, find it very easy to tell by what noun the word
_beloved's_ or _mine_ is governed, in the last example above; and so of
many others, which are used in the same way: as, "There shall nothing die
of all that is the _children's_ of Israel."--_Exod._, ix, 4. The Latin here
is, "Ut nihil omnino pereat ex his _quae pertinent ad_ filios
Israel."--_Vulgate_. That is,--"of all those _which belong to_ the
children of Israel."

"For thou art _Freedom's_ now--and _Fame's_,
One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die."--HALLECK: _Marco Bozzaris_.

OBS. 4.--Although the possessive case is always intrinsically an _adjunct_
and therefore incapable of being used or comprehended in any sense that is
positively abstract; yet we see that there are instances in which it is
used with a certain degree of abstraction,--that is, with an actual
separation from the name of the thing possessed; and that accordingly
there are, in the simple personal pronouns, (where such a distinction is
most needed,) two different forms of the case; the one adapted to the
concrete, and the other to the abstract construction. That form of the
pronoun, however, which is equivalent in sense to the concrete and the
noun, is still the possessive case, and nothing more; as, "All _mine_ are
_thine_, and _thine_ are _mine_."--_John_, xvii, 10. For if we suppose this
equivalence to prove such a pronoun to be something more than the
possessive case, as do some grammarians, we must suppose the same thing
respecting the possessive case of a noun, whenever the relation of
ownership or possession is simply affirmed or denied with such a noun put
last: as, "For all things are _yours_; and ye are _Christ's_; and Christ is
_God's_."--_1 Cor._, iii, 21. By the second example placed under the rule,
I meant to suggest, that the possessive case, when placed before or after
this verb, (_be_,) _might_ be parse