The Grammar of English Grammars Part 85

LESSON III--PARSING.

"A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, a.s.sists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably."--_Penn's Maxims._

"That mind must be wonderfully narrow, that is wholly wrapped up in itself; but this is too visibly the character of most human minds."--_Burgh's Dignity_, ii, 35.

"There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is, by legislative authority."--_Geo. Was.h.i.+ngton_, 1786.

"Sloth has frequently and justly been denominated the rust of the soul. The habit is easily acquired; or, rather, it is a part of our very nature to be indolent."--_Student's Manual_, p. 176.

"I am aware how improper it is to talk much of my wife; never reflecting how much more improper it is to talk much of myself."--_Home's Art of Thinking_, p. 89.

"Howbeit whereinsoever any is bold, (I speak foolishly,) I am bold also.

Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool,) I am more."--_2 Cor._, xi.

"Oh, speak the wondrous man! how mild, how calm, How greatly humble, how divinely good, How firm establish'd on eternal truth."--_Thomson_.

IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

ERRORS RESPECTING ADVERBS.

"We can much easier form the conception of a fierce combat."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 167.

[FORMULE--Not proper, because the adjective _easier_ is used as an adverb, to qualify the verb _can form._ But, according to Observation 4th on the Modifications of Adverbs, "The using of adjectives for adverbs, is in general a plain violation of grammar." Therefore, _easier_ should be _more easily_; thus, "We can much _more easily_ form the conception of a fierce combat."]

"When he was restored, agreeable to the treaty, he was a perfect savage."--_Webster's Essays_, p. 235. "How I shall acquit myself suitable to the importance of the trial."--_Duncan's Cic._, p. 85. "Can any thing show your holiness how unworthy you treat mankind?"--_Spect._, No. 497. "In what other [language,] consistent with reason and common sense, can you go about to explain it to him?"--_Lowth's Gram., Pref._, p. viii. "Agreeable to this rule, the short vowel Sheva has two characters."--_Wilson's Hebrew Gram._, p. 46. "We shall give a remarkable fine example of this figure."--_Murray's Gram._, p. 347. "All of which is most abominable false."--_Barclay's Works_, iii, 431. "He heaped up great riches, but pa.s.sed his time miserable."--_Murray's Key_, 8vo, ii, 202. "He is never satisfied with expressing any thing clearly and simple."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 96. "Attentive only to exhibit his ideas clear and exact, he appears dry."--_Ib._, p. 100. "Such words as have the most liquids and vowels, glide the softest."--_Ib._, p. 129. "The simplest points, such as are easiest apprehended."--_Ib._, p. 312. "Too historical, to be accounted a perfect regular epic poem."--_Ib._, p. 441. "Putting after them the oblique case, agreeable to the French construction."--_Priestley's Gram._, p. 108.

"Where the train proceeds with an extreme slow pace."--_Kames, El. of Crit._, i, 151. "So as scarce to give an appearance of succession."--_Ib._, i, 152. "That concord between sound and sense, which is perceived in some expressions independent of artful p.r.o.nunciation."--_Ib._, ii, 63. "Cornaro had become very corpulent, previous to the adoption of his temperate habits."--_Hitchc.o.c.k, on Dysp._, p. 396. "Bread, which is a solid and tolerable hard substance."--_Sandford and Merton_, p. 38. "To command every body that was not dressed as fine as himself."--_Ib._, p, 19. "Many of them have scarce outlived their authors."--_Pref. to Lily's Gram._, p. ix.

"Their labour, indeed, did not penetrate very deep."--_Wilson's Heb.

Gram._, p. 30. "The people are miserable poor, and subsist on fish."--_Hume's Hist._, ii, 433. "A scale, which I took great pains, some years since, to make."--_Bucke's Gram._, p. 81. "There is no truth on earth so well established as the truth of the Bible."--_Taylor's District School_, p. 288. "I know of no work so much wanted as the one Mr. Taylor has now furnished."--DR. NOTT: _ib._, p. ii. "And therefore their requests are seldom and reasonable."--_Taylor_: _ib._, p. 58. "Questions are easier proposed than rightly answered."--_Dillwyn's Reflections_, p. 19. "Often reflect on the advantages you possess, and on the source from whence they are all derived."--_Murray's Gram._, p. 374. "If there be no special Rule which requires it to be put forwarder."--_Milnes's Greek Gram._, p. 234.

"The Masculine and Neuter have the same Dialect in all Numbers, especially when they end the same."--_Ib._, p. 259.

