ENGLISH GRAMMAR. E NGLISH GRAMMAR is the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety. OR It is divided into four parts, viz. THOGRAPHY, ETYMOLOGY, SYNTAX and PROS ODY. ORTHOGRAPHY. LETTERS. An articulate sound, is the sound of the human voice, formed by the organs of speech. Orthography teaches the nature and powers of letters, and the just method of spelling words. A letter is the first principle, or least part, of a word. The letters of the English language, called the English Alphabet, are twenty-six in number. A vowel is an articulate sound that can be perfectly uttered by itself as a, e, o; which are formed without the help of any other sound. A consonant is an articulate sound, which cannot be perfectly uttered without the help of a vowel: as, b, d, f, l ; which require vowels to express them fully. The vowels are, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes wand y. W and y are consonants when they begin a word or syllable; but in every other situation they are vowels. Consonants are divided into mutes and semi-vowels.. The mutes cannot be sounded at all without the aid of a vowel. k, and c and g hard. They are b, p, t, d, The semi-vowels have an imperfect sound of themselves. They are f, l, m, n, r, v, s, 2, and x, c and g soft.* Four of the semi-vowels, namely, l, m, n, r, are also distinguished by the name of liquids, from their readily uniting with other consonants, and flowing as it were into their sounds A dipthong is the union of two vowels, pronounced by a single impulse of the voice; as ea in beat, ou in sound. *For the distinction between the nature and the name of a consonant, see the larger Granimat, 15th edit. p. 19. A tripthong, the union of three vowels, pronounced in like manner; as, eau in beau, ieu in view. A proper dipthong is that in which both the vowels are sounded; as, oi in voice, ou in ounce. An improper dipthong has but one of the vowels sounded; as ea in eagle, oa in boat. SYLLABLES. A syllable is a sound either simple or compounded, pronounced by a single impulse of the voice, and constituting a word, or part of a word; as, a, an, ant. Spelling is the art of rightly dividing words into their syllables; or of expressing a word by its proper letters.* WORDS. Words are articulate sounds, used by common consent, as signs of our ideas. A word of one syllable is termed a monosyllable; a word of two syllables, a dissyllable; a word of three syllables, a trisyllable; and a word of four or more syllables, a polysyllable. All words are either primitive or deriv ative. A primitive word is that which cannot be reduced to any simpler word in the language; as, man, good, content. *Dr. Johnson's Dictionary is the best standard of English orthography. A derivative word is that which may be reduced to another word in English of greater simplicity; as, manful, goodness, contentment, Yorkshire. ETYMOLOGY. The second part of Grammar is Etymolgy; which treats of the different sorts of words, their various modifications, and their derivation. There are in English nine sorts of words, or, as they are commonly called, parts of Speech; namely, the Article, the Substantive or Noun, the Adjective, the Pronoun, the Verb, the Adverb, the Preposition, the Conjunction and the Interjection. 1. An article is a word prefixed to substantives, to point them out, and to show how far their signification extends; as, a garden, an eagle, the woman. 2. A Substantive or noun is the name of any thing that exists, or of which we have any notion; as, London, man, virtue. A substantive may, in general, be distinguished by its taking an article before it, or by its making sense of itsel as, a book, the sun, an apple; temperance, industry, chastity. 3. An Adjective is a word added to a substantive, to express its quality; as, an industrious man, a virtuous woman. An adjective may be known by its making sense B |