In 1652 John Wallis published his 'Gram matica Linguae Anglicanx,' explaining Eng lish usage in Latin, as did other so-called Eng lish grammarians, who still esteemed Latin, as the only scholarly tongue. The earliest of these works was written 500 years after the Norman Conquest and two centuries after Chaucer had shown what the English language by itself could do. Everywhere we find grammar work ing upon a language already made, and rich enough in words and forms to be the vehicle of a literature before the grammarians sub mitted it to examination and analysis. Every where the office of grammar has been, not to fix what a language should be, or must be, but to explain what an already existing language is. Grammar is explanatory and not creative.
So considered, grammar may be defined as the all of expressing thought by means of con nected words. Grammar has nothing to do with unconnected words. We may have a very ex tensive list of words without grammar, as the names in a city directory; but when we con nect them in statement,— as if we say, "George Jones precedes John Jones in alphabetic order,* — grammar at once begins.
Some very learned authors have stated as an axiom that "The sentence is the unit and starting-point of speech.* How this idea orig inated is difficult to understand. It is not a self-evident truth, for one may say, as some have said, that "the name of an object is the unit and starting-point of speech,'' and this statement is as good as the other until the con trary is proved. The account in Genesis reads: "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam, to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called, every living creature, that was the name thereof? Gen. 19.
There is nothing illogical or absurd in this idea that language began with the names of objects. Others have thought that verbs, ex pressing action, came first. Still others have preferred to think that language began with involuntary exclamations, which we now call interjections. No one of these theories is self evidently true or false. The statement that "the sentence is the unit and starting-point of speech* is equally far from being a self-evi dent truth. In fact, it is a late result of Com plicated reasoning. If true, it must be proved to be true,— what are the proofs? In every generation millions of children, starting with absolutely nothing, learned their native lan guage. Now, in the acquirement of the modern
European languages, at children every where learn the language by isolated words. It is a triumph when the little one can say, "Papa* or "Mama,* or whatever is the ac cepted equivalent of either, and apply the name intelligently to the right person. This is the most usual 'starting-point of speech,* and there is no thought or imagination of a 'sen tence* about it. Then come names of famil iar objects, as "water,* Thread,* "milk,* etc.; then names of common animals, perhaps called according to the sounds they utter, as 'doggie' or "bow-wow,* "Icittie," "birdie,' etc. Who ever sees much of the home life of other peo ples will find the French, German or Italian mother teaching her baby in precisely the same way, word by word, object by object. It is an event when the little one passes beyond this, and forms its first sentence, as "Mama come,' 'doggie run' or the like. The construc tion of a sentence marks a distinct advance of the baby's thought after a considerable store of separate words has been acquired.
The same is true of the learning of a foreign language by an adult. The "conversation books' of ready-made sentences are the stand ing joke of travelers. In real life the sentence one has carefully memorized never the actual circumstance, and the person addressed never gives the reply that the book prescribes, so that in a moment all is mental confusion. But one who will learn useful isolated words of a foreign language can make himself under stood long before he can construct a coherent sentence. If the English-speaking man enter ing Italy, for instance, will learn certain simple words, as acqua (water), caffe (coffee), latte (milk), pane (bread), Camera (room), and some 30 to 50 other words or simple phrases, with the numerals and names of coins, he can go all through Italy, communicating sufficiently for ordinary purposes, and gradually learning to construct sentences.
Grammar thus treats almost wholly of the forms, relations and connection of words. The matter is thus stated by one of the most philosophical of modern grammarians: 'Grammar, or the doctrine of language, treats of the laws of speech, and in the first place of the Word, as its fundamental constituent. Maetzner, Grammar,) Vol. I, p. 12.