I looked for him in the house, but he was not

colour of

They vowed

revenge on the best policy. Mankind may be classed with regard to hair. The eldest son is to his father's property. you. One and one make he had been. The Amazon is the

enemies. John told father a lie. Honesty

I am John

angry to speak

South America. He wants the true

I asked river in

of virtue. As soon

the sun rose all their boats manned. They returned thanks God for conducting voyage to such a happy issue. The Scotland obscure. The country long one of the most barbarous in Europe. Fear a necessary human government.

early history

9. Write equivalent words to the following expressions :

in

In what place? in that place; of him; belonging to them; the atmosphere; the covering of the human head; existed; exists; away; chief; reason; belonging to us; the twelfth part of the day; the ocean; to observe.

PART II.-ETYMOLOGY.

20. The word ETYMOLOGY, from Ervμov (etumon), the root of a word, and λoyos (logos), a discourse, has been used by grammarians in two senses. Sometimes it is restricted to the tracing of words from one language to another; but, technically, it is used in a wider sense, and treats of the various classes into which words are arranged, of the changes they undergo to express difference of meaning, and of their origin and history. Classification is not properly a part of Etymology; it is a preparatory process; and just as the natural historian arranges substances and animals into classes and orders, before he proceeds to analyze or minutely describe them, so the grammarian arranges the words of a language into certain groups before he describes the various changes they are subjected to, either within the language or in passing from one language to another.

I.-CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS.

21. Words are the symbols or signs of ideas, and they are classified and named, not from their form, but from the

nature of the idea they represent or stand for. The class of any particular word is only to be ascertained by observing the office which it performs. What it does, alone indicates what it is.

It would be quite impossible to say, previous to actual inspection, how many sorts of words, or, as they are generally called, Parts of Speech, exist in any language; but, upon examination, it is ascertained that all words used in the English language may be arranged under eight heads; we say may be, because it is quite possible to group the words of the language in a different manner.

The Eight Parts of Speech are,-Noun, Adjective, Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, and Interjection.

22. A definition of each of these classes of words ought to point out the characteristic or specific idea by which it is distinguished from all the others; and every individual word brought under any of the eight heads must agree with the definition, if it is adequate—that is, neither too extensive nor too limited.

It is to be observed, however, that the distinction between two parts of speech is not so complete as that between a triangle and a circle; and grammatical definitions cannot pretend to the accuracy of those given by mathematicians.

THE NOUN.

23. A NOUN, from the Latin word nomen, a name, is the name of any person, place, thing, quality, or principle; or, more generally, it is the name of whatever can be an object of contemplation or subject of discourse.

The characteristic of the noun is this: it gives of itself a distinct idea or object of thought; thus, of the words, to, pen, just, alas! he, terrify, and ship, the only ones that present a picture to the "mind's eye" are pen and ship. These, therefore, we call nouns; but the others do not belong to this class.

It should be carefully observed, that every proposition, or sentence that asserts any thing, must contain at least a noun

and a verb, the noun to express the thing spoken about, and the verb to indicate what is affirmed concerning it.

24. Nouns are divided into two great classes, Proper and Common.

A proper name is one that is capable of being truly affirmed, in the same sense only, of one person or thing; but a common name may be truly affirmed in the same sense of each of an indefinite number of things. Thus, to use the words of Mr J. S. Mill, "Man is capable of being truly affirmed of John, Peter, George, and other persons, without assignable limits; and it is affirmed of all of them in the same sense; for the word man expresses certain qualities, and when we predicate it of those persons, we assert that they all possess those qualities. But John is only capable of being truly affirmed of one single person, at least in the same sense. For though there are many persons who bear that name, it is not conferred on them to indicate any qualities or any thing which belongs to them in common; and cannot be said to be affirmed of them in any sense at all, consequently, not in the same sense."—Logic, vol. i. p. 33.

25. Proper Nouns, then, are such as are applied to individual persons or things only, and they may be said to be in themselves utterly unmeaning. They were contrived simply for the purpose of showing what thing we talk about, and not of telling any thing about it. A proper name may either be a single word, as, Victoria, Britain, Edinburgh; or a collocation of words, as, the present Queen of Great Britain, the Emperor of all the Russias.

