1792. on the personal pronouns. 137 



others it has been adopted, and the words then have 

 obtained the name of the nominative and accusative 

 CASES. Though perhaps it would be better to call 

 them the active and the pufsive states. Our Englilli 

 pronouns admit of this distinction, though our nouns 

 do not. The same may be said of many other Ian™ 

 guages, ancient as well as modern, even where gram- 

 marians do usually arrange the whole into cases ; or 

 in the Latin, for example, v/here more cases are adop- 

 ted than in any other language, the nominative and 

 accusative are the same in perhaps half the nouns of 

 that language. This defect is the more to be re- 

 gretted, in that no word has ever been adopted, 

 which, when joined to the noun, denoted this relation, 

 as in other cases. 



.Another unobserved pofsible variation of the pronoun. 

 These are all the variations that grammarians have 

 admitted to be pofaible respecting the pronouns; because 

 these are all the variations that have been carried into 

 practice in the languages we have been taught gram- 

 matically. But there are several other relations that 

 may subsist between the parties, for which pronouns 

 become the substitutes, which it would be of great 

 importance to be able to represent without circum- 

 locution, with clearnefs and , perspicuity, by means 

 of a particular variation of the pronoun for that pur- 

 pose. For exSimple, the speaker may be supposed 

 to addrefs a discourse to the party present, or to 

 speak of those who are absent, or to represent him- 

 self, under one or other of the follov/ing points of 

 view, at least. 



