| Agents. | Objects. | ||||||
| Singular | { | 1st | person, | I, | me, | ||
| 2d | " | thou, | thee, | ||||
| 3d | " | mas. | { | he, | him, | ||
| " | fem. | she, | her, | ||||
| it, | it. | ||||||
| Plural | { | 1st | person, | we, | us, | ||
| 2d | " | ye, or you, | you, | ||||
| 3d | " | they, | them, | ||||
| who, | whom. |
The two last may be used in either person, number, or gender.
The frequent use of these words render them very important, in the elegant and rapid use of language. They are so short, and their sound so soft and easy, that the frequency of their recurrence does not mar the beauty of a sentence, but saves us from the redundancy of other words. They are substituted only when there is little danger of mistaking the nouns for which they stand. They are, however, sometimes used in a very broad sense; as, "they say it is so;" meaning no particular persons, but the general sentiment. It frequently takes the lead of a sentence, and the thing represented by it comes after; as, "It is currently reported, that things were thus and so." Here it represents the single idea which is afterward stated at length. "It is so." "It may be that the nations will be destroyed by wars, earthquakes, and famines." But more of this when we come to speak of the composition of sentences.
The words now classed as pronouns were originally names of things, but in this character they have long been obsolete. They are now used only in their secondary character as the representatives of other words. The word he, for instance, signified originally to breathe. It was applied to the living beings who inhaled air. It occurs with little change in the various languages of Europe, ancient and modern, till at length it is applied to the male agent which lives and acts. The word her means light, but is specifically applied to females which are the objects of action.
Was it in accordance with the design of these lectures, it would give me pleasure to go into a minute examination of the origin, changes and meaning of these words till they came to be applied as specific words of exceeding limited character. Most of them might be traced thro all the languages of Europe; the Arabic, Persic, Arminian, Chaldean, Hebrew, and, for ought I know, all the languages of Asia. But as they are now admitted a peculiar position in the expression of thought from which they never vary; and as we are contending about philosophic principles rather than verbal criticisms, I shall forbear a further consideration of these words.
In the proper place I shall consider those words formerly called "Adjective Pronouns," "Pronoun Adjectives," or "Pronominal Adjectives," to suit the varying whims of those grammar makers, who desired to show off a speck of improvement in their "simplifying" works without ever having a new idea to express. It is a query in some minds whether the seventy-two "simplifiers" and "improvers" of Murray's grammar ever had any distinct notions in their heads which they did not obtain from the very man, who, it would seem by their conduct, was unable to explain his own meaning.