948.-11. The German possessive pronouns of the third person agree exactly with the English, by having always a reference to the possessor, and differing in gender according to the gender of the possessor. In speaking of a man, of a woman, and of a child, and stating that we have seen their brother, we say, in the first case, ich habe seinen Bruder gesehn, I saw his brother; in the second, ich habe ihren Bruder gesehn, I saw her brother; in the third, " he saw his child," would be, er sah sein Kind, because the child is neuter, and the accusative sein, neut. is the same with the nominative. If you speak of a woman, you say, sie hat ihren Bruder gesehn; sie hat ihre Schwester gesehn; sie hat ihr Kind gesehn; she saw her brother, &c.; only that in German you must attend to the proper inflexion of the pronoun possessive to make it agree with the gender of the noun that denotes the object possessed. Where have you his hat? wo haben sie seinen Huth? masc. Where have you his pen? wo haben sie seine Feder? fem. Where have you his horse? wo haben sie sein Pferd?

neuter.

949.-12. The articles der, die, das, are used as pronouns demonstrative, on changing the genitive des into dessen, der into derer and deren, and the dative plural den into denen; they are likewise employed as pronouns relative; the English "whose" is either dessen or deren, and has the following noun close to it, as in English, without any article, sec. 937.

950.-13. The pronouns relative throw the verb to the end of the sentence, sec. 794.

951.-14. The pronouns inter. are wer, sec. 44, was, sec. 5, and was für ein, sec. 577.

952.-15. The indeterminate pronoun, man, is exactly the French on, sec. 5.

953.-16. Of the miscellaneous pronouns, we have noticed einer, sec. 433, mancher, sec. 634, viel, sec. 58, wenig, andere, jeder, sec. 223, 195, 190, jeglicher, sec. 452, &c.

954.-17. With regard to Verbs, the affinity between the English and German languages is striking. The Germans have but one conjugation, and two simple tenses, so that the language is uncommonly easy to the English student in this respect.

955.-18. The auxiliary verbs, properly so called, are three: Haben, to have; Seyn, to be; and Werden, to become. The first offers no difficulty; the second forms its compound tenses with itself: we say, Ich bin gewesen, I am been; like the Italian, sono stato, instead of I have been. The third before an infinitive is the mark of the future, and before a participle past the mark of the passive voice. They all three require to be carefully learnt by heart and steadily remembered. But besides these three strictly auxiliary verbs, as main ingredients of our conjugation, we have all those verbs which are also considered as auxiliary in English, viz. mögen, sec. 158, 870. Können, sec. 53. Wollen, to be willing. Müssen, sec. 19. Sollen, sec. 53, 86. Dürfen, to dare; to be permitted. Lassen, sec. 186. All these verbs must be correctly remembered; and the more advanced scholar will find highly interesting remarks concerning their use in the Nature and Genius of the German Language, chap. x. p. 127—157.

956.-19. Neuter verbs are frequently converted into active ones by a change of the radical vowel into a different vowel or into a diphthong; as sinken, senken, sec. 42; liegen, legen, sec. 42; trinken, tränken, sec. 243. But there are several verbs which are both active and neuter, according to circumstances, without any change. The German language shares this imperfection with the French and English. It also has many neuter verbs that are conjugated with seyn, to be. We have generally pointed out whether a neut. verb takes haben or seyn: but whenever any of these verbs are employed actively, they are conjugated with haben. Er ist mir auf der Strasse begegnet, he has met me in the street. Er hat mich sehr hoflisch begegnet, he has treated me with great politeness. See begegnen, sec. 754.

957.-20. The German passive, formed with werden, and not with seyn, requires, on that account, to be particularly remembered, sec. 277.

958.-21. The reflected verbs in German are conjugated, like the English, with haben, to have. Er irret sich; sie hat sich geirret; sie hahen sich gerriet. The reciprocal verbs follow the same rule: Sie schlagen sich alle Tage; sie haben sich diesen Morgen geschlagen. The reciprocal and reflected verbs are perfectly alike in their form

and appearance; but in the latter the action falls upon the performer; in the former the action of the verb is performed by different performers who act one upon another. Sein Bruder hat sich verwundet; his brother wounded himself; here the verb is reflected. Sie haben beide zugleich gefeuert, und sich verwundet; they fired both at the same time, and wounded one another; here the verb sich verwunden is reciprocal. The latter of course is always in the plural, and many a pronominal verb conjugated with two pronouns, one in the nominative and the other in the accusative, may be a reflected verb in the sing. as we have just seen, and a reciprocal one in the plural. There are, however, cases, as in French, when it is uncertain whether the verb is reflected or reciprocal. Sie loben sich unaufhörlich, may be said of two individuals who are each in the habit of praising himself; they are constantly praising themselves; or of two individuals who are in the habit of praising one another. To remove the ambiguity in such sentences, we employ the word einander, one another, whenever the verb is reciprocal. Sie loben einander, they praise one another.

