Plural.
Nom. they selve Gen. their selve Acc. }
Dat. } them selve
Now, if we bear in mind that in these combinations the accent fell upon the word self (or selve), and that consequently the proclitic forms my, me, and thy, thee, in the genitive and dative had the same sound respectively,—and, further, that in the feminine of the third person singular (herself), these two cases were also alike,—it does not seem strange (1) that these two cases (genitive and dative) became confused, and (2) that the word self became a noun, as exemplified in such phrases as I said it to herself. Once having changed its function, the word assumed the flection of the new group to which its new function had attached it, and a plural form, as of a noun, arose—themselves, ourselves, theirselves.[116] When once a single form served in three (genitive, dative, accusative) of the four cases, it not unnaturally succeeded in ousting the last, and succeeded all the more easily as I self was, of course, wrong, if self was a noun.
It is not, however, an invariable rule that the new associations into which a word enters in consequence of its change of function entail a change of form in the word. In Latin the word frugi was originally the dative case of a word frux, gen. frugis, meaning fruit, profit, advantage; and is actually employed by Plautus, with the full consciousness of its origin, in the phrase bonæ frugi esse (Asin., III. iii. 12). In fact, this use is exactly parallel to the use of usui in bono usui estis nulli, in Plautus, Curculio, l. 499; but in this case, usui, owing to its frequent occurrence, preserved the memory of its origin fresh. Cicero, however, treats frugi simply as an indeclinable adjective: Homines et satis fortes et satis plane frugi et sobrii (In Verrem, v. 27). Instances are also frequent where a change in meaning brings about a change in syntactical construction. Thus, for instance, in Latin we find that the nominative quisque is coupled with the reflective pronoun in the plural almost in the signification of singulatim.[117] In Plautus we find præsente testibus (Amphitruo, II. ii. 203), and, in Afranius and Terence, absente nobis (Eunuchus, IV. iii. 7); in these cases the participles approach the characteristics of prepositions. A similar development gave to the present participle considering its present prepositional force. Macte is used similarly. Age! in Latin is used as generally as Come! in English, irrespective of the number of persons addressed; cave is used in the same way. Paucis is used for ‘a little’ in ausculta paucis (Terence, Andria, 536). Hélas is used in French by women equally as by men; φέρε, ἰδού, in Old Greek, are addressed to either one or many persons indifferently. In the same way, in late Greek, ὤφελον and ὤφελε were employed simply as conjunctions, without any consideration of number or person, the original construction having been Ὀλέσθαι ὤφελον τῇδ’ ἡμέρᾳ = ‘Would that I had perished on that day!’ In English albeit is used simply as a conjunction, and may be, in the sense of perhaps, is showing a tendency to fuse into one word, as it is actually written in American conversational language mebbe.
In German we find expressions like Heb hinten über sich das glas, ‘Raise your glass high’ (Uhland, Volkslieder) instead of über dich. In the same way we find in Latin suo loco, etc.; and in Latin law formulæ, Si sui juris sumus, where we should expect Si nostri juris sumus (i.e. ‘If we stand in our own rights’). In Old Norse a middle and passive is formed by the aid of a reflective -sik (sese), which is, of course, properly applicable to the third person only: it appears later as -st; thus, at kalla, ‘to call;’ at kallast, ‘to be called.’ In the same way, we have in English the words (to) bask and (to) busk,[118] where the proper meaning of the termination has so completely died out that it is possible to write busk ye. The passive is similarly formed in the Slavonic languages.
Again, change of meaning influences the construction in the case of numerous verbs in Latin, which are properly intransitive, but are used as transitives. Such are perire,[119] deperire; demori, used in the sense of ‘to be mortally enamoured of;’ stupere, ‘to marvel at;’ ardere, ‘to love with fire:’ the last-mentioned two words approximate in sense to mirari and amare respectively, and hence the instinct of language employs them in the same government.
The verb to doubt, in the etymological signification of hesitating between two beliefs, was, and is still constructed with whether. If, however, Spenser (Faëry Queene) says— ‘That makes them doubt their wits be not their aine,’
it is because the word is employed in this case, as indeed it frequently is in Shakespeare, in the sense of ‘to fear.’
The verb to babble, originally used intransitively, means to prattle or to chatter. When, however, it is employed in the sense of ‘to speak foolish words.’ or of ‘to reveal by talking,’ it is used with an object in the accusative case, and a passive is formed of it; e.g., Griefs too sacred to be babbled to the world. Again, compound words, as long as they are felt as such by the speakers, are naturally treated as such; cf. the Latin word respublica, which, though we write it as a single word, was declined in both its parts, respublica, reipublicæ, etc. But, when it had once become an indivisible unit—when the form république in French, or the English word republic, was formed with its various meanings, all closely resembling, but not identical with, that of the original compound, the word came to be treated after the analogy of other nouns, and the same derivatives are formed from it as from a simple form; cf. republican, etc. This fact is, again, instanced by such forms as high-spirited (high-spirit + ed, and not high + spirited), gentleman-like (gentleman + like, not gentle + manlike), good-natured (goodnature + ed, not good + natured).
Similarly, the Latin compound i (a demonstrative pronoun) + pse was at first declined as eumpse (e.g., Plautus, Truc., I. ii. 64), eampse, eopse, eapse, etc., all which forms are found in Plautus.[120] When, however, the word came to be looked on as a simple word, it was declined as such: ipsum, ipsam, ipso, ipsa, etc.
In German there are many instances of words compounded with adverbs of place which are specially instructive as to the way in which a word may become detached from its previous use by a change of meaning. For instance, in modern German the usage is to say wirken AUF etwas, and not IN etwas, which was the usage even in the last century. In the same way, we speak of influence over as much as of influence on, showing that we have forgotten the significance of in.[121]