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An improved grammar of the English language
An improved grammar of the English language Author:Noah Webster Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: called palatal letters, or palatals, as g, k, I, r. The two former, when they represent a deep utterance of sound from the throat, may be called gutturals. Wh... more »en an articulation occasions a sound through the nose, it is called a nfntil letter. Such are m, n, and ng, in ing. J, in English, represents the sounds of d and soft g. X represents the sound of k and s. A diphthong is the union of two vowels, which are so rapidly uttered in succession, as to be considered as forming one syllable, as oi, and oy, in voice, joy. A triphthong is the union of three vowels in a syllable. ETYMOLOGY. CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS. Words are naturally divided into two Classes, Primary and Secondary. The Jirst class consists of words which are essential to the language of men; on which other words depend, or to which they are added as auxiliaries. In this class are included the Noun or Name, and the verb. These two species of words are so necessary to a communication of ideas, that no complete sentence or proposition can be formed without the use of both, unless when a substitute is used for a name. Thus, the sun shines, is a complete sentence, containing a name and a verb ; but remove either of them, and the proposition is destroyed. From the importance of these words, they are here denominated Primary, or the Primary Parts Op Speech. The second class consists of words of secondary or subordinate use, or of such as are dependent on other words in construction. Of these there are several species. 1st. Words which supply the place of other words and of sentences, which are here called pronouns or substitutes. 2d. Words which express the qualities of things, and which therefore are attached to the names of those things. These are here called adjectives, attributes or attributive...« less