Category: Language & Communication
Language consists of intelligible signs, and is the medium by which the mind communicates its thoughts. It is either articulate or inarticulate; artificial or natural. The former is peculiar to man; the latter is common to all animals. By inarticulate language, we mean those i...
Having, in the preceding chapter, explained the nature of that usage which gives law to language; and having proposed a few rules for the student’s direction in cases where usag...
14. CHAPTER I._Note_ 1.--This rule is violated in such examples as these, “I likes,” “thou loves,” “he need,” “you was.” In reference to the last example, the reader should observe, that _you...
8. CHAPTER VI.A participle is a part of speech derived from a verb, agreeing with its primitive in denoting action, being, or suffering, but differing from it in this, that the participle imp...
7. CHAPTER V.A verb has been defined to be “that part of speech which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer;” or more correctly, “that part of speech which predicates some action, passion, or...
3. CHAPTER I.Nouns or Substantives (for these terms are equivalent) have also been divided into natural, artificial, and abstract. Of the first class, _man_, _horse_, _tree_, are examples. T...
5. CHAPTER III.Whether we speak of things present, or of things absent, of ourselves, or of others, and to whomsoever we address our discourse, the repetition of the names of those persons or...
15. CHAPTER I.Having explained and illustrated the etymology and syntax of the English language, as fully as the limits, which I have prescribed to myself, will permit, I would now request th...
4. CHAPTER II.Language is chiefly composed of general terms, most substantives being the names of _genera_ or species. When we find a number of substances resembling one another in their prin...
6. CHAPTER IV.An adjective has been defined by most grammarians to be “that part of speech which signifies an accident, quality, or property of a thing.” This definition appears to me to be s...
1. CHAPTER II.Language consists of intelligible signs, and is the medium by which the mind communicates its thoughts. It is either articulate or inarticulate; artificial or natural. The forme...
10. CHAPTER VIII.A preposition has been defined to be “that part of speech which shows the relation that one thing bears to another.” According to Mr. Harris, it is a part of speech devoid itsel...
11. CHAPTER IX.Mr. Ruddiman, and several other grammarians, have asserted, that conjunctions never connect words, but sentences. This is evidently a mistake; for if I say, “a man of wisdom and...
2. PART I.A word, in oral language, is either a significant simple sound, or a significant combination of sounds. In written language, it may be defined to be a simple character, or combi...
13. PART II.A complex sentence consists of two or more members, as, “Alexander, when he had conquered the world, is said to have wept, because there were not other worlds to subdue.”
9. CHAPTER VII.An adverb is that part of speech which is joined to a verb, adjective, or other adverb, to express some circumstance, quality, degree, or manner of its signification; and hence...
12. CHAPTER X.An interjection has been defined to be, “that part of speech which denotes some affection or emotion of the mind.” It is clearly not a necessary part of speech; for, as Tooke ob...