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glass, rill, lass. But of, if, is, has, was, yes, his, this, us, and thus, are exceptions to this rule.

RULE 2. Monosyllables terminating in any other consonants than f, l, and s, having a single vowel immediately before them, do not double the final consonant; as, car, war, cat, dog, dim, sin, prop, wed. The exceptions to this rule are, add, egg, odd, err, inn, and buzz.

RULE 3. In words ending in the letter y, the plurals of nouns, the persons of verbs, nouns derived from verbs, past participles, comparatives, and superlatives, are formed by changing y into i as, lady, ladies; weary, weariest; wearies, wearieth; wearied; carrier; worthy, worthier, worthiest. The participle of the present ending in ing, retains the y, that the letter i may not be doubled: as, tarry, tarrying; marry, marrying; weary, wearying. But if a vowel precede y, it is not so changed: as, toy, toys; joy, joys; annoy, annoyest; annoyeth, annoys: excepting, however, lay, pay, say; from which are formed laid, paid, said, and their compounds, unpaid, unsaid, unladen.

RULE 4. Words terminating in y, preceded by a consonant, when they have a syllable added to them that begins with a consonant, generally change y into i: as, voluntary, voluntarily, voluntariness. But when the y is preceded by a vowel, it is seldom changed in the additional

syllable; as, boy, boyish, boyhood; play, playful, playfulness.

RULE 5. Words that terminate in a single consonant, preceded by a single vowel, and with the accent upon the last syllable, when a syllable is added to them, beginning with a vowel, double the consonant; as, recur, recurred; infer, inferred; permit, permitted; expel, expelled; begin, beginner; win, winner.

But if a diphthong precede the final single consonant, or if the accent fall on the preceding syllable, then the consonant is not doubled; as, render, rendered, rendering; suffer, suffered, suffering; worship, worshiping, worshiped; offer, offering.

RULE 6. Words ending in any double letter, except l, and taking after them the syllable ness, or less, or ly, or full, retain the letter double; as, thoughtlessness, successfully, carelessly, harmlessness. But words terminating with double l, and having ness, less, ly, or full, joined to them, generally lose one l; as, will, wilful; full, fulness; dull, dulness; skill, skilful.

RULE 7. When ness, less, ly, or ful, are added to words ending in silent e, they do not drop that letter; as, sameness, tameness, blameless, peaceful, useful; yet to this, awful, duly, truly, are exceptions.

RULE 8. When words terminating in e mute

have the syllable ment added to them, they commonly preserve the e; as, excitement, allurement, abatement, chastisement. From this rule must be excepted judgment, abridgment, acknowledgment.

This termination ment, when a consonant stands before it, changes y into i; as, accompaniment, merriment.

RULE 9. When the syllables able and ible are added to words ending in e mute, it is generally omitted; as, blame, blamable; cure, curable; sense, sensible: but if c, or the soft g, precede e in the original word, the e is retained in words compounded with able, as, change, changeable; peace, peaceable.

e,

RULE 10. When words terminating in mute

have ing or ish added to them, the e is commonly dropped; as, trudge, trudging; budge, budging; knave, knavish; prude, prudish; rude, rudish.

RULE 11. Words taken into composition, often lose those letters which were useless in their original state; as fateful, always, withal, also, foretel, chilblain.

D 3

PART II.

ETYMOLOGY.

CHAP. I.

ETYMOLOGY is that part of grammar which teaches the division of words into sorts, or kinds, called parts of speech, and which considers their changes and derivations.

The parts of speech absolutely necessary to communicate thoughts, are the noun and the verb; for, the first want that men would feel, for such communication, would be names or particular sounds, expressive of those external objects which impressed their minds, by means of the senses, and of their several actions and influences. These, therefore, may be regarded as the principal sources of the other parts of speech into which words have been divided.

The words of the English language may be arranged in eight classes, or parts of speech: Noun, Adjective, Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, . Preposition, Conjunction, and Interjection. Some Grammarians, of high authority, add the Articles, as a ninth part of speech, while others reject them from that honour, asserting that, strictly speaking, they are adjectives, since they require to be followed by a noun, the sig

nification or extent of which they ascertain or limit, exactly as is done by adjectives. The articles belonging to the English language are, a and the. The former of these, a, (or an when its noun begins with a vowel) signifies one of any number of objects, and has the same construction, and, therefore, it is maintained that it ought to be in the same class, in which the word one is placed'; and that if one be an article, all the other numeral adjectives may be styled articles likewise. Moreover, this, that, and many other words are definitives, pointing out particular objects, as well as the, and should, consequently, be accounted articles also. All these words have the same construction as words denoting the qualities of bodies, and therefore may justly constitute an order of the class of adjectives.

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1. An article is a word prefixed to a noun to ascertain the extent of its signification. The article a, which, before a vowel, is written an, intimates that only one of a species is specified, and not any particular one: as, 66 Bring me a peach;" that is, one peach, or any one of a number of peaches. "Give me an orange;" that is, one, or any one, of those oranges in the basket. Hence, this is called the article indefinite. The article the, limits the signification of a word to. one or more of a species, particularly pointing out the individual, or individuals: as, " Fetch me

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