BOOK XVII. CAP. II.

...when we say, ego ambulo I walk, tu ambulas you walk. For then the perfection of the speech consists when the pronoun is taken in place of the noun, and it completes the force of the noun by ordination. When, however, it is placed by itself in place of the noun, it is shown in the following parts, both which verbs are joined to nominatives alone, and which desire oblique cases.

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Before the verb also the noun is necessarily placed, because to act and to suffer is proper to substance: in which is the position of nouns, from which the property of the verb, that is, action and passion, is born. The nominative is therefore present in the intellect of the verbs themselves, without which substance could not be signified. In the first person indeed and the second it is defined, but in the third, because there are innumerable third persons, it is infinite, unless an action is made exceptive; as, fulminat it lightens, tonat it thunders. For those, although we do not add a noun, seem to be defined, since they pertain to Jove alone. Usage therefore has prevailed, that by the naming of it, that is, of the verb, other parts also are called verbs, or on the contrary, this part, as if eminent, possessed the common naming of them as its own by excellence. Not irrationally, however, that is inquired:

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Why, after the position of the noun, do we not place that part which is accepted for the noun itself, that is, the pronoun, which contains the speech with the verb in the place of the noun: concerning which this will be a manifest proof, that pronouns were invented also for the sake of verbs. For nouns are indicative of third persons, that is, they indicate third persons; indeed, because nouns signifying substance and quality, whether general or proper, can similarly be understood in all...