eficient, and this deficiency may be supplied by adopting
the principles contained in the other parts of the work_.

* * * * *

OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS.

According to the method in which philosophical investigations of
language have generally been conducted, all our words should be
reduced to two classes; for it can be easily shown, that from the
noun and verb, all the other parts of speech have sprung. Nay, more.
They may even be reduced to one. Verbs do not, in reality, _express_
actions; but they are intrinsically the mere _names_ of actions. The
idea of action or being communicated by them, as well as the
_meaning_ of words in general, is merely _inferential_. The
principle of reasoning assumed by the celebrated Horne Tooke, if
carried to its full extent, would result, it is believed, in proving
that we have but one part of speech.

_Adnouns_ or _adjectives_ were originally nouns. _Sweet, red,
white_, are the _names_ of qualities, as well as _sweetness,
redness, whiteness_. The former differ from the latter only in their
_manner_ of signification. To denote that the name of some quality
or substance is to be used in connexion with some other name, or,
that this quality is to be _attributed_ to some other name, we
sometimes affix to it the termination _en, ed_, or _y;_ which
signifies _give, add,_ or _join_. When we employ the words wood_en_,
wooll_en_, wealth_y_, grass_y_, the terminations _en_ and _y_, by
their own intrinsic meaning, give notice that we intend to _give,
add, or join_, the names of some other substances in which are found
the properties or qualities of _wood, wool, wealth_, or _grass_.

_Pronouns_ are a class of nouns, used instead of others to prevent
their disagreeable repetition. Participles are certain forms of the
verb. Articles, interjections, adverbs, prepositions, and
conjunctions, are contractions of abbreviations of nouns and verbs.
_An_ (_a, one_, or _one_) comes from _ananad_, to add, to heap.
_The_ and _that_, from the Anglo-Saxon verb _thean_, to get, assume.
_Lo_ is the imperative of _look_; _fy_, of _fian_, to hate; and
_welcome_ means, it is _well_ that you are _come. In_ comes from the
Gothic noun _inna_, the interior of the body; and _about_, from
_boda_, the first outward boundary. _