SENSITIVE PLANT 



5303 



SENTENCE 



The special sensations differ from general sen- 

 sations in the following particulars: 



(1) The nerves of the special senses all end in 

 special organs, as the eye, ear and nose. The 

 nerves producing general sensations do not. 9 



(2) Special senses tell us of the outside world ; 

 the general senses tell us of conditions within the 

 body. 



( 3 ) Special senses are more exact ; we can lo- 

 cate an object by sight and easily determine the 

 source of a sound, but we are often at a loss to 

 locate the cause of a pain. 



(4) The meaning of each special sensation 

 must be learned by experience, but the ability 

 to interpret the meaning of general sensations 

 is inherited. The child may not be able to tell 

 a bumblebee from a wasp, but he can distinguish 

 between toothache and stomach ache. 



(5) The special senses are important avenues 

 of knowledge, and without them the mind would 

 never awaken to activity. The general sensa- 

 tions are an aid to health. They tell us when 

 we need food and drink, when we need exercise 

 or rest, and warn us against overindulgence in 

 eating, drinking and exercising. W.F.R. 



Related Subjects. Further information on 

 this subject will be found in the following arti- 

 cles : 



Brain Nervous System Smell 



Ear Nose Taste 



Eye Skin Touch 

 Fatigue 



SENSITIVE, sen'sitiv, PLANT, a small 

 herb belonging to the same family as the pea, 

 so called because the small leaflets which com- 

 pose its leaves fold over each other in pairs 

 when the plant is shaken or roughly touched. 

 At the same time each of the leafstalks bends 

 toward the main stem, as if the plant were 

 shrinking from the intruder. If the plant is 

 then left undisturbed the leaves will slowly 

 assume their normal position. The sensitive 

 plant is a native of South America, but has 

 been introduced into the United States, where 

 it is sometimes cultivated in greenhouses as a 

 curiosity, The sensitive brier, which grows wild 

 in the Southern states, has the same habit of 

 withering, but does so only when it is very 

 roughly handled. 



SENTENCE, sen' tens. When two or more 

 words are joined in such a way as to make 

 sense, they form a sentence. Thus, it is the 

 sentence, not the word, that is the true unit 

 of speech. A. word pictures a single idea, but it 

 requires a group of words arranged in definite, 

 grammatical order to express a complete 

 thought. For instance, the word bells tells us 

 nothing of the speaker's thought until it is 

 combined with one or more other words: as, 

 "Bells ring;" "The great bells in the tower were 

 cast over a hundred years ago." 



Capitalization and Punctuation. The first 

 word of a sentence is always capitalized, and 

 the close of the sentence is indicated by a 

 period, a question-mark or an exclamation 

 point. The punctuation used in the body of the 

 sentence is an important factor in its construc- 

 tion, particularly if it is lengthy, for correct 

 punctuation helps the reader to make a swift 

 mental analysis and to decide which elements 

 belong together and which do not. See PUNC- 

 TUATION. 



Parts of a Sentence. The two essential parts 

 of a sentence are the subject and the predicate. 

 The subject, which is always a noun or its 

 equivalent, names the person or thing of which 

 something is said ; the predicate embodies what 

 is said about the subject. No matter how long 

 and complicated the subject or the predicate 

 may be, neither one can express a complete 

 thought without the aid of the other. 



In the sentence, Bells ring, the noun bells is 

 the complete subject and the verb ring the 

 complete predicate. In the second sentence 

 quoted above, bells is the simple subject, and 

 its modifiers are the article the, the adjective 

 great and the prepositional phrase in the tower; 

 were cast is the simple predicate, modified by 

 the phrase over a hundred years ago. 



Classification of Sentences. As to meaning: 

 According to the form in which the thought is 

 expressed that is to say, according to whether 

 it affirms or denies a fact, asks a question, or 

 expresses command, entreaty or request a sen- 

 tence is said to be, respectively, declarative, 

 interrogative or imperative. Thus, Bells ring 

 is a declarative sentence the /commonest of all 

 sentence forms. Do you hear the bells? is an 

 interrogative sentence. Listen to the bells is an 

 imperative sentence. In the interrogative form 

 the predicate, either in whole or in part, gen- 

 erally precedes the subject. 



Some grammarians include a fourth classifica- 

 tion, called the exclamatory sentence, usually 

 introduced by how or what; as How sweet those 

 bells sound from this distance! This is really 

 not a separate class, however, as any of the 

 other three forms may be used in an exclama- 

 tory way. For example, The bells are sounding 

 the alarm! illustrates the use of a declarative 

 sentence as an exclamation. Similarly with in- 

 terrogative and imperative sentences; as, Will 

 you listen to those bells! Hear those bells! 



As to structure: With respect to its gram- 

 matical structure, a 'sentence may be simple, 

 compound, complex or complex-compound. 

 The distinctions are as follows : 



