The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

OBS. 3.—The pronouns I and thou, in their different modifications, stand immediately for persons that are, in general, sufficiently known without being named; (I meaning the speaker, and thou, the hearer;) their antecedents, or nouns, are therefore generally understood. The other personal pronouns, also, are sometimes taken in