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OF WORDS IN GENERAL, AND THE PARTS OF SPEECH.

A word, in oral language, is either a significant simple sound, or a significant combination of sounds. In written language, it may be defined to be a simple character, or combination of characters, expressive of significant sounds, simple or compound.

A word of one syllable is called a monosyllable; of two syllables, a dissyllable; a word of three syllables, a trisyllable; and a word of more than three syllables is called a polysyllable. The last term, however, is frequently applied to words exceeding two syllables.

Words are either derivative or primitive.

A primitive is that which is formed from no other word, being itself a root, whence others spring, as angel, spirit, school.

A derivative is that which is derived from some other word, as angelic, spiritual, scholar.

A compound is a word made up of two or more words, as archangel, spiritless, schoolman.

In examining the character of words as significant of ideas, we find them reducible into classes, or denominations, according to the offices which they severally perform. These classes are generally called parts of speech; and how many of these belong to language has long been a question among philosophers and grammarians. Some have reckoned two, some three, and others four; while the generality have affirmed, that there are not fewer than eight, nine, or ten[7]. This strange diversity of opinion has partly arisen from a propensity to judge of the character of words more from their form, which is a most fallacious criterion, than from their import or signification. One thing appears certain, how much soever the subject may have been obscured by scholastic refinements, that to assign names to objects of thought, and to express their properties and qualities, are the only indispensable requisites in language. If this be admitted, it follows, that the noun and the verb are the only parts of speech which are essentially necessary; the former being the name of the thing of which we speak, and the latter, verb, (or the word, by way of eminence,) expressing what we think of it[8]. All other sorts of words must be regarded as subsidiaries, convenient perhaps for the more easy communication of thought, but by no means indispensably requisite.