sibilant the vowel is sounded, though not written, as in Thomas's. Chaucer uses -es, Wycliffe -is or -ys.* The apostrophe before the s ('s) marks that the vowel of the suffix has been dropped. It is placed after plurals ending in s, and sometimes after a singular noun ending in a sibilant, to indicate to the eye that we have a possessive case without a suffix, as 'for conscience' sake,' 'Aeneas' son.' The use of the apostrophe is modern; Milton uses it only after a vowel, as in Siloa's,' 'Rhea's.' The use of it in the plural after s is still more recent. The plural books has just as good a right to an apostrophe as the possessive book's, the vowel of the older suffix -as or -es having been omitted.

77. In the case of a complex name, the termination of the possessive case is only affixed to the last of the names; as "Julius Caesar's death;" 'John Thomas Smith's father." It is even usual to carry out the same principle when one thing is possessed by several persons; as, "John, William, and Mary's uncle;" that is, the uncle of John, William, and Mary. This practice, however, cannot be defended on grammatical principles. In compound nouns like father-in-law, or when a noun is followed by determinative adjuncts of any kind, as Henry the Eighth,' The Queen of England,' Smith the baker,' &c., the possessive sign's is placed at the end, as My father-in-law's house,' the Queen of England's name,' &c. We no longer allow such constructions as It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant general;" but in old English such combinations as "The emperour's were not uncommon (Skeat, note on Chaucer's

mother William "

Sq. T.).

78. The possessive's is the only case suffix of nouns that has come down The letters, as the characteristic of the genitive, is of general occurrence in the Aryan languages.

to us.

OBJECTIVE CASE.

79. The objective case is that form in which a noun or pro

* The syllabic -es is often found in Spenser, and traces of it occur in Shakspeare, as 'whales bone' (Love's L. L. V. 2), the moones sphere' (Mids. N. D. II. 1). In modern Lowland Scotch it is even pronounced after plurals in -s, as bairns's, farmers' s.

From the time of Ben Jonson to that of Addison the absurd notion was entertained that the possessive's is an abbreviation of his ('The king's crown'='The king his crown'). But the word his is itself the possessive case of he, so that, on this principle his = he + his hehe+his= he he he + his, and so on ad infinitum. Moreover Mary's bonnet must be Mary his bonnet. It is quite true, however, that it was the practice for a long time to use such expressions as 'John Smith his book.' This arose from a pleonastic use of the pronoun for the purpose of showing the Syntax of the noun. The demonstrative pronoun was commonly thus used in early English after the indeclinable relative that, and in other cases (e.g., A semely man oure host he was.' Chaucer, Prol. 751). A similar idiom is found in Low German dialects. Mätzner (i. p. 315) quotes 'Vatter sin hus' (= father his house), Mutter er dôk' (= Mother her cloth).

"

In the seventeenth century there prevailed the curious fashion of putting the apostrophe before the -s of the possessive plural (lord's = lords; friend's = friends'), as though the plural suffix s had been elided. (See Wallis's and Maittaire's grammars)

This power of treating an inflected form or a complex phrase as though it were a single declinable word, and adding inflexions to it, is very remarkable in English. Thus in AngloSaxon the genitives of the personal pronouns were treated as pronominal adjectives and declined; an inflected infinitive was used after to to form the gerund (see Gerund § 196), and even such a compound as nathwyle (ne wat hwylc= I know not which), has suffixes like an ordinary adjective, as "in niosele nâthwylcum," in I-know-not-what dwelling.' Dr. Murray gives as good Lowland Scotch "That's the-man-that-you-met-yesterday's daughter."

P

noun is used when it stands for the object of the action spoken of in some verb in the active voice, or when it comes after a preposition. In the sentence, 'The stone struck the boy,' the word boy, which stands for the object of the action, is called the object of the verb, and is in the objective case. In Latin, Greek, German or Anglo-Saxon it would be in the accusative case. In the sentence, ' 'John was riding in a coach,' the noun coach, which comes after the preposition in, is in the objective case.

