Gertrude. I observe root is always feminine.

Edith. Not in English. We are too sensible.

Frances. But how curious it is about gender! Here in French there are only two.

Frances. And in Italian.

Elvira. While in Spanish neuter pronouns and articles are used only when infinitive verbs or sentences become nominatives or objectives. Gertrude. In German there are the three genders; but in dealing with inanimate things, there is no real reason for their classification.

George. And Mark and I must confess the same with regard to Latin and Greek. Is English really the only language that confines masculine and feminine to what really has a sex, and neuter to what has none?

Polly. As far as I know. And even Anglo-Saxon followed the common practice. It is supposed that our present rule rose out of a compromise between old English with its three genders, and NormanFrench with its two.

Mark. The most sensible compromise that ever was made.

Edith. But not accepted by all. In all country dialects almost, the people have no neuter.

Polly. It is supposed that the original language went upon the same principle as we have returned to, but it may have been confused by the tendency to personify.

Mark. Most words shew their genders by their terminations.

Polly. Or, as the Comparative Grammar says, 'they often are indicated by different stems of the same word.'

Gertrude. What is a stem, and what is a root?

Polly. The root is the first, if you please. They are the primary element of the words formed from them; not usable words themselves, but a germ, expressing the idea that all are formed on. So gan is the root of hosts of terms for birth or beginning; ne in like manner for those concerned with con-nec-ting; gna for those with knowing.

Gertrude. Then a stem grows from a root, I suppose.

Polly. The stem answers to the crude form. It is the essential part of a noun, or a verb, which pervades and indicates its changes, and contains the allusion to the root; but it is not a perfect word. Ra is the root, reg is the stem, of rex-a king; regi, the stem of the verb regere-to rule.

Gertrude. Can the stem be in more than one language at once?

Polly. Not properly; but inasmuch as the Romance languages use generally one case of the Latin, and follow its gender, the stem may be said to have branched out into them.

Mark. Feminine nouns prevail to-day.

Gertrude. Geiz is masculine; and so is evil in all the languages, I believe.

Polly. Now let us read you a sentence.

try the classification of the terminations. I will 'In Sanskrit all the three vowels, a, i, u, occur in

the end of nominal stems. They are usually of the masculine gender; a is always masculine or neuter. It is represented by a in Zend, and in a few cases in Gothic; by o in Greek or Latin.'

George. Give us an instance.

sign.

Polly. That is the longer á.

I thought a was the feminine

Besides, this is a in Sanskrit, or

Gothic, o in Greek and Latin, so that it is really the typical masculine form.

George. You mean what ends in os in Greek, us in Latin.

Polly. You mean os and us in the nominative case singular, s being its regular sign, and just as much a case-ending as any of the others.

Mark. Pish!

George. Never mind him, Polly. Say lukos; but it is lupus in Latin. The Greek stem is luko; but it is not lupu in Latin.

Polly. No; the o in Latin changes to us to distinguish the nominative case. I believe it did not in the earlier Latin. You chose a good word, George, for it is quite a typical one. The stem is vrk-a in Sanskrit, vrk-as in the nominative; the Greek stem is lyko, lykos nominative; the Gothic vulf-a; but vulfs, leaving out the a in the case-ending.

r?

Gertrude. Oh! but did not the Scandinavians represent the a by an They called Ulf Ulfr.

Polly. Yes; and it was long before the French dropped the nominative singulars. They wrote loups for a great while in the middle ages; and it was only gradually forgotten. Brachet mentions a poem written to imitate old style under Louis XV., which failed for want of the nominative s.

George. S, you say, is the nominative sign in all declensions, as a long is in feminine ones, I suppose, only that it is often 7, (eta,) e long, in Greek.

Polly. Yes. In that first declension masculine and neuter have the o stem, with os and on, or us and um, for their nominatives; the feminine has the a stem, but omits the s, with e in Greek, a in Latin. regular adjective and shew it, George.

Take a

George. Agatho, then agathos, agathon, masculine and neuter; agathe, feminine.

Mark. Bono, (if you will have it so,) bonus, bonum; feminine, bona.

Polly. While Anglo-Saxon has god in masculine and neuter, gode in feminine; and Gothic, gods masculine, god neuter, goda feminine.

Gertrude. But mine is masculine guter, neuter gutes, feminine gute; and oddly enough, the stem serves as an adverb.

Florence and Elvira. We keep the feminine a.

Frances. And we only write the e, and sometimes double the previous letter.

George. So much for the nominative of the a-the first-declension. Polly reads. I occurs in all three genders. It is i or e in Greek, with s for the nominative.

Mark. Yes; there goes that i declension. It is exactly the same in the feminine, and it is e in the neuter.

Polly. The long, feminine, generally seems to be altered by the addition of other letters. The u stem is the origin of that declension which has the u stem in Latin.

Mark. Like gradus, or manus.

Polly. Then there are the consonant stems.

For instance, here is

vak-a voice, the nominative of which is vaksh in Sanskrit.

Mark. Vox?

Polly. The x is the compound of s with the preceding k. So s is mixed into an x after g, as in lex, rex. Or when there is t, n, or d, the stem consonant is missed out of the nominative, as in virtut, when, instead of virtuts, you say virtus.

George. Does your grammar go to the accusative next? I suppose n in Greek, and m in Latin, are the signs-agathon, bonum.

Mark. Yes, it is always m.

