made a first step toward logic and the other abstract sciences dealing with mental processes, because, if rightly pursued, it gives the student an opportunity to analyze thought expressed in tangible form. English grammar is, for this purpose, more valuable than the grammar of a highly inflected language, where one is so greatly helped by the forms of words in the classification of functions and constructions. 13. The English student who desires a fairly thorough acquaintance with the grammar of his mother tongue will find it greatly to his advantage to study at least one well-inflected language for a period of not less than two years. Such study will give him a familiarity with technical grammatical terms, and a certainty in their application, that he would find it difficult, if not impossible, to acquire from English alone; and it will furnish him with syntactical material with which to compare his less easily classified English constructions. 14. While the explanation in grammatical terms of the thought-relations of words in sentences is the most important part of Modern English grammar, the other portion of the work is not less interesting and instructive. We must classify the few inflectional forms left us from the older period of our language. The classification is usually simple and easy, because the forms are few and "regular.' It is possible even for one that knows nothing of Old English to understand something of the development of these inflections from early forms, and in the chapters of this text dealing with inflections an attempt has been made to give a simple explanation of their origin. To Το make these explanations clear, the student must acquaint himself with a few fundamental phonetic principles. SOME PRINCIPLES OF PHONETICS 15. When we talk of the development of a word from the old to the modern form, we are talking of the spoken word, not of the conventional sign for it in writing. In most cases, the letters of a written word were originally intended to represent the sounds of the spoken word; but sound-change has been great since our modes of spelling were established, and now the written word is merely a convention, not a representation of sounds. The word spelled stones phonetically contains no e, and the final sound is more accurately represented by z, since s generally stands for the initial sound in sieve. The word spelled give really consists of only three sounds (giv). The word referred to in any discussion involving sound-change is the phonetic word, not the spelled word. 16. Speaking is a physiological process. To make a given sound, the vocal organs assume a certain position; any change in the position produces a change in the sound. We need not here go into an elaborate classification of sounds. One can see that some are made near the front of the mouth, as those we represent by d, t, e, i; others are made in the back of the mouth, as a (in father), o, g (in gather); some require the co-operation of the lips, as m, p, b; others do not. An important distinction between sounds is that between the VOICED and the UNVOICED. Certain sounds are made with an audible vocal effort ("voiced sounds"); others are made with the same position of the teeth, tongue, and lips, but with the unvocalized breath ("unvoiced sounds"). Compare the sounds represented by the following pairs of letters: d and t; z and s; g and k; b and p; v and f. one 17. A sound in speech is never entirely free from the influence of the sounds about it. The influence of other sounds upon a given sound may be almost imperceptible; or the organs may modify the position they should take for a certain sound by anticipating, wholly or in part, a position which they are later to assume for another sound. This "assimilates" sound to another. The first syllable of collect was formerly com; but the conditions for the production of the following have been anticipated in the place that belonged originally to the m, and the syllable has become col-. Find the etymology of assimilate and attend, and observe the assimilation of the final letter of the prefix to the initial letter of the stem. A vowel may partially assimilate another, even though a number of consonants come between them-a phonetic phenomenon called UMLAUT, and found in a certain class of our plural nouns (Section 25). Sounds may also be assimilated to those that precede them. Pen makes its plural with -z instead of -s because the last sound of the stem is a voiced sound; compare book, books. We shall have occasion to observe the assimilation of sounds in the guise which some of our inflectional syllables assume (Sections 23, 32, 134). CHANGES IN FORM AND FUNCTION 18. Another influence, psychological rather than phonetic, is often concerned in the formation of grammatical classes. In the use of words, as in other matters, people fall into habits. We have a habit of making our nouns. plural by adding -s, -es (s, -z, -ez) to the singular; of making our verbs past by adding -ed (-d, -t, -ed) to the present; of comparing our adjectives with the endings -er, -est. Such habits established, we inflect in accordance with them words originally inflected in some other manner. This tendency toward regularizing, and making all words of one sort follow the pattern set by the larger