In Support of the Genitive Case
In their discussion of morphology, Manning and Schuetze mention the English possessive <'s> as being a marker of the genitive case in English, but as definitely not being an example of noun inflection because of sentences where the <'s> acts as a phrasal affix:
The person you met yesterday's house was broken into.
Although I like the idea of a phrasal affix (or clitic), I beg to differ. I consider that sentence ungrammatical, and as such no grounds for refuting one of the last traces of noun inflection left in our language.
For comparison, here are my probably error-ridden German, French, and Mandarin translations:
Das von dir gestern kennengelerntes Mannes Haus wurde eingebrochen. (The from you yesterday met man's house was broken-into.) Using the somewhat archaic Saxon genitive and an extended adjective construction.
La maison de la personne dont tu a fait la connaissance hier a ete cambriolee. (The house of the person of whom you have made the acquaintance yesterday has been broken-into.) I think I'm using dont correctly...?
Ni zuotian jianmian de ren de fangzi .... (You yesterday met's person's house...) I'm not sure how to say "broken into" nor how to use the passive in Zhongwen. I suppose that de translates well as the very phrasal <'s> affix I'm arguing against!
Originally published on Quasiphysics.