Lectures on Language As Particularly Connected with English Grammar.

LECTURE VII.

ON AD­JEC­TIVES.

Ad­jec­tives.--How formed.--The syl­la­ble _ly_.--Formed from prop­er nouns.--The apos­tro­phe and let­ter _s_.--De­rived from pro­nouns.-- Ar­ti­cles.--_A_ comes from _an_.--_In_def­inite.--_The_.--Mean­ing of _a_ and _the_.--Mur­ray's ex­am­ple.--That.--What.--“Pro­noun ad­jec­tives.”--_Mon_, _ma_.--De­grees of com­par­ison.--Sec­ondary ad­jec­tives.--Prepo­si­tions ad­mit of com­par­ison.

We re­sume the con­sid­er­ation of Ad­jec­tives. The im­por­tance of this class of words in the ex­pres­sion of our thoughts, is my ex­cuse for be­stow­ing up­on it so much la­bor. Had words al­ways been used ac­cord­ing to their prim­itive mean­ing, there would be lit­tle dan­ger of be­ing mis­un­der­stood. But the fact long known, “_Ver­ba mu­tan­ter_”--words change--has been the pro­lif­ic source of much of the di­ver­si­ty of opin­ion, as­per­ity of feel­ing, and ap­par­ent mis­con­struc­tion of oth­er's sen­ti­ments, which has dis­turbed so­ci­ety, and dis­graced mankind. I have, in a for­mer lec­ture, al­lud­ed to this point, and call it up in this place to pre­pare your minds to un­der­stand what is to be said on the sec­ondary use of words in the char­ac­ter of ad­jec­tives.

I have al­ready spo­ken of ad­jec­tives in gen­er­al, as de­rived from nouns and verbs, and was some­what par­tic­ular up­on the class some­times called _prepo­si­tions_, which de­scribe one thing by its re­la­tion to an­oth­er, pro­duced by some ac­tion which has placed them in such re­la­tion. We will now pass to ex­am­ine a lit­tle more minute­ly in­to the char­ac­ter and use of cer­tain ad­jec­tives, and the man­ner of their deriva­tion.

We com­mence with those de­rived from nouns, both com­mon and prop­er, which are some­what pe­cu­liar in their char­ac­ter. I wish you dis­tinct­ly to bear in mind the use of ad­jec­tives. They are words _added to nouns to de­fine or de­scribe them_.

Many words which name things, are used as ad­jec­tives, with out change; as, _ox_ beef, _beef_ cat­tle, _pa­per_ books, _straw_ hats, _bon­net_ pa­per. Oth­ers ad­mit of change, or ad­di­tion; as, na­tion_al_ char­ac­ter, a mer­ci_ful_ (mer­cy-_ful_) man, a gloom_y_ prospect, a fam_ous_ horse, a gold_en_ ball. The syl­la­bles which are added, are parts of words, which are at first com­pound­ed with them, till, by fre­quen­cy of use, they are in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the same word. “A mer­ci_ful_ man” is one who is full of mer­cy. A gold_en_ ball is one made of gold. This word is some­times used with­out change; as, a _gold_ ring.

A nu­mer­ous por­tion of these words take the syl­la­ble _ly_, con­tract­ed from _like_, which is still re­tained in many words; as, Ju­das-_like_, la­dy-_like_, gen­tle­man-_like_. These two last words, are of late, oc­ca­sion­al­ly used as oth­er words, la­dy_ly_, gen­tle­man_ly_; but the last more fre­quent­ly than the for­mer. She be­haved very la­di_ly_, or la­dy_like_; and his ap­pear­ance was quite gen­tle­man_ly_. But to say la­di_ly_ ap­pear­ance, does not yet sound quite soft enough; but it is in­cor­rect on­ly be­cause it is un­com­mon. God_ly_ and god_like_ are both in use, and equal­ly cor­rect, with a nice shade of dif­fer­ence in mean­ing.

All gram­mar­ians have found a dif­fi­cul­ty in the word _like_, which they were un­able to un­rav­el. They could nev­er ac­count for its use in ex­press­ing a re­la­tion be­tween two ob­jec­tives. They for­got that to be like, one thing must be _likened_ to an­oth­er, and that it was the very mean­ing of this word to ex­press such like_ness_. John looks _like_ his broth­er. The looks, the coun­te­nance, or ap­pear­ance of John, are _likened_ to his broth­er's looks or ap­pear­ance. “This ma­chine is more like the pat­tern than any I have seen.” Here the ad­jec­tive _like_ takes the com­par­ative de­gree, as it is called, to show a near­er re­sem­blance than has been be­fore ob­served be­tween the things com­pared. “He has a states­man-_like_ ap­pear­ance.” I _like_ this ap­ple, be­cause it agrees with my taste; it has qual­ities _like_ my no­tion of what is palate­able." In ev­ery sit­ua­tion the word is used to ex­press like­ness be­tween two things. It de­scribes one thing by its like­ness to an­oth­er.

