in meaning though not in form. But this arises from our laxity in the choice of words: we use chief as if it meant the same as important, and universal as if it meant the same as general.

117. Superlatives are sometimes employed to denote the presence of a quality in a high degree, without any suggestion of comparison. When a mother writes to her son as 'My dearest boy,' she does not mean that his brothers occupy a lower place in her affections: 'dearest' signifies in such a case 'very dear.'

118. There are some comparative adjectives which we cannot use with than. Thus the following adjectives which have been borrowed directly from the Latin in the comparative form do not admit than after them: senior, junior, exterior, (which take to after them); major, minor, interior. The following adjectives of English origin have the same characteristic; elder, inner, outer, latter. We can say older than, later than, but not elder than, latter than.

QUESTIONS.

1. Adjectives of two syllables having certain terminations may be compared without the use of more and most. Specify three of these terminations, and mention adjectives which contain them.

2. Give the comparative and superlative degrees of sad, gay, free, nigh, bad, old, hateful, happy, out, awry, fore, late, sly, holy, far, virtuous, dry, complete, big, honourable.

3. Make sentences which illustrate the difference in our use of oldest, eldest; latest, last; nearest, next; farthest, furthest.

4. Which of the following Adjectives, when employed in their strict sense, cannot be compared?—common, universal, supreme, monthly, triangular, despotic, absolute, inevitable, unique, European, eternal, boundless.

5. Describe the origin and formation of the words first, second, eleven, thirteen, twenty, million.

118

CHAPTER XIV.

PRONOUNS.

119. A Pronoun is commonly defined as a word used instead of a noun. The definition has these merits: it is short, it is easily understood, and it calls attention to the useful service which most Pronouns perform in saving the repetition of a noun. Thus, for example, if no pronouns existed, instead of saying 'John gave Mary a watch on her birthday, and she lost it,' we should have to say 'John gave Mary a watch on Mary's birthday, and Mary lost the watch.

120. But have all pronouns this property of serving as substitutes for nouns?

A good deal of ingenuity must be exercised if we are to bring within the scope of the definition (1) the Personal Pronouns of the First and Second Persons, and (2) the Interrogative Pronouns.

(1) For if the pronouns I and you were abolished, and nouns were put in their places, we should have to recast our sentences entirely and make all our statements in the third person.

(2) Again, when we ask Who broke the window?' what is the noun for which we are to say that the pronoun Who serves as substitute? We must maintain that the pronoun Who here stands for the noun which the answer supplies, but this seems rather far-fetched. For suppose that the reply to the question is not 'Brown,' or 'the boy,' but I don't know,' where is the noun ?

The ordinary definition is exposed to the further objection that it overlooks the essential difference between Noun and Pronoun. The essential difference is this. A Noun has a uniform meaning of its own. It always indicates an object of the same kind. The meaning of a Pronoun, on the contrary, varies with every change in its application. (See § 73, 3, p. 70.) If I read the words, 'A horse ran away,' I know, not indeed what particular horse ran away, but the particular class of objects to which the thing that ran away belonged. If, on the other hand, I read the words, 'It ran away,' it may signify a horse, or a dog, or a traction-engine, or anything else, according to the context. I means Jones when Jones speaks, Zeus when Zeus speaks, a horse or a tree when horses and trees speak, as they do in fables. In certain situations anything can be I, you, he, this, or that, but only one set of things can be horses. Pronouns admit of universal application: the objects which they denote are infinitely various. Nouns, on the contrary, identify things as belonging to particular groups. In short, Pronouns indicate; Nouns name.

A Pronoun might therefore be defined as a word which denotes a thing, not by its own name but by its relation to something else. This statement, however, unless accompanied by some such explanation as we have given above, would convey very little meaning to anybody. The student will probably prefer to fall back upon the ordinary definition of a Pronoun as a word used instead of a noun, and provided that he understands in what respects the definition is defective, no harm will result if he follows his preference.

121. Pronouns are of different kinds.

(1) Some are used exclusively as substitutes for nouns : e.g. he, who. We cannot say, 'He man' or 'Who boy.' In such expressions as, 'I, the master,' 'You, the pupil,' 'He, John,' we have a noun in apposition with the pronoun: John explains he; he does not limit the application of John.

(2) Others are used both as substitutes for nouns and as adjectives limiting nouns: eg. that, what. In the sentence, 'I like that book,' that is an adjective: in 'I like that,' it is a substitute for a noun (though we might also regard it as an adjective with a noun understood, just as we understand the noun 'horse' to be implied with the adjective 'black' in the sentence 'I like the white horse better than the black'). In the sentence What did he do?' what takes the place of a noun: in' What work did he do?' it is an adjective limiting the meaning of work.

(3) A few so-called pronouns are used only as adjectives, but they are usually dealt with under the head of pronouns because they are connected with pronouns in their origin: e.g. my, your. Thus we can say, 'My book is lost,' but not 'My is lost'; 'Lend me your book,' not 'Lend me your.''

Keeping these distinctions in view, we may arrange the various classes of Pronouns in the following manner:

VIII. POSSESSIVE-my, our; thy, your; her, its, their.

The Possessives ours, yours, hers, theirs, are used when no noun follows them, and in this respect they resemble nouns, but their force is purely adjectival. The same remarks apply to mine and thine in modern diction. His admits of use either with or without a noun following.

The Distributive pronoun every is now used only as an adjective, except occasionally in legal phraseology.

122. Definitions of the different kinds of Pronouns.

I. Personal.

The Pronoun of the First Person is used in the singular to denote the speaker alone, and in the plural to denote the speaker and others with whom he is associated.

The Pronoun of the Second Person is used of the person or persons addressed.

2. A Demonstrative Pronoun is one which points out a thing.

3. A Reflexive Pronoun denotes the object of an action when the object is the same as the doer of the action.

4. A Relative Pronoun is one which refers to some other nouns or pronoun and has the force of a conjunction.

5. An Interrogative Pronoun is one by means of which we ask a question.

6. An Indefinite Pronoun is one which does not point out precisely the object to which it refers.

7. A Distributive Pronoun is used when there are more things than one, to denote that the things are taken separately.

8. A Possessive Pronominal Adjective denotes that the noun which it limits is the name of a thing belonging to some other thing.

With the exception of the word Relative, the adjectives by which the kinds of pronouns are described convey a clearer notion of their characteristic features than these definitions will afford. The student should carefully notice the Examples of Pronouns given in the Table under their respective heads and observe the appropriateness of the names by which the various classes are distinguished.

We will now consider the different classes in detail.

123. I. The Pronouns of the First, Second, and Third Persons are declined thus: