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DATES

AUTHOR'S

TITLES OF WORKS

A.D.

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English Grammar and Composition, &c. English Grammar for National and other Elementary Schools.

The Handbook of English Grammar.

The Principles of Language, exemplified in a Practical English Grammar.

Helps to English Grammar.

An Elementary English Grammar, for the Use of Schools.

The Young Man's Self-teaching Grammar of. the English Language.

Elements of Language and General Grammar. An Attempt to simplify English Grammar, 2nd edition.

The Intellectual English Grammar, 2nd edition. A Practical English Grammar.

An Improved Grammar of the English Language.

Practical Grammar; or, Composition divested of Difficulties.

First Lessons in English Grammar, stereotyped edition.

Outline of English Grammar.

A Succinct and Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, new edition.

A Practical and Self-instructing English Gram

mar.

A System of English Grammar, founded on the Philosophy of Language, and the Practice of the best Authors.

Introduction to English Grammar.

Notes on English Grammar, for Juvenile Pupils. Willy's Grammar; interspersed with Stories, 2nd edition.

Grammar made intelligible to Children.
Mother's Own Catechism of Grammar.
The Handbook of Grammar.

An Initiatory Grammar of the English Language.

First Lessons in English Grammar.
The Young Child's Grammar.

A Manual of English Grammar, &c.

A Grammar of the English Language.

First Lessons in English Grammar, 7th edition.

A Grammar of the English Language.

An English School Grammar.

The Elements of Grammar, &c.

First Outlines of Logic, applied to Grammar and Etymology.

General Principles of Grammar.

The Reformed Grammar, or Philosophical Test of English Composition.

The Young Lady's New Grammar.

The Popular Class-room Grammar, &c.

The Pupil-teacher's English Grammar.

The Rise, Progress, and Present Structure of the English Language.

Primary Instruction in English Grammar.
Short and Simple Grammar Lessons.

The Plain and Easy English Grammar for the Industrious Classes.

English Grammar simplified.

A Practical Grammar of the English Language. The Westminster Handbook to Universal Grammar, exemplified in its Application to the English Language.

A Grammar of the English Language.

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NOTE.-There are several grammars without dates which are not included in the preceding list. Many others no doubt exist, of which the Author has never heard. If all the Grammars that have been published were known, the whole number in and out of print is probably much more considerable.

A

PRINCIPLES OF GRAMMAR.

(For Exercises and Questions, see end of Orthoepy.)

ENGLISH GRAMMAR is the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety. It may be divided into five parts; namely,

Orthoepy
Orthography

Etymology
Syntax

Prosody.

ORTHOEPY treats of the various sounds of the language, and the proper pronunciation of words.

ORTHOGRAPHY treats of correct spelling, or the method of forming syllables and words from letters.

ETYMOLOGY treats of the classification, inflection, and derivation of words.

SYNTAX treats of the arrangement, connection, and dependence of the several parts of a sentence.

PROSODY treats of accent, quantity, emphasis, pause, intonation or tone, and metre or the laws of versification.

NOTES AND QUOTATIONS.

The word Grammar is derived from the French grammaire, the French from the Latin grammatica, and the Latin from the Greek gramma, a letter.

Orthoepy from the Greek, orthos, correct, and epos, a sound.

Orthography

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orthos, correct, and grapho, I write.
etumos, true, and logos, a discourse.
sun, together, and taxis, an arrangement.
prosodia, signifying accent or song.

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In many English grammars orthoepy is entirely omitted, in others it is supposed to form a part of orthography, but this supposition is a manifest mistake; for if the real nature of each be attentively considered, it will appear evident that orthoepy and orthography are totally different subjects, and equally entitled to a separate classification. Orthoepy is different from orthography-Latham's Grammar.

'Orthoepy ought to have been reckoned as a part of grammar before orthography, since speech precedes writing.'-Greenwood's Grammar.

All the rules of grammar are properly classed under the five heads of Orthoepy, Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody.'-Knowles's Grammar.

Grammar may be divided into five parts; that is, Orthography, Orthoepy, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody.'-Brown's Grammar.

It is divided into five parts, viz. Orthography, Orthoepy, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody.'-Alexander's Grammar.

Grammar has therefore five distinct parts: First, Orthoepy; second, Orthography; third, Etymology; fourth, Syntax; and fifth, Prosody.'-Fenwick's Grammar.

ORTHOEPY.

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Orthoepy is that part of grammar which treats of the various sounds of the language, and the proper pronunciation of words.

Letters are characters or marks used in writing or printing to represent the articulate sounds of the human voice. The letters of a language are called its alphabet. A perfect alphabet should contain as many letters as there are simple elementary sounds in the language, so that each letter may represent a particular sound and no other. Such an alphabet, however, is not in existence.

