5; _Fisk's_, 113;
_Ingersoll's_, 210. Here the possessive sign, being appended to a distinct
adjective, and followed by nothing that can be called a noun, is employed
as absurdly as it well can be. Say, "This rule is often infringed by an
improper use of the nominative absolute;" for this is precisely what these
authors mean. (5.) "The participle is distinguished from the adjective by
the _former's expressing the idea of time_, and the _latter's denoting only
a quality_"--_Murray's Gram._, p. 65; _Fisk's_, 82; _Ingersoll's_, 45;
_Emmons's_, 64; _Alger's_, 28. This is liable to nearly the same
objections. Say, "The participle differs from an adjective by expressing
the idea of time, whereas the adjective denotes only a quality." (6.) "The
relatives _that_ and _as_ differ from _who_ and _which_ in the _former's
not being immediately joined_ to the governing word."--_Nixon's Parser_, p.
140. This is still worse, because _former's_, which is like a singular
noun, has here a plural meaning; namely, "in _the former terms' not
being_," &c. Say--"in _that the former never follow_ the governing word."

OBS. 27.--The possessive termination is so far from being liable to
suppression _by ellipsis_, agreeably to the nonsense of those interpreters
who will have it to be "_understood_" wherever the case occurs without it,
that on the contrary it is sometimes retained where there is an actual
suppression of the noun to which it belongs. This appears to be the case
whenever the pronominal adjectives _former_ and _latter_ are inflected, as
above. The inflection of these, however, seems to be needless, and may well
be reckoned improper. But, in the following line, the adjective elegantly
takes the sign; because there is an ellipsis of both nouns; _poor's_ being
put for _poor man's_, and the governing noun _joys_ being understood after
it: "The _rich man's joys_ increase, the _poor's decay_."--_Goldsmith_. So,
in the following example, _guilty's_ is put for _guilty person's_:

"Yet, wise and righteous ever, scorns to hear
The fool's fond wishes, or the _guilty's_ prayer."
--_Rowe's Lucan_, B. v, l. 155.

This is a poetical license; and others of a like nature are sometimes met
with. Our poets use the possessive case much more frequently than prose
writers, and occasionally inflect words that are altogether invariable in
prose; as,

"Eager that last great chance of war he waits,
Where _either's_ fall determines _bot