ENGLISH GRAMMAR (PART 1) INTRODUCTION LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR LANGUAGE 1. The word language comes from the Latin word lingua, meaning "the tongue." Ages ago, the only language used by man was spoken, but in course of time, need arose for some means by which thought could be recorded and preserved. This need slowly led to better and better forms of writing, and centuries later to printing. At first, writing was a mere succession of rude pictures, called hieroglyphics. Later, letters were invented. Most of those letters were, at first, imitations of the pictures that had been used in the earliest efforts to record thought. These letters represented sounds, and when placed together in certain ways, they formed words. When the sound represented by each letter in a word was known, the word could be spoken or pronounced; and if words were arranged together in certain orders, they could be made to represent the thoughts of men. When words are so arranged, we have written or printed language, and when pronounced in the order in which they are arranged, we have spoken language. Definition.-Language is the body of uttered and written signs used by man to express thought. 2. Letters and Words.-A letter may be regarded as the visible symbol of a sound, and a written or printed word For notice of copyright, see page immediately following the title page does for the eye exactly what a spoken word does for the ear. Consider what happens when the ear hears a spoken word, or the eye sees one that is written or printed. Suppose that the word horse is heard or seen. At once something like a pictured horse is formed in the mind; this mental picture or image is called an idea-a word that means "an appearance" or "a thing seen." These mind pictures of things that we see often, such as cat, dog, boy, house, moon, seem almost as real to us as the things themselves. Not every word, however, whose meaning and uses we know causes so clear a mental picture as do the names of things familiar to us, yet every word produces some effect in the mind, and this effect is called an idea. Definition.—A letter is the symbol or representation of an oral sound. Definition. -A word is the symbol or representation of an idea or mental image. 3. Definition of Sentence.-When words are arranged in proper order, and when all the words that are needed to make a complete meaning are taken together, we have a sentence. In a properly constructed sentence, the mental pictures or ideas expressed by its words follow in a kind of procession, and form a complete thought. A sentence is, therefore, the symbol of a thought, just as a word is the symbol of an idea. Definition.-A sentence is a collection of spoken or written words so arranged as to express a thought or a complete meaning. Or, putting the definition in a form to correspond with the definitions of letter and word, we have the following: Definition.-A sentence is the oral or written symbol of a thought or a complete meaning. GRAMMAR 4. When a person undertakes the study of any subject, it is important that he should know exactly what the subject is about-what it is. The study or science called English Grammar really includes everything that is known about English letters, words, and sentences. But no grammar contains all this information; most of it is found in books having other names-spellers, dictionaries, etymologies, rhetorics, etc. Definition.-English Grammar is the science that treats of the correct use of the English language, oral and written. 5. Divisions of English Grammar.-The subject of the grammar of our language was formerly divided into four general heads: Orthography: the grammar of letters, spelling, and pronunciation. 2. Etymology: the grammar of words-their origin, history, composition, and the changes or modifications in form and use that they undergo. 3. Syntax: the grammar of the sentence-its forms, varieties, and the dependence and relation among themselves of the parts that compose the sentence, as well as the arrangement of those parts. Prosody: the grammar of verse, including everything relating to poetical composition. 6. Unit of Thought in Grammar.-Every subject has some central point of interest-some object or matter of consideration that is of higher importance than any other and to which everything else is secondary. Thus, in orthography the word is the central idea; in geography it is man-where he is, his surroundings, his wants and how they are supplied; everything belonging to the science gets its importance from its relation to the central figure, man. So in grammar there must be some leading idea or unit of greatest interest and importance. What is it? Let us consider. In orthography and etymology it is the word that fixes the attention. But these divisions of grammar are only preparatory to the study of a very much more important branch of the subject-syntax, the science of the sentence. Grammar deals primarily with thought and the forms in which thought is expressed by speech and writing. It is true that words. are necessary to the expression of thought; but about words |