Chapter IX: Miscellanea, 301 (9)

"The three great causes of change in language," says Sayce, "may be briefly described as (1) imitation or analogy, (2) a wish to be clear and emphatic, and (3) laziness. Indeed, if we choose to go deep enough we might reduce all three causes to the general one of laziness, since it is easier to imitate than to say [Pg199] something new."[42] This tendency to take well-worn paths, paradoxically enough, is responsible both for the transfer of verbs from the strong to the weak declension, and for the transfer of certain others from the weak to the strong. A verb in everyday use tends almost inevitably to pull less familiar verbs with it, whether it be strong or weak. Thus /fed/ as the preterite of /to feed/ and /led/ as the preterite of /to lead/ paved the way for /pled/ as the preterite of /to plead/, and /rode/ as plainly performed the same office for /glode/, and /rung/ for /brung/, and /drove/ for /dove/ and /hove/, and /stole/ for /dole/, and /won/ for /skun/. Moreover, a familiar verb, itself acquiring a faulty inflection, may fasten a similar inflection upon another verb of like sound. Thus /het/, as the preterite of /to heat/, no doubt owes its existence to the example of /et/, the vulgar preterite of /to eat/. So far the irregular verbs. The same combination of laziness and imitativeness works toward the regularization of certain verbs that are historically irregular. In addition, of course, there is the fact that regularization is itself intrinsically simplification--that it makes the language easier. One sees the antagonistic pull of the two influences in the case of verbs ending in /-ow/. The analogy of /knew/ suggests /snew/ as the preterite of /to snow/, and it is sometimes encountered in the American vulgate. But the analogy of /snowed/ also suggests /knowed/, and the superior regularity of the form is enough to overcome the greater influence of /knew/ as a more familiar word than /snowed/. Thus /snew/ grows rare and is in decay, but /knowed/ shows vigor, and so do /growed/ and /throwed/. The substitution of /heerd/ for /heard/ also presents a case of logic and convenience supporting analogy. The form is suggested by /steered/, /feared/ and /cheered/, but its main advantage lies in the fact that it gets rid of a vowel change, always an impediment to easy speech. Here, as in the contrary direction, one barbarism breeds another. Thus /taken/, as the preterite of /to take/, has undoubtedly helped to make preterites of two other perfects, /shaken/ and /forsaken/.

But in the presence of two exactly contrary tendencies, the one in accordance with the general movement of the language [Pg200] since the Norman Conquest and the other opposed to it, it is unsafe, of course, to attempt any very positive generalizations. All one may exhibit with safety is a general habit of treating the verb conveniently. Now and then, disregarding grammatical tendencies, it is possible to discern what appear to be logical causes for verb phenomena. That /lit/ is preferred to /lighted/ and /hung/ to /hanged/ is probably the result of an aversion to fine distinctions, and perhaps, more fundamentally, to the passive. Again, the use of /found/ as the preterite of /to fine/ is obviously due to an ignorant confusion of /fine/ and /find/, due to the wearing off of /-d/ in /find/, and that of /lit/ as the preterite of /to alight/ to a confusion of /alight/ and /light/. Yet again, the use of /tread/ as its own preterite in place of /trod/ is probably the consequence of a vague feeling that a verb ending with /d/ is already of preterite form. /Shed/ exhibits the same process. Both are given a logical standing by such preterites as /bled/, /fed/, /fled/, /led/, /read/, /dead/ and /spread/. But here, once more, it is hazardous to lay down laws, for /shredded/, /headed/, /dreaded/, /threaded/ and /breaded/ at once come to mind. In other cases it is still more difficult to account for preterites in common use. /Drug/ is wholly illogical, and so are /clum/ and /friz/. Neither, fortunately, has yet supplanted the more intelligible form of its verb, and so it is not necessary to speculate about them. As for /crew/, it is archaic English surviving in American, and it was formed, perhaps, by analogy with /knew/, which has succumbed in American to /knowed/.

Some of the verbs of the vulgate show the end products of language movements that go back to the Anglo-Saxon period, and even beyond. There is, for example, the disappearance of the final /t/ in such words as /crep/, /slep/, /lep/, /swep/ and /wep/. Most of these, in Anglo-Saxon, were strong verbs. The preterite of /to sleep/ (/slâepan/), for example, was /slēp/, and that of /to weep/ was /weop/. But in the course of time both /to sleep/ and /to weep/ acquired weak preterite endings, the first becoming /slâepte/ and the second /wepte/. This weak conjugation was itself degenerated. Originally, the inflectional suffix had been /-de/ or /-ede/ and in some cases /-ode/, and the vowels were always pronounced. The wearing down process that set in in the twelfth century disposed [Pg201] of the final /e/, but in certain words the other vowel survived for a good while, and we still observe it in such archaisms as /belovéd/. Finally, however, it became silent in other preterites, and /loved/, for example, began to be pronounced (and often written) as a word of one syllable: /lov'd/.[43] This final /d/-sound now fell upon difficulties of its own. After certain consonants it was hard to pronounce clearly, and so the sonant was changed into the easier surd, and such words as /pushed/ and /clipped/ became, in ordinary conversation, /pusht/ and /clipt/. In other verbs the /t/-sound had come in long before, with the degenerated weak ending, and when the final /e/ was dropped their stem vowels tended to change. Thus arose such forms as /slept/. In vulgar American another step is taken, and the suffix is dropped altogether. Thus, by a circuitous route, verbs originally strong, and for many centuries hovering between the two conjugations, have eventually become strong again.

