Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/278



OBS. 8.--Participles, which have naturally much resemblance to this part of speech, often drop their distinctive character, and become adjectives. This is usually the case whenever they stand immediately before the nouns to which they relate; as, A pleasing countenance, a piercing eye, an accomplished scholar, an exalted station. Many participial adjectives are derivatives formed from participles by the negative prefix un, which reverses the meaning of the primitive word; as, ''undisturbed, undivided, unenlightened''. Most words of this kind differ of course from participles, because there are no such verbs as to undisturb, to undivide, &c. Yet they may be called participial adjectives, because they have the termination, and embrace the form, of participles. Nor should any participial adjective be needlessly varied from the true orthography of the participle: a distinction is, however, observed by some writers, between past and passed, staid and stayed; and some old words, as ''drunken, stricken, shotten, rotten'', now obsolete as participles, are still retained as adjectives. This sort of words will be further noticed in the chapter on participles.

OBS. 9.--Adverbs are generally distinguished from adjectives, by the form, as well as by the construction, of the words. Yet, in instances not a few, the same word is capable of being used both adjectively and adverbially. In these cases, the scholar must determine the part of speech, by the construction alone; remembering that adjectives belong to nouns or pronouns only; and adverbs, to verbs, participles, adjectives, or other adverbs, only. The following examples from Scripture, will partially illustrate this point, which will be noticed again under the head of syntax: "Is your father well?"--Gen., xliii, 27. "Thou hast well said."--John, iv, 17. "He separateth very friends."--Prov., xvii, 9. "Esaias is very bold."--Rom., x, 20. "For a pretence, ye make long prayer."--Matt., xxiii, 14. "They that tarry long at the wine."--Prov., xxiii, 30. "It had not much earth."--Mark, iv, 5. "For she loved much."--Luke, vii, 47.

OBS. 10.--Prepositions, in regard to their construction, differ from adjectives, almost exactly as active-transitive participles differ syntactically from adjectives: that is, in stead of being mere adjuncts to the words which follow them, they govern those words, and refer back to some other term; which, in the usual order of speech, stands before them. Thus, if I say, "A spreading oak," spreading is an adjective relating to oak; if, "A boy spreading hay," spreading is a participle, governing hay, and relating to boy, because the boy is the agent of the action. So, when Dr. Webster says, "The off horse in a team," off is an adjective, relating to the noun horse; but, in the phrase, "A man off his guard," off is a preposition, showing the relation between man and guard, and governing the latter. The following are other examples: "From the above speculations."--Harris's Hermes, p. 194. "An after period of life."--MARSHALL: ''in Web. Dict. "With some other of the after Judaical rites."--Right of Tythes'', p. 86. "Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug."--Shak. "Especially is over exertion made."--''Journal of Lit. Conv.'', p. 119. "To both the under worlds."--Hudibras. "Please to pay to A. B. the amount of the within bill." Whether properly used or not, the words above, after, beneath, over, under, and within, are here unquestionably made adjectives; yet every scholar knows, that they are generally prepositions, though sometimes adverbs.

CLASSES.

Adjectives may be divided into six classes; namely, ''common, proper, numeral, pronominal, participial, and compound''.

I. A common adjective is any ordinary epithet, or adjective denoting quality or situation; as, ''Good, bad, peaceful, warlike--eastern, western, outer, inner''.

II. A proper adjective is an adjective formed from a proper name; as, American, English, Platonic, Genoese.

III. A numeral adjective is an adjective that expresses a definite number; as, One, two, three, four, five, six, &c.

IV. A pronominal adjective is a definitive word which may either accompany its noun, or represent it understood; as, "All join to guard what each desires to gain."--Pope. That is, "All men join to guard what each man desires to gain."

V. A participial adjective is one that has the form of a participle, but differs from it by rejecting the idea of time; as, "An amusing story,"--"A lying divination."

VI. A compound adjective is one that consists of two or more words joined together, either by the hyphen or solidly: as, ''Nut-brown, laughter-loving, four-footed; threefold, lordlike, lovesick''.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--This distribution of the adjectives is no less easy to be applied, than necessary to a proper explanation in parsing. How many adjectives there are in the language, it i