96. How many cases have we then in English nouns and pronouns?

In answer to this question, let us write out the declension of town and he.

It is clear that the pronoun he is better off than the noun in its supply of case-inflexions. He, his, him, are three genuine cases, just as much as urbs, urbis, urbem, are genuine cases. But it is otherwise with the noun. Town, nominative, is indistinguishable in form from town, objective. The form of the word town does not show its relation to the rest of the sentence: the position of the word, or its context, shows its relation. We must not however interpret our definition too rigorously. If we found ourselves without the means of drawing the fundamental distinction between subject and object, because of the absence of an inflexion, parsing and analysis would be reduced to absurdity. The fact is, the definition suits an inflexional language like Latin much better than it suits a non-inflexional language like English. Even in Latin there are many nouns in which the strict application of the definition would land us in confusion. Neuter nouns of the Fourth Declension, like cornu, have an inflexion only in the genitive of the singular number, cornus: all the other singular forms are the same as the nominative. Yet we speak of the accusative, dative, and ablative cases of cornu, and in like manner we speak of the nominative and objective cases of English nouns, though there is but one form to express two relations.

97. The Nominative case is the form of a noun when it stands as subject of a verb.

'The town admitted the enemy:'The town was taken.'

In each of these sentences the subject is town, though in the first sentence town represents the doer of the action, in the second, it stands for the thing to which the action is done.

When the noun represents a thing spoken to, we may call its case the Vocative, or the Nominative of Address. 'Waiter!' 'Come here, John!' 'O death! O grave!' are examples.

The Objective case is the form of a noun when it stands as object of a verb, or follows a preposition. 'The enemy took the town:' 'The enemy are in the town.' Town is said to be in the objective case, in the former sentence because it represents the object which the enemy took, in the latter because it comes after the preposition in.

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Some verbs take two objects: 'Give me the book:' 'He told us a story:' 'She taught him music:' 'Get them a cab.' In these sentences, me to me, us = to us, him = to him, them for them. These words me, us, him, them, are called Indirect Objects; book, story, music, cab, are called Direct Objects. Formerly a dative case with distinct inflexions was used in English to express Indirect Objects, but through the loss of these distinct inflexions the dative and the accusative case assumed the same form in nouns, while in the pronouns the dative forms whom, him, them, took the place of the accusatives. We cannot understand the impersonal verbs methought, meseems, unless we remember that the me in these words is a survival of a true dative case. The Possessive Case is the form of a noun when it stands for a thing to which something else belongs or with which it is connected.

The King's crown: the King's execution. The noun King assumes the form King's because it stands for a thing (e.g. Charles I. or Louis XVI.) to which a crown belongs, or with which an execution is connected.

W. E. G.

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This relation may be expressed by the inflexion 's or by the preposition of. We may say the King's crown, the King's execution, or the crown of the King, the execution of the King. The form King's is a possessive case: the expression of the King is no case at all, any more than to, from, by, with, in, round the King are cases.

The apostrophe before the s is no part of the inflexion or case: it is merely an orthographical device to show that a letter, e, has been thrown out, or turned away. (Apostrophe means 'a turning away.') In Wednesday the e is still present: Wednes-day = Wodin's day.

98. Formation of the Possessive case.-To form the possessive case singular add 's.

To form the possessive case plural add 's if the plural does not already end in s: if it already ends in s, add the apostrophe only.

So, sing. town, town's; plur. towns, towns'. Thus in sound town's, towns, towns' are indistinguishable. But if we add the 's to a singular noun ending in the singular in an s sound, or sibilant, we pronounce the 's as a separate syllable: thus actress's is pronounced just like actresses or actresses'.

The possessive singular of a noun ending in a sibilant is frequently formed by adding the apostrophe without the s, in order to avoid the recurrence of the s sound: but no hard and fast rule can be laid down. We say 'Jesus' brothers,' 'Sophocles' tragedies,' 'for goodness' sake,' 'for conscience' sake.' But we more commonly sound the s and write 'St James's Square,' 'Mr Jones's,' 'St Thomas's Hospital,' in accordance with the pronunciation.

Compound nouns take the possessive inflexion s at the end of the word: son-in-law's, man-of-war's. When we use several words to form a name, we put the s after the last, treating the name as a compound word, though it has no place in the vocabulary as such. Thus we say The prime minister of England's residence,' 'I got this at Marshall and Snelgrove's,' 'He is in Price, Waterhouse & Co.'s office.'

Even nouns in apposition are dealt with in the same fashion. When one noun is used to explain another, it is put in the same case, generally in the same number, and if possible in the same gender. In the expressions Queen Victoria, Turner the baker, the noun Victoria explains queen, and baker explains Turner. But when we use these expressions in the possessive case, we almost invariably drop the apposition and convert the two nouns into a compound. We might indeed say 'This is Victoria's, the queen's, crown:' 'I buy my bread at Turner's, the baker's, shop': these forms illustrate apposition and are perfectly gram

matical. But as a fact we should all say 'This is Victoria the queen's crown,' 'I buy my bread at Turner the baker's shop.'

The reader may find the following examples of the declension of nouns of some service in recalling to his mind the details contained in this section.

99. Can we always use at pleasure the inflected form of the possessive in 's or the preposition of?

No: a few trials will show that the preposition of can always be employed, but that there are narrow limits to the use of 's. We can say either 'the boy's cap,' or 'the cap of the boy,' 'the horse's bridle,' or 'the bridle of the horse,' 'nature's forces,' or 'the forces of nature,' 'friendship's garland,' or 'the garland of friendship.' But we cannot say, 'the ink's colour,' 'grammar's laws,' 'the kettle's lid,' 'the station's platform.'

Speaking generally we may say that the inflected form in 's is reserved for the names of living things and of personified objects, though our usage does not entirely conform to this principle: we use the form in 's in such phrases as 'a year's absence,' 'a month's delay,' though there is no personification to justify these idioms.

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100. A quaint error was formerly prevalent that this 's was a corruption of his that John's book was a degenerate form of John his book. In the Prayer-Book we find the expression 'Jesus Christ his sake.' Whatever may be the origin of phrases of this form, two considerations disprove the theory that the 's of the possessive was a corruption of his:

I. Old English presents us with the possessive form in es, but shows no trace of an original his from which it was alleged according to this theory to have been developed.

2. How can the s of the word his itself be explained on this theory? If s=his, whence did we get the first his?

101. The beginner may find it helpful in determining the case of the nouns in a sentence if he asks the following questions:

To discover the

Nominative, put who? or what? before the verb. 'The enemy took the town.' 'Who took the town?' 'The enemy.' 'The town was taken by the enemy.' 'What was taken ?' 'The town.'

Objective: (a) Direct Object, put whom? or what? before the verb and its subject. 'The enemy took the town.' 'What did the enemy take?' 'The town.'

(b) Indirect Object, put to or for whom or what? 'Give me the book.' 'What do you give?' 'The book:' this is the direct object. To whom do you give it?' 'To me.' 'Me' is the indirect object.

Possessive, look for the sign of inflexion 's.

QUESTIONS.

I. Name the case of each noun in the following sentences :John killed Thomas. Thomas was killed by John. man's brother, was killed by John the gardener. man's brother was killed by John. Call me a friend. The people chose Balbus consul.

Thomas, the coach-
Thomas the coach-
Call me a cab.

2. Wolsey the chancellor. Preserve the apposition of these nouns and make three sentences in which they occur respectively in the Nominative, Possessive, and Objective cases. How should we form the Possessive in common use?