sex, or of the female sex, or as belonging to the class of things without sex, or in which sex is not recognised in the ordinary use of language. (6) HE is employed in speaking of an individual male, SHE of an individual female, and IT in speaking of things without life, and of animals when we do not know or do not choose to mark the sex. (7) When we speak of more than one individual THEY is employed, as subject noun, to represent all classes of be ings-persons, animals, and things, without distinction.

(8) We may notice here the classification of nouns on the basis of the distinction of the two sexes, and of the absence or non-recognition of sex, commonly called by grammarians the GENDERS of NOUNS. (9) The word gender (genus) means, simply, kind or class. (10) In English we have three genders, that is, three kinds of nouns in reference to sex: 1st, all males recognised as such in ordinary discourse (as God, angels, men, the male heathen deities, and the males of the nobler, and of the more conspicuous and best known animals), are arranged in the MASCULINE GENDER, or class of males; 2d, all females (as women, goddesses, and the more conspicuous female animals), are, in like manner, arranged in the FEMININE GENDER, or class of females; and, 3d, all things without animal life, or in which sex, in the ordinary usage of language is not recognised, are arranged under the NEUTER (or neither) gender, that is, the class which is neither male nor female. (11) This classification is of little use in English, save in reference to the employment of the pronouns of the third person, HE, SHE, and IT, and some words of their family. (12) He, as will be seen from what is said above, represents nouns of the masculine gender, and may be called the masculine pronoun ; she, in like manner, represents nouns of the feminine gender, and may be called the feminine pronoun; and it represents neuter nouns, and may be called the neuter pronoun. (See § 157.)

(6) What pronoun represents an individual male in the third person? What reprosents a female in like manner? What represents individually or singly things without life, and animals in which the sex is not known or not regarded in language? (7) For what purpose is the pronoun THEY employed?

(8) What is said of the classification of nouns called the GENDERS ? (9) What does the term gender mean? (10) Describe this classification, as regards our language. (11) Is this classification of much importance in English? (12) Tell what gender or class each of the pronouns she, he, it, represents.

(13) The learner will please remember that in all propositions, I and we alone are used to represent the first person or speaker, singular and plural. Thou or you, alone to represent the second person or party addressed, singular or plural. (14) Nouns are never used to express the subjects of assertions in reference to these parties. (15) But in making assertions of parties distinct from the speaker and the party addressed, we use either the noun--the name of the person or persons, the thing or things spoken of--or we can use their representatives, the pronouns he, she, it, and they (when no obscurity is occasioned), as subject nouns of propositions. (16) From this it follows that all nouns employed as the subjects of propositions are to be classed under the third person; they are only used to express parties merely spoken of.

third person which we This word seems to be Normans. It is used

(17) There is another pronoun of the must notice here; namely, the word one. the French on, borrowed, likely, from the to represent an indefinite third person, and can scarcely be said to be the representative of a name, but rather of that which is nameless. ONE thinks any person thinks. (See § 155: 25.)

EXERCISES ON THE PERSONAL PRONOUNS.-I. Analyze the following propositions: I think. We live. Thou standest. You run. He sleeps. She learns. It decays. They work. We prosper. He plays. I study. It snows. Man toils, he suffers, &c.

MODEL OF ANALYSIS.-Example: "We live." Point out the verb in this proposition. Ans. The word "live." Why do you call "live" a verb? Ans. Because it is the assertive word of the proposition. What is the subject of this proposition? Ans. The word "we." What do you mean by the subject of a proposition? Ans. The subject is that of which the assertion contained in the proposition is made. What kind of word is "we"? Ans. A noun of the second order, or a personal pronoun of the first person. What is meant by a pronoun or noun of the second order? Ans. A word

(13) What words are always used in propositions to represent the speaker and the party or parties addressed? (14) Are nouns ever employed for this purpose? (15) What subject nouns are employed in propositions having reference to parties distinct from speaker and hearer? (16) Under what person then are all nouns employed as subjects of propositions to be classed?

(17) Repeat what is said of the indefinite pronoun ONE.

which stands instead of a noun, or which represents a noun, without being the definite or fixed name of any particular object or class of objects. What does the pronoun "we" here represent? Ans. The names of the person who speaks (who utters the proposition), and of those for whom, in connection with himself, he speaks.

These questions may be increased or diminished, according to the capacity and the progress of the learner. It will generally be best to analyze a few examples very fully, and afterwards abbreviate the process, as in the model which follows:

MODEL SECOND.-Example: "She learns." The verb is “learns," for "learns" expresses the assertion contained in the proposition. The subject is the pronoun SHE. This pronoun is of the third person and feminine gender; for it represents an individual merely spoken of, and that individual a female. Or, more briefly still, the subject is the feminine pronoun SHE of the third

person.

This

Example: Man toils, he suffers, &c. The subject of the second proposition is HE, the masculine pronoun of the third person. pronoun represents the noun "man"-the subject of the preceding proposition.

