The Institutes of English Grammar, Methodically Arranged

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE INSTITUTES ENGLISH GEAMMAK. English Grammar is the art of speaking, reading, and writing the English language correctly. It is divided into four parts; namely, Orthography, Etymology. Syntax, and Prosody. ' Orthography treats of letters, syllables, separate words, and spelling. Etymology treats of the different parts of speech, with their classes and modifications. Syntax treats of the relation, agreement, government, and arrangement, of words in sentences. Prosody treats of punctuation, utterance, figures, and versification. PART I. ORTHOGRAPHY. Orthography treats of letters, syllables, separate words, and spelling. CHAPTER I.?OF LETTERS. A Letter is an alphabetic mark, or character, commonly representing some elementary sound of a word. An elementary sound of a word, is a simple or primary sound of the human voice, used in speaking. The sound of a letter is commonly called its power: when any letter of a word is not sounded, it is said to be silent or mute. The letters in the English alphabet, are twenty-six; the simple or primary sounds in the language, are about thirty-six or thirty -seven. A knowledge of the letters consists in an acquaintance with these four sorts of things; their names, their classes, their powers, and their forms. The letters are written, or printed, or painted, or engraved, or embossed, in an infinite variety of shapes and sizes; and yet are always the same, because their essential properties do not change, and their names, classes, and powers, are mostly permanent. The following are some of the different sorts of types, or styles of letters, with which every reader should be early acquainted: ? 1. The Koman: A a, B b, C c, D d, E e, F f, G g, H h, I i, J j, K k, LI, Mm, N n, 0 o, P p, Q ...