About the Book
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE FIRST LINES ENGLISH GRAMMAR English Grammar is the art of speaking and writing the English language correctly. It is divided into four parts; namely, Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody. Orthography treats of letters, syllables, separate words, and spelling. Etymology treats of the different parts of speech, and their classes and modifications. Syntax treats of the relation, agreement, government, and arrangement, of words in sentences. Prosody treats of punctuation, utterance, fig ures, and versification. PART I. ORTHOGRAPHY. Orthography treats of letters, syllables, separate words, and spelling. OF LETTERS. A Letter is a character used in printing or writing, to represent an articulate sound. An articulate sound is a sound of the human voice, used in speaking. The letters in the English alphabet are twenty- six; A, B 6, C c, D d, E e, Ff, G g, H A, / i, J /, K /, L Z, M ra, N n, O 0, P p, Q q, Rr, S s, Tt, 17 u, Fr, TFw, Xx, Y y, Z z. CLASSES OP LETTERS. The letters are divided into two general classes, vowels and consonants. A vowel is a letter which forms a perfect sound, when uttered alone. A consonant is a letter which cannot be per fectly uttered till joined to a vowel. The vowels are a, e, z, o, M, and sometimes w, and y. All the other letters are consonants. W and ?/ are consonants when they precede a vowel heard in the same syllable; as in wine, twine, whine, ye, yet, youth: in all other situations, they are vowels; as in newly, dewy, eyebrow. Observation 1. The consonants are divided into mutes and semivowels. Obs. 2. A mute is a consonant which Cannot be sounded at all without a vowel. The mutes are 6, d, k, p, q, t, and c and g hard. Obs. 3. A semi-vowel is a consonant which can b...
