English Grammar - Including the Principles of Grammatical Analysis #265482

Many of the older writers on English grammar made a grievous mistake in trying to dress out English constructions in a Latin garb, being misled by the notion that Latin grammar is a sort of universal test and touchstone in all gram metical questions. Some modern authors make an equally gross mistake of an Opposite kind, when they refuse to take any account at all of Latin constructions, when dealing with those of the English language. In spite of all the differences of idiom that distinguish the two languages, there are numerous cases in which their constructions involve grammatical principles which are the same in both. As regards particular usages there are considerable differences between English and Latin in the use of the moods, but the fundamental ideas upon which the distinctions of mood are based (like those which relate to the functions of the parts of speech, of numbers, persons, cases, voices, tenses, &c.) are common to both languages.