Of the parts of speech, Quintilian, who lived in the first century of our era, gives the following account: "For the ancients, among whom were Aristotle[73] and Theodectes, treated only of verbs, nouns, and conjunctions: as the verb is what we say, and the noun, that of which we say it, they judged the power of discourse to be in _verbs_, and the matter in _nouns_, but the connexion in _conjunctions_.

Little by little, the philosophers, and especially the Stoics, increased the number: first, to the conjunctions were added _articles_; afterwards, _prepositions_; to nouns, was added the _appellation_; then the _pronoun_; afterwards, as belonging to each verb, the _participle_; and, to verbs in common, _adverbs_.

Our language [i.

e., the _Latin_] does not require articles, wherefore they are scattered among the other parts of speech; but there is added to the foregoing the _interjection_.

But some, on the authority of good authors, make the parts only eight; as Aristarchus, and, in our day, Palaemon; who have included the vocable, or appellation, with the noun, as a species of it.