ABSTRACT
Old Systems. IT is customary to begin the teaching of grammar by dividing words into certain classes, generally called "parts of speech" -substantives, adjectives, verbs, etc.--and by giving definitions of these classes. The division in the main goes back to the Greek and Latin grammarians with a few additions and modifications, but the definitions are very far from having attained the degree of exactitude found in Euclidean geometry. Most of the definitions given even in recent books are little better than sham definitions in which it is extremely easy to pick holes; nor has it been possible to come to a general arrangement as to what the distinction is to be based on-whether on form (and form-changes) or on meaning or on function in the sentence, or on all of these combined.
