Father, son, king, bull, James, are nouns of the masculine gender.

Mother, daughter, queen, cow, Jane, are nouns of the feminine gender.

Rock, stone, tree, house, Boston, are nouns of the neuter gender.

The names of things whose sex is not taken into account, as of very young children and many animals, are sometimes regarded as of the neuter gender. Thus, we speak of The babe and its toys; The fish and its eggs.

Names that may be applied to persons of either sex, as, parent, friend, servant; and, in the case of animals, names that do not indicate sex, as, bird, swan, dove, bear, etc., are sometimes spoken of as being of common gender.

Things without life are often, particularly in poetry, spoken of as being of the male or female sex. They are then said to be personified, and their names are regarded, if implying strength, power, or violence, as masculine; if implying gentleness, beauty, or peace, as feminine.

The sun is often spoken of as masculine; the moon, a ship, or a balloon, as feminine.

A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles

O'er the fair times when many a subject land

Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles

Where Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles.

-Lord Byron.

The gender of nouns is shown in three ways:

1. By using different words for the masculine and the feminine. The more important examples are:

This method of distinguishing gender depends altogether on the meaning of words, and is not, properly speaking, an inflection.

2. By the use of different endings or suffixes; as, ess, trix, ine, a, en, ster, added to the masculine to form the feminine.

(a) Sometimes ess, which is the most common suffix, is added to the masculine without other change.

(b) Sometimes the final syllable or letter of the masculine

form is merged in the feminine termination; as,

(c) The feminine suffix trix is found in a few nouns bor

rowed from the Latin language:

(d) The suffixes ine and ina are frequently found in proper names of women; as, Josephine, Alexandrina. Ine is seen also in heroine from hero.

(e) The suffix a is found in a few words borrowed from the languages of southern Europe; as Donna, from Don; Sultana, from Sultan; Infanta, from Infante; Signora, from Signor.

(f) The suffixes en and ster come down to us from old English, and are now found unchanged in only two words; vixen and spinster.

(9) A few words, such as songstress and seamstress, show the use of both the old suffix ster and the modern termination

ess.

The suffix er forms widower, from widow.

3. By putting before a noun of the common gender a word whose gender we know; as, he-goat, she-goat; man-servant, maid-servant.

MAX. SCH. GRAM. -6

Among good writers of the present day the tendency is to omit distinctively feminine inflections whenever it is not important to mark distinction of sex. Thus, we speak of a lady as the author, not the authoress, of a book; as a singer, not a songstress; as a lecturer, not a lecturess. Though a lady is called a chairman, not a chairwoman, of a meeting, she is addressed as "Madam Chairman."

CASE

A noun may serve several uses or purposes in a sentence. It It may be used as:

1. The principal word in the subject.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again.

2. The predicate complement.

Men at some time are masters of their fates.

3. A term of address.

Well, Brutus, thou art noble.

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods.

4. An object complement.

He could foretell the weather at a word,
He knew the haunt of every beast and bird.

5. An independent word.

For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Cæsar said to me, etc. - Shakespeare.

6. The object of a preposition.

The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary. — Longfellow.

7. The subject of an infinitive.

(See p. 151.)

He besought Hercules to help him.

8. The equivalent of an adverbial phrase.

The book is worth five dollars.

The fish weighed three pounds.

9. A modifier indicating possession; as, my father's house.

10. A modifier explaining or describing another noun; as, Paul, the apostle; Plato, the philosopher.

These uses, because they indicate the relation or case in which a noun stands to other words of a sentence are called cases.

DEFINITION.

The case of a noun is that form or use of a noun which denotes its relation to other words in a sentence.

Some centuries ago the English language had inflections to indicate five different cases.

Now we

have only three cases, the nominative, possessive, and objective; and only one of these, the possessive, is marked by inflection. There is now no difference of form for the nominative and objective cases.