The Grammar of English Grammars - Goold Brown (spiritual books to read TXT) 📗

to him, preparatory to attempting with success the Grammar of our Language. All our efforts of this kind seem to have been render'd ineffectual hitherto, chiefly by the prevaliency of two false notions: one of which is, that our Verbs have no Moods; and the other, that our Language hath no Syntax."—White's English Verb, p. viii.

[83] A similar doctrine, however, is taught by no less an author than "the Rev. Alexander Crombie, LL. D.," who says, in the first paragraph of his introduction, "LANGUAGE consists of intelligible signs, and is the medium, by which the mind communicates its thoughts. It is either articulate, or inarticulate; artificial, or natural. The former is peculiar to man; the latter is common to all animals. By inarticulate language, we mean those instinctive cries, by which the several tribes of inferior creatures are enabled to express their sensations and desires. By articulate language is understood a system of expression, composed of simple sounds, differently modified by the organs of speech, and variously combined."—Treatise on the Etymology and Syntax of the English Language, p. 1. See the same doctrine also in Hiley's Gram., p. 141. The language which "is common to all animals," can be no other than that in which Æsop's wolves and weasels, goats and grasshoppers, talked—a language quite too unreal for grammar. On the other hand, that which is composed of sounds only, and not of letters, includes but a mere fraction of the science.

[84] The pronoun whom is not properly applicable to beasts, unless they are personified: the relative which would therefore, perhaps, have been preferable here, though whom has a better sound.—G. B.

[85] "The great difference between men and brutes, in the utterance of sound by the mouth, consists in the power of articulation in man, and the entire want of it in brutes."—Webster's Improved Gram., p. 8.

[86] Strictly speaking, an articulate sound is not a simple element of speech, but rather a complex one, whether syllable or word; for articulate literally means jointed. But our grammarians in general, have applied the term to the sound of a letter, a syllable, or a word, indiscriminately: for which reason, it seems not very suitable to be used alone in describing any of the three. Sheridan says, "The essence of a syllable consists in articulation only, for every articulate sound of course forms a syllable."—Lectures on Elocution, p. 62. If he is right in this, not many of our letters—or, perhaps more properly, none of them—can singly represent articulate sounds. The looseness of this term induces me to add or prefer an other. "The Rev. W. Allen," who comes as near as any of our grammarians, to the true definition of a letter, says: 1. "The sounds used in language are called articulate sounds." 2. "A letter is a character used in printing or writing, to represent an articulate sound."—Allen's Elements of E. Gram., p. 2. Dr. Adam says: 1. "A letter is the mark of a sound, or of an articulation of sound." 2. "A vowel is properly called a simple sound; and the sounds formed by the concourse of vowels and consonants, articulate sounds."—Latin and English Gram., pp. 1 and 2.

[87] Of this sort of blunder, the following false definition is an instance: "A Vowel is a letter, the name of which makes a full open sound."—Lennie's Gram., p. 5; Brace's, 7; Hazen's, 10. All this is just as true of a consonant as of a vowel. The comma too, used in this sentence, defeats even the sense which the writers intended. It is surely no description either of a vowel or of a consonant, to say, that it is a letter, and that the name of a letter makes a full open sound. Again, a late grammarian teaches, that the names of all the letters are nothing but Roman capitals, and then seems to inquire which of these names are vowels, thus: "Q. How many letters are in the alphabet? A. Twenty-six. Q. What are their names? A. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Q. Which of these are called Vowels?"—Fowle's Common School Gram., Part First, p. 7. If my worthy friend Fowle had known or considered what are the names of the letters in English, he might have made a better beginning to his grammar than this.

[88] By the colloquial phrase, "to a Tee" we mean, "to a nicety, to a tittle, a jot, an iota. Had the British poet Cawthorn, himself a noted schoolmaster, known how to write the name of "T," he would probably have preferred it in the following couplet:

   "And swore by Varro's shade that he
    Conceived the medal to a T."—British Poets, Vol. VII, p. 65.

Here the name would certainly be much fitter than the letter, because the text does not in reality speak of the letter. With the names of the Greek letters, the author was better acquainted; the same poem exhibits two of them, where the characters themselves are spoken of:

   "My eye can trace divinely true,
    In this dark curve a little Mu;
    And here, you see, there seems to lie
    The ruins of a Doric Xi."—Ibidem.

The critical reader will see that "seems" should be seem, to agree with its nominative "ruins."

[89] Lily, reckoning without the H, J, or V, speaks of the Latin letters as "twenty-two;" but says nothing concerning their names. Ruddiman, Adam, Grant, Gould, and others, who include the H, J, and V, rightly state the number to be "twenty-five;" but, concerning their names, are likewise entirely silent. Andrews and Stoddard, not admitting the K, teach thus: "The letters of the Latin language are twenty-four. They have the same names as the corresponding characters in English."—Andrews and Stoddard's Latin Gram., p. 1. A later author speaks thus: "The Latin Alphabet consists of twenty-five letters, the same in name and form as the English, but without the w."—Bullions's Latin Gram., p. 1. It would probably be nearer to the truth, to say, "The Latin Alphabet, like the French, has no W; it consists of twenty-five letters, which are the same in name and form as the French." Will it be pretended that the French names and the English do not differ?

