Lectures on the English language Volume 1 - Tapa blanda

Reseña del editor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1863 Excerpt: ...in the mind of either speaker or hearer. This is to suppose a In inflected languages, this may very generally be done, inasmuch as the form of every word indicates with certainty its grammatical case. case which, in articulate or written language, cannot exist, and in point of fact seldom, if ever, does exist in purely intellectual processes. No man speaks or writes without a motive, and that motive originates in circumstances that necessarily modify the order in which thought rises to the mind, and words to the lips or pen. We know language only in its concrete form, and the grammatical and philological question always is, What is the order of thought under such or such circumstances? The rhetorical question is still more complicated: How am I, under the circumstances special to me, to arrange my words, that they may produce the right impression on the mind or heart of my hearer under the circumstances that are operating on him? This, indeed, is purely a matter of art, and belongs as little to philology, as do metaphysical inquiries into the abstract laws of thought. Men are usually so much under the control of subjective emotion that they utter their words without calculating their effect beforehand, and they habitually arrange them according to the syntactical laws of the language they are speaking, by a process which long practice has rendered mechanical and unconscious. The circumstances which affect the order of thought in an independent proposition, uttered not as a reply to a question, nor with any reference to the conditions peculiar to the person addressed, are too various even to admit of generalization or classification. An example or two must suffice. To take the proposition I have so often employed as an illustration, William struck Peter. If ...