conquest had been attended with disorders.-Hume. regular government, The peasants, men women, La Vendée met death general the most heroic courage.-Innumerable instances heroism occurred the female sufferers.-Alison. Adjectives profit disprofit need prepositions to mark their the things benefited hurt; hurtful connexion He departed crop; good steered boldly the health.-James Mill. Syracuse the the Morea the 25th July, that dangerous passage, the Straits of Messina, and having received intelligence Greece that the French fleet had been seen four weeks before, steering to the south-east from Candia, he determined to return Alexandria.-Alison. 5. State what part of speech is required to fill up the following blanks, and assign the reason before giving the exact word required : The Russians never originate carry on. Passion never contest, are ready to them anticipate the period powers with whom they the making even action; success never relaxes the sinews of preparation. So for- any 182. Derivation is that part of Etymology which traces words to their original form and signification. 183. The ideas attached to words are, with a few trifling exceptions,* purely arbitrary and conventional; arbitrary, there being no reason, for instance, why the sound represented by the combination of letters fir e, should suggest the idea of heat, while that of ic e, should give the notion of cold; and conventional, the idea appropriated to each being affixed only by tacit consent. From this principle it follows, that the real import of any word can be ascertained only by induction, that is, by observing the common idea which it suggests in every different position that it may occupy. Some, indeed, have affirmed, that in order to ascertain with precision the philosophical import of a word, it is necessary to trace its progress historically, through all the successive meanings it has been employed to convey, from the moment that it was first introduced into the language; and others, not content with this, prosecute their etymological research till they arrive at the literal and primitive sense of the root from which it springs. But it may well be doubted if such a course of procedure is followed by any substantial benefit proportionate to the labour which it imposes on the student; and one thing is certain, that an appeal to etymology from use is altogether nugatory, and displays an utter ignorance of the nature and function of words. The derivation or pedigree of a word will by no means universally lead to its real meaning. Horne Tooke and his followers have employed themselves in tracing words to their sources, and with wonderful success; but their speculations, however interesting in some respects, are almost useless, as far as the grammar of our language is concerned; and, certainly, though that school of philologists should succeed to their utmost desire in * 66 The sort of exceptions referred to will be understood by the following quotation from Blair's Lectures :-" Wherever objects were to be named, in which sound, noise, or motion were (?) concerned, the imitation by words was abundantly obvious. Nothing was more natural than to imitate, by the sound of the voice, the quality of the sound or noise which any external object made; and to form its name accordingly. Thus, in all languages, we find a multitude of words that are evidently constructed upon this principle. A certain bird is termed cuckoo from the sound which it emits. When one sort of wind is said to whistle, and another to roar; when a serpent is said to hiss, a fly to buzz, and falling timber to crash; when a stream is said to flow, and hail to rattle, the analogy between the word and the thing signified is plainly discernible."-Lecture VI. Rise and Progress of Language. chasing every word now in use up to some Icelandic or Gothic origin, it would in no way interfere with the present structure of the English tongue. It may be very interesting to trace our language from the period when it was only the rude jargon of wandering hordes of savages, down to the present time, when it is capable of expressing with precision the minutest distinctions of the metaphysician or the most glowing conceptions of the poet; but it belongs rather to the philologist to enter on such investigations than the grammarian. Still, some ground is common to both, and it is necessary to say a few words on the subject. 184. Words may be divided into three classes, Primitive, Derivative, and Compound. 185. A Primitive word is one not derived from any other word in the language; as, man, school, boy. 186. A Derivative word is made up of one significant word and some termination that modifies its meaning; as, scholar, boyish, manly. 187. A Compound word is one made up of two words, each of which, taken by itself, is significant; as, schoolman, mankind, seaboy. Compound words are not represented by all writers in the same manner. Some would compound the two words fire wood into one, firewood; others would keep them quite distinct, fire wood, where the first appears to act the part of an adjective to the second; and a third set would unite the two words by means of a hyphen, fire-wood. 188. The bulk of the English language is Anglo-Saxon, and so are the forms of its grammar. Estimating the number of words at present in use in the English language at forty thousand, twenty-three thousand of these are Saxon. They are the most numerous and the most used. They are such as, good, bad, sea, run, wise, go, rise, hand, eye, &c. A considerable number of its words, however, are from the Latin, and not a few from the Greek, both as entire words, and as parts of words or prefixes.* The following is a list It is considered quite essential that the pupil make himself master of the most important of the Latin and Greek roots which have been adopted into our language. Lists of these are to be found in many recent publications, but throughout this chapter on derivation, it is taken for granted that the pupil has in his hand," Reid's English Dictionary," a most excellent work, and one which supplies a desideratum long felt in schools. of the Prefixes, together with examples of the manner in which they enter into combination with other words. LATIN PREFIXES. A, ab, or abs, from; as, avert, to turn from; absolve, to loose from; abstract, to draw from. Ad, to; as, adhere, to stick to ; advert, adduce, adjoin, adverb. De, down; as, destroy, demolish, decline, deject. Di or dis, asunder; as, divert, dissolve, diverge, divest. Extra, beyond; as, extraordinary, extravagant. In, in or into; as, inject, invade, inhale, illuminate imprint. Juxta, nigh to; as, juxtaposition. Ob, in the way of; as, obstruct, obstacle, object, obtuse. Post, after; as, postpone, postdiluvian, posthumous. Retro, backward (implying motion); as, retrograde, retrospect. Sub, under; as, sublunary, subterranean, subscribe, subordinate. Super, above; as, superinduce, superfluous, supernumerary. Trans, across; as, transport, transatlantic, transplant. GREEK PREFIXES. A, without; as, anomalous, amorphous, apathy, abyss. Cata, down; as, catastrophe, cataract, catalogue, catechism. Para, near to; as, paraphrase, paragraph, parable. AFFIXES. 189. It is not so easy to trace the Affixes to their original meaning, as they now seldom retain any signification when taken by themselves, but are used merely to modify other words. We shall present a few of them with examples. |