The case of /helt/ is probably an example of change by false analogy. During the thirteenth century, according to Sweet,[44] "/d/ was changed to /t/ in the weak preterites of verbs [ending] in /rd/, /ld/ and /nd/." Before that time the preterite of /sende/ (/send/) had been /sende/; now it became /sente/. It survives in our modern /sent/, and the same process is also revealed in /built/, /girt/, /lent/, /rent/ and /bent/. The popular speech, disregarding the fact that /to hold/ is a strong verb, arrives at /helt/ by imitation. In the case of /tole/, which I almost always hear in place of /told/, there is a leaping of steps. The /d/ is got rid of without any transitional use of /t/. So also, perhaps, in /swole/, which is fast displacing /swelled/. /Attackted/ and /drownded/ seem to be examples of an effort to dispose of harsh combinations by a contrary process. Both are very old in English. /Boughten/ and /dreampt/ [Pg202] present greater difficulties. Lounsbury says that /boughten/ probably originated in the Northern [/i. e./, Lowland Scotch] dialect of English, "which ... inclined to retain the full form of the past participle," and even to add its termination "to words to which it did not properly belong."[45] I record /dreampt/ without attempting to account for it. I have repeatedly heard a distinct /p/-sound in the word.

The general tendency toward regularization is well exhibited by the new verbs that come into the language constantly. Practically all of them show the weak conjugation, for example, /to phone/, /to bluff/, /to rubber-neck/, /to ante/, /to bunt/, /to wireless/, /to insurge/ and /to loop-the-loop/. Even when a compound has as its last member a verb ordinarily strong, it remains weak itself. Thus the preterite of /to joy-ride/ is not /joy-rode/, nor even /joy-ridden/, but /joy-rided/. And thus /bust/, from /burst/, is regular and its preterite is /busted/, though /burst/ is irregular and its preterite is the verb itself unchanged. The same tendency toward regularity is shown by the verbs of the /kneel/-class. They are strong in English, but tend to become weak in colloquial American. Thus the preterite of /to kneel/, despite the example of /to sleep/ and its analogues, is not /knel'/, nor even /knelt/, but /kneeled/. I have even heard /feeled/ as the preterite of /to feel/, as in "I /feeled/ my way," though here /felt/ still persists. /To spread/ also tends to become weak, as in "he /spreaded/ a piece of bread." And /to peep/ remains so, despite the example of /to leap/. The confusion between the inflections of /to lie/ and those of /to lay/ extends to the higher reaches of spoken American, and so does that between /lend/ and /loan/. The proper inflections of /to lend/ are often given to /to loan/, and so /leaned/ becomes /lent/, as in "I /lent/ on the counter." In the same way /to set/ has almost completely superseded /to sit/, and the preterite of the former, /set/, is used in place of /sat/. But the perfect participle (which is also the disused preterite) of /to sit/ has survived, as in "I have /sat/ there." /To speed/ and /to shoe/ have become regular, not only because of the general tendency toward the weak conjugation, but also for logical reasons. The prevalence of speed contests [Pg203] of various sorts, always to the intense interest of the proletariat, has brought such words as /speeder/, /speeding/, /speed-mania/, /speed-maniac/ and /speed-limit/ into daily use, and /speeded/ harmonizes with them better than the stronger /sped/. As for /shoed/, it merely reveals the virtual disappearance of the verb in its passive form. An American would never say that his wife was well /shod/; he would say that she wore good shoes. /To shoe/ suggests to him only the shoeing of animals, and so, by way of /shoeing/ and /horse-shoer/, he comes to /shoed/. His misuse of /to learn/ for /to teach/ is common to most of the English dialects. More peculiar to his speech is the use of /to leave/ for /to let/. Charters records it in "Washington /left/ them have it," and there are many examples of it in Lardner. /Spit/, in American, has become invariable; the old preterite, /spat/, has completely disappeared. But /slit/, which is now invariable in English (though it was strong in Old English and had both strong and weak preterites in Middle English), has become regular in American, as in "she /slitted/ her skirt."

In studying the American verb, of course, it is necessary to remember always that it is in a state of transition, and that in many cases the manner of using it is not yet fixed. "The history of language," says Lounsbury, "when looked at from the purely grammatical point of view, is little else than the history of corruptions." What we have before us is a series of corruptions in active process, and while some of them have gone very far, others are just beginning. Thus it is not uncommon to find corrupt forms side by side with orthodox forms, or even two corrupt forms battling with each other. Lardner, in the case of /to throw/, hears "if he had /throwed/"; my own observation is that /threw/ is more often used in that situation. Again, he uses "the rottenest I ever seen /gave/"; my own belief is that /give/ is far more commonly used. The conjugation of /to give/, however, is yet very uncertain, and so Lardner may report accurately. I have heard "I /given/" and "I would of /gave/," but "I /give/" seems to be prevailing, and "I would of /give/" with it, thus reducing /to give/ to one invariable form, like those of /to cut/, /to hit/, /to put/, /to cost/, /to hurt/ and /to spit/. My table of verbs shows [Pg204] various other uncertainties and confusions. The preterite of /to hear/ is /heerd/; the perfect may be either /heerd/ or /heern/. That of /to do/ may be either /done/ or /did/, with the latter apparently prevailing; that of /to draw/ is /drew/ if the verb indicates to attract or to abstract and /drawed/ if it indicates to draw with a pencil. Similarly, the preterite of /to blow/ may be either /blowed/ or /blew/, and that of /to drink/ oscillates between /drank/ and /drunk/, and that of /to fall/ is still usually /fell/, though /fallen/ has appeared, and that of /to shake/ may be either /shaken/ or /shuck/. The conjugation of /to win/ is yet far from fixed. The correct English preterite, /won/, is still in use, but against it are arrayed /wan/ and /winned/. /Wan/ seems to show some kinship, by ignorant analogy, with /ran/ and /began/. It is often used as the perfect participle, as in "I have /wan/ $4."

