The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 05 - Miscellaneous Pieces by Samuel Johnson
page 42 of 591 (07%)
page 42 of 591 (07%)
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pace: these I have ventured to call _participial adjectives_. But
neither are these always inserted, because they are commonly to be understood without any danger of mistake, by consulting the verb. Obsolete words are admitted, when they are found in authors not obsolete, or when they have any force or beauty that may deserve revival. As composition is one of the chief characteristicks of a language, I have endeavoured to make some reparation for the universal negligence of my predecessors, by inserting great numbers of compounded words, as may be found under _after, fore, new, night, fair_, and many more. These, numerous as they are, might be multiplied, but that use and curiosity are here satisfied, and the frame of our language and modes of our combination amply discovered. Of some forms of composition, such as that by which _re_ is prefixed to note _repetition_, and _un_ to signify _contrariety_ or _privation_, all the examples cannot be accumulated, because the use of these particles, if not wholly arbitrary, is so little limited, that they are hourly affixed to new words, as occasion requires, or is imagined to require them. There is another kind of composition more frequent in our language than, perhaps, in any other, from which arises to foreigners the greatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs by a particle subjoined; as to _come off_, to escape by a fetch; to _fall on_, to attack; to _fall off_, to apostatize; to _break off_, to stop abruptly; to _bear out_, to justify; to _fall in_, to comply; to _give over_, to cease; to _set off_, to embellish; to _set in_, to begin a continual |
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