"And children are more busy in their play Than those that wisely'st pa.s.s their time away."--_Butler_, p. 163.

CHAPTER IX.--CONJUNCTIONS.

A Conjunction is a word used to connect words or sentences in construction, and to show the dependence of the terms so connected: as, "Thou _and_ he are happy, _because_ you are good."--_Murray_.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--Our connective words are of four kinds; namely, relative p.r.o.nouns, conjunctive adverbs,[312] conjunctions, and prepositions. These have a certain resemblance to one another, so far as they are all of them _connectives_; yet there are also characteristical differences by which they may in general be easily distinguished. Relative p.r.o.nouns represent antecedents, and stand in those relations which we call cases; conjunctive adverbs a.s.sume the connective power in addition to their adverbial character, and consequently sustain a double relation; conjunctions, (except the introductory correspondents,) join words or sentences together, showing their relation either to each other or to something else; prepositions, though naturally subject themselves to something going before, a.s.sume the government of the terms which follow them, and in this they differ from all the rest.

OBS. 2.--Conjunctions do not express any of the real objects of the understanding, whether things, qualities, or actions, but rather the several modes of connexion or contrast under which these objects are contemplated. Hence conjunctions were said by Aristotle and his followers to be in themselves "devoid of signification;" a notion which Harris, with no great propriety, has adopted in his faulty definition[313] of this part of speech. It is the office of this cla.s.s of particles, to link together words, phrases, or sentences, that would otherwise appear as loose shreds, or unconnected aphorisms; and thus, by various forms of dependence, to give to discourse such continuity as may fit it to convey a connected train of thought or reasoning. The skill or inability of a writer may as strikingly appear in his management of these little connectives, as in that of the longest and most significant words in the language.

"The current is often evinced by the straws, And the course of the wind by the flight of a feather; So a speaker is known by his _ands_ and his _ors_, Those st.i.tches that fasten his patchwork together."--_Robert F. Mott_.

OBS. 3.--Conjunctions sometimes connect entire sentences, and sometimes particular words or phrases only. When one whole sentence is closely linked with an other, both become clauses or members of a more complex sentence; and when one word or phrase is coupled with an other, both have in general a common dependence upon some other word in the same sentence. In etymological parsing, it may be sufficient to name the conjunction as such, and repeat the definition above; but, in syntactical parsing, the learner should always specify the terms connected. In many instances, however, he may conveniently abbreviate his explanation, by parsing the conjunction as connecting "what precedes and what follows;" or, if the terms are transposed, as connecting its own clause to the second, to the third, or to some other clause in the context.

OBS. 4.--However easy it may appear, for even the young pa.r.s.er to _name the terms_ which in any given instance are connected by the conjunction, and of course to know for himself _what these terms are_,--that is, to know what the conjunction does or does not, connect,--it is certain that a mult.i.tude of grammarians and philosophers, great and small, from Aristotle down to the latest modifier of Murray, or borrower from his text, have been constantly contradicting one an other, if not themselves, in relation to this matter. Harris avers, that "the Conjunction connects, _not Words, but Sentences_;" and frames his definition accordingly. See _Hermes_, p. 237.

This doctrine is true of some of the conjunctions, but it is by no means true of them all. He adds, in a note, "Grammarians have usually considered the Conjunction as connecting rather single Parts of Speech, than whole Sentences, and that too with the addition of like with like, Tense with Tense, Number with Number, Case with Case, &c. This _Sanctius_ justly explodes."--_Ib._, p. 238. If such has been the usual doctrine of the grammarians, they have erred on the one side, as much as our philosopher, and his learned authorities, on the other. For, in this instance, Harris's quotations of Latin and Greek writers, prove only that Sanctius, Scaliger, Apollonius, and Aristotle, held the same error that he himself had adopted;--the error which Latham and others now inculcate, that, "There are always _two propositions_ where there is one Conjunction."--_Fowler's E.

Gram._, 8vo, 1850, p. 557.

OBS. 5.--The common doctrine of L. Murray and others, that, "Conjunctions connect the same moods and tenses of verbs, and cases of nouns and p.r.o.nouns," is not only badly expressed, but is pointedly at variance with their previous doctrine, that, "Conjunctions very often unite sentences, when they appear to unite only words; as in the following instances: 'Duty _and_ interest forbid vicious indulgences;' 'Wisdom _or_ folly governs us.'

