Ex.-William is strictly honest.

This is a sentence; declarative, simple (why ?). William is the subject; is is the predicate verb (or copula); honest is the attribute (why?). The attribute is modified by strictly, an adverbial element.

Large trees are plenty.

This is a sentence; declarative, simple. Trees is the subject nominative; are plenty is the predicate (why?). The subject nominative is modified by large, an adjective element. Are is the copula (why?); plenty is the attribute.

The lion broke the boy's arm.

Lion is the subject nominative, modified by the, an adjective element. Broke, the predicate verb, is modified by arm, an objective element. Arm is modified by boy's, an adjective element.

I wrote a long letter. Many hands make quick work. "Man's necessity is God's opportunity." The summer breezes blow soft and cool. The old man, laughing, said " "Yes."

Analyze the following sentences:

(1.) Compound subjects. He and I went to London. Wisdom, judgment, prudence, and firmness were his predominant traits. To profess and to possess are often two different things. Education and energy have accomplished wonders. (2.) Compound predicates. What nothing earthly gives or can destroy. Education expands and elevates the mind. He rose, reigned, and fell. (3.) Compound objective elements. "He had a good mind, a sound judgment, and a lively imagination." Learn to labor and to wait. God loves you and me.

(4.) Compound adjective elements. He was a good, faithful, and generous I am not the advocate of indolence and improvidence. Napoleon was shrewd and far-sighted. He is not angry, but excited.

man.

(5.) Compound adverbial elements. "Man is fearfully and wonderfully made." The soldiers marched slowly and sadly. The æronaut went up swiftly and down rapidly. The journey was accomplished speedily, yet pleasantly. The work was done with profit and pleasure.

Obs.-Compound and complex sentences should be separated into their members, or clauses, in analysis, and each of these should be treated as a simple sentence. (6.) Compound sentences. William went to Paris and Henry staid at home. Gen. Grant pressed forward and Gen. Lee surrendered.

(7.) Complex sentences. The hand that governs in April, governs in January. I venerate the man whose heart is warm. I now know why you deceived me. "Come as the winds come, when navies are stranded."

NOTE. The student should not pass beyond this lesson until he has fully mastered all the different kinds of elements and sentences mentioned in it.

EXERCISES IN CONSTRUCTION.

Write five sentences each containing an objective element.
Write five sentences each containing an adjective element.

Write five sentences each containing an adverbial element.

Write five compound sentences.

Write five complex sentences.

LESSON IV.

PARTS OF SPEECH.

There are nine CLASSES of WORDS, or PARTS of SPEECH, in the English Language: NOUNS, PRONOUNS, ADJECTIVES, VERBS, ADVERBS, PREPOSITIONS, CONJUNCTIONS, and PARTICIPLES.

The noun, pronoun, verb, and some adjectives and adverbs, are inflected.

NOUNS.

A noun is the name of any person, place, or thing. Illustrate.

Nouns are of two kinds; PROPER and COMMON.

A proper noun is a name applied to a person or to an individual object.

Ex.-Henry, America, Bible.

A common noun is the name applied to each of a class of objects.

Ex.-Book, mind, school.

The principal office of nouns is to name the thing of which we affirm something. Any word, syllable, letter, or symbol, may be used as a noun; as, You is a pronoun. Con is a prefix. B is a consonant. . is a period.

Participles, when used as nouns, may be called VERBAL nouns.

Stealing is a crime. He was convicted of bribing. Such words are parsed and analyzed as nouns, yet retain the governing power of the verb, from which they are derived.

A collective noun is a name denoting in the singular form more than one object of the same kind; as, council, meeting, committee, family.

An abstract noun denotes attributes; as, virtue, wisdom, whiteness, indolence, ambition, goodness.

Words from other parts of speech, also phrases and clauses, are sometimes used

as nouns.

LESSON V.

MODIFICATIONS OF NOUNS AND PRONOUNS.

NUMBER.

