JB_102_285.xml

Title: [22 Jany. 1816 Chrestom or Language]

Description: 22 Jany. 1816

Chrestom or Language

Ch. 2. Uses of this end

4

VIII. Explanation of the several parts of speech: i.e. of the different modifications of the matter of language corresponding to the several modifications of thought, as often as to any considerable extent thought comes to be communicated, whatsoever be the subject and the occasion expression requires to be found, and for which signs must in every language be provided, and accordingly whatsoever be the difference between the sign or signs employed for the designation of any given import in this or that language and the sign or signs employed for the designation of that same import in this or that other particular language, are accordingly provided /furnished/.

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JB_102_491.xml

Title: [30 Jan y. 1816 Chrestom or Language]

Description: 30 Jan y. 1816

Chrestom or Language

Ch.2 Signs viz. Propositions

'.1 Single Propositions

 [...?]. Propositions, why spoken of before terms. Proposition, the integer: time but a fraction - result of the decomposition of a proposition.

Brutes incapable of the decomposition: their language is all in propositions.

Ch.│ │ Signs employed for the designation of these phænomena, viz. Propositions: - their modifications or species - their consituent parts or contents.

'.1. Collections of signs, i.e. Propositions expressive of some state of the perceptive faculty, considered as having for the source of the perception, a corporeal object or objects.

Correspondent to the objects to be designated, such must be the signs by which they are designated.

Correspondent to the states, and modifications of which corporeal objects are susceptible, such must be the modifications of the signs which, under the name of language or discourse, are employed in the designation of them.

Every proposition by which any portion of matter is brought to view - is presented to the mind - has for its subject either some material body, some portion of a body, or some collection of bodies, or portions of bodies, or of bodies, and portions of bodies.

The sign or portion of language, by which any such modification or modifications of matter are presented to the mind is termed a name, a denomination, an appellation, an appellative.

By any such name, what is designated is either a single body, a part of a single body, or an aggregate of bodies, or of parts of single bodies.

If a part of a body be spoken of by itself, it is in so far considered as a whole.

If it be a single body, the mode in which that body is spoken of is either determinate or indeterminate: if determinate, the name is stiled a proper name: if it be an aggregate of bodies, it is stiled a common name.

If the individuals designated by such common name be all determinate, it is or may be stiled a collective name, in so far as any of them are indeterminate, a generic or specific name.

If being a single body it be indeterminate, it has for its denomination a common name, whether collective or generic, being the name of the aggregate of which it is considered as an unit, coupled with a species of sign denominated a pronoun adjective of which by and by.

JB_102_283.xml

Title: [22 Jany. 1816 Chrestom or Language]

Description: 22 Jany. 1816

Chrestom or Language

Ch. 2. Uses of this end

2

Thus much being premised, I proceed to bring to view the order in which the principal and most comprehensive topics - viz. those in which, taken together, all others will be included - will follow one another in the ensuing pages.

I. Modes or forms of which discourse or language has been found susceptible, viz. audible, visible, and their respective substitutes.

II. Uses of language viz. 1. Primary or social: viz. communication of the matter of thought from mind to mind. 2. Secondary or solitary viz. 1. Recordative of the matter of thought. 2. Improvement of thought viz. always with a view to action: otherwise the improvement is no better but imaginary not real.

III. Operations performable in relation to discourse or language: viz. 1. Employing in the ordinary manner, 2. Choosing for use. 3. Learning. 4. Teaching. 5. Improving.

IV. Different occasions on which it may be desirable that language should be respectively applied to the several sorts of uses to which it is applicable viz. 1. Simple information, applying to the conception. 2. Probation, applying to the judgement. 3. Gratification, applying to the sensitive faculty. 4. Excitation, applying to the will through the medium of the affections and the passions.

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