Lectures On Language As Particularly Connected With English Gra

Causes are to be sought for by tracing back thro the effects which are produced by them. The factory is put in operation, and the cloth is manufactured. The careless observer wo...

It would be needless for me to stop here, and examine all the operations of the mind in coming at this state of knowledge. That is not the object of the present work. Such a dut...

The attempt here made will not be considered unimportant, by those who have known the difficulties attending the study of language. If any course can be marked out to shorten th...

The ablest minds have never been able to explain the foundation of a "neuter verb," or to find a single word, with a solitary exception, which does not, in certain conditions, e...

Allow me to recal an idea we considered in a former lecture. I said no action as such could be known distinct from the thing which acts; that action as such is not perceptible,...

We resume the consideration of verbs. We closed our last lecture with the examination of _neuter verbs_, as they have been called. It appears to us that evidence strong enough t...

New ideas are formed like new inventions. Established principles are employed in a new combination, so as to produce a new manifestation. Words are chosen as nearly allied to fo...

The nice shade of meaning, and the appropriate use of adjectives, is more distinctly marked in distinguishing colors than in any thing else, for the simple reason, that there is...

The Imperative mood is unchanged in form. I can say to one man, _go_, or to a thousand, _go_. The commander when drilling _one_ soldier, says, _march_; and he bids the whole bat...

Some languages determine their genders by the form of the endings of their nouns, and what is thus made masculine in Rome, may be feminine in France. It is owing, no doubt, to t...

Every body can mark three plain distinctions of time, past, present, and future. With the past we have been acquainted. It has ceased to be. Its works are ended. The present is...

Be not surprised when I tell you this is the same word as _air_, for such is the fact. It signifies to inhale air, to _air ourselves_, or _breathe air_. "God _breathed_ into man...

In this manner, we might explain a long list of words, called adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. But I forbear, for the present, the further consideration of this subject,...

In this book, as well as using _ to indicate the italic font, the = symbol has been used to show text printed in smaller capital letters in the original printed version. Please...

Some over cautious minds, who are always second, if not last, in a good cause, ask us why these principles, if so true and clear, were not found out before? Why have not the lea...

In writing and conversation we should employ words to explain, to define and describe, which are better understood than those things of which we speak. The pedantry of some mode...

=Astray.= "They went astray." _Astrayed_, wandered or were scattered, and of course soon became _estranged_ from each other. Farmers all know what it is for cattle to _stray_ fr...

I _have written_ a letter. I _have_ a written letter. I _have_ a letter _written_. These expressions differ very little in meaning, but the verb _have_ is the same in each case....

[18] Mr. Murray says, "These compounds," _have_, _shall_, _will_, _may_, _can_, _must_, _had_, _might_, _could_, _would_, and _should_, which he uses as auxiliaries to _help_ co...