B. Latin and French Suffixes.

11. The chief feminine ending which we have received from the French is ess (Latin, issa). This is also the only feminine suffix with a living force at the present day—the only suffix we could add to any new word that might be adopted by us from a foreign source.

12. The following are nouns whose feminines end in ess:

It will be noticed that, besides adding ess, some of the letters undergo change or are thrown out altogether.

There are other feminine suffixes of a foreign origin, such as ine, a, and trix.

(i) ine is a Greek ending, and is found in heroine. A similar ending in landgravine and margravine, the feminines of landgrave (a German count) and margrave (a lord of the Mark or of marches), is German.

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(ii) a is an Italian or Spanish ending, and is found in donna (the feminine of Don, a gentleman), infanta the child, the heiress to the crown of Spain), sultana, and signora (the feminine of Signor, the Italian for Senior, elder, which we have compressed into Sir).

(iii) trix is a purely Latin ending, and is found only in those words that have come to us directly from Latin; as testator, testatrix (a person who has made a will), executor, executrix (a person who carries out the directions of a will).

II. GENDER INDICATED BY PREFIXES (OR BY COMPOSITION).

13. The distinction between the masculine and the feminine gender is indicated by using such words as man, maid—bull, cow-he, she-cock, hen, as prefixes to the nouns mentioned. In the oldest English, carl and cwen (= queen) were employed to mark gender; and carl-fugol is cock-fowl, cwenfugol = hen-fowl.

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14. The following are the most important words of this

We

(i) In the time of Shakespeare, he and she were used as nouns. find such phrases as "The proudest he,' ," "The fairest she," "That not impossible she."

III. GENDER INDICATED BY DIFFERENT WORDS.

15. The use of different words for the masculine and the feminine does not really belong to grammatical gender. It may be well, however, to note some of the most important :

(i) Bachelor (lit., a cow-boy), from Low Lat. baccalarius; from bacca, Low Lat. for vacca, a cow. Hence also vaccination.

(ii) Girl, from Low German gör, a child, by the addition of the diminutive l.

(iii) Filly, the dim. of foal. (When a syllable is added, the previous vowel is often modified: as in cat, kitten; cock, chicken; cook, kitchen.)

(iv) Drake, formerly endrake; end=duck, and rake=king. The word therefore means king of the ducks. (The word rake appears in another form in the ric of bishopric=the ric or kingdom or domain of a bishop.) (v) Drone, from the droning sound it makes.

(vi) Earl, from A.S. eorl, a warrior. word comtesse.

Countess comes from the French

(vii) Father=feeder; cognate of fat, food, feed, fodder, foster, etc.

(viii) Goose; in the oldest A.S. gans; Gandr-a (the a being the sign of the masc.). Hence gander, the d being inserted as a cushion between n and r, as in thunder, gender, etc.

(x) Mare, the fem. of A.S. mearh, a horse. Hence also marshal, which at first meant horse-servant.

(xi) Husband, from Icelandic, husbondi, the master of the house. A farmer in Norway is called a bonder.

(xii) King, a contraction of A.S. cyning, son of the kin or tribe.

(xiii) Lord, a contraction of A.S. hláford-from hláf, a loaf, and weard, a ward or keeper.

(xiv) Lady, a contraction of A.S. hlaéfdige, a loaf-kneader.

(xv) The old A.S. words were nefa, nefe.

(xvi) Woman

= wife man. The pronunciation of women (wimmen) comes nearer to the old form of the word. See note on (iii.)

(xvii) Sir, from Lat. senior, elder.

(xviii) Madam, from Lat. Mea domina (through the French Ma dame) =my lady.

(xix) Daughter = milker. Connected with dug.

(xx) Wizard, from old French guiscart, prudent. Witch has no connection with wizard.

16. All feminine nouns are formed from the masculine, with four exceptions: bridegroom, widower, gander, and drake, which come respectively from bride, widow, goose, and duck.

(i) Bridegroom was in A.S. brýdguma=the bride's man. (Guma is a cognate of the Lat. hom-o, a man-whence humanity.)

(ii) Widower. The old masc. was widuwa; the fem. widuwe. It was then forgotten that widuwa was a masculine, and a new masculine had to be formed from widuwe.

NUMBER.

17. Number is, in nouns, the mode of indicating whether we are speaking of one thing or of more.

18. The English language, like most modern languages, has two numbers: the singular and the plural.

(i) Singular comes from the Lat. singuli, one by one; plural, from the Lat. plures, more (than one).

(ii) Mr Barnes, the eminent Dorsetshire poet, who has written an excellent grammar, called 'Speech-craft,' calls them onely and somely. 19. There are three chief ways of forming the plural in English :

(i) By adding es or s to the singular.

(ii) By adding en.

(iii) By changing the vowel-sound.

20. First Mode. The plural is formed by adding es or s. The ending es is a modern form of the old A.S. plural in as, as stanas, stones. The following are examples :

(i) It will be seen that es in heroes does not add a syllable to the sing. (ii) Nouns ending in f change the sharp f into a flat v, as in beeves, etc. But we say roofs, cliffs, dwarfs, chiefs, etc.

(iii) An old singular of lady was ladie; and this spelling is preserved in the plural. But there has arisen a rule on this point in modern English, which may be thus stated :

A☞ (a) Y, with a vowel before it, is not changed in the plural. Thus we write keys, valleys, chimneys, days, etc.

(b) Y, with a consonant before it, is changed into ie when s is added for the plural. Thus we write ladies, rubies, and also soliloquies.

(iv) Beef is not now used as the word for a single ox, Shakespeare has the phrase "beef-witted" with no more sense than an ox.

ne.

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21. Second Mode. The plural is formed by adding en or Thus we have oxen, children, brethren, and kine.

(i) Children is a double plural. The oldest plural was cild-r-u, which became childer. It was forgotten that this was a proper plural, and en was added. Brethren is also a double plural. En was added to the old Northern plural brether—the oldest plural being brothr-u,

(ii) Kine is also a double plural of cow, The oldest plural was cŷ, and this still exists in Scotland in the form of kye, added.

Then ne was

22. Third Mode. The plural is formed by changing the vowel-sound of the word. The following are examples

(i) To understand this, we must observe that when a new syllable is added to a word, the vowel of the preceding syllable is often weakened. Thus we find nātion, nătional; fox, vixen. Now the oldest plurals of the above words had an additional syllable; and it is to this that the change in the vowel is due.

23. There are in English several nouns with two plural forms, with different meanings. The following is a list :

(i) Pea is a false singular. The s belongs to the root; and we find in Middle English "as big as a pease," and the plurals pesen and peses.

24. Some nouns have the same form in the plural as in the singular. Such are deer, sheep, cod, trout, mackerel, and others.

(i) Most of these nouns were, in Old English, neuter.

(ii) A special plural is found in such phrases as: A troop of horse; a company of foot; ten sail of the line; three brace of birds; six gross of steel pens; ten stone weight, etc. In fact, the names of numbers, weights, measures, etc., are not put into the plural form. Thus we say, ten hundredweight, five score, five fathom, six brace. In Old English we also said forty year, sixty winter; and we still say, a twelvemonth, a fortnight (=fourteen nights).

25. There are in English several false plurals—that is, real singulars which look like plurals. These are alms, riches, and

eaves.

B