In written analyses, the following abbreviations may be adopted: pron. for pronoun, persl. for personal, pers. for person, the numerals 1, 2, 3 to express the number of the person, mas. for masculine, fem. for feminine, neut. for neuter. It may be useful, in writing, to draw a line under all the grammatical terms and abbreviations employed to indicate the analysis, in order to distinguish them more clearly from the words of the example analyzed. In the printed book we exhibit the words employed to express the analysis in Italics, to distinguish them from the words analyzed, which are exhibited in Roman type.

MODEL OF A WRITTEN EXERCISE.-Example: He sleeps (He, mas. pron. 3 pers.) s. sleeps, v. That is, He, the masculine pronoun of the third person, is the subject, sleeps is the verb.

EXERCISES II. III., &c.-Let the pupil form a given number of written propositions having personal pronouns for their subjects.

§ 31. PROPER NOUNS AND COMMON NOUNS.-We must now attend to another classification of nouns, founded on a different principle--a classification of considerable importance in a grammatical

point of view, as many of the contrivances of language have refer ence to the fact or principle on which it rests. The fact to which we allude is the extent of the signification of nouns. (1) In reference to this, Grammarians have divided them into two classes, called by them proper nouns and common nouns.

(2) Some nouns are names appropriated to certain persons or things, as the names of men and women, names given to some of the domestic animals, as dogs, horses, &c., by which we recognise only a single individual. To this class belong also the names of countries, regions, cities, towns, mountains, rivers, states, nations, or races of men, languages, days, months, festivals, great events, ships, &c., &c. (3) These are called proper nouns, because they are names proper that is, peculiar or appropriated to individual persons, places, &c., of which they are the spoken signs. Proper has, in this use, the sense it retains in the word property. These names are, as it were, the property of the individuals they represent. Examples: George Washington, Maria Edgeworth, Europe, the Canadas, London, New-York, the Alps, the Potomac, Pennsylvania, the Germans, the Celts, French, English, Monday, May, Christmas, Easter, the Revolution, &c.

(4) There are other names which are used to designate, not a single individual, but a whole class of objects: as, animal, man, tree. These are sometimes employed to designate the whole class taken together, sometimes to designate any individual or any number of individuals of the class. (5) Without the help of some other sign, they never indicate any determinate individual or determinate individuals of the class. (6) They are sometimes called general terms, because some of them serve to indicate a whole genus or class. In grammar, they are generally and more properly called COMMON NOUNS; because they are names common to a whole class of objects.

The following description of the manner in which men may have

31. (1) Name the two classes into which nouns are divided in reference to the extent of their signification.

(2) What nouns, or names are included in the first class, or class of proper nouns? (8) Why are they called proper nouns ? Give examples. (4) Describe the other class of (5) Do these nouns alone serve to indicate a determinate individual? (6) What are these nouns sometimes called, and for what reason? What are they usually called by

nouns.

been led to the invention of common names, will serve to elucidate the distinction between these classes of words. We subjoin it for the perusal of the learner. The account of the matter here given rests on the supposition that the first names invented would naturally be proper names. We know that this is disputed, perhaps justly; we enter not into the controversy. But whether the supposition is correct or not, the statement given below will tend to explain the distinction between proper and common names, to exhibit clearly the use and importance of common names, and to fix the subject in the memory of the learner.

Let us suppose that we are commencing the formation of a language. Our first effort, so far as names of substances is concerned, would be to give names to the objects around us, by which names we might recall the conception of these objects (when absent) to our own minds, and to the minds of others. In commencing this task, we would likely attempt to give a separate name to every conspicuous and interesting object (a sign exclusively appropriated to it), which, when uttered, would, with unfailing certainty, recall its image to the mind. Thus we might call each individual of our own species by a distinctive name; our favorite animals, as dogs, horses, &c., we might designate in the same way; and every river, mountain, hill, valley, and conspicuous or notable place might have an appellation appropriated to itself.

But when we come to name the trees of the forest, or the grass of the fields, or the ears or kernels of grain, and the other products of the teeming earth, or the pebbles on the sea-shore, or the more diminutive swarms of living insects, we should find it utterly impossible to proceed as before, and to give a peculiar name to each individual tree, blade of grass, &c. These objects, though sometimes collectively considered highly interesting to man, individually considered, are not of sufficient account in our view to require each a separate name. The attempt to give such names would frustrate the most valuable purposes of language by introducing an innumerable host of signs of individual objects-singly considered, of little or no importance to us-which the longest life would not be sufficient to master, and the strongest memory could not retain. Were it possible to give names to every single plant in a piece of fertile land of a few acres' extent, these names would be more numerous than the words contained in the most copious language of civilized man.

We should, therefore, soon find ourselves obliged to proceed-as mankind in the formation of languages have in fact proceeded to give