The Grammar of English Grammars, Goold Brown [ebook reader for manga txt] 📗

ane, an, ONE; and, by dropping n before a consonant, becomes a. Gawin Douglas, an ancient English writer, wrote ane, even before a consonant; as, "Ane book,"—"Ane lang spere,"—"Ane volume." OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—The words of Tooke, concerning the derivation of That and The, as nearly as they can be given in our letters, are these: "THAT (in the Anglo-Saxon Thæt, i.e. Thead, Theat) means taken, assumed; being merely the past participle of the Anglo-Saxon verb Thean, Thegan, Thion, Thihan, Thicgan, Thigian; sumere, assumere, accipere; to THE, to get, to take, to assume.

    'Ill mote he THE That caused me
    To make myselfe a frere.'—Sir T. More's Workes, pag. 4.

THE (our article, as it is called) is the imperative of the same verb Thean: which may very well supply the place of the correspondent Anglo-Saxon article Se, which is the imperative of Seon, videre: for it answers the same purpose in discourse, to say…. see man, or take man."—Diversions of Purley, Vol. ii, p. 49.

OBS. 2.—Now, between Thæt and Theat, there is a considerable difference of form, for æ and ea are not the same diphthong; and, in the identifying of so many infinitives, as forming but one verb, there is room for error. Nor is it half so probable that these are truly one root, as that our article The is the same, in its origin, as the old Anglo-Saxon Se. Dr. Bosworth, in his Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, gives no such word as Thean or Thegan, no such participle as Thead or Theat, which derivative is perhaps imaginary; but he has inserted together "Thicgan, thicgean, thigan, to receive, or take;" and separately, "Theon, to thrive, or flourish,"—"Thihan, to thrive,"—and "Thion, to flourish;" as well as the preterit "Theat, howled," from "Theotan, to howl." And is it not plain, that the old verb "THE," as used by More, is from Theon, to thrive, rather than from Thicgan, to take? "Ill mote he THE"—"Ill might he thrive," not, "Ill might he take."

OBS. 3.—Professor Hart says, "The word the was originally thæt, or that. In course of time [,] it became abbreviated, and the short form acquired, in usage, a shade of meaning different from the original long one. That is demonstrative with emphasis; the is demonstrative without emphasis."—Hart's E. Grammar, p. 32. This derivation of The is quite improbable; because the shortening of a monosyllable of five letters by striking out the third and the fifth, is no usual mode of abbreviation. Bosworth's Dictionary explains THE as "An indeclinable article, often used for all the cases of Se, seo, thæt, especially in adverbial expressions and in corrupt Anglo-Saxon, as in the Chronicle after the year 1138."

OBS. 4—Dr. Latham, in a section which is evidently neither accurate nor self-consistent, teaches us—"that there exist in the present English two powers of the word spelled t-h-e, or of the so-called definite article;" then, out of sixteen Anglo-Saxon equivalents, he selects two for the roots of this double-powered the; saying, "Hence the the that has originated out of the Anglo-Saxon thy is one word; whilst the the that has originated out of the Anglo-Saxon the, [is] another. The latter is the common article: the former the the in expressions like all the more, all the better—more by all that, better by all that, and the Latin phrases eo majus, eo melius."—Latham's Hand-Book, p. 158. This double derivation is liable to many objections. The Hand-Book afterwards says, "That the, in expressions like all the more, all the better, &c., is no article, has already been shown."—P. 196. But in fact, though the before comparatives or superlatives be no article, Dr. Latham's etymologies prove no such thing; neither does he anywhere tell us what it is. His examples, too, with their interpretations, are all of them fictitious, ambiguous, and otherwise bad. It is uncertain whether he meant his phrases for counterparts to each other or not. If the means "by that," or thereby, it is an adverb; and so is its equivalent "eo" denominated by the Latin grammarians. See OBS. 10, under Rule I.

SECTION II.—DERIVATION OF NOUNS.

In English, Nouns are derived from nouns, from adjectives, from verbs, or from participles.

I. Nouns are derived from Nouns in several different ways:—

1. By the adding of ship, dom, ric, wick, or, ate, hood, or head: as, fellow, fellowship; king, kingdom; bishop, bishopric; bailiff, or baily, bailiwick; senate, senator; tetrarch, tetrarchate; child, childhood; God, Godhead. These generally denote dominion, office, or character.

2. By the adding of ian: as, music, musician; physic, physician; theology, theologian; grammar, grammarian; college, collegian. These generally denote profession.