The misuse of the perfect participle for the preterite, now almost the invariable rule in vulgar American, is common to many other dialects of English, and seems to be a symptom of a general decay of the perfect tenses. That decay has been going on for a long time, and in American, the most vigorous and advanced of all the dialects of the language, it is particularly well marked. Even in the most pretentious written American it shows itself. The English, in their writing, still use the future perfect, albeit somewhat laboriously and self-consciously, but in America it has virtually disappeared: one often reads whole books without encountering a single example of it. Even the present perfect and the past perfect seem to be instinctively avoided. The Englishman says "I /have/ dined," but the American says "I /am through/ dinner"; the Englishman says "I /had/ slept," but the American often says "I /was done/ sleeping." Thus the perfect tenses are forsaken for the simple present and the past. In the vulgate a further step is taken, and "I /have been/ there" becomes "I /been/ there." Even in such phrases as "he /hasn't/ been here," /ain't/ (=/am not/) is commonly substituted for /have not/, thus giving the present perfect a flavor of the simple present. The step from "I /have taken/" to "/I taken/" was therefore neither difficult nor unnatural, and once it had been made the resulting locution was supported by the greater [Pg205] apparent regularity of its verb. Moreover, this perfect participle, thus put in place of the preterite, was further reinforced by the fact that it was the adjectival form of the verb, and hence collaterally familiar. Finally, it was also the authentic preterite in the passive voice, and although this influence, in view of the decay of the passive, may not have been of much consequence, nevertheless it is not to be dismissed as of no consequence at all.

The contrary substitution of the preterite for the perfect participle, as in "I have /went/" and "he has /did/," apparently has a double influence behind it. In the first place, there is the effect of the confused and blundering effort, by an ignorant and unanalytical speaker, to give the perfect some grammatical differentiation when he finds himself getting into it--an excursion not infrequently made necessary by logical exigencies, despite his inclination to keep out. The nearest indicator at hand is the disused preterite, and so it is put to use. Sometimes a sense of its uncouthness seems to linger, and there is a tendency to give it an /en/-suffix, thus bringing it into greater harmony with its tense. I find that /boughten/, just discussed, is used much oftener in the perfect than in the simple past tense;[46] for the latter /bought/ usually suffices. The quick ear of Lardner detects various other coinages of the same sort, among them /tooken/, as in "little Al might of /tooken/ sick."[47] /Hadden/ is also met with, as in "I would of /hadden/." But the majority of preterites remain unchanged. Lardner's baseball player never writes "I have /written/" or "I have /wroten/," but always "I have /wrote/." And in the same way he always writes, "I have /did/, /ate/, /went/, /drank/, /rode/, /ran/, /saw/, /sang/, /woke/ and /stole/." Sometimes the simple form of the verb persists through all tenses. This is usually the case, for example, with /to give/. I have noted "I /give/" both as present and as preterite, and "I have /give/," and even "I had /give/." But even here "I have /gave/" offers rivalry to "I have /give/," and usage is not settled. So, too, with /to come/. "I have /come/" and "I have /came/" seem to be almost equally [Pg206] favored, with the former supported by pedagogical admonition and the latter by the spirit of the language.

Whatever the true cause of the substitution of the preterite for the perfect participle, it seems to be a tendency inherent in English, and during the age of Elizabeth it showed itself even in the most formal speech. An examination of any play of Shakespeare's will show many such forms as "I have /wrote/," "I am /mistook/" and "he has /rode/." In several cases this transfer of the preterite has survived. "I have /stood/," for example, is now perfectly correct English, but before 1550 the form was "I have /stonden/." /To hold/ and /to sit/ belong to the same class; their original perfect participles were not /held/ and /sat/, but /holden/ and /sitten/. These survived the movement toward the formalization of the language which began with the eighteenth century, but scores of other such misplaced preterites were driven out. One of the last to go was /wrote/, which persisted until near the end of the century.[48] Paradoxically enough, the very purists who performed the purging showed a preference for /got/ (though not for /forgot/), and it survives in correct English today in the preterite-present form, as in "I have /got/," whereas in American, both vulgar and polite, the elder and more regular /gotten/ is often used. In the polite speech /gotten/ indicates a distinction between a completed action and a continuing action,--between obtaining and possessing. "I have /gotten/ what I came for" is correct, and so is "I have /got/ the measles." In the vulgar speech, much the same distinction exists, but the perfect becomes a sort of simple tense by the elision of /have/. Thus the two sentences change to "I /gotten/ what I come for" and "I /got/ the measles," the latter being understood, not as past, but as present.

In "I have /got/ the measles" /got/ is historically a sort of auxiliary of /have/, and in colloquial American, as we have seen in the examples just given, the auxiliary has obliterated the verb. /To have/, as an auxiliary, probably because of its intimate relationship with the perfect tenses, is under heavy pressure, and [Pg207] promises to disappear from the situations in which it is still used. I have heard /was/ used in place of it, as in "before the Elks /was/ come here."[49] Sometimes it is confused ignorantly with a distinct /of/, as in "she would /of/ drove," and "I would /of/ gave." More often it is shaded to a sort of particle, attached to the verb as an inflection, as in "he would '/a/ tole you," and "who could '/a/ took it?" But this is not all. Having degenerated to such forms, it is now employed as a sort of auxiliary to itself, in the subjunctive, as in "if you had /of/ went," "if it had /of/ been hard," and "if I had /of/ had."[50] I have encountered some rather astonishing examples of this doubling of the auxiliary: one appears in "I wouldn't had '/a/ went." Here, however, the /a/ may belong partly to /had/ and partly to /went/; such forms as /a-going/ are very common in American. But in the other cases, and in such forms as "I had '/a/ wanted," it clearly belongs to /had/. Sometimes for syntactical reasons, the degenerated form of /have/ is put before /had/ instead of after it, as in "I could /of/ had her if I had /of/ wanted to."[51] Meanwhile, /to have/, ceasing to be an auxiliary, becomes a general verb indicating compulsion. Here it promises to displace /must/. The American seldom says "I /must/ go"; he almost invariably says "I /have/ to go," or "I /have got/ to go," in which last case, as we have seen, /got/ is the auxiliary.