Modifications, or inflections of the parts of speech are changes in their form, meaning, and use.

Nouns and pronouns have NUMBER, PERSON, GENDER, and CASE.

Number is that modification of a noun or pronoun which denotes one thing or more than one.

The singular number denotes one thing.

The plural number denotes more than one thing.

NUMBER FORMS.

The plural of nouns is regularly formed by adding s to the singular. When the singular ends in a sound that cannot be united with that of s, es is added to form another syllable; as, topaz, topazes; fox, foxes; match, matches. Remark. Such words as horse, niche, and cage, drop the final e when es is added. Form the plural of each of the following nouns, and note what letters represent sounds that cannot be united with the sound of "s": Ax or axe, arch, adz or adze, box, brush, cage, chaise, cross, ditch, face, gas, glass, hedge horse, lash, lens, niche, prize, race.

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Some nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant, take "es" without an increase of syllables; as, hero, heroes; cargo, cargoes.

Some nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant, require s only.

Form the plurals of canto, domino, duodecimo, halo, junto, lasso, memento, octavo, piano, proviso, quarto, salvo, solo, two, tyro, zero, buffalo, calico, cargo, echo, embargo, grotto, hero, inuendo, motto, mosquito, mulatto, negro, portico, potato, tornado, volcano.

Common nouns ending in y after a consonant, change y into i, and take es without increase of syllables. Nouns ending in y after a vowel, require s.

Form the plurals of alley, ally, attorney, chimney, city, colloquy, daisy, essay, fairy, fancy, kidney, lady, lily, money, monkey, mystery, soliloquy, turkey, valley, vanity.

Nouns ending in f or fe, change f or fe into ves, in the plural; as, loaf, loaves; life, lives.

Exceptions.- Dwarf, scarf, reef, brief, chief, grief, kerchief, handkerchief, mischief, gulf, turf, surf, safe, fife, strife, proof, hoof, reproof, follow the gener al rule. Nouns in ff have their plural in s; as, muff, muffs. Staff makes staves, but its compounds are regular; as, flagstaff, flagstaffs. Wharf has either wharfs or wharves.

Give the plural of each of the following nouns and the rule for forming it:
Ex.-Fox; plural, foxes.

Rule.-Nouns in a form the plural by adding es.

Box, book, candle, hat, loaf, wish, fish, sex, box, coach, inch, sky, bounty, army, duty, knife, echo, less, cargo, wife, story, church, table, glass, study, calf, branch, street, potato, peach, sheaf, booby, rock, stone, house, glory, hope, flower, city, difficulty, distress, wolf, day, bay, relay, chimney, journey, valley, needle, enemy, army, vale, ant, hill, sea, key, toy, monarch, tyro, grotto, nuncio, embryo, gulf, handkerchief, hoof, staff, muff, cliff, whiff, cuff, reef, safe, wharf, fief.

Give the number of the following nouns: Book, trees, plant, shrub, globes, planets, toys, home, fancy, mosses, glass, state, foxes, houses, prints, spoon, bears, lilies, roses, churches, glove, silk, skies, hill, river, scenes, stars, berries, peach, porch, glass, pitcher, valleys, mountain, cameos.

Write six sentences, using in each sentence one of the preceding words, first in the singular and then in the plural number.

IRREGULAR PLURALS.

Some nouns are irregular in the formation of the plural; as, man, men; child, children; mouse, mice; foot, feet; cherub, cherubim or cherubs; crisis, crises; datum, data; ellipsis, ellipses; erratum, errata; focus, foci; fungus, fungi; nebula, nebula; genus, genera; hypothesis, hypotheses; memorandum, memoranda.

COMPOUND WORDS.

Some compound nouns in which the principal word stands first, vary the first word; as, son-in-law, sons-in-law.

Form the plural of the following words: Aid-de-camp, attorney-at-law, billetdoux, hanger-on, knight-errant, man-of-war.

