Chapter 157

1. What is Johnson's explanation of the word _Etymology_? Into what varieties does the study fall? What is the difference between _Etymology_ and _Syntax_?

2. How far are the following words instances of gender--_boy_, _he-goat_, _actress_, _which_? Analyze the forms _what_, _her_, _its_, _vixen_, _spinster_, _gander_, _drake_.

3. How far is there a dual number in the Gothic tongues? What is the rule for forming such a plural as _stags_ from _stag_? What are the peculiarities in _monarchs_, _cargoes_, _keys_, _pence_, _geese_, _children_, _women_, _houses_, _paths_, _leaves_? Of what number are the words _alms_, _physics_, _news_, _riches_?

4. To what extent have we in English a dative, an accusative, and instrumental case? Disprove the doctrine that the genitive in -s (_the father's son_) is formed out of the combination _father his_.

5. Decline _me_, _thee_, and _ye_.

6. How far is there a true reflective pronoun in English?

7. What were the original powers and forms of _she_, _her_, _it_? What case is _him_? What is the power and origin of _the_ in such expressions as _all the more_? Decline _he_ in Anglo-Saxon. Investigate the forms _these_ and _those_, _whose_, _what_, _whom_, _which_, _myself_, _himself_, _herself_, _such_, _every_.

8. What is the power (real or supposed) of the -er in _over_, and in _either_?

9. What words in the present English are explained by the following forms--_sutiza_ in Moeso-Gothic, and _scearpor_, _neah_, _yldre_, in Anglo-Saxon? Explain the forms, _better_, _worse_, _more_, _less_.

10. Analyze the words _former_, _next_, _upmost_, _thirty_, _streamlet_, _sweetheart_, _duckling_.

11. Translate _Ida wæs Eopping_. Analyze the word _Wales_.

12. Exhibit the extent to which the noun partakes of the character of the verb, and _vice versâ_. What were the Anglo-Saxon forms of, _I can call_, _I begin to call_?

13. Investigate the forms, _drench_, _raise_, _use_ (the verb), _clothe_.

14. _Thou speakest_. What is the peculiarity of the form? _We loven_, _we love_, account for this.

15. _Thou rannest_ = (_tu cucurristi_). Is this an unexceptionable form? if not, why?

16. What are the _moods_ in English? What the _tenses_? How far is the division of verbs into weak and strong tenses natural? Account for the double forms _swam_ and _swum_. Enumerate the other verbs in the same class. Explain the forms _taught_, _wrought_, _ought_, _did_, (from _do_ = _facio_), _did_ (from _do_ = _valeo_), _minded_.

17. Define the term _irregular_, so as to raise the number of irregular verbs, in English, to more than a hundred. Define the same term, so as to reduce them to none. Explain the form _could_.

18. What is the construction of _meseems_ and _methinks_? Illustrate the _future_ power of be. _Werden_ in German means _become_--in what form does the word appear in English?

19. _To err is human_,--_the rising_ in the North. Explain these constructions. Account for the second -r in _forlorn_; and for the y in y_cleped_.

20. Explain the difference between _composite_ and _de-composite_ words, _true_ and _improper compounds_. Analyze the word _nightingale_.

21. How far are adverbs inflected? Distinguish between a _preposition_ and a _conjunction_.

22. Explain the forms _there_, _thence_, _yonder_, and _anon_.

23. What part of speech is _mine_?

24. What is the probable origin of the -d in such preterites as call-ed.