The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1860-09-04
For The Mtelligencer.
The Lamar system of English Grammar

The Lamar System of English Grammar.
MEssRs. EpIToEs.-Plcase be so kind as to allow
me space in your journal to notice the above work,
which was published last ct Athens Ca, and which
pnrporls TO be the first grammatical treatise cTcr
written in the English, based upon the genius and
diom of the English Tongue.
The author tells the reader that all attempts to
write the grammar of our vernacular, "upon the
Murray System" have proved magnificent fail
urcs, from the fact that Mr.. Murray and all his
copysts have taken the grammar of the Latin
language for their criterion; and hence they have
exhausted their whole literary ingenuity III striv
ing to erect an English superstructUre upon Latin
basis-an English cdiicc ont of Latin material
to change the figure to nssinilatc two antagonistc
clements which cannot possibly have any affinity
for each other.
- No;T sirs, we have become acquainted with the
most prominent features of this great grammatical
proaigy-tlis literary curiosity Of tie nineteenth
century and &c have not the least hesancy iii
pronouncng it broad and unwarrantablc-a
grand imrosition-a magnificent hum6ug. Ii is,
sirs, 4 twin sister of those tens of thousands of
ephemeral catch-pcnny productions which are
daily tccming'from the Northern press.
Mr.. Lamar has changed the classification end
nomenclature of the parts Of speech. Beginning
with the Noun, he applies to it two Genders-makcs
no distinction between thc different kinds of
Nouns, not even Between the Proper and Common.
lie has changed the three Cases Of the Noun into
three Relations" calling the Nominatiyc Case,
tic "Subect Relation" the Possessve Case the
ssGentive Relation" and the Objective Case, the
"Objcct Relation" lie has transformed The Arti-
cles into Definitiyes," the Adjective into 4 Z" De-
scriptivc,' portion Of tie Adycrbs into help
ing Dcscriptives," and the Interjection into
Exclamation" lie has identified the three
classes of Pronouns, calling each by the simple
name of pronoun. He rdculcs Iir. 80 Murray end
his copyists for putting diiiere.:t kinds OF "hn
dies " to the pronours-srch ns Personal, Relatre,
&c. He seems to be puzzled TO perceive the source
from which they derived The material cut of which
to manufacture these CLUMSY "handles." He
cannot understand why it is they call some Of -he
Pronouns " Personal" when III fact they i,ot un-
frequently stand for horses, rs, Il ccc, &C..
Now we had never supposed that aay icn aho
had ever been once through his horn tooi, of
Grammar, Imagined that the class of Pronouns
which are called Personal were so called because
it was thought they always stood for persons, much
less by man who processes to understand the
Grammar Analysis structure, and, in fact, the
whole philosophy of our language. The Eoan, in
Grammar, always bears oIc Of three relations TO
the speaker; ii he speaks of hi!nself-his name,
as Noun, is said to be Of the First Person; if he
speaks 10 another, his name is Of the Second Per-
son, and if he speaks OF another, his name is CT
the Th-t. Person. And hence it is that the Pro-
nouns which arc tlcnominated Personal, always have
a form to show which Perscn is mcant-whethot
the First, Second or Third and this is the mate
rial out OF which this % handle" is manufactured
the reason why they called Personal Pronouns.
The Pronouns denomnatcd Personal, also have a
form to show their Number, and in most instances
their Case. They have in the Third Person Singu-
lar q form to indicate their Gender, elso, while the
Relative Pronouns have no such distinguishing
characteristics, except who, as n Relative, assumes
different forms to indicate its Cases. But there is
still yet another very material difference to be men
toned: The Personal Pronoun may take the
place of the Substantive in any of Its relations. 1t
may be used in the Ncminative, Possessive OBJ
jective Case; or to express the same thought ana
lyticaly, it may be used the subject of n
plete proposition, or it may be used as modifer,
either of the subject predicate-that is, nm Adj
icctiye of Objective element whereas the Relative
pronoun cannot take any of these three relations
in the principal clause of sentence, though it
may be used in any of these three relations in sub
ordinate propositions. And hence it is, that as it
is never used only in dependent propositions it fol-
lows as an inevitable consequence that it must