In each of these sentences the subject is town, though in the first sentence town represents the doer of the action, in the second, it stands for the thing to which the action is done. When the noun represents a thing spoken to, we may call its case the Vocative, or the Nominative of Address. 'Waiter!' 'Come here, John!' 'O death! O grave!' are examples. The Objective case is the form of a noun when it stands as object of a verb, or follows a preposition. 'The enemy took the town:' 'The enemy are in the town.' Town is said to be in the objective case, in the former sentence because it represents the object which the enemy took, in the latter because it comes after the preposition in. = = to Some verbs take two objects: 'Give me the book:' 'He told us a story:' 'She taught him music:''Get them a cab. In these sentences, me to me, us=to us, him him, them for them. These words me, us, him, them, are called Indirect Objects; book, story, music, cab, are called Direct Objects. Formerly a dative case with distinct inflexions was used in English to express Indirect Objects, but through the loss of these distinct inflexions the dative and the accusative case assumed the same form in nouns, while in the pronouns the dative forms whom, him, them, took the place of the accusatives. We cannot understand the impersonal verbs methought, meseems, unless we remember that the me in these words is a survival of a true dative case. The Possessive Case is the form of a noun when it stands for a thing to which something else belongs or with which it is connected. The King's crown: the King's execution. The noun King assumes the form King's because it stands for a thing (e.g. Charles I. or Louis XVI.) to which a crown belongs, or with which an execution is connected. W. E. G. 7 This relation may be expressed by the inflexion's or by the preposition of. We may say the King's crown, the King's execution, or the crown of the King, the execution of the King. The form King's is a possessive case: the expres sion of the King is no case at all, any more than to, from, by, with, in, round the King are cases. 6 The apostrophe before the s is no part of the inflexion or case: it is merely an orthographical device to show that a letter, e, has been thrown out, or turned away. (Apostrophe means a turning away.'") In Wednesday the e is still present: Wednes-day =Wodin's day. 98. Formation of the Possessive case.-' -To form the possessive case singular add 's. To form the possessive case plural add 's if the plural does not already end in s: if it already ends in s, add the apostrophe only. So, sing. town, town's; plur. towns, towns'. Thus in sound town's, towns, towns' are indistinguishable. But if we add the 's to a singular noun ending in the singular in an s sound, or sibilant, we pronounce the 's as a separate syllable: thus actress's is pronounced just like actresses or actresses'. The possessive singular of a noun ending in a sibilant is frequently formed by adding the apostrophe without the s, in order to avoid the recurrence of the s sound: but no hard and fast rule can be laid down. We say 'Jesus' brothers,' Sophocles' tragedies,' 'for goodness' sake,' 'for conscience' sake.' But we more commonly sound the s and write 'St James's Square,' 'Mr Jones's,' 'St Thomas's Hospital,' in accordance with the pronunciation. Compound nouns take the possessive inflexion s at the end of the word: son-in-law's, man-of-war's. When we use several words to form a name, we put the s after the last, treating the name as a compound word, though it has no place in the vocabulary as such. Thus we say 'The prime minister of England's residence,' ‘I got this at Marshall and Snelgrove's,' 'He is in Price, Waterhouse & Co.'s office.' Even nouns in apposition are dealt with in the same fashion. When one noun is used to explain another, it is put in the same case, generally in the same number, and if possible in the same gender. In the expressions Queen Victoria, Turner the baker, the noun Victoria explains queen, and baker explains Turner. But when we use these expressions in the possessive case, we almost invariably drop the apposition and convert the two nouns into a compound. We might indeed say 'This is Victoria's, the queen's, crown:''I buy my bread at Turner's, the baker's, shop': these forms illustrate apposition and are perfectly gram matical. But as a fact we should all say 'This is Victoria the queen's crown,' 'I buy my bread at Turner the baker's shop.' The reader may find the following examples of the declension of nouns of some service in recalling to his mind the details contained in this section. 