ple proposition, man is the subject. "Stand up; I also am a man." In this proposition, man with am is the predicate.

The word noun is from the Latin nomen, a name, through the French

nom.

Substantive (Latin substantivus, substantia) strictly denotes that which stands under, or is a foundation of accidents or attributes, and which, therefore, may be considered as independent, and may stand by itself. The name of whatever exists, or is conceived to exist, is a noun.

CLASSIFICATION OF NOUNS.

§ 178. I. PROPER NOUNS are the names of individual persons or things, and not of species; as, John, Philadelphia. Proper nouns are comparatively few in number.

II. COMMON or APPELLATIVE NOUNS are the names of a class of persons or things, or of an individual belonging to a class; as, Man, a man; tree, a tree. Man and tree are classes; a man, a tree, are individuals, each belonging to a class. The following are common nouns:

1. An ABSTRACT NOUN is the name of a simple quality, action, or condition considered independently of the substance in which it inheres; as, Wisdom, journey, brightness, friendship, oratory. Here we do not consider who has wisdom, or who travels, or what is bright, or who is a friend.

2. A CONCRETE NOUN is the name of the substance, and of the quality, action, or condition which inheres in the substance; as, The wise; a traveler; a friend; London; Cicero.

3. A COLLECTIVE NOUN is a name which, in the singular number, denotes more than one; as, An army, a company.

4. CORRELATIVE NOUNS are names of objects which are viewed as related to each other; as, King and subject; son and father.

5. PARTICIPIAL NOUNS are those which have the form of participles, but perform the office of nouns; as, Reading is instructive; the writing is legible. Reading and writing are abstract nouns.

What are proper nouns, and what are common nouns? What is an abstract noun, and what is a concrete noun? What is a collective noun, and what is a correlative What are participial nouns?

noun ?

6. DIMINUTIVE NOUNS are those which are derived from other nouns, and which express some diminution of the original meaning; as, Satchel from sack; duckling from duck. See § 343.

7. MATERIAL NOUNS are the names of materials, that is, of things which produce no idea of individuality, but only an aggregate notion; as, Water, loam, milk.

Other parts of speech, and even the letters of the alphabet, are treated as nouns when they are made the subject of a verb, or the object of a verb or proposition; as, "The learned testify;" "The hes and shes will all be there;" "In that sentence the critic struck out on and introduced of;" "Q is in that word preferable to au;" "Mind your p's and q's;" "Your if is a mighty peacemaker."

PROPER NOUNS in the plural number, or with an article prefixed, become common nouns; as, "The Howards;" "He is the Cicero of his age." The term proper is from being proper, that is, peculiar to the individual bearing the name.

COMMON NOUNS, with the definite article prefixed, sometimes become proper nouns; as, The metropolis, the park. The term common is from being common to every individual comprised in the class. The term appellative, from appellare, to call, is applied to common nouns, because they are the names by which classes of objects are called.

GENDERS OF NOUNS.

§ 179. GENDER is a grammatical distinction in nouns expressing the natural distinction of sex. The word gender is from the French genre and the Latin genus, and properly means kind.

The MASCULINE GENDER denotes the male sex; as, A man, a boy.

The FEMININE GENDER denotes the female sex; as, A woman, a girl.

The NEUTER GENDER denotes the absence of sex; as, A chair, a table.

Gender, in the English language, is expressed,

I. BY DIFFERENCE OF TERMINATION.

What are diminutive nouns, and what are material nouns? In what case can the other parts of speech be made nouns? In what cases do proper nouns become common nouns? In what case do common nouns become proper nouns? What is gender, and what is the derivation of the term GENDER? How many genders are there, and what do they severally denote?

This termination of ess has been borrowed from the French esse and ice, which they took from the Latin issa and ix: Abbatissa, Latin ; abbasse, Old English; abbess, English. So Actrix, actrice, actress. These terminations are all of Norman descent, unknown to the ancient Saxons.

In donna there is the Spanish, in heroine the Greek, in landgravine the German, in signora the Italian, in Augusta the Latin form.

In some cases there is simply an addition to the masculine, as prophet, prophetess. In other cases there is a change of some letter or letters from the masculine, as porter, portress; master, mistress.

§ 180. The names of males are masculine; the names of females, feminine; as, John, Mary.

1. Some words have the same termination for both masculine and feminine. These are said to be of the common gender; as, Parent, guardian, cousin, student, botanist, witness, neighbor, servant, friend.

2. Some words are used only in the feminine; as, Laundress, seamstress, brunette, dowager, jointress, mantua-maker, milliner, shrew, virago, syren, amazon, vixen, spinster.

3. Some masculine words are, by extension, applied to the whole species; as, Man, to denote the human race, females as well as males. Some feminine words are, in like manner, used for the whole species; as, Goose, duck.

4. The words Infant, child, involve so little of the idea of intelligence What are the three principal modes of expressing gender? Of what gender are the names of males, and of what gender are the names of females? What words have the same termination for both masculine and feminine, and of what gender are these words? What words are used only in the feminine? What masculine words are by extension applied to the whole species, and also what feminine words are in like manner applied to the whole species? What is said of the words infant, child?

and of personality in them, and the sex being so often unknown to the speaker, that they are not unfrequently used in the neuter gender; as, "The infant raised its loving hands to the cheek of its mother;" "the child clung to the neck of its mother."

5. The masculine term has the general meaning expressing both male and female, and is always employed when the office, occupation, or profession, and not the sex of the individual, is chiefly to be expressed. The feminine term is used in those cases only when discriminations of sex are indispensably necessary. If I say "The poets of the age are distinguished more by correctness of taste than by sublimity of conception," I clearly include in the term poet both male and female writers of poetry. If I say "She is the best poetess of the country," I assign her the superiority over those of her own sex. If I say "She is the best poet of the country," I pronounce her superior to all other writers of poetry, both male and female.

ENGLISH GENDER, PHILOSOPHIC AND POETIC.

§ 181. There are, strictly speaking, but two sexes; yet, for convenience, the neuter (neither of the two) is classed with the genders. In the French, the Italian, the Portuguese, and the Hebrew, all nouns are either masculine or feminine.

In the English language, all objects not male and female are, in history, in philosophy, in common conversation, spoken of as of the neuter gender.

In animated discourse, in poetry and eloquence, objects are often personified, and the masculine or feminine gender is attributed to them on the ground of some artificial association, as in the following examples: "As when the sun, new risen,

Looks through the misty horizontal air,
Shorn of his beams."

MILTON.

"Of law, no less can be acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power.”—HOOKER, Ecclesiastical Polity, book i., 16.

If for his and hers, in these passages, you substitute its, or translate them into languages in which gender is formed by termination, you destroy the liveliness of the images.

GROUNDS FOR A CHOICE OF GENDER IN PERSONIFICA

TION.

§ 182. The current statement is, that such substantives as were con

In what cases are masculine terms employed in preference to the feminine, and in what cases is the feminine term employed? Give the examples. How does it appear that English gender is philosophic? How does it appear that English gender is poetic? What are the grounds for a choice of gender in personification?