OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR, WITH A POSTSCRIPT, ANALYSIS AND AN APPENDIX BY JONATHAN MORGAN, JR. A. B. HALLOWELL : PRINTED BY GOODALE & BURTON. SOLD BY E. GOODALE, at THE HALLOWELL BOOKSTORE. 1814. PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR, LENOX AND DISTRICT OF MAINE, TO WIT. BE it remembered, that on the eighth day of February, A. D. 1814, and in the thirty-eighth year of the Independence of the United States of America, JONATHAN MORGAN, jun. of Alna in the said District, hath deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, viz. "Elements of English Grammar, with a postscript, Analysis and an Appendix. By Jonathan Morgan jun. A. B." In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned; And also the "Act supplementary to an act entitled an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and for extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints." HENRY SEWALL, Clerk Dis. Court Maine. A true copy of record. II. SEWALL, Clerk. -1 NO science is of that abstract importance, as a good knowledge of the rudiments of the language in which we communicate our ideas, and make all our intercourses in society. It has generally been the good fortune of other languages to have been ranked first among the sciences, by those who have spoken them. Ours has experienced the reverse. And why so ample a stock of materials has solong lain as a heap of neglected rubish, is perhaps, almost unaccountable. The reason probably is, that the English language has been considered, in the first place, to be so perfectly rude and anomilus as never to be capable of a strict syntax: in the second place, that it has been so very easy to understand it sufficiently to answer the common concerns of life, that the study of it, by men of letters, has been considered beneath their notice. Thus the great geniuses and scholars, in the English, have bestowed their main attention on those languages, which have served them little importance, besides leading them to the true fountain of radical therms, whilst that, in which they communicated all their ideas, and which alone was of intrinsic value received no improvement. This is probably the reason, that we have so few authors, whose writings evidence a good and thoro' knowledge of theirown language. The absurd idea of understanding the English [2] language without study, is now mostly discarded, especially by those, who have gone farenongh, into its real nature, to discover its excellency. For those, who study the language scientifically, find treasures of compensation. It will be proper to notice some error, in the orthography of our language, which are either useless, or radically wrong. The first, we shall notice is the termination ay. In all such terminations, the y is perfectly superfluous, for a, at the end of words is always long. Therefore y is not neces sary, to give any additional quantity to the syllable. This makes it superfluous. |