grass, lolium or darnel, lygeum or hooded matweed, Gramina, melica, milium or millet, nardus, oryza or rice, panicum Grammar. or panic-grass, paspalum, phalaris or canary-grass, phleum, poa, saccharum or sugar-cane, secale or rye, stipa or winged spike-grass, triticum or wheat, uniola or seaside oats of Carolina, coix or Job's tears, olyra, pharus, tripsacum, zea, Indian Turkey wheat or Indian corn, zizania, agilops or wild fescue-grass, andropogon, apluda, cenchrus, holcus or Indian millet, ischæmum. See BOTANY. GRAMM A R. Definition. 1. GRAMMAR is the art of speaking or of writing cing one word from another, and the various modifica any language with propriety; and the purpose of language is to communicate our thoughts. 2. Grammar, considered as an art, necessarily supposes the previous existence of language; and as its design is to teach any language to those who are ignorant of it, it must be adapted to the genius of that particular language of which it treats. A just method of grammar, therefore, without attempting any alterations in a language already introduced, furnishes certain observations called rules, to which the methods of speaking used in that language may be reduced; and this collection of rules is called the grammar of that Grammar particular language. For the greater distinctness with particular, regard to these rules, grammarians have usually divided this subject into four distinct heads, viz. ORTHOGRAPHY, or the art of combining letters into syllables, and syllables into words; ETYMOLOGY, or the art of dedu 2 The design of speech. tions by which the sense of any one word can be diversified consistently with its original meaning or its relation to the theme whence it is derived; SYNTAX, or what relates to the construction or due disposition of the words of a language into sentences or phrases; and PROSODY, or that which treats of the quantities and accents of syllables, and the art of making verses. 3 UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR. 4. THE origin of language is a subject which has employed much learned investigation, and about which there is still a diversity of opinion. The design of speech is to communicate to others the thoughts and perceptions of the mind of the speaker: but it is obvious, that between an internal idea and any external sound there is no natural relation; that the word fire, for instance, might have denominated the substance which we call ice, and that the word ice might have signified fire. Some of the most acute feelings of man, as well as of every other animal, are indeed expressed by simple inarticulate sounds, which as they tend to the preservation of the individual or the continuance of the species, and invariably indicate either pain or pleasure, are universally understood: but these inarticulate and significant sounds are very few in number; and if they can with any propriety be said to constitute a natural and universal language, it is a language of which man as a mere sensitive being partakes in common with the other animals. 3. But grammar, considered as a science, views lan-or univerguage only as it is significant of thought. Neglecting sal. particular and arbitrary modifications introduced for the sake of beauty or elegance, it examines the analogy and relation between words and ideas; distinguishes between those particulars which are essential to language and those which are only accidental; and thus furnishes a certain standard, by which different languages may be compared, and their several excellencies or defects pointed out. This is what is called PHILOSOPHIC or Language 5. Man is endowed not only with sensation, but also consists of with the faculty of reasoning; and simple inarticulate words sig sounds are insufficient for expressing all the various ideas. modifications of thought, for communicating to others a chain of argumentation, or even for distinguishing be nificant of tween the different sensations either of pain or of pleas sure: a man scorched with fire or unexpectedly plunged among ice, might utter the cry naturally indicative of sudden and violent pain; the cry would be the same, or nearly the same, but the sensations of cold and heat are widely different. Articulation, by which those simple sounds are modified, and a particular meaning fixed to each modification, is therefore absolutely necessary to such a being as man, and forms the language which distinguishes him from all other animals, and enables him to communicate with facility all that diversity of ideas with which his mind is stored, to make known his particular wants, and to distinguish with accuracy all his various sensations. Those sounds thus modified are called WORDS; and as words have confessedly no natural relation to the ideas and perceptions of which they are significant, the use of them must either have been the result of human sagacity, or have been suggested to the first man by the Author of nature. 6. Whether language be of divine or human origin, is a question upon which, though it might perhaps be soon resolved, it is not necessary here to enter. Upon either supposition, the first language, compared with those which succeeded it, or even with itself as afterwards enlarged, must have been extremely rude and narrow. E, -ASSES, WITH THEIR SUBDIVISIONS. is a certain affection of nouns denoting the sex of those substances of which they are the names. For as in nature every object female, or neither the one nor the other, grammarians, following this idea, have divided the names of beings into three classes. Those es, are said to be of the MASCULINE gender; those that denote females, of the FEMININE gender; and those which denote neither the , of the NEUTER gender. The English is the only language of which the nouns are, with respect to sex, an exact copy of nature. here is no object in nature single and alone, and as by far the greater part of nouns are the names of whole classes of objects, it every such noun ought to have some variation. to denote whether it is one individual of the class which :, - Division narrow. If it was of human contrivance, this will be of Words. readily granted; for what art was ever invented and brought to a state of perfection by illiterate savages? If it was taught by GOD, which is at least the more probable supposition, we cannot imagine that it would be more comprehensive than the ideas of those for whose immediate use it was intended; that the first men should have been taught to express pains or plea. sures which they never felt, or to utter sounds that should be afterwards significant of ideas which at the time of utterance had not occurred to the mind of the speaker: man, taught the elements of language, would be able himself to improve and enlarge it as his future occasions should require. Origin of ideas. 