Most compounds vary the last word; as, pailfuls, gentlemen.

Write the plural of the following:

Court-yard, dormouse, Englishman, fellow-servant, fisherman, Frenchman, forgetme-not, goose-quill, handful, maid-servant, man-trap, mouthful, piano-forte, portemonnaie, step-son, tete-a-tete, tooth-brush.

s.

The following nouns are not treated as compounds of man: Brahman, German, Mussulman, Norman, Ottoman, talisman. Their plurals are formed by adding 8. A few compounds vary both parts; as, man-singer, men-singers. The nouns alms, riches, ethics, pains, politics, optics, and some others, are occasionally construed as singular, but more properly as plural. News, formerly singular or plural, is now mostly singular. Molasses and measles, though ending like a plural, are singular, and are so used. Oats is generally plural; gallows is both singular and plural; foot and horse, meaning bodies of troops, and people, meaning persons, are always construed as plural; cannon, shot, sail, cavalry, infantry, are either singular or plural. People, when it signifies a community, or body of persons, is a collective noun in the singular; sometimes, though rarely, it takes a plural form; as, "many peoples and nations."

A few words that are usually plural, viz.: bowels, embers, entrails, lungs, have sometimes a singular, denoting a part of that expressed by the plural; as, bowel, lung, etc.

Some nouns are alike in both numbers; as, deer, sheep, swine, vermin, grouse, salmon, trout, apparatus, means, hiatus, series, congeries, species, superficies, head, cattle; certain building materials, as, brick, stone, plank, joist, in mass; also fish, and sometimes fowl, when denoting the class. But several of these, when used in a plural sense, denoting individuals, have the regular plural also; as, salmons, trouts, fishes, fowls, etc.

The words brace, couple, pair, yoke, dozen, score, gross, hundred, thousand, and some others, after adjectives of number and in some other constructions, particularly after in, by, etc., in a distributive sense, assume in the plural, a plural form; as, "in braces and dozens," "by scores and hundreds," "worth thousands."

Letters, figures, and other characters, are generally made plural by adding 's; the plural of such nouns may, however, be regularly formed.

Ex. The a's and n's in that word. The 4's and 5's.

When a title is prefixed to a proper name, the expression is made plural by annexing the plural termination to either the name or the title, but not to both. Ex.-The Misses Howard. The Miss Clarks.

But when the title is Mrs., or is preceded by a numeral, the name is alwavs made plural.

Ex.-The Mrs. Browns. The two Mr. Barlows.

The title is always made plural when it refers to two or more persons.
Ex. Drs. Brown and Johnson.

LESSON VI.

PERSON.

Person, in Grammar, is the distinction of nouns to denote the speaker, the person or thing spoken to, or the person or thing spoken of.

There are three persons; the first, the second, and the third.

A noun is in the first person when it denotes the speaker; as, "I, Paul, have written it."

A noun is in the second as, "Thou, God, seest me."

person when it denotes the person or thing addressed; "Hail, Liberty!"

A noun is in the third person when it denotes the person or thing spoken of; as, Washington was brave. Truth is mighty.

A noun is also in the second person when it is used in apposition with a pronoun of the second person or when used independently as a term of address; as, "Ye crags and peaks." Idle time, John, is ruinous.

A noun in the first or the second person is never used as the subject or object of a verb, but may be put in apposition with either, for the purpose of explanation. Ex. "And I have loved thee, Ocean."

Compose sentences in which there shall be two examples of nouns and two of pronouns, used in each of the three persons.

LESSON VII.

GENDER FORMS.

No English nouns have distinctive neuter forms, but a few have different forms to distinguish the masculine from the feminine.

The masculine is distinguished from the feminine in three ways:

(1.) By a difference in the ending of the words; as, count, countess; executor, executrix.

(2.) By prefixing a distinguishing word; as, man-servant, maid-servant.

(3.) By using different words; as, son, daughter.

Ess is the most common ending for feminine nouns.