The Grammar of English Grammars, page 777 by Gould Brown
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ys be different: the former must never be written with an apostrophe; and the latter, never without it. Contrary to all good usage, however, the Doctor here writes "_her's, our's, your's, their's_," each with a needless apostrophe. Perhaps he thought it would serve to strengthen his position; and help to refute what some affirmed, that all these words are adjectives.
OBS. 7.--Respecting _mine, thine_, and his, Lowth and L. Murray disagree. The latter will have them to be sometimes "possessive pronouns," and sometimes "possessive cases." An admirable distinction this for a great author to make! too slippery for even the inventor's own hold, and utterly unintelligible to those who do not know its history! In short, these authors disagree also concerning _my, thy, her, our, your, their_; and where two leaders of a party are at odds with each other, and each is in the wrong, what is to be expected from their followers? Perceiving that Lowth was wrong in calling these words "pronominal adjectives," Murray changed the term to "possessive pronouns," still retaining the class entire; and accordingly taught, in his early editions, that, "There are four kinds of pronouns, viz., the personal, _the possessive, the_ relative, and the adjective pronouns."--_Murray's Gram._, 2d Edition, p. 37. "The Possessive Pronouns are such as principally relate to possession or property. There are seven of them; viz. _my, thy, his, her, our, your, their_. The possessives _his, mine, thine_, may be accounted either possessive pronouns, or the possessive cases of their respective personal pronouns."--_Ib._, p. 40. He next idly demonstrates that these seven words may come before nouns of any number or case, without variation; then, forgetting his own distinction, adds, "When they are separated from the noun, all of them, except his, vary _their terminations_; as, this hat is mine, and the other is _thine_; those trinkets are _hers_; this h