How was the possessive used in Elizabethan literature? I've been listening to a podcast called 'The History of English'. In the latest episode it touches on the use of the possessive. In Chaucerian English the possessive was written with an '-es-' suffix, e.g. 'The Milleres Tale'. By the 17th century, printers were using what I believe is called the Saxon genitive, i.e. putting 's at the end of the word instead of 'es', e.g. 'The Miller's Tale'. However, the podcast omits to say what would have been the case in the time of Shakespeare. Would it have been the same as Chaucerian English - 'The Milleres Tale', or 'The Millers Tale' or even 'The Tale of the Miller'?

The other answers have corrected my original answer by noting that Shakespeare didn't write the possessive with the apostrophe 's. However, the possessive used in Early Modern English was generally pronounced the way it is today, and modern editors have changed Shakespeare's spelling into an 's. There was a difference in pronunciation from modern-day usage, though. If a word ended with an "s" in an unaccented syllable, the possessive was pronounced the same way as the base word, and only an apostrophe was added.

Some examples from Shakespeare:

From _Othello:_

> He'll be as full of quarrel and offence
> As my young mistress' dog.

From _The Merchant of Venice_ :

> But stop my house's ears, I mean my casements.

From _Henry VI, Part II:_

> For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign.

From _Henry V:_

> Let us not hang like roping icicles
> Upon our houses' thatch.