9 1 Additional Notes. 



I. Conjunctions and Prepositions. 



The first class of words consists of tliose, which suggest but one 

 idea, and suffer no change of termination; which have been termed 

 by grammarians CONJUNCTIONS and PREPOSITIONS; the former of 

 which connect sentences, and the latter words. Both which have 

 been ingeniously explained by Mr. Home Tooke from their etymology 

 to be abbreviations of other modes of expression. 



1. Thus the conjunction z/"and an, are shown by Mr. Tooke to be 

 derived from the imperative mood of the verbs to give and to grant; 

 but both of these conjunctions by long use appear to have become 

 the name of a more abstracted idea, than the words give or grant 

 suggest, as they do not now express any ideas of person, or of num- 

 ber, or of time; all which are generally attendant upon the meaning 

 of a verb; and perhaps all tbe words of this class are the names of 

 ideas much abstracted, which has caused the difficulty of explaining 

 them. 



2. The number of Prepositions is very great m the English lan- 

 guage, as they are used before the cases of nouns, and the infinitive 

 mood of verbs, instead of the numerous changes of termination of the 

 nouns and verbs of the Greek and Latin; which gives greater sim- 

 plicity to our language, and greater facility of acquiring it. 



The prepositions, as well as the preceding conjunctions, have been 

 well explained by Mr. Home Tooke; who has developed the etymo- 

 logy of many of them. As the greatest number of the ideas, we 

 receive from external objects, are complex ones, the names of these 

 constitute a great part of language, as the proper names of persons 

 and places; which are complex terms. Now as these complex terms 

 do not always exactly suggest the quantity of combined ideas we 

 mean to express, some of the prepositions are prefixed to them to add 

 or to deduct something, or to limit their general meaning; as a house 

 with a party wall, or a house without a roof. These words are also 

 derived by Mr. Tooke, as abbreviations of the imperative moods of 

 verbs; but which appear now to suggest ideas further abstracted than 

 those generally suggested by verbs, and are all of them properly 

 nouns, or names of ideas. 