99. Can we always use at pleasure the inflected form of the possessive in 's or the preposition of? No: a few trials will show that the preposition of can always be employed, but that there are narrow limits to the use of 's. We can say either 'the boy's cap,' or 'the cap of the boy,' 'the horse's bridle,' or 'the bridle of the horse,' 'nature's forces,' or 'the forces of nature,' 'friendship's garland,' or 'the garland of friendship.' But we cannot say, 'the ink's colour,' 'grammar's laws,' 'the kettle's lid,' 'the station's platform.' Speaking generally we may say that the inflected form in 's is reserved for the names of living things and of personified objects, though our usage does not entirely conform to this principle: we use the form in 's in such phrases as 'a year's absence,' 'a month's delay,' though there is no personification to justify these idioms. : 100. A quaint error was formerly prevalent that this 's was a corruption of his that John's book was a degenerate form of John his book. In the Prayer-Book we find the expression 'Jesus Christ his sake.' Whatever may be the origin of phrases of this form, two considerations disprove the theory that the 's of the possessive was a corruption of his: I. Old English presents us with the possessive form in es, but shows no trace of an original his from which it was alleged according to this theory to have been developed. 2. How can the s of the word his itself be explained on this theory? If s=his, whence did we get the first his? 101. The beginner may find it helpful in determining the case of the nouns in a sentence if he asks the following questions: To discover the Nominative, put who? or what? before the verb. 'The enemy took the town.' 'Who took the town?' 'The enemy.' 'The town was taken by the enemy.' 'What was taken ?' 'The town.' Objective: (a) Direct Object, put whom? or what? before the verb and its subject. 'The enemy took the town.' 'What did the enemy take?' 'The town.' (b) Indirect Object, put to or for whom or what? 'Give me the book.' 'What do you give?' 'The book:' this is the direct object. To whom do you give it?' 'To me.' 'Me' is the indirect object. Possessive, look for the sign of inflexion 's. QUESTIONS. Thomas, the coach- I. Name the case of each noun in the following sentences :— John killed Thomas. Thomas was killed by John. man's brother, was killed by John the gardener. man's brother was killed by John. Call me a friend. Call me a cab. The people chose Balbus consul. 2. Wolsey the chancellor. Preserve the apposition of these nouns and make three sentences in which they occur respectively in the Nominative, Possessive, and Objective cases. How should we form the Possessive in common use? 3. Write the possessive case singular and plural, (where the meaning of the noun admits a plural), of goodness, Socrates, Burns, Debenham and Freebody, his sister Mary, his sisters Mary and Rose, hero, goose, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Beaufort, child, sheep, footman, Norman, Englishman. 4. Give the feminine of songster, marquis, beau; the masculine of witch, roe, slut; the plural of sheep, sheaf, cargo, cameo. 5. How did the termination es or s come to be the usual mark of the plural in English nouns ? Mention other ways of forming the plural, and give examples. Is there anything anomalous in the use of the words brethren, riches, chickens? [In Old English, nouns had several plural suffixes, the commonest of which was -an: another common ending was -as. It was formerly supposed that the extension of -as (which became -es) was due to French influence. The plural in -es is now known, however, to have been in general use before French had exercised any influence on our language.] 6. How does the possessive case differ both in form and in use from the old genitive? State and illustrate the rules for its use in the singular and in the plural. [Our possessive inflexion 's has come to us from the Old English termination es, which was the genitive ending of some masculine and neuter nouns, but not of feminine nouns, nor of nouns in the plural. The s in plurals like oxen's, mice's, has been attached through the influence of nouns with plurals regularly formed in s, as such nouns have the s in the possessive, sons', duchesses.' The uncontracted es is still visible in Wedn-es-day and is sounded in many words ending in a sibilant, such as duchess', Thomas', ass's. One of the old genitive plural endings is preserved in Wit-ena-gemot, 'meeting of wise men.' The absence of the s from Lady-day, Friday, is due to the fact that feminine nouns in Old English did not take this inflexion. The relations expressed by the old genitive were much more numerous than those expressed by the modern possessive. The possessive inflexion is now generally limited to names of living beings and of personified objects. The preposition of enables us to express the relations indicated by the old genitive: e.g. partitive relation, 'door of the house,' 'half of his fortune'; adjectival relation, 'act of mercy,' 'man of virtue'; objective relation, 'love of money.' For a fuller treatment of this question the student may consult Bain's Higher English Grammar, pp. 79–82, and 135—7.] |