4. A common noun is the name of a person, place, or thing, considered not merely as an individual, but as one of a class. Horse, town, boy, table, are common nouns.

The word common comes from the Lat. communis, "shared by several"; and we find it also in community, commonalty, etc.

(i) A common noun is so called because it belongs in common to all the persons, places, or things in the same class.

(ii) The name rabbit marks off, or distinguishes, that animal from all other animals; but it does not distinguish one rabbit from another— it is common to all animals of the class. Hence we may say: a common noun distinguishes from without; but it does not distinguish within its own bounds.

(iii) Common nouns have a meaning; proper nouns have not. The latter may have a meaning; but the meaning is generally not appropriate. Thus persons called Whitehead and Longshanks may be dark and short. Hence such names are merely signs, and not significant marks.

5. Common nouns are generally subdivided into—

(i) Class-names.

(ii) Collective nouns.

(iii) Abstract nouns.

(i) Under class-names are included not only ordinary names, but also the names of materials-as tea, sugar, wheat, water.

The names of materials can be used in the plural when different kinds of the material are meant. Thus we say "fine teas," we mean fine kinds of tea, etc.

coarse sugars," when

(ii) A collective noun is the name of a collection of persons or things, looked upon by the mind as one. Thus we say committee, parliament, crowd; and think of these collections of persons as each one body.

(iii) An abstract noun is the name of a quality, action, or state, considered in itself, and as abstracted from the thing or person in which it really exists. Thus, we see a number of lazy persons, and think of laziness as a quality in itself, abstracted from the persons. (From Lat. abs, from; tractus, drawn.)

(a) The names of arts and sciences are abstract nouns, because they are the names of processes of thought, considered apart and abstracted from the persons who practise them. Thus, music, painting, grammar, chemistry, astronomy, are abstract nouns.

(iv) Abstract nouns are (a) derived from adjectives, as hardness, dulness, sloth, from hard, dull, and slow; or (b) from verbs, as growth, thought, from grow and think.

(v) Abstract nouns are sometimes used as collective nouns. Thus we say "the nobility and gentry " for "the nobles and gentlemen" of the land.

(vi) Abstract nouns are formed from other words by the addition of such endings as ness, th, ery, hood, head, etc.

6. The following is a summary of the divisions of nouns :

THE INFLEXIONS OF NOUNS.

7. Nouns can be inflected or changed. They are inflected to indicate Gender, Number, and Case.

We must not, however, forget that differences of gender, number, or case are not always indicated by inflexion.

Inflexio is a Latin word which means bending. An inflexion, therefore, is a bending away from the ordinary form of the word.

GENDER.

8. Gender is, in grammar, the mode of distinguishing sex by the aid of words, prefixes, or suffixes.

The word gender comes from the Lat. genus, generis (Fr. genre), a kind or sort. We have the same word in generic, general, etc. (The d in gender is no organic or true part of the word; it has been inserted as a kind of cushion between the n and the r.)

(i) Names of males are said to be of the masculine gender, as master, lord, Harry. Lat. mas, a male.

(ii) Names of females are of the feminine gender, as mistress, lady, Harriet. Lat. femina, a woman. (From the same word we have effeminate, etc.)

(iii) Names of things without sex are of the neuter gender, as head, tree, London. Lat. neuter, neither. (From the same word we have neutral, neutrality.)

(iv) Names of animals, the sex of which is not indicated, are said to be of the common gender. Thus, sheep, bird, hawk, parent, servant, are common, because they may be of either gender.

(vi) If we personify things, passions, powers, or natural forces, we may make them either masculine or feminine. Thus the Sun, Time, the Ocean, Anger, War, a river, are generally made masculine. On the other hand, the Moon, the Earth ("Mother Earth"), Virtue, a ship, Religion, Pity, Peace, are generally spoken of as feminine.

(vii) Sex is a distinction between animals; gender a distinction between nouns. In Old English, nouns ending in dom, as freedom, were masculine; nouns in ness, as goodness, feminine; and nouns in en, as maiden, chicken, always neuter. But we have lost all these distinctions, and, in modern English, gender always follows sex.

9. There are three ways of marking gender

(i) By the use of Suffixes.

(ii) By Prefixes (or by Composition).

(iii) By using distinct words for the names of the male and female.

I. GENDER MARKED BY SUFFIXES.

A. Purely English or Teutonic Suffixes.

10. There are now in our language only two purely English suffixes used to mark the feminine gender, and these are used in only two words. The two endings are en and ster, and the two words are vixen and spinster.

(i) Vixen is the feminine of fox; and spinster of spinner (spinder or spinther, which, later on, became spider). King Alfred, in his writings, speaks of "the spear-side and the spindle-side of a house"-meaning the men and the women.

(ii) Ster was used as a feminine suffix very largely in Old English. Thus, webster was a woman-weaver; baxter (or bagster), a female baker; hoppester, a woman-dancer; redester, a woman-reader; huckster, a female hawker (travelling merchant); and so on.

(iii) In Ancient English (Anglo-Saxon) the masculine ending was a, and the feminine e, as in wicca, wicce, witch. Hence we find the names of many Saxon kings ending in a, as Isa, Offa, Penda, etc.

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.

(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.

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. Countess comes from the French word comtesse.