The book lies on the desk—The cloak hangs on the wall—Man's days are few—Cathmor's warriors sleep in death—Caltho reposes in the narrow house—Jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. The sunbeams rest on the grave where her beauty sleeps.
You may parse these and the preceding exercises, and all that follow, five or six times over, if you please.
OBJECTIVE CASE.—ACTIVE-TRANSITIVE VERBS.
The objective case expresses the object of an action or of a relation. It generally follows a transitive verb, a participle, or a preposition.
A noun is in the objective case when it is the object of something. At present I shall explain this case only as the object of an action; but when we shall have advanced as far as to the preposition, I will also illustrate it as the object of a relation.
An active verb is transitive when the action passes over from the subject or nominative to an object; as, Richard strikes John.
Transitive means passing. In this sentence the action of the verb strikes is transitive, because it passes over from the nominative Richard to the object John; and you know that the noun John is in the objective case, because it is the object of the action expressed by the active-transitive verb strikes. This matter is very plain. For example: Gallileo invented the telescope. Now it is evident, that Gallileo did not exert his powers of invention, without some object in view. In order to ascertain that object, put the question, Gallileo invented what? The telescope. Telescope, then, is the real object of the action, denoted by the transitive verb invented; and, therefore, telescope is in the objective case. If I say, The horse kicks the servant—Carpenters build houses—Ossian wrote poems—Columbus discovered America—you readily perceive, that the verbs kick, build, wrote, and discovered, express transitive actions; and you cannot be at a loss to tell which nouns are in the objective case:—they are servant, houses, poems, and America.
The nominative and objective cases of nouns are generally known by the following rule: the nominative does something; the objective has something done to it. The nominative generally comes before the verb; and the objective, after it. When I say, George struck the servant, George is in the nominative, and servant is in the objective case; but, when I say, The servant struck George, servant is in the nominative case, and George is in the objective. Thus you perceive, that Case means the different state or situation of nouns with regard to other words.
It is sometimes very difficult to tell the case of a noun. I shall, therefore, take up this subject again, when I come to give you an explanation of the participle and preposition.