959. A few reflected verbs in German have the second pronoun in the dative. Ich habe mir eingebildet, I have fancied to myself; Du hast dir viel angemasset, thou hast assumed a great deal to thyself. The number of reflected verbs, in general, is very considerable in German. We have even some that are employed only in the third person neuter, with es," it," and sich," itself." Speaking of the weather, we say: es bewölkt sich, it grows cloudy; es trübt sich, or, es bezicht sich, it gets overcast. We also say: est versteht sich, it is well understood, as a matter of course, exactly like the French, cela s'entend (it understands itself.)

960. We have besides, many reflected verbs made of either active or neuter verbs, with the addition of an adjective; as sich lahm reiten, to ride one's-self lame; sich müde laufen, to run one's-self tired; sich heiser sprechen, to speak one's-self hoarse; sich krank lachen, to laugh one's-self ill. These are, in fact, elliptical expressions, in which the verb machen must be understood to refer to the adjective employed. Sich krank lachen is tantamount to sich durch lachen krank machen, to make one's-self ill by laughing.

961.-22. There are in German a great many impersonal verbs with es, "it," like the English. Es regnet, it

rains; es donnert, it thunders; es geschieht, it happens, &c. Some of them have a personal pronoun after them, on which the action falls es hungert mirh, I am hungry; es schläfert mich, I am sleepy. Others take the dative: es ahnet mir, I forebode; es ekelt mir, I nauseate; and the es may be omitted, in which case the pronoun personal stands first; mich hungert, mich schläfert, mir ahnet, mir ekelt. The Germans can also, like the French, render any verb impersonal by means of the indefinite general pronoun man (on). Man sagt, it is said, (on dit). Man glaubt, it is thought, (on croit). Man erwarlet den König, they expect the king; the king is expected, (on attend le roi,) sec. 5.

962.-23. The irregular verbs in German are about 200, and mostly verbs of frequent recurrence. Many have the same irregularities as the corresponding English verbs. We say, ich finde, I find; ich fand, I found; ich habe gefunden, I have found; ich scheine, I shine; ich schien, I shone; ich habe geschienen, I have shone; ich komme, ich kam, ich bin gekommen.

963.-24. Verbs of reminiscence govern the genitive, sec. 550, and diminutive verbs are in eln; as lachen, to laugh, gives, with the diphthong, lächeln, to smile; klingen, to ring, gives klingeln, to tinkle, &c.

964.-25. The inseparable compound verbs keep the word or particle prefixed to the radical verb constantly before that verb, and closely connected with it through all its tenses and moods. They may be formed either with a substantive, as Abendessen, to sup, to eat in the evening; Briefwechseln, to correspond, to exchange letters; lobsprechen, to praise, to speak praises, &c.; or with an adj. as vollbringen, sec. 626; but these are but few; or with a particle, which, though no longer a preposition, still influences the meaning of the verb to which it is attached these particles are ten in number; after, be, emp, ent, er, ge, mis, ur, ver, and zer; or lastly, the inseparable compound verbs are formed with prepositions that are sometimes separated from them, as durch, hinter, über, um, unter, wider, and wieder. These inseparable compound verbs offer no great difficulty. But

965.-26. The separable compound verbs require the particular attention of the learner, because the word or par

Y 2

ticle prefixed to the verb in the infinitive and participle past, is in the two simple tenses of the indicative and conjunctive, and in the imperative invariably placed after the verb, and even after the government of the verb and the circumstances and modifications of the action expressed by that verb, unless the sentence be a dependent one, subservient to an antecedent idea, or influenced by a pronoun relative or a conjunction, which cause the verb to come last, in which cases the word prefixed to the infinitive remains before the verb in the simple tenses enumerated above. This is a construction peculiar to the German language, and we have not disguised its apparent inconvenience, sec. 838. But a frequent perusal of the fourteen pages in the Key to the German Language, from page 107 to 121, will soon enable the student to master the difficulty. The nouns, particles, prepositions, and adverbs, which help to form separable compound verbs are enumerated at length and properly explained in the Nature and Genius of the German Language, from page 246 to page 331, and form altogether, with the chapter on the inseparable compound verbs, a treatise on the nature, power, and effect of particles tacked to German verbs, which has been pronounced extremely valuable by many learned and intelligent critics. We refer the more advanced scholar to those two chapters. The separable compound verbs have been noticed in the practical remarks of the LINGUIST, whenever they occurred; they are, however, too numerous to be recapitulated here.

966.-27. The Germans use their two simple tenses like the English; but as they have not the compound im perfect, I was writing, he was reading, they are forced to employ their imperfect for two actions which differ with regard to the time at which they were performed, and to the duration of that time: whilst he was playing, we heard the report of a pistol, (tandis qu'il jouoit, nous entendîmes un coup de pistolet), is in German, während dass er spielte, or wie er spielte, hörten wir einen Pistolenschuss. Spielte and hörten are both the imperfect. The imperfect of the conjunctive is often employed instead of the conditional past or plusquamperfect of the conjunctive, sec. 615; almost every infinitive may be converted into a noun subsantive, sec. 284; and we use the infinitive active in many cases in which the English require the infinitive passive, sec. 682.