The most common inflections of the verb for mode and voice are shown in the following paradigm of /to bite/:

ACTIVE VOICE

/Indicative Mode/

/Present/ I bite /Past Perfect/ I had of bit /Present Perfect/ I have bit /Future/ I will bite /Past/ I bitten /Future Perfect/ (wanting)

/Subjunctive Mode/

/Present/ If I bite /Past Perfect/ If I had of bit /Past/ If I bitten

/Potential Mode/

/Present/ I can bite /Past/ I could bite /Present Perfect/ (wanting) /Past Perfect/ I could of bit

/Imperative/ (or /Optative/) /Mode/

/Future/ I shall (or will) bite

/Infinitive Mode/

(wanting)

PASSIVE VOICE

/Indicative Mode/

/Present/ I am bit /Past Perfect/ I had been bit /Present Perfect/ I been bit /Future/ I will be bit /Past/ I was bit /Future Perfect/ (wanting)

/Subjunctive Mode/

/Present/ If I am bit /Past Perfect/ If I had of been bit /Past/ If I was bit

/Potential Mode/

/Present/ I can be bit /Past/ I could be bit /Present Perfect/ (wanting) /Past Perfect/ I could of been bit

/Imperative Mode/

(wanting)

/Infinitive Mode/

(wanting)

A study of this paradigm reveals several plain tendencies. One has just been discussed: the addition of a degenerated form of /have/ to the preterite of the auxiliary, and its use in place of the auxiliary itself. Another is the use of /will/ instead of /shall/ in the first person future. /Shall/ is confined to a sort of optative, indicating much more than mere intention, and even here it is yielding to /will/. Yet another is the consistent use of the transferred preterite in the passive. Here the rule in correct English is followed faithfully, though the perfect participle [Pg209] employed is not the English participle. "I am /broke/" is a good example. Finally, there is the substitution of /was/ for /were/ and of /am/ for /be/ in the past and present of the subjunctive. In this last case American is in accord with the general movement of English, though somewhat more advanced. /Be/, in the Shakespearean form of "where /be/ thy brothers?" was expelled from the present indicative two hundred years ago, and survives today only in dialect. And as it thus yielded to /are/ in the indicative, it now seems destined to yield to /am/ and /is/ in the subjunctive. It remains, of course, in the future indicative: "I will /be/." In American its conjugation coalesces with that of /am/ in the following manner:

/Present/ I am /Past Perfect/ I had of ben /Present Perfect/ I bin (or ben) /Future/ I will be /Past/ I was /Future Perfect/ (wanting)

And in the subjunction:

/Present/ If I am /Past Perfect/ If I had of ben /Past/ If I was

All signs of the subjunctive, indeed, seem to be disappearing from vulgar American. One never hears "if I /were/ you," but always "if I /was/ you." In the third person the /-s/ is not dropped from the verb. One hears, not "if she /go/," but "if she /goes/." "If he /be/ the man" is never heard; it is always "if he /is/." This war upon the forms of the subjunctive, of course, extends to the most formal English. "In Old English," says Bradley,[52] "the subjunctive played as important a part as in modern German, and was used in much the same way. Its inflection differed in several respects from that of the indicative. But the only formal trace of the old subjunctive still remaining, except the use of /be/ and /were/, is the omission of the final /s/ in the third person singular. And even this is rapidly dropping out of use.... Perhaps in another generation the subjunctive forms will have ceased to exist except in the single instance of /were/, which serves a useful function, although we manage to [Pg210] dispense with a corresponding form in other verbs." Here, as elsewhere, unlettered American usage simply proceeds in advance of the general movement. /Be/ and the omitted /s/ are already dispensed with, and even /were/ has been discarded.

In the same way the distinction between /will/ and /shall/, preserved in correct English but already breaking down in the most correct American, has been lost entirely in the American common speech. /Will/ has displaced /shall/ completely, save in the imperative. This preference extends to the inflections of both. /Sha'n't/ is very seldom heard; almost always /won't/ is used instead. As for /should/, it is displaced by /ought to/ (degenerated to /oughter/ or /ought'a/), and in its negative form by /hadn't ought'a/, as in "he /hadn't oughter/ said that," reported by Charters. Lardner gives various redundant combinations of /should/ and /ought/, as in "I don't feel as if I /should ought to/ leave" and "they /should not ought to/ of had." I have encountered the same form, but I don't think it is as common as the simple /ought'a/-forms. In the main, /should/ is avoided, sometimes at considerable pains. Often its place is taken by the more positive /don't/. Thus "I /don't/ mind" is used instead of "I /shouldn't/ mind." /Don't/ has also completely displaced /doesn't/, which is very seldom heard. "He /don't/" and "they /don't/" are practically universal. In the same way /ain't/ has displaced /is not/, /am not/, /isn't/ and /aren't/, and even /have not/ and /haven't/. One recalls a famous speech in a naval melodrama of twenty years ago: "We /ain't/ got no manners, but we can fight like hell." Such forms as "he /ain't/ here," "I /ain't/ the man," "them /ain't/ what I want" and "I /ain't/ heerd of it" are common.

