thou tremblest, 3 pers.
he trembles, or, the hand trembles. Plural, 1 pers. we tremble, 2 pers.
ye or you tremble, 3 pers. they or the hands tremble.
Government, in language, consists in the power which one word has over
another, in causing that other word to be in some _particular case,
number, person, mood_, or _tense_.
ILLUSTRATION.
RULE 3. _The nominative case governs the verb_.
If you employ the pronoun _I_, which is of the _first_ person, singular
number, as the nominative to a verb, the verb must be of the first pers.
sing, thus, I _smile_; and when your nominative is _second_ pers. sing,
your verb must be; as, thou smil_est_. Why, in the latter instance, does
the ending of the verb change to _est_? Because the nominative changes.
And if your nominative is _third_ person, the verb will vary again;
thus, he smiles, the man smiles. How clear it is, then, that _the
nominative governs the verb_; that is, the nominative has power to
change the _form_ and _meaning_ of the verb, in respect to num. and
person. Government, thus far, is evinced in the _form_ of the words, as
well as in the sense.
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