GRAMINA, the name of the fourth order in Linnaeus's Fragments of a Natural Method, consisting of the numerous and natural family of the grasses, viz. agrostis, aira, alopecurus or fox-tail grass, anthoxanthum or vernal grass, aristida, arundo or reed, avena or oats, bobartia, briza, bromus, cinna, cornucopiae or horn of plenty grass, cynoforus, dactylis, elymus, festuca or fescus-grass, hordeum or barley, lagurus or hare's-tail
graffes, lolium or darnel, lygeum or hooded matweed, melica, milium or millet, nardus, oryza or rice, panicum or panic-grass, paspalum, phalaris or canary-grass, phleum, poa, saccharum or sugar-cane, secule or rye, stipa or winged spike-grass, triticum or wheat, uniola or scurf-oats of Carolina, coix or Job's tears, olyra, pharus, triplicum, zea, Indian Turkey wheat or Indian corn, zizania, aegilops or wild fescus-grass, andropogon, apiluda, cenchrus, holcus or Indian millet, ischaemum. See BOTANY.
Definition 1. GRAMMAR is the art of speaking or of writing any language with propriety; and the purpose of language is to communicate our thoughts.
2. Grammar, considered as an art, necessarily supposes the previous existence of language; and as its design is to teach any language to those who are ignorant of it, it must be adapted to the genius of that particular language of which it treats. A just method of grammar, therefore, without attempting any alterations in a language already introduced, furnishes certain observations called rules, to which the methods of speaking used in that language may be reduced; and this collection of rules is called the grammar of that particular language. For the greater distinctness with regard to these rules, grammarians have usually divided this subject into four distinct heads, viz. ORTHOGRAPHY, or the art of combining letters into syllables, and syllables into words; ETYMOLOGY, or the art of deduc-
ing one word from another, and the various modifications by which the sense of any one word can be diversified consistently with its original meaning or its relation to the theme whence it is derived; SYNTAX, or what relates to the construction or due disposition of the words of a language into sentences or phrases; and PROSODY, or that which treats of the quantities and accents of syllables, and the art of making verses.
3. But grammar, considered as a science, views language only as it is significant of thought. Neglecting all particular and arbitrary modifications introduced for the sake of beauty or elegance, it examines the analogy and relation between words and ideas; distinguishes between those particulars which are essential to language and those which are only accidental; and thus furnishes a certain standard, by which different languages may be compared, and their several excellencies or defects pointed out. This is what is called PHILOSOPHIC or
4. THE origin of language is a subject which has employed much learned investigation, and about which there is still a diversity of opinion. The design of speech is to communicate to others the thoughts and perceptions of the mind of the speaker: but it is obvious, that between an internal idea and any external sound there is no natural relation; that the word fire, for instance, might have denominated the substance which we call ice, and that the word ice might have signified fire. Some of the most acute feelings of man, as well as of every other animal, are indeed expressed by simple inarticulate sounds, which as they tend to the preservation of the individual or the continuance of the species, and invariably indicate either pain or pleasure, are universally understood: but these inarticulate and significant sounds are very few in number; and if they can with any propriety be said to constitute a natural and universal language, it is a language of which man as a mere sensitive being partakes in common with the other animals.
5. Man is endowed not only with sensation, but also with the faculty of reasoning; and simple inarticulate sounds are insufficient for expressing all the various modifications of thought, for communicating to others a chain of argumentation, or even for distinguishing be-
tween the different sensations either of pain or of pleasure: a man scorched with fire or unexpectedly plunged among ice, might utter the cry naturally indicative of sudden and violent pain; the cry would be the same, or nearly the same, but the sensations of cold and heat are widely different. Articulation, by which those simple sounds are modified, and a particular meaning fixed to each modification, is therefore absolutely necessary to such a being as man, and forms the language which distinguishes him from all other animals, and enables him to communicate with facility all that diversity of ideas with which his mind is stored, to make known his particular wants, and to distinguish with accuracy all his various sensations. Those sounds thus modified are called WORDS; and as words have confessedly no natural relation to the ideas and perceptions of which they are significant, the use of them must either have been the result of human sagacity, or have been suggested to the first man by the Author of nature.
6. Whether language be of divine or human origin, is a question upon which, though it might perhaps be soon resolved, it is not necessary here to enter. Upon either supposition, the first language, compared with those which succeeded it, or even with itself as afterwards enlarged, must have been extremely rude and narrow.