THEORETICAL PART,

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

Library.

Of California

§ 1. The German language is composed of nine kinds of words, called the parts of speech. They are: the Article, the Substantive, the Adjective, the Pronoun, the Verb, the Adverb, the Preposition, the Conjunction and the Interjection.

2. There are in German two numbers: the Singular and the Plural; three genders: the masculine, the feminine and the neuter; four cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Dative and the Accusative. *)

OF THE ARTICLE.

3. We distinguish in German two kinds of Articles: the definite Article der, die, das, and the indefinite Article ein, eine, ein.

I. Declension of the definite Article.

It is to be observed that almost all declinable words, excepting the Substantives, take the same terminations as the definite article, viz:

*) The Nominative answers to the English nominative case, the Accusative to the objective case, and the Genitive partly to the possessive case.