This extensive use of /ain't/, of course, is merely a single symptom of a general disregard of number, obvious throughout the verbs, and also among the pronouns, as we shall see. Charters gives many examples, among them, "how /is/ Uncle Wallace and Aunt Clara?" "you /was/," "there /is/ six" and the incomparable "it /ain't/ right to say, 'He /ain't/ here today.'" In Lardner there are many more, for instance, "them Giants is not such rotten hitters, /is/ they?" "the people /has/ all wanted to shake hands with Matthewson and I" and "some of the men /has/ [Pg211] brung their wife along." /Sez/ (=/says/), used as the preterite of /to say/, shows the same confusion. One observes it again in such forms as "then I /goes/ up to him." Here the decay of number helps in what threatens to become a decay of tense. Examples of it are not hard to find. The average race-track follower of the humbler sort seldom says "I /won/ $2," or even "I /wan/ $2," but almost always "I /win/ $2." And in the same way he says "I /see/ him come in," not "I /saw/ him" or "/seen/ him." Charters' materials offers other specimens, among them "we /help/ distributed the fruit," "she /recognize/, hug, and /kiss/ him" and "her father /ask/ her if she intended doing what he /ask/." Perhaps the occasional use of /eat/ as the preterite of /to eat/, as in "I /eat/ breakfast as soon as I got up," is an example of the same flattening out of distinctions. Lardner has many specimens, among them "if Weaver and them had not of /begin/ kicking" and "they would of /knock/ down the fence." I notice that /used/, in /used to be/, is almost always reduced to simple /use/, as in "it /use/ to be the rule." One seldom, if ever, hears a clear /d/ at the end. Here, of course, the elision of the /d/ is due primarily to assimilation with the /t/ of /to/--a second example of one form of decay aiding another form. But the tenses apparently tend to crumble without help. I frequently hear whole narratives in a sort of debased present: "I /says/ to him.... Then he /ups/ and /says/.... I /land/ him one on the ear.... He /goes/ down and out, ..." and so on.[53] Still under the spell of our disintegrating inflections, we are prone to regard the tense inflections of the verb as absolutely essential, but there are plenty of languages that get on without them, and even in our own language children and foreigners often reduce them to a few simple forms. Some time ago an Italian contractor said to me "I have /go/ there often." Here one of our few surviving inflections was displaced by an analytical devise, and yet the man's meaning was quite clear, and it would be absurd to say that his sentence violated the inner spirit of English. That inner spirit, in fact, has inclined steadily toward "I have /go/" for a thousand years. [Pg212]

§ 4

/The Pronoun/--The following paradigm shows the inflections of the personal pronoun in the American common speech:

FIRST PERSON

/Common Gender/

/Singular/ /Plural/
/Nominative/ I we
/Possessive Conjoint/ my our
/Possessive Absolute/ mine ourn
/Objective/ me us

SECOND PERSON

/Common Gender/

/Singular/
/Nominative/ you yous
/Possessive Conjoint/ your your
/Possessive Absolute/ yourn yourn
/Objective/ you yous

THIRD PERSON

/Masculine Gender/

/Nominative/ he they
/Possessive Conjoint/ his their
/Possessive Absolute/ hisn theirn
/Objective/ him them

/Feminine Gender/

/Nominative/ she they
/Possessive Conjoint/ her their
/Possessive Absolute/ hern theirn
/Objective/ her them

/Neuter Gender/

/Nominative/ it they
/Possessive Conjoint/ its theirn
/Possessive Absolute/ its their
/Objective/ it them

These inflections, as we shall see, are often disregarded in use, but nevertheless it is profitable to glance at them as they [Pg213] stand. The only variations that they show from standard English are the substitution of /n/ for /s/ as the distinguishing mark of the absolute form of the possessive, and the attempt to differentiate between the logical and the merely polite plurals in the second person by adding the usual sign of the plural to the former. The use of /n/ in place of /s/ is not an American innovation. It is found in many of the dialects of English, and is, in fact, historically quite as sound as the use of /s/. In John Wiclif's translation of the Bible (/circa/ 1380) the first sentence of the Sermon on the Mount (Mark v, 3) is made: "Blessed be the pore in spirit, for the kyngdam in hevenes is /heren/." And in his version of Luke xxiv, 24, is this: "And some of /ouren/ wentin to the grave." Here /heren/, (or /herun/) represents, of course, not the modern /hers/, but /theirs/. In Anglo-Saxon the word was /heora/, and down to Chaucer's day a modified form of it, /here/, was still used in the possessive plural in place of the modern /their/, though /they/ had already displaced /hie/ in the nominative.[54] But in John Purvey's revision of the Wiclif Bible, made a few years later, /hern/ actually occurs in II Kings viii, 6, thus: "Restore thou to hir alle things that ben /hern/." In Anglo-Saxon there had been no distinction between the conjoint and absolute forms of the possessive pronouns; the simple genitive sufficed for both uses. But with the decay of that language the surviving remnants of its grammar began to be put to service somewhat recklessly, and so there arose a genitive inflection of this genitive--a true double inflection. In the Northern dialects of English that inflection was made by simply adding /s/, the sign of the possessive. In the Southern dialects the old /n/-declension was applied, and so there arose such forms as /minum/ and /eowrum/ (=/mine/ and /yours/), from /min/ and /eower/ (=/my/ and /your/).[55] Meanwhile, the original simple genitive, now become /youre/, also survived, and so the literature of [Pg214] the fourteenth century shows the three forms flourishing side by side: /youre/, /youres/ and /youren/. All of them are in Chaucer.

