Contents -SUBJECT INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.

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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 device, 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.

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 Absolute my mine our ourn Objective me us SECOND PERSON Common Gender Nominative you yous Possessive Conjoint Absolute your yourn your yourn Objective you yous THIRD PERSON Masculine Gender Nominative he they Possessive Conjoint Absolute his hisn their theirn Objective him them Feminine Gender Nominative she they Possessive Conjoint Absolute her hern their theirn Objective her them