Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/294

272 the ending ā), that expressed by with, or by—the idea of adjacency or accompaniment passing naturally into that of means, instrument, or cause. Two cases, the dative and genitive, designated relations of a less physical character: the former (with the ending ai) we should render by for before the noun; the latter (its ending is asya or as) expressed general pertinence or possession. Then the accusative (with the sign m) assumed the office of indicating the directest dependent relation, that which even with us is expressed without the aid of a preposition—the objective—as well as that most immediate relation of motion which we signify by to. The nominative, finally, has also its ending, s, in the presence of which is strikingly exhibited the tendency of the earliest Indo-European language to make every vocable a true form, to give to every theme, in every relation, a sign of its mode of application, a formative element. Besides these seven proper cases, the vocative or interjectional case, the form of address, also makes a part of the scheme of declension; it has no distinctive ending, but is identical with the theme or the nominative case, or is only phonetically altered from them.

The declensional endings which we have instanced are those of the singular number. To explain their origin in any such way as shows us their precise value as independent elements, and the nature of the act of transfer by which they were made signs of case-relations, is not practicable. Pronominal elements are distinctly traceable in most of them, and may have assumed something of a prepositional force before their combination. The genitive affix is very likely to have been at the first, like many genitive affixes of later date in the history of the Indo-European languages, one properly forming a derivative adjective: and it is not impossible that the dative ending was of the same nature.

There are many existing tongues which have for the plurals of their nouns precisely the same case-endings as for the singular, only adding them along with a special pluralizing suffix. The attempt has been made to find such a