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CHAPTER XI.

INFLEXION OF NOUNS.-III. CASE.

94. IF we examine the following sentences, we shall see that they contain various assertions about a thing called a town, which stands in different relations to other things called enemies, walls, or circumstances. 'The town admitted the enemy." 'The enemy took the town.' 'The walls of the town were destroyed.' 'This circumstance was beneficial to the town.' 'The enemy were driven away from the town.' Thus, in the first sentence we say that the town did something to the enemy,-not, of course, the word town to the word enemy; what occurred was done by a thing to a thing, not by a word to a word. In the second, we say that the town occupied a different relation towards the enemy, and the enemy did something to the town. Now, when we employ language to record these events,-when we make assertions about these things, we use nouns to name the things and verbs to make our statements, and we may then say that just as the things stand in different relations to other things and to acts, so our nouns stand in different relations to other nouns and to verbs. There is an indefinite number of these relations, expressed in English for the most part by prepositions. We can say in the town, through the town, across, down, up, over, under, round the town, and so on, marking in every instance some fresh relation.

Next let us write these sentences in Latin and notice the different method by which that language represents these various relations. Urbs admisit hostes. Hostes ceperunt

urbem. Moenia urbis diruta sunt. Haec res urbi utilis erat. Hostes urbe sunt expulsi. Here we find the relations expressed by inflexions, whereas in English they were expressed by prepositions, or by the position of the nouns in the sentence. When we said that the town did something to the enemy, we put the word town before the verb and the word enemy after it, and we reversed their places when we said that the enemy did something to the town. But a Roman was not tied down as we are to a fixed order of subject and object in his sentence: urbs would show itself as subject and urbem as object, whatever place they might occupy. Again, urbis, urbi, urbe, inflected forms of urbs, express the relations of urbs to the other words in the sentence, whilst the prepositions of, to, from, express the same relations of town.

If the student has obtained some notion of the meaning of the word relation (which is one of the vaguest words in the language), he will find but little difficulty in what remains to be said on the subject of case.

95. Case is the form of a noun, or pronoun, which shows its relation to other words in the sentence.

As we have said above, the relations in which a noun can stand are very many, but we do not call the expression of these relations by means of prepositions cases: if we did, we should have as many cases as we have prepositions. It is only when the relation is marked by the form of the noun that we can properly speak of case. Urbis, urbem, urbe, are cases in Latin: town, town's, are cases in English: but of a town, to a town, from a town, are no more cases than ad urbem, ex urbe, contra urbem, are cases.

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CHAPTER XI

INFLEXION OF NOUNS.-III. CASI

94. IF we examine the following sente see that they contain various assertions abou a town, which stands in different relations called enemies, walls, or circumstances. '7 the enemy. The enemy took the town!' town were destroyed.' 'This circumsta to the town.' 'The enemy were driven Thus, in the first sentence we say that thing to the enemy,-not, of course, word enemy; what occurred was don not by a word to a word. In the s town occupied a different relation t the enemy did something to the employ language to record these assertions about these things,the thi

96. How many cases have we then in English nouns and pronouns?

In answer to this question, let us write out the declension of town and he.

It is clear that the pronoun he is better off than the noun in its supply of case-inflexions. He, his, him, are three genuine cases, just as much as urbs, urbis, urbem, are genuine cases. But it is otherwise with the noun. Town, nominative, is indistinguishable in form from town, objective. The form of the word town does not show its relation to the rest of the sentence: the position of the word, or its context, shows its relation. We must not however interpret our definition too rigorously. If we found ourselves without the means of drawing the fundamental distinction between subject and object, because of the absence of an inflexion, parsing and analysis would be reduced to absurdity. The fact is, the definition suits an inflexional language like Latin much better than it suits a non-inflexional language like English. Even in Latin there are many nouns in which the strict application of the definition would land us in confusion. Neuter nouns of the Fourth Declension, like cornu, have an inflexion only in the genitive of the singular number, cornus: all the other singular forms are the same as the nominative. Yet we speak of the accusative, dative, and ablative cases of cornu, and in like manner we speak of the nominative and objective cases of English nouns, though there is but one form to express two relations.

97. The Nominative case is the form of a noun when it stands as subject of a verb.

The town admitted the enemy:''The town was taken.'