Declination

“ Observe that in each case the subject of the sentence ends in -a and the object in -am. The form of the noun shows how it is used in the sentence, and the order of the words has no effect on the essential meaning.
2. As stated above (§ 23) , this change of ending is called declension, and each different ending produces what is called a case. When we decline a noun, we give all its different cases, or changes of endings. In English we have three cases,—nominative, possessive, and objective ”

“ But I am not going to repeat to the scholar how the term "case" is derived from a Latin word signifying "to fall," and is so named because all the other cases fall or decline from the nominative, in order to express the various relations of nouns to each other,—which in Latin they do by a difference of termination, in English by the aid of prepositions,—and that an orderly arrangement of all these different terminations is called the declension of a noun, &c. I am not going to repeat to the scholar the things he already knows ”

“ Now, the view taught at the present time seems to me to want greatness; and the dialect in which alone it can be intelligibly uttered is not the dialect of my soul. It is a sort of postponement of life; nothing quite is, but something different is to be; we are to keep our eyes upon the indirect from the cradle to the grave. ”

“ They may be used uncombined as nouns or adverbs, but only rarely as verbs. Derivation is accomplished by means of a great variety of particles, which are usually employed as prefixes, though there are a few suffixes and infixes. So prominent a characteristic is this use of particles, that these dialects are sometimes spoken of as ‘Particular’ languages. Reduplication is very common in the formative processes of both noun and verb. There is no distinction of gender, nor is there, generally speaking, any inflection to denote person, number, or case in verbs or nouns. ”

“ And how many ways do we pronounce you? yo, yau, yeu, yiu, you, yuu, yet every dialect praise their own Speech, nay in Towns near together, nay in the same Town, nay in the same House, persons born in other places, differ in pronounciation, and many delight to hear different dialects (as the Grecians did) so they did but understand one another, though some precise Females do condemn all but their own finical pronunciation.
But why should phrase be spell’d with ph and s, and not f and z? ”

“ Irel. n.Cy. and most of the n.Midl. dialects, all persons, singular and plural, take s, z, or əz when not immediately preceded or followed by their proper pronoun; that is when the subject is a noun, an interrogative or relative pronoun, or when the verb and subject are separated by a clause. When the verb is immediately preceded or followed by its proper pronoun, the first person sing. and the whole of the plural generally have no special endings in the above dialects, except occasionally in parts of Yks. ”

“ The present participle with sīn is sometimes used as in English, see ‘Arme Heinrich,’ l. 24.
§ 107. Voice. The present and preterite passive are expressed by wërden and the p.p., and the corresponding perfect tenses by sīn and the p.p.
§ 108. Negation. Negation in sentences is expressed by ne (en, n) before the verb, and niht after it: ër enist guot, he is not good. niht is frequently omitted, especially after the preterite presents, the verbs wellen, lān, sentences containing negative pronouns or adverbs, and in subordinate sentences. ”

“ There are, it is true, dialect stories which we must all admire and enjoy,—many of them in spite of their strange language rather than because of it,—but none the less is the multiplicity of tales in dialect a visitation not unlike the Egyptian plague of swarming flies or of sprawling frogs. ”

“ It is the province of the part of Grammar called Accidence to tell us what are the Inflexions of a word. It is the province of the part called Syntax to tell us how and when to use them.
The different inflexions that a Noun can take are called its Declensions, and to give the inflexions of a Noun is to Decline it. The different inflexions that a Verb can take are called its Conjugations, and to give the inflexions of a Verb is to Conjugate it.
§ 13. Inflexion of Nouns.—Nouns belong to different Genders; and their inflexions denote differences of Number and Case. ”

“ Many a word which we meet in the dialects in some unfamiliar shape, can be shown to be no mere vulgar mispronunciation or misspelling, but a genuine old form, once under distinguished patronage in our earlier literature. ”

“ As you have been analyzing nouns in their three cases, it becomes necessary to present, in the next place, the declension of nouns, for you must decline every noun you parse. Declension means putting a noun through the different cases: and you will notice, that the possessive case varies from the nominative in its termination, or ending, but the objective case ends like the nominative. The nominative and objective cases of nouns, must, therefore, be ascertained by their situation in the sentence, or by considering the office they perform. ”

“ It may be inferred, from the practice of all living languages, that consonants whereof the corresponding articulations have been suppressed in speaking may yet be retained with propriety in writing, when they are requisite to point out the derivation of vocables, or the radical part of declinable words. ”

“ We can also think of a person being in the act of doing a good action, or of his being from the act of doing a good action.
§ 279. This has been written to show that verbs of languages in general are as naturally declinable as nouns. What follows will show that the verbs of the Gothic languages in particular were actually declined, and that fragments of this declension remain in the present English.
The inflection of the verb in its impersonal (or infinitive state) consisted, in its fullest form, of three cases, a nominative (or accusative) , a dative, and a genitive. ”

“ If the accent be on לף, then the meaning is, that all lies before men deprived of their freedom; if the accent be on הכל, then the meaning is, that all things, events of all kinds, lie before them, and that God determines which shall happen to them. ”

“ In a language which provides for the distinctions of person by particles prefixed or suffixed to the verb, it will scarcely be expected, that separate and independent relative pronouns should exist, or if such are to be found, their use, as separate parts of speech, must, it will have been anticipated, be quite limited—limited to simple interrogatory forms of expression, and not applicable to the indicative, or declaratory. ”

