Wort

“ But as the laws of metre are included in the idea of grammar, I have thought proper to insert them.
PROSODY comprises orthoepy, or the rules of pronunciation; and orthometry, or the laws of versification.
Pronunciation is just, when every letter has its proper sound, and every syllable has its proper accent, or, which in English versification is the same, its proper quantity.
The sounds of the letters have been already explained; and rules for the accent or quantity are not easily to be given, being subject to innumerable exceptions. ”

“ And as I cannot suppose words to represent external things, I have said "A Word is one or more syllables spoken or written as the sign of some idea." But of what ideas are the words of our language significant? Are we to say, "Of all ideas;" and to recognize as an English word every syllable, or combination of syllables, to which we know a meaning is attached? No. For this, in the first place, would confound one language with an other; and destroy a distinction which must ever be practically recognized, till all men shall again speak one language. ”

“ The first letter of a word or name does indeed sometimes stand for the whole, and is still a letter; but it is so, as being the first element of the word, and not as being the representative of the whole.
OBS. 3.--In their definitions of vowels and consonants, many grammarians have resolved letters into sounds only; as, "A Vowel is an articulate sound," &c.--"A Consonant is an articulate sound," &c.--L. Murray's Gram., p. 7. But this confounding of the visible signs with the things which they signify, is very far from being a true account of either. ”

“ The root words of the language, whether nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, or adverbs, are generally monosyllabic; where [75] simple roots have more than one syllable, the additions are formative prefixes, once probably separate words, which have become incorporated. Such are the prefix ke-, ki-, kā-, used to form adjectives, present participles, and verbal nouns; and the prefixes ār- (in ārnī, “sun,” ārlòng, “stone,” ārlèng, “man,” etc.) , ing- (in inglòng, “mountain”; inghòn, “pity,” etc.) , and te-, ti-, to- (in teràm, “call,” tekàng, “abandon,” tikup, “house-yard,” tovār, “road,” etc.) ”

“ Nor power nor wealth can avail us,
But skilful industry steers right. Ballad.
To these measures and their laws, may be reduced every species of English verse.
Our versification admits of few licences, except a synalœpha, or elision of e in the before a vowel, as th' eternal; and more rarely of o in to, as t' accept; and a synaresis, by which two short vowels coalesce into one syllable, as question, special; or a word is contracted by the expulsion of a short vowel before a liquid, as av'rice, temp'rance. ”

“ Verbs and adjectives are made plural by a peculiar process of lengthening the word in its middle, for which purpose the letter r, and sometimes l, is generally associated with a cognate vowel of the word with which it comes in contract, and which R or l and its cognate vowel is generally duplicated, unless the consonant R or L already occurs in the crude and singular from of the word. ”

“ Such was one of the fountain-heads of English lexicography; the other is to be found in the fact that in those distant days, as in our own, the learning of Latin was the acquisition of a foreign tongue which involved the learning of a grammar and of a vocabulary. Both grammar and vocables were probably in the main communicated by oral teaching, by the living voice of the master, and were handed down by oral tradition from generation to generation. The stock of vocables was acquired by committing to memory classified lists of words ”

“ First, That we should speak and write words according to the significations which belong to them: the teaching of which now pertains to lexicography, and not to grammar, except incidentally. "Secondly, That we should observe the relations that words have one to another in sentences, and represent those relations by such variations, and particles, as are usual with authors in that language." Thirdly, That we should acquire a knowledge of the proper sounds of the letters, and pay a due regard to accent in pronunciation. ”

“ No doubt there is a reason for the particular mode of spelling each particular word in the language—but that reason is hidden in the past history of the word and in facts connected with its origin and derivation from some barbarous or dead language, and is as utterly beyond the reach of each generation of spellers as if there were no such reasons in existence. ”

“ The three principal elements of English—viz. Saxon, French, and Latin—have, each, and all, had some influence on the formation of our words; and this will account for the various forms of our spelling. A word, [121] when introduced into a language, is at first spelled in accordance with the genius of the nation from which it comes. By degrees, and generally by slow degrees, it is moulded into a new form by the genius and instinct of the language in which it is at length naturalised; still, however, retaining sufficient of its original form to indicate its source and etymology. ”

“ These are to be learned, as reading is learned, partly from example, and partly from such books as show or aid the pronunciation of words.
It is to be observed, however, that considerable variety, even in the powers of the letters, is produced by the character and occasion of what is uttered. It is noticed by Walker, that, "Some of the vowels, when neither under the accent, nor closed by a consonant, have a longer or a shorter, an opener or a closer sound, according to the solemnity or familiarity, the deliberation or rapidity of our delivery."—Pronouncing Dict., Preface, p. 4. ”

“ In our language there are so many silent letters in words, so many sounds for each vowel, and the alphabetic sound of the consonants is so different from their sound in words, that I do not care how late the analysis is put off. ”

“ Dr. Lowth says, "Y is always a vowel," and "W is either a vowel or a diphthong." Dr. Webster supposes w to be always "a vowel, a simple sound;" but admits that, "At the beginning of words, y is called an articulation or consonant, and with some propriety perhaps, as it brings the root of the tongue in close contact with the lower part of the palate, and nearly in the position to which the close g brings it."--American Dict., Octavo. But I follow Wallis, Brightland, Johnson, Walker, Murray, Worcester, and others, in considering both of them sometimes vowels and sometimes consonants. ”