80. The objective case is also used, like the Latin dative, to denote the indirect object of a verb, that is to say, it stands for some person or thing indirectly affected by the action, but not the direct object of it; as, 'I gave the man a shilling,' 'Tell me a tale.' In old English the dative differed in form from the accusative.

The objective case in English therefore does duty both for the Accusative and for the Dative of other languages.* The direct object is the answer to the question formed by putting' whom or what' before the verb and its subject. Thus (in the example given above) 'Whom or what did the stone strike?' Ans. 'The boy.' The indirect object is the answer to the question formed by putting 'To or for whom or to or for what' before the verb, subject and direct object. Thus in 'I gave him a book,' the indirect object 'him' answers the question 'To whom did I give a book?'

81. In nouns the objective case is the same in form as the nominative. They can only be distinguished by their use. In an ordinary declarative sentence the nominative case precedes the verb and the objective case comes after the verb.

82. The following are examples of the declension of nouns :—

The endeavour to distinguish a dative and an accusative case in modern English is at variance with the genius and history of the language. We see from the pronouns that the form which maintained its ground was the dative, which first ousted the instrumental and usurped its functions, and then did the same with the accusative. It is unphilosophical to re-introduce grammatical distinctions which a language has ceased to recognize. One might as well attempt to restore the Locative Case to Latin, or the Ablative to Greek. As there is but one form (him, her, them, &c.) to denote both the direct and the indirect object, not only is nothing gained, but an important piece of linguistic history is obscured by having two names for it. It is much better to use the common name objective. It is true that there are two uses of the objective case, but that is another matter. A case is not the same thing as the relation that it expresses, any more than a noun is the same as the thing which it names. Moreover, the absorption of the accusative by the dative is intimately connected with the peculiar English idiom, that the word which stands for either kind of object with an active verb, may usually be made the subject of a Passive verb. "I was struck" and "I was told the story" are equally good English. Nothing of this sort is possible in German or Latin.

To say that English has only one case-the Possessive-is palpably wrong. It has only one inflected case (at least in nouns); but father and father's make two forms of the noun. The fact that pronouns still distinguish the Objective from the Nominative, so as to have three distinct forms, compels us to recognize three cases in English even in nouns.

ANCIENT ENGLISH DECLENSIONS.

ANGLO-SAXON FORMS.

STRONG DECLENSIONS.

A. Masculine Nouns.

83.

FORMS OF THE TIME OF CHAUCER.

84. By this time most of the inflexions had disappeared. Except a few traces of a dative singular in -e, inflexions in nouns had been reduced to the formation of the plural number and the genitive case.

1. The common plural inflexion was -es* (Chaucer) or -is (Wycliffe), shortened sometimes to -s, for which z is now and then found in words of Romance origin, as instrumentz (Chaucer, Squieres Tale, 270 ed. Skeat), paramentz (Kn. T. 1643), olifauntz (Maundeville).

Written is and us in some MSS. The suffix -es was sounded as a syllable after monosyllabies (see Prol. 1-14). Words of more than one syllable usually have -s. If -es is written, it is sounded as -s.

t

2. Plurals in -en or -n were rather more common than now, as kneen, hosen, ashen, eyen, sustren, doughteren, lambren,* &c.

3. Some old neuter words continued without plural suffix (see § 83), as hors, hous, thing.

4. The genitive or possessive singular was formed by adding -es (Chaucer), -is, or -ys (Wycliffe), or -s.

Feminine nouns occasionally have not --s, but -e, as 'heorte † blood' (heart's blood). See note on § 76.

In the plural the genitive was usually not distinguished from the nominative, when the latter ended in -s. Otherwise -es was added, as mennes. Traces of the old ending -ena are sometimes met with.

ADJECTIVE.