The English alphabet consists of twenty-six letters, but there are about thirty-four simple elementary sounds in the English language to represent by these letters; therefore the English alphabet, like all others, more or less, is imperfect. Its principal imperfections will be afterwards more particularly noticed.

NOTES, ETC.

The word alphabet is derived from the first two letters of the Greeks, alpha, beta. As to the first letters, what, they were, who first invented them, and among what people they were first in use, there is still room to doubt. Philo attributes this noble invention to Abraham; Josephus and others, to Enoch; Bibliander, to Adam; Eusebius and others, to Moses; Pliny, Lucan, and others, to the Phoenicians; Tacitus, to the Egyptians; some, to the Ethiopians; and others, to the Chinese.

There have also been various conjectures about the different kinds of letters used in different languages; thus, according to Crinitus, Moses invented the Hebrew letters; Abraham, the Syriac and Chaldee; the Phoenicians, those of Attica, brought into Greece by Cadmus, and from thence into Italy by the Pelasgians; Nicostrata, the Roman; Isis, the Egyptian; and Ulphilas, those of the Goths.

The letters of the alphabet are said, by some, to have been first invented by Memnon, king of Ethiopia, about the year 1822 B.C.; whence they were carried into Phoenicia, and there formed into a written language by Cadmus, who, in 1493 B.C., took the Phoenician alphabet into Greece, where he founded the city of Thebes, whence sprang the Greek language. The Romans took their alphabet from the Greeks, but put the letters into a different form; and we fashioned ours after the model of the Roman character; but the alphabet called the Old English was formed from the Anglo-Saxon, which is more like the Phoenician.

This noble art from Cadmus took its rise,
Of painting words and speaking to the eyes,
He first in wondrous magic fetters bound
The airy voice, and stopped the flying sound;
The various figures by his pencil wrought,

Gave colour and a body to the thought.-Lucan.

Authors differ widely in determining the exact number of elementary sounds of the English language. Thus

Knowles enumerates twenty-nine sounds, nine of which are vowel sounds.

Andrew

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thirty-two
thirty-three
thirty-four
thirty-four
thirty-six

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ten of which are vowel sounds. twelve of which are vowel sounds. twelve of which are vowel sounds. thirteen of which are vowel sounds. twelve of which are vowel sounds.

ARTICULATE SOUNDS

AND THEIR REPRESENTATIVES.

An articulate sound is the sound of the human voice, formed by the organs of speech. Articulate sounds are of two kinds, simple and compound.

Of the simple sounds, some are formed by an impulse or single stroke of the voice, and a mere opening of the mouth in a particular manner: these are called vowel or vocal sounds.

On the contrary, others require the application and use of the several parts of the mouth, as the teeth, the lips, the palate, &c.; and yet cannot make a perfect sound but by their union with the vowels or vocal sounds: these are called consonants. Hence letters are divided into two general classes; namely, vowels and consonants.

A vowel is a letter that makes a complete sound of itself without the aid of any other letter. The vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and w and y when they do not begin a word or syllable.

A consonant is a letter that cannot be perfectly sounded without the aid of a vowel. The consonants are b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, x, z, and w and when they begin a word or syllable.

y

NOTES, ETC.

The principal organs of speech are the tongue, the lips, the teeth, the palate, the throat, and the nose.

Vowels from vocalis, sounding, because they make a distinct sound of themselves. Consonants from consono, I sound together, that is, letters sounded with other letters.

Grammarians differ on the sounds of w and y when they begin a word or syllable. Some authors affirm that they are always vowels; others consider them as consonants at the beginning of words or syllables, and vowels in all other positions. Among those who favour the former opinion are- Knowles, Angus, Sheridan, Louth, Bullen, Crombie, and Harrison. Among those who favour the latter are- Andrew, Murray, Irving, Pullen, Sullivan, Hiley, Walker, Reid, Doherty, Pinnock, Kirkham, Brown, D'Orsay, Earnshaw, Del Mar, Foster, Fenning, Smart, Arnold, Fisher, Sabine, and a host of others. The following reasons are given in favour of the latter opinion:1. The indefinite article a becomes an before a word beginning with a vowel sound, but it does not before w ory.

2. Those who maintain that y is always a vowel assert that in all positions it has the sound either of i in pine, or of ee in feet, but it has neither of these sounds in such words as ye, for the word ye is not sounded i-e. or ee-e.

3. Each of the vowels a, e, i, o, u, can make, and frequently does make, a syllable by itself, at the beginning of a word, but w or y never does.

4. The vowels a, e, i, o, u, combine and form a syllable with a single consonant placed after them, as ab, eb, ib, ob, ub, but w and y do not.

5. W is always silent before r in the same syllable, and y is not used in such a position, but the vowels a, e, i, o, u, are both used and sounded in that situation.

6. Letters of the same sounds as w and y are always reckoned consonants in other languages.

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