Higher Lessons in English | Page 5

a sentence is.
A sentence is a group of words expressing a thought; it is a body of which a thought is the soul. It is something that can be seen or heard, while a thought cannot be. Let us see whether, in studying a sentence, we may not learn what a thought is.
In any such sentence as this, Spiders spin, something is said, or asserted, about something. Here it is said, or asserted, of the animals, spiders, that they spin.
The sentence, then, consists of two parts,--the name of that of which something is said, and that which is said of it.
The first of these parts we call the +Subject+ of the sentence; the second, the +Predicate+.
Now, if the sentence, composed of two parts, expresses the thought, there must be in the thought two parts to be expressed. And there are two: viz., something of which we think, and that which we think of it. In the thought expressed by Spiders spin, the animals, spiders, are the something of which we think, and their spinning is what we think of them. In the sentence expressing this thought, the word spiders names that of which we think, and the word spin tells what we think of spiders.
Not every group of words is necessarily a sentence, because it may not be the expression of a thought. Spiders spinning is not a sentence. There is nothing in this expression to show that we have formed a judgment, i.e., that we have really made up our minds that spiders do spin. The spinning is not asserted of the spiders.
Soft feathers, The shining sun are not sentences, and for similar reasons. Feathers are soft, The sun shines are sentences. Here the asserting word is supplied, and something is said of something else.
The shines sun is not a sentence; for, though it contains the asserting word shines, the arrangement is such that no assertion is made, and no thought is expressed.
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LESSON 3.
A TALK ON SOUNDS AND LETTERS.
We have already told you that in expressing our ideas and thoughts we use two kinds of words, spoken words and written words.
We learned the spoken words first. Mankind spoke long before they wrote. Not until people wished to communicate with those at a distance, or had thought out something worth handing down to aftertimes, did they need to write.
But speaking was easy. The air, the lungs, and the organs of the throat and mouth were at hand. The first cry was a suggestion. Sounds and noises were heard on every side, provoking imitation, and the need of speech for the purposes of communication was imperative.
Spoken words are made up of sounds. There are over forty sounds in the English language. The different combinations of these give us all the words of our spoken tongue. That you may clearly understand these sounds, we will tell you something about the human voice.
In talking, the air driven out from your lungs beats against two flat muscles, stretched, like bands, across the top of the windpipe, and causes them to vibrate up and down. This vibration makes sound. Take a thread, put one end between your teeth, hold the other with thumb and finger, draw it tight and strike it, and you will understand how voice is made. The shorter the string, or the tighter it is drawn, the faster will it vibrate, and the higher will be the pitch of the sound. The more violent the blow, the farther will the string vibrate, and the louder will be the sound. Just so with these vocal bands or cords. The varying force with which the breath strikes them and their different tensions and lengths at different times, explain the different degrees of loudness and the varying pitch of the voice.
If the voice thus produced comes out through the mouth held well open, a class of sounds is formed which we call vowel sounds.
But if the voice is held back or obstructed by the palate, tongue, teeth, or lips, one kind of the sounds called consonant sounds is made. If the breath is driven out without voice, and is held back by these same parts of the mouth, the other kind of consonant sounds is formed.
The written word is made up of characters, or letters, which represent to the eye these sounds that address the ear.
You are now prepared to understand us when we say that +vowels+ are the +letters+ that stand for the +open sounds+ of the +voice+, and that +consonants+ are the +letters+ that stand for the sounds made by the +obstructed voice+ and the +obstructed breath+.
The alphabet of a language is a complete list of its letters. A perfect alphabet would have one letter for each sound, and only one.
Our alphabet is imperfect in at least these three