GENERAL OBSERVATIONS TO BE KEPT IN MIND IN ANALYSING

COMPOUND SENTENCES.

1. Take care that there is a sentence in each member.

2. Be careful not to supply a subject or predicate except when there is a real contraction, or a real ellipsis, without which the grammatical construction is unintelligible.

3. In selecting passages for analysis, be careful not to take two or more periods as though they formed one connected syntactical construction. Many Authors fail in dividing complete periods from each other by full stops. The sense must accordingly always determine where each period really ends, whether the pointing indicate it, or not.

PART THE THIRD.

EXPOSITION OF THE LAWS OF SYNTAX AS DEDUCED FROM THE NATURE OF THE SENTENCE.

§ XLV.

Syntax is that part of Grammar which explains the laws, by which words are so combined, as to express our thoughts aright.

So long as we deal with individual words, and express by them only individual notions, the province of Syntax is untouched. Syntax first commences, and its laws become first applicable, when two or more notions are combined so as to form a more explicit notion, or to express a complete thought.

REMARK.

It is proper here to explain the difference between a complete thought and a mere notion. A complete thought is an act of the mind, which involves a judgment between two notions made at the very time when they come into consciousness. The expression of such a judgment must

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assume the form of an assertion; so that in uttering a complete thought we must always have both a subject and a predicate. On the other hand, a notion does not involve any judgment made by the speaker at the time. The judgment involved in it is one which has been previously made, and is now expressed simply as an existing fact. Thus when I say, "The man is wise," I express a judgment made by my mind at the very time, and this judgment is a complete thought. On the other hand, when I use the phrase "The wise man," there is no immediate judgment implied, but simply a recognised fact, the cognizance of which depends upon a previous mental process.

The adjective, therefore, used as an attribute to a noun, gives rise simply to a notion more specific than the noun itself. The adjective used with the verb "to be," as a predicate, expresses a complete thought.

OF NOTIONS.

$ XLVI.

All our notions must relate either to things themselves, or to their conditions and attributes. Hence they may be ranged under two great classes. 1st. Those which express being; and those which express power or activity.

REMARK.

All the qualities of objects are properly speaking powers residing in them; for when an object has the power of affecting us in a certain way, we term that power an attribute or quality of the object.

§ XLVII.

Words that imply existence have, on that account, been termed substantives. Of those that imply action, there are two kinds: 1st., When the word denotes, in addition to the action, a judgment or wish of the speaker respecting it, it is called a verb. 2ndly. When the word, on the other hand, involves no immediate judgment of the speaker, it is called an adjective.

The following table exhibits a complete classification of all the notional words used in our language.

OF THE RELATIONS EXISTING BETWEEN OUR

NOTIONS.

§ XLVIII.

The expression of our thoughts must always be the utterance of some relation, perceived by us to exist between one notion and another. Hence the laws of Syntax can be nothing else than rules, by which all these relations may be accurately embodied in language.

The words or inflections which are employed to assist us in doing this, are termed relational; in contradistinction to those included in the above table, which are termed notional.

§ XLIX.

The principal relations which exist between our notions, are the following:

i. The relation between a given action and a given existence, the latter being viewed as the agent, or subject of the action, as,

The sun shines.