97. Summary of the Parts of Speech.-The classes of words described in this chapter comprise all the words of our language. They may be summarized as follows:

Nouns: Words used as names.

Pronouns: Words used to stand for nouns.

Adjectives: Words joined to nouns or pronouns by way of limitation or description.

Articles: The words "a," "an," or "the."

Verbs: Words used, with or without adjuncts, as the predicates of sentences.

Infinitives: Words that partake of the nature of both verb and noun.

Participles: Words that partake of the nature of both verb and adjective.

Adverbs: Words joined by way of limitation to verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.

Prepositions: Words placed before nouns or pronouns to show their relation to other words, and forming with them modifying phrases.

Conjunctions: Words used to connect sentences, phrases,

or words.

Interjections: Words used as sudden expressions of feeling, but not forming part of a sentence.

EXERCISE 105.

(GENERAL REVIEW.)

Classify the words in the following sentences:

1. Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.
2. If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work.
3. Imperious Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

4.

Heaven's ebon vault

Studded with stars unutterably bright,

Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,

Seems like a canopy which love has spread

To curtain her sleeping world.

5. He sung Darius, great and good,
By too severe a fate.
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.

On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon
Riding near her highest noon,

Like one that had been led astray
Through the heaven's wide pathless way:
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

7. There was a jolly miller once,
Lived on the river Dee;

He worked and sung from morn till night :

No lark more blithe than he. And this the burden of his song Forever used to be,

I care for nobody, no, not I,

If no one cares for me.

CHAPTER II

OF INFLECTION, DERIVATION, AND COMPOSITION

BEFORE proceeding with the study of the parts of speech, we must learn to distinguish those changes in the form of a word that are made by Inflection, Derivation, and Composition.

98. Inflection.-Examine the following groups of words:

In each of these groups we recognize the same word under different forms. These variations in form denote slight modifications in the meaning and use of the word, but they do not change either the general meaning or the part of speech; the noun remains a noun, the verb a verb. Moreover, most other words of the same class, as "boy,' they," "sick," "hear," undergo similar alterations in form, corresponding to similar changes in meaning and use.

66

Definition.-A change in the form of a word to show a slight change in its meaning or use is called

Inflection.

EXERCISE 106.

Mention as many inflections as you can of the following words:

child do eat heavy move they teeth who

99. Derivation.-Compare the following words:

true

truly

truth

truthful

untruth

untruthfulness

Here we have six words entirely different in meaning and use. Some belong to one part of speech, others to another; and those that belong to the same part of speech, as "truth," "untruth," and "untruthfulness," have distinctly different meanings. But though they are thus different in meaning and use, the last five words are clearly formed from the first by attaching a Prefix (“un-") or a Suffix ("-ly," "-th," "-ful," "-ness"), or both.

Definition. The process of forming a new word from another word by attaching a prefix or a suffix, or by changing a vowel, is called Derivation. The new word is called a Derivative.

Examples of derivation by change of vowel are: bless, bliss; feed, food; gild, gold; heat, hot; pride, proud; raise, rise; tale, tell.

Definition. The original form of a word in inflection or derivation is called the Root.

EXERCISE 107.

Mention derivatives formed from the following words, and show that the new forms are derivatives, not inflections:

child friend give man pure wise

Here we have three different words, entirely distinct in meaning and use; but the last is formed by combining the first two.

'Definition. The process of forming a new word by combining two other words is called Composition. The new word is called a Compound word.

The parts of a compound word are often connected with a hyphen: as, "hair-brush," "son-in-law." Whether to use the hyphen or not cannot be decided by rule. It is for the most part a question of usage, which must be learned from observation or from the dictionary.

EXERCISE 108.

Make a list of five compound words, determining from a dictionary how they should be written.