-hlaf, hnut, and hring turning into loaf, nut, and ring. Initial hw always changes to our wh, though the h breathing precedes the w sound,-hwit, hwylc, and hwal becoming white, which, and whale. The consonant r sometimes changes place with the vowel preceding,—brid and urn appearing as bird and run.

CHAPTER IV.

GRAMMATICAL CHANGES OF THE ANGLO-SAXON IN BECOMING ENGLISH.-THE NOUN.

XV. Changes in the Declension.-There were two Declensions in the Anglo-Saxon, each running through four cases and two numbers-the Vowel, or Strong, Declension, and the Consonant, or Weak. We give, below, the case-endings in both numbers of these declensions.

1. Change of the um Ending.-Even before the Con

quest om, seen to-day in our whilom and seldom (nouns in

Anglo-Saxon), had begun to displace the dative plural ending um. Later, on took the place of this om.

2. Change of the Vowels of the Endings to e.—A sweeping change, begun before the Conquest, advancing rapidly after it, and completed by the end of the twelfth century, was the weakening of the other vowels of the endings to e. After um had become om, and then on, and by this further change en, and after the ena of the genitive plural had conformed to the nominative and accusative, this leveling of the vowels to e would reduce the endings of the vowel declension to e and es, and those of the consonant to e and

en.

3. The Dropping of Final n and of the Final e.— The sloughing off of final n, begun before the Conquest, checked for a while, and resumed after the Conquest, followed the changes already spoken of. When completed, and few are found in Chaucer, the endings left in both declensions are e and es only. And now this e final, seldom pronounced as a distinct syllable, disappeared from the orthography as well as from pronunciation. At its disappearance, had there been no adoption from the French nor any extension of forms already in Anglo-Saxon, the English noun would be even more destitute of case and number endings than it is. There was no adoption, but there was an extension. This was accomplished by

4. The Influence of the Masculine and Neuter Genders of the Vowel Declension. The masculine, as seen above, had, in the nominative and accusative plural, the ending as; and both genders had, in the genitive singular, the ending es. And these two cases of the masculine plural and this one case of the masculine and neuter singular, in only one of the two declensions, had authority sufficient to

extend their inflections to the other nouns in the language, and to give the law to all foreign nouns seeking admission into English.

By 1550, this as, changed to es, ceased to be pronounced separately, except when the form of the word required it, as in boxes and houses; and, when unpronounced, the e was omitted from the spelling. So that now to form the genitive singular, and the plural throughout, we universally employ s. The use of the apostrophe, to distinguish the genitive singular from the cases of the plural, arose in the seventeenth century, and was fully established by the eighteenth. Its use was subsequently extended to the genitive plural-standing here after the ending s, and distinguishing this case from the other cases of the plural.

XVI. Exceptions to the Cases just given.-1. In their Number and Names.-The Anglo-Saxon had four cases, the English has three. The dative has been dropped, though in such expressions as I taught him grammar, I gave him this advice, we are still obliged to say that him is the indirect, or dative, object. For accusative we say objective; and for genitive, possessive.

2. In their Offices.—The objective case after to and for has largely taken upon itself the office of the Anglo-Saxon dative; and, after of, much of the function of the genitive. In the Anglo-Saxon, the duty of the genitive was manifold. It expressed the myriad relations denoted in English by of. But now, while theoretically the ending may be attached to any noun, practically it is almost restricted to nouns naming things that can possess; and so the old genitive is now not improperly called the possessive case. But such uses of the case as the following, from the best of authors, and with nouns denoting usually measures of time, show that

the statement respecting restriction must not be rigidly taken :

An hour's drive, a year's trial, a hair's breadth, a month's notice, earth's surface, harm's way, winter's day, water's edge, yard's breadth, day's occurrence, week's sport, summer's toil, five minutes' drive. state's evidence, and a moment's reflection.

XVII. Exceptions to the Plural in s.-1. The Plurals in n.-Only one Anglo-Saxon noun of the consonant declension oxa-our ox-retains its old n, and that only in the plural, oxen. Even in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, only nine of the original an nouns end in n; these only in the plural, and three of the nine had taken on the s ending in addition. But three nouns have in the plural deserted from the vowel declension to the consonant- -one completely, two in part. Child, Anglo-Saxon cild, adds en to its old. plural in r,-Anglo-Saxon cildru, English children; and Anglo-Saxon brödor and cu retain n in exceptional uses, brethren and kine; ordinarily, brothers and cows.

2. Plurals in the Nominative and Objective same as in the Singular.—There are nouns in English with the same form in the singular and the plural; as, sheep, deer, gross, hose, swine, vermin, etc.

Some have been, others are still, occasionally so used, though they have a form for each number. Shakespeare often uses mile, year, fathom, pound, etc., in the plural; and even such modern authors as Hawthorne, Holmes, Kingsley, and Longfellow say,

Two yoke of oxen; of books but few, some fifty score; four pair; and the folk of the village.

Our words of this class largely indicate weight, number, length-measure of some kind: These exceptions, complete