The English Language Part 91

Hence, in all expressions like _I have ridden a horse_, there are two ideas, a past idea in the participle, and a present idea in the word denoting possession.

For an object of any sort, affected in a particular manner, to be in the possession of a person, it must previously have been affected in the manner required. If I possess a horse that has been ridden, the riding must have taken place before I mention the fact of the ridden horse being in my possession; inasmuch as I speak of it as a thing already done,--the participle, _ridden_, being in the past tense. {468}

_I have ridden a horse_=_I have a horse ridden_=_I have a horse as a ridden horse_, or (changing the gender and dealing with the word _horse_ as a thing)=_I have a horse as a ridden thing_.

In this case the syntax is of the usual sort. (1) _Have_=_own_=_habeo_=_teneo_; (2) _horse_ is the accusative case=_equum_; (3) _ridden_ is a past participle agreeing either with _horse_, or _with a word in apposition with it understood_.

Mark the words in italics. The word _ridden_ does not agree with _horse_, since it is of the neuter gender. Neither if we said _I have ridden the horses_, would it agree with _horses_; since it is of the singular number.

The true construction is arrived at by supplying the word _thing_. _I have a horse as a ridden thing_=_habeo equum equitatum_ (neuter). Here the construction is the same as _triste lupus stabulis_.

_I have horses as a ridden thing_=_habeo equos equitatam_ (singular, neuter). Here the construction is--

"Triste ... maturis frugibus imbres, Arboribus venti, n.o.bis Amaryllides irae."

or in Greek--

[Greek: Deinon gunaixin hai di' odinon gonai].

The cla.s.sical writers supply instances of this use of _have_. _Compertum habeo_, milites, verba viris virtutem non addere=_I have discovered_=_I am in possession of the discovery_. Quae c.u.m ita sint, satis de Caesare hoc _dictum habeo_.

2. The combination of _have_ with an intransitive verb is irreducible to the idea of possession: indeed, it is illogical. In _I have waited_, we cannot make the idea expressed by the word _waited_ the object of the _verb_ have or _possess_. The expression has become a part of language by means of the extension of a false a.n.a.logy. It is an instance of an illegitimate imitation.

3. The combination of _have_ with _been_ is more illogical still, and is a stronger instance of the influence of an illegitimate imitation. In German and Italian, where even _intransitive_ verbs are combined with the equivalents to the English _have_ {469} (_haben_ and _avere_), the verb substantive is not so combined; on the contrary, the combinations are

Italian; _io sono stato_=_I am been_.

German; _ich bin gewesen_=_ditto_.

which is logical.

-- 586. _I am to speak._--Three facts explain this idiom.

1. The idea of _direction towards an object_ conveyed by the dative case, and by combinations equivalent to it.

2. The extent to which the ideas of necessity, obligation, or intention are connected with the idea of _something that has to be done_, or _something towards which some action has a tendency_.

3. The fact that expressions like the one in question historically represent an original dative case, or its equivalent; since _to speak_ grows out of the Anglo-Saxon form _to sprecanne_, which, although called a gerund, is really a dative case of the infinitive mood.

When Johnson (see Mr. Guest, _Phil. Trans._ No. 44) thought that, in the phrase _he is to blame_, the word _blame_ was a noun, if he meant a noun in the way that _culpa_ is a noun, his view was wrong. But if he meant a noun in the way that _culpare_, _ad culpandum_, are nouns, it was right.

-- 587. _I am to blame._--This idiom is one degree more complex than the previous one; since _I am to blame_=_I am to be blamed_. As early, however, as the Anglo-Saxon period the gerunds were liable to be used in a pa.s.sive sense: _he is to lufigenne_=not _he is to love_, but _he is to be loved_.

The principle of this confusion may be discovered by considering that _an object to be blamed_, is _an object for some one to blame_, _an object to be loved_ is _an object for some one to love_.

-- 588. _Shall_ and _will._--The simply predictive future verb is _shall_.

Nevertheless, it is only used in the first person. The second and third persons are expressed by the promissive verb _will_.

The promissive future verb is _will_. Nevertheless, it is only used in the first person. The second and third persons are expressed by the predictive verb _shall_. {470}

"In _primis_ personis _shall_ simpliciter praedicentis est; _will_, quasi promittentis aut minantis.

"In secundis et tertiis personis, _shall_ promittentis est aut minantis: _will_ simpliciter praedicentis.

"Uram=_I shall burn_.

Ures=_Thou wilt burn_.

Uret=_He will burn_.

Uremus=_We shall burn_.

Uretis=_Ye will burn_.

Urent=_They will burn_.

nempe, hoc futurum praedico.

"_I will burn._ _Thou shalt burn._ _He shall burn._ _We will burn._ _Ye shall burn._ _They shall burn._

nempe, hoc futurum spondeo, vel faxo ut sit."