Each of these forms of expression," they absurdly say, "contains two sentences."--_Murray's Gram._, p. 124; _Smith's_, 95; _Fisk's_, 84; _Ingersoll's_, 81. By "_the same moods, tenses_, or _cases_," we must needs here understand some _one mood, tense_, or _case_, in which the connected words _agree_; and, if the conjunction has any thing to do with this agreement, or sameness of mood, tense, or case, it must be because words only, and not sentences, are connected by it. Now, _if, that, though, lest, unless_, or any other conjunction that introduces the subjunctive, will almost always be found to connect different moods, or rather to subjoin one sentence to another in which there is a different mood. On the contrary, _and, as, even, than, or_, and _nor_, though they may be used to connect sentences, do, in very many instances, connect words only; as, "The _king and queen_ are an amiable pair."--_Murray._ "And a being of _more than human_ dignity stood before me."--_Dr. Johnson._ It cannot be plausibly pretended, that _and_ and _than_, in these two examples, connect clauses or sentences. So _and_ and _or_, in the examples above, connect the nouns only, and not "sentences:" else our common rules for the agreement of verbs or p.r.o.nouns with words connected, are nothing but bald absurdities. It is idle to say, that the construction and meaning are not _what they appear to be_; and it is certainly absurd to contend, that conjunctions always connect sentences; or always, words only. One author very strangely conceives, that, "Conjunctions may be said either always to connect words only, or always to connect sentences, _according to the view which may be taken of them_ in a.n.a.lyzing."--_Nutting's Gram._, p. 77.

OBS. 6.--"Several words belonging to other parts of speech, are occasionally used as conjunctions. Such are the following: _provided, except_, verbs; _both_, an adjective; _either, neither, that_, p.r.o.nouns; _being, seeing_, participles; _before, since, for_, prepositions. I will do it, _provided_ you lend some help. Here _provided_ is a conjunction, that connects the two sentences. 'Paul said, _Except_ these abide in the s.h.i.+p, ye cannot be saved.' Here _except_ is a conjunction. _Excepting_ is also used as a participle and conjunction. '_Being_ this reception of the gospel was so anciently foretold.'--_Bishop Pearson._ '_Seeing_ all the congregation are holy.'--_Bible_. Here _being_ and _seeing_ are used as conjunctions."--_Alexander's Gram_:, p. 50. 'The foregoing remark, though worthy of some attention, is not altogether accurate. _Before_, when it connects sentences, is not a conjunction, but a conjunctive adverb.

_Provided_, as cited above, resembles not the verb, but the perfect participle. _Either_ and _neither_, when they are not conjunctions, are p.r.o.nominal adjectives, rather than p.r.o.nouns. And, to say, that, "words _belonging to other parts of speech_, are used as _conjunctions_," is a sort of solecism, which leaves the learner in doubt to what cla.s.s they _really_ belong. _Being_, and _being that_, were formerly used in the sense of _because, since, or seeing that_; (Lat. _c.u.m, quoniam_, or _quando_;) but this usage is now obsolete. So there is an uncommon or obsolete use of _without_, in the sense of _unless_, or _except_; (Lat. _nisi_;) as, "He cannot rise _without_ he be helped." _Walker's Particles_, p. 425. "Non potest _nisi_ adjutus exsurgere."--_Seneca._

CLa.s.sES.

Conjunctions are divided into two general cla.s.ses, _copulative_ and _disjunctive_; and a few of each cla.s.s are particularly distinguished from the rest, as being _corresponsive_.

I. A _copulative conjunction_ is a conjunction that denotes an addition, a cause, a consequence, or a supposition: as, "He _and_ I shall not dispute; _for, if_ he has any choice, I shall readily grant it."

II. A _disjunctive conjunction_ is a conjunction that denotes opposition of meaning: as, "_Though_ he were dead, _yet_ shall he live."--_St. John's Gospel_. "Be not faithless, _but_ believing."--_Id._

III. The _corresponsive conjunctions_ are those which are used in pairs, so that one refers or answers to the other: as, "John came _neither_ eating _nor_ drinking."--_Matt._, xi, 18. "But _if_ I cast out devils by the Spirit of G.o.d, _then_ the kingdom of G.o.d is come unto you."--_Ib._, xii, 28.

OBS.--Not all terms which stand in the relation of correspondents, or corresponsives, are therefore to be reckoned _conjunctions_; nor are both words in each pair always of the same part of speech: some are adverbs; one or two are adjectives; and sometimes a conjunction answers to a preceding adverb. But, if a word is seen to be the mere precursor, index, introductory sign, or counterpart, of a conjunction, and has no relation or import which should fix it in any other of the ten cla.s.ses called parts of speech, it is, clearly, a conjunction,--a _corresponding_ or _corresponsive_ conjunction. It is a word used _preparatively_, "to connect words or sentences in construction, and to show the dependence of the terms so connected."

