The Origin of the Genitive Absolute

By the time the Homeric poems were written the genitive absolute had already become productive; so any account of its origin must be based wholly on conjecture. It is reasonable to assume, however, that it did not spring spontaneously into being but grew up gradually from one of the earlier uses of the genitive case, and that it followed those laws of linguistic change that have been observed in constructions whose growth can be traced historically.