APPENDIX.

A.

THE NOUN.

I. NOTES ON NUMBER.

[Grammar, pages 11-14.]

1. The Inflection -s, -es.-In Anglo-Saxon, or the oldest English, there were several plural suffixes, as, -as, -an, -a, -u: thus, stan-as, stones; steorr-an, stars; hand-a, hands; lim-u, limbs. After the conquest of England by the Norman French in the 11th century, most of these terminations gradually dropped out of the language, and -as, changed to -es, and in many cases to -s, became the ordinary sign of plurality. Hence our plural inflection -s is a shortened form of the Anglo-Saxon -as; thus the plural of smith was first smith-as, then smith-es, and finally smiths.

2. Older Inflections. Though we are in the habit of speaking of the plural in -s or -es as the regular plural, it should not be forgotten that there were, in early English, various other inflections of the plural which were quite as much used as -es, and which were therefore quite as regular. Thus―

Ox, plural oxen (Anglo-Saxon oxa, plural ox-an), furnishes an example of one of the older and very common modes of forming the plural, namely, by the suffix -an, afterwards changed to -en.

Child takes the plural form children. The Anglo-Saxon plural was childru: this became first childre (or childer), and then children, so that it appears to be a double plural=childr(u)+ en.

Brethren (plural of brother) is an instance of the use of the suffix -en, together with a radical change.

3. False Plurals. The s in alms, riches, and eaves is not a sign

of the plural; but these words, though really singulars, are almost always treated as plurals.

Alms is a shortened form of the Anglo-Saxon almesse, a singular noun. Riches is derived from the French richesse, a singular noun.

Eaves is the modern spelling of the Old-English efese (or yƒes), a singular noun.

II. NOTES ON GENDER.

[Grammar, pages 16-19.]

1. Historical.—It has been seen that in Anglo-Saxon nouns were classified as to gender, not by the sex of the object, but by the termination of the noun, as in Latin and Greek—that is, they had grammatical gender. Thus, nouns ending in -dom (as freedom=freedom) were masculine; those ending in -ung (as gretung=greeting) were feminine, while many ending in -en (as mægden=maiden) were neuter. During this early period of our language the articles, adjectives, and adjective pronouns had distinctive terminations of gender, and were required (as is the case in Latin, Greek, French, and German) to agree in gender with the nouns to which they belonged.

2. Old Feminines.-The suffix -ster (Anglo-Saxon -estre) was the feminine inflection corresponding to the masculine ending -er (or -ere): thus, bac-ere (a male baker), bæc-estre (a female baker); so sang-ere, sing-er; sang-estre, a female singer. The substitution of the Norman - French -ess for the Anglo-Saxon -ster occurred about the 14th century.

Spinster (an unmarried woman) is an instance of the preservation of this Anglo-Saxon feminine suffix; for spin-ster originally meant a female spinn-er. After a time -ster ceased to be felt as a feminine ending, and merely denoted one who; indeed, it often denoted the masculine gender, as tapster; and now it is used principally as a suffix implying diminutiveness or some degree of depreciation, as in punster, youngster.

Songstress (feminine of singer) is an example of a double termination of the feminine gender=song+str+ess, the French suffix -ess being appended to songster when the Anglo-Saxon suffix ▪ster had ceased to denote the feminine gender.

Vixen (Old English fyx-en, the feminine of fox) is the solitary instance now remaining of the use of the once common feminine suffix -en. 3. Masculine from Feminine.-As a rule, the feminine is formed from the masculine; but the reverse is the case in the following words:

Widower: in Old English, widow was both masculine and feminine; later, it was feminine only; finally, -er was added to denote the masculine.

Bridegroom is formed from bride+Old-English guma, a man.
Gander is derived from gans, a goose.

III. NOTES ON CASE.

[Grammar, pages 20-22.]

1. Historical.-In the ancient languages-Latin, Greek, etc.-many inflections were used to denote the various relations of nouns to other words; and these several inflected forms were called cases. The Latin language had changes of form to express―

The subject of a verb-the nominative case: as, urb-8, a city. The object of a verb-the accusative case: as, urb-em, a city. The indirect object—the dative case: as, urb-i, for or to a city. Adverbial relations—the ablative case: as, urb-e, from, with, or by a city.

Specification or limitation—the genitive case (corresponding to our possessive): as, urb-is, a city's.

N

G

D

The term case (casus) literally means any form that "happens to occur"-any relation that befalls a noun. The old grammarians illustrated the changes of case by the following diagram: The vertical line represented the nominative case (called casus rectus, or upright case). If this line, moving on a hinge at x, were to fall or be bent downward, it would assume the various oblique positions marked G, D, etc., to express the six Latin cases, the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, and ablative.

X

Ac

V

Ab

The diagram gives origin to the terms decline, declension (from de, down, and clinere, to bend), the upright line being bent downward; and inflect, inflection (from in, into, and flectere, to bend).

2. Early English Cases. English, in its earliest or Anglo-Saxon stage, was much fuller in its case-forms than is our modern English. Nouns had then five cases, answering to the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative of Latin-though there were not always distinct forms for all these cases. The following table exhibits the inflections of the noun man in Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and English.

It will be seen from this table that, while the Anglo-Saxon had a less elaborate apparatus of case-endings than the Latin, modern English has still fewer inflections than the Anglo-Saxon had-that, in fact, it has lost all the case-forms except the genitive (possessive).

3. Use of 's.-The general use of the apostrophe to mark the elision of the e in the possessive singular is comparatively modern, and first became common about the end of the 17th century. Milton (died 1674) did not use this mark. The probable reason of its employment was to distinguish the possessive singular from the nominative plural: for example, to distinguish birdes (possessive singular) from birdes (nominative plural).

8

4. Possessive Plural.-The same explanation does not apply to the use of the apostrophe after the s in the possessive plural. The apostrophe here does not mark any elision, because no vowel has been dropped. The use of this conventional sign began about the 17th century, through the notion that the s (as in boys) was necessarily the suffix of the nominative plural, though in reality it was quite as much the suffix of the possessive plural. The use of the apostrophe after the s in the plural is therefore arbitrary and meaningless; still it is a convenient mode of marking case-use.