THE SENTENCE.

1. Speech is made up of separate sayings, each complete in itself, and containing several words; and these sayings are Sentences.

Any complete meaning is a sentence.

A single word does not give a meaning: the words, 'John,' 'street,' star,' 'see,' 'escape,' used separately, do not tell us anything. We need at least two words to convey any information: 'John stands,' is a full meaning. The cases where even two words are sufficient are not very numerous; most meanings are expressed by more than two words: 'he is in the street,' I see the star,' 'the guilty cannot always escape.'

2. The usual and regular form of the Sentence is to declare that something is or is not-to give an affirmation or a denial.

For affirming, we have the form seen in the examples: the sun is risen,' 'gold is heavy,' 'men will die.'

For denying, we have such forms as 'the sun is not risen,' 'feathers are not heavy,' 'men will not live always,' the report is not true,' 'a brave soldier will not desert his post.' Such forms differ from the foregoing only in the addition of the negative word 'not.' The distinction between the kinds is of the greatest importance in regard to our conduct and belief, but is seldom considered in Grammar.

Of sentences that do not assume one or other of these forms, there are two classes-imperative and interrogative.

The Imperative sentence, instead of declaring something, commands, directs, or entreats: 'clear the way,' 'turn to the right,' spare his life.'

The Interrogative sentence asks a question: who will go with me?''Can any one disclose the mystery?'

Both the imperative and the interrogative sentence may be regarded as shortened forms of the usual, or declaratory sentence: clear the way,' is the same as 'I command you to clear the way.' For 'spare his life,' we should say in full, 'I (or we) entreat you to spare his life.' The interrogative form is a short way of saying, 'I ask,' or 'I wish to know something.'

Any two words, or more, will not give a meaning; that is, make a sentence: heavy gold,' 'thunder, lightning,' 'all good men themselves,' are not sentences. There is a particular kind of word

needed to complete the declaration or meaning: 'gold is heavy, 'thunder follows lightning,' 'all good men deny themselves.'

3. Every Sentence may be divided into two parts One part is the thing spoken about, and is called the Subject.

The other part is the thing said about the Subject, and is called the Predicate.

'Lions roar,' is a complete sentence. The thing spoken about, the Subject, is 'lions;' what is said about lions, the Predicate, is that they roar.' (The declaration is affirmative.) Here subject and predicate are each expressed by a single word. 'Unsupported bodies fall to the ground.'

Subject.

Unsupported bodies

Predicate. -fall to the ground.

Any person that understands the meaning of this sentence knows that what is spoken about is expressed in the two words, 'unsupported bodies; and that what is said or declared about unsupported bodies is expressed in the four words, 'fall to the ground.'

Thus, although a great many words may be used in conveying a single meaning, we can always separate those that give the subject from those that give the predicate.

Subject.

A small leak
The pain of death

They that have the greatest gifts, and are of the greatest usefulness

Predicate. —will sink a great ship. -is most in apprehension.

-are the most humble.

Although the general rule in sentences of affirmation and denial is to place the subject first, the order is sometimes inverted: 'short was his triumph; how long he will remain, no one can say;' 'it is a law of nature, that disuse diminishes the capabilities of things. On restoring the regular order, these may be written thus :—

His triumph

No one

That disuse diminishes the)

capabilities of things

was short.

can say how long he will remain, is a law of nature.

When a sentence cannot be reduced to a single subject and a single predicate, it is because two or more sentences are put together, which occurs not unfrequently: "The sun gives light by day, and the moon by night,' contains two subjects the sun,' the moon,' and two predicates agreeing in the main action, give light,' but differing in the manner of the action, 'by day,'' by night.' This is a compound sentence, partially contracted.

The following are additional examples :-John and David_are here; John is at the door, and David at the window.' 'The river rose, burst the embankment, and flooded the field' (one subject

THE NOUN AND THE VERB.

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and three predicates). Gold is a metal, yellow, heavy, incorrodible, of great value, and used for coin and for ornament.'

4. A Sentence containing only two words may be called a naked sentence. It contains the kinds of words essential to a meaning, and these words are, in Grammar, different PARTS OF SPEECH.

'Peter comes,' 'fishes swim,' 'time flies,' 'prudence forbids,' are the shortest possible sentences; they are meanings given in the most naked form. One of the words in each expresses by itself the subject-Peter,' 'fishes,' 'time,' 'prudence;' the second word in each is a complete predicate, comes,' 'swim,' 'flies,' 'forbids.'

The words for the subjects are, in Grammar, mainly of one class, or one part of speech-the NOUN: 'Peter,'' fishes,'' time,' 'prudence,'

are nouns.

The words for the predicates are, in Grammar, always of one class, or one part of speech—the VERB: 'comes,'' swim,' ' flies,' 'forbids,' are verbs.

The predicate word, or verb, has various peculiarities. Among others we may notice here, as never absent, the signification of time; the fact or thing declared is always given as happening in a certain division of time-present, past, future, or, in many cases, during all time: 'Peter comes' (present time), 'James withdrew (past time), 'fishes swim' (all time).