Many ad­jec­tives are formed from prop­er nouns by adding an apos­tro­phe and the let­ter _s_, ex­cept when the word ends in _s_, in which case the fi­nal _s_ is usu­al­ly omit­ted for the sake of eu­pho­ny. This, how­ev­er, was not gen­er­al­ly adopt­ed by old writ­ers. It is not ob­served in the ear­li­est trans­la­tions of the Bible in­to the en­glish lan­guage. It is now in com­mon prac­tice. Thus, Mont­gomery's mon­ument in front of St. Paul's church; Wash­ing­ton's fu­ner­al; Shay's re­be­lion; Eng­land's bit­ter­est foes; Ham­let's fa­ther's ghost; Pe­ter's wife's moth­er; Todd's, Walk­er's, John­son's dic­tio­nary; Winchell's Watts' hymns; Pond's Mur­ray's gram­mar. No body would sup­pose that the “re­la­tion of prop­er­ty or pos­ses­sion” was ex­pressed in these cas­es, as our gram­mar books tell us, but that the terms em­ployed are used to _de­fine_ cer­tain ob­jects, about which we are speak­ing. They pos­sess the true char­ac­ter and use of ad­jec­tives, and as such let them be re­gard­ed. It must be as false as frivolous to say that Mont­gomery, who nobly fell at the siege of Que­bec, _owns_ the mon­ument erect­ed over his re­mains, which were con­veyed to New-​York many years af­ter his death; or that St. Paul _owns_ or _pos­sess­es_ the church be­neath which they were de­posit­ed; that Ham­let owned his fa­ther, and his fa­ther his ghost; that Todd owns Walk­er, and Walk­er owns John­son, and John­son his dic­tio­nary which may have had a hun­dred own­ers, and nev­er been the prop­er­ty of its au­thor, but print­ed fifty years af­ter his death. These words, I re­peat, are mere­ly _defini­tive_ terms, and like oth­ers serve to point out or spec­ify par­tic­ular ob­jects which may thus be bet­ter known.

Words, how­ev­er, in com­mon use form ad­jec­tives the same as oth­er words; as, Rus­sia iron, Chi­na ships, In­dia silks, Ver­mont cheese, Or­ange coun­ty but­ter, New-​York flour, Car­oli­na pota­toes. Mo­roc­co leather was first man­ufac­tured in a city of Africa called by that name, but it is now made in al­most ev­ery town in our coun­try. The same may be said of Leghorn hats, Rus­sia bind­ing, French shoes, and Chi­na ware. Al­though made in our own coun­try we still re­tain the words, mo­roc­co, leghorn, rus­sia, french, and chi­na, to de­fine the fash­ion, kind, or qual­ity of ar­ti­cles to which we al­lude. Much chi­na ware is made in Liv­er­pool, which, to dis­tin­guish it from the re­al, is called liv­er­pool chi­na. Many french shoes are made in Lynn, and many Rox­bury rus­sets, New­ton pip­pins, and Rhode-​Is­land green­ings, grow in Ver­mont.

It may not be im­prop­er here to no­tice the ad­jec­tives de­rived from pro­nouns, which re­tain so much of their char­ac­ter as re­lates to the per­sons who em­ploy them. These are _my_, _thy_, _his_, _her_, _its_, _our_, _your_, _their_, _whose_. This is _my_ book, that is _your_ pen, this is _his_ knife, and that is _her_ let­ter. Some of these, like oth­er words, vary their end­ing when stand­ing alone; as, two ap­ples are your_s_, three her_s_, six their_s_, five our_s_, and the rest mine. _His_ does not al­ter in pop­ular use. Hence the rea­son why you hear it so of­ten, in com­mon con­ver­sa­tion, when stand­ing with­out the noun ex­pressed, pro­nounced as if writ­ten _hisen_. The word _oth­er_, and some oth­ers, come un­der the same re­mark. When the nouns spec­ified are ex­pressed, they take the reg­ular ter­mi­na­tion; as, give me these Bald­win ap­ples, and a few oth­ers--a few oth­er ap­ples.

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There is a class of small words which from the fre­quen­cy of their use have, like pro­nouns, lost their prim­itive char­ac­ter, and are now pre­served on­ly as ad­jec­tives. Let us ex­am­ine a few of them by en­deav­or­ing to fer­ret out their true mean­ing and ap­pli­ca­tion in the ex­pres­sion of ideas. We will be­gin with the old ar­ti­cles, _a_, _an_, and _the_, by test­ing the truth and pro­pri­ety of the du­ty com­mon­ly as­signed to them in our gram­mars.

The stan­dard gram­mar as­serts that “an ar­ti­cle is a word pre­fixed to sub­stan­tives, to point them out, and to show how far their sig­ni­fi­ca­tion ex­tends; as, ”a gar­den, an ea­gle, the wom­an.“ Skep­ti­cism in gram­mar is no crime, so we will not hes­itate to call in ques­tion the cor­rect­ness of this ”best of all gram­mars be­yond all com­par­ison.“ Let us con­sid­er the very ex­am­ples giv­en. They were doubt­less the best that could be found. Does _a_ ”point out“ the gar­den, or ”show how far its sig­ni­fi­ca­tion ex­tends?“ It does nei­ther of these things. It may name ”_any_" gar­den, and it cer­tain­ly does not de­fine whether it is a _great_ or a _small_ one. It sim­ply de­ter­mines that _one_ gar­den is the sub­ject of re­mark. All else is to be de­ter­mined by the word _gar­den_.

We are told there are two ar­ti­cles, the one _in_def­inite, the oth­er def­inite--_a_ is the for­mer, and _the_ the lat­ter. I shall leave it with you to rec­on­cile the ap­par­ent con­tra­dic­tion of an _in­def­inite_ ar­ti­cle which “is used in a _vague sense, to point out the sig­ni­fi­ca­tion_ of an­oth­er word.” But I chal­lenge teach­ers to make their pupils com­pre­hend such a jar­gon, if they can do it them­selves. But it is as good sense as we find in many of the pop­ular gram­mars of the day.

