OBS. 6.—­The pronouns he and she, when placed before or prefixed to nouns merely to denote their gender, appear to be used adjectively; as, “The male or he animals offered in sacrifice.”—­Wood’s Dict., w.  Males.  “The most usual term is he or she, male or female, employed as an adjective:  as, a he bear, a she bear; a male elephant, a female elephant.”—­Churchill’s Gram., p. 69.  Most writers, however, think proper to insert a hyphen in the terms here referred to:  as, he-bear, she-bear, the plurals of which are he-bears and she-bears.  And, judging by the foregoing rule of predication, we must assume that this practice only is right.  In the first example, the word he is useless; for the term “male animals” is sufficiently clear without it.  It has been shown in the third chapter, that he and she are sometimes used as nouns; and that, as such, they may take the regular declension of nouns, making the plurals hes and shes.  But whenever these words are used adjectively to denote gender, whether we choose to insert the hyphen or not, they are, without question, indeclinable, like other adjectives.  In the following example, Sanborn will have he to be a noun in the objective case; but I consider it rather, to be an adjective, signifying masculine: 

   “(Philosophy, I say, and call it He;
    For, whatsoe’er the painter’s fancy be,
    It a male-virtue seems to me.")—­Cowley, Brit.  Poets, Vol. ii, p. 54.

OBS. 7.—­Though verbs give rise to many adjectives, they seldom, if ever, become such by a mere change of construction.  It is mostly by assuming an additional termination, that any verb is formed into an adjective:  as in teachable, moveable, oppressive, diffusive, prohibitory.  There are, however, about forty words ending in ate, which, without difference of form, are either verbs or adjectives; as, aggregate, animate, appropriate, articulate, aspirate, associate, complicate, confederate, consummate, deliberate, desolate, effeminate, elate, incarnate, intimate, legitimate, moderate, ordinate, precipitate, prostrate, regenerate, reprobate, separate, sophisticate, subordinate.  This class of adjectives seems to be lessening.  The participials in ed, are superseding some of them, at least in popular practice:  as, contaminated, for contaminate, defiled; reiterated, for reiterate, repeated; situated, for situate, placed; attenuated, for attenuate, made thin or slender. Devote, exhaust, and some other verbal forms, are occasionally used by the poets, in lieu of the participial forms, devoted, exhausted, &c.