date

24 Aug. 1814 Logic Ch. Language
24 Aug. 1814

Logic

Ch. Language

Conjugates &c.

'.1

2

With the same propriety and convenience as that with which the terms conjugation and to conjugate were applied to the cluster of intimately connected words called a verb, might they have been applied to the other cluster of {intimately connected words} called a noun, as diversified by the several modifications called cases in addition to those by which the designation of the several varieties of which sex, person (viz. with relation to the speaker, the hearer, and others) and number are susceptible, - by which so many correspondent varieties, in respect of sex, person, and number, are expressed and brought to view.

As it happened, no such extension, however, was made. In the case of a noun, instead of conjugation and to conjugate, declension and to decline, were the words employed.

In their application /Applied/ to the cluster to which they were applied, viz. to the verb, the terms conjugation and to conjugate were apposite and expressive. Jugum is the Latin word for a yoke: an instrument by which a number of animals employed in draught are connected with each other and with the burthen which is to be drawn: connected with each other for that common purpose.

In the case /the instance/ of a verb /The cluster of words called a verb/ presents to view a fundamental or radical import to which, throughout the whole cluster, expression is given by some letter, or combination of letters, which has place in every one of the component words, and by which, as by a bond of union, they are connected together, and made up into one whole.

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    By grammarians, who may be considered as a tribe of logicians, operating in a particular quarter of the field of logic, the term conjugates, or, at any rate, the nearly allied terms, to conjugate, and conjugation, have been employed of old.

    By logicians, to the import of these terms a considerable and very useful extension has been given.

    By grammarians, the aggregate, or say cluster of connected words, called by them a verb, has been said to be conjugated when, in conjunction with the characteristic fundamental portion of it, the several modifications by which - the several varieties by which tense, mood, person, number, to which in some instances is preposterously added gender, i.e. sex are /stand/ expressed -have been exhibited and recited; and the groups, in so far as for the expression of these modifications of the fundamental import, words more or less different in sound are employed, the verb is said to belong to so many different conjugations.

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    Exactly of the same sort is the connexion, which, in the different parts or portions of the part of speech called a noun, has place.

    In the instance of a noun, the several sources of modification, designated by the words person, gender, and number are designated by the same names, as in the instance of the verb. When, a noun being given, a man names the modifications called cases, together with those which regard person, number, and gender, he is not said to conjugate it - he is said to decline it.

    The sources of diversification, in respect of which the noun differs from the verb, are, on the part of the verb, the moods and tenses, which the noun has not; on the part of the noun, the cases which the verb has not.

    Connected /Associated/ with the import of the word case, is, according to the grammarians, the import of the words declension, to decline.

    But in the instance of declension, the emblem or archetypal image exhibits no marks of such felicity as have been seen exhibited in the case of conjugation. Case is from cado to fall: an image borrowed by the Latin grammarians from the Greek grammarians. A rod is conceived to fall. In the nominative case, the mode of its falling - the direction in which it falls is considered as direct - perpendicular to the horizon, and is accordingly called - rectus: in the other cases, it is considered as oblique, viz. with reference to the horizon: accordingly, all these several cases are, besides their peculiar names, expressed by one common name, and called oblique cases.

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    With indisputable propriety, and with no inconsiderable utility, in so far as /if/ comprehensiveness of perception be of any use, have the logicians extended the application of these words, conjugation and to conjugate - or at any rate, that other term so intimately connected with them, viz. conjugate, or conjugates, not only to the cluster of connected words called nouns, but to all words, the connexion of which is formed and evidenced by the circumstance of their containing in their structure the main portion, expressive of the principal and characteristic idea of the whole cluster.

    In the combination of letters expressive of this characteristic idea, may be seen what may be termed the root of the cluster. In the whole word, whatever it be, which, if there were any differences in respect of time, presents itself as likely to have been the word first in use, we have the radical and primitive conjugate; in all the others, the several ramified branches, or collateral and derivative conjugates.

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