9. The Grammar of Letters.-Letters are conventional signs or symbols employed to represent sounds to the eye. They have grown out of pictures, which, being gradually pared down, became mere signs or letters. The steps were these: picture; abridged picture; diagram; sign or symbol. The sum of all the letters used to write or print a language is called its Alphabet. Down to the fifteenth century, we employed a set of Old English letters, such as a b c―r y 3, which were the Roman letters ornamented; but, from that or about that time, we have used and still use only the plain Roman letters, as a b c-x y z.

The word alphabet comes from the name of the first two letters in the Greek language: alpha, beta.

10. An Alphabet.-An alphabet is, as we have seen, a code of signs or signals. Every code of signs has two laws, neither of which can be broken without destroying the accuracy and trustworthiness of the code. These two laws are:

(i) One and the same sound must be represented by one and the same letter.

Hence: No sound should be represented by more than one letter.

(ii) One letter or set of letters must represent only one and the same sound.

Hence: No letter should represent more than one sound.

Or, put in another way:

(i) One sound must be represented by one distinct symbol. (ii) One symbol must be translated to the ear by no more than one sound.

(i) The first law is broken when we represent the long sound of a in eight different ways, as in-fate, braid, say, great, neigh, prey, gaol, gauge.

(ii) The second law is broken when we give eight different sounds to the one symbol ough, as in-bough, cough, dough, hiccough (=cup), hough (=hock), tough, through, thorough.

11. Our Alphabet.-The spoken alphabet of English contains forty-three sounds; the written alphabet has only twenty-six symbols or letters to represent them. Hence the English al

For it The work

phabet is very deficient. But it is also redundant. contains five superfluous letters, c, q, x, w, and y. of the letter c might be done by either k or by s; that of q by k; x is equal to ks or gs; w could be represented by oo; and all that y does could be done by i. It is in the vowelsounds that the irregularities of our alphabet are most discernible. Thirteen vowel-sounds are represented to the eye in more than one hundred different ways.

(i) There are twelve ways of printing a short i, as in sit, Cyril, busy, women, etc.

(ii) There are twelve ways of printing a short e, as in set, any, bury, bread, etc.

(iii) There are ten ways of printing a long ē, as in mete, marine, meet, meat, key, etc.

(iv) There are thirteen ways of printing a short u, as in bud, love, berth, rough, flood, etc.

(v) There are eleven ways of printing a long u, as in rude, move, blew, true, etc.

THE GRAMMAR OF WORDS, OR ETYMOLOGY.

There are eight kinds of words in our language. These are (i) Names or Nouns. (ii) The words that stand for Nouns are called Pronouns. (iii) Next come the words-that-go-withNouns or Adjectives. (iv) Fourthly, come the words-thatare-said-of-Nouns or Verbs. (v) Fifthly, the words that go with Verbs or Adjectives or Adverbs are called Adverbs. (vi) The words that-join-Nouns are called Prepositions; (vii) those that-join-Verbs are called Conjunctions. Lastly (viii) come Interjections, which are indeed mere sounds without any organic or vital connection with other words; and they are hence sometimes called extra-grammatical utterances. Nouns and Adjectives, Verbs and Adverbs, have distinct, individual, and substantive meanings. Pronouns have no meanings in themselves, but merely refer to nouns, just like a in a book. Prepositions and Conjunctions once had independent

meanings, but have not much now: their chief use is to join words to each other. They act the part of nails or of glue in language. Interjections have a kind of meaning; but they never represent a thought-only a feeling, a feeling of pain or of pleasure, of sorrow or of surprise.

NOUNS.

1. A Noun is a name, or any word or words used as a

name.

Ball, house, fish, John, Mary, are all names, and are therefore nouns. "To walk in the open air is pleasant in summer evenings." The two words to walk are used as the name of an action; to walk is therefore

a noun.

The word noun comes from the Latin nomen, a name. From this word we have also nominal, denominate, denomination, etc.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF NOUNS.

2. Nouns are of two classes-Proper and Common.

3. A proper noun is the name of an individual, as an individual, and not as one of a class.

John, Mary, London, Birmingham, Shakespeare, Milton, are all proper

nouns.

The word proper comes from the Latin proprius, one's own. Hence a proper noun is, in relation to one person, one's own name. From the same word we have appropriate, to make one's own; expropriate, etc.

(i) Proper nouns are always written with a capital letter at the beginning; and so also are the words derived from them. Thus we write France, French, Frenchified; Milton, Miltonic; Shakespeare, Shakespearian.

(ii) Proper nouns, as such, have no meaning. They are merely marks to indicate a special person or place. They had, however, originally a meaning. The persons now called Armstrong, Smith, Greathead, no doubt had ancestors who were strong in the arm, who did the work of smiths, or who had large heads.

(iii) A proper noun may be used as a common noun, when it is employed not to mark an individual, but to indicate one of a class. Thus we can say, "He is the Milton of his age," meaning by this that he possesses the qualities which all those poets have who are like Milton.

(iv) We can also speak of "the Howards," "the Smiths," meaning a number of persons who are called Howard or who are called Smith.

4. A common noun is the name of a person, place, or thing, considered not merely as an individual, but as one of a class. Horse, town, boy, table, are common nouns.

The word common comes from the Lat. communis, "shared by several"; and we find it also in community, commonalty, etc.

(i) A common noun is so called because it belongs in common to all the persons, places, or things in the same class.

(ii) The name rabbit marks off, or distinguishes, that animal from all other animals; but it does not distinguish one rabbit from anotherit is common to all animals of the class. Hence we may say: a common noun distinguishes from without; but it does not distinguish within its own bounds.

(iii) Common nouns have a meaning; proper nouns have not. The latter may have a meaning; but the meaning is generally not appropriate. Thus persons called Whitehead and Longshanks may be dark and short. Hence such names are merely signs, and not significant marks.

5. Common nouns are generally subdivided into

(i) Class-names.

(ii) Collective nouns.

(iii) Abstract nouns.

(i) Under class-names are included not only ordinary names, but also the names of materials-as tea, sugar, wheat, water. The names of materials can be used in the plural when different kinds of the material are meant. Thus we say "fine teas," "coarse sugars," when we mean fine kinds of tea, etc.

(ii) A collective noun is the name of a collection of persons or things, looked upon by the mind as one. Thus we say committee, parliament, crowd; and think of these collections of persons as each one body.

(iii) An abstract noun is the name of a quality, action, or state, considered in itself, and as abstracted from the thing or person in which it really exists. Thus, we see a number of lazy persons, and .think of laziness as a quality in itself, abstracted from the persons. (From Lat. abs, from; tractus, drawn.)

(a) The names of arts and sciences are abstract nouns, because they are the names of processes of thought, considered apart and abstracted from the persons who practise them. Thus, music, painting, grammar, chemistry, astronomy, are abstract nouns.

(iv) Abstract nouns are (a) derived from adjectives, as hardness, dulness, sloth, from hard, dull, and slow; or (b) from verbs, as growth, thought, from grow and think.

Thus we

(v) Abstract nouns are sometimes used as collective nouns. say "the nobility and gentry" for "the nobles and gentlemen" of the ind.

(vi) Abstract nouns are formed from other words by the addition of such endings as ness, th, ery, hood, head, etc.

6. The following is a summary of the divisions of nouns :—

We must not, however, forget that differences of gender, number, or case are not always indicated by inflexion.

Inflexio is a Latin word which means bending. An inflexion, therefore, is a bending away from the ordinary form of the word.

GENDER.

8. Gender is, in grammar, the mode of distinguishing sex by the aid of words, prefixes, or suffixes.

The word gender comes from the Lat. genus, generis (Fr. genre), a kind or sort. We have the same word in generic, general, etc. (The d in gender is no organic or true part of the word; it has been inserted as a kind of cushion between the n and the r.)

(i) Names of males are said to be of the masculine gender, as master, lord, Harry. Lat. mas, a male.

(ii) Names of females are of the feminine gender, as mistress, lady, Harriet. Lat. femina, a woman. (From the same word we have effeminate, etc.)

(iii) Names of things without sex are of the neuter gender, as head, tree, London. Lat. neuter, neither. (From the same word we have neutral, neutrality.)

(iv) Names of animals, the sex of which is not indicated, are said to be of the common gender. Thus, sheep, bird, hawk, parent, servant, are common, because they may be of either gender.