PARSING.

What is the distinction between a noun and an adjective?--By what sign
may an adjective be known?--Are participles ever used as
adjectives?--Does gender, person, number, or case, belong to
adjectives?--How are they varied?--Name the three degrees of
comparison.--What effect have _less_ and _least_ in comparing
adjectives?--Repeat the order of parsing an adjective.--What rule
applies in parsing an adjective?--What rule in parsing a verb agreeing
with a noun of multitude conveying _unity_ of idea?--What Note should be
applied in parsing an adjective which belongs to a pronoun?--What Note
in parsing _numeral_ adjectives?

QUESTIONS ON THE NOTES. Repeat all the various ways of forming the
degrees of comparison, mentioned in the first five NOTES.--Compare these
adjectives; _ripe, frugal, mischievous, happy, able, good, little, much_
or _many, near, late, old_.--Name some adjectives that are always in the
superlative, and never compared.--Are compound adjectives
compared?--What is said of the termination _ish_, and of the adverb
_very?_--When does an adjective become a noun?--What character does a
noun assume when placed before another noun?--How can you prove that
_custom_ is the standard of grammatical accuracy?

* * * * *

PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES.

ADNOUNS.

_Adnoun_ or _Adjective_, comes from the Latin, _ad_ and _jicio_, to
_add to_.

Adnouns are a class of words added to nouns to vary their
comprehension, or to determine their extension. Those which effect
the former object, are called _adjectives_, or _attributes;_ and
those which effect the latter, _restrictives_. It is not, in all
cases, easy to determine to which of these classes an adnoun should
be referred. Words which express simply the _qualities_ of nouns,
are adjectives; and such as denote their _situation_ or _number_,
are restrictives.

Adjectives were originally nouns or verbs.

Some consider the adjective, in its present application, _exactly_
equivalent to a noun connected to another noun by means of
juxtaposition, of a preposition, or of a corresponding flexion. "A
_golden_ cup," say they, "is the same as a _gold_ cup, or a cup _of
gold_." But this principle appears to be exceptionable. "A cup _of
gold_," may mean either a cup-_full_ of gold, or a cup _made_ of
gold. "An _oaken_ cask," signifies an _oak_ cask, or a cask _of