There is no grammar of sentences, except when two or more sentences are united in one complex or compound sentence. Pages .may be covered, or a volume might be filled, with perfect sentences, no two of which are grammat ically connected, and—as finished sentences,— grammar has nothing to do with them. The first thing that grammar does to a sentence is to take it to pieces to break it up into its com ponent parts, the words of which it is framed, and then to show how these are connected to form that composite thing which we call the sentence.
Words, so viewed, are appropriately classi fied as 'parts of speech.* These parts of speech may vary in different languages, but in the Indo-European languages, including Greek, Latin, Italian, French, German, etc., in the Semitic languages, as Hebrew and Arabic, and in other groups, they are practically iden tical, showing that the division so widely prev alent is a natural and logical one. In English grammars, and in grammars which English speaking men have compiled for other lan guages, these parts of speech retain, with slight change of form, the names given them by the ancient Latin grammarians. The parts of speech are, in the order of their importance: 1. The Noun, or name of an object, whether a material object manifest to the senses, or im material, manifest only to the mind. The distinction between concrete and abstract nouns is metaphysical, but not grammatical. Gram mar treats the names of abstract conceptions like love, hate, kindness, precisely as it treats the names of material objects like rock, fish, flower. All alike are nouns. Whatever one can think of as existing may be named by a noun, 2. The Pronoun.—A word that may, on occasion, stand in place of, or as the repre sentative of, a noun.
3. The Adjective.—According to its name, an added word, expressing some quality of an object, while leaving the noun unchanged to stand for the general type.
4. The Verb.— This may be described in general phrase as the action-word. Even those verbs that express a state of being express it with a suggestion of action or movement, so that 'Time exists' presents to the mind a more vivid and living idea than the noun-phrase 'The existence of time.* The importance as scribed to this part of speech is shown by the name which the old grammarians gave it. The Latin verbum means simply "word* and they called the action-word Verbum — pre-eminently "The Word' as controlling in all expression of thought. No sentence can be constructed and no complete thought be expressed without a verb.
5. The ildverb.—A word which intensifies or shades down the meaning of a verb and has a like effect on an adjective or on another adverb. It has an especial office as denoting
place (as here, there, everywhere) or time (as now, then, never). In such use adverbs often become connectives, binding clauses together (as where, when, whence, etc.), and are then often called 'conjunctive adverbs.' 6. The Preposition.—A particle, often very slight in form (as the English of, in, with; Greek ek or ex, en, syn; Latin ex, in, cum), showing some relation of a noun or pronoun to almost any other of speech, as to a noun, pronoun, adjective, verb or adverb — in dicating any one of various relations, as of direction, origin, dependence, etc.
7. The Conjunction.—A particle simply join ing words, not as expressing relation, but ad dition or contrast (of which simple forms in English are and and but). Conjunctions also connect phrases or sentences (clauses), either in the relation of equality (co-ordinate con junctions, as and, but) or of dependence (sub ordinate conjunctions, as if since, though, unless).
8. The Interjection.— One of the spontane ous utterances of emotion, as of joy, grief, anger, surprise, etc. It is a dictum of gram mar that 'The interjection is independent of all grammatical relation,' yet it often strongly influences the entire meaning of a sentence, as in the exclamation, "Oh, that my people had hearkened to my voice!' where the omission of the "Oh* would make the sentence almost meaningless.
These parts of speech and their uses vary in many ways in different languages.. Thus the Latin or Greek noun can often dispense with the preposition, the meaning of which is expressed by a Changed form of the noun. The Latin verb can largely dispense with the pronoun, since person and number are suffi ciently indicated by special forms of the verb. The verb in some languages has more modes (or moods) than in others, as the Greek opta tive (the wishing mode) is not found. in Latin or in English. The number of tenses varies greatly. While the Greek, Latin and English tenses mark quite strictly the divisions of time, as past, present and future, the tenses of the Semitic languages, as Hebrew and Arabic, denote only completed or uncompleted action. The Anglo-Saxon, too, had but one form for the present and future, as we still say, in English, "I sail for Europe to-morrow." But, though the details are different, the gen eral scheme is one. The department of gram mar that deals with the parts of speech has received the conventional name of Etymology.