LINGUISTIC ESSAYS. BY CARL ABEL, PH. DR. LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL. 1882. [All rights reserved.] PREFACE. LANGUAGE, as the embodiment of a nation's general views of men and things, is the theme of the first six essays. While grammar turns upon the form of words, the present method aims at appreciating the meaning conveyed in the substance as well as in the form. A systematic attempt is made to realise the psychological significance of the Dictionary, and to connect Dictionary and Grammar by conceptual ties. To this end the meaning of words is explained in groups, each conveying a complete view of some notion or other; the ordinary mode of discussing grammatical topics according to parts of speech, is supplemented by an arrangement, classifying inflections and their syntactical combinations according to what they express; and a connection is established between the two forms of linguistic expression in the case of those more general and abstract ideas, which admit of being communicated in an abbreviated inflectional form by grammar, and in the shape of independent words by the Dictionary. To contribute towards rendering philology a comparative conceptology of nations is the ultimate object aimed at. |