GREEK LANGUAGE. 



Homer, while the digamma was ufed in reciting them, is a have been followed by the writers of the New Teftament anJ 

 proof (if a proof be wanlinjr) that Homer did atlually ufe a the Greek fathers. 



<writlen lan"-uagc, and that his works were preferved by a 

 written langnage : othcrwifc the afpimte would have been 

 Lill, and the di\;amm(i alone would have prevailed in all the 

 Greek authors who fuccceded that ct-lebratedbard. If an 

 eiitor of Homer in modern days would infert the digamma, 

 hi would corrupt the original orthography of Homer, 

 and fubftitute in the room of the original charaders the cor- 

 ruptions of pronunciation. 



We fhall now make fome obfervations on the leading parts 

 of fpeech, which may fervc to unfold the peculiar nature 

 and amazing extent of this language. As gender is the 

 dillinclion of fex, there cannot in itriftnefs be in any lan- 

 guage more than two genders, mafculine and feminine ; 

 nouns expreffing inanimate objefts, or things without life, 

 being in a philufopliical fenfe neuter or nc'ilher gender. But 

 neuter nouns had by analegy affigned them the termina- 

 tions of mafculine and feminine nouns; and unfortunately for 

 Greek, and the other European languages affefted by it, the 

 termination becnme foon regarded as an index oi the gender, 

 without anv reference to the meaning. Thus nouns dellg- 

 nating females ended in a or i; ; and for tliis reafon the names 

 of inanimate things, and alfo adjeftives, having the fame 

 ending, are faid to hef.mi/:iiie. For the fame reafon nouns 

 in o; or r.{, though meaning things without life, arc generally 

 mafculine, becaufe thefe happened to be the predominant 

 terminations of the names of males. There are, therefore, 

 in this language two princijiles which regulate the gender ot 

 nouns, the fignihcation and the termination : the former 

 afcertainiag the gender of living things, or things whofe fex 

 it is of importance to diilinguilh, the latter that of inanimate 

 objefts. There is, however, a third principle, on which is 

 founded the diltinilion of gender, we mean the analogy 

 which inanim.ate objects fometimes have to living creatures. 

 There are fome terminations common to males and females, 

 and thefe afford fuch analogy an opportunity to operate. 

 Thus A^^oi, realon, though expi-efiive of what is neither 

 male nor female, is made mafculine, as fignifying the com- 

 manding and the mod excellent faculty of tlie human 

 mind; whereas o^o-, away, from its ailinity to 711, the earth, 

 or from the paffive nature of its fignification, a characterif- 

 tic more of the female than of the male, is made feminine. 

 That this analogy is not fanciful might be proved by many 

 inilances. In Arillophanes (Ss/to; is mafculine ; but Theo- 

 critus (Idyl. i. 132.) in reprefenting it as producing 'uio/et, 

 makes it feminine. This affinity to the female fe.x is the rea- 

 fon why arhor, with the fpecihc names of trees in us, are 

 always feminine, though the termination is decidedly mafcu- 

 line. In cafes where the termination abfolutely belongs to 

 the names of males or females, this principle of analogy necef- 

 farily gives way to the termination. Thus, becaufe ri final 

 is invariably appropriated to feminine nouns, ^xy-acra-r., thefe,!, 

 is feminine : on the other hand, xi''^°h 'if"') is mafculine, from 

 its termination as well as from analogy. 



Cafes have been defined by all modern grammarians to 

 be changes in the termination of nouns; but the name -twc-ei;, 

 in Greek expreffive of cafes, clearly Ihews that this is not the 

 primary meaning of a cafe. For tttij-i.; means a fall, and, 

 from fignifying a fall, it came to fignify the place in 

 which a noun falls in a fentence. The idea, then, which a 

 cafe at firft exprefTed is the po/ition of a noun in a fentence, 

 and by that pofition expreihng the relation of one word to 

 another. Thus, if a noun denoted the direS fubjeft of a 

 propofition or difcourfe, it is faid to be in the right cafe, 

 ^TTiio-i; oj6i;, /. e. the direft or ftraight pofition ; but if a noun 

 exprefs an objeft or quality indireSly, it is faid to be in an 

 oblique pofition, TTTio-i; •rXa^ix, and this deviation from a direct 

 to an indireft pofition, as the fubjeft of difcourfe, is in the 

 language of grammarians farther called hXi^,;, declenfion. 

