Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1870 Excerpt:... or perhaps very accurate, shows me that you understand them pretty well. "In speaking or writing, you must always take care that the verb agrees with the noun or pronoun, in person and number, and not say, as some illiterate people do,'I likes fruit;' 'They lives in London.'" "Oh, no, mamma; I knew that, before I learned grammar, by the sound; but now I know the reason of it. It is not the first person singular, but the third person, that ends in s--he likes, and he lives." "There is much more correct language," said her mother, "acquired by the ear than we are aware of: but you see it will not do to trust to the ear alone; without a knowledge of grammar, we are always liable to fall into mistakes." "I think it a very natural mistake," observed Mary, "to say they lives, because they is plural, and, as nouns plural commonly ends in s, ignorant people suppose that verbs do so too." "True," replied her mother, "but this is no apology for I likes, for no one can suppose the pronoun I to be plural. Verbs," continued she, in conclusion, "are often made up or compounded of a verb and a preposition, as up-hold, understand, under-take, for-give, over-reach, and many others." CONTINUATION OF VERBS. Lesson XVI.--Participles. The following morning, when Mary went to her mother for her lesson, she said, ""Well, mamma, we have not done with the verbs yet, have we?" "Oh, no," replied her mother; "far from it. Besides the four modes, there belong to a verb two words called Participles, because they partake of two parts of speech, the verb and the adjective." "Well! that is strange," said Mary; "adjectives and verbs are such different things." "Neither adjectives nor verbs are things," observed her mother, "for the one expresses the quality, the other an action." "But, mam...