ENGLISH PARSING, SYNTAX AND ANALYSIS. THE TWO MAIN DIVISIONS of English Grammar are ETYMOLOGY and SYNTAX. ETYMOLOGY treats-1. Of the various classes or kinds of words in the English language, and of the inflections, or changes, which they undergo. 2. Of the derivation of one word from another." SYNTAX teaches us to arrange words together correctly, so as to form sentences. To these two divisions it is necessary, now, to add another, viz., ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES. To analyse a sentence is to take it to pieces, in order to distinguish between its elements or separate parts, and also to distinguish principal assertions from subordinate assertions and clauses. ETYMOLOGY. The English language consists of nine classes, or sorts of words, viz. :-Article, Noun, Adjective, Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, Conjunction, Preposition, and Interjection." ARTICLES. AN ARTICLE is a word put before a noun to show the extent of its meaning, as a book, an orchard, the book. A or an, when put before a noun, does not point out or This work is concerned only with the first part of Etymology. B define a particular noun, and hence it is called the indefinite article. The article the is used to define some particular noun, and hence it is called the definite article. A or an, and the are the only articles in English. NOUNS. A NOUN is a name. There are two kinds of nouns, viz., Proper and Common. A PROPER NOUN is the name of some particular person or place, as Alexander, Paris. A COMMON NOUN is a name given, not to individual persons or things to distinguish them from other persons or things belonging to the same class, but they are names that are Common to all the persons or things of the same class, as boy, tree, village. The Number of Nouns. Nouns have two numbers, viz., Singular and Plural. The Singular is used when speaking of only one, as tree ; the Plural, when speaking of more than one, as trees. Gender of Nouns. Nouns have two genders, viz., the Masculine and the Feminine. The Masculine Gender denotes the male or the he kind, as father, brother. The Feminine Gender denotes the female or she kind, as mother, sister. Names of things without life are neither masculine nor feminine, and are said to be Neuter, as to gender, as chair, carpet. Cases of Nouns. Nouns have three cases, viz., the Nominative, the Possessive, and the Objective. The nominative and the objective are both alike; they differ only in the relation which they bear to some other word in the sentence. The Singular Possessive case is formed by adding s with an apostrophe, as boy, boy's. Plural nouns ending in s form their possessive by adding the apostrophe only, as the boys' school. * Strictly speaking they are not Articles but Adjectives, |