[90] The Scotch Iz and the Craven Izzet, if still in use anywhere, are names strictly local, not properly English, nor likely to spread. "IZZET, the letter Z. This is probably the corruption of izzard, the old and common name for the letter, though I know not, says Nares, on what authority."—Glossary of Craven, w. Izzet. "Z z, zed, more commonly called izzard or uzzard, that is, s hard."—Dr. Johnson's Gram., p. 1.

   "And how she sooth'd me when with study sad
    I labour'd on to reach the final Zad."—Crabbe's Borough, p. 228.

[91] William Bolles, in his new Dictionary, says of the letter Z: "Its sound is uniformly that of a hard S." The name, however, he pronounces as I do; though he writes it not Zee but zé; giving not the orthography of the name, as he should have done, but a mere index of its pronunciation. Walker proves by citations from Professor Ward and Dr. Wallis, that these authors considered the sharp or hissing sound of s the "hard" sound; and the flat sound, like that of z, its "soft" sound. See his Dictionary, 8vo, p. 53.

[92] Dr. Webster died in 1843. Most of this work was written while he was yet in vigour.

[93] This old definition John L. Parkhurst disputes:—says it "is ambiguous;"—questions whether it means, "that the name of such a letter, or the simple sound," requires a vowel! "If the latter," says he, "the assertion is false. The simple sounds, represented by the consonants, can be uttered separately, distinctly, and perfectly. It can be done with the utmost ease, even by a little child."—Parkhurst's Inductive Gram. for Beginners, p. 164. He must be one of these modern philosophers who delight to make mouths of these voiceless elements, to show how much may be done without sound from the larynx.

[94] This test of what is, or is not, a vowel sound or a consonant sound, is often appealed to, and is generally admitted to be a just one. Errors in the application of an or a are not unfrequent, but they do not affect the argument. It cannot be denied, that it is proper to use a, and not proper to use an, before the initial sound of w or y with a vowel following. And this rule holds good, whether the sound be expressed by these particular letters, or by others; as in the phrases, "a wonder, a one, a yew, a use, a ewer, a humour, a yielding temper." But I have heard it contended, that these are vowel sounds, notwithstanding they require a; and that the w and y are always vowels, because even a vowel sound (it was said) requires a and not an, whenever an other vowel sound immediately follows it. Of this notion, the following examples are a sufficient refutation: an aëronaut, an aërial tour, an oeiliad, an eyewink, an eyas, an iambus, an oäsis, an o'ersight, an oil, an oyster, an owl, an ounce. The initial sound of yielding requires a, and not an; but those who call the y a vowel, say, it is equivalent to the unaccented long e. This does not seem to me to be exactly true; because the latter sound requires an, and not a; as, "Athens, as well as Thebes, had an Eëtion."

[95] Dr. Rush, in his Philosophy of the Human Voice, has exhibited some acuteness of observation, and has written with commendable originality. But his accuracy is certainly not greater than his confidence. On page 57th, he says, "The m, n, and ng, are purely nasal;" on page 401st, "Some of the tonic elements, and one of the subtonics, are made by the assistance of the lips; they are o-we, oo-ze, ou-r, and m." Of the intrinsic value of his work, I am not prepared or inclined to offer any opinion; I criticise him only so far as he strikes at grammatical principles long established, and worthy still to be maintained.

[96] Dr. Comstock, by ¸enumerating as elementary the sound of the diphthong ou, as in our, and the complex power of wh, as in what, (which sounds ought not to be so reckoned,) makes the whole number of vocal elements in English to be "thirty-eight." See Comstock's Elocution, p. 19.

[97] This word is commonly heard in two syllables, yune'yun; but if Walker is right in making it three, yu'ne-un, the sound of y consonant is heard in it but once. Worcester's notation is "y=un'yun." The long sound of u is yu; hence Walker calls the letter, when thus sounded, a "semi-consonant diphthong."

[98] Children ought to be accustomed to speak loud, and to pronounce all possible sounds and articulations, even those of such foreign languages as they will be obliged to learn; for almost every language has its particular sounds which we pronounce with difficulty, if we have not been early accustomed to them. Accordingly, nations who have the greatest number of sounds in their speech, learn the most easily to pronounce foreign languages, since they know their articulations by having met with similar sounds in their own language."—Spurzheim, on Education, p. 159.

[99] If it be admitted that the two semivowels l and n have vocality enough of their own to form a very feeble syllable, it will prove only that there are these exceptions to an important general rule. If the name of Haydn rhymes with maiden, it makes one exception to the rule of writing; but it is no part of the English language. The obscure sound of which I speak, is sometimes improperly confounded with that of short u; thus a recent writer, who professes great skill in respect to such matters, says, "One of the most common sounds in our language is that of the vowel u, as in the word urn, or as the diphthong ea in the word earth, for which we have no character. Writers have made various efforts to express it, as in earth, berth, mirth, worth, turf, in which all the vowels are indiscriminately used in turn. [Fist] This defect has led to the absurd method of placing the vowel after the consonants, instead of between them, when a word terminates with this sound; as in the following, Bible, pure, centre, circle, instead of Bibel, puer, center, cirkel."—Gardiner's Music of Nature, p. 498. "It would be a great step towards perfection to spell our words as they are pronounced!"—Ibid., p. 499. How often do the reformers of language multiply the irregularities of which they complain!

[100] "The number of simple sounds in our tongue is twenty-eight,