ABSTRACT
IN one sense, a language may be said to consist of whatever is the number of words and phrases that this particular language possesses 1 . One learns, however, only so many of those words and phrases as one needs to know; at least, that is the ideal, for actually one fails to learn a certain number that might be very helpful, and learns a few that are of no use whatsoever. But if one is learning a language (whether one's own or a foreign), one has to be taught, or to pick up, or, as a child does, assimilate more or less subconsciously those rules which tell us how to put those words together into phrases and sentences: this process is taught by grammar; the process itself is applied grammar and is, in fact, the spirit of grammar; a spirit that can be helped by the letter of grammar or, in other words, by the rules.