LIST OF THE CONJUNCTIONS.

1. The Copulatives; _And, as, both, because, even, for, if, that, then, since, seeing, so_.

2. The Disjunctives; _Or, nor, either, neither, than, though, although, yet, but, except, whether, lest, unless, save, provided, notwithstanding, whereas_.

3. The Corresponsives; _Both--and; as--as; as--so; if--then; either--or_; _neither--nor; whether--or; though_, or _although--yet_.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--By some writers, the words, _also, since, too, then, therefore_, and _wherefore_, are placed among the copulative conjunctions; and _as, so, still, however_, and _albeit_, among the disjunctive; but Johnson and Webster have marked most of these terms as _adverbs_ only. It is perhaps of little moment, by which name they are called; for, in some instances, conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs do not differ very essentially. _As, so, even, then, yet_, and _but_, seem to belong sometimes to the one part of speech, and sometimes to the other. I call them adverbs when they chiefly express time, manner, or degree; and conjunctions when they appear to be mere connectives. _As, yet_, and _but_, are generally conjunctions; but _so, even_, and _then_, are almost always adverbs. _Seeing_ and _provided_, when used as connectives, are more properly conjunctions than any thing else; though Johnson ranks them with the adverbs, and Webster, by supposing many awkward ellipses, keeps them with the participles. Examples: "For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, _seeing_ it is but the third hour of the day."--_Acts_, ii, 15. "The senate shall have power to adjourn themselves, _provided_ such adjournment shall not exceed two days at a time."--_Const.i.tution of New Hamps.h.i.+re_.

OBS. 2.--_Since_, when it governs a noun after it, is a preposition: as, "Hast thou commanded the morning _since thy days_?"--_Job_. _Albeit_ is equivalent in sense to _although_, and is properly a conjunction; but this old compound is now nearly or quite obsolete. _As_ is sometimes a relative p.r.o.noun, sometimes a conjunctive adverb, and sometimes a copulative conjunction. Example of the last: "We present ourselves _as_ pet.i.tioners." If _as_ is ever disjunctive, it is not so here; nor can we pa.r.s.e it as an adverb, because it comes between two words that are essentially in apposition. The equivalent Latin term _quasi_ is called an adverb, but, in such a case, not very properly: as, "Et colles _quasi_ pulverem pones;"--"And thou shalt make the hills _as_ chaff."--_Isaiah_, xli, 15. So _even_, which in English is frequently a sign of emphatic repet.i.tion, seems sometimes to be rather a conjunction than an adverb: as, "I, _even_ I, am the Lord."--_Isaiah_, xliii, 11.

OBS. 3.--_Save_ and _saving_, when they denote exception, are not adverbs, as Johnson denominates them, or a verb and a participle, as Webster supposes them to be, or prepositions, as Covell esteems them, but disjunctive conjunctions; and, as such, they take the same case after as before them; as, "All the conspirators, _save_ only _he_, did that they did, in envy of great Caesar."--_Shak._ "All this world's glory seemeth vain, and all their shows but shadows, _saving she_."--_Spenser_. "Israel burned none of them, _save Hazor_ only."--_Joshua_. xi, 13. "And none of them was cleansed, _saving Naaman_ the Syrian."--_Luke_, iv, 27. _Save_ is not here a transitive verb, for Hazor was not _saved_ in any sense, but utterly destroyed; nor is Naaman here spoken of as _being saved by an other leper_, but as being cleansed when others were not. These two conjunctions are now little used; and therefore the propriety of setting the nominative after them and treating them as conjunctions, is the more apt to be doubted. The Rev. Matt. Harrison, after citing five examples, four of which have the nominative with _save_, adds, without naming the part of speech, or a.s.signing any reason, this decision, which I think erroneous: "In all these pa.s.sages, _save_ requires after it the objective case." His five examples are these: "All, _save_ I, were at rest, and enjoyment."-- _Frankenstein_. "There was no stranger with us, in the house, _save we_ two."--_1 Kings_, iii, 18.

"And nothing wanting is, _save she_, alas!"

--DRUMMOND _of Hawthornden_.

"When all slept sound, _save she_, who bore them both."

--ROGERS, _Italy_, p. 108.

"And all were gone, _save him_, who now kept guard."