cluded from grammar, this hopeful
reformer thoroughly condemns; "repudiating this sentiment to the full
extent of it," (_ib._) and "writing his theory as though he had never seen
a book, entitled an English Grammar."--_Ib._ And, for all the ends of good
learning, it would have been as well or better, if he never had. His
passion for novelty has led him not only to abandon or misapply, in an
unprecedented degree, the usual terms of the art, but to disregard in many
instances its most unquestionable principles, universal as well as
particular. His parts of speech are the following ten: "Names, Substitutes,
_Asserters_, Adnames, Modifiers, Relatives, Connectives, Interrogatives,
Repliers, and Exclamations."--_The Gram._, p. 20. His _names_ are nouns;
his _substitutes_ are pronouns, and any adjectives whose nouns are not
expressed; his _asserters_ are verbs and participles, though the latter
assert nothing; his _adnames_ are articles, adjectives whose nouns or
pronouns are expressed, and adverbs that relate to adjectives; his
_modifiers_ are such adverbs as "modify the sense or sound of a whole
sentence;" his _relatives_ are prepositions, some of which _govern no
object_; his _connectives_ are conjunctions, with certain adverbs and
phrases; his _interrogatives_ and _repliers_ are new parts of speech, very
lamely explained; his _exclamations_ are interjections, and "_phrases used
independently_; as, O hapless choice!"--_The Gram._, p. 22. In parsing, he
finds a world of "_accommodatives_;" as, "John is _more than five years_
older than William."--_Ib._ p. 202. Here he calls the whole phrase "_more
than five years_" "a secondary _adname_" i. e., _adjective_. But, in the
phrase, "_more than five years_ afterwards," he would call the same words
"a secondary _modifier_;" i. e., _adverb_.--_Ib._, p. 203. And, in the
phrase, "_more than five years_ before the war," he would call them "a
secondary _relative_;" i. e., _preposition_.--_Ib._, p. 204. And so of
other phrases innumerable. His cases are five, two of which are new, "the
_Independent_" and "the _Twofold_ case." His "_independent_ case" is
sometimes the nominative in form, as "_thou_" and "_she_;" (p. 62;)
sometimes the objective, as, "_me_" and "_him_;" (p. 62 and p. 199;)
sometimes erroneously supposed to be the subject of a finite verb; while
_his nominative_ is sometimes as erroneously said to have _no_ verb. His
code of syntax has two sorts of rules, Analytical and Synthe