Similarly as regards the genitive case. This, also, is of an attributive quality, and, therefore, like the now independent adjective, originally had no independent existence. When the force of the genitive had to be conveyed, it was conveyed by this same device of apposition. And, lastly, the same device was resorted to for purposes of predication. Or, to quote these important facts from responsible sources, Professor Sayce says:—“Even the genitive case, necessary as it appears to us to be, once had no existence, as indeed it still has none in groups of languages like the Taic or the Malay. Instead of the genitive, we here have two nouns placed in apposition to one another, two individuals, as it were, set side by side without any effort being made to determine their exact relations beyond the mere fact that one precedes the other, and is therefore thought of first.... Now, this apposition of two nouns, which still serves the purpose of the genitive in many languages, might be regarded as attributive or as predicative. If predicative, then the two contrasted nouns formed a complete sentence, ‘Cup gold,’ for instance, being equivalent to ‘The cup is gold.’ If attributive, then one of the two nouns took the place of an adjective, ‘gold cup’ being nothing more than ‘a golden cup.’”[238] Then, after giving examples from different languages of the artificial contrivances whereby in course of time these three grammatical differentiations originated (namely, by conventional changes of position between the words apposed, in some cases the form of predication being A B, and that of attribution or possession B A, while in other languages the reverse order has obtained), Professor Sayce goes on to say:—“These primitive contrivances for distinguishing between the predicate, the attribute, and the genitive, when the three ideas had in the course of ages been evolved by the mind of the speaker, gradually gave way to the later and more refined machinery of suffixes, auxiliaries, and the like.”[239] For the sake of putting this point beyond the reach of question, I will quote another and independent authority to the same general effect.