istributive parts should either express,
distinctly, the influence, which each class produces on sentences; or some
other characteristic trait, by which the respective species of words may be
distinguished, without danger of confusion. It is at least probable, that
no distribution, sufficiently minute, can ever be made, of the parts of
speech, which shall be wholly free from all objection. Hasty innovations,
therefore, and crude conjectures, should not be permitted to disturb that
course of grammatical instruction, which has been advancing in melioration,
by the unremitting labours of thousands, through a series of
ages."--_Wilson's Essay on Gram._, p. 66. Again: "The _number_ of the parts
of speech may be reduced, or enlarged, at pleasure; and the rules of
syntax may be accommodated to such new arrangement. The best grammarians
find it difficult, in practice, to distinguish, in some instances, adverbs,
prepositions, and conjunctions; yet their effects are generally distinct.
This inconvenience should be submitted to, since a less comprehensive
distribution would be very unfavourable to a rational investigation of the
meaning of English sentences."--_Ib._, p. 68. Again: "_As_ and _so_ have
been also deemed substitutes, and resolved into other words. But if all
abbreviations are to be restored to their primitive parts of speech, there
will be a general revolution in the present systems of grammar; and the
various improvements, which have sprung from convenience, or necessity, and
been sanctioned by the usage of ancient times, must be retrenched, and
anarchy in letters universally prevail."--_Ib._, p. 114.

OBS. 4.--I have elsewhere sufficiently shown why _ten_ parts of speech are
to be preferred to any other number, in English; and whatever diversity of
opinion there may be, respecting the class to which some particular words
ought to be referred, I trust to make it obvious to good sense, that I have
seldom erred from the course which is most expedient. 1. _Articles_ are
used with appellative nouns, sometimes to denote emphatically the species,
but generally to designate individuals. 2. _Nouns_ stand in discourse for
persons, things, or abstract qualities. 3. _Adjectives_ commonly express
the concrete qualities of persons or things; but sometimes, their situation
or number. 4. _Pronouns_ are substitutes for names, or nouns; but they
sometimes represent sentences. 5. _Verbs_ assert, ask, or say something;
and, for the most