(4) To make a noun less limited in application; thus,—­

     A favorite liar and servant of mine was a man I once had to
     drive a brougham.—­THACKERAY.

     In New York I read a newspaper criticism one day, commenting upon
     a letter of mine.—­Id.

What would the last two sentences mean if the word my were written instead of of mine, and preceded the nouns?

[Sidenote:  About the case of absolute pronouns.]

88.  In their function, or use in a sentence, the absolute possessive forms of the personal pronouns are very much like adjectives used as nouns.

In such sentences as, “The good alone are great,” “None but the brave deserves the fair,” the words italicized have an adjective force and also a noun force, as shown in Sec. 20.

So in the sentences illustrating absolute pronouns in Sec. 86:  mine stands for my property, his for his property, in the first sentence; mine stands for my praise in the second.  But the first two have a nominative use, and mine in the second has an objective use.

They may be spoken of as possessive in form, but nominative or objective in use, according as the modified word is in the nominative or the objective.

III.  The Objective.

[Sidenote:  The old dative case.]

89.  In Old English there was one case which survives in use, but not in form.  In such a sentence as this one from Thackeray, “Pick me out a whip-cord thong with some dainty knots in it,” the word me is evidently not the direct object of the verb, but expresses for whom, for whose benefit, the thing is done.  In pronouns, this dative use, as it is called, was marked by a separate case.

[Sidenote:  Now the objective.]

In Modern English the same use is frequently seen, but the form is the same as the objective.  For this reason a word thus used is called a dative-objective.

The following are examples of the dative-objective:—­

     Give me neither poverty nor riches.—­Bible.

     Curse me this people.—­Id.

     Both joined in making him a present.—­MACAULAY

     Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with
     your dog’s tricks, and be hanged to you!—­LAMB

     I give thee this to wear at the collar.—­SCOTT

[Sidenote:  Other uses of the objective.]

90.  Besides this use of the objective, there are others:—­

(1) As the direct object of a verb.

     They all handled it.—­LAMB

(2) As the object of a preposition.

     Time is behind them and before them.—­CARLYLE.