followed by than' in composition, but by 'to;' thus we do not say 'senior than his brother,' but 'senior to his brother.' They share this peculiarity with a few adjectives of Anglo-Saxon origin; as, former, elder, latter, hinder, under, inner, etc.

(8.) Adjectives expressing qualities that do not admit of change of degree are not compared. EXAMPLES: Certain,' 'dead,' 'empty,' 'extreme,' 'false,' 'full,' 'infinite,' 'perfect,' 'complete,'' supreme,' 'universal,' 'round,' 'straight,' 'square,' 'lend,' correct.' Many of these Adjectives are compared in colloquial use and even by good writers, and such comparison is allowable on the theory that these adjectives are not used in their strict sense. However, we can generally avoid such comparisons. In place of saying more perfect,' say 'more nearly perfect;' in place of saying 'more complete,' say 'more copious;' in place of saying 'rounder,' say 'more nearly round.'

Exercise 23.

Give the COMPARATIVE and the SUPERLATIVE forms of the following ADJECTIVES:

1. Great; good; wise; ill; little; short; bad; late.

2. Near; fore; much; old; frugal; few; valuable; many.
3. Patient; amiable; high; low; pretty; black; rich; heavy.
4. Hot; dangerous; fair; far; gentle; bright; bitter; green.
5. Calm; gay; hard; useful; red; light; truthful; swift.
6. Large; soft; gentle; tall; modest; merry; rough; dark.

4. The Adverb.

133. Some ADVERBS are inflected to express degrees of comparison; as, He calls oftener than he writes.

134. The comparison of Adverbs follows the same rules as that of Adjectives; as, soon, sooner, soonest; pleasantly, more pleasantly, most pleasantly.

Many Adverbs, from the nature of their meaning, can not be compared ; as, then, now, yesterday.

135. The following Adverbs, like the Adjectives with which they correspond, are irregularly compared: well, ill, badly, much, little, far, forth.

The Adverb rather is the comparative of an Old English Adjective rathe, meaning early; thus

The rathe primrose which forsaken dies.-Milton.

'Rather' means earlier or sooner: I should rather read than write-that is, sooner read than write.

Exercise 24.
A.

Give the COMPARATIVE and the SUPERLATIVE forms of the following ADVERBS:

1. Largely; plainly; badly; wholly; brightly.

2. Completely; little; possibly; sweetly; far; well.

B.

Distinguish between ADJECTIVES and ADVERBS, remembering that Adjectives belong to Nouns, and Adverbs to Verbs, Adjectives, and other Adverbs.

1. I have seen better faces.

2. He likes this better.

3. The more mildly I spoke, the more insolently he answered, and therefore the more punishment he deserves.

4. I have long wished to see her. 5. I have a long letter from her. 6. Much fruit. I love him much.

5. The Verb.

136. The VERB is the most highly inflected of all the Parts of Speech. This comes from the fact that the Verb makes statements; and that the action stated may be done by dif ferent persons, at various times, and under several conditions. We may say he strikes or they strike; I strike or I struck; strike, but hear; We shall strike, etc.

137. The Inflections of the Verb are to express Time, Person, Number, and Manner. Verbs are said to have also Voice, and this is explained farther on (see ¶ 172-176).

I. TENSE.

138. TENSE (from the Latin tempus, 'time') is a change in the form of the Verb to express the time of an action.

139. There are three natural divisions of time-the present, the past, and the future. There are, therefore, three primary Tenses-the Present Tense, the Past Tense, and the Future Tense.

140. The Present Tense is the simple form of the Verb, and expresses what is or is doing when the statement is made; as, I walk, I write.

141. The Past Tense is formed from the present; it expresses what was or was done before the statement is made; as, I walked, I wrote.

142. Verbs generally form their Past Tense from the Present Tense by suffixing ed; as, walk, walked. Some old English verbs form the Past Tense by a change of the root-vowel; as, write, wrote.

143. The first class are called Regular Verbs, the second class Irregular, old, or strong Verbs.

(a) Of the four thousand verbs in the English language, all but about one hundred and fifty form their past tense according to the general rule, that is, by suffixing -ed, and hence are regular.

(b) The suffix -ed, which is the inflection of the Past Tense, is a contraction of the word did. Thus, loved is ‘I love-did,' or, as we still say, 'I did love.'

144. The Future Tense expresses what is to be or is to be done after the statement is made; as, I shall walk, You will write.

145. The Future Tense in English is formed, not by inflection, or a change of the word, but by the use of a helping word called an auxiliary. This word is shall or will.

