date

14 Nov r. 1815 Chrestomathia
14 Nov r. 1815

Chrestomathia

IV Nomenclature

Grammatical Sketch

Adjuncts of place and time, whether reducible to qualities? ex.gr. The quality (momentary[?]) of being in such a place, at such a time?

Among names of fictitious entities, the foremost, and these the designation of which is of most immediate necessity to mind-expressing converse are qualities.

Note (a)?

qualities being taken in the largest sense of which the word is susceptible: Is it that which in its import is coextensive with the applicability of the word so much used in the Aristotelian Logic School - prædication.

Taking the word proposition in its simplest acceptation, by every proposition the existence of some quality in some subject is asserted. A proposition is any portion of discourse by which the existence of some quality in some subject is asserted. The name of the substance is the noun substantive: the name of the quality is the noun adjective. The word by which the relation between the quality and the substance is indicated - viz. the existence of the one or the other is by logicians called the copula.

By grammarians, on some of the occasions in which by logicians the term copula is employed, the term verb is employed. But it would not by any means be true to say that the word copula and the word Verb are interconvertible - indicative of precisely the same object and nothing more. By the word copula, no more than one single class of words is indicated, viz. the class of words by which intimation is conveyed that in the opinion of the speaker the quality named by him exists in the subject the name of which is pronounced by him at the same time. By the word verb is indicated the cluster of objects the names of which are by grammarians put together and spoken of as constituting all of them together but one Verb:
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  • Title: [14 Nov r. 1815 Chrestomathia]
    Description: 14 Nov r. 1815

    Chrestomathia

    IV Nomenclature

    The import of the word copula is the same in all languages. The import of the word verb is different in different languages. - In the copiously inflected languages it includes a much greater number of words than in the sparingly inflected languages.

    In the import of the copula is included nothing more than the one just brought to view.

    In the language of Grammarians, by the name of the verb substantive one verb is distinguished from all others; it may be termed the verb indicative, in which are contained indications of simple existence. In Latin the verb sum: in English the verb to be, for in Latin one of the many species of conjugates included under that complex denomination, in English another of those[?] species of conjugates, is employed as the name of the whole aggregate.

    In every other verb throughout all its modifications, with the import of the copula is added the import of some name of a quantity. In the verb substantive, no such additional[?] has place: unless the objects designated by the words person, number, mood, tense, be regarded as capable of being included[?] under and designated by the word[?] quality.

    (a) A sign designative of present time, is it to be considered as designative of a relation? Is [...?] the present the standard of all relation of time? The copula, it should seem, must be considered as including the designation of present time, unless in so far as intimation is given of the contrary.
  • Title: [13 Nov r. 1815 Chrestomathia]
    Description: 13 Nov r. 1815

    Chrestomathia

    IV. Nomenclature

    Exhaustiveness whence Horne's

    Grammat Sketch

    Ranged in the order of simplicity and conceptibility, and denominated by their usual names, the several parts of speech that are essentially different from one another, and not included any one of them under any other, will stand as follows.

    1. Substantive (Noun Substantive).

    2. Adjective (Noun Adjective).

    3. Verb (Verb Substantive) called also the (Copula).

    4. Proposition.

    5. Conjunction.

    If considered as distinct from all the aboves[?] and not including in itself the import of several of them, the interjection does not form a part of organized language. It is no more than part and parcel of that unorganized language which is common to man and the inferior animals.

    In the above list, the word substantive must be understood, considered as unfurnished from those several additionments[?] and modifications by which the relations designated by the words gender, case and number are expressed.

    So likewise the Noun adjective.

    So likewise the Verb as distinct from those by which the relations designated by the words person, number, Moodes[?] and Tense are expressed.

    The Pronoun substantive will be found to coincide in its import and proportion with the Noun Substantive:- and that as perfectly as any one Noun Substantive with another Noun Substantive, that is the sort of relation it bears to the several other parts of speech is the same. The Pronoun Adjective will in like manner be found to coincide in its import and proportion with the Noun Adjective.

    The article, whether definite or indefinite, will be found in like manner to be but a species of Noun Adjective.
  • Title: [24 Aug. 1814 Logic Ch. Language]
    Description: 24 Aug. 1814

    Logic

    Ch. Language

    Conjugates &c.

    '.1

    3

    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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