Thus, /yourn/, /hern/, /hisn/, /ourn/ and /theirn/, whatever their present offense to grammarians, are of a genealogy quite as respectable as that of /yours/, /hers/, /his/, /ours/ and /theirs/. Both forms represent a doubling of inflections, and hence grammatical debasement. On the side of the /yours/-form is the standard usage of the past five hundred years, but on the side of the /yourn/-form there is no little force of analogy and logic, as appears on turning to /mine/ and /thine/. In Anglo-Saxon, as we have seen, /my/ was /min/; in the same way /thy/ was /thin/. During the decadence of the language the final /n/ was dropped in both cases before nouns--that is, in the conjoint form--but it was retained in the absolute form. This usage survives to our own day. One says "/my/ book," but "the book is /mine/"; "/thy/ faith," but "I am /thine/."[56] Also, one says "/no/ matter," but "I have /none/." Without question this retention of the /n/ in these pronouns had something to do with the appearance of the /n/-declension in the treatment of /your/, /her/, /his/ and /our/, and, after /their/ had displaced /here/ in the third person plural, in /their/. And equally without question it supports the vulgar American usage today. What that usage shows is simply the strong popular tendency to make language as simple and as regular as possible--to abolish subtleties and exceptions. The difference between "/his/ book" and "the book is /his'n/" is exactly that between /my/ and /mine/, /thy/ and /thine/, in the examples just given. "Perhaps it would have been better," says Bradley, "if the literary language had accepted /hisn/, but from some cause it did not do so."[57]

As for the addition of /s/ to /you/ in the nominative and objective of the second person plural, it exhibits no more than an effort to give clarity to the logical difference between the true plural and the mere polite plural. In several other dialects of [Pg215] English the same desire has given rise to cognate forms, and there are even secondary devices in American. In the South, for example, the true plural is commonly indicated by /you-all/, which, despite a Northern belief to the contrary, is never used in the singular by any save the most ignorant.[58] /You-all/, like /yous/, simply means /you-jointly/ as opposed to the /you/ that means /thou/. Again, there is the form observed in "you can /all of you/ go to hell"--another plain effort to differentiate between singular and plural. The substitution of /you/ for /thou/ goes back to the end of the thirteenth century. It appeared in late Latin and in the other continental languages as well as in English, and at about the same time. In these languages the true singular survives alongside the transplanted plural, but English has dropped it entirely, save in its poetical and liturgical forms and in a few dialects. It passed out of ordinary polite speech before Elizabeth's day. By that time, indeed, its use had acquired an air of the offensive, such as it has today, save between intimates or to children, in Germany. Thus, at the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603, Sir Edward Coke, then attorney-general, displayed his animosity to Raleigh by addressing him as /thou/, and finally burst into the contemptuous "I /thou/ thee, /thou/ traitor!" And in "Twelfth Night" Sir Toby Belch urges Sir Andrew Aguecheek to provoke the disguised Viola to combat by /thouing/ her. In our own time, with thou passed out entirely, even as a pronoun of contempt, the confusion between /you/ in the plural and /you/ in the singular presents plain difficulties to a man of limited linguistic resources. He gets around them by setting up a distinction that is well supported by logic and analogy. "I seen /yous/" is clearly separated from "I seen /you/.". And in the conjoint position "/yous/ guys" is separated from "/you/ liar."

So much for the personal pronouns. As we shall see, they are used in such a manner that the distinction between the nominative and the objective forms, though still existing grammatically, has begun to break down. But first it may be well to glance at the demonstrative and relative pronouns. Of the former there [Pg216] are but two in English, /this/ and /that/, with their plural forms, /these/ and /those/. To them, American adds a third, /them/, which is also the personal pronoun of the third person, objective case.[59] In addition it has adopted certain adverbial pronouns, /this-here/, /these-here/, /that-there/, /those-there/ and /them-there/, and set up inflections of the original demonstratives by analogy with /mine/, /hisn/ and /yourn/, to wit, /thisn/, /thesen/, /thatn/ and /thosen/. I present some examples of everyday use:

/Them/ are the kind I like. /Them/ men all work here. Who is /this-here/ Smith I hear about? /These-here/ are mine. /That-there/ medicine ain't no good. /Those-there/ wops has all took to the woods. I wisht I had one of /them-there/ Fords. /Thisn/ is better'n /thatn/. I like /thesen/ better'n /thosen/.

The origin of the demonstratives of the /thisn/-group is plain: they are degenerate forms of /this-one/, /that-one/, etc., just as /none/ is a degenerate composition form of /no(t)-one/. In every case of their use that I have observed the simple demonstratives might have been set free and /one/ actually substituted for the terminal /n/. But it must be equally obvious that they have been reinforced very greatly by the absolutes of the /hisn/-group, for in their relation to the original demonstratives they play the part of just such absolutes and are never used conjointly. Thus, one says, in American, "I take /thisn/" or "/thisn/ is mine," but one never says "I take /thisn/ hat" or "/thisn/ dog is mine." In this conjoint situation plain /this/ is always used, and the same rule [Pg217] applies to /these/, /those/ and /that/. /Them/, being a newcomer among the demonstratives, has not yet acquired an inflection in the absolute. I have never heard /them'n/, and it will probably never come in, for it is forbiddingly clumsy. One says, in American, both "/them/ are mine" and "/them/ collars are mine."

/This-here/, /these-here/, /that-there/, /those-there/ and /them-there/ are plainly combinations of pronouns and adverbs, and their function is to support the distinction between proximity, as embodied in /this/ and /these/, and remoteness, as embodied in /that/, /those/ and /them/. "/This-here/ coat is mine" simply means "this coat, /here/, or this /present/ coat, is mine." But the adverb promises to coalesce with the pronoun so completely as to obliterate all sense of its distinct existence, even as a false noun or adjective. As commonly pronounced, /this-here/ becomes a single word, somewhat like /thish-yur/, and /these-here/ becomes /these-yur/, and /that-there/ and /them-there/ become /that-ere/ and /them-ere/. /Those-there/, if I observed accurately, is still pronounced more distinctly, but it, too, may succumb to composition in time. The adverb will then sink to the estate of a mere inflectional particle, as /one/ has done in the absolutes of the /thisn/-group. /Them/, as a personal pronoun in the absolute, of course, is commonly pronounced /em/, as in "I seen /em/," and sometimes its vowel is almost lost, but this is also the case in all save the most exact spoken English. Sweet and Lounsbury, following the German grammarians, argue that this /em/ is not really a debased form of /them/, but the offspring of /hem/, which survived as the regular plural of the third person in the objective case down to the beginning of the fifteenth century. But in American /them/ is clearly pronounced as a demonstrative. I have never heard "/em/ men" or "/em/ are the kind I like," but always "/them/ men" and "/them/ are the kind I like."