“ A new language, says the proverb, is a new sense; but a multiplicity of dialects means, for the possessors of the main language, an enlargement of the pleasures of the linguistic sense without the fatigue of learning a totally new grammar and vocabulary. ”

“ All its substantives admit of diminutives, but, in no instance, of augmentatives. They also admit of derogative and prepositional inflections. The comparison of adjectives, is not, on the contrary, made by inflections, but by separate words. There is no dual number, but in all the dialects, so far as examined, a distinction is made in the plural of the first person, to denote the inclusion or exclusion of the object. There is no distinction between the pronoun, singular and plural, of the third person. ”

“ They use the same accents as ourselves, forming their words either on the palate, the teeth, or the lips, only they have other words for things. Great is the diversity of languages, for in a hundred leagues we found such change in the language that the inhabitants could not understand each other. ”

“ It is well enough to record a dialect, nor will any one grudge him credit for his observation and diligence, but to reduce a dialect to theoretic laws and then impose those laws upon the speakers of it is surely a monstrous step. ”

“ V. All derived words are inflected weak. The intransitive forms drink and lie, are strong; the transitive forms drench and lay, are weak.
The fourth statement will again be recurred to. The present object is to show that the division into strong and weak is natural.
§ 387. Obsolete forms.—Instead of lept, slept, mowed, snowed, &c., we find, in the provincial dialects and in the older writers, the strong forms lep, step, mew, snew, &c. This is no more than what we expect. Here there are two forms, and each form is of a different conjugation. ”

“ What prevents us from saying that these untypical individuals speak distinct dialects is that their peculiarities, as a unified whole, are not referable to another norm than the norm of their own series. ”

“ In the subjoined examples the noun ow, body, is changed to a verb, by [Pg 281] the permutation of the vowel, changing ow to auw, which last takes the letter d before it, when the pronoun is prefixed.
In the translation of these expressions “man” is used as synonymous with person. If the specific term inine, had been introduced in the original, the meaning thereby conveyed would be, in this particular connexion, I am a man with respect to courage &c., in opposition to effeminacy. ”

“ I highly disapprove of the absurd practice, so common with young men of the present day, of expressing their ideas in that low and incomprehensible dialect, termed 'slang,' which, in my opinion, has neither wit nor refinement to redeem its vulgarity, and which effectually prevents their acquiring that easy yet dignified mode of expression which should characterise the conversation of the true gentleman. ”

“ And it is this superadded idea of action that superadds to the verb the phenomena of tense, mood, person, and voice; in other words, the phenomena of conjugation.
§ 343. A noun is a word capable of declension only. A {290}verb is a word capable of declension and conjugation also. The fact of verbs being declined as well as conjugated must be remembered. The participle has the declension of a noun adjective, the infinite mood the declension of a noun substantive. Gerunds and supines, in languages where they occur, are only names for certain cases of the verb. ”

“ The general reader may feel like protesting against the use of a dialect that presents so many difficulties, and the philologist will object to the form employed, as being too much influenced by English associations to represent the dialect of the people in its native purity. ”

“ Now dialects arise not because of the mere fact of individual variation but because two or more groups of individuals have become sufficiently disconnected to drift apart, or independently, instead of together. ”

“ INTRODUCTION Among common errors still persisting in the minds of educated people, one error which dies very hard is the theory that a dialect is an arbitrary distortion of the mother tongue, a wilful mispronunciation of the sounds, and disregard of the syntax of a standard language. ”

“ Give all the participles of the following verbs: cūrō, iubeō, sūmō, iaciō, mūniō.
375. Participles of Deponent Verbs. Deponent verbs have the participles of the active voice as well as of the passive; consequently every deponent verb has four participles, as,
a. Observe that the perfect participle of deponent verbs is passive in form but active in meaning. No other verbs have a perfect active participle. On the other hand, the future passive participle of deponent verbs is passive in meaning as in other verbs. ”

“ The organs of pronunciation require a perfect new modelling, and perhaps not the least difficulty is to prevent one’s heart from sinking at the little apparent progress made in understanding, and being understood, out of the common routine of daily life: the feeling will often arise, Surely I never shall learn. ”

“ If, from some conformity between us and the pupil, or perhaps among all men, we do in truth speak in such a dialect and express such views, beyond question we shall touch in him a spring; beyond question he will recognise the dialect as one that he himself has spoken in his better hours ”

“ In those cases where a character enters "seated" or "asleep," I have substituted the verb "appear" for the verb "enter"; yet I am not sure that this concession to realism is wise.
The system of transliteration which I have adopted is intended to render the pronunciation of proper names as simple as may be to the English reader. The consonants are to be pronounced as in English, [3] the vowels as in Italian. ”

“ Write side by side the declension of domina, dominus, and pīlum. A comparison of the forms will lead to the following rules, which are of great importance because they apply to all five declensions:
a. The vocative, with a single exception (see § 73. b) , is like the nominative. That is, the vocative singular is like the nominative singular, and the vocative plural is like the nominative plural.
b. The nominative, accusative, and vocative of neuter nouns are alike, and in the plural end in -a.
c. The accusative singular of masculines and feminines ends in -m and the accusative plural in -s. ”

“ What may now sound to us like a perverted sense is often historically correct, for whereas learned influences, the introduction of foreign words—which makes for further specialization and differentiation of meaning—and the general march of civilization affecting manners, customs, and habits of thought, all tend to divert the normal course of language, the dialects have meanwhile kept the noiseless tenor of their way unmolested. ”