By forming Adjectives from certain kinds of Nouns we obtain a useful class of specific names. From wool we make woollen; and woollen, attached to various generic names, furnishes us with specific names; thus we say woollen cloth, which is a species of cloth; woollen yarn, which is a species of yarn; woollen garment, which is a species of garment. So, from the word gold we make golden, which furnishes us with a greater number of specific names; from wood wooden, which furnishes us with a still greater number. Adjectives are { 196} formed in like manner from the personal pronouns: from I, my or mine; from Thou, thy or thine; from He, She, It, his, hers, its; also from the plurals of them, ours, yours, theirs. These adjectives answer a purpose of very frequent recurrence; that of singling out, from any class of objects, a sub-class, or an individual, bearing a peculiar relation, to the _person speaking_, the _person spoken to_, or the _person_ or _thing spoken of_. Thus, when I say, my sheep or my oxen, I denote a sub-class of those animals, those which stand in the relation of property to the speaker; when I say thy sheep or oxen, I denote a sub-class in the same relation to the person spoken to; and when I say his sheep or oxen, a sub-class, standing in that relation to the person spoken of. When I say my son, thy wife, his father, I single out individuals having that relation.
The Demonstrative Pronouns, This and That, are of great utility. They serve to individualize any thing in a class. One of these marks put upon a specific mark, makes it an individual mark. Thus, the mark "man," is the name of a class: put upon it the mark this, or that; this man, and that man, are marks, signs, or names, of individuals. In this manner innumerable individual names can be made, without adding a single word to the cumbrous materials of language.
The nature of the Relative Pronoun is not difficult to understand. It supplies the place of a personal pronoun and a conjunction, in connecting a Predication with the subject, or predicate of another proposition. Thus, "John received a wound, which occasioned his death," is of the same import as "John received a wound, _and it_ occasioned his death." This { 197} is a case in which the Relative connects a subsequent predication with the _predicate_ of an antecedent predication. The following are cases in which it connects a subordinate predication with the _subject_ of the principal one: "Erasmus, _who_ was a lover of truth, but of a timid character, hesitated between the new and the old religion." Erasmus, _and he_ was a lover of truth, &c. "The man _who_ spoke to you is my father." "The man spoke to you, _and he_ is my father."[59]