The relative pronouns, so far as I have been able to make out, are declined as follows:

/Nominative/ who which what that /Possessive Conjoint/ whose whose /Possessive Absolute/ whosen whosen /Objective/ who which what that

[Pg218]

Two things will be noted in this paradigm. First there is the disappearance of /whom/ as the objective form of /who/, and secondly there is the appearance of an inflected form of /whose/ in the absolute, by analogy with /mine/, /hisn/ and /thesen/. /Whom/, as we have seen, is fast disappearing from standard spoken American;[60] in the vulgar language it is already virtually extinct. Not only is /who/ used in such constructions as "/who/ did you find there?" where even standard spoken English would tolerate it, but also in such constructions as "the man /who/ I saw," "them /who/ I trust in" and "to /who/?" Krapp explains this use of /who/ on the ground that there is a "general feeling," due to the normal word-order in English, that "the word which precedes the verb is the subject word, or at least the subject form."[61] But this explanation is probably fanciful. Among the plain people no such "general feeling" for case exists. Their only "general feeling" is a prejudice against case inflections in any form whatsoever. They use /who/ in place of /whom/ simply because they can discern no logical difference between the significance of the one and the significance of the other.

/Whosen/ is obviously the offspring of the other absolutes in /n/. In the conjoint relation plain /whose/ is always used, as in "/whose/ hat is that?" and "the man /whose/ dog bit me." But in the absolute /whosen/ is often substituted, as in "if it ain't /hisn/, then /whosen/ is it?" The imitation is obvious. There is an analogous form of /which/, to wit, /whichn/, resting heavily on /which one/. Thus, "/whichn/ do you like?" and "I didn't say /whichn/" are plainly variations of "/which one/ do you like?" and "I didn't say /which one/." That, as we have seen, has a like form, /thatn/, but never, of course, in the relative situation. "I like /thatn/," is familiar, but "the one /thatn/ I like" is never heard. If /that/, as a relative, could be used absolutely, I have no doubt that it would change to /thatn/, as it does as a demonstrative. So with /what/. As things stand, it is sometimes substituted for /that/, as in "them's the kind /what/ I like." Joined to /but/ it can also take the place of /that/ in other situations, as in "I don't know /but what/." [Pg219]

The substitution of /who/ for /whom/ in the objective case, just noticed, is typical of a general movement toward breaking down all case distinctions among the pronouns, where they make their last stand in English and its dialects. This movement, of course, is not peculiar to vulgar American; nor is it of recent beginning. So long ago as the fifteenth century the old clear distinction between /ye/, nominative, and /you/, objective, disappeared, and today the latter is used in both cases. Sweet says that the phonetic similarity between /ye/ and /thee/, the objective form of the true second singular, was responsible for this confusion.[62] At the start /ye/ actually went over to the objective case, and the usage thus established shows itself in such survivors of the period as /harkee/ (/hark ye/) and /look ye/. In modern spoken English, indeed, /you/ in the objective often has a sound far more like that of /ye/ than like that of /you/, as, for example, in "how do y' do?" and in American its vowel takes the neutral form of the /e/ in the definite article, and the word becomes a sort of shortened /yuh/. But whenever emphasis is laid upon it, /you/ becomes quite distinct, even in American. In "I mean /you/," for example, there is never any chance of mistaking it for /ye/.

In Shakespeare's time the other personal pronouns of the objective case threatened to follow /you/ into the nominative, and there was a compensatory movement of the nominative pronouns toward the objective. Lounsbury has collected many examples.[63] Marlowe used "is it /him/ you seek?" "'tis /her/ I esteem" and "nor /thee/ nor /them/, shall want"; Fletcher used "'tis /her/ I admire"; Shakespeare himself used "that's /me/." Contrariwise, Webster used "what difference is between the duke and /I/?" and Greene used "nor earth nor heaven shall part my love and /I/." Krapp has unearthed many similar examples from the Restoration dramatists.[64] Etheredge used "'tis /them/," "it may be /him/," "let you and /I/" and "nor is it /me/"; Matthew Prior, in a famous couplet, achieved this: [Pg220]

For thou art a girl as much brighter than /her/. As he was a poet sublimer than /me/.

The free exchange continued, in fact, until the eighteenth century was well advanced; there are examples of it in Addison. Moreover, it survived, at least in part, even the attack that was then made upon it by the professors of the new-born science of English grammar, and to this day "it is /me/" is still in more or less good colloquial use. Sweet thinks that it is supported in such use, though not, of course, grammatically, by the analogy of the correct "it is /he/" and "it is /she/." Lounsbury, following Dean Alford, says it came into English in imitation of the French /c'est moi/, and defends it as at least as good as "it is /I/."[65] The contrary form, "between you and /I/," has no defenders, and is apparently going out. But in the shape of "between my wife and /I/" it is seldom challenged, at least in spoken English.

