,a74 ' grammatical disquisitions. Aug. 7,^, 



GRAMMATICAL DISQUISITIONS. 



Continued from p. 2^^. 



O/" CASES, and particularly of that peculiarity in the 

 Englijh language which has been usually called the 

 genitive case. 



To give an idea of what is meant by case to a mere 

 Englifti reader is not very easy. He will observe 

 that nouns may be considered as connected with the 

 different objects that can affect them, in a great 

 many points of view. A man may walk to ox from 

 a place, he may be placed above or below it, he may 

 go before or behind another, he may talk of, he may 

 converse with, he may be affected by another man. 

 If we could suppose that the noun had a particular 

 variation to denote each of these relations, and all 

 the others of the same kind that can occur, these va- 

 riations would be called cases. 



Merely from the announcing of these particulars, 

 it will be obvious to the most superficial observer, 

 til at this peculiarity of language cannot be deemed 

 efsential. It is indeed so little necefsary that many 

 languages have no variation whatever respecting 

 this particular ; nor is there any language that has 

 perhaps a tenth part of the variations of this kind, 

 in other words cases, that would be required. 

 Yet so much are we attached to the practice that 

 has been incidentally adoptedby the Greeks or Latins, 

 that most of our grammars continue to enumerate 

 the case as an efsential variat^pn of the noun. 



