A Grammar of the English Tongue eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 63 pages of information about A Grammar of the English Tongue.

A Grammar of the English Tongue eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 63 pages of information about A Grammar of the English Tongue.

From substantives are formed adjectives of plenty, by adding the termination y:  as a louse, lousy; wealth, wealthy; health, healthy; might, mighty; worth, worthy; wit, witty; lust, lusty; water, watery, earth, earthy; wood, (a wood) woody; air, airy; a heart, hearty; a hand, handy.

From substantives are formed adjectives of plenty, by adding the termination ful, denoting abundance; as, joy, joyful; fruit, fruitful; youth, youthful; care, careful; use, useful; delight, delightful; plenty, plentiful; help, helpful.

Sometimes in almost the same sense, but with some kind of diminution thereof, the termination some is added, denoting something, or in some degree; as delight, delightsome; game, gamesome; irk, irksome; burden, burdensome; trouble, troublesome; light, lightsome; hand, handsome; alone, lonesome; toil, toilsome.

On the contrary, the termination less added to substantives, makes adjectives signifying want; as, worthless, witless, heartless, joyless, careless, helpless.  Thus comfort, comfortless; sap, sapless.

Privation or contrariety is very often denoted by the participle un prefixed to many adjectives, or in before words derived from the Latin; as pleasant, unpleasant; wise, unwise; profitable, unprofitable, patient, impatient.  Thus unworthy, unhealthy, unfruitful, unuseful, and many more.

The original English privative is un; but as we often borrow trom the Latin, or its descendants, words already signifying privation, as inefficacious, impious, indiscreet, the inseparable particles un and in have fallen into confusion, from which it is not easy to disentangle them.

    Un is prefixed to all words originally English, as untrue, untruth,
    untaught, unhandsome.

    Un is prefixed to all participles made privative adjectives, as
    unfeeling, unassisting, unaided, undelighted, unendeared.

    Un ought never to be prefixed to a participle present to mark a
    forbearance of action, as unsighing, but a privation of habit, as
    unpitying.

Un is prefixed to most substantives which have an English termination, as unfertileness, unperfectness, which, if they have borrowed terminations, take in or im, as infertility, imperfection; uncivil, incivility; unactive, inactivity.
In borrowing adjectives, if we receive them already compounded, it is usual to retain the particle prefixed, as indecent, inelegant, improper; but if we borrow the adjective, and add the privative particle, we commonly prefix un, as unpolite, ungallant.

The prepositive particles dis and mis, derived from the des and mes of the French, signify almost the same as un; yet dis rather imports contrariety than privation, since it answers to the Latin preposition de.  Mis insinuates some errour, and for the most part may be rendered by the Latin words male or perperam.  To like, to dislike; honour, dishonour; to honour, to grace, to dishonour, to disgrace; to deign, to disdeign; chance, hap, mischance, mishap; to take, to mistake; deed, misdeed; to use, to misuse; to employ, to misemploy, to apply, to misapply.

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A Grammar of the English Tongue from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.