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