ON NOUNS AND PRONOUNS.

Nouns in respect to persons.--Number.--Singular.--Plural.--How
formed.--Foreign plurals.--Proper names admit of plurals.--Gender.
--No neuter.--In figurative language.--Errors.--Position or case.--
Agents.--Objects.--Possessive case considered.--A definitive
word.--Pronouns.--One kind.--Originally nouns.--Specifically
applied.


We resume the consideration of nouns this evening, in relation to
person, number, gender, and position or case.

In the use of language there is a speaker, person spoken to, and things
spoken of. Those who speak are the _first_ persons, those who hear the
_second_, and those who are the subject of conversation the _third_.

The first and second persons are generally used in reference to human
beings capable of speech and understanding. But we sometimes condesend
to hold converse with animals and inanimate matter. The bird trainer
talks to his parrots, the coachman to his horses, the sailor to the
winds, and the poet to his landscapes, towers, and wild imaginings, to
which he gives a "local habitation and a name."

By metaphor, language is put into the mouths of animals, particularly in
fables. By a still further license, places and things, flowers, trees,
forests, brooks, lakes, mountains, towers, castles, stars, &c. are made
to speak the most eloquent language, in the first person, in addresses
the most pathetic. The propriety of such a use of words I will not stop