cedo. Why should this be differently represented in the two words? Sovereign has been spelt thus owing to a mistaken idea that it comes from reign. It should be sovran. Therefore should be therefor.]

2. Give examples of the different pronunciation of these letters :i, u, ie, ti, ch.

3. In what other ways do we represent the sounds of au in haul, o in fond, g in ginger, x in Xenophon, sc in science?

Mention words in which the following letters are written but not sounded:- p, b, gh, t, l.

5. Give illustrations from the English language (1) of the softening of the final guttural, (2) of the substitution of d for th, (3) of the loss of letters, (4) of the insertion of the letters b and d.

6. Show that the orthography and the pronunciation of several English words are at variance. Can you account for the discrepancy? [Refer to $59 and 60. Doubt, receipt, hymn, chronicle, hour, psalm, viscount, know, would be suitable examples for annotation.] 7. Give examples in English spelling of—

(1) single letters representing double sounds:

(2) two or more letters representing an indivisible sound: (3) different letters representing the same sound:

(4) the same letter representing different sounds:

(5) redundant and silent letters.

8. It is said that the introduction of a system of purely phonetic spelling would obliterate traces of the history of many of our words. Show the force of this remark in the case of the following:-chronometer, phantom, vitiate, honour, rheumatism.

9. Explain the presence of the italicised letters in the following words:-debt, wetter, pair, favour, number, rhyme, blackamoor.

IO.

Describe some of the anomalies of our modern spelling, and mention words which are not spelt uniformly by standard writers.

[A few typical examples of uncertain orthography are subjoined: add to the list. Judg(e)ment, recal(l)s, mov(e)able, benefit(t)ed, monied, dullness, civilize, favo(u)r, gallop(p)ed.]

II. In what other ways are the following words spelt in current literature?-programme, rhyme, inflexion, medieval. Can you say anything for or against them?

[Programme was borrowed from the French, not compounded (like telegram) from the Greek. Rhyme is thus spelt from a wrongly-supposed connexion with rhythm. Inflexion is the correct form, as the supinestem of the Latin flecto is flex-, not flect-.]

12. Mention some of the most important facts in the history of our Alphabet.

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CHAPTER VII.

ETYMOLOGY.

63. A language is a collection of articulate and significant sounds. If we listen to a baby, we find that his utterances consist of such sounds as ul-ul-ul, ga-ga, um-um, sounds which are merely noises, like the barking of a dog or the crowing of a cock. Significance, or meaning, they may indeed have, and the observant mother or nurse may understand that one noise is made when the baby wants his bottle and that another expresses his happiness when he has got it. But to persons outside the family circle these cries convey no more meaning than the cries of the farmyard. Articulate they certainly are not. When the baby says 'pa,' 'ma,' we remark with truth that he is beginning to talk quite nicely. Talk, speech, words, these terms point to sounds which are significant and articulate, and such sounds in English form the subject-matter with which we have to deal in English grammar. In our daily lives we commonly use words in connexion with other words to form sentences, but we can consider them by themselves, though we do not use them by themselves. The part of grammar which treats of words taken separately is called Etymology: the part which treats of words as forming portions of a sentence is called Syntax. In dealing with Etymology we shall often find it useful to cross the confines of Syntax.

64. Etymology deals with the classification of words, their derivation, and inflexion.

There are various ways of classifying words. In the dictionary we arrange them in alphabetical order; in the spelling-book we arrange them according to their number of syllables. Now as language is employed by us for the expression of our thoughts, and our thoughts are usually expressed in sentences, for the purposes of grammar we shall group the words of the language in classes according to their different functions in the sentences which we form with them to express our meaning. By 'different functions' we mean the special work accomplished by different kinds of words. The function of a pump is to raise water; of a balance to weigh things; of a noun to serve as a name of things; of a verb to make assertions about things. Small differences of function may be neglected in the classification of words, (just as we classify a machine as a pump, whether it is a force-pump or a common-pump), but we cannot usefully reduce the number of classes of words in grammar below eight, and these eight different classes we call the Parts of Speech.

65. The Parts of Speech are the classes into which the words of a language fall, when they are arranged according to their separate functions in a sentence.

The following sentence contains eight words, and the part played by every one of the eight is different:

"Oh! and was he in good health yesterday?"

Oh is an interjection, a sound expressing sudden feeling. We could omit it from the sentence without disturbing the construction: as the derivation of the name implies, it is something 'thrown in.'

And is a conjunction: it joins on the words which follow it to the previous sentence.

Was is a verb.

He is a pronoun.

In is a preposition showing that the noun health stands in a certain relation to the rest of the sentence.

Good is an adjective limiting or restricting the meaning of the word health.

Health is a noun.

Yesterday is an adverb limiting the application of the verb as regards

time.

66. In parsing a word, our first business is to refer it to its proper class among these parts of speech. The form of the word is seldom of help to us in English when we are thus engaged. It is often necessary to look to the context before we can decide in any particular case to what class the word belongs.

Thus in the sentence 'The after growth was considerable,' after is an adjective: in 'After me, the deluge,' it is a preposition: in 'Jill came tumbling after,' it is an adverb: in 'He called after you left,' it has the force of a conjunction. So again the word stone has various functions in different sentences. In 'Stone him to death,' it is a verb: in 'He threw a stone,' it is a noun: in 'This is a stone fence,' it is an adjective. Once more, the word but serves in many capacities. In 'Many are called, but few are chosen,' it is a conjunction: in 'But few are chosen,' where but signifies ‘only,' it is an adverb: in 'All but John were drowned,' where but signifies 'except,' it is a preposition: in 'There is no one but thinks you mad,' but does the work of a relative pronoun with a negative attached, 'There is no one who does not think you mad.'

67. Attempts have been made to reduce these eight parts of speech to a smaller number of groups. Thus words have been arranged in the following four divisions:

Conjunctions, between sentences. 17. Prepositions, between things.

iv. Expressing SUDDEN FEELINGS, 8. Interjections.

At our present stage there would be no advantage in

discussing this or any similar scheme in detail.

From the

purely grammatical point of view, it is more important to notice that some of the parts of speech are inflected and others are not.

68. Inflexion is a variation in the form of a word to mark a modification of its meaning. Thus -s in fathers denotes that we are speaking of more than one father: it is a sign of the plural. So -ed in walked denotes that the action occurred formerly: it is a sign of the past tense. Again, -er in taller denotes the presence of a quality in a greater degree than is implied by tall: it is a sign of comparison. Again, -ess in authoress denotes that the person to whom the name is applied is a female: it is a sign of gender. All these modifications of form,-s, ed, er, ess,-are inflexions. Sometimes we have inflexion without the addition of anything to the word at all. Man makes its plural men, goose makes geese, drink makes its past tense drank, fall makes fell, by inflexion. There is change of form though nothing has been added. Now applying the possibility of inflexion as a principle of division to the parts of speech, we shall find that the two groups are composed thus:

Of Adverbs, some are inflected to mark comparison and others are not. The same remark is true to a smaller extent of Adjectives, but our classification is in the main

correct.

69. The English language has but few inflexions. A Roman could say lapidi, lapide: we have to use prepositions and say to a stone, by a stone. A Roman could say amavisset, amarentur: we must employ pronouns

W. E. G.

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