A grammar of the English language

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Preface

Language is a growth, and, like every other growth, is primarily dependent upon an inward vital energy. It has its origin and its development in answer to an instinctive desire of the soul to express its thoughts and feelings. The power of speech is stimulated by the presence of external objects, and takes its actual form by means of an unconscious ability to imitate the vocal symbols which chance to be made the conventional representatives of thought. It matters not to what nation or people the child may belong : be he English, French, German, or Chinese, it is all the same. The speech which he hears in his childhood becomes his vernacular tongue, and all others are foreign.

Place him among the cultivated and refined, and he employs, he knows not why, the pure and polished speech of his guardians and associates. On the contrary, let him fall among the rude and illiterate, and he as readily and as surely accepts for his native language, his mother tongue, their perverted words and incorrect modes of expression.

Unfortunately for the teacher, the period for direct cultivation does not come till after instinct and habit have given a degree of permanency to these malformations which have grown into a vital union with all that is good in the child's style of speaking. The task of correction has become doubly difficult, requiring the uprooting of old expressions and the planting and nurturing of new. Just what should be done to give to the child a knowledge of a foreign language, must now be done to establish a correct and refined use of his own. It is not abstract principles that he wants, but rather a practical use of good, well-authorized expressions. These he will adopt, not by repeating rules, but by discarding the faulty and using the good. He learns to speak good English by speaking good English. He learns the use of new expressions by using them. Of what consequence, then, is it how he obtains them,— whether by rule, or by direct dictation from the teacher? The time for the teacher to commence this process of cultivation is the day the pupil enters school.

PREFACE.

How unfortunate is the prevailing impression that the cultivation of language and the study of grammar, as a science, must begin together! There is no period from the time the child begins to speak, through his whole life, during which his language may not be improved. On the contrary, there is a time when the technical and scientific statements of grammar are of little or no use. They become valuable when the child has reached such a degree of development as shall enable him to comprehend their application. Shall all the earlier period of his school life be passed without a systematic effort to cultivate his power to use the language correctly?

For some of the methods of this earlier culture, and especially for the processes of transition to the more technical methods of teaching grammar, the reader is referred to the Introduction to the Study of English Grammar, Part I.

Not a few teachers labor under a mistaken idea of the proper function of grammatical rules. Mere rules cannot correct an inveterate habit ; the pupil may repeat them with entire verbal accuracy again and again, and as often violate- them in his very next utterances. The rule merely informs him of a given analogy of the language. His habit is stronger than his rule, and can be overcome only by that resolute effort and determined purpose which might have given him success at an earlier period, guided merely by the dictation of the teacher. The difference would be this ? then, he would have received his law from the teacher ; now, he is a law unto himself. He has the means of correction at his own command. But it is only a persistent obedience to law, in either case, that insures success. The rules of grammar are the criteria by which he can test his own language ; but it depends upon himself whether these tests shall be applied and enforced. The advantage which he enjoys over those who are ignorant of the rules of grammar is, that he may always know whether he is right or wrong, while they are ever in doubt as to the correctness of their own expressions.

The following work contains a discussion of the principles of English Grammar. The fundamental rule by which the subject has been developed is, that no theory of grammar }s true or reliable that cannot be abundantly verified by direct appeals to thft usage of standard authors. The grammar of a language should be derived from the language itself. It is nqt the province of the grammarian to legislate in matters of language, but to classify and arrange i$s forms and principles by a careful study of its analogies as sedn^ in the usage of the best writers. He does no$

PREFACE.

make the rules and definitions which express these analogies : they had already existed, and were obeyed,— unconsciously, it is true, — long before he formed them into words and published them. Nor are they authoritative because he has uttered them, but simply because they are just and faithful interpretations of the already existing laws which underlie and pervade the language itself. He is a discoverer, — not an inventor, not a dictator, — but is true to his task just so far as he investigates and reinvestigates original sources found in the language itself, — not, of course, rejecting the light which cotemporary or previous labor has shed upon his pathway.

In the following classification of the principles ot Grammar, great prominence has been given to thoughts and ideas in their relation to forms. The complete sentence is at first regarded as a unit, — an expression of a single thought, — and that, too, whatever may be the number of propositions combined in it, or whatever may be the characteristic of the thought, as a statement, a command, an inquiry, or an exclamation. The thought determines the sentence. The classification of the sentence depends upon its specific peculiarities. Again, in separating the sentence into its parts, the element is taken as the unit, an expression of a single idea of the full thought, and that, too, whether it be a single word or a group of words, or whatever may be its form, structure, rank, or office. Here, again, the idea determines the element, while the classification depends upon some peculiarity of the element itself! Again, an element ot the sentence may itself contain elements which may all. unite to express one of the chief ideas of the whole sentence. These, in like manner, are determined and classified. Finally, each single element is itself a word, or may be separated into the words which form it. Thus, it will be seen that the sentence is not treated at first as an assemblage of words (which is the usual way), but as an assemblage of elements variously expressed ; and in the final analysis these elements are reduced to words. It is this peculiarity that brings the learner into sympathy with the thought itself, — the vital power which determines all the forms of the sentence. It gives him an interior view of its structure, and enables him to witness its growth and to sit in judgment with the writer in his choice of forms.

The Grammar of the English Language will be found to contain the same classifications of sentences and elements that are embodied in the Analysis, and in all that pertains to the classification, modification, and construction of words, it is believed, is sufficiently full.

It is intended to follow the Introduction, and to precede the Analysis, which is adapted to advanced pupils.

PREFACE.

Although each book may be used independently of the others, the order in which they stand is : —

I. The Introduction.

II. The Grammar of the EDglish Language.

III. The Analysis of Sentences.

A careful perusal of the book, it is believed, will justify the following statement of its peculiarities : —

1. It recognizes the sentence as a growth from the subject and . the predicate, and proceeds, step by step, to examine each aceirdtiUT lation around these as a centre. (See Models in Syntax.) \ i t %|

2. It gives the relation and effect of whole expressions tSil. ,mg it teaches how to parse these, as well as to parse single wor^S^ifl^ advantage lost sight of in most treatises.

3. It teaches how to parse every kind of wordy in its ram i in its usual relations.

4. It discriminates clearly between important matter to be atjid and useful matter to be read.

5. The several subjects are developed logically and, it h belieVefi^ stated clearly.

6,. The author has not evaded, or left without an opinion dilhfV tinctly stated, those perplexing points which often annoy teacher. '

7. It will be found to contain a great variety of models for parsing and analysis.

8. So far as a text-book can do it, the pupil is made to use and apply his knowledge as fast as he acquires it, by means of exercises which compel him to think, write, and invent for himself.

9. A copious index will enable the teacher to turn readily to any topic.

10. The mechanical execution, both as it respects printing and binding, is superior.

The author acknowledges his indebtedness to many friends for a great variety of suggestions which he has noted, and embodied in some form or other in these pages. A few changes have been made in the arrangement of the matter, and slight modifications will be found in the matter itself. As a whole, it is hoped, the work will be found both complete and convenient as a text-book of English Grammar.

S. S. GREENE.

Providence, July, 1867