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.

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.'

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.

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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, usto us, him=to 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 case has been merged in the objective, and we need not employ the fiction of such a form in our language at the present day. But 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.

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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 expression of the King is no case at all, any more than to, from, by, with, in, round the King are cases.

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