316 grammatical disquisitions. Aug. i^.- 



language having its own mode of derivation, and of 

 compounding them with other words. 



It has been already fhown how it happens that de- 

 finitives, under that form which has been called ge- 

 nitives, are naturally derived from all nouns which 

 denote corporal substances, or beings pofsefsing sen- 

 sible qualities ; because all these may be conceived 

 either as belonging to some individual, or as being 

 affected in some sensible manner, either in whole, or 

 in part : but with regard to intfllectual existeiices, 

 or those objects of which we form an idea only in the 

 abstract, we find no particular on which we can lay 

 hold, from which a definitive might be formed. 

 Such nouns, therefore, though, like others, they ad- 

 mit of a regular genitive case, according to the ana- 

 logy of the language to which they belong, do not 

 admit of that particular inflection which has been 

 called the Englilh genitive. That this is the real 

 cause of the exception taken notice of in the begin- 

 ning of this efsay with regard to abstract nouns, and 

 not, as some imagine, the harfli sound of the apos- 

 trophized 'j, is evident when we advert that the word 

 'yames''s is as harfh as conscience's, and more so thaa 

 tnticement's, arrangement'' s ; though the first is com- 

 mon, and the last never permitted in our language. 



The limits- to which I must here confine myself, do 

 not permit rae to trace this numerous elafs of words 

 through all' their divarications, or to give even an 

 idea of the different ways in which they may be em- 

 ployed in forming compound nouns. They on soms 

 occasions so intim.ately coalesce, and form so com- 



