Questions on Chapter II.

1. On what principle are words grouped into classes? meant by the function of a word.

Explain what is

2. How many natural groups of words are obtained when words are classified according to their functions? Name the classes, and point out the function of the Noun and Verb respectively.

3. What do you understand by a Part of Speech? What part do the Adjective and Adverb play in the sentence?

4. Why are Infinitives, Participles, and Adjective-Pronouns treated of separately? Which part of speech is each most nearly related to ?

5. What is meant by Parsing? What means have we for finding out what part of speech a given word is or belongs to ?

Exercise 9. Analyse the sentences in Section 9 (p. 252) and parse the first two sentences.

Exercise 10. Analyse the sentences in Section 10 (p. 253), and parse those numbered 1, 2, and 3.

CHAPTER III.

PARTS OF SPEECH.-CLASSIFICATION.

We have made a beginning in the classification of words. We have already found that words fall naturally into eight classes, or parts of speech. The principle on which we have worked hitherto must guide us further: we must continue to group words according to likeness of function, and to separate them according to difference of function. We shall follow this plan in classifying the different Parts of Speech, and shall begin with the Classification of Nouns.

Classification of Nouns,

Let us take a number of nouns and apply our principle. Take as examples :

a. (1) Alfred, Emily; London, Paris; Thames, Snowdon;

b. (2) books, (3) paper, (4) multitude, flock, (5) pound, foot, hour; (6) fun, mischief, honour, virtue, whiteness, speaking, waiting. a. We note first that Alfred, Emily, London, Paris, Thames, and Snowdon are names of particular persons, places, or things; and each denotes one particular person, place, or thing only.

b. Next, we observe that the remaining words are names, each of which can be applied to a large number of things of the same class or kind. Thus we may have a hundred books, and the name book is common or applicable to each and all. Similarly, we may have a dozen different kinds of paper, but the name paper is common or applicable to each and every kind. And though fun, mischief, honour, virtue, whiteness, speaking, and waiting may each have a variety of manifestations, yet the name which is applicable to one manifestation is applicable to all. Hence these words, too, are common or applicable to everything of the same class or kind.

These distinctions enable us to divide nouns into two great classes:

I. Those names which are applicable to individual persons, places, or things only.

II. Those names which are common or applicable to everything of the same class or kind.

In common language the first only are called Names, as they belong to the individuals only-they are their own. Hence these names are called Proper Names (from L. proprius, which means one's own). The words of the second class are appropriately named from their distinguishing feature. They are to more things than one, and are hence called Common Names.

Common Names are found to be of different kinds.

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common

Let us now look a little more closely at the words in Group b, that is, at the Common Names.

1. We notice that the word books is the name of a Class of Objects.

2. That paper is the name of a Material or Substance.

3. That multitude and flock each denote a Collection of Individual Things.

4. That pound, foot, and hour are names of Weights and Measures, and differ from the preceding words in denoting things which are arbitrary, and definite only in reference to some arbitrary standard.

5. That the remaining words fun, mischief, etc., are names of Qualities, Properties, Activities, or States, of persons or things, viewed apart from all other (however essential) qualities or properties belonging thereto. For example, speaking is the name of a certain activity, and waiting the name of a certain state— viewed apart from any particular person who may exhibit these qualities. This "viewing apart" involves a mental process called abstraction (from L. abs., away from, and tractus, drawn). Hence these words are called Abstract Names.

Proper Names denote individual persons, families, nations, races, countries, places, and objects or things; but these distinctions are of relatively little importance, though examples of each kind will be given in the table, and should be noted.

We may now define the names employed to denote the different kinds of nouns, and afterwards present the classification now arrived at in a tabular form.

Definition of the Noun. A Noun is the name of anything.

A Proper Noun is a name which denotes one particular individual person, family, nation, race, place, or thing: as, James, Smith, The English, The Aryans, London, and Thames.

A Common Noun is a name which denotes a class of things, or some member of a class; a substance, or some part of a substance; or a quality or attribute' common to more than one person or thing; as, books, book; pounds, pound; iron; virtue, whiteness.

A Collective Noun is a name which, in the singular, denotes a collection of individuals or things; as, army, regiment, crowd, herd, class, group, kind.

An Abstract Noun is a name which denotes an isolated quality or attribute of some person or thing; as, strength, beauty, sharpness, honesty, length, transparency.

The student should note that Common Names are either concrete names or abstract names. "Concrete" is the correlative of "abstract."

Examples.

Alfred, Canute, William, Elizabeth, Victoria.
Brown, Jones; The Plantagenets, The Stuarts.
The English, The Irish, The Scotch, The Welsh.
The Aryans, Celts, Latins, Saxons, Angles.
England, France, Germany, United States,
Canada.

London, Paris, Berlin, Dublin, Edinburgh.
Clyde, Liffey, Snowdon, The Abbey, Parlia-
ment, Europe, America, Atlantic, Pacific,
Great Britain.

Book, pencil, knife, hand, sea, story, account,
wish, word, task, wind.

Paper, wood, glass, chalk, water, air.

Army, battalion, tribe, nation, family.

Pound, ounce, yard, pint, hour, degree,

penny.

Joy, praise, thickness, solidity, reading.

Questions. 1. How is the noun distinguished from all other words? Contrast it with (a) the adjective, (b) the verb.

2. Which is the most important distinction among nouns? Illustrate your answer by reference to the words ink, dozen, faith, The Tower.

3. Define "collective noun" and "abstract noun.'

4. Give two nouns of every kind, and name each kind.

5. Collect and classify the nouns from the sentences in Sections 2 and 3 on p. 250.

'Isolated qualities or properties are called attributes. An attribute is any quality or property which can have no independent existence. It can exist along with other properties only. Thus whiteness cannot exist apart from some thing that is white, and that has other properties.

Above, we have placed a number of typical pronouns.1 Let us examine them with reference to their functions.

(a) I clearly has for its function to denote the speaker. The first stage in conscious or explicit thought is the recognition of the distinction between the I and the not-I. I is the symbol by which the individual thinks and speaks of himself.

The next fact to note is that there would be no speech if there were no one to talk to. Some of the talk, some of the statements made, must have reference to the listener, and the person or persons spoken to must therefore be denoted by a different symbol, or word, from that which denotes the speaker. The word thou denotes one such person as is addressed, and you denotes the persons addressed when there is more than one. It is important to notice at once that the distinction between himself and the person he is addressing, is one which the speaker makes. It is a purely personal relation in which the person addressed stands to the speaker. The person addressed, if he were speaking of himself, would be denoted by the word I; and if he or she were being referred to, but not addressed, would be denoted by the word he, or the word she (him or her).

The words I, thou, he, and she, therefore, denote not only persons, but also their relation to the speaker. Note, further, that the word I may denote any speaker; that thou may denote any person who stands to the speaker in the relation of a person addressed; that he may denote any male person who is spoken of, while she may denote any female spoken of; and that these words have no other function. In fact, they are symbols for relations only, the persons occupying the given relations having no need to be denoted, except in the vaguest and most general way, since they are already present to the mind of the speaker.

Next consider that it may denote anything whatsoever, persons excepted. It is a general or universal symbol for whatever is neither the speaker nor a living thing. No other word in our language can stand indifferently for anything and everything coming within this description. It is therefore the symbol for a part of the whole world of objects, which can never be in the

What is a pronoun? Define it.