A Grammar of the English Tongue | Page 6

honor and labor for honour and labour, red for read in the preter-tense, sais for says, repete tor repeat, explane for explain, or declame for declaim. Of these it may be said, that as they have done no good they have done little harm; both because they have innovated little, and because few have followed them.
The English language has properly no dialects; the style of writers has no professed diversity in the use of words, or of their flexions and terminations, nor differs but by different degrees of skill or care. The oral diction is uniform in no spacious country, but has less variation in England than in most other nations of equal extent. The language of the northern counties retains many words now out of use, but which are commonly of the genuine Teutonick race, and is uttered with a pronunciation which now seems harsh and rough, but was probably used by our ancestors. The northern speech is therefore not barbarous, but obsolete. The speech in the western provinces seems to differ from the general diction rather by a depraved pronunciation, than by any real difference which letters would express.
* * * * *
ETYMOLOGY.
Etymology teaches the deduction of one word from another, and the various modifications by which the sense of the same word is diversified; as horse, horses; I love, I loved.
Of the ARTICLE.
The English have two articles, an or a, and the.
AN, A.
A has an indefinite signification, and means one, with some reference to more; as This is a good book; that is, one among the books that are good; He was killed by a sword; that is, some sword; This is a better book for a man than a boy; that is, for one of those that are men than one of those that are boys; An army might enter without resistance; that is, any army.
In the senses in which we use a or an in the singular, we speak in the plural without an article; as these are good books.
I have made an the original article, because it is only the Saxon an, or ?n, one, applied to a new use, as the German ein, and the French un; the n being cut off before a consonant in the speed of utterance.
Grammarians of the last age direct, that an should be used before h; whence it appears that the English anciently asperated less. An is still used before the silent h; as an herb, an honest man; but otherwise a; as
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse. Shakespeare.
An or a can only be joined with a singular: the correspondent plural is the noun without an article, as, I want a pen, I want pens; or with the pronominal adjective some, as, I want some pens.
THE.
The has a particular and definite signification.
The fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world. Milton.
That is, that particular fruit, and this world in which we live. So, He giveth fodder for the cattle, and green herbs for the use of man; that is, for those beings that are cattle, and his use that is man.
The is used in both numbers.
I am as free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran. Dryden.
Many words are used without articles; as
1. Proper names, as John, Alexander, Longinus, Aristarchus, Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London. GOD is used as a proper name.
2. Abstract names, as blackness, witch-craft, virtue, vice, beauty, ugliness, love, hatred, anger, good-nature, kindness.
3. Words in which nothing but the mere being of any thing is implied: This is not beer, but water; this is not brass, but steel.
* * * * *
Of NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE.
The relations of English nouns to words going before or following are not expressed by cases, or changes of termination, but, as in most of the other European languages, by prepositions, unless we may be said to have a genitive case.
Singular.
Nom. Magister, a Master, the Master.
Gen. Magistri, of a Master, of the Master, or Master's, the Master's.
Dat. Magistro, to a Master, to the Master.
Acc. Magistrum, a Master, the Master.
Voc. Magister, Master, O Master.
Abl. Magistro, from a Master, from the Master.
Plural.
Nom. Magistri, Masters, the Masters.
Gen. Magistrorum, of Masters, of the Masters.
Dat. Magistris, to Masters, to the Masters.
Acc. Magistros, Masters, the Masters.
Voc. Magistri, Masters, O Masters.
Abl. Magistris, from Masters, from the Masters.
Our nouns are therefore only declined thus:
Master, Gen. Master's. Plur. Masters.
Scholar, Gen. Scholar's. Plur. Scholars.
These genitives are always written with a mark of elision, master's, scholar's, according to an opinion long received, that the 's is a contraction of his, as the soldier's valour, for the soldier his valour: but this cannot be the true original, because 's is put to female nouns, Woman's beauty; the Virgin's delicacy; Haughty Juno's unrelenting hate;