following are the queries which this subject sug- 
i, _ Does the verb perform any office which is pe: 
liar to itself, and is fm oe to every a ch, 
om in the present practice of grammarians, receives the ap- 
n of verb? Are ee feo of coinci- 
than one in the appli of the various forms 
of the verb? Is this coincidence in office strictly uni- 
versal? Or are these different offices sometimes united 
in one prone. oa remap only one of them is perform- 
re 
ed by others? the offices performed by the respec~ 
tive words called verbs thus different among them- 
selves? there any functions common to the verb 
with some other parts of though more advanta- 
rand more frequently performed by verbs than 
; By thes others Does this circumstance render it ad- 
visable in any instance to retain the name of verb, even 
while the office performed by it is not peculiar? Or 
t scientific accuracy to coneur with convenience in 
_ leading us to alter in this instance the nomenclature of 
the parts of speech? These questions can only be an- 
ewered by rte gee the nature and use of every 
sort of word which, in the habitual language of gram~ 
marians, is denominated a verb, and making a com- 
lensive survey of their applications, in order to as~ 
~ gign to all of them respectively their just rank in uni- 
versal . We tenho che co rer 
cussion of the leading problem implied in title 
____ the present Section, oy leave the reply to be gradually 
— ed-in' the —e this Chapter. 9 
One important of the verb, the imperative, cre 
ated by the earliest occasions for the invention of lan~ 
' , has already come under our notice. We have 
found imperatives to be the shortest of all words, and 
to consist of the roots from which the greater part of 
- other words derive their origin. But, since we have 
considered all language as imperative, that subject does 
not forman appropriate commencement to our Inquiries 
into the iar nature of the verb ; and in fact it 
scarcely 
already ma 
uires any additional observations to those 
on it. Many verbs from their — 
do not admit of direct imperatives, (to wit, those which 
do not signify the voluntary acts of mankind, ) yet pos+ 
sess many forms in:common with active verbs. 
_ We shall first consider those forms of the verb which 
are subservient to affirmation, or, as it has been some- 
times termed, predication, for the sake of including ne- 
gations. 
Sect. Il. Verbs as subservient to Assertion. 
jon a © Assertion or affirmation is the act peculiar to the 
t verb, being never performed by any word which gram- 
2, marians have referred to a different part of speech. 
, That part ofthe verb by which itis most evidently and 
most frequently performed is called the Indicative. By 
means of it we convey! information. This, though not 
the original object of language, is by far the most fre- 
quent application of it, especially in an improved state 
of society. It from that great characteristic 
of our species, the love of knowledge, implying an in- 
clination to convey it to each other. It is by means 
of affirmation that language becomes the instrument of 
the most pe RL ea in human thought 
ie and in the character of society. An inquiry into its na- 
| __— ture must therefore throw considerable light both on 
| thought and on language. 
itureof ~ In affirming, we connect different ideas together, and 
. thus dictate an arrangement which we wish such ideas 
to assume in the mind of the person addressed. To this 
GRAMMAR. 
419 
object a particular part of speee is devoted; butthat Univeral 
part of speech often. consists of a word which containg a Granwar. 
sign of various other ideas. When we say “the man ““Y"™” 
walks,” the word “ walks’? contains the name of a par- 
ticular motion, at the same time that it expresses a con- 
nection betwixt that motion and the object denoted by 
‘the man.” _ Mr Tooke considers the verb as contain- 
ing a noun and something more ; and he proposes it as a 
question worthy of the attention of philosophers, what 
is that circumstance which, when added to a noun or the 
name of an idea, makes it a verb? The answer to this, in 
so far as the indicative is concernéd, is, that it contains a 
sign of asserted connection betwixt the object express- 
ed by that noun or name and some other object which 
is also mentioned in the sentence. But we have other 
signs of connection which are never considered as giving 
a word the nature of a verb. The genitive case implies a 
sign of connection betwixt the object expressed in that 
case and some other; the adjective performs a similar 
office ; but there is a difference betwixt these signs of 
bs epg and that implied in the indicative of the 
verb. 
The nature of these two sorts of signs, and the diffe- Analysis of 
rence betwixt them, will be most clearly perceived sentences of 
attending to the structure of those languages which ®¢tton, 
enable us to resolve the indicative of every verb into its 
constituent parts by affording distinct signs for each. 
In English the man walks” may be resolved into this 
sentence “ the man is walking.” The termination ing 
implies a connection similar to that expressed by. the 
genitive case or by the adjective, while the word is gives 
the sentence the character of assertion, and fits it or 
conveying new information. 
For the sake of possessing appropriate terms on this 
part of the subject, it will be convenient to borrow the 
technical language of logicians, who call a sentence a 
ition; consisting of three parts, a subject, a predi~ 
cate, anda la. In such a sentence as we have now 
mentioned; each of these parts is expressed by a sepa- 
rate sign, “ ‘The man” is the subject, « walking” the 
predicate, and. “ is” the copula. The author of Gram~ 
mar in Dr Rees’s Cyclopedia maintains that “is” does 
not express assertion but connection. Connection, how- 
ever, is often expressed by words of very different im 
port’: therefore that term is less appropriate to the co« 
pula than assertion. 
Sect. III. The Substantive Verb. 
Tue copula has been denominated the Substantive 
Verb, and it undergoes:a variety of changes, called in« 
flections, corresponding to the changes incident to other 
verbs. 
The radical-nature and) common use of this verb is: Mr Harris's 
not, as Mr Harris supposes, to express existence, but account of 
to assert a’ connection betwixt one object and another, the substan. 
The author now mentioned has been unfortunate in-his “¥¢ ver 
tnode of. describing the use of this verb. He»pro- 
nounces it an undoubted axiom, that “an object must 
first ne, before it can be ANY THING ELsE.;” an opinion 
in all points of view untenable. In the first place, it 
is not necessary that the subject spoken of should have 
an actual-existence.. Wecan ren of supposed as well 
as-of existing objects. In the next place, an assertion 
that any object which has existence 1s something. else, 
implies an absurdity.x—What then is an assertion? 
Do we by means of it assert an object to be the same 
that is implied in the term used for an introductory 
designation? This ismot the case; it. would form an 