 Farther, cafes exprefs the relation of things in motion or ac- 

 tion, and the relations necefiary for the purpofes of language 

 are chiefly the following : the relation of caufe, the relation 

 of cffirB, the I'clation of beginning, the relation of medium or 

 inftrument, and the relation of end. A noun denoting the 

 relation of caufe, ;. e. denoting the agent of an aftive or the 

 fubjeft of a neuter or connefting verb, is in the nominative ; 

 that of efFeft in the accufative ; that of beginning in the 

 genitive ; that of medium or infirumenl in the ablative ; and 

 that of end in the dative. The nominative alone is called 

 the right or direft cafe, the reft are all deemed cbJique cafes ; 

 though the accufative, as cxprefiTnig a direft part of a propo- 

 fition, might more properly be called a right, than an 

 oblique caic. 



Moreover, the relations of bodies in motion or a<Elion 

 were at firft exprefied by prepojitions : and as our ideas of re- 

 lation arife from the things related, and which fuccceded 

 them in their formation, prepolitions (hould, and probably 

 did, in the early ufe of language come after, inftcad of goin>T 

 before the nouns which they governed. In confcquence of 

 this arrangement, they combined into one word with the 

 final fyllables of the connefted noun, and thus ferved to give 

 it adiverfity of terminations. Hence the origin of cafes in tlie 

 fenfe in which cafes have hitherto been underftood by modern 

 grammarians. It is wonhy'of remark, before we quit this 

 fubjeft, that the nominative, as expreffing caufe, has a clofe 

 affinity to the genitive, which means beginning. But the 

 former fixes the attention on the noun, as an agent or a caufe 

 in aclion : while the latter holds forth its noun a&xhtfource 

 or beginning of motion. The beginning of a thing is often 

 the author and owner of that thing : hence the genitive has 

 the fccondary fenfe of pojfejpon. On the other hand, the 

 accufative is nearly allied in fenfe to the dative ; but the 

 former is not ufed m its ilrift and original fignification, un 

 lefs it denotes an ejpa, or the thing in which action termi- 

 nates ; while the latter, in ftrift propriety, marks the end to 

 which motion points, and in- which it terminates. The geni- 

 tive ftands oppofed to the dative, as beginning to the end, 



Nouns and verbs in Greek have a dual number to exprefs like the oppoiite points of a right line f whil? the "ablative 



two things, or fuch things as are in pairs, as hands, eyes, 

 feet. The ufe of the dual occurs frequently in the poets, 

 though not p.^culiar to them, nor always obferved by them, 

 when fpeaking of two objeds. The dual number is by no 

 means necefiary in language, though it may enable the 

 Greek to exprefs the number two or pairs with more em- 

 phafis and precifion. It was, therefore, rejefted by the 

 ./Eolians and by the Latins, who derived their tongue 

 from the JE,o\\c dialeil. The feventy tranflators, moreover, 

 have rejected the ufe of the dual number, and in this tliey 



expreffcs the medium or inftrumentality of the motion by 

 which that line is generated. The ablative cafe tlierefore de- 

 notes one of the moft important and diftinft relations in kn- 

 .guage, and yet the Greek, with all its boafted copioufnefs and 

 precifion, has not a diilinft termination to exprefs this cafe, 

 but denotes it fometimes by the genitive, and at others by 

 the dative, with or without a prepoCtion. Finally inanimate 

 things only move after they are put in motion, or ad as they 

 are aded upon. This is probably the reafon why neuter nouns 

 in Greek have no termination to exprefs caufe, diltind frcm 



7 that 



