SUBSTANTIVE.
A Substantive, or Noun, is the Name of a thing; of whatever we conceive in any way to subsist, or of which we have any notion.
Substantives are of two sorts; Proper, and Common, Names. Proper Names are the names appropriated to individuals; as the names of persons and places: such are George, London. Common Names stand for kinds, containing many sorts; or sorts, containing many individuals under them; as, Animal, Man.
Proper Names being the names of individuals, and therefore of things already as determinate as they can be made, admit not of Articles, or of Plurality of Number; unless by a Figure, or by Accident: as when great Conquerors are called Alexanders; and some great Conqueror An Alexander, or The Alexander of his age; when a Common Name is understood, as The Thames, that is, the River Thames; The George, that is, the Sign of St. George: or when it happens that there are many persons of the same name; as, The two Scipios.
Whatever is spoken of is represented as one, or more, in Number: these two manners of representation in respect of number are called the Singular, and the Plural, Number.
In English, the Substantive Singular is made Plural, for the most part, by adding to it s; or es, where it is necessary for the pronunciation: as, king, kings; fox, foxes; leaf, leaves; in which last, and many others, f is also changed into v, for the sake of an easier pronunciation, and more agreeable sound. Some few Plurals end in en: as, oxen, chicken, children, brethren; and men, women, by changing the a of the Singular into e[4]. This form we have retained from the Teutonic; as likewise the introduction of the e in the former syllable of two of the last instances; weomen, (for so we pronounce it) brethren, from woman, brother[5]: something like which may be noted in some other forms of Plurals; as, mouse, mice; louse, lice; tooth, teeth; foot, feet; goose, geese[6].
The English Language, to express different connexions and relations of one thing to another, uses, for the most part, Prepositions. The Greek and Latin among the antient, and some too among the modern languages, as the German, vary the termination or ending of the Substantive to answer the same purpose. These different endings are in those languages called Cases. And the English being derived from the same origin as the German, that is, from the Teutonic[7], is not wholly without them. For instance, the relation of Possession, or Belonging, is often expressed by a Case, or a different ending of the Substantive. This Case answers to the Genitive Case in Latin, and may still be so called; tho’ perhaps more properly the Possessive Case. Thus, “God’s grace:” which may also be expressed by the Preposition; as, “the grace of God.” It was formerly written Godis grace; we now very improperly always shorten it with an Apostrophe, even tho’ we are obliged to pronounce it fully; as, “Thomas’s book:” that is, “Thomasis book;” not “Thomas his book,” as it is commonly supposed[8].
When the thing, to which another is said to belong, is expressed by a circumlocution, or by many terms, the sign of the Possessive Case is added to the last term: as, “The King of Great Britain’s Soldiers.” When it is a Noun ending with s, or in the Plural Number in s, the sign of the Possessive Case is not added: as, “for righteousness sake; on eagles wings.” Both the Sign and the Preposition seem sometimes to be used: as, “a soldier of the king’s:” but here are really two Possessives; for it means, “one of the soldiers of the king.”
The English in its Substantives has but two different terminations for Cases; that of the Nominative, which simply expresses the Name of the thing, and that of the Possessive Case.
Things are frequently considered with relation to the distinction of Sex or Gender; as being Male, or Female, or Neither the one, nor the other. Hence Substantives are of the Masculine, or Feminine, or Neuter, that is, Neither, Gender: which latter is only the exclusion of all consideration of Gender.
The English Language, with singular propriety, following nature alone, applies the distinction of Masculine and Feminine only to the names of Animals; all the rest are Neuter: except when by a Poetical or Rhetorical fiction things inanimate and Qualities are exhibited as Persons, and consequently become either Male or Female. And this gives the English an advantage above most other languages in the Poetical and Rhetorical Style: for when Nouns naturally Neuter are converted into Masculine and Feminine[9], the Personification is more distinctly and forcibly marked.
Some few Substantives are distinguished as to their Gender by their termination: as, prince, princess; actor, actress; lion, lioness; hero, heroine; &c.
The chief use of Gender in English is in the Pronoun of the Third Person, which must agree in that respect with the Noun for which it stands.