Imatges de pàgina
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AN

ELEMENTARY

ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

BY

THE VISCOUNT DOWNE.

Win. Hen. Dawnay.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, AND ROBERTS.

1857.

302. c. 20.

"Nobody who has a due reverence for his ancestors, or even for his own spiritual being, which has been mainly trained and fashioned by his native language,-nobody who rightly appreciates what a momentous thing it is to keep the unity of a people entire and unbroken, to preserve and foster all its national recollections, what a glorious and inestimable blessing it is to 'speak the tongue that Shakspeare spake,'--will ever wish to turn that tongue according to any arbitrary theory."

ARCHDEACON HARE.

"Language is the amber in which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved."

TRENCH On the Study of Words.

Printed by SPOTTISWOODE & Co., New-street-Square, London.

PREFACE.

SOME few years ago, being anxious to obtain an easy grammar for my own children, as well as for some village schools in which I took some interest, I was surprised to find how scanty a stock of knowledge the common elementary grammars had to offer: some, like Dr. Latham's and the late Rev. T. K. Arnold's (which are both good), are too difficult for my children: others, which profess to be easy, are too concise and meagre. Professor Sullivan's is, in many respects, excellent though there are parts of his arrangement which would certainly bear improvement. In the course of a correspondence with Professor Sullivan relative to some slight alterations which I ventured to suggest to him, he was kind enough to give me permission to make what use I pleased of his little grammar, in the event of my drawing up, as he recommended, a similar work, with such alterations as I wished to press upon his notice. In some few points I have thankfully availed

myself of this permission, and though too sensible of the many defects in what I have done, I still hope my labours have not been wholly in vain, so that this little book will be found to possess some advantages, and be a means of smoothing some of the difficulties of elementary grammar in both the domestic and village school-rooms of England.

It will be seen that the Verbs are arranged systematically in Voices, Moods, and Tenses. We must, undoubtedly, have both Active and Passive Voices; the Indicative, Imperative, Subjunctive, and Infinitive Moods. We have many tenses, all formed upon very simple principles, and easily learnt: we find most of them in every page of any book we may take up; and although they are not formed by inflection, as in the classical languages, but made up of auxiliary Verbs and Participles, they are absolutely essential to our language, and ought to be brought more prominently forward in all elementary teaching. It is far more consistent with truth and reason, that a child should be taught that I have loved is one complete form of tense, the definite perfect, than that he should parse he has, as 3rd person sing., pres. tense, for to have, loved, perfect participle, without further combination. He must of course be taught how each tense is formed, and must be able to resolve it into its constituent parts; but most children will learn this readily enough, and, by doing so, will not only gain a much clearer insight into the power and

beauty of their own language, but will also be laying a better and deeper foundation for the future study of other languages, if other languages have to be learnt. So, also, it is much better that a child should be taught that we have three forms of tense which relate to Present Time: The Simple form, I love. The Progressive, I am loving. The Emphatic, I do love.

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In Latin, as in French, he will find but one, and may, therefore, at first be guilty of the common mistake of translating I am loving by Ego sum amans or Je suis aimant ; but a very little instruction will soon get over this difficulty, and show him that the three forms of the one language answer to the one form in the others, so that in this respect our own language is the most expressive of the three. It is a great point also to bring forward more clearly our Progressive forms of tense, as they are undoubtedly a valuable and very important feature in the language. With respect to the names of tenses, as in other things, the simplest are in every way the best: such barbarous terms as Present Perfect, Prior Perfect, Present Perfect Progressive, are highly objectionable.

As participles are so much used, and present many difficulties in our language, I have devoted several pages to the consideration of them. They are used in various ways; in some instances as mere substitutes for nouns ; in others, in that more complicated form in which they seem to partake

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