Knowing that a strong predilection for philosophical grammars, exists in the minds of some teachers of this science, I have thought proper, for the gratification of such, to intersperse through the pages of this work under the head of “PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES,” an entire system of grammatical principles as deduced from what appears to me to be the most rational and consistent philosophical investigations.  They who prefer this theory to that exhibited in the body of the work, are, of course, at liberty to adopt it.

In general, a philosophical theory of grammar will be found to accord with the practical theory embraced in the body of this work.  Wherever such agreement exists, the system contained in these NOTES will be deficient, and this deficiency may be supplied by adopting the principles contained in the other parts of the work.

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    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,