GRAMMAR

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) The science which has for its object the laws which regulate human language. Language, in its widest acceptation, majr be defined to be the expre ion, by means of outward signs, of what pa es in the mind. If, therefore, it is to admit of rules, or general laws, it is plain that we must seel i those laws either in the constitution of the mind where it originates, or of the outward materials of which it is composed. These are either sounds, visible images, or gestures. The first two of these, as admitting of the greatest variety, and capable of being most easily distinguished from each other, form by far the most considerable part of language, and that part alone which grammar takes account of. The material of language, when it is sound, is capable of analysis into a definite number of simple elements. It is not our object at present to enter on the consideration of this part of language, whether consisting of sound, or marks to designate sound. We pa on to its more important cla of laws, which result from the internal conditions of the mind; and which, viewed in that reference, constitute the subject matter of philosophical grammar, properly so called. An analysis of our mental faculties must therefore precede any attempt to define the province and settle tJie Erinciples of grammar. Of the various divisions of the uman faculties proposed by philosophers, we shall adopt, as best suited to our purposes, that which distinguishes them into two grand cla es, — the province of affection, and that of perception or intellection. The discriminating mark of the former cla , under which we include alike the outward senses and the inner sense or emotion, is this, that the faculties which it includes Imply a state of mind or consciousne , and that only. By perception or intellection, on the other hand, are meant those states of mind which refer to a real or supposed object, out of the mind itself. *' To know " and " to know nothing" are contradictory conceptions; every act of knowledge implies at once an object and a mmd to which that object is present. Each of these portions of the mind has its appropriate expre ion, its peculiar language. The language of emotion is common to men and animals. It consists, for the most part, of certain simple sounds or exclamations, which, if capable of being reduced to rules at all, must rest for those rules on physiological considerations, which form tiie province of philosophical grammar. We must seek that province, consequently, in the language of intelligence or reason. Rational discourse, or human language, may be figuratively expre ed as the outward ti/pe or form which thoughts, and the laws which regulate them, impre on the material of sound. In the words of Plato, " reason and discourse are one; only the former, as the conversation of the soul with her sell, which goes on without the intervention of sound, has obtained among us the name of discourse of reason." We do not deny that language, in this limited sense, may become the expre ion of emotion in ourselves, and excite emotion in others. Both these objects, however, it can effect only mediately: the first, by converting, througli reflection, an emotion into an object of consciousne ; by rendering it intelligible to ourselves, then intelligible to others: the second, only through the understanding of those whom we addre . The laws of language must therefore correspond with the laws of the intellect: if there is any thing universal and nece ary in the one, its representative or image must be found repeated in the other. But the nece ary laws of thought are the object matter of logic. It might, therefore, seem that logic and universal grammar are convertible terms. Both sciences consider alike the forms of the intellect, and the right mode of expre ing these forms in language. But they differ in this, that logic considers the intellectual proce primarily, and its expre ion in language only incidentally; whereas grammar considers the former only in so far as it conduces to tlie right understanding and due regulation of the latter. Having previously distinguished philosophical from merely practical or empirical grammar, we may now distinguish jjhilosophical grammar itself into universal and particular. The first, as we have seen, corresponds to logic: — as the one is the science of those conditions which must be presupposed in order to render thought and intelligence po ible; so the other contemplates the conditions which are to render po ible the outward expre ion of thought and intelligence. The same relation which universal grammar bears to logic, particular grammar, philosophically treated, may be said to hold to the kindred science of psychology. It considers the experimental laws of the mind with the same view with 523 which universal grammar contemplates those that are nece ary. It takes into the account the efifects of accidental a ociation, in order to explain the idioms or peculiarities of the particular language before, it. It calculates, so to speak, the disturbing forces which act on the general law. In developing the principles of universal grammar, we shall consider, in order, the various kinds of words or " parts of speech" into which language is ordinarily distinguished. The first cla of words corresponds to the faculty called by logicians apprehension, or simple apprehension. They are commonly named nouns, or substantives, or nouns substantive; and expre either individuals, as "John, Charles;" or cla es, as " man, animal," They are called substantives, because they expre a real or supposed substance (Lat. sub, stare), a something which is conceived to stand under, or, in scholastic language, to be the support of, certain qualities. These qualities may in their turn be considered as substances, and expre ed by substantives, as whitene , greenne . When considered in relation to the substance of wliich they are properties, they constitute the second cla of words, — adjectives, or nouns adjective. Thus we say " a white horse, a dazzling whitene ;" where the same conception which in the former case is regarded as a quality, and expre ed by an adjective, is in the second converted into a substance, itself the support of other properties. Thus far the only intellectual power implied in language is that of forming general conceptions. A conception, when formed, is capable of being resolved back into its constituent parts. In the conception " stag" we find the property of swiftne contained. This attribution of a quality to a substance is what logicians call & judgment; its expre ion in language is an affirmation, or proposition. The sign of this attribution is called the copula: " The stag is swift." Every judgment which has regard to matter of fact considers an event either as past, present, or future: " The hair was light, is dark, will be grey." When the attribute property or quality is combined with the copula or word signifying the affirmation or attribution, a third cla of words is produced, to which we give the name of verbs. Thus instead of saying, " the sun is bright," we may say, "the sun shines;" where the latter form of expre ion is equivalent to, or capable of being analyzed into, the former. A verb is therefore a compound part of speech, consisting of an adjective and a copula or qffirmation, and signifying not only the conception of a property, but our perception or judgment that such property does inhere or belong to some substance, or else that it has belonged or will belong to it. The relation between property and substance, expre ed in every proposition, may be differently stated as the relation of part to whole, of species to genus, of individual to species; distinctions which do not coiicern us at present, inasmuch as grammar, no le than logic, has regard only to our mode of conceiving things, not to things as they are in themselves. The three parts of speech which we have thus analyzed — the substantive, the adjective, and the verb — are called the primary or e ential parts of speech. They are those without which no discourse could take place, no act of judgment be communicated; in other words, without which no sounds could have meaning. The parts of speech which remain to be considered are the pronoun, the article, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, the interjection. The pronoun is so called from its being a substitute for a noun; a compendious contrivance to avoid repetition, or needle and inconvenient specification: as, " John is tall and he is handsome," which is equivalent to saying " John is tall and John is handsome." They are commonly subdivided into personal or substantive, adjective, demonstrative, relative, indefinite, and interrogative pronouns. Articles are words joined to substantives, for the purpose ol defining whether the substance or conception is to be understood in a general sense, or in particular relation to an individual. When the first is our intention, we use in English no article whatever: as, " Man is corrupt; " by which we mean that corruption is an attribute of the genus " man," and not of any particular individual to the exclusion of others. In Greek, however, the use of the article is fre(juently equivalent to the omi ion of it in English, as r, iuinZiicc, piety. If we used the article a or an, we should, in most instances, mean that some individual or other of the species wiis contemplated: " I saw a horse." When we use the definite article the. we mean to specify which individual of the species we have in view. The adverb derives its existence from the difficulty of defining by one word the precise quality of a particular object. When we say a thing is " green," we may call up in the minds of our hearers the image of a very diflerent shade of greenne from that which we are describing. If we say it is "very green," our language is more definite. An adverb may consequently be described as a modifying part [s. 536]