3. By the adding of r, ry, or ery: as, grocer, grocery; cutler, cutlery; slave, slavery; scene, scenery; fool, foolery. These sometimes denote state or habit; sometimes, an artificer's wares or shop.

4. By the adding of age or ade: as, patron, patronage; porter, porterage; band, bandage; lemon, lemonade; baluster, balustrade; wharf, wharfage; vassal, vassalage.

5. By the adding of kin, let, ling, ock, el, erel, or et: as, lamb, lambkin; ring, ringlet; cross, crosslet; duck, duckling; hill, hillock; run, runnel; cock, cockerel; pistol, pistolet; eagle, eaglet; circle, circlet. All these denote little things, and are called diminutives.

6. By the addition of ist: as, psalm, psalmist; botany, botanist; dial, dialist; journal, journalist. These denote persons devoted to, or skilled in, the subject expressed by the primitive.

7. By the prefixing of an adjective, or an other noun, so as to form a compound word: as, foreman, broadsword, statesman, tradesman; bedside, hillside, seaside; bear-berry, bear-fly, bear-garden; bear's-ear, bear's-foot, goat's-beard.

8. By the adoption of a negative prefix to reverse the meaning: as, order, disorder; pleasure, displeasure; consistency, inconsistency; capacity, incapacity; observance, nonobservance; resistance, nonresistance; truth, untruth; constraint, unconstraint.

9. By the use of the prefix counter, signifying against or opposite: as, attraction, counter-attraction; bond, counter-bond; current, counter-current; movement, counter-movement.

10. By the addition of ess, ix, or ine, or the changing of masculines to feminines so terminating: as, heir, heiress; prophet, prophetess; abbot, abbess; governor, governess; testator, testatrix; hero, heroine.

II. Nouns are derived from Adjectives in several different ways:—

1. By the adding of ness, ity, ship, dom, or hood: as, good, goodness; real, reality; hard, hardship; wise, wisdom; free, freedom; false, falsehood.

2. By the changing of t into ce or cy: as, radiant, radiance; consequent, consequence; flagrant, flagrancy; current, currency; discrepant, discrepance, or discrepancy.

3. By the changing of some of the letters, and the adding of t or th: as, long, length; broad, breadth; wide, width; high, height. The nouns included under these three heads, generally denote abstract qualities, and are called abstract nouns.

4. By the adding of ard: as, drunk, drunkard; dull, dullard. These denote ill character.

5. By the adding of ist: as, sensual, sensualist; separate, separatist; royal, royalist; fatal, fatalist. These denote persons devoted, addicted, or attached, to something.

6. By the adding of a, the Latin ending of neuter plurals, to certain proper adjectives in an: as, Miltonian, Miltoniana; Johnsonian, Johnsoniana. These literally mean, Miltonian things, sayings, or anecdotes, &c.; and are words somewhat fashionable with the journalists, and are sometimes used for titles of books that refer to table-talk.

III. Nouns are derived from Verbs in several different ways:—

1. By the adding of ment, ance, ence, ure, or age: as, punish, punishment; abate, abatement; repent, repentance; condole, condolence; forfeit, forfeiture; stow, stowage; equip, equipage; truck, truckage.

2. By a change of the termination of the verb, into se, ce, sion, tion, ation, or ition: as, expand, expanse, expansion; pretend, pretence, pretension; invent, invention; create, creation; omit, omission; provide, provision; reform, reformation; oppose, opposition. These denote either the act of doing, or the thing done.

3. By the adding of er or or: as, hunt, hunter; write, writer; collect, collector; assert, assertor; instruct, instructer, or instructor. These generally denote the doer. To denote the person to whom something is done, we sometimes form a derivative ending in ee: as, promisee, mortgagee, appellee, consignee.

4. Nouns and Verbs are sometimes alike in orthography, but different in pronunciation: as, a house, to house; a use, to use; a reb'el, to rebel'; a rec'ord, to record'; a cem'ent, to cement'. Of such pairs, it may often be difficult to say which word is the primitive.

5. In many instances, nouns and verbs are wholly alike as to form and sound, and are distinguished by their sense and construction only: as, love, to love; fear, to fear; sleep, to sleep;—to revise, a revise; to rebuke, a rebuke. In these, we have but the same word used differently.