Again--"_would_ et _should_ illud indicant quod erat vel esset futurum: c.u.m hoc tantum discrimine: _would_ voluntatem innuit, seu agentis propensionem: _should_ simpliciter futuritionem."--Wallis, p. 107.

-- 589. Archdeacon Hare explains this by a _usus ethicus_. "In fact, this was one of the artifices to which the genius of the Greek language had recourse, to avoid speaking presumptuously of the future: for there is an awful, irrepressible, and almost instinctive consciousness of the uncertainty of the future, and of our own powerlessness over it, which, in all cultivated languages, has silently and imperceptibly modified the modes of expression with regard to it: and from a double kind of _litotes_, the one belonging to human nature generally, the other imposed by good-breeding on the individual, and urging him to veil the manifestations of his will, we are induced to frame all sorts of s.h.i.+fts for the sake of speaking with becoming modesty. Another method, as we know, frequently adopted by the Greeks was the use of the conditional moods: and as sentiments of this kind always imply some degree of intellectual refinement, and strengthen with its increase, this is called an Attic usage. The same name too has often been given to the above-mentioned middle forms of the future; not that in either case the practice was peculiar to the Attic dialect, but that it was more general where the feelings which produced it were {471} strong and more distinct. Here again our own language supplies us with an exact parallel: indeed this is the only way of accounting for the singular mixture of the two verbs _shall_ and _will_, by which, as we have no auxiliary answering to the German _werde_, we express the future tense. Our future, or at least what answers to it, is, _I shall_, _thou wilt_, _he will_. When speaking in the first person, we speak submissively: when speaking to or of another, we speak courteously. In our older writers, for instance in our translation of the Bible, _shall_ is applied to all three persons: we had not then reacht that stage of politeness which shrinks from the appearance even of speaking compulsorily of another. On the other hand the Scotch use _will_ in the first person: that is, as a nation they have not acquired that particular shade of good-breeding which shrinks from thrusting itself[61] forward."

{472}

-- 590. _Notice of the use of _will_ and _shall_, by Professor De Morgan._--"The matter to be explained is the synonymous character of _will_ in the first person with _shall_ in the second and third; and of _shall_ in the first person with _will_ in the second and third: _shall_ (1) and _will_ (2, 3) are called _predictive_: _shall_ (2, 3) and _will_ (1) _promissive_. The suggestion now proposed will require four distinctive names.

"Archdeacon Hare's _usus ethicus_ is taken from the brighter side of human nature:--'When speaking in the first person we speak submissively; when speaking to or of another, we speak courteously.' This explains _I shall_, _thou wilt_; but I cannot think it explains _I will_, _thou shalt_. It often happens {473} that _you will_, with a persuasive tone, is used courteously for something next to, if not quite, _you shall_. The present explanation is taken from the darker side; and it is to be feared that the _a priori_ probabilities are in its favour.

"In introducing the common mode of stating the future tenses, grammar has proceeded as if she were more than a formal science. She has no more business to collect together _I shall_, _thou wilt_, _he will_, than to do the same with _I rule_, _thou art ruled_, _he is ruled_.

"It seems to be the natural disposition of man to think of his own volition in two of the following catagories, and of another man's in the other two:

Compelling, non-compelling; restrained, non-restrained.

{474}

"The _ego_, with reference to the _non-ego_, is apt, thinking of himself, to propound the alternative, 'Shall I compel, or shall I leave him to do as he likes?' so that, thinking of the other, the alternative is, 'shall he be restrained, or shall he be left to his own will?' Accordingly, the express introduction of his own will is likely to have reference to compulsion, in case of opposition: the express introduction of the will of another, is likely to mean no more than the gracious permission of the _ego_ to let _non-ego_ do as he likes. Correlatively, the suppression of reference to his own will, and the adoption of a simply predictive form on the part of the _ego_, is likely to be the mode with which, when the person is changed, he will a.s.sociate the idea of another having his own way; while the suppression of reference to the will of the _non-ego_ is likely to infer restraint produced by the predominant will of the _ego_.

"Occasionally, the will of the _non-ego_ is referred to as under restraint in modern times. To _I will not_, the answer is sometimes _you shall_, meaning, in spite of the will--sometimes _you will_, meaning that the will will be changed by fear or sense of the inutility of resistance."[62]

-- 591. _I am beaten._--This is a present combination, and it is present on the strength of the verb _am_, not on the strength of the participle _beaten_, which is praeterite.

The following table exhibits the _expedients_ on the part of the different languages of the Gothic stock, since the loss of the proper pa.s.sive form of the Moeso-Gothic.

_Language._ Latin _datur_. Latin _datus est_.

_Moeso-Gothic_ gibada, ist, vas, varth gibans.

_Old High German_ ist, wirdit kepan, was, warth kepan.

_Notker_ wirt keben, ist keben.

_Middle High German_ wirt geben, ist geben.

_New High German_ wird gegeben, ist gegeben worden.