Again, Mur­ray says “_a_ be­comes _an_ be­fore a vow­el or silent _h_;” and so say all his _sim­pli­fy­ing_ satel­lites af­ter him. Is such the fact? Is he right? He is, I most un­qual­ified­ly ad­mit, with this lit­tle cor­rec­tion, the ad­di­tion of a sin­gle word--he is right _wrong_! In­stead of _a_ be­com­ing _an_, the re­verse is the fact. The word is de­rived di­rect­ly from the same word which still stands as our first nu­mer­al. It was a short time since writ­ten _ane_, as any one may see by con­sult­ing all old books. By and by it dropped the _e_, and af­ter­wards, for the sake of eu­pho­ny, in cer­tain cas­es, the _n_, so that now it stands a sin­gle let­ter. You all have lived long enough to have no­ticed the changes in the word. For­mer­ly we said _an_ union, _an_ hol­iday, _an_ uni­ver­sal­ist, _an_ uni­tar­ian, &c., ex­pres­sions which are now rarely heard. We now say _a_ union, &c. This sin­gle in­stance proves that ar­bi­trary rules of gram­mar have lit­tle to do in the reg­ula­tion of lan­guage. Its bar­ri­ers are of sand, soon re­moved. It will not be said that this is an unim­por­tant mis­take, for, if an er­ror, it is per­ni­cious, and if a gram­mar­ian knows enough to say that _a_ be­comes _an_, he ought to know that he tells a false­hood, and that _an_ be­comes _a_ un­der cer­tain cir­cum­stances. Mr. Mur­ray gives the fol­low­ing ex­am­ple to il­lus­trate the use of _a_. “Give me _a_ book; that is, _any_ book.” How can the learn­er un­der­stand such a rule? How will it ap­ply? Let us try it. “A man has _a_ wife;” that is, _any_ man has _any_ wife. I have a hat; that is, _any_ hat. A farmer has a farm--_any_ farmer has _any_ farm. A mer­chant in Boston has a beau­ti­ful piece of broad­cloth--_any_ mer­chant in Boston has any beau­ti­ful piece of broad­cloth. A cer­tain king of Eu­rope de­creed a protes­tant to be burned--_any_ king of Eu­rope de­creed _any_ protes­tant to be burned. How ridicu­lous are the rules we have learned and taught to oth­ers, to en­able them to “speak and write with pro­pri­ety.” No won­der we nev­er un­der­stood gram­mar, if so at vari­ance with truth and ev­ery day's ex­pe­ri­ence. The rules of gram­mar as usu­al­ly taught can nev­er be ob­served in prac­tice. Hence it is called a _dry study_. In ev­ery thing else we learn some­thing that we can un­der­stand, which will an­swer some good pur­pose in the af­fairs of life. But this branch of sci­ence is among the things which have been te­dious­ly learned to no pur­pose. No good ac­count can be giv­en of its ad­van­tages.

_The_, we are told, “is called the def­inite ar­ti­cle, be­cause it as­cer­tains what _par­tic­ular_ thing or things are meant.” A most un­for­tu­nate def­ini­tion, and quite as er­ro­neous as the for­mer. Let us try it. _The_ stars shine, _the_ li­on roars, _the_ camel is a beast of bur­den, _the_ deer is good for food, _the_ wind blows, _the_ clouds ap­pear, _the_ In­di­ans are abused. What is there in these ex­am­ples, which “as­cer­tain what _par­tic­ular_ thing or things are meant?” They are ex­pres­sions as _in_def­inite as we can imag­ine.

On the oth­er hand, should I say _a_ star shines, _a_ li­on roars, _an_ In­di­an is abused, _a_ wind blows, _a_ cloud ap­pears, you would un­der­stand me to al­lude very _def­inite­ly_ to _one_ “par­tic­ular” ob­ject, as sep­arate and dis­tin­guished from oth­ers of its kind.

But what is the won­der­ful pe­cu­liar­ity in the mean­ing and use of these two lit­tle words that makes them so un­like ev­ery thing else, as to de­mand a sep­arate “part of speech?” You may be sur­prised when I tell you that there are oth­er words in our lan­guage de­rived from the same source and pos­sessed of the same mean­ing; but such is the fact, as will soon ap­pear. Let us ask for the et­ymol­ogy of these im­por­tant words. _A_ sig­ni­fies _one_, nev­er more, nev­er less. In this re­spect it is al­ways _def­inite_. It is some­times ap­plied to a sin­gle thing, some­times to a whole class of things, to a [one] man, or to a [one] hun­dred men. It may be traced thro oth­er lan­guages, an­cient and mod­ern, with lit­tle mod­ifi­ca­tion in spelling; Greek _eis_, ein; Latin _un­us_; Ar­moric _unan_; Span­ish and Ital­ian _uno_; Por­tuguese _hum_; French _un_; Ger­man _ein_; Dan­ish _een_, _en_; Dutch _een_; Swedish _en_; Sax­on, _an_, _aen_, _one_--from which ours is di­rect­ly de­rived--old En­glish _ane_; and more mod­ern­ly _one_, _an_, _a_. In all lan­guages it de­fines a thing to be _one_, a unit­ed or con­gre­gat­ed whole, and the word _one_ may al­ways be sub­sti­tut­ed with­out af­fect­ing the sense. From it is de­rived our word _once_, which sig­ni­fies _oned_, _unit­ed_, _joined_, as we shall see when we come to speak of “con­trac­tions.” In some lan­guages _a_ is styled an ar­ti­cle, in oth­ers it is not. The Latin, for in­stance, has no ar­ti­cle, and the Greek has no _in­def­inite_. But all lan­guages have words which are like ours, pure ad­jec­tives, em­ployed to spec­ify cer­tain things. The ar­gu­ment drawn from the fact that some oth­er lan­guages have _ar­ti­cles_, and there­fore ours should, is fal­la­cious. The Latin, which was sur­passed for beau­ty of style or pow­er in de­liv­er­ance by few, if any oth­ers, nev­er suf­fered from the lack of ar­ti­cles. Nor is there any rea­son why we should hon­or two small ad­jec­tives with that high rank to the ex­clu­sion of oth­ers quite as wor­thy.

