Exercise.
Parse in full each adjective in these sentences:—
1. A thousand lives seemed concentrated in that one moment to Eliza.
2. The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked.
3. I ask nothing of you, then, but that you proceed to your end by a direct, frank, manly way.
4. She made no reply, and I waited for none.
5. A herd of thirty or forty tall ungainly figures took their way, with awkward but rapid pace, across the plain.
6. Gallantly did the lion struggle in the folds of his terrible enemy, whose grasp each moment grew more fierce and secure, and most astounding were those frightful yells.
7. This gave the young people entire freedom, and they enjoyed it to the fullest extent.
8. I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.
9. To every Roman citizen he gives, To every several man, seventy-five drachmas.
10. Each member was permitted to entertain all the rest on his or her birthday, on which occasion the elders of the family were bound to be absent.
11. Instantly the mind inquires whether these fishes under the bridge, yonder oxen in the pasture, those dogs in the yard, are immutably fishes, oxen, and dogs.
12. I know not what course others may take.
13. With every third step, the tomahawk fell.
14. What a ruthless business this war of extermination is!
15. I was just emerging from that many-formed crystal country.
16. On what shore has not the prow of your ships dashed?
17. The laws and institutions of his country ought to have been more to him than all the men in his country.
18. Like most gifted men, he won affections with ease.
19. His letters aim to elicit the inmost experience and outward fortunes of those he loves, yet are remarkably self-forgetful.
20. Their name was the last word upon his lips.
21. The captain said it was the last stick he had seen.
22. Before sunrise the next morning they let us out again.
23. He was curious to know to what sect we belonged.
24. Two hours elapsed, during which time I waited.
25. In music especially, you will soon find what personal benefit there is in being serviceable.
26. To say what good of fashion we can, it rests on reality, and hates nothing so much as pretenders.
27. Here lay two great roads, not so much for travelers that were few, as for armies that were too many by half.
28. On whichever side of the border chance had thrown Joanna, the same love to France would have been nurtured.
29. What advantage was open to him above the English boy?
30. Nearer to our own times, and therefore more interesting to us, is the settlement of our own country.
31. Even the topmost branches spread out and drooped in all directions, and many poles supported the lower ones.
32. Most fruits depend entirely on our care.
33. Even the sourest and crabbedest apple, growing in the most unfavorable position, suggests such thoughts as these, it is so noble a fruit.
34. Let him live in what pomps and prosperities he like, he is no literary man.
35. Through what hardships it may bear a sweet fruit!
36. Whatsoever power exists will have itself organized.
37. A hard-struggling, weary-hearted man was he.
ARTICLES.
171. There is a class of words having always an adjectival use in general, but with such subtle functions and various meanings that they deserve separate treatment. In the sentence, "He passes an ordinary brick house on the road, with an ordinary little garden," the words the and an belong to nouns, just as adjectives do; but they cannot be accurately placed under any class of adjectives. They are nearest to demonstrative and numeral adjectives.
Their origin.
172. The article the comes from an old demonstrative adjective (sē, sēo, ðat, later thē, thēo, that) which was also an article in Old English. In Middle English the became an article, and that remained a demonstrative adjective.
An or a came from the old numeral ān, meaning one.
Two relics.
Our expressions the one, the other, were formerly that one, that other; the latter is still preserved in the expression, in vulgar English, the tother. Not only this is kept in the Scotch dialect, but the former is used, these occurring as the tane, the tother, or the tane, the tither; for example,—
We ca' her sometimes the tane, sometimes the tother.—Scott.
An before vowel sounds, a before consonant sounds.
173. Ordinarily an is used before vowel sounds, and a before consonant sounds. Remember that a vowel sound does not necessarily mean beginning with a vowel, nor does consonant sound mean beginning with a consonant, because English spelling does not coincide closely with the sound of words. Examples: "a house," "an orange," "a European," "an honor," "a yelling crowd."
An with consonant sounds.
174. Many writers use an before h, even when not silent, when the word is not accented on the first syllable.
An historian, such as we have been attempting to describe, would indeed be an intellectual prodigy.—Macaulay.
The Persians were an heroic people like the Greeks.—Brewer.
He [Rip] evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to anything else but his business.—Irving.
An habitual submission of the understanding to mere events and images.—Coleridge.
An hereditary tenure of these offices.—Thomas Jefferson.
Definition.
175. An article is a limiting word, not descriptive, which cannot be used alone, but always joins to a substantive word to denote a particular thing, or a group or class of things, or any individual of a group or class.
Kinds.
176. Articles are either definite or indefinite.
The is the definite article, since it points out a particular individual, or group, or class.
An or a is the indefinite article, because it refers to any one of a group or class of things.
An and a are different forms of the same word, the older ān.