CASE (casus a falling, Lat.). Inflections. Case is an inflection of nouns and pronouns Case. to show their relation to some other word. There are three cases in English: the Nomina tive, the Possessive, and the Objective. The Nominative (nomen = a name, Lat.) names Nominative. the subject of the verb; as, birds fly; man is mortal. = The Possessive (possessio possession, Lat.) Possessive.. indicates property, possession, or authorship; as, The Queen's crown; My father's house; Macaulay's History. The Objective shows the object of an action, Objective. or of a relation; as, Wellington defeated Napoleon; Wordsworth wrote the Excursion; The ship was wrecked on a rock. The nominative is the simple form of the Nominative. noun. Singular. The possessive is formed by adding 's to the Possessive nominative in the singular; as, man, man's; boy, boy's; crow, crow's. Plural. The possessive case in the plural is formed by Possessive adding the (') only to the nominative plural; as, horses, horses'; boys, boys'. Singular. Exceptions.-Dissyllabic and polysyllabic Exception. nouns which end in s, ce, or x, if not accented on the last syllable, form their possessive cases in the singular by adding (') only; as, Moses' rod; for conscience' sake; for righteousness' sake. "Now I will believe That there are unicorns; that in Arabia There is one tree, the phoenix' throne."-Tempest. Nouns which form their plural terminations Plural. D Formation of case. Inflections. in any letter but s, take the s as well as the apostrophe in the possessive plural; as, men's rights; women's tongues; children's books. Objective. Objective. The 's of the possessive. The (') of the possessive. Instrumental case. The objective case in English nouns is the same in form as the nominative; as, man, man. The objective case of nouns in English is only a case syntactically, as in etymology there can be no case without a change of form. The 's of the possessive is a contraction for the Anglo-Saxon ending of the genitive case, -es; as, smides, the genitive of smið. It cannot possibly be a corruption of the possessive pronoun his, as it is applied to masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns alike; as, the man's forehead, the girl's dress, the picture's frame.* The (') of the possessive is inserted to distinguish it from the nominative plural, not to point out a contraction; as both possessive singular and nominative plural are contractions -the possessive from the Anglo-Saxon genitive, -es; and the nominative plural from the Anglo-Saxon -as, as may be seen from the following example : Singular. Gen. Smides. Plural. Smiða, etc. In such expressions as, all the better, all the worse, the the is a remnant of the Anglo-Saxon * The theory of the 's of the possessive case being an abbreviation of his was founded on such expressions among old writers, as "for Jesus Christ his sake;' "The prince his house," etc. ablative or instrumental case, meaning by that; as, better by all that, etc. Inflections. Formation of case. etc. In such phrases as, of a man, to a man, by a Of, to, from, man, from a man, with a man, above a man, beneath a man, the word man is in the objective case after the preposition of, to, by, etc. Otherwise we should have as many cases as prepositions. ADJECTIVES. The Adjective in English has no inflections for Adjectives. number, gender, or case, as in other languages; but only those for the Degrees of Comparison. comparison. There are three degrees of comparison: the Degrees of Positive, the Comparative, and the Superlative. The Positive indicates something positively Positive. about the noun or pronoun; as, a good man; she is pretty. tive. The Comparative indicates that one of two Comparaobjects possesses a quality in a greater or less degree than another; as, mightier than Cæsar; braver than Achilles; better than gold; less than nothing. The Superlative indicates that one of many Superlative. objects possesses a quality in the greatest or least degree; as, fairest of women; bravest of men. superlative. This last is called the Relative Superlative, as Relative it relates to other specified objects. superlative. There is also another superlative called the Absolute Absolute Superlative, which indicates that an object possesses a quality in an absolute manner independently of immediate comparison Inflections. with other objects. This absolute superlative is formed by the aid of adverbs; as, a very wise man; a very great king; an exceedingly pretty girl. Modes of There are two methods of forming the com comparison. paratives and superlatives of English adjectives: (1) by adding -er and -est to the positive; (2) by prefixing more and most. By adding. -er and -est. By prefixing more and most. (1.) All monosyllabic adjectives, and dissyllabic adjectives ending in -y, -el, -some or -le, or accented on the last syllable, form their comparatives by adding -er, and their superlatives by adding -est, to the positive: as, bright, brighter, brightest; cruel, crueller, cruellest; handsome, handsomer, handsomest; lovely, lovelier, loveliest ; able, abler, ablest; noble, nobler, noblest; políte, politer, politest; acúte, acúter, acútest. (2.) All other adjectives form their comparatives by prefixing more, and their superlatives by prefixing most, to the positive; as gracious, more gracious, most gracious; honourable, more honourable, most honourable. Good. Remarks on the above Exceptions. Good and bad may be said to be defective in the comparative and superlative, and the loss is Inflections. supplied by better, best, worse, worst, which are defective in the positive. These adjectives have the same deficiencies in most of the IndoEuropean languages. More and most are the comparatives and More. superlatives of the old positive mo or moe, used Mo or Moe. by Shakespeare and other writers. "There be many mo, though that she doe goe, There be many mo, I fear not: Why then, let her go, I care not.". Corydon's farewell to Phillis. PERCY'S RELIQUES. Much is a compound of moe and like, as may Much. be seen in the Scotch muckle. Many was originally a noun derived from the Many. French mesnie, and meant a household, or retinue. It is used in this sense in the phrase, a good many=a large number. "Then the Persè owt of Banborowe cam, With him a mightè meany.” Ballad of Chevy-chase. "There, parting from the king, the chiefs divide, Such phrases as many a youth, many a time-are inversions of a many of youths, a many of times: that is, a company of youths, a number of times. The th in farther and farthest is no part of Farther. |