_The_ is al­ways used as a defini­tive word, tho it is the least def­inite of the defin­ing ad­jec­tives. In fact when we de­sire to “_as­cer­tain par­tic­ular­ly_ what thing is meant,” we se­lect some more def­inite word. “Give me _the_ books.” Which? “Those with red cov­ers, that in calf, and this in Rus­sia bind­ing.” _The_ na­tions are at peace. What na­tions? _Those_ which were at war. You per­ceive how we em­ploy words which are more def­inite, that is, bet­ter un­der­stood, to “_point out_” the ob­ject of con­ver­sa­tion, es­pe­cial­ly when there is any doubt in the case. What oc­ca­sion, then, is there to give these [the?] words a sep­arate “part of speech,” since in char­ac­ter they do not dif­fer from oth­ers in the lan­guage?

We will no­tice an­oth­er frivolous dis­tinc­tion made by Mr. Mur­ray, mere­ly to show how learned men may be mis­tak­en, and the fol­ly of trust­ing to spe­cial rules in the gen­er­al ap­pli­ca­tion of words. He says, “Thou art _a_ man,” is a very gen­er­al and _harm­less_ ex­pres­sion; but, thou art _the_ man, (as Nathan said to David,) is an as­ser­tion ca­pa­ble of strik­ing ter­ror and re­morse in­to the heart.“ The dis­tinc­tion in mean­ing here, on which he in­sists, at­tach­es to the ar­ti­cles _a_ and _the_. It is a suf­fi­cient refu­ta­tion of this def­ini­tion to make a counter state­ment. Sup­pose we say, ”Mur­ray is _the_ best gram­mar­ian in the world; or, he is _a_ fool, _a_ knave, and _a_ liar.“ Which, think you, would be con­sid­ered the most _harm­less_ ex­pres­sion? Sup­pose it had been said to Aaron Burr, thou art _a_ traitor, or to Gen­er­al William Hull, thou art _a_ cow­ard, would they re­gard the phrase as ”_harm­less!_“ On the oth­er hand, sup­pose a beau­ti­ful, ac­com­plished, and tal­ent­ed young la­dy, should ob­serve to one of her suit­ors, ”I have re­ceived of­fers of mar­riage from sev­er­al gen­tle­men be­sides your­self, but thou art =the= man of my choice;“ would it, think you, _strike_ ter­ror and re­morse in­to his heart? I should pity the young stu­dent of Mur­ray whose feel­ings had be­come so sto­ical from the false teach­ing of his au­thor as to be filled with ”ter­ror and re­morse" un­der such fa­vor­able cir­cum­stances, while fair prospects of fu­ture hap­pi­ness were thus rapid­ly bright­en­ing be­fore him. I speak as to the wise, judge ye what I say.

The ad­jec­tive _that_ has ob­tained a very ex­ten­sive ap­pli­ca­tion in lan­guage. How­ev­er, it may seem to vary in its dif­fer­ent po­si­tions, it still re­tains its prim­itive mean­ing. It is com­prised of _the_ and _it_, thait, the­at, thaet (Sax­on,) tha­ta (Goth­ic,) dat (Dutch.) It is the most de­cid­ed defini­tive in our lan­guage. It is by use ap­plied to things in the sin­gu­lar, or to a mul­ti­tude of things re­gard­ed as a whole. By use, it ap­plies to a col­lec­tion of ideas ex­pressed in a sen­tence; as, it was re­solved, _that_. What? Then fol­lows _that fact_ which was re­solved. “Pro­vid­ed _that_, in case he does” so and so. “It was agreed _that_,” _that fact_ was agreed to which is about to be made known. I wish you to un­der­stand, all thro these lec­tures, _that_ I shall hon­est­ly en­deav­or to ex­pose er­ror and es­tab­lish truth. Wish you to un­der­stand _what_? _that fact_, af­ter­wards stat­ed, “I shall en­deav­or,” &c. You can not mis­take my mean­ing: _that_ would be im­pos­si­ble. What would be im­pos­si­ble? Why, to mis­take my mean­ing.

You can not fail to ob­serve the true char­ac­ter of this word called by our gram­mar­ians “ad­jec­tive pro­noun,” “rel­ative pro­noun,” and “con­junc­tion.” They did not think to look for its mean­ing. Had that (du­ty) been done, it would have stood forth in its true char­ac­ter, an im­por­tant defin­ing word.

The on­ly dif­fi­cul­ty in the ex­pla­na­tion of this word, orig­inates in the fact, that it was for­mer­ly ap­plied to the plu­ral as well as sin­gu­lar num­ber. It is now ap­plied to the sin­gu­lar on­ly when re­fer­ring di­rect­ly to an ob­ject; as, _that man_. And it nev­er should be used oth­er­wise. But we of­ten see phras­es like this; “These are the men _that_ re­beled.” It should be, “these are the men _who_ re­beled.” This dif­fi­cul­ty can not be over­come in ex­ist­ing gram­mars on any oth­er ground. In mod­ern writ­ings, such in­stances are rare. _This_ and _that_ are ap­plied to the sin­gu­lar; _these_ and _those_ to the plu­ral.