number, is called ANALOGY. The words that we have been taught to call "irregular are commonly the ones that have stood out against this influence and kept their original form. Analogy is constantly at work, though it is not so active among people who are corrected for "mistakes" as it is among those who are not consciously striving to follow the conventions. It is the influence of analogy that leads the child to use the incorrect verb-form when he exclaims, "I seed a great bear in the park!" He unconsciously argues with himself: "I say looked, and I say asked, and I say laughed; I must also say seed." We smile at his childishness, but he is doing exactly what has been done with serious and permanent results by the men and women that have used the English language before us. A very large number of words have changed classes through the influence of analogy. The student of the language in its modern form only cannot detect them, because he does not know the earlier classification. But he ought at least to be told that most of the "irregularities" of our grammar are not strictly "irregularities" or "exceptions" at all, but survivals of old "regular" classes in words that have thus far held their own against prevailing fashions. 19. The student of modern grammar must also take into account the constant tendency of words, by enlarging their functions in the sentence, to pass over into different classes. Nouns are constantly becoming adjectives and often supersede other regularly formed adjectives. In "a family affair" we could not substitute the adjective familiar without changing the meaning. Compare also "a leather (formerly leathern) thong," "a Virginia (never now Virginian) creeper," "a water (not watery) motor." Nouns also become verbs. She delights in queening it over the company. Compare also such words and phrases as "lord it," boycott, "mail a letter." One noun, while, has become a conjunction. Participles tend to become pure adjectives and adverbs; compare middling, "a rushing business," "a calling acquaintance," 'a stinging (biting, piercing) cold day," etc. Some, like excepting, have become prepositions. When the objects of prepositions are clauses instead of nouns, the prepositions, without changing their functions in the slightest, are known as conjunctions. Compare these sentences: Before my coming you were sick. The prepositions in their turn were for the most part originally adverbs. Compare "pass by," "by the stile"; "by the stile"; "to shut the door to," ," "to fasten something to the wall." Off and of had in Old English the same form, of. Compare: Come of that roof. He came of his own accord. The preposition of, usually lacking stress in the sentence, in time came to have a different pronunciation. Then and than were originally the same word; the difference in spelling between the adverb and the conjunction is late. For instance, Admiring more The riches of Heav'ns pavement, trod'n Gold, In vision beatific.-MILTON, Paradise Lost i. 680-83. Whether, in Old English an interrogative pronoun (compare Section 49), has now become a conjunction. Groups of words are in many cases to be considered as single words, the separation being entirely conventional. In case (phrase), in order that (phrase plus conjunction), on condition that (meaning "if"), considering that (absolute participle plus conjunction introducing a substantive clause, object of the participle, the whole expression meaning "because") are as much single words and conjunctions as inasmuch as (really one word instead of two) and albeit ("although it be"). Back, once a noun, is now frequently an adverb of direction. Cheap, once a noun, has become both an adjective and an adverb. Opposite, an adjective in form, has so strongly the place notion that we think of it, and it has come to be used, as an adverb. In such sentences as He stood opposite me, the New English Dictionary calls it "a quasi-adverb," or "quasipreposition," almost taking the place of to; compare, He stood opposite to me. An interesting example of an adverb tending strongly toward prepositional use, but not clearly a preposition, is seen in About five o'clock we arrived. Compare At five o'clock we arrived. The New English Dictionary calls about (i. e. "nearly, almost") an adverb, "almost a preposition." NOTE. For further discussion of this question, see Strong, Logeman, and Wheeler, The History of Language, Chapter VII, "Changes of Meaning in Syntax," and Chapter XX, "The Division of the Parts of Speech." From these examples it is evident that the classification of a word as a certain part of speech is to be determined in any sentence by the meaning and function of the word in that particular context. BIBLIOGRAPHY 20. It is most desirable that the advanced student of English grammar should be able to refer to scholarly works dealing with the forms and constructions of the language. The following books have been found very useful as a reference library for grammar classes: A. For the study of the history of the language and the development of inflections and syntax: EDUARD MAETZNER, Englische Grammatik. Third edition. Berlin, Weidmann, 1880-85. Translated from the German (first edition) by C. J. Grece. Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1874 (out of print). If the |