Alms, riches, and eaves are singular in form, but treated as plurals.

Alms, Old English almesse, almesse, almes. In Old English a plural of this is met with, elmessen, almesses.

Riches, Old English richesse. In Old English a plural of this is also met with, richesses.

Some Nouns have two plurals differing slightly in signification.

SINGULAR.

PLURAL.

Many geographical names are frequently plural in form,

as,

Azores, Alps, Athens, Thebes, &c.

We say the Miss Taylors or the Misses Taylor.

IV. Remarks on Case.

§ (13) Case is the form of a Noun or Pronoun which denotes the relation in which it stands to some other word in the sentence.

This definition is not altogether applicable to Case as denoted in our language at the present time when most of our Case-endings are lost. It should be supplemented by,—

But in our language Case is frequently denoted not by form, but by position, and by the sense of the sentence in which the Noun or Pronoun is found.

A Noun or Pronoun is in the Nominative Case when it is the subject of a sentence, that is, when it denotes that respecting which we make an assertion.

Nouns in the Nominative Case are not inflected to denote this, but the personal Pronouns I, thou, he, she, with their compounds, and the Relative Pronoun who, are inflected.

A Noun or Pronoun is in the Possessive Case when it denotes possession, and is followed by a Noun denoting what is possessed.

This is the only Case for which Nouns are inflected.

A Noun or Pronoun is in the Objective Case when it completes the meaning of a Transitive Verb, and when it is governed by a Preposition.

NOTE. The oldest English had six Cases, viz.,-Nominative, Genitive, Vocative, Dative, Accusative, and Instrumental, and the Noun was inflected for each of these.

§ (14) Formation of the Possessive Case.

When a Noun is in the singular number the Possessive Case is formed by adding 's.

The Possessive Case of boy is boy's
girl is girl's.

In the Anglo-Saxon, the Possessive ended in es, and the Nominative Plural in as and es. The vowel has been dropped in each of these terminations, and if we did not make use of the apostrophe ('), along with the s, in the Possessive Case, we could not so readily distinguish between the Possessive and the Nominative Plural, as the two forms would be identical. We should have boys,

Possessive, and boys, Nominative Plural.

NOTE. (a) When a Noun in the singular number, of more than two syllables, ends in s or a, the apostrophe only is used, as,—

Pericles' orations; Socrates' wife.

(b) In poetry the above is frequently the case with words of less than three syllables, as,

Young Paris' face; your highness' love.

(c) In compound words the suffix is added to the last element, as,— Father-in-law's shop; son-in-law's house.

(d) Singular Nouns ending in es, ss, ce, the latter having the sharp sound, merely add the apostrophe, as the addition of the s would not be euphonic, as,

Moses' rod; for goodness' sake; for conscience' sake.

When the plural of a Noun is formed by adding s or es, the Possessive Plural is formed by simply adding the apostrophe after the s; the s being omitted for the sake of euphony, as,

Boys' hats; girls' toys.

§ (15) The Nominative Absolute.

When a Noun or Pronoun is followed by a Participle by which it is qualified, but is not the subject of a finite Verb, the phrase in which it is found is called an Absolute Phrase, and the Noun or Pronoun is said to be in the Nominative Absolute, as,

"The man being mistaken, we consulted what to do."

The work having been completed, we started home."

It will be seen that phrases in which the Nominative Absolute occurs have mostly an adverbial force.

NOTE. In the oldest English the dative was the Absolute Case, just as the ablative is in Latin, and the genitive in Greek. The nominative began to displace it about the middle of the 14th century. A few instances of this construction are to be found in Milton, as,—

"Me overthrown," "Us dispossessed,"

"Him destroyed, all else will follow."

§(16) The word case is taken from the Latin casus, a fall, probably in allusion to the way in which the different cases were originally represented by lines.

NOM.

GENITIVE.

BLIQUE

DATIVE.

ACCUSATIVE.

The nominative case was termed casus rectus, or upright case, in allusion to the perpendicular line. The other cases denote a certain declension of idea from the nominative. All cases except the nominative were termed oblique cases, in allusion to the line declining

CASUS RECTUS.

more or less from its vertical position.

CASES

VOCATIVE,

ABLATIVE.

The collection of the various forms which a Noun may assume to denote case is called the Declension of the Noun.

There was originally a mistaken idea that the 's of the possessive case was a contraction of his; and in our Prayer Book we find the expression, "for Jesus Christ his sake," that is, " for Jesus Christ's sake." The origin of the 's has already been shown, but the absurdity of the above idea will be at once seen by taking a Noun in the feminine gender and substituting his for 's. We should then have "Mary his book" instead of "Mary's book,"- -a Pronoun in the masculine gender referring to a Noun in the feminine gender.

I. Remarks on the Classes of Verbs.

§(17) There are several classifications of English Verbs. It must be borne in mind that every classification must include every Verb in the language, otherwise it is incomplete; and seeing that there are several classifications,

pupils should be most careful to guard against cross-classifications. One idea, and one only, must form the basis of each separate classification. It would be incorrect, for example, to classify Verbs as Transitive, Intransitive, and Auxiliary, as two ideas would be involved in the classification.

Books, when classified or arranged in a library, must be arranged either according to their authors or according to size, or with some other idea in the mind; but it would be impossible to classify them at the same time according to their authors and according to their size: such an attempt would only end in confusion, on account of its being a cross-classification.

Definitions should be carefully framed, so as to include every Verb. Verbs, for example, are generally classified into Transitive and Intransitive, but in many text-books the definitions of these two classes are not sufficiently wide to include every Verb in the language, in which case, of course, the classification will not suffice.

§ (18) The following are complete classifications of Verbs:

Some Verbs, although included in each of the above classifications, receive special names on account of their special nature, as, for instance,

(1) DEFECTIVE VERBS, such as may, can, must, shall, will.
(2) IMPERSONAL VERBS, in such sentences as it rains, it freezes.
(3) CAUSATIVE VERBS, such as raise, fell, set.

(4) FREQUENTATIVE VERBS, such as glimmer, stagger, sparkle.