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=What= is a com­pound of two orig­inal words, and of­ten re­tains the mean­ing of both, when em­ployed as a com­pound rel­ative, “hav­ing in it­self both the an­tecedent and the rel­ative,” as our au­thors tell us. But when it is dis­sect­ed, it will read­ily enough be un­der­stood to be an ad­jec­tive, defin­ing things un­der par­tic­ular re­la­tions.

But I shall weary your pa­tience, I fear, if I stay longer in this place to ex­am­ine the et­ymol­ogy of small words. I in­tend­ed to have shown the mean­ing and use of many words in­clud­ed in the list of con­junc­tions, which are tru­ly ad­jec­tives, such as _both_, _as_, _so_, _nei­ther_, _and_, etc.; but I let them pass for the present, to be re­sumed un­der the head of con­trac­tions.

From the view we have giv­en of this class of words, we are saved the te­dious­ness of study­ing the gram­mat­ical dis­tinc­tions made in the books, where no re­al dis­tinc­tions ex­ist. In char­ac­ter these words are like ad­jec­tives; their mean­ing, like the mean­ing of all oth­er words, is pe­cu­liar to them­selves. Let that be known, and there will be lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty in class­ing them. We need not con­fuse the learn­er with “ad­jec­tive pro­nouns, pos­ses­sive ad­jec­tive pro­nouns, dis­tribu­tive ad­jec­tive pro­nouns, demon­stra­tive ad­jec­tive pro­nouns, _in­def­inite_ ad­jec­tive pro­nouns,” nor any oth­er ad­jec­tive pro­nouns, which can nev­er be un­der­stood nor ex­plained. Chil­dren will be slow to ap­pre­hend the pro­pri­ety of a union of _ad­jec­tives_ and _pro­nouns_, when told that the for­mer is al­ways used _with_ a noun, and nev­er _for_ one; and the lat­ter al­ways _for_ a noun, but nev­er _with_ one; and yet, that there is such a strange com­bi­na­tion as a “_dis­tribu­tive or in­def­inite ad­jec­tive pro­noun_,”--“con­fu­sion worse con­found­ed.”

In the french lan­guage, the gen­der of ad­jec­tives is var­ied so as to agree with the nouns to which they be­long. “Pos­ses­sive pro­nouns,” as they are called, come un­der the same rule, which proves them to be in char­ac­ter, and for­ma­tion, ad­jec­tives; else the per­son us­ing them must change gen­der. The fa­ther says, _ma_ (fem­inine) _fille_, my daugh­ter; and the moth­er, _mon_ (mas­cu­line) _fils_, my son; the same as they would say, _bon pere_, good fa­ther; _bonne mere_, good moth­er; or, in Latin, _bonus pa­ter_, or _bona mater_; or, in Span­ish, _bueno padre_, _bue­na madre_. In the two last lan­guages, as well as all oth­ers, where the ad­jec­tives vary the ter­mi­na­tion so as to agree with the noun, the same fact may be ob­served in ref­er­ence to their “pro­nouns.” If it is a fact that these words are _pro­nouns_, that is, stand for oth­er _nouns_, then the fa­ther is _fem­inine_, and the moth­er is _mas­cu­line_; and who­ev­er us­es them in ref­er­ence to the op­po­site sex must change gen­der to do so.

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De­scrib­ing ad­jec­tives ad­mit of vari­ation to ex­press dif­fer­ent de­grees of com­par­ison. The reg­ular de­grees have been reck­oned three; pos­itive, com­par­ative, and su­perla­tive. These are usu­al­ly marked by chang­ing the ter­mi­na­tion. The _pos­itive_ is de­ter­mined by a com­par­ison with oth­er things; as, a great house, a small book, com­pared with oth­ers of their kind. This is tru­ly a com­par­ative de­gree. The _com­par­ative_ adds _er_; as, a great_er_ house, a small_er_ book. The _su­perla­tive_, _est_; as, the great_est_ house, the small_est_ book.

Sev­er­al ad­jec­tives ex­press a com­par­ison less than the pos­itive, oth­ers in­crease or di­min­ish the reg­ular de­grees; as, whit_ish_ white, _very_ white, _pure_ white; whit_er_, _con­sid­er­able_ whiter, _much_ whiter; whit_est_, the _very_ whitest, _much_ the whitest _be­yond all com­par­ison_, so that there can be none _whiter_, nor _so white_.

We make an auk­ward use of the words _great_ and _good_, in the com­par­ison of things; as, a _good deal_, or _great deal_ whiter; a _good_ many men, or a _great_ many men. As we nev­er hear of a _small_ deal, or a _bad_ deal whiter, nor of a _bad many_, nor _lit­tle many_, it would be well to avoid such phras­es.

