This article concerns the historical transition of genitive Case assigner in noun phrases. It is argued that genitive Case assigner changed from N to D in the history of English. To be more specific, in OE, N could assign (inherent) genitive Case either to the right or to the left, while D was inert in Case assignment. Genitive Case assignment to the right was lost in early ME, and the preposition of was chosen as a new Case assigner for a postnominal noun phrase. D, a (structural) genitive Case assigner, was only activated in his-genitive constructions in early ME. As his-genitives flourished from late ME through early ModE, however, Case assignment by D diminished Case assignment by N, and finally, the former overwhelmed the latter. Thus, D is a genitive Case assigner for a prenominal possessor in PE.

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It is often said that English has developed from synthetic language to analytic one. As for the case, in OE there existed four cases, each of which showed various case endings, while in PE all the cases have disappeared except the genitive case. In this paper, we will consider why only the “genitive case” has survived. In the course of disscussion, we will examine the following two secondary questions together. ( i )Isn't the fact that only the genitive case has survived inconsistent with the general tendency from synthesis to analysis ? ( ii ) What is the characteristic of the genitive case ending's in PE ? I will argue that the survival of 's is not inconsistent with the tendency, but is a result of the development of English. It will also be shown that's, which has evolved from the original case ending, has changed into an element which relates the head N to the NP in the specifier position.

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