them; viz. _my, thy, his, her, our, your,
their_. The possessives _his, mine, thine_, may be accounted either
_possessive pronouns_, or the _possessive cases_ of their respective
personal pronouns."--_Ib._, p. 40. He next idly demonstrates that these
seven words may come before nouns of any number or case, without variation;
then, forgetting his own distinction, adds, "When they are separated from
the noun, all of them, except _his_, vary _their terminations_; as, this
hat is _mine_, and the other is _thine_; those trinkets are _hers_; this
house is _ours_, and that is _yours; theirs_ is more commodious than
_ours_"--_Ib._, p. 40. Thus all his personal pronouns of the possessive
case, he then made to be inflections of pronouns of _a different class!_
What are they now? Seek the answer under the head of that gross solecism,
"_Adjective Pronouns_." You may find it in one half of our English
grammars.

OBS. 8.--Any considerable error in the classing of words, does not stand
alone; it naturally brings others in its train. Murray's "_Adjective
Pronouns_," (which he now subdivides into four little classes, _possessive,
distributive, demonstrative_, and _indefinite_,) being all of them misnamed
and misplaced in his etymology, have led both him and many others into
strange errors in syntax. The _possessives only_ are "pronouns;" and
these are pronouns of the possessive _case_. As such, they agree with the
_antecedent_ nouns for which they stand, in _person, number_, and _gender_;
and are governed, like all other possessives, by the nouns which follow
them. The rest are _not pronouns_, but pronominal _adjectives_; and, as
such, they relate to nouns expressed or understood _after them_.
Accordingly, they have none of the above-mentioned qualities, except that
the words _this_ and _that_ form the plurals _these_ and _those_. Or, if we
choose to ascribe to a pronominal adjective all the properties of the noun
understood, it is merely for the sake of brevity in parsing. The
difference, then, between a "pronominal adjective" and an "adjective
pronoun," should seem to be this; that the one is _an adjective_, and the
other _a pronoun_: it is like the difference between a _horserace_ and a
_racehorse_. What can be hoped from the grammarian who cannot discern it?
And what can be made of rules and examples like the following? "Adjective
_pronouns_ must agree, in number, with _their substantives_: as, '_This_
book, _these_ books; _that_ so