Note 4. In the old language the possessive s was added both to the article and the noun; Ex.: land, gen. landsins. A rest of this mode of inflection is found in such expressions as: Landsens Kost a country bill of fare, Livsens Træ the tree of life, du er Dödsens you are a dead man. Also such forms as: Hjærtens Lyst the desire of the heart, Alterens Sakramente the Lord's supper, find their explanation in the old language where the genitive of the definite article neuter had the form of ins (or ns), not ets (ts) as now. A rest of an old genitive plur. is found in such expressions as: tilhaande (gai en tilhaande to assist one); tilgrunde to the bottom, tilgode due, tilfulde fully, tilbage back, (O. N. til handa to the hands etc).
164. Syntactical remarks about the use of the possessive. The possessive is employed to convey the meaning of possessive, subjective, objective and definitive genitive. In stead of the possessive may in some meanings be used a complement with af (or colloquially til). Han er Sön af sin Fader and han er sin Faders Sön he is a son of his father, Hunden til Pedersen and Pedersens Hund P's dog. The possessive meaning i. e. the pure relation of property can, different from English, never be expressed by af. If two kinds of genitive (poss. and obj. or subj. and obj.) occur in connection with one word, then the objective genitive must be expressed by af. Thus it is wrong to say: Hr. Pedersens Afstraffelse af Hr. Kristensen to indicate the punishment of Mr P. by Mr. K.; it means Mr. P's punishment of Mr. K.
A peculiar use of the possessive form is to express a past time in such expressions as: igaaraftes last night, iaftes last night (but iaften this night); iforgaars the day before yesterday, ihöstes last fall, ivaares last spring.
The possessive form is very common as the first part of compound words: Landsmand countryman, Krigsskib warship, skadeslös indemnified (probably analogously with this latter word are formed the following with irregular genitive in -es: frugtes-