The words which are added to oth­er ad­jec­tives, to in­crease or di­min­ish the com­par­ison, or as­sist in their def­ini­tion, may prop­er­ly be called _sec­ondary ad­jec­tives_, for such is their char­ac­ter. They do not re­fer to the thing to be _de­fined_ or _de­scribed_, but to the ad­jec­tive which is af­fect­ed, in some way, by them. They are eas­ily dis­tin­guished from the rest by notic­ing this fact. Take for ex­am­ple: “A _very dark red_ raw silk la­dy's dress hand­ker­chief.” The res­olu­tion of this sen­tence would stand thus:

_A_ ( ) hand­ker­chief. A ( ) _red_ ( ) hand­ker­chief. A ( ) _dark_ red ( ) hand­ker­chief. A _very_ dark red ( ) hand­ker­chief. A very dark red ( ) _silk_ ( ) hand­ker­chief. A very dark red _raw_ silk ( ) hand­ker­chief. A very dark red raw silk ( ) _dress_ hand­ker­chief. A very dark red raw silk _la­dy's_ dress hand­ker­chief.

We might al­so ob­serve that _hand_ is an ad­jec­tive, com­pound­ed by use with _ker­chief_. It is de­rived from the french word _cou­vrir_, to cov­er, and _chef_, the head. It means a head dress, a cloth to cov­er, a neck cloth, a nap­kin. By habit we ap­ply it to a sin­gle ar­ti­cle, and speak of _neck_ hand­ker­chief.

The nice shade of mean­ing, and the ap­pro­pri­ate use of ad­jec­tives, is more dis­tinct­ly marked in dis­tin­guish­ing col­ors than in any thing else, for the sim­ple rea­son, that there is noth­ing in na­ture so close­ly ob­served. For in­stance, take the word _green_, de­rived from _grain_, be­cause it is grain col­or, or the col­or of the fair car­pet of na­ture in spring and sum­mer. But this hue changes from the _deep grass green_, to the light olive, and words are cho­sen to ex­press the thou­sand vary­ing tints pro­duced by as many dif­fer­ent ob­jects. In the adap­ta­tion of lan­guage to the ex­pres­sion of ideas, we do not sep­arate these shades of col­or from the things in which such col­ors are sup­posed to re­side. Hence we talk of _grass_, _pea_, _olive_, _leek_, _verdi­gris_, _emer­ald_, _sea_, and _bot­tle_ green; al­so, of _light_, _dark_, _medi­um_; _very_ light, or dark grass, pea, olive, or _in­vis­ible_ green.

_Red_, as a word, means _rayed_. It de­scribes the ap­pear­ance or sub­stance pro­duced when _rayed_, red­dened, or ra­di­at­ed by the morn­ing beams of the sun, or any oth­er _ra­di­at­ing_ cause.

_Wh_ is used for _qu_, in white, which means _quite_, _quit­ed_, _quit­ted_, _cleared_, _cleansed_ of all _col­or_, _spot_, or _stain_.

_Blue_ is an­oth­er spelling for _blew_. Ap­plied to col­or, it de­scribes some­thing in ap­pear­ance to the sky, when the clouds and mists are _blown_ away, and the clear _blue ether_ ap­pears.

You will be pleased with the fol­low­ing ex­tract from an elo­quent writ­er of the last cen­tu­ry,[9] who, tho some­what ex­trav­agant in some of his spec­ula­tions, was, nev­er­the­less, a close ob­serv­er of na­ture, which he stud­ied as it is, with­out the aid of hu­man the­ories. The beau­ty of the style, and the cor­rect­ness of the sen­ti­ment, will be a suf­fi­cient apol­ogy for its length.

"We shall em­ploy a method, not quite so learned, to con­vey an idea of the gen­er­ation of col­ors, and the de­com­po­si­tion of the so­lar ray. In­stead of ex­am­in­ing them in a prism of glass, we shall con­sid­er them in the heav­ens, and there we shall be­hold the five pri­mor­dial colours _un­fold them­selves_ in the or­der which we have in­di­cat­ed.

"In a fine sum­mer's night, when the sky is load­ed on­ly with some light vapours, suf­fi­cient to stop and to re­fract the rays of the sun, walk out in­to an open plain, where the first fires of Au­ro­ra may be per­cep­ti­ble. You will first ob­serve the hori­zon _whiten_ at the spot where she is to make her ap­pear­ance; and this ra­di­ance, from its colour, has pro­cured for it, in the French lan­guage, the name of _aube_, (the dawn,) from the Latin word _al­ba_, white. This white­ness in­sen­si­bly as­cends in the heav­ens, _as­sum­ing_ a tint of yel­low some de­grees above the hori­zon; the yel­low as it ris­es pass­es in­to or­ange; and this shade of or­ange ris­es up­ward in­to the live­ly ver­mil­ion, which ex­tends as far as the zenith. From that point you will per­ceive in the heav­ens be­hind you the vi­olet suc­ceed­ing the ver­mil­ion, then the azure, af­ter it the deep blue or in­di­go colour, and, last of all, the black, quite to the west­ward.

"Though this dis­play of colours presents a mul­ti­tude of in­ter­me­di­ate shades, which rapid­ly suc­ceed each oth­er, yet at the mo­ment the sun is go­ing to ex­hib­it his disk, the daz­zling white is vis­ible in the hori­zon, the pure yel­low at an el­eva­tion of forty-​five de­grees; the fire col­or in the zenith; the pure blue forty-​five de­grees un­der it, to­ward the west; and in the very west the dark veil of night still lin­ger­ing on the hori­zon. I think I have re­marked this pro­gres­sion be­tween the trop­ics, where there is scarce­ly any hor­izon­tal re­frac­tion to make the light pre­ma­ture­ly en­croach on the dark­ness, as in our cli­mates.

