GRAMMAR, 



Will enable us only to present an outline 

 to our readers. Those w ho wish for further 

 information, we beg 1 to refer to the article 

 GRAMMAR, in Dr. Rees's ' Cyclopedia." 



1. Of the Noun. 



15. These words which are names of 

 things, and which can stand alone, as the 

 subject of an affirmation, are called Nouns: 

 this class-of words has two grand divisions: 

 substantives and abstract noims (8). Sub' 

 sfdiitlves are the names for substances. 

 AH names must originally have been 

 names of individuals ; the extension of the 

 application of them must, however, have 

 been immediate. The difficulty of pro- 

 ducing a great number of distinguishable 

 articulate sounds, and the operation of the 

 associative power, first led to generaliza- 

 tion; convenience, perhaps we may justly 

 say necessity, led to its extension and 

 completion. When a number of things 

 fesemble each other in some striking par- 

 ticulars, we class them together in one 

 species, and give to the spt cies a name 

 which is applicable to every individual in- 

 cluded in it. When several species agree 

 in some common properties, we refer 

 them to a higher class, which we call a 

 genus,and to the genus give a name which 

 is applicable to every species and every 

 individual included in it; and this classi- 

 fication we extend to the limits of human 

 knowledge ; and it is one of those admi- 

 rable contrivances which arc the result of 

 necessity or of casual circumstances, but 

 tvhich, being extended and perfected by 

 science, contribute essentially to the pro- 

 gress and diffusion of knowledge. But 

 though it is necessary, for the purposes 

 of communication, that many names 

 should be applicable to classes of indivi- 

 duals, it is also necessary, that there 

 should be others capable of denoting in- 

 dividuals, without the circuitous plan of 

 naming the general term, and the distin- 

 guishing qualities of the individual ; and, 

 accordingly, we find in all languages nu- 

 merous words, which apply to an indivi- 

 dual only, or, at least, are at once referred, 

 both by speaker and hearer, to an indi- 

 vidual. Those names which, when alone, 

 apply to a number of individuals, are call, 

 ed general terms, appellatives, or cummon 

 nwnvi; and those which, when alone, are 

 us.u.1 to denote particular individuals, are 

 called proper nouns. Sometimes proper 

 nouns am so applied, as to become com- 

 mon nouns, as when we say, the Caesars, 

 or the Ptolemies'. These are instances of 

 the commencement of generalization ; 

 but there is another mode of the use of 



proper nouns, tfhitih is more illustrative 

 of the processes actually adopted, in em- 

 ploying terms originally denoting an indi- 

 vidual, to denote classes of individuals, 

 who resemble him in some striking cha- 

 racteristics : thus, we say, *' the Bacons, 

 the Newtons, and the Lockes, of modern 

 times," meaning, by these terms, all those 

 individuals who have resembled Bacon, 

 Newton, or Locke, respectively, in the 

 mode and success of their investigation. 



15. Though it seems to be a very sim- 

 ple procedure, to form and appropriate 

 names to denote properties separate from 

 the other properties with which we see 

 them connected in nature, the origin and 

 appropriation of such names must have 

 been very gradual ; and the contrivances 

 which, in the natural progress of language, 

 have been adopted to designate separate 

 properties, are among the most curious 

 procedures of the art of mutual communi- 

 cation. Mr. H Tooke, who has indispu- 

 tably conducted us further towards an ac- 

 quaintance with the causes of language 

 than any other author on grammar, consi- 

 ders abstract terms as (generally speak- 

 ing) " participles or adjectives used with- 

 out any substantive to which they can be 

 joined," " Such words," he observes, 

 (Epea Pteroenta, vol. ii. p. 17.) " com- 

 pose the bulk of every language. In 

 English, those which are borrowed from 

 the Latin, French, and Italian, are easily 

 recognized, because those languages are 

 sufficiently familiar to us, and not so fami- 

 liar as our own : those from the Greek 

 are more striking, because more unusual ; 

 but those which are original in our own 

 language have been almost wholly over- 

 looked, and are quite unsuspected." A 

 large proportion of the nouns which he 

 thus traces are certainly not to be consi- 

 dered as abstract terms, according to what 

 appears to be the customary meaning of 

 that appellation, (such as view the past 

 part of voir, something seen ; tent, the past 

 participle from tendo, something stretch- 

 ed:) and others certainly require more 

 explanation than he has thought right to 

 give (for instance providence, prudence, 

 innocence, and all the rest of the tribe of 

 qualities in ence and ance, which he con- 

 siders as the neuter plurals of the present 

 participles of videre, nocere, &c. without 

 shewing us why things foreseeing, or thing* 

 not hurting, have acquired the force of the 

 above words :) but a considerable num- 

 ber of his derivations are very satisfactory, 

 and give great insight into the procedures 

 of language. A few may be adduced as 

 a specimen of his etymologies. Skill is 

 the past participle of the Anglo-Sax&n 





