OF ORDINALS.

In their standard works, the Chinese seldom use any character to distinguish the ordinal numbers from the cardinal ones. Multitudes of examples might be adduced from the Chhun-ts'hyeu of Confucius, in which an event is said to have happened in the ninth, the fifteenth, the seventeenth year, &c. of the reigning prince; without any character being used to distinguish these numbers from their respective cardinal numbers. Of this one example may suffice: in the first volume of that work, the sage detailing the events which happened in the seventeenth year of Hwan-koong, the tenth sovereign of Loo prior to Ting-koong, in whose reign Confucius was born, records an eclipse of the sun in the following terms,

"In the winter, on the first day of the tenth month, the sun suffered an eclipse."

Tchin-tchyen, vol. i.

In this sentence the cardinal number slih, ten, in the first line from the right, is used to denote the ordinal tenth.'

In more modern works, the character teè, which originally means but, only, &c. is prefixed to the various cardinal numbers, to render them ordinal, as teè-lyeù, the sixth; +ted-shih, the tenth, &c. ✈✈

Examples of this kind are to be found in almost every book wherein the chapters or sections are numbered. This mode, however, is nearly confined to the titles of chapters, &c. it seldom occurs in the body of a respectable work. But in conversation, teè is general prefixed to the various cardinal numbers in order to render them ordinal, of which it seems scarcely necessary to detain the reader by any further examples.

THE PRONOUNS.

In a language destitute of every verbal inflection, the Pronouns become highly important, as it is chiefly from them that the verb derives precision. Accordingly in Chinese we find the pronominal characters both numerous and definite in their meaning; and in general, they appear to have been originally intended as pronouns; nor are many of them used in any other way. It will perhaps assist us in forming a clear idea of these Pronominal characters, if we first take a view of them in their various kinds, and afterwards examine how far they are affected by the accidents of gender, number, and case.

Of the Various KINDS of PRONOUNS.

Were the Chinese Pronouns divided into three classes, the Personal pronouns might form the first class; the Relative and Interrogative pronouns, the second; and the third class might include all the rest, which consist of various kinds, as Demonstratives, Possessives, Distributives, &c. and which are by some termed Adjective pronouns.

CLASS I. The Personal Pronouns.

The great number of pronominal characters used to express the first and second personal pronouns, seems to render a smaller kind of division ne

eessary, that which regards them as they represent either the first, the sccond, or the third person.

Characters denoting the First Person.-The characters which are used

to represent the First personal pronoun, are no less than seven in number. These are:

Of these seven characters used to denote the pronoun I, it may not be improper first to notice Chin, which is among the most ancient of them, though now confined to the emperor alone: This pronoun is probably co-eval with the language itself: in the first volume of the Shoo-king, which treats

of the acts and sayings of the great Yao, that sovereign is introduced as

thus addressing his ministers prior to his adopting Shun;

In this sentence, chin, the first character on the right, expresses the pronoun I. The three emperors, Yao, Shun, and Yu generally used this proRoun; and it is now appropriated to the emperor alone, possibly through

the caprice of custom, for it is scarcely probable that Yao, whose character is in general rentarkable for humility, would express himself by a character denoting superior excellence..

pro

It is

2. The character Ingó, however, is more generally used for the noun I, both in writing and conversation, than any of the others. scarcely less ancient than chin the emperor Yao himself uses it in the speech already quoted in the following sentence, the historian introduces him as thus speaking of Shun, of whom he had heard, and who was now mentioned to him by his ministers;

In this sentence the pronoun I is expressed by ngo, the first character from This pronoun does not contain two complete characters; but

the right. it is formed by blending yih, to throw or dart, with shyeú, the hand. It occurs so frequently both in writing and conversation, that more examples of it would be superfluous.

3. The character yu, is also used to express the first personal pronoun; and as thus applied, it seems to vie in antiquity with the two already mentioned. In the passage of the Shoo-king already quoted, Yao, after expressing his regret that no one of his own family possessed virtue worthy of the throne, enquires for some one possessing genuine worth