PLURAL. SINGULAR. Cette, this or that, in the feminine, is invariably the same; as, The following modes of expression, which comprehend all the words of the same class, conclude the demonstrative article, or demonstrative pronoun : Celui qui étudie-he who or he that studies. celle qui écrit-she who or she that writes. Ceux qui, m. p. they or those who ceux qui étudient-they or those who study. Celles qui, f. p. S { celles qui écrivent-they or those who write. -that.-Donnez-moi celui-ci, et gardez celui-là- Celui-ci-this. Celui-là, m. s.--1 give me this, and keep that. Ceux-ci-these. Ceux-là, m. p. those.-Donnez-moi ceux-ci, et gardez ceux-là— give me these, and keep those. Celle-ci-this. Celle-là, f. s. that.-Prenez celle-ci, et laissez-moi celle-là-take this, and leave me that. Celles ci-these. Celles-là. f. p. those.-Prenez celles-ci, et laissez-moi celles-là— take these, and leave me those. Ce qui, ce que-what, that which. Ce qui lui arrive est ce que je lui ai prédit— what befals him is that which I foretold him. NOTE. The adjuncts ci and là render the DEMONSTRATIVE still more forcible: the former shows the object near; the latter more remote. 5. Have you any thing more to say on the subject of articles? M. Yes. Take notice, First, that the article le, &c. renders the idea more general, it gives it the greatest possible latitude, and represents the whole species by a single individual, as is done in English by the very suppression of the indicative or definite article, as, l'homme est mortel, man is mortal; that is to say, all men:-L'opinion est la reine de ce monde; opinion (i. e. opinion in general) is the queen of this world. Secondly. The article, placed before adjectives, before the infinitives of some verbs, or before adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions, transform them into nouns; in such case, though the article may be singular or plural in some cases, according to the sense, it must be of the masculine gender. EXAMPLES. The article (masculine) before adjectives, Le vrai et le beau sont l'objet des Truth and beauty are the objects of the arts. The wicked are hated. Infinitives. Le boire et le manger sont indispen sables. Le rire de cet homme est niais. Eating and drinking are indispensable. The laughter of this man is silly. Adverbs. Il veut savoir le pourquoi et le co- He would know the why and the mment de tout. wherefore of every thing. Prepositions. Un avocat ne peut défendre le pour et A lawyer cannot defend the for and le contre dans un procès. against in a suit. Conjunctions. Les si, les car, et les mais de cet homme .The ifs, fors, and buts, of this man, renle rendent fort ennuyeux. der him very wearisome. Finally. Though proper names are in themselves sufficiently definite, and of course need no article, yet they take it sometimes; as les Lockes, les Newtons, les Fénélons, et les Franklins, font un honneur immortel à l'humanité; the Lockes, Newtons, Fenelons, and Franklins, reflect eternal honour on human nature. By thus placing the articles before the proper names of men, we form a distinct class, a separate species, the better to convey to the ́mind the exalted opinion we entertain of them; and, in this case, their names, becoming appellative or common, are liable to the accidents of nouns of this discription. CONVERSATION V. OF OTHER ARTICLES, or of PRONOUNS AND ADJECTIVES OF NUMBER. Scholar. Which are the other articles? Master. The following: 1. The possessive article, or possessive pronoun; as mon, &c. my, &c. 2. The possessive-relative article or pronoun; as le mien, &c. mine, &c. 3. The demonstrative-conjunctive article, or the relative pronoun; as, qui, &c. who, &c. 4. The numerical-determinative article, or the determinative adjective of number; as, un, &c. one, &c.; certain, certain; tel, such. 5. The numerical-indeterminate article, or indeterminate adjective of number; as plusieurs, several, many; quelques, some; certains, certain; tels, such. 6. The negative article, or negative adjective of number; as, nul, aucun, none, not any, &c. 7. The collective article, or collective adjective of number; as, tout, m. s. toute, f. s. tous, m. p. toutes, f. p. all, &c. 8. The distributive article, or distributive adjective of number; as, chaque, each, every. S. I have noticed, that these very words, which you now treat of as articles, are set down, in many French grammars, as pronouns. Why do you call them articles? M. Because the province of the article is to define and set boundaries to the noun; therefore, every word possessing that property, must be classed with the articles. I have adopted the classification of the two eminent French grammarians, Beauzée and Sicard (with some little deviation from their system), because it appears to me to be founded on sound principles. We will now proceed with minuteness to review those words in the order adopted above. Before we proceed to the demonstrative conjunctive article, or relative pronoun, it will be necessary to premise, that, though mon, ton, son, are masculine, they are used instead of ma, ta, sa, before feminine nouns beginning with a vowel or h mute: thus, the concordance of genders is, in this case, sacrificed to the harmony of sound; as mon épée (instead of ma épée) est plus courte que la sienne, my sword is shorter than his; ton amitié (for ta amitié) m'est chère, thy friendship is dear to me; son histoire (for sa histoire) est trop longue, his or her history is too long. But, if an adjective, not beginning with a vowel or h mute, should precede the feminine noun, the rule of concordance relative to article and noun, is then strictly observed, and mon, ton, son, in the above instance, naturally become ma, ta, sa; as, ma belle épée, my handsome sword; ta sincère amitié, thy sincere friendship; sa savante histoire, his learned history. I will here observe, that, though the possessive articles or pronouns of the third person assume, in English, the gender of the possessor, they assume, in French, the gender of the thing possessed. Thus, when speaking of a lady's coach, we say, her coach; they say, son carrosse, in French, because the word carrosse happens to be mascuJine. OF THE DEMONSTRATIVE CONJUNCTIVE ARTICLES, OR OF THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS. to whom, whose. or which. whom, that, what, how? why? Feminine. laquelle, s. lesquelles, pl. à laquelle, auxquelles, quels, what or which. 4 quelle, quelles, de quels, de quelle, de quelles, of or from what which. à quelle, à quelles,' S à quels, N. B. Quel, &c. is always joined to a noun to what which. |