CHAMBERS' EDUCATIONAL COURSE-CLASSICAL SECTION GRAMMAR OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE. BY DR LEONHARD SCHMITZ, F.R.S.E., RECTOR OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH. WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1862. PREFACE. A GRAMMAR is a classified collection of the rules or laws regulating the language of which it professes to be an exposition. Every language is subject to changes, either for the better or for the worse; and although in the case of a dead language a grammarian must consider and illustrate it mainly as it was at the time of its most perfect development, still he cannot avoid taking into consideration the earlier and later forms of words and expressions, for in many instances the language in its perfect state cannot be fully explained without recourse being had to those forms of speech out of which it has arisen. Very great advantages may also be derived, especially in the etymological part, from a comparison of the language under consideration with its sister tongues, or with its mother tongue, where the existence of this is certain. But in a grammar for young people, such comparisons must be in a great measure useless; and all that can be done with advantage, is to apply to the language under consideration such principles as may have been established by comparative philology. As a grammarian has only to classify and explain the phenomena or facts of the language which are generally known, he has little to add of his own; and that which principally distinguishes him from his predecessors is the arrangement of, and the manner in which he states and explains the facts. In this alone consist his merits or demerits. As regards arrangement, the present Grammar does not lay much claim to novelty; the author has purposely abstained from making any material alteration in the arrangement usually adopted in grammars for schools, partly because he thinks that such alterations as have recently been introduced in school grammars are little calculated to benefit the learner, and partly because he is of opinion that sound information can be given without obliging the teacher to abandon the order to which he has been accustomed from his youth, and which he may not always be able or willing to abandon. In the manner in which he has stated and explained the phenomena of the Latin language, the author hopes to have performed his task so as to satisfy the reasonable demands of intelligent teachers; for he has endeavoured not only to express the facts in the most concise and perspicuous manner, but also, as far as it was possible, to explain and give reasons for the facts so stated. This may perhaps be objectionable to those who are in the habit of making their pupils repeat rules from grammars without concern as to whether the rules are understood or not. But for such teachers the present Grammar is not intended, for the author never contemplated that all the rules should be committed to memory verbatim-a process which but too often leaves the pupils, at the end of their scholastic career, as ignorant, and their minds as untrained to think, as they were at the beginning. The pupil should be led, by frequent repetition, to impress the substance of the rules upon his mind, and to understand and comprehend them by frequent application. This remark applies more especially to the rules of Syntax, for there is no way of mastering the declensions and conjugations without fully committing them to memory. Many also may object to the fact, that the old terminology, such as imperfect, pluperfect, &c. has been retained, although it is faulty and incorrect. The author fully admits that the ordinary grammatical terminology is anything but correct or perfect; but in what science or art is it otherwise? Do the words epic, lyric, idyl, satire, accurately define the kinds of poetry understood by them? Assuredly not; and yet who objects to them? The fact is, that we know what is meant by those terms, not from their strict etymological meaning, but from the notions which we have been taught to associate with them. It is customary in some grammars to introduce elaborate discussions concerning the meaning of certain particles, and the mninute differences between two or three of similar meaning; but as these are matters which, properly speaking, belong to a dictionary, all such explanations have been here avoided. In preparing the present treatise, the writer has availed himself, as far as he thought it compatible with his own design, of the larger works of Ramshorn, Zumpt, Key, and Madvig; and to the last-mentioned author especially he is indebted for many valuable suggestions, and for many of the examples quoted in illustration of the rules. The more important rules are printed in large type, and those of less importance-exceptions to general rules, and peculiarities of poetic diction, and the like-are printed in small type, to enable the teacher and learner at a glance to see what is essential, and what not, PREFACE TO PRESENT EDITION. THE present edition has undergone a rigid examination by Dr SCHMITZ, who, besides effecting other improvements, has brought the work down to the latest state of classical knowledge. INTRODUCTION, CONTENTS. Page 7 CHAPTER I. The Alphabet and Orthography, II. Quantity and Accentuation of Syllables, XXII. Conjugation by Periphrasis or Circumlocution, XXIII. Verbs of the First Conjugation Forming their Perfect and Supine Differently from the General Rule, XXIV. Verbs of the Second Conjugation Forming their Per- fect and Supine Differently from the General Rule, 124 XXV. Verbs of the Third Conjugation Forming their Perfect and Supine Differently from the General Rule, 127 |