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INTRODUCTION.
Many notable writers have expressed various opinions on
English grammar, such as the following—
English grammar is a description of the usages of the
English language by good speakers and writers of the present day.—Whitney
A description of account of the nature, build,
constitution, or make of a language is called its grammar—Meiklejohn
Grammar teaches the laws of language, and the right
method of using it in speaking and writing.—Patterson
Grammar is the science of letter; hence the
science of using words correctly.—Abbott
The English word grammar relates only to the laws
which govern the significant forms of words, and the construction of the
sentence.—Richard Grant White
These are sufficient to suggest several distinct notions
about English grammar—
Synopsis of the above.
(1) It makes rules to tell us how to use words.
(2) It is a record of usage which we ought to follow.
(3) It is concerned with the forms of the
language.
(4) English has no grammar in the sense of forms,
or inflections, but takes account merely of the nature and the uses of words in
sentences.
What grammar is.
Coming back, then, from the question, What ground
should grammar cover? we come to answer the question, What should grammar teach? and we give as
an answer the definition—
English grammar is the science which treats of the
nature of words, their forms, and their uses and relations in the
sentence.
All the words in the English language are divided into
nine great classes. These classes are called the Parts of Speech. They are
Article, Noun, Adjective, Pronoun, Verb,
Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction and
Interjection.
Of these, the Noun is the most important, as all
the others are more or less dependent upon it. A Noun signifies the name of any
person, place or thing, in fact, anything of which we can have either thought
or idea.
There are two kinds of Nouns, Proper and Common. Common Nouns
are names which belong in common to a race or class, as man, city. Proper Nouns
distinguish individual members of a race or class as John, Philadelphia. In the
former case man is a name which belongs in common to the whole race of mankind,
and city is also a name which is common to all large centres of population, but
John signifies a particular individual of the race, while Philadelphia denotes
a particular one from among the cities of the world. |
