GRAMMAR

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.), I write.) The science which his for its object the laws which regulate human language. Language,inits widest acceptation, may be defined to be the expre ion, by means of outward signs, of what pa es m the mind. If, therefore, it is to admit of rules, or general laws, it is plain that we must seek those laws either in Jic 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 callable 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. VVe 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 oar mental faculties must therefore precede any attempt to define the province and settle the principles of grammar. Of the various divisions of the human 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 al once an object and a mind 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 the 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 type 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 herself, which goes on without the intervention of Bound, 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 objests, however, it can effect only mediately: the first, by converting, through reflec tion, an emotion into an object of consciousne ; by render ing 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 anything 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 ore 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 rxpres sion in language only incidentally; whereas grammar con siders the former or.'y in so far as it conduces to the right understanding and due regulation of the latter. Having previously distinguished philosophical from merely practical or empirical grammar, we may now distinguish philosophical 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 ouUcard 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 which universal grammar contemplates those that are necesary.It takes into the account the effects of accidental a ociation, in order to explain the idioms or peculiar i tie i [s. 540]