"Some­times the trade-​winds, from the north-​east or south-​east, blow there, card the clouds through each oth­er, then sweep them to the west, cross­ing and re­cross­ing them over one an­oth­er, like the osiers in­ter­wo­ven in a trans­par­ent bas­ket. They throw over the sides of this che­quered work the clouds which are not em­ployed in the con­tex­ture, roll them up in­to enor­mous mass­es, as white as snow, draw them out along their ex­trem­ities in the form of a crup­per, and pile them up­on each oth­er, mould­ing them in­to the shape of moun­tains, cav­erns, and rocks; af­ter­wards, as evening ap­proach­es, they grow some­what calm, as if afraid of de­rang­ing their own work­man­ship. When the sun sets be­hind this mag­nif­icent net­ting, a mul­ti­tude of lu­mi­nous rays are trans­mit­ted through the in­ter­stices, which pro­duce such an ef­fect, that the two sides of the lozenge il­lu­mi­nat­ed by them have the ap­pear­ance of be­ing girt with gold, and the oth­er two in the shade seem tinged with _rud­dy_ or­ange. Four or five di­ver­gent streams of light, em­anat­ed from the set­ting sun up to the zenith, _clothe_ with fringes of gold the un­de­ter­mi­nate sum­mits of this ce­les­tial bar­ri­er, and strike with the re­flex­es of their fires the pyra­mids of the col­lat­er­al aeri­al moun­tains, which then ap­pear to con­sist of _sil­ver_ and _ver­mil­ion_. At this mo­ment of the evening are per­cep­ti­ble, amidst their re­dou­bled ridges, a mul­ti­tude of val­leys ex­tend­ing in­to in­fin­ity, and dis­tin­guish­ing them­selves at their open­ing by some shade of flesh or of rose colour.

"These ce­les­tial val­leys present in their dif­fer­ent con­tours inim­itable tints of white, melt­ing away in­to white, or shades length­en­ing them­selves out with­out mix­ing over oth­er shades. You see, here and there, is­su­ing from the cav­ernous sides of those moun­tains, tides of _light_ pre­cip­itat­ing them­selves, in in­gots of gold and sil­ver, over rocks of coral. Here it is a gloomy rock, pierced through and through, dis­clos­ing, be­yond the aper­ture, the pure azure of the fir­ma­ment; there it is an ex­ten­sive strand, cov­ered with sands of gold, stretch­ing over the rich ground of heav­en; _pop­py-​coloured_, _scar­let_, and _green_ as the emer­ald.

"The re­ver­ber­ation of those west­ern colours dif­fus­es it­self over the sea, whose azure bil­lows it _glazes_ with saf­fron and pur­ple. The mariners, lean­ing over the gun­wale of the ship, ad­mire in si­lence those aeri­al land­scapes. Some­times this sub­lime spec­ta­cle presents it­self to them at the hour of prayer, and seems to in­vite them to lift up their hearts with their voic­es to the heav­ens. It changes ev­ery in­stant in­to forms as vari­able as the shades, pre­sent­ing ce­les­tial col­ors and forms which no pen­cil can pre­tend to im­itate, and no lan­guage can de­scribe.

"Trav­ellers who have, at var­ious sea­sons, as­cend­ed to the sum­mits of the high­est moun­tains on the globe, nev­er could per­ceive, in the clouds be­low them, any thing but a gray and lead-​col­ored sur­face, sim­ilar to that of a lake. The sun, notwith­stand­ing, il­lu­mi­nat­ed them with his whole light; and his rays might there com­bine all the laws of re­frac­tion to which our sys­tems of physics have sub­ject­ed them. Hence not a sin­gle shade of col­or is em­ployed in vain, through the uni­verse; those ce­les­tial dec­ora­tions be­ing made for the lev­el of the earth, their mag­nif­icent point of view tak­en from the habi­ta­tion of man.

"These ad­mirable con­certs of lights and forms, man­ifest on­ly in the low­er re­gion of the clouds the least il­lu­mi­nat­ed by the sun, are pro­duced by laws with which I am to­tal­ly un­ac­quaint­ed. But the whole are re­ducible to five col­ors: yel­low, a gen­er­ation from white; red, a deep­er shade of yel­low; blue, a strong tint of red; and black, the ex­treme tint of blue. This pro­gres­sion can­not be doubt­ed, on ob­serv­ing in the morn­ing the ex­pan­sion of the light in the heav­ens. You there see those five col­ors, with their in­ter­me­di­ate shades, gen­er­at­ing each oth­er near­ly in this or­der: white, sul­phur yel­low, lemon yel­low, yolk of egg yel­low, or­ange, au­ro­ra col­or, pop­py red, full red, carmine red, pur­ple, vi­olet, azure, in­di­go, and black. Each col­or seems to be on­ly a strong tint of that which pre­cedes it, and a faint tint of that which fol­lows; thus the whole to­geth­er ap­pear to be on­ly mod­ula­tions of a pro­gres­sion, of which white is the first term, and black the last.

"In­deed trade can­not be car­ried on to any ad­van­tage, with the Ne­groes, Tar­tars, Amer­icans, and East-​In­di­ans, but through the medi­um of red cloths. The tes­ti­monies of trav­ellers are unan­imous re­spect­ing the pref­er­ence uni­ver­sal­ly giv­en to this col­or. I have in­di­cat­ed the uni­ver­sal­ity of this taste, mere­ly to demon­strate the false­hood of the philo­soph­ic ax­iom, that tastes are ar­bi­trary, or that there are in Na­ture no laws for beau­ty, and that our tastes are the ef­fects of prej­udice. The di­rect con­trary of this is the truth; prej­udice cor­rupts our nat­ural tastes, oth­er­wise the same over the whole earth.