IV. Nouns are often derived from Participles in ing; as, a meeting, the understanding, murmurings, disputings, sayings, and doings: and, occasionally, one is formed from such a word and an adverb or a perfect participle joined with it; as, "The turning-away,"—"His goings-forth,"—"Your having-boasted of it."

SECTION III.—DERIVATION OF ADJECTIVES.

In English, Adjectives are derived from nouns, from adjectives, from verbs, or from participles.

I. Adjectives are derived from Nouns in several different ways:—

1. By the adding of ous, ious, eous, y, ey, ic, al, ical or ine: (sometimes with an omission or change of some of the final letters:) as, danger, dangerous; glory, glorious; right, righteous; rock, rocky; clay, clayey; poet, poetic, or poetical; nation, national; method, methodical; vertex, vertical; clergy, clerical; adamant, adamantine. Adjectives thus formed, generally apply the properties of their primitives, to the nouns to which they relate.

2. By the adding of ful: as, fear, fearful; cheer, cheerful; grace, graceful; shame, shameful; power, powerful. These come almost entirely from personal qualities or feelings, and denote abundance.

3. By the adding of some: as, burden, burdensome; game, gamesome; toil, toilsome. These denote plenty, but do not exaggerate.

4. By the adding of en: as, oak, oaken; silk, silken; wheat, wheaten; oat, oaten; hemp, hempen. Here the derivative denotes the matter of which something is made.

5. By the adding of ly or ish: as, friend, friendly; gentleman, gentlemanly; child, childish; prude, prudish. These denote resemblance. The termination ly signifies like.

6. By the adding of able or ible: as, fashion, fashionable; access, accessible. But these terminations are generally, and more properly, added to verbs. See Obs. 17th, 18th, &c., on the Rules for Spelling.

7. By the adding of less: as, house, houseless; death, deathless; sleep, sleepless; bottom, bottomless. These denote privation or exemption—the absence of what is named by the primitive.

8. By the adding of ed: as, saint, sainted; bigot, bigoted; mast, masted; wit, witted. These have a resemblance to participles, and some of them are rarely used, except when joined with some other word to form a compound adjective: as, three-sided, bare-footed, long-eared, hundred-handed, flat-nosed, hard-hearted, marble-hearted, chicken-hearted.

9. Adjectives coming from proper names, take various terminations: as, America, American; England, English; Dane, Danish; Portugal, Portuguese; Plato, Platonic.

10. Nouns are often converted into adjectives, without change of termination: as, paper currency; a gold chain; silver knee-buckles.

II. Adjectives are derived from Adjectives in several different ways:—

1. By the adding of ish or some: as, white, whitish; green, greenish; lone, lonesome; glad, gladsome. These denote quality with some diminution.

2. By the prefixing of dis, in, or un: as, honest, dishonest; consistent, inconsistent; wise, unwise. These express a negation of the quality denoted by their primitives.

3. By the adding of y or ly: as, swarth, swarthy; good, goodly. Of these there are but few; for almost all the derivatives of the latter form are adverbs.

III. Adjectives are derived from Verbs in several different ways:—

1. By the adding of able or ible: (sometimes with a change of some of the final letters:) as, perish, perishable; vary, variable; convert, convertible; divide, divisible, or dividable. These, according to their analogy, have usually a passive import, and denote susceptibility of receiving action. 2. By the adding of ive or ory: (sometimes with a change of some of the final letters:) as, elect, elective; interrogate, interrogative, interrogatory; defend, defensive; defame, defamatory; explain, explanatory.

3. Words ending in ate, are mostly verbs; but some of them may be employed as adjectives, in the same form, especially in poetry; as, reprobate, complicate.

IV. Adjectives are derived from Participles, not by suffixes, but in these ways:—

1. By the prefixing of un, meaning not; as, unyielding, unregarded, unreserved, unendowed, unendeared, unendorsed, unencountered, unencumbered, undisheartened, undishonoured. Of this sort there are very many.

2. By a combining of the participle with some word which does not belong to the verb; as, way-faring, hollow-sounding, long-drawn, deep-laid, dear-purchased, down-trodden. These, too, are numerous.

3. Participles often become adjectives without change of form. Such adjectives are distinguished from participles by their construction alone: as, "A lasting ornament;"—"The starving chymist;"—"Words of learned length;"—"With counterfeited glee."

SECTION IV.—DERIVATION OF THE PRONOUNS.

I. The English Pronouns are all of Saxon origin; but, in them, our language differs very strikingly from that of the