1824. J Ohservatiom conctrning the 

 To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 



SIR, 



AGAIN en^agnd in educating yoiilli, 

 after conipieting my Nature Dis- 

 played, I have had occasion to let'er to 

 my manuscript iioles on dillereiit sub- 

 jects, and find (what I now trespass on 

 jour vahiable veliicle to convey lo jour 

 readers for examination,) the following 

 observations concerning the cases of 



ENGLISH NOUNS. 



Tiie conceptions the mind entertains 

 of subjects in connexion with other sidj- 

 jects, or with states signified by verbs, 

 associate certain reciprocal relations, by 

 Kome method indicated in all cultivated 

 lans;uages. 



These relations are, — agency, cither 

 producing or possessing an efl'cct, slate, 

 or property ; and, quiescence, in a state, 

 whether under its energetic effect, 

 atfected thereby, or possessing it as a 

 property. (These varied relations ac- 

 cord with the mind's purpose of pre- 

 senting first to attention, the agent, or 

 the affected subject; which principle, 

 assuming only three cases, (the wowizno- 

 tive, the accusative, and the possessive,) 

 frees our language from ambiguous 

 arrangement; the relations being so 

 definitely marked, as seldom to need 

 reference to the prepositions corres- 

 pondent to the Latin cases.) And the 

 indications of these relations, whether by 

 the situation of the noun, or by affixed 

 contracted words signifying the coales- 

 cence of the conceptions, is called gram- 

 matical case ; ■ and the accurnte con- 

 iiexiiin of the contracted words, forms 

 declension. 



Consequently, each noun in a sen- 

 tence denotes a conception of, — cither 

 the agent causing eneryij, signified by 

 llie connected verb ; as " Him, sole 

 Almighty, Nature's booh displays;" or 

 possessing some object or (juaiity, as 

 " A courtier s dependent is a heggar^s 

 dog;" or the affected subject of such 

 energy (a), or quality (b), or posses- 

 sion (c); whether inherent (d), or 

 quiescent fej; as " Knowledge. \s\)\i\.\n\\j 

 to be preferred (a) before power, as 

 being that which guides and directs its 

 blind force and impetus." (a, b, c, d, e.) 

 — Cudworlh, 



Cask (Lat. casus,) denotes end or 

 termination, associating also the concep- 

 tion of situation; all the contracted 

 words employed to form cases, and 

 every kind tit' declension and conjugation, 

 being significant of either connexion or 

 augmentation, al.so associating the con- 

 ception of inclusion. Consequently, 

 cases indicate that something must be 



Monthly Mao. No. 3%'. 



Cases of English Nouns. 391 



regarded as addiblc, or to be added ; 

 and inclusion and connexion are acces- 

 sory conceptions regarding the end or 

 termination, and also the situation of 

 the object. 



Case is not in the essence, but in the 

 accidents, of a noun. We learn from 

 the early grammarians, that the Peripa- 

 tetics regarded the noun unconnected, 

 as similar to a perpendicular line ; 

 (called, by the Stoics, the upright case ;) 

 and connected, as similar to lines from 

 the same point, with varied obliquity, 

 (the oblique cases of the Stoics.) 

 The nouns' unrestricted connexions, 

 they called cases ; but the simile has led 

 many to suppose, that ihe fallings of the 

 lines were the objects signified by that 

 word. Hence, the eimmeration of a 

 noun's cases is frequently called declen- 

 sion, declination, or inflexion ; and the 

 cases themselves are regarded as a 

 chain of termination; while, in fact, 

 they are employed solely and properly 

 to mark the association of the relation 

 between the two objects signified by the 

 two nouns. All the terminatiojis of 

 words, being indeed not unmeaning 

 elongations, but significant (though per- 

 haps contracted) words, by corruption 

 allowed to coalesce with, and be almost 

 lost in, those words. Professor Barron, 

 p. 79, vol. 1, gives a fair illustration of 

 the indefiniteness of cases in Greek, 

 Latin, French, and Spanish ; and he 

 might very easily have extended his 

 remarks to Portuguese, Italian, &c. 



Because we can have conceptions of 

 the agi nt and the aficcted subject, and 

 such, merely simply considereil, without 

 regarding their associated conceptions, 

 the English language is considered as 

 having the two substantive cases, called 

 tiie nominative and the accusative, (the 

 noun unvaried, the pronoun varied;) 

 and the adjective case called the pos- 

 sessive (the noun varied by the affix V, 

 es,) or genitive, which shows the con- 

 nexion and dependence of one concep- 

 tion with and on another, as its cause, 

 owner, origin, &c. This frequently 

 causes the conversion of the noun into 

 an adjective. But more of this liere- 

 aftcr. 



The NOMiNATivF, case includes the 

 noun which signifies the conception of 

 the agent of an operative state, as i^od 

 supports man; or the subject of a pre- 

 ceding coiniccted state, as man is sup- 

 ported by God; or the subject of a dis- 

 tinguishing property or quality, as God 

 is kind. Here we have a proposition, 

 regarding an agent, God, a state, sup- 

 port; and a subj'-nt, man; but the two 

 3 i? forms 