85. When we speak of a thing we often require to mention some quality or state of the thing, or the number or quantity of it, or some relation in which it stands to ourselves or to other things. The words that do this are called Adjectives.§

In the phrase 'a white horse,' the word white is an adjective. It denotes a certain quality of the horse.

In the phrase 'a book lying on the table,' the word lying is an adjective. It denotes a state of the book.

In the phrase 'two men,' the word two is an adjective. It points out the quantity or number of that for which the noun stands.

In the phrase this child,' the word this is an adjective. It points out that the child stands in a certain relation (of nearness) to me.

88. Definition.-An Adjective is a word that may be used with a noun to describe, to delimit, or to indicate that for which the noun stands.

This may also be expressed by saying that an Adjective is a word used with a noun or pronoun to denote some attribute of quality, quantity, or relation which marks that for which the noun or pronoun stands.||

Those with r before -en are usually from A.S. plurals in -ru.

+ So also mone (= moon's) occurs once as a possessive (Sir Thopas 169). The genitive in A.S. was monan. We still say Monday (Monan dag) and Sunday (Sunnan dæg), not Moonsday and Sunsday (Skeat, Int. to Chaucer's Pr. Tale. p. xlix.).

The oldet

As in Piers Plowman (i. 105), "Criste Kingene Kynge ='Christ King of Kings.' § Latin adjectivus, 'capable of being attached to,' from adjectus, added to.' and fuller term for this Part of Speech is Noun Adjective' (nomen adjectivum) See § 25. The term 'Adjective' differentiates this class of words not from nouns (for it is, strictly speaking, one of the two divisions of nouns), but from Substantives (which may be either nouns or pronouns).

Beware of the absurdity of saying that "an adjective denotes the quality of a noun." When we speak of a red rose, the adjective red does not denote a quality of the name rose, but of the thing for which the name stands. The blunder is very obvious, but is committed in most English Grammars.

An adjective answers the questions (1) Of what sort?' or 'In what state?' (2) 'How much?" or "How many?' (3) 'Which?'

87. When it is attached directly to the noun to which it refers, an adjective is said to be used attributively; as a red ball,'a bird flying through the air;''which hand will you have?' The adjective and noun together form a compound description of that which we have in our thoughts. When an adjective is connected with a noun by means of some part of the verb be (or some other verb of incomplete predication, such as become), it is said to be used predicatively, as, 'the ball is red, the bird was flying?' All true adjectives can be used in both

ways.

As things are distinguished by quality, quantity, and relation, an adjective joined to a noun usually distinguishes what the noun stands for from other things that may be named by the same noun.

88. The class-name 'horse' stands for that aggregate of resemblances by virtue of which one horse is like another. The compound name white horse means all that horse means, and white besides. It adds something to the meaning of horse. But the more marks we group together to distinguish a class, the smaller must the class be. The class denoted by white horse is smaller than the class denoted by horse. Hence we may also have the following

Definition. An Adjective is a word which may limit the application of a noun to that which has the quality, the quantity, or the relation, which the adjective denotes.*

the

To be an adjective, a word must do this by virtue of its own proper meaning. Certain forms and uses of other parts of speech may also have a definitive or limiting force. Thus in John's book possessive case 'John's' has this force, but 'John's' is still a noun in the possessive case, and not an adjective, just like 'Caesaris' in the Latin Caesaris uxor' (Caesar's wife). But the possessive case is so like an adjective, that in some pronouns it was formerly declined like an adjective.

་

In combinations like teaspoon, apple-tree, cannon ball, the first word is not an adjective. It does not express an attributive idea, it merely suggests one. It has a limiting but not an attributive force. The two nouns form a compound name. Hence those most commonly used have come to be written as one word. The word tea, apple, or cannon, cannot be used as a predicate, as a true adjective can.

In many cases the first (or limiting) member of the compound may be looked upon as an uninflected possessive case, in which position supplies the place of inflexion. Compare seaman and landsman, pikeman and swordsman, buckhorn and hartshorn.

* Of course this does not apply to nouns that do not admit of limitation, such as proper

names.