The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1888-03-15

$500 LANGSlON.
Won see in the word. form; let nothing be
understood OF supplied in order to work
in the parsing formulas. For instance,
in the above sentence all the pupil can
see in "parents" is common noun, plural
number; he cannot see objective case it
is the position of the word in the SEN
tence that shows what case it is to be.
considered; this shows him that parents
is the object of love, and he then infers
that it is the objective case. In he aoued,
ahe".is personal pronoun, masculine
gender, third person, singular number,
nominative case; but "loved" neither
third person, nor singular number, save
by inference; that is, "loved" may not
be parsed as possessing the distinguish.
ing marks. of person and number, and SO
does not agree with che" in those regards.
That only should be attributed to the
word in parsing which the word actually
evidences 10 its form. Analysis alone
reveals logical relations parsing simply
yerifea inHectional agreements, and its
work ceases when it hes told what the
form of the word indicates. The work
81; elicitipg and explaining the relative
properties Of the parts Of the sentence is
not formal, but depends on reason and
comparison; this work parsing may assist
but not supply. The practice of making
it the only method in English grammar.
study has almost driven English from
the schools, and made 10 grammar the
bane Of juvenile life, and the scare crow
to drive men away from the felds Of
English literature.
Another serious lack Of the parsing
method is tbatitleaye logical relations
unexplained; /; untouched, in fact. 1t
deals with single words without ref
erence to other than formal relations,
and when it has said all, or more than it
should, it passes on to desolate other fair
feldaof English speech, leaving aenten-
ces dismembered and d,sense neglected be.
hind it. According to its dicta, adject.
ives belong: :to-nouns. They do not, de-
scribe, limit, explain or restrict /; adverbs
qualify verbs, adjectiyes and ad verbs, but
how, you shall never learn from the
parsing process conjunctions connect
words and sentences, but do not seem to
be expected to indicate anything Of the
character and force .of this connection,
The indefinite article, whatever that may
mean to the grammar pupil, belongs to
nouns of the singular number; and the,
definite article, another curiosity ofgram.
matical notation, belongs to nouns of the
or plural number; all of which
is about as perspicuous an explanation
Of the Office of these limiting adjectiyes
as the school boys elucidation: In
order To- find the number of square feet
in q room you multiply the room by the
numbero of feet, theproduct the result.
Instead Of the simpledistinction: q verb
is transitive when il takes an object, and
iutransitive when it does not, the gram
mars give us two diverse classes of tran.
sitiye and intransitive verbs. There are
in English but few verbs that may not
sometimes take an object; there is
large number that are used either with
or without an object. Il is misleading
to attempt to classify verbs as transitive,
and intransitive, for there are no such
classes; in any particular sentence the
verb is transitivs or intransitiye, accord.
ing as ittakes or does not take an object
in that sentence. In such sentence as,
Tie horse eats fast, 'seats"i is intransitive.
In the sentence, The horse eats his food,
sseatso is transitive. Transitive and iu.;
transitive are not organic, but incidental
distinctions, not absolute but relative ]
dwell on this point because / know it to
be one Of the most puzzling of all gram
matical yagaries to grammar pupils.
But the most dangerous superstition.of
this persistent misuse of grammar is the
seemingly ineradicable belief that the
Office of the proposition is to govern
somethingI In an analytical tongue
like the Engl ,h, in which, it is not put.
ting il too strongsto say. the proposition
is the cardinal element of construction
a language whose characteristic strength
is its protean abundance of prepositioDal
phrases; a Language in which scarcely a
sentence can be written without such
phrases, and in which no such sentence
can be understood without knowledge of
the meaning aud force Of the proposition;
in such language to be content, as most
teachers and pupils are, with the mean
ingless formula, the false and futile rule,
Propositions govern the objective case,"
is to stultify intelligence, to debase gram
mar to the merest Journalism, and to make
our language impracticable as medium
of exact and elegant expression. Moth.
ing butithe worlds strong common sense,
by which truth and grammar are dis.
criminated in the logical process Of get
ting at meanings, has kept this blunder
from debauching English speech. There
is no telling to what extent it is RESPONSE
BILE for the indisposition and almost in-
capacity of the average boy to take in
readily the plain fscts. of a printed page.
He is the victim of the despotic preposi-
tion to his mind the proposition possess
aes in fec the soul and body of its word !;
that word acknowledges no allegiance,
no subordinalion, no relation with any.
thing in the sentence, in the paragraph,
in the heavens or the earth or the sea