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Definitions, and Comment:
Being a Description of the World
By Eli Siegel

93. Grammar

Grammar is words in a group in such a way that the world is presented truly.

Sentences are a picture of the world. —As I have said, the basis of the world is that it is, and that it changes while it is. The world as a thing that is, is a noun; motion, or change, or form as the world, is the verb.

In the sentence: “Water flows,” there is the noun and verb, close together, helping each other, acting on each other, each acted on. The water as such is not in time; the flowing is. The flowing can be seen as a form of the water. However, in the phrase “watery flowing,” or the sentence: “The flowing is water,” water can be seen as a form of flowing.

The noun-and-verb in thought as words, is like the world as rest and motion, substance and form, matter and change.

It should be pointed out here that technically, a sentence could be millions of words long; and that it could be two words, looked at as one.

Nouns have varying degrees of motion or change. Stone is a noun which has little change or motion about it. Grass, even in the sound, has more motion. Of course, the meaning gives it more motion.

The participial noun is motion changed to rest. If one says: “The cooking did not take long,” then cooking has been given a noun, rest quality; an action has been seen as definite, having bounds. In the participial noun, a relative becomes absolute.

And nouns become verbs, showing that rest can become motion. In the sentence: “He weeded the field,” the noun weed has become a verb.

Parts of speech as they interchange, are like aspects of the world interchanging.

© 1945 by Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism
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