ΕΠΕΑ ΠΤΕΡΟΕΝΤΑ, &c. PART I. CHAP. I. OF THE DIVISION, OR DISTRIBUTION OF LANGUAGE. H. THE purpose of Language is to communicate our thoughts B. You do not mention this, I hope, as fomething new, or wherein you differ from others? H. You are too hasty with me. No. But I mention it as that principle, which, being kept fingly in contemplation, has misled all those who have reasoned on this subject. B. Is it not true then? H. I think it is. And that on which the whole matter refts. B. And yet the confining themselves to this true principle, upon which the whole matter rests, has misled them! H. Indeed I think fo. B. This is curious! H. Yet I hope to convince you of it. Words are the figns of For thus they rea things. There muft fonedtherefore be as many forts of words, or parts of Speech, as there are forts of things*. The earliest inquirers into language proceeded then to fettle how many forts there * Distio rerum nota: pro rerum fpeciebus partes quotque fuas fortietur. J. C. SCALIGER de Caufis L. L. were were of things; and from thence how many forts of words, or parts of fpeech. Whilft this method of fearch Arictly prevailed, the parts of speech were very few in number: but two. At most three, or four. All things, faid they, must have names*. But there are two forts of things: 1. Res quæ permanent. 2. Res quæ fluunt. There must therefore be two forts of words or parts of Speech: viz. 1. Nota rerum quæ permanent. 2. Notæ rerum quæ fluunt. Well; but furely there are words which are neither notæ rerum permanentium, nor yet notæ rerum fluentium. What will you do with them?-We cannot tell: we can find but these two forts in rerum natura: call therefore those other words, if you will, for the prefent, particles †, or * From this moment Grammar quits the day-light; and plunges into an abyfs of utter darkness. A good convenient name for all the words which we do not understand: for as the denomination means nothing in particular, and contains no defcription, D 2 or inferior parts of speech, till we can find out what they are. Or, as we fee they are conftantly interspersed between nouns and verbs, and feem therefore in a manner to hold our speech together, fuppofe you call them conjunctions or connectives. This feems to have been the utmost progress that philofophical Grammar had made till about the time of Ariftotle, when a fourth part of fpeech was added, the definitive, or article. fcription, it will equally fuit any fhort word we may please to refer thither. There has latterly been much difpute amongst Grammarians concerning the ufe of this word, particle, in the divifion and diftribution of fpeech: particularly by Girard, Dangeau, the authors of the Encyclopedie, &c. In which it is fingular that they fhould all be right in their arguments against the ufe made of it by others; and all wrong, in the ufe which each of them would make of it himself. Dr. S. Johnfon adopts N. Bailey's definition of a particle-" A word unvaried by inflexion." And Locke defines particles to be "The words whereby the mind fignifies what connection it gives "to the feveral affirmations and negations, that it unites in one continued reafoning or narration." The Latin Grammarians amufe themselves with debating whether Lurdes fhould be tranflated Convintio or Conjunctio. The Danes and the Σύνδεσμος Dutch feem to have taken different fides of the question: for the Danish language terms it Bindeord, and the Dutch Köppelwoord. Here |