All these liberties with the personal pronouns, however, fade to insignificance when put beside the thoroughgoing confusion of the case forms in vulgar American. "/Us/ fellers" is so far established in the language that "/we/ fellers," from the mouth of a car conductor, would seem almost an affectation. So, too, is "/me/ and /her/ are friends." So, again, are "I seen you and /her/," "/her/ and I set down together," "/him/ and his wife," and "I knowed it was /her/." Here are some other characteristic examples of the use of the objective forms in the nominative from Charters and Lardner:

/Me/ and /her/ was both late. His brother is taller than /him/. That little boy was /me/. /Us/ girls went home. They were John and /him/. /Her/ and little Al is to stay here. She says she thinks /us/ and the Allens. If Weaver and /them/ had not of begin kicking. But not /me/. /Him/ and I are friends. /Me/ and /them/ are friends.

[Pg221]

Less numerous, but still varied and plentiful, are the substitutions of nominative forms for objective forms:

She gave it to mother and /I/. She took all of /we/ children. I want you to meet /he/ and I at 29th street. He gave /he/ and I both some. It is going to cost me $6 a week for a room for /she/ and the baby. Anything she has is O. K. for /I/ and Florrie.

Here are some grotesque confusions, indeed. Perhaps the best way to get at the principles underlying them is to examine first, not the cases of their occurrence, but the cases of their non-occurrence. Let us begin with the transfer of the objective form to the nominative in the subject relation. "/Me/ and /her/ was both late" is obviously sound American; one hears it, or something like it, on the streets every day. But one never hears "/me/ was late" or "/her/ was late" or "/us/ was late" or "/him/ was late" or "/them/ was late." Again, one hears "/us/ girls was there" but never "/us/ was there." Yet again, one hears "/her/ and John was married," but never "/her/ was married." The distinction here set up should be immediately plain. It exactly parallels that between /her/ and /hern/, /our/ and /ourn/, /their/ and /theirn/: the tendency, as Sweet says, is "to merge the distinction of nominative and objective in that of conjoint and absolute."[66] The nominative, in the subject relation, takes the usual nominative form only when it is in immediate contact with its verb. If it be separated from its verb by a conjunction or any other part of speech, even including another pronoun, it takes the objective form. Thus "/me/ went home" would strike even the most ignorant shopgirl as "bad grammar," but she would use "/me/ and my friend went," or "/me/ and /him/," or "/he/ and /her/," or "/me/ and /them/" without the slightest hesitation. What is more, if the separation be effected by a conjunction and another pronoun, the other pronoun also changes to the objective form, even though its contact with the verb may be immediate. Thus one hears "/me/ and /her/ was there," not "/me/ and /she/"; /her/ and "/him/ kissed," not "/her/ and /he/." Still more, this second pronoun [Pg222] commonly undergoes the same inflection even when the first member of the group is not another pronoun, but a noun. Thus one hears "John and /her/ were married," not "John and /she/." To this rule there is but one exception, and that is in the case of the first person pronoun, especially in the singular. "/Him/ and /me/ are friends" is heard often, but "/him/ and /I/ are friends" is also heard. /I/ seems to suggest the subject very powerfully; it is actually the subject of perhaps a majority of the sentences uttered by an ignorant man. At all events, it resists the rule, at least partially, and may even do so when actually separated from the verb by another pronoun, itself in the objective form, as for example, in "/I/ and /him/ were there."

In the predicate relation the pronouns respond to a more complex regulation. When they follow any form of the simple verb of being they take the objective form, as in "it's /me/," "it ain't /him/," and "I am /him/," probably because the transitiveness of this verb exerts a greater pull than its function as a mere copula, and perhaps, too, because the passive naturally tends to put the speaker in the place of the object. "I seen /he/" or "he kissed /she/" or "he struck /I/" would seem as ridiculous to an ignorant American as to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his instinct for simplicity and regularity naturally tends to make him reduce all similar expressions, or what seem to him to be similar expressions, to coincidence with the more seemly "I seen /him/." After all, the verb of being is fundamentally transitive, and, in some ways, the most transitive of all verbs, and so it is not illogical to bring its powers over the pronoun into accord with the powers exerted by the others. I incline to think that it is some such subconscious logic, and not the analogy of "it is /he/," as Sweet argues, that has brought "it is /me/" to conversational respectability, even among rather careful speakers of English.[67]

But against this use of the objective form in the nominative [Pg223] position after the verb of being there also occurs in American a use of the nominative form in the objective position, as in "she gave it to mother and /I/" and "she took all of /we/ children." What lies at the bottom of it seems to be a feeling somewhat resembling that which causes the use of the objective form before the verb, but exactly contrary in its effects. That is to say, the nominative form is used when the pronoun is separated from its governing verb, whether by a noun, a noun-phrase or another pronoun, as in "she gave it to mother and /I/," "she took all of /we/ children" and "he paid her and /I/" respectively. But here usage is far from fixed, and one observes variations in both directions--that is, toward using the correct objective when the pronoun is detached from the verb, and toward using the nominative even when it directly follows the verb. "She gave it to mother and /me/," "she took all of /us/ children" and "he paid her and /me/" would probably sound quite as correct, to a Knight of Pythias, as the forms just given. And at the other end Charters and Lardner report such forms as "I want you to meet /he/ and /I/" and "it is going to cost me $6 a week for a room for /she/ and the baby." I have noticed, however, that, in the overwhelming main, the use of the nominative is confined to the pronoun of the first person, and particularly to its singular. Here again we have an example of the powerful way in which /I/ asserts itself. And superimposed upon that influence is a cause mentioned by Sweet in discussing "between you and /I/."[68] It is a sort of by-product of the pedagogical war upon "it is /me/." "As such expressions," he says, "are still denounced by the grammars, many people try to avoid them in speech as well as in writing. The result of this reaction is that the /me/ in such constructions as 'between John and /me/' and 'he saw John and /me/' sounds vulgar and ungrammatical, and is consequently corrected into /I/." Here the pedagogues, seeking to impose an inelastic and illogical grammar upon a living speech, succeed only in corrupting it still more.