“ To those who observe well, it will from this order alone, appear, that I have divided this whole Alphabet into Vowels, Semi-vowels, and Consonants. The Vowels are a Voice or Sound modified by a various opening of the Mouth only, and are either Simple, or Uniform, as a. e. i. j. y. o. u. w. Or else they are mixt, which out of two, do so melt down into one, as that they are pronounced together, and are different from Diphthongs, in as much as their Vowels are successively pronounced: Now these mixt Vowels, are ä. ö. ü. which some Nations either have not at all, or else do write them evilly ”

“ Independently of those words which have a difference in heterography corresponding to a difference in meaning, there is an immense number of words which have totally different meanings, but are the same in orthography and in pronunciation; thus,
By the help of a dictionary, this list may be extended almost infinitely, as nearly every word in our language has one or two meanings, some being clearly derived from an original one, others barely traceable to obscure analogies, and others apparently derived from perfectly different roots. ”

“ There are some niceties in spelling and style that have to be passed with slight notice. The formation of foreign words in the plural number, obsolete or little-used forms of past tenses and participles, and the use of accents and diacritical marks for words in English, belong to grammar rather than to typography. ”

“ It is, I know, hard to make strangers to the writing understand that signs representing birds or beasts may be and are as purely alphabetic letters as our A, B, C. Such, however, is the fact, and every simple sound in the language, whether vowel or consonant, had its corresponding letter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In comparing two words, A and B, belonging to the same language and consisting of the same number of syllables, the older form can usually be distinguished by observing the sound of the principal vowel. (6) Strong verbs, in the Teutonic languages, and the so-called “irregular verbs” in Latin, are commonly to be considered as primary, other related forms being taken from them. (7) The whole of a word, and not a portion only, ought to be reasonably accounted for ”

“ The mastery of the alphabetical arrangement and syllabification and pronunciation being assured, there remains the study of the grouped meanings and the derivation, with attention to grammatical use. As soon as the pupil knows the parts of speech, the various uses of words are made plain to him, and he intelligently follows the dictionary column which exhibits a word as noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. If his object is to discover the verb meaning, he passes the others. ”

“ The dative and instrumental are alike in all nouns.
27.
The student will observe (1) that nouns whose nominative ends in -e (fiscere) drop this letter before adding the case endings; (2) that æ before a consonant (hwæl) changes to a in the plural;1 (3) that h, preceded by r (mearh) or l (seolh, seal) , is dropped before an inflectional vowel, the stem diphthong being then lengthened by way of compensation; (4) that dissyllables (finger) having the first syllable long, usually syncopate the vowel of the second syllable before adding the case endings.2
28. ”

“ Roots, therefore, are merely the materials out of which speech can be made, the embodiments of isolated conceptions with which the lexicographer alone has to deal, whereas stems present us with words already combined in a sentence and embodying the relations of grammar. If we would rightly understand primitive Indo-European grammar, we must conceive it as having been expressed or implied in the suffixes of the stems, and in the order according to which the stems were arranged in a sentence. ”

“ Let the learner therefore be on his guard, remembering that grammar, both in its study and in its practice, requires the constant exercise of a rational discernment. Those letters which name themselves, take for their names those sounds which they usually represent at the end of an accented syllable; thus the names, A, E, I, O, U, are uttered with the sounds given to the same letters in the first syllables of the other names, Abel, Enoch, Isaac, Obed, Urim; or in the first syllables of the common words, paper, penal, pilot, potent, pupil. ”

“ In a word, linguistics is receiving careful attention in its various aspects, or from different points-of-view. Language, tongue, graphic and oral speech, with their subdivisions and relations, are regarded with some consideration for perspective.
The elements of language are sought both internally and externally to its organic structure; and progress has been made in the appreciating of their reciprocal relations or interdependent laws. The phenomena of written and phonetic language are compared and weighed; their systems have been analysed and deductions have been made from the analyses. ”

“ It is the face of a man who has been close to Death; it is the face of a man who is desperate. And if, after the terrible battle of the night, with its uncontrollable yearning and its unbearable pain, the fierce and bitter resolve is taken?—if there remains but this one last despairing venture for all that made life worth having? ”

“ There are a dozen verbs in -īō, -ere, like capiō, and three deponents in -ior, -ī, all formed from consonant roots with a short vowel: see 836. aiō, say, and fīō, grow, become, have certain peculiarities arising from the blending of the root with the suffix. ”

“ OBS. 5.—The question respecting the number of simple or elementary sounds in our language, presents a remarkable puzzle: and it is idle, if not ridiculous, for any man to declaim about the imperfection of our alphabet and orthography, who does not show himself able to solve it. All these sounds may easily be written in a plain sentence of three or four lines upon almost any subject; and every one who can read, is familiar with them all, and with all the letters. ”

“ We are going to the zoological gardens; pronounce zoological in five syllables, and place the accent on log in logical. Sound log like lodge, and the first two o's in distinct syllables. Never make zool one syllable.
115. He always preaches extempore; pronounce [107] extempore in four syllables, with the accent on tem, and never in three, making pore to rhyme with sore.
116. Naught and aught; never spell these words nought and ought. There is no such word as nought, and ought is a verb. ”

“ Here a genuine difference in sound conveyed to the ear was represented to the eye by a difference of orthography. The modern speech has made one of its usual compromises. It has retained the spelling of the one form and the pronunciation of the other. ”