fjgt, on personal pronouns. 267 



hers fhoultl be the plural of her, yours the plural of 

 your, and ours of our. A very little attention, how- 

 ever, would have been sufficient to convince Dr 

 Johnson, that the word other, has, in general, a plu- 

 ral meaning, as well as others. For we may say, 

 " other men went," or " other houses were sold,** 

 \3c^ In all which, and similar cases, the word other 

 has an evident relation to plurality. The truth> how- 

 ever, seems to be, that the word other, is not a: pro- 

 noun, but merely a definitive ; which, like other de- 

 finitives, must always be accompanied by the noun 

 which it serves to define ; and it is one of those de- 

 finitives that relate to plurality, like many others. 

 li, therefore, we must have a singular to this word, 

 that singular can doubtlefs be nothing else than an 

 ether ; for we say " another man came," or " other 

 men came," exactly denoting the same idea, the one 

 singular, and the other plural. These are, therefore, 

 alike definitives of the same kind. Others, is simi- 

 lar in power to those words we have above called 

 pronouns pofsefsive ; see table p. 244. 

 Self and Selves. 



Grammarians have been still more at a lofs ivith 

 regard to the word self, with its plural selves ; because 

 of some anomalies that have arisen in the Englifh 

 language, from a deficiency in the inflection of some 

 of our pronouns, that now require to be explained. 



The word self, denotes an object considered in its 

 totality, without discrimination of parts. It has been 

 universally accounted a pronoun ; though I think 

 there is great reason to doubt if it strictly belongs to 

 this clafs of words. We fhall try to ascertain its 

 r»nk in grammar hj the following analysb. 



