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Hello everybody. This Week's Not-So-Weekly Grammar Lesson Last time I talked about Nouns. There are several topics related to nouns that I didn't write about, including pluralisation, noun phrases, personification, substantives and appositives. If I see anybody struggling with these issues, I shall post about them. Old English I have been asked to write about 'Old English', but I'm fairly sure the person meant 'Early Modern English'. Early Modern English is a name for the modern English language the way it was used around 1485 and 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and works of William Shakespeare are both in Early Moderm English (though the King James Bible intentionally keeps some anachronisms that were not common even when it was published). Current speakers of English are generally able to understand Early Modern English, though occasionally with small difficulties due to grammar changes, changes in the meanings of some words, and spelling differences. Wikipedia Although, as pointed out in the excerpt above, there are many other differences between Early Modern English (EME) and Modern English (ME, that which we speak today), I shall only focus on words that were common in EME and now are less common (in ME). The first, and possibly most obvious, is the word 'thou'. 'Thou' is a singular, personal pronoun in the second person and in the nominative case (Oxford English Dictionary, OED). While this may be a particularly long definition, it tells us everything we need to know about its purpose and correct usage. A singular noun is a noun that refers to only one person, place or thing. Pronouns take the places of nouns in sentences and personal pronouns indicate a person to or of whom is spoken. A noun in the second person names the person or persons to whom is or are spoken. Nouns in the nominative case name the words about which statements are made. I have discussed case in greater depth below ('Who or Whom?'). After sifting through the wealth of information provided by the OED, we have a complete definition of the word thou. Thou is a word used in the place of a noun (pronoun) which indicates the person (singular) to whom is spoken (pronoun, second person) and which is the subject of a sentence or a subject complement. In other words, thee in EME corresponds to you in ME. Now let's look at the cases of 'thou': THEE: The objective case of the pronoun THOU, representing the EME accusative and dative. An accusative is a noun, whose primary function is to express destination or the goal of motion; hence the case which follows prepositions implying motion towards, and expresses the object of transitive verbs, i.e. the destination of the verbal action. Used as an accusative, thee is the the direct object of a verb. Direct objects are fairly easy to recognise. They are usually nouns and sometimes pronouns, and they are the targets of the verb action. If there is only one object in a sentence, it is always a direct object. If in doubt, however, ask one of the questions "What?" or "Whom?" with the action verb in the sentence. I shall discuss objects (both direct and indirect) in more depth in a later issue. A dative is a noun which denotes the indirect or more remote object of the action of a verb, that to or for whom or which we do a thing, or to whom we give a thing. Again, I shall discuss this in more depth in a later issue. Suffice it to say that thee is the objective case of thou (although this does leave some cases out, I doubt that anyone will mind). THINE: The genitive case of the pronoun THOU. A genitive is a form of substantives and other declinable parts of speech, chiefly used to denote that the person or thing signified by the word is related to another as source, possessor, or the like. In other words, thine (as the genitive case of thou) is the singular possessive case of the pronoun thou, it is the singular, personal pronoun in the second person and in the possessive case. THY: Of or belonging to thee, that thou hast. Thy is an adjective in the possessive case, which indicates possession in the second person. As a summary: both thou and thee have been replaced by you, thine has been replaced by yours, and thy has been replaced by your. If you have any other queries relating to this topic, do not hesitate to forward them to me. Who or whom? This question seems to have confused many people, but is an extremely simple one to answer. Who should be used in the nominative case (as the subject of a sentence), while whom should be used in the objective case (as the object of a sentence). Obviously, to understand when to use who or whom, you must understand noun cases. In grammar case describes the syntactical relationship of a noun or pronoun to the other words in the sentence. Both nouns and pronouns possess this property, but we will limit our current discussion of case to nouns. There are three cases: nominative, possessive, and objective. Nominative Case Nouns in the nominative case name the words about which statements are made. Nouns in the nominative case may be subjects of sentences, or they may be subject complements (also called predicate nominatives), nouns which follow a linking very and describe the subject of the sentence. The subject complement and subject must always agree in case, person, number, and gender because they refer to the same individual. The catcher missed the ball. Elvis is a car salesman in Beauford, Oklahoma. The guitarist broke is G string. In the first example, the noun catcher is in the nominative case. It names the subject, the person who missed the ball. In the second example, the nouns Elvis and salesman are both in the nominative case. The former is the subject of the sentence. The latter is a subject complement following a linking verb, is, and renames the subject. In the third example, the noun guitarist is in the nominative case, since it names the subject of the sentence,t he person who broke the guitar string. Objective Case Nouns in the objective case are 1) direct objects, the targets of the actions of verbs, 2) indirect objects, the objects that are recipients of the actions of verbs and that precede the direct object in sentences, or 3) words that are connected to other words in sentences, such as objects of prepositions (I shall discuss this in a later issue) or objects of verbals (I shall also discuss this in a later issue). My dog buried her bone. Peter gave Jill a gift. Bill's excuses for his behaviour are irrelevant. Giving my cat a bath is an unpleasant task. In the first example, the noun bone is in the objective case because it is the target of the dog's action, the thing that was burried. Bone is a direct object. In the second example, both Jill and gift are in the objective case. Gift is a direct object, the target of Peter's action because it is the thing that was given. Jill is an indirect object, since she is the recipient of the direct object gift. You will need to know all about verbs to have a clear understanding of the distinction between direct and indirect objects, which I shall attempt to give you in a later issue. In the third example, the noun behaviour is in the objective case. It is the object of the preposition for. Objects, as you might expect, are always in the objective case. In the final example, both the nouns cat and bath are in the objective case. Bath is a direct object, the target of the gerund giving, while cat is an indirect object, so both are in the objective case. I shall discuss gerunds in more detail in a later issue. There are no differences in form between nouns in the nominative and objective cases. Understanding the differences between the two, however, will enhance your own speech and writing and help you to use more precise English. Look for context clues to determine in which case a noun is. There is a third case in which nouns can be, but to avoid overloading (and losing) my readers, I shall discuss this in a later issue if it is required.