A TREATISE ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE; OR THE ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION ОР SENTENCES AND THEIR COMPONENT PARTS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND EXERCISES. ADAPTED TO THE USE OF SCHOOLS By SAMUEL S. GREENE, A. M. OF THE NORMAL DEPARTMENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY. PHILADELPHIA: H. COWPERTHWAIT & CO. GIFT OF Dr. Horace I vie Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846 By SAMUEL S. GREENE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. EDUCATION DEPT PREFACE THE following treatise contains, as its title indicates, a systein for analyzing sentences. In the preparation of the work, it has been the aim of the author, first, to determine the number and the nature of the elements which can enter into the structure of a sentence, and, secondly, to ascertain their various forms and conditions. Notwithstanding the almost infinite variety of sentences with which the language abounds, it is worthy of remark that the number of different elements in any sentence can never exceed five. It is equally remarkable that the offices which these elements perform are few and uniform, although they may assume an endless variety of forms. - As to the forms of the elements, it would seem, at first, a hopeless task to attempt a classification of them; yet they are found to differ essentially from each other only in three respects. An element may be a word joined to another without a connective, or it may be a word joined by means of a preposition, - both together forming a phrase; or it may be a subordinate proposition, joined by a connective, and constituting a clause. Any element may also be subject to three different states or conditions. It may be simple, that is, unmodified or uncompounded; it may be complex, that is, modified by another simple element; or it may be compound, that is, it may consist of two or more simple elements, which in no way modify each other. The same distinction prevails in entire sentences. A sentence containing but one proposition is simple; a sentence containing two propositions, one of which modifies the other, is complex; a sentence containing two propositions which in no way modify each other, is compound. Some of the numerous advantages arising from studying grammar, or rather language, through the structure of sentences, are the following: (1.) As a sentence is the expression of a thought, and as the elements of a sentence are expressions for the elements of thought, the pupil who is taught to separate a sentence into its elements, is learning to analyze thought, and consequently to think. (2.) The relations between different forms of thought and appropriate forms of expression, are seen most clearly by means of analysis and construction. (3.) A large proportion of the elements of sentences are not single words, but combinations or groups of words. These groups perform the office of the substantive, the adjective, or the adverb, and, in some one of these relations, enter in as the component parts of a sentence. The pupil who learns to determine the elements of a sentence, must, therefore, learn the force of these combinations before he separates them into the single words which compose them. This advantage is wholly lost in the ordinary methods of parsing. (4.) But the grand advantage to be gained from this method may be seen in the facility which it affords the learner for constructing the language. If English Grammar teaches "the art of speaking and writing the English language correctly," the only successful method of obtaining a knowledge of that art is, by means of construction and analysis. This system cannot be pursued with even tolerable success, without requiring the pupil to construct repeatedly the various forms of sentences and elements of sentences. Such exercises afford the teacher an opportunity of correcting all errors in orthography, punctuation, construction, and the use of words. It may be further added, that this system is only applying to the English what, in our higher seminaries, is applied to the classic languages. And as these seminaries are to be supplied mainly from our common schools, a demand is created for a more philosophical plan of teaching the English language. The parts of this work are so classified and arranged that the learner commences with the simplest forms, and advances by a natural and easy gradation to the most difficult. A brief system of etymology is introduced in connection with the analysis; but, that it may not interrupt the progress of the work, it is arranged in an Appendix, and is referred to as the learner advances. The parts in large type are to be studied, while those in small type are intended for the teacher and the more advanced pupil. It may be well, on going through the work for the first time, to omit some portions of the larger type. It is the authors intention, as soon as practicable, to prepare an abridgment of the work, in which the most important principles only will be discussed, and accompanied with such exercises as will adapt the work to a younger class of pupils. In the preparation of this treatise, the author acknowledges his indebtedness to the excellent Latin Grammar of Andrews and Stoddard, and especially to that of Dr. Kühner, translated from the German by Professor J. T. Champlin, of Waterville College; also to the invaluable Greek Grammars of Professor A. Crosby and of Dr. Kühner: those of Dr. Kühner were translated, the larger by Professor B. B. Edwards and S. H. Taylor, of Andover, the smaller by S. H. Taylor, principal of Phillips Academy. Much aid has been derived from the work of George Crane, and from that of De Sacy, on General Grammar. Cherishing the hope that this work may contribute, in some small degree, to improve the methods of teaching the English language, the author submits it to the judgment of a candid public. S. S. GREENE. BOSTON, 1847. |