Polly. With a vowel inserted to make it possible to pronounce in the consonant stems, Felic-em.

Edith. Well, we say him.

Polly. Our only remnant!

George. You make vocative come next, do not you?

Polly. That has no sign. It is generally the same as the nominative; but sometimes-as in the first declension of Greek and Latin

Mark. It is e; as comes naturally in calling, Domine-Master.

Polly. We will pass over the forgotten cases, and go on to the genitive. There seem to be several varieties of genitive endings in sya, âs, as, s— vrka-sya, which your Greeks contracted first into lykoio, and then into lykou, while the Latins dropped into i alone.

Mark. Ah, I see now! Your old form of ás has stuck by those irregular genitives, familiás, terrâs.

Polly. You are right. And then follows the as form, which has resulted in those declensions, which in Greek are os, in Latin is. The instance here given is the foot, boys.

George. Pous, podos.

Mark. Pes, pedis.

George. Of course the nominatives are contractions, leaving out the d as troublesome to say.

Polly. There is to be added to these those with the u stem, which in Greek have a genitive in the long os.

George. Like polis, poleôs-a city.

Polly. Or without the s

George. Leôs, leô—the people.

Mark. That answers to the fourth Latin declension with the long u, like gradus, gradûs—a step; manus, manûs—a hand.

Florence. I am afraid we have all lost our genitives, except through the preposition.

Polly. Yes, they have long been gone from the Romance languages, though the Goth had a well-declined genitive; himins-heaven, was in the genitive himims.

Gertrude. And is himmels still. All masculines and neuters take es

or s.

Polly. So too the Anglo-Saxon had s in some declensions, and left it to us.

Edith. Is it not the rule that we can only put on the 's to persons, living things, and personifications. You can say the man's leg, or the dog's leg; but you can't say the table's leg.

Polly. Right: we have lost our genitive suffix, except with animated things, and in a few exceptions.

Edith. Is not the s short for his? It is odd though, because we don't say the Queen her crown, or the cows their horns.

Polly. That shews the fallacy. It was a blunder of the grammarians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and they entailed it upon us by putting in the apostrophe, to stand for the supposed omission of two letters of his, and by inserting his in the end of the Prayer for All Conditions of Men.

Edith. Then it is foolish to use the 's?

Polly. Foolish as regards grammatical accuracy; not foolish as regards an appearance of pedantry.

Edith. Was not the s in all the genitives?

Polly. No; though smith made smithes; sunu―a son, was suna in the genitive; vitega—a prophet, was vitegan; and in the feminine was viln― a female slave or villain-vilne.

Edith. Why were they all made into s?

Polly. Probably to save the Norman nobles the trouble of learning them. Es, or is, was generally used in old English, making a fresh syllable, and the apostrophe may be supposed to stand for that omitted e. George. Dative!

Polly. Dative is not universally interesting, as only Greek, Latin, and German have it at all.

Elvira. Spanish and Italian make the first declension o or a in all cases; but in consonant stems, like virtus, virtutis, Spanish cuts off the stem short with a hardened letter, virtud, or the Latin c turns into z.

Edith. The plurals?

Polly. As is the Sanskrit sign of the nominative masculine plural; and in combination with the i and u stems it makes és and ôs. Then in the o declension, George, such as vrka, vrkás.

George. Lykos, lykoi. It changed into an i.
Mark. Yes; lupus, lupi.

Florence. Lupi-all right still.

Frances. Loups.

Polly. The Gothic was vulfos.

Gertrude. Ah! the German is wolfen.

Polly. Saxon, wulfas.

Edith. Wolves.

Polly. Your loups, Frances, is a novelty. The s used to be left for the nominative singular; but it seems to have been changed over to the plural to follow the analogy of other languages.

Elvira. My lobos is an accusative plural, made to do duty for all. Polly. So, in a measure, is Gertrude's word; for vulfans was the right Gothic plural, and the s seems to have been left out. In the consonant stems, in the nominative plural, es goes pretty well through all the languages, only that it becomes yus in the Gothic; and in the ancient ones, the neuter plural a is almost as invariable, even in the Gothic. I think the n and er plurals of the modern German, and of some few old English words, arise from the other cases having usurped the nominative. N is the regular Sanskrit plural; and the sign s goes, as a general thing, through all the languages, except those that have lost their nominative.

Mark. But without the n.

Polly. Yes; the Gothic is the most perfect in this respect. Hand is handans in the accusative plural.

Frances. Is it worth while to go into the other plural cases, which no modern language has?

Mark. Oh, do just tell us what your Sanskrit grammar says about those orum genitive plurals.

Polly. Which Frances need not despise, for her pronoun leur is the remains of illorum. My book says that âm is the sign of the genitive Let us take our old

plural in Sanskrit, but inserting n in vowel stems. friend the wolf-vrka, vrká, n, am.

George. Lykón; the Greek generally taking n for m, but not inserting n.

Mark. And luporum inserts r instead.

Polly. Gothic is vulfe, Saxon wulfa; but these are both forgotten.
George. The on is invariable in all declensions in Greek.

Mark. As um is in Latin; only those with the i stems make it ium, and the u, uum-hostium, graduum.

Polly. The dative plural sign was bhyas, which you know well as sometimes bus, sometimes is. The Gothic sign is m; the Anglo-Saxon

was um.

Gertrude. That m, I suppose, sank into the universal n of the German dative plural.

George. But you have not accounted the si dative plural of Greek.