Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

can be well spared; and even, when a boy, the author could not help wondering how two such insignificant words as An and The should have been counted worthy to form one of the favoured nine parts of speech (which almost equal in dignity the Nine Muses); but the simple reason is, that learned grammarians had been accustomed to marvellous doctrines concerning the article; especially the Greek article-next to which the English article ranks in miraculous powers.

N. B. Some write, "A union," &c.; others, " An union." The sole reason of contracting an into a is euphony; and for the same reason that we write, a youth, we ought to write or say a union, &c. But such petty matters are as little deserving of grammatic notice as bears and monkies are of legislative interference.

CONJUNCTION.

This is another entity which merits very little consideration. Both conjunctive and disjunctive are intelligible terms; and there are words that might be thus designated if it were necessary to apply any designation to them; but conjunctive conjunction is an empty tautology; disjunctive conjunction is a manifest contradiction. And is a connective term, and so are other terms, not enumerated with it as conjunctions, entitled to the same appellation. Either contracted into Or, and Neither contracted into Nor, are disconnective, and so are other words not usually enu

merated as disjunctives; but many words, commonly called conjunctions, have as little claim to that designation as to any other which could be applied.

PREPOSITION.

This was, in its original application, sufficiently intelligible and significant; for it was equivalent to prefix; and simply indicated, that the words which it was employed to designate were frequently prefixed to other words. But as often happens, this was, in process of time, lost sight of; other words besides prefixes were classed under the same designation, and then unmeaning doctrine was communicated; such as, Prepositions serve to connect words with one another, and to show the relation between them. They are, for the most part, put before nouns and pronouns"!!!

[ocr errors]

ADVERB.

This is truly, as Horne Tooke terms it, the common sink or receptacle for all words that grammarians knew not what to do with, or how to range under the other eight parts of speech. What is an adverb? Lindley Murray shall answer: "An Adverb is a part of speech joined to a verb, an adjective, and sometimes to another adverb, to express some quality or circumstance respecting it" !!!

If any species of ignorance be more contemptible than another, it is that which is ostentatious of the appearance of learning, and which affects the forms

of science. Better, surely, have no names than have such as mean nothing: better have no distinctions than have those which are absurd.

All the preceding five parts of speech are more worthy of being discarded than explained: the four that follow have a better claim to attention.

6

ADJECTIVE OR ATTRIBUTIVE.

The last term has both meaning and utility: and when the grammarian says, "An Adjective is a word added to a substantive to express its quality: as, An industrious man;' A virtuous woman;'A benevolent mind;'" there is no violence offered to our understanding: we perceive that the attributive word answers to the description given of it; it indicates some quality, either physical or metaphysical. Thus, in the expressions-white paper-black ink— sharp knife, &c., physical qualities are indicated; but-candid temper-acute mind-clear understanding, &c., may be regarded as indicating metaphysical qualities.

A few remarks may be made concerning the Attributive.

1. The simplicity of the English Attributive. It has no troublesome changes of termination for gender, number, and case, as in Greek and Latin, and in a less degree Italian and French, &c. Such changes may be necessary in Greek and Latin, &c.; but it does not follow that they are excellencies.

2. The English Attributive admits of various

changes for the purpose of indicating diversity of signification: these will be noticed under Prefixes and Affixes. It may just be observed here, that the three degrees of comparison, affirmed of the attributive (or adjective), are not unobjectionable; comparative and superlative are intelligible terms; but no useful purpose seems answered by the term positive degree. Such an unmeaning distinction, however, is less to be regretted than the irregularities in the comparatives and superlatives of some, adjectives most frequently in use. Mr. Tooke justly remarks, that words most frequently used are most corrupted; and even in Murray's Grammar we find the following sensible remark: "In English, as in most languages, there are some words of very common use (in which the caprice of custom is apt to get the better of analogy) that are irregular: as good, better, best; bad, worse, worst; little, less, least; much or many, more, most; near, nearer, nearest, or next; late, later, latest, or last; old, older or elder, oldest or eldest.' Children and foreigners beginning to speak our language, uniformly say, good, gooder, goodest; bad, bader, badest; little, littler, littlest, &c., and as uniformly get laughed at as if they were guilty of some risible blunder; which is as unreasonable as it would be to deride a lawyer for opening his mouth about law without first putting on his wig and gown; or to suppose a clergyman could not preach a good sermon unless arrayed in canonicals: such pitiable slaves of mere custom are human

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

beings; so much blind superstition and narrow bigotry have they in their nature; so arrogantly contemptuous are they towards modes (however rational) that differ from their own established forms; so foolishly fond and vain are they of their very faults and failings, their follies and imperfections.

Anomalies are faults in language: and shall we consecrate and preserve them as precious relics of classic or Gothic antiquity; or idols, without which grammar would be destitute of a ritual; and which must, therefore, be deified and worshiped for ever? Let us then, at least, exercise some fellow-feeling and becoming candour towards our brethren, who have been guilty of first deifying and then worshiping cats and dogs and various monsters both of human and brutal kinds.

The English language possesses many comparative excellencies (and Horne Tooke could not, surely, mean any thing more, when he indulged his sprightly understanding in playful flourishes about the perfections of language); but in that grand fault anomaly, it is radically corrupt.

Such is the obvious importance or rather necessity of attributives to the significancy of language, that the author long considered them the first or preexistent species of words, whence all the others derived their existence and certain it is, (whatever Horne Tooke may have said to the contrary,) that language could not advance many steps without employing adjectives: and, perhaps, after all, a few

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »