346 



GRAMMAR 



each special grammar. Lastly we can compare 

 together the forms and usage of cognate dialeqts. 

 We can compare, e.g., the grammar of our literary 

 English dialect and that of the speech of Dorset, 

 as set forth by Mr Barnes ; and, employing the 

 results of historical grammar, we can trace back 

 the varying development of English speech as a 

 whole ; or we can compare the development and 

 trace the connection of English and of German 

 speech, and the relation of eacli of these to Latin 

 or to Greek, till we arrive at some knowledge 

 of a common speech of which all these are only 

 derived forms. This is the work of comparative 

 grammar. 



Naturally, we do not learn our own speech from 

 a written grammar. A child learns his words and 

 their use from those around him, not as a whole, 

 but 'one by one ; and he forms new words for him- 

 self on the analogy of those he has already acquired. 

 When he finds that any of these formations are 

 not used bv others he rejects them, and so he 

 assimilates his speech to that of those around him. 

 It is when we have to deal with a speech which is 

 not our own, either that of a foreign nation, or of 

 our own language at some earlier period, or of some 

 dialect of our own language, that we need a 

 grammar. The earliest works on grammar were 

 due to the second of these causes. At Alexandria, 

 the great commercial and literary centre of Greece 

 in the days when the separate Greek states had 

 ceased to be autonomous, there was for the first 

 time a huge collection of the works of earlier 

 writers, especially the Homeric poems. The age 

 was one destitute of original ability ; the loss of 

 freedom had caused the loss of the motives which 

 had produced the literature of the past. But it 

 contained a large number of literary men, whose 

 activity was chiefly spent on the work of their pre- 

 decessors. This was to them in language ana in 

 style archaic ; it required glosses as we should 

 say, glossaries and explanations of disused forms. 

 Hence arose the first grammarians, men often of 

 conspicuous ability in their own line, such as 

 Zenodotus and Aristarchus. At a later time, 

 Romans who wished to learn Greek had grammars 

 based upon Greek models, compiled for them in 

 Latin, and these have been the parents of all 

 European grammars to the present day. The 

 grammatical terms with which we are familiar are 

 consequently in the main Latin translations of 

 Greek originals, and because of this they are often 

 less intelligible than they might be. 



It is to the Greeks that we owe the number 

 of the so-called 'parts of speech.' But their eight 

 were not the same as ours. They had ( 1 ) the 

 noun ; ( 2 ) the verb ( terms which go back to 

 Aristotle, though in his use the ' verb ' meant 

 all that is logically called the predicate); (3) 

 the participle, so called because it partook of the 

 nature of both the noun and the verb it was 

 a noun in form, yet it governed a case like a 

 verb ; ( 4 ) the article ; ( 5 ) the pronoun ; ( 6 ) the 

 preposition, so called not as being placed before a 

 case, but as set before a verb or noun in composi- 

 tion ; (7) the adverb i.e. the 'additional predi- 

 cation,' not anything specially belonging to the verb, 

 as the Latin name seems to imply; (8) the con- 

 junction. The Romans modified this list. First, 

 they rejected the participle, and supplied its place 

 by dividing the noun into the substantive and the 

 adjective ; this is a gain to logic, but as a matter 

 of history the two go back to the same origin. 

 The thing and the quality of the thing were alike 

 expressed by the noun, and the analogic feeling in 

 man suggested that they should be represented 

 when together by nouns of the same class i.e. 

 with the same terminations : hence we have the 

 grammatical property called gender, which is alto- 



gether independent of natural gender. Secondly, 

 they rejected the article in their grammar, not 

 having it in their speech. Here they were histor- 

 ically right, for the Greek article was only a 

 pronoun. Later Latin developed a new one out of 

 a different pronoun, ille, seen in various forms in 

 the different Romance languages French, Italian, 

 Spanish, &c. But having lost the article they felt 

 bound to fill up its place : therefore they put in 

 the interjection, which is the conventional stereo- 

 typed expression of the natural cries which, we 

 may believe, in days before articulate speech 

 existed, eked out the earliest and simplest means 

 of communication i.e. gestures (see article PHIL- 

 OLOGY). The interjection is therefore no 'part of 

 speech;' it is an imperfect undeveloped 'speech- 

 whole; 'and the Greeks rightly did not include it 

 in their list. 



If we exclude the interjection, we can prove 

 by means of historical grammar that these 

 different parts of speech run back to two, the 

 noun and the verb ; and the distinction even of 

 these rests on the inability of our analysis to 

 separate them completely. It is true that nouns 

 are distinguished by 'case-suffixes' lupus, lupum, 

 hipi, lupo, &c. in Latin ; and the verb by ' per- 

 sonal suffixes ' amo, amas, amat, &c. ; but there 

 was doubtless a time in our parent-speech when 

 no such ' suffixes ' existed, and all that lies be- 

 hind them may have been in those earlier days 

 identical for noun and verb. Our own language 

 shows the possibility of using one form e.g. ' love,' 

 alike for noun and verb. The pronoun differs from 

 the nonn in meaning by its greater generality. 

 ' This' includes all objects in our immediate neigh- 

 bourhood, books, chairs, tables, &c. ; 'he' includes 

 all 'Johns,' 'Smiths,' &c. In form it differs only 

 by the simpler and on the whole the more archaic 

 character of its root or ultimate element. The term 

 ' pronoun ' expresses only one subordinate use the 

 anaphoric or 'reference' use, by virtue of which, 

 having once uttered a man's differentiating name, 

 'John,' or the like, we refer to him afterwards, so 

 long as clearness permits, only as ' he.' The origin 

 of adverbs and prepositions out of nouns or pro- 

 nouns is very obvious in our own language : ' once ' 

 is Old Eng. dnes, the genitive of an ( ' one ' ) ; 

 ' seldom ' is an old dative plural of seld ( ' rare ' ) ; 

 to go ' afoot ' was to go ' on ' foot ; ' beside ' is ' by 

 side ( of ) ; ' and, if we are unable to reach the original 

 form of prepositions like ' on ' and ' by,' we do not 

 doubt that in days beyond our analysis they were 

 nouns modifying other words which then filled 

 the place of the nouns and verbs of later times. 

 Similarly, conjunctions are either noun-cases 

 or condensed sentences; 'whil-s-t' is 'whiles,' the 

 genitive of 'while' (time), with a final t, which 

 may be analogous to that of 'lest' (another con- 

 junction), originally 'thi less the,' then 'lesthe,' 

 and ' leste ; ' ' howbeit,' ' because ' (by cause of) ex- 

 plain themselves. Thus the eight parts of speech 

 may be traced back to not more than two. 



All language at all times of which we have any 

 knowledge, and doubtless from the very beginning 

 of human speech, is a modification of existing 

 combinations of sound. Language probably began, 

 as has been already suggested, with the use of cries 

 to help out gestures. These cries were associated 

 by use with particular ideas, and" that most ele- 

 mentary language (or languages, for there is no 

 need to suppose that language sprang up in one 

 place only, the circumstances being everywhere 

 similar) was subject to the same laws which mould 

 our speech at the present day. Groups of sound 

 expressing the required thought are combined 

 together, as 'man' and 'kind,' or 'house' and 

 ' top. ' The combination may be such that the 

 different parts are always separable; then each 



