t parts of speech. Accurate grammar places them in a
class by themselves.

s. 393. _Particles._--The word particle is a collective term for all those
parts of speech that are _naturally_ unsusceptible of inflection;
comprising, 1, interjections; 2, direct categorical affirmatives; 3, direct
categorical negatives; 4, absolute conjunctions; 5, absolute prepositions;
6, adverbs unsusceptible of degrees of comparison; 7, inseparable prefixes.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXVII.

ON THE GRAMMATICAL POSITION OF THE WORDS MINE AND THINE.

s. 394. The inflection of pronouns has its natural peculiarities in
language. It has also its natural difficulties in philology. These occur
not in one language in particular, but in all generally.

The most common peculiarity in the grammar of pronouns is the fact of what
may be called their _convertibility_. Of this _convertibility_ the
following statements serve as illustration:--

1. _Of case._--In our own language the words _my_ and _thy_ although at
present possessives, were previously datives, and, earlier still,
accusatives. Again, the accusative _you_ replaces the nominative _ye_, and
_vice vers[^a]_.

2. _Of number._--The words _thou_ and _thee_ are, except in the mouths of
Quakers, obsolete. The plural forms, _ye_ and _you_, have replaced them.

3. _Of person._--The Greek language gives us examples of this in the
promiscuous use of [Greek: nin], [Greek: min], [Greek: sphe], and [Greek:
heautou]; whilst _sich_ and _sik_ are used with a similar latitude in the
Middle High German and Scandinavian.

4. _Of class._--The demonstrative pronouns become--

a. Personal pronouns.
b. Relative pronouns.
c. Articles.

The reflective pronoun often becomes reciprocal.

s. 395. These statements are made for the sake of illustrating, not of
exhausting, the subject. It follows, however, as an inference from them,
that the classification of pronouns is complicated. Even if we knew the
original power and derivation of every form of every pronoun in a language,
it would be far from an easy matter to determine therefrom the paradigm
that they should take in grammar. To place a word according to its power in
a late stage of language might confuse the study of an early stage. To say
that because a word was once in a given class, it should always be so,
would be to deny that in the present English _they_, _these_, and _she_ are
personal pronouns at all.

The