friend, neighbour, servant, and several others, are used indifferently for males or females.

Nouns with variable terminations contribute to conciseness and perspicuity of expression. We have only a sufficient number of them to make us feel our want; for when we say of a woman, she is a philosopher, an astronomer, a builder, a weaver, we perceive an impropriety in the termination, which we cannot avoid; but we can say, that she is a botanist, a student, a witness, a scholar, an orphan, a companion, because these terminations have not annexed to them the notion of sex.

SECT. 3. Of Number.

NUMBER is the consideration of an object, as

one or more.

Substantives are of two numbers, the singular and the plural.

The singular number expresses but one object; as, a chair, a table.

The plural number signifies more objects than one; as, chairs, tables.

Some nouns, from the nature of the things which they exprefs, are used only in the fingular form; as, wheat, pitch, gold, floth, pride, &c.; others, only in the plural form; as, bellows, fcisfors, lungs, riches, &c.

Some words are the fame in both numbers; as, deer, fheep, fwine, &c.

The plural number of nouns is generally formed, by adding to the fingular: as, dove, doves; face, faces; thought, thoughts. But when the substantive fingular ends in x, ch soft, sh, ss, or s, we add es in the plural: as box, boxes; church, churches; lafh, lafhes; kifs, kiffes; rebus, rebufes. If the

fingular ends in ch hard, the plural is formed by addings, as, monarch, monarchs; diftich, diftichs.

Nouns which end in o, have sometimes es, added to the plural; as, cargo, echo, hero, negro, manifesto, potato, volcano, wo and sometimes only s; as, folio, nuncio, punctilio, seraglio.

Nouns ending in ƒ, or fe, are rendered plural by the change of those terminations into ves; as, loaf, loaves; half, halves; wife, wives; except grief, relief, reproof, and several others, which form the plural by the addition of s. Those which end in ff, have the regular plural: as, ruff, ruffs; except, staff, staves.

Nouns which have y in the singular, with no other vowel in the same syllable, change it into ies in the plural: as, beauty, beauties; fly, flies. But the y is not changed, when there is another vowel in the syllable: as, key, keys; delay, delays; attorney, attorneys.

Some nouns become plural by changing the a of the singular into e : as, man, men; woman, women; alderman, aldermen. The words, ox and child, form oxen and children; brother, makes either brothers, or brethren. Sometimes the diphthong oo is changed into ee in the plural: as, foot, feet; goose, geese; tooth, teeth. Louse and mouse make lice and mice. Penny makes pence, or pennies, when the coin is meant; die, dice (for play); die, dies (for coining.)

It is agreeable to analogy, and the practice of the generality of correct writers, to construe the following words as plural nouns ; pains, riches, alms: and also, mathematics, metaphysics, politics, ethics, optics, pneumatics, with other similar names of sciences.

Dr. Johnson says that the adjective much is sometimes a term of number, as well as of quantity. This may account for the instances we meet with of its associating with pains as a plural noun: as, " much pains." The connexion, however, is not to be recommended.

The word news is now almost universally considered as belonging to the singular number.

The noun means is used both in the singular and the plural number.

The following words, which have been adopted from the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages, are thus distinguished, with respect to number.

Emphases. Lamina.

Ellipsis. Ellipses.

Emphasis.

Hypothesis. Hypotheses. Medium.
Metamor- Metamor- Magus.

Laminæ.

Media.

Indexes.t

Magi.

phosis.

phoses.

Memoran

Phænomenon. Phænomena.

dum.

Appendix.

Appendices or Radius.

Memoranda or
Memorandums.

Radii.

Appendixes. Stamen.

Stamina.

Strata.

Some words, derived from the learned languages, are confined to the plural number: as, antipodes, credenda, literati, minutiæ.

The following nouns being, in Latin, both singular and plural, are used in the same manner when adopted into our tongue: hiatus, apparatus, series, species.

Genii, when denoting aërial spirits: Geniuses, when signifying perfons of genius.

+ Indexes, when it signifies pointers, or Tables of contents: Indices, when referring to Algebraic quantities.

SECT. 4. of Case.

IN English, fubftantives have three cafes, the nominative, the poffeffive, and the objective.* The nominative cafe fimply expreffes the name of a thing, or the fubject of the verb: as, boy plays ;""The girls learn."

"The

The poffeffive cafe expreffes the relation of property or poffeffion; and has an apostrophe with the letters coming after it: as, "The scholar's duty;" "My father's house."

When the plural ends in s, the other s is omitted, but the apoftrophe is retained: as, "On eagles' wings;" "The drapers' company."

Sometimes alfo, when the fingular terminates in ss, the apoftrophic s is not added: as, "For goodness' fake; "For righteoufnefs' fake."

The objective cafe expreffes the object of an action, or of a relation; and generally follows a verb active, or a prepofition: as, John affifts Charles ;""They live in London."

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* The possessive is sometimes called the genitive case ; and the

objective the accusative.

The English language, to express different connexions and relations of one thing to another, uses, for the most part, prepositions. The Greek and Latin among the ancient, and some too among the modern languages, as the German, vary the termination or ending of the substantive, to answer the same purpose: an example of which, in the Latin, is inserted, as explanatory of the nature and use of cases, viz.

Some writers think, that the relations signified by the addition of articles and prepositions to the noun, may properly be denominated cases, in English; and that, on this principle, there are, in our language, as many cases as in the Latin tongue. But to this mode of forming cases for our substantives, there are strong objections. It would, indeed, be a formal and useless arrangement of nouns, articles, and prepositions. If an arrangement of this nature were to be considered as constituting cases, the English language would have a much greater number of them than the Gree! and Latin tongues: for, as every preposition has its distinct meaning and effect, every combination of a preposition and article with the noun, would form a different relation, and would consti