From a naked or skeleton sentence we may conceive all other sentences to be derived, being, as it were, clothed or filled out, or expanded by additions; and most of the words used for this end belong to other grammatical classes, or different parts of speech.

5. When the Predicate is clothed or enlarged by naming an object acted on, the word used is still most frequently a NOUN:- the Greeks worshipped Apollo :' fools waste opportunities.'

'Apollo' and 'opportunities' are nouns. They might serve as the subjects of sentences: Apollo was the oracular god,'' oppor tunities occur.'

This expansion, therefore, does not bring out any new part of speech; the object, like the subject, is a noun, or some form cquivalent to a noun. But we thereby determine a distinction among verbs: those that are thus followed by an object are called transitive verbs, because the action is supposed to pass over to some particular thing. Those that give a complete meaning without an object (the sun shines,'' time flies') are intransitive.

The noun is not confined to the subject or the object of the sen tence; it may occur in other situations: but the chief way to test a noun is to see whether it makes sense when used as a subject or an object: John comes,'' tell John,' make sense; 'will comes,'' tell burned,' are nonsense; 'will' and 'burned' are not nouns.

6. The Subject is enlarged by words that qualify its meaning: as few men live to be old;'all high mountaius are imposing.' The word few 'joined to the noun 'men,' to qualify its meaning, and the words 'all,' 'high,' joined to mountains, are words of a distinct grammatical class, or Part of Speech, and are called ADJECTIVES.

The Object of a Sentence, when a Noun, may be erlarged or qualified in the same way: I see bright fires;' 'he commanded many large armies;' 'they climbed the loftiest peak.' 'Bright,' 'many,' 'large,' ' the,' 'loftiest," are Adjectives.

In both places the adjective has the same use-to limit the number of things expressed by a noun, and increase the meaning; 'few' limits the class 'men' to a smaller number; 'high' limits the class mountain, and increases or adds to the meaning or attributes of the class; the things spoken of have everything belonging to the class mountain, and something besides, namely, what is expressed by the word 'high.'

7. The Predicate may be enlarged or extended by words expressing some attributes or circumstances of the action-they marched steadily;' bring John here;' 'the fruit will soon be ripe.'

The words steadily,'' here," 'soon,' are of the class, or Part of Speech, called the ADVERB.

The adverb modifies, limits, or varies the action of the predicate, or adds something to its signification; the action marched' is qualified by the meaning 'steadily,' which is something more than mere marching. The fruit will be ripe' is changed in meaning by the word soon,' which limits the time of the ripening. The word 'here' gives the place where John is to be brought to; it is an adverb of place.

These words are called adverbs, because they are attached to verbs, or to the essential word in the predicate of the sentence.

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8. The Adverb, instead of being one word, may be made up of two or more words: they marched in order;' send John to town; the apples will be ripe in a week.' The expressions, in order,' 'to town,' 'in a week,' are called ADVERBIAL PHRASES.

These phrases have the very same effect as the single-worded adverbs: in order' states the manner of marching; to town' gives the place where John is to go to, being an adverbial phrase of place; 'in a week' is an adverbial phrase of time.

THE PREPOSITION, CONJUNCTION, PRONOUN. 9

9. The Adverbial Phrase usually consists of a Noun, and another kind of word connecting the Noun with the Predicate Verb. In the phrase 'to town,' 'town' is Noun; 'to,' is a word of a distinct class, or Part of Speech, named the PREPOSITION.

The prepositions are few in number; they are mostly short words, as, to, from,' 'by,' 'in,' 'on,' 'over,' 'under,' 'with,' 'against.' Their original meaning is direction. When applied to a verb of motion, or action, they indicate the direction of the movement, which, however, is in most cases vague or incomplete, unless some object is named; 'come to,' is not intelligible without a place or object named; come to school,' we ran to the wood.'

10. When two distinct sentences are united by a connecting word, such word is of the class, or Part of Speech, called the CONJUNCTION: 'the sun rose, and the clouds dispersed;' 'individuals die, but the race is perpetual; I will come if I can.'

'And,' 'but,' and 'if,' are unlike any of the other parts of speech; they are conjunctions. They are nearly allied to, but yet distinct from, prepositions.

Sentences often follow one another without any connecting words at all.

11. The Subject or Object of Sentence may be given by a word of reference: John said, he would go;' launch the boat, and take it across the river.'

Such

words are of the class, or Part of Speech, named the PRONOUN.

'John' is a noun; it names a person by his own name: 'he,' is a pronoun, having no meaning of itself, but referring back to the person 'John' previously named. The word would equally apply to any person mentioned in the sentence or clause that goes before.

In like manner a boat' names a thing by its own name: when we hear the word we know what is meant. It' has no meaning of itself; we must look back to see what thing was last mentioned, namely, a boat.' If the thing last mentioned had been 'tree,' the word 'it' would have meant a tree.

The pronouns are a small class of words, of very wide application. They are called pronouns, or for-nouns, because they serve instead of nouns. After a person or thing is once mentioned, a second mention may be avoided by using one of the pronouns, which are usually much shorter words than nouns.