Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/138

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GRAMMAR. 116 GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. purposes more or less from the outline here given. Any arrangement which seems best for the spe- cial object of such a grammar may be adopted. The various lessons into which scliool grammars are frequently divided are often provided with vocabularies of new words, and with sentences for translation from and into the language treated by the work. It is not unusual to ap- pend a ehrestoniathy of the languages containing extracts from some of its most important liter- ary works, and to follow this with a glossary. Parts of Speech. In a discussion of grammar it is necessary to enumerate the relations of the various parts of speech to each other, and to state what is comprised under each of these parts. The parts of speech are usually consid- ered to be eight in number: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunc- tions, and interjections. Under these several titles will be found more full accounts of their functions. The noun is conventionally described as the name of a concrete or abstract object; the adjective modifies the meaning of a noun or pronoun ; the pronoun is a word standing in place of a noun ; a verb expresses action or state of being; an adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb; a preposition shows the relation between one noun or pronoun and another; a conjunction connects clauses or words: the inter- jection is an expression of emotion standing in no grammatical relation with the rest of the sen- tence. While this division Is sutfieient for practi- cal purposes, it is far from satisfying scientific accuracy. The noun and adjective are particular- ly closely allied, so that their functions often overlap, and there is in some instances no real distinction between the two. It seems probable that in the earliest period of the Indo-Germanie languages (q.v ) there was but one group for the two, the noun, and that from the collocation of nour.s, one alTecting the meaning of the other, the adjective was derived as a subdivision of the noun. Similarly the adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions are shown by comparative philolog- to be in most instances stereotyped case-forms of nouns. The pronouns, although in many cases, as in the demonstrative, interrogative, or relative classes, they are inflected like adjectives, form, in reality, a class distinct from the nouns. The cardinal numerals beyond four were origi- nally nouns: below four they were in the adjec- tive group. Verbs also form a separate class, al- though in the infinitive and participle they over- lap the noun-ad]ective group. The old view that in their primitive inflection pronominal elements entered seems on the whole doubtful, although arguments may be alleged in its favor. The most primitive interjections are merely reflex emotive vocal actions, and admit of no linguis- tic classification. They are perhaps the most primitive forms of speech, shared, like gesture language (q.v. ), by man with the animals. The developed interjections are syncopated sentences. Scientifically, then, the parts of speech are four — nouns, pronouns, verbs, and interjections. Nouns and pronouns have normally gender, nim- ber, and case. Gender may be natural, indicating male, female, and sexless, or grammatical, as German der Tisch (masc), table: die Gahel (fern.), fork: dus Weil (neu.l. woman. Here gender has nothing to do with sex. Number shows whether the word denotes one (singular), two (dual), or more than one or two (plural). Case expi'esses the relations of a noun or pro- noun to the word with which it is most closely related in the sentence. The number of cases varies widely in different languages. The verb, like the noun, has number, and, in some lan- guages, gender. It also has person, mood, tense, and voice. Person denotes generally either the person sjieaking, the one addressed, or some other individual. Here again many non-Indo- Germanic languages have various deviations from this scheme. Moods are actual (indicative) or contingent, the most familiar examples of the latter being the subjunctive (will), optative (wish), and imperative (command). Tense ex- presses the time of action. Originally tense was merely present or past, the present serving as a future also, but there were later developed va- rious subdivisions of tense, as the future and the perfect tense (present, past, and future per- fect ) , and the like. Voice denotes whether the person is the agent (active), or is acted upon (passive), or acts in a way which afTects him- self ( middle ) . The passive voice is much later in development than the active or than the middle, which has disappeared in the modern Indo-Germanie languages. All these grammati- cal categories are modified in various ways by diti'erent languages, and very many dialects have much more complex systems than the normal one for the Indo-Germanie group, which is here out- lined. Consult: Vater, Litteratiir der Grammaiilien, Lcxika mid WortersammJungpn ailer Sprachcn der Erde ( 2d ed., Berlin, 1847 ) : Benfey, Ge- .trhichte der Sprachwissenschaft (Munich, 1809) ; Miiller, Grvndriss der Sprachunssenschafit (Vien- na, 1876-88) ; Steinthal, Geschichfe der Sprach- u-issenschaft bei den Griechen und Romern (2d ed,, Berlin, 1890) ; Paul, Prin:sipien der Sprach- (jesehichte (3d ed„ Halle, 1898) ; Gabelentz, l^prachicissenschaft, ihre Anfgaben. Methoden iind bisherifien Erpebnisse (2d ed., Leipzig, 1901) ; Oertel. Lectures on the f?cieiice of Lan- (liuif/e (New York, 1901). GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. In the Middle Ages, when the existing schools were entirely under control of the monastic or the secular clergy, a distinction was drawn between the singing- schools, or those in which instruction was limited to the elements of reading, writing, and singing, and the grammar schools, in which attention was directed to the study of language and literature, usually of a religious character. These gram- mar schools were, in fact, a survival or revival of the old Roman grammar schools, or schools of the grammatists. In England the term was in turn applied to the secondary schools that were established on independent foundations, and were fi"ee from direct ecclesiastical control. Such schools were also called public schools. The earliest of these was Winchester, founded in 1378, by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, During the troubles incident to the Reformation in England many of these schools were swept away, but some of them were afterwards restored. The most important of these schools, and hence often called the nine great public or grammar schools of England, are Winchester, Eton, Rugby, Charter House, Saint Paul's, Harrow, Westmin- ster, Merchant Taylors, and Shrewsbury. These schools w-ere devoted wholly to the study of Greek and Latin grammar and rhetoric, and