"With red Na­ture height­ens the bril­liant parts of the most beau­ti­ful flow­ers. She has giv­en a com­plete cloth­ing of it to the rose, the queen of the gar­den: and be­stowed this tint on the blood, the prin­ci­ple of life in an­imals: she in­vests most of the feath­ered race, in In­dia, with a plumage of this col­or, es­pe­cial­ly in the sea­son of love; and there are few birds with­out some shades, at least, of this rich hue. Some pre­serve en­tire­ly the gray or brown ground of their plumage, but glazed over with red, as if they had been rolled in carmine; oth­ers are be­sprin­kled with red, as if you had blown a scar­let pow­der over them.

“The red (or _rayed_) col­or, in the midst of the five pri­mor­dial col­ors, is the har­mon­ic ex­pres­sion of them by way of ex­cel­lence; and the re­sult of the union of two con­traries, light and dark­ness. There are, be­sides, agree­able tints, com­pound­ed of the op­po­si­tions of ex­tremes. For ex­am­ple, of the sec­ond and fourth col­or, that is, of yel­low and blue, is formed green, which con­sti­tutes a very beau­ti­ful har­mo­ny, and ought, per­haps, to pos­sess the sec­ond rank in beau­ty, among col­ors, as it pos­sess­es the sec­ond in their gen­er­ation. Nay, green ap­pears to many, if not the most beau­ti­ful tint, at least the most love­ly, be­cause it is less daz­zling than red, and more con­ge­nial to the eye.”

Many words come un­der the ex­am­ple pre­vi­ous­ly giv­en to il­lus­trate the sec­ondary char­ac­ter of ad­jec­tives, which should be care­ful­ly no­ticed by the learn­er, to dis­tin­guish whether they de­fine or de­scribe things, or are added to in­crease the dis­tinc­tion made by the ad­jec­tives them­selves, for both defin­ing and de­scrib­ing ad­jec­tives ad­mit of this ad­di­tion; as, _old_ En­glish coin, New Eng­land re­be­lion; a mount­ed whip, and a _gold_ mount­ed sword--not a gold sword; a _very fine_ Latin schol­ar.

Sec­ondary ad­jec­tives, al­so, ad­mit of com­par­ison in var­ious ways; as, _dear­ly_ beloved, a _more_ beloved, the _best_ beloved, the _very_ best beloved broth­er.

Words for­mer­ly called “prepo­si­tions,” ad­mit of com­par­ison, as I have be­fore ob­served. “Ben­hadad fled in­to an _in­ner_ cham­ber.” The in_ner_ tem­ple. The in_most_ re­cess­es of the heart. The _out_ fit of a squadron. The out_er_ coat­ing of a ves­sel, or house. The ut_most_ reach of gram­mar. The _up_ and _down_ hill side of a field. The up_per_ end of the lot. The up­per_most_ seats. A part _of_ the book. Take it _far­ther off_. The _off_ cast. In­dia _be­yond_ the Ganges. Far be­yond the bound­aries of the na­tion. I shall go _to_ the city. I am _near to_ the town. _Near_ does not _qual­ify the verb_, for it has noth­ing to do with it. I can ex­ist in one place as well as an­oth­er. It is _be­low_ the sur­face; _very far_ be­low it. It is above the earth--“high above all height.”

Such ex­pres­sions fre­quent­ly oc­cur in the ex­pres­sion of ideas, and are cor­rect­ly un­der­stood; as dif­fi­cult as it may have been to de­scribe them with the the­ories learned in the books--some­times call­ing them one thing, some­times an­oth­er--when their char­ac­ter and mean­ing was un­changed, or, ac­cord­ing to old sys­tems, had “no mean­ing at all of their own!”

But I fear I have gone _far_ be­yond your pa­tience, and, per­haps, en­tered _deep­er_ in­to this sub­ject than was nec­es­sary, to en­able you to dis­cov­er my mean­ing. I de­sired to make the sub­ject _as_ dis­tinct _as_ pos­si­ble, that all might see the im­por­tant im­prove­ment sug­gest­ed. I am ap­pre­hen­sive even now, that some will be com­pelled to _think_ many _pro­found thoughts_ be­fore they will see the end of the ob­scu­ri­ty un­der which they have long been shroud­ed, in ref­er­ence to the false rules which they have been taught. But we have one con­so­la­tion--those who are not be­wil­dered by the gram­mars they have tried in vain to un­der­stand, will not be very like­ly to make a wrong use of ad­jec­tives, es­pe­cial­ly if they have ideas to ex­press; for there is no more dan­ger of mis­tak­ing an ad­jec­tive for a noun, or verb, than there is of mis­tak­ing a _horse_ chest­nut for a _chest­nut_ horse.

* * * * *

In our next we shall com­mence the con­sid­er­ation of Verbs, the most im­por­tant de­part­ment in the sci­ence of lan­guage, and par­tic­ular­ly so in the sys­tem we are de­fend­ing. I hope you have not been un­in­ter­est­ed thus far in the pros­ecu­tion of the sub­ject of lan­guage, and I am con­fi­dent you will not be in what re­mains to be said up­on it. The sci­ence, so long re­gard­ed _dry_ and un­in­ter­est­ing, be­comes de­light­ful and easy; new and valu­able truths burst up­on us at each ad­vanc­ing step, and we feel to bless God for the am­ple means af­ford­ed us for ob­tain­ing knowl­edge from, and com­mu­ni­cat­ing it to oth­ers, on the most im­por­tant af­fairs of time and eter­ni­ty.