7. As all language is composed of significant words variously combined, a knowledge of them is necessary previous to our acquiring an adequate idea of language as constructed into sentences and phrases. But as it is by words that we express the various ideas which occur to the mind, it is necessary to examine how ideas themselves are suggested, before we can ascertain the various classes into which words may be distributed. It is the province of logic to trace our ideas from their origin, as well as to teach the art of reasoning: but it is necessary at present to observe, that our earliest ideas are all ideas of sensation, excited by the impressions that are made upon our organs of sense by the various objects with which we are surrounded. Let us therefore suppose a reasonable being, devoid of every possible prepossession, placed upon this globe; and it is obvious, that his attention would in the first place be directed to the various objects which he saw existing around him. These he would naturally endeavour to distinguish from one another; and if he were either learning or inventing a language, his first effort would be to give them names, by means of which the ideas of them might be recalled when the objects themselves Of nouns. should be absent. This is one copious source of words; and forms a natural class which must be common to every language, and which is distinguished by the name of NOUNS; and as these nouns are the names of the several substances which exist, they have likewise been called SUBSTANTIVES. 7 These may all be comprehended under the general de Division nomination of ATTRIBUTIVES. of Words. 9. NOUNS and ATTRIBUTIVES must comprehend all that is essential to language (A): for every thing which exists, or of which we can form an idea, must be either a substance or the attribute of some substance; and therefore those two classes which denominate substances and attributes, must comprehend all the words that are necessary to communicate to the hearer the ideas which are present to the mind of the speaker. If any other words occur, they can only have been invented for the sake of dispatch, or introduced for the purposes of ease and ornament, to avoid tedious circumlocutions or disagreeable tautologies. There are indeed grammarians of great name, who have considered as essential to language an order of words, of which the use is to connect the nouns and attributes, and which are said to have no signification of themselves, but to become significant by relation. Hence all words which can possibly be invented are by these men divided into two general classes: those which are SIGNIFICANT OF THEMSELVES, and those which are NOT. Words significant of themselves are either expressive of the names of substances, and therefore called SUBSTANTIVES; or of attributes, and therefore called ATTRIBUTIVES. Words which are not significant of themselves, must Of definiacquire a meaning either as defining or connecting connceothers; and are therefore arranged under the two tives. classes of DEFINITIVES and CONNECTIVES. 10. That in any language there can be words which of themselves have no signification, is a supposition which a man free from prejudice will not readily admit; for to what purpose should they have been invented? as they are significant of no ideas, they cannot facilitate the communication of thought, and must therefore be only an incumbrance to the language in which they are found. But in answer to this it has been said, that these words, though devoid of signification themselves, acquire a sort of meaning when joined with others, and that they are as necessary to the structure of a sentence as cement is to the structure of an edifice for as stones cannot be arranged into a regular building without a cement to bind and connect them, so the original words significant of substances and attributes, cannot be made to express all the variety of our ideas without being defined and connected by those words which of themselves signify nothing.—It is wonderful, that he who first suggested this simile did not perceive that it tends to overthrow the doctrine which it is meant to illustrate for surely the cement is as much the matter of the building as the stones themselves; it is equally solid and equally extended. By being united with tives and (A) This is the doctrine of many writers on the theory of language, for whose judgment we have the highest respect yet it is not easy to conceive mankind so far advanced in the art of abstraction as to view attributes by themselves independent of particular substances, and to give one general name to each attribute wheresoever it may be found, without having at the same time words expressive of affirmation. We never talk of any attri bute, a colour for instance, without affirming something concerning it; as, either that it is bright or faint, or that it is the colour of some substance. It will be seen afterwards, that to denote affirmation is the proper office of what is called the substantive verb: as, "Milk is white." That verb therefore appears to be as necessary to the communication of thought as any species of words whatever; and if we must range words under a few general classes, we should be inclined to say, that nouns, attributes, and affirmatives, comprehend all that is essential to language. a use. Division with the stones, it deither acquires nor loses any one of class, endeavour to ascertain its precise import, and show Noun. of Words. the qualities essential to matter; it neither communicates in wbat respects it differs from every other class. It is its own softness, por acquires their bardness. By this impossible to investigate the principles of grammar 13. Nouns are all those words by which objects or The noun and ABSTRACT, as whiteness, motion, temperance, &c. The com 12. In most languages, probably in all cultivated 14. But the diversity of objects is so great, that had mon divi languages, grammarians distinguish the following parts each individual a distinct and proper name, it would be of speech: Noun, pronoun, verb, participle, adverb, pre- impossible for the most tenacious memory, during the parts of speech the position, conjunction. The Latin and English gramma- course of the longest life, to retain even the nouns of inost pro- rians admit the interjcction among the parts of speech, the narrowest language. It has therefore been found Nouns geper. although it is confessedly not necessary to the construc- expedient, when a number of things resenible each neral terms tion of the sentence, being only thrown in to express other in some important particulars, to arrange them In the method of arrangement commonly every human being : The word horse denotes another , I 2 nouns. 13 |