FRENCH GRAMMAR FOR SCHOOLS BY G. E. FASNACHT EDITOR OF MACMILLAN'S SERIES OF FOREIGN CLASSICS; London MACMILLAN AND CO. 1883 PREFACE. THE plan on which this new French Grammar is framed appears so manifestly in almost every page, that a very brief preface will suffice to explain the principle which underlies the whole work. It is both analytic and synthetic-analytic, in exhibiting, as fully as in any exclusively analytic treatise, the whole inflectional system of the language, scientifically classified; synthetic, in presenting these inflected forms organically embodied in sentences— in which association alone the force of their meanings and functions can be adequately conveyed to the mind of the student. At the same time, the inflections stand out so distinctly from the context as to be as available for the purposes of analysis as in any of the customary paradigms. Just as anatomy is nothing if not supplemented by physiology, so any attempt at mastering Accidence without at the same time. obtaining a mastery of the fundamental laws of Syntax, must necessarily prove abortive. Nor is it possible by any scheme, however ingeniously contrived, to illustrate the real meanings and uses of the different parts of speech which do duty as adjuncts, if they are arbitrarily severed-as is the case in most Grammars—from the Nouns and Verbs they serve to determine. In this Grammar, therefore, Accidence goes hand in hand with Elementary Syntax; and the two, thus combined, are divided into principal groups-the Noun with its several attributes, the Verbs with their complements, the Pronouns in their adjectival or substantival functions, and the Particles |