(a) Many languages form their future by inflections: thus the Latin for 'I shall love' is amabo (from amo, I love). We get our way of marking future time from the Anglo-Saxon, which used sceal and wille, 'shall' and 'will,' thus: 'ic sceal niman,' or 'ic wille niman,' which literally means I owe to take, I will to take.

owe.

(b) Shall implies obligation or duty-its original signification being to Will implies wish or pleasure-the exercise of will. There are many nice points about the use of shall and will with pronouns of the different persons. These points are explained under Syntax.

146. There are three Secondary Tenses-the Present Perfect, the Past Perfect, and the Future Perfect. These tenses are formed, not by inflections, but by the use of auxiliaries. The auxiliary have is used to form the Present Perfect, I have walked; the auxiliary had to form the Past Perfect, I had walked; and the auxiliary shall have to form the Future Perfect, I shall have walked.

II. PERSON AND NUMBER.

147. As there is a Personal Pronoun for each of the three persons

1st Person, I; 2d Person, You; 3d Person, He (She, It);—

and as each Pronoun has a Plural number—

1st Pers. Pl.,We; 2d Pers. Pl., You; 3d Pers. Pl., They—

So any Verb is said to be of the First Person, Second Person, or Third Person, and of the Singular or of the Plural Number, according to which one of these Pronouns it is used with.

148. Thus:

The Verb walk in
I walk..

.is said to be in the 1st Person Singular.

You walk.

66

66

2d

66

66

(a) Take notice that the only inflection or change in the Verbs as thus given (present tense, indicative mood) is in the Third Person, singular, which takes s.

(b) In many languages the Verb itself is inflected, that is, it changes its termination in every person and in both numbers. Thus in Latin : I love......was Ego amo.

Six inflections in Latin; two inflections in English.

The old Saxon verb had more inflections than our English verb now has. Thus in Saxon :

You love
They love

Four inflections in Saxon; two in English.

(c) The common form of our second person singular is You love, and of our third person singular, He loves; but we retain from Old English the forms thou lovest, he loveth. These are used in poetry and prayer, and are called the solemn or ancient style. The inflections est and eth are remains of the Saxon inflections ast [2d pers. sing.] and ath [3d pers. sing.].

149. When we say

III. MOOD.

He writes,

we make a statement in a very different manner from when we say,

and very different also from saying

If he write, I will answer;

We may write to-morrow;

different also from

Write me a letter;

and different from

Scholars learn to write verbs by practice.

150. These different ways of making a statement are called Moods. Hence Mood (from the Latin modus, manner) is a grammatical term meaning the manner of making a statement. We count five Moods in English.

151. INDICATIVE MOOD.-The statement of a fact, or of a matter taken as a fact, is called the Indicative Mood; as, You write. This mood is also used in asking questions.

152. When this Mood is introduced by the conditional conjunctions if, though, unless, etc., it may be called the conditional form of the Indicative; as, If he wrote, I did not receive his letter; Though old age comes upon us, we need not be unhappy.

NOTE. Do not fall into the mistake of thinking that the little words if, though, etc., necessarily make a verb some other mood than the Indicative (namely, the Subjunctive). A verb is Indicative when it states a fact real or conditional, and this whether used alone or with some conditional conjunction. Sometimes, indeed, a verb with if or though before it is not in the indicative, but in the so-called subjunctive; and this is explained in ¶ 157-161.

153. The Indicative Mood is used in all the six tenses.

154. POTENTIAL MOOD.-The Potential Mood is a way of making a statement by means of the auxiliary verbs may, can, must, might, could, would, and should; as, 'You must study this lesson;' 'We may be happy yet.' It expresses power, contingency, duty, and some other relations that will be better understood when we take up the full verb.

Some languages express the potential mood by inflection. Thus, Latin, Amo, I love; Amarem, I may love. We form it with the auxiliaries may, can, etc. These were complete verbs in Anglo-Saxon, but they have now lost all their forms except as auxiliaries. The literal meaning of the form 'I may love' is I may to love, i. e., I am able to love. Can is from the Anglo-Saxon cunnan, to be able. I can walk I am able to walk.

155. A conditional form of the Potential Mood is obtained by the use of one of the conditional conjunctions (if, though, etc.) with the verb; thus, If I may love; if you may write.

156. The Potential Mood is used in four tenses-present, past, present perfect, past perfect.

157. SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD.-There is a little fragment of the verb, called the Subjunctive Mood, that has puzzled people a great deal. The matter is really very simple.

158. The only difference between the Subjunctive Mood and