Note 29 — CONSIDERATIONS Concerning the FIRST FORMATION OF LANGUAGES, AND THE Different Genius of original and compounded LANGUAGES.

As the far greater part of Verbs express, at present, not an event, but the attribute of an event, and, consequently, require a subject, or nominative case, to complete their signification, some grammarians, not having attended to this progress of nature, and being desirous to make their common rules quite universal, and without any exception, have insisted that all verbs required a nominative, either expressed or understood; and have, accordingly put themselves to the torture to find some awkward nominatives to those few verbs, which still expressing a complete event, plainly admit of none. Pluit, for example, according to Sanctius, means pluvia pluit, in English, the rain rains. See Sanctii Minerva, l. 3. c. 1.