that they are necessary. They are thrown into discourse interjecta, in order to intimate some sudden feeling or emotion of the mind; and any one of them may comprehend the import of an entire sentence : alas, I am sorry; strange, I am surprised; fye, I hate it, I dislike it. They are well enough described and divided in any common grammar; but a little more minutely perhaps than was requisite. Laughter is not speech, but a natural and inarticulate convulsion universally understood; and, therefore, that mark in writing which denotes it can be no part of speech. And as to interjections of imprecation, I cannot admit that in language they are either necessary or useful.-The Greeks referred interjections to the class of adverbs; but they are of a nature totally different; and therefore the Latins did better in making them a separate rart of speech.-To express our feelings by interjections is often natural: but too many of them, either in speech or writing, have a bad effect. 90. All the sorts of words hitherto considered have each of them some meaning, even when taken separate. But there are other words, as from, but; a, the; which taken separately signify nothing. The two first of these are necessary in language; the other two are rather useful than necessary: the former are called connectives; the latter, articles or definitives. Connectives are of two sorts, prepositions, which connect words, and conjunctions, which connect sentences. 91. OF PREPOSITIONS. A preposition is a sort of word, which of itself has no signification, but which has the power of uniting such words, as the rules of a language, or the nature of things, would not allow to be united in any other way. When prepositions are thus employed in uniting words, they have signification: like cyphers in arithmetic, which taken separately mean nothing, but when joined to numbers have a very important meaning. And the same thing is true of conjunctions and articles. If I say, came town, I join two words, which the rules of our language will not permit to unite so as to make sense. But if I take a preposition, and say, he came to town, or he came from town, I speak good sense and good grammar. : 92. Every body has seen a list of prepositions, and knows how they are used in syntax. They all express some circumstance relating to place, as at, with, by, from, before, behind, beyond, over, under, &c. but in a figurative sense most of them are also used to express other relations than those of place. Thus we say, he rules over the people, he serves under such a commander, he will do nothing beneath his character, gratitude beyond expression, &c. They are sometimes prefixed to a word, so as to form a part of it; in which case they often, but not always, give it something of their own signification. Thus, to undervalue is to rate a thing under or within its value; to overcome is to subdue, for men must be subdued before they allow others to go or come over them: but to understand does not mean to stand under, but to comprehend mentally; to undergo means, not to go under, but to bear, or suf fer.-An English preposition often changes the meaning of a verb by being put after it. To cast, is to throw ; but to cast up may signify, to calcu late: to give, is to bestow, but to give over, to cease or abandon to give up, to resign: to give out, to publish, or proclaim, &c. 93. Some prepositions appear in the beginning of words, but never stand by themselves, and are therefore called inseparable. Of these there are five or six in Latin, and about twice as many in English. Separable prepositions are not a numerous class of words. In Latin there are about forty-five; in Greek eighteen; and in English between thirty and forty. But some prepositions have many dif ferent meanings. The English of has upwards of twelve; from has at least twenty; and for has no fewer than thirty. See Johnson's Dictionary. 94. In the modern languages of Europe, prepositions prefixed to nouns supply the want of cases; of man, to man, with man, being the same with ho minis, homini, homine. The English genitive is sometimes distinguished by subjoining s to the noun, as man's life, hominis vita; and some of our pronouns have an oblique case, as I which has me, thou which has thee, she which has her, &c. With these and a few other exceptions, we may affirm that there are no cases in the English tongue; and the same thing is true of some other tongues. Hence we infer, that cases, though in Greek and Latin very important, and a source of much elegance, are not essential to language. 95. OF CONJUNCTIONS. A conjunction unites two or more sentences in one, and sometimes marks the dependence of one sentence upon another. If I say, he is good and he is wise, I unite two sentenses in one if I say, he is good because he is wise, I unite two sentences as before, and also mark the dependence of the one, as a cause, upon the other, as an effect. Conjunctions sometimes seem to unite single words; but, when that is the case, each of the words so united will be found to have the import of a sentence. When it is said, Peter and John went to the temple, there is the full meaning of two sentences, because there are two affirmations, Peter went to the temple, John went to the temple. 96. Some conjunctions, while they connect sentences, do also connect their meanings, making one as it were a continuation of the other; as, he went because he was ordered: these are called conjunctive. Others, termed disjunctive, connect sentences, while they seem to disjoin their meanings, and set, as it were, one part of a sentence in opposition to another as, Socrates was wise, but Alcibiades was not. Each sort admits of subdivisions, which are sufficiently explained in the common Latin grammars. 97. Of THE ARTICLE. When a thing occurs, which has no proper name, or whose proper name we know not, or do not choose to mention, we, in VOL. I. D speaking of it, refer it to its species, and call it man, horse, tree, &c. or to its genus, and call it animal, quadruped, vegetable, &c. But the thing itself is neither a genus nor a species, but an individual. To show, therefore, that it is an individual, we prefix an article, and call it a man, a horse, a tree, &c. If this individual be unknown, or perceived now for the first time, or if we choose to speak of it as unknown, we prefix what is called the indefinite article, and say, here comes a man, I see an ox: and this article coincides nearly in signification with the word one. The French, and many other nations, have a like contrivance. But, in the case now supposed, the Greeks would prefix no article: a man comes is in Greek άνηρ ερχεται. If the individual be known to us, or if we choose to speak of it so as to intimate some previous acquaintance with it, we prefix the definite article, the, as the Greeks. did theirò; the man comes, avg Epxeтai. A ανηρ έρχεται. correspondent article is found in French, Italian, Hebrew, and most other cultivated languages, the Latin excepted. 98. That which is very eminent is supposed to be generally known: which is also the case with those things and persons, whether eminent or not, which are nearly connected with us, or which we frequently see and therefore to the names of such things or persons we sometimes prefix the same definite article. A king is any king; but the king is the person whom we acknowledge for our sovereign. |