ENGLISH GRAMMAR. 



'The Personal Pronouns are thus declined : 



SINGULAR NUMBER. 

 NOMINATIVE. POSSESSIVE. OBJECTIVE. 



ist Person, I Mine Me 



ad ii Thou Thine Thee 



yi ii He, she, it His, hers, its Him, her, it. 



PLURAL NUMBER. 

 NOMINATIVE. POSSESSIVE. OBJECTIVE. 



ist Person, We Ours Us 



id ii Ye or you Yours You 



yi They Theirs Them. 



My, thy, his, her, its, our, your, their, may be 

 considered as other forms of the possessive cases 

 of the pronouns. They differ from mine, thine, 

 &c., in being always followed by nouns, and are 

 therefore more of the nature of adjectives. Ex., 

 "*This hat is mine;' but 'this is my hat.' 



The Relative and Interrogative Pronouns, who 

 and which, are alike in both numbers, and are 

 thus declined : 



Who. Which. 



Nominative. Who Which 



Possessive. Whose Whose 



Objective. Whom. Which. 



'What, that, and as are indeclinable. 



The indefinite pronoun one, derived from the 

 1 'rench on, has the possessive case one's, but no 

 plural. The other pronoun one (derived from the 

 numeral) has the complete declension of a noun. 

 This and that take the plurals these, those, both as 

 pronouns and as demonstrative adjectives. 



INFLECTION OF ADJECTIVES. 



In many languages adjectives are inflected to 

 mark the gender of the nouns they are joined to ; 

 in modern English (in old English or Anglo-Saxon 

 it was different), no difference is made on this 

 account. 



The only inflection of the adjective that is of 

 real use, is that which marks the degree in which 

 the quality is attributed to the object, as compared 

 with other objects. There are three degrees 

 of quality. The Positive indicates the quality 

 generally without comparison ; the Comparative, 

 a higher degree of the quality than is attributed 

 to certain other things ; and the Superlative, the 

 highest degree that is attributed to any of the 

 things under consideration. The positive is th<- 

 adjective in its simple form, and the comparative 

 and superlative end in er and est respectively ; as. 

 hard, harder, hardest ; wise, wiser, wisest; happy, 

 happier, happiest; red, redder, reddest. Belorc 

 adding er or est to an adjective in y preceded by a 

 consonant, the y is changed into i ; and a single 

 consonant, with a single vowel before it, is 

 doubled. 



Instead of happier, happiest, we can use more 

 happy, most happy. In this there is no inflection ; 

 it is logical comparison, not grammatical. The 

 logical mode of comparison is preferred in every 

 case where the grammatical mode would produce 

 a word difficult or harsh in the pronunciation. 

 This is generally the case in English when the 

 simple adjective is of more than one syllable ; but 

 it is not always so. It is the laws of euphony 

 which mean, the ear and organs of speech con- 

 sulting their own convenience that determine this 

 point, as they do much else in language. 



Some adjectives are irregular in their compari- 

 son ; as Good, better, best ; bad, ill, or evil, 



worse, worst ; little, less, least ; much or many, 

 more, most ; far, farther or further, farthest or 

 furthest, c. A few have no positive ; as, Under, 

 undermost. And others have no comparative ; as, 

 Top, topmost. 



In general, it is only adjectives of quality that 

 admit of comparison ; and even adjectives of 

 quality cannot be compared when the quality does 

 not admit of degrees ; as, a circular space, a gold 

 ring, a universal wish. 



The indefinite numeral adjectives, other, another, 

 when used alone, like pronouns, are inflected for 

 number and case. Ex., For another's good ; for 

 the sake of others. 



INFLECTION OF ADVERBS. 



Adverbs are compared exactly like adjectives. 

 As adjectives like circular, wooden, cannot be 

 compared, so neither can adverbs like yesterday, 

 there, never ; and both for the same reason the 

 nature of the idea forbids it. But where there can 

 be degree in the meaning, an adverb is compared ; 

 as, soon, sooner, soonest ; often, oftener, oftenest ; 

 pleasantly, more pleasantly, most pleasantly. 



A few adverbs coincide in their comparison with 

 irregular adjectives Well, better, best ; badly or 

 ill, worse, worst ; much, more, most, &c. 



INFLECTION OF VERBS. 



In a sentence, various relations of the action, 

 such as, when it happened, whether it is positively 

 affirmed or merely supposed, &c., require to be 

 indicated ; and this is done to a greater or less 

 extent by means of inflections or changes on the 

 verb. Five such relations are generally enumer- 

 ated, technically called Voice, Mood, Tense, 

 Person, Number. 



Voice. The distinction between the Active and 

 the Passive Voice is explained page 581. 



Mood is the manner in which the action is pre- 

 sented. If simply asserted, it is the Indicative 

 Mood he wrote. When put as a supposition or 

 condition, it is the Conditional Mood if he wrote. 

 The Potential Mood expresses the power of doing 

 the action he can write ; and the Imperative 

 Mood commands the doing of it write. The 

 form, to write, called the Infinitive Mood, ex- 

 presses the action without limitation of any kind. 

 As it makes no affirmation, it is, strictly speaking, 

 not a verb, but a kind of abstract noun, and is 

 used as such in the sentence; we say equally 'to 

 work is pleasant,' or ' work is pleasant.' The two 

 participles, the one expressing the action as in 

 progress (writing), the other as completed (written), 

 may be classed with the infinitive, as not affirming 

 anything. In opposition to the infinitive and the 

 participles, the other parts of the verb are called 

 Finite. 



Tense. The tense of a verb indicates the time 

 of the action as, he wriies (present), he wrote 

 (past), he had written (pluperfect), he will write 

 (future). 



Person. The speaker, the spoken-to, and the 

 spoken-about, or the ist, 2d, and 3d persons, have 

 often each a distinct form of the verb ; as, I write, 

 thou writest, he writes. 



Number is indicated in the difference between 

 ' John writer,' and ' they writ?.' 



Few of these relations of the sense, it will be 

 observed, are expressed by changes on the verb 



585 



