h the train of thought forms and suggests--or
that dependence which one word has on an other according to the sense--lies
at the foundation of all syntax. No rule or principle of construction can
ever have any applicability beyond the limits, or contrary to the order, of
this relation. To see what it is in any given case, is but to understand
the meaning of the phrase or sentence. And it is plain, that no word ever
necessarily agrees with an other, with which it is not thus connected in
the mind of him who uses it. No word ever governs an other, to which the
sense does not direct it. No word is ever required to stand immediately
before or after an other, to which it has not some relation according to
the meaning of the passage. Here then are the relation, agreement,
government, and arrangement, of words in sentences; and these make up the
whole of syntax--but not the whole of grammar. To this one part of grammar,
therefore, the relation of words is central and fundamental; and in the
other parts also, there are some things to which the consideration of it is
incidental; but there are many more, like spelling, pronunciation,
derivation, and whatsoever belongs merely to letters, syllables, and the
forms of words, with which it has, in fact, no connexion. The relation of
words, therefore, should be clearly and fully explained in its proper
place, under the head of syntax; but the general idea of grammar will not
be brought nearer to truth, by making it to be "the art of _expressing the
relations_ of things in construction," &c., according to the foregoing
definition.

12. The term _grammar_ is derived from the Greek word [Greek: gramma], a
letter. The art or science to which this term is applied, had its origin,
not in cursory speech, but in the practice of writing; and speech, which is
first in the order of nature, is last with reference to grammar. The matter
or common subject of grammar, is language in general; which, being of two
kinds, _spoken_ and _written_, consists of certain combinations either of
sounds or of visible signs, employed for the expression of thought. Letters
and sounds, though often heedlessly confounded in the definitions given of
vowels, consonants, &c., are, in their own nature, very different things.
They address themselves to different senses; the former, to the sight; the
latter, to the hearing. Yet, by a peculiar relation arbitrarily established
between them, and in consequence of an almost endl