26. Common Nouns are by some divided into three subclasses, called Abstract, Collective, and Verbal; by which arrangement the class of Common Nouns, in the limited acceptation of the term, includes only the names of things obvious to some of the five senses.

An Abstract Noun is the name of a quality or property thought of apart from all consideration of the substance in which the quality resides. The term bears reference to an act of the mind called abstraction, by which we fix our attention on one property of an object, leaving the others out of view. Snow, chalk, the foam of the sea, and writingpaper, are white, and, from this quality, are oppressive to

the eyes. Abstracting the quality from the substance, we say, "Whiteness is oppressive to the eyes." Whiteness thus becomes an abstract noun. Most abstract nouns come from adjectives, and they cannot be fully understood till that part of speech has been explained. As examples may be given, truth, wisdom, length, goodness, probity. Abstract nouns should be carefully distinguished from common names generalized. These are such as man, river, horse, mountain. That there is a distinction between the two sets of words will be obvious on attentive examination, but logicians have not succeeded in showing wherein it lies.

27. Collective Nouns are those which, though singular in form, may suggest the idea of plurality. They are such as army, clergy, crowd, regiment. These distinctions, as we already said, are not like mathematical distinctions, and will not bear to be too closely pressed. The same word may be both collective and common. "The 76th regiment is a collective name [and also a proper name], but not a general one: a regiment is both a collective and a general name. General with respect to all individual regiments, of each of which separately it can be affirmed; collective with respect to the individual soldiers of whom any regiment is composed."-Logic, vol. i. p. 34.

28. The imperfect participle of a verb (which will be treated of afterwards), when used as the name of an action, is called a Verbal Noun. In the sentence "The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing,” the words seeing and hearing are called verbal nouns. Verbal nouns have much the same relation to verbs that abstract nouns have to adjectives.

EXERCISE II.

1. What is the wide and what the restricted sense of the term Etymology? In what respects do the two sorts agree, and wherein do they differ? On what principle are words classified by grammarians? By lexicographers? By etymologists? What is the use of classification? Is it used in other sciences? How many sorts of words ought there to be in a language? How many do we find in the English language? Where has arisen the difference among grammarians as to the number of classes? What is meant

by a definition? Can grammatical definitions be made as precise as mathematical ones?

2. Define the noun. Into what classes are nouns divided? Give six examples of each sort. What two parts of speech are essential to a sentence? Distinguish a proper from a common noun. Has every proper noun a common noun corresponding to it? Is the converse true? Has a proper name any meaning as such? What is an abstract noun? Are the words man, king, ruler, government, abstract nouns? What is a collective noun? May the same word belong to more than one of these classes? What is meant by a verbal noun ?

3. State the class to which the following words belong: House, Peter, leaf, hand, humanity, painting, labour, Vesuvius, committee, flock, congregation, education, sun, economy, whiteness, light, darkness, coming, soldier, army, mercy, John Brown's cottage, the King of Saxony, Victoria, queen, sovereign, woman, human being, thing.

THE ADJECTIVE.

29. An ADJECTIVE is a word that qualifies a noun, that is, marks it out from other things that bear the same name.

The characteristic of the adjective is, that it limits the application of the noun: thus, the term island is applicable to every portion of land surrounded by water; but if the adjective fertile be affixed to it, all islands not distinguished by the property of fertility are excluded from our consideration.

30. From this it follows, that the noun and adjective together signify less than the noun alone; that is, if considered objectively; but if subjectively, they signify more. Rose embraces the whole class; white rose, only a sub-class or species; but the two words suggest two distinct ideas, while the noun alone does not necessarily do so.

31. Were it possible to retain in the memory a name for every individual existence, language would then consist of proper names, and there would be no occasion for any class of words to distinguish one thing from another; but this being impossible, adjectives have been invented. Mr James Mill states their use very clearly:-" As nouns substantive are the marks of ideas or sensations, nouns adjective are marks put upon nouns substantive, or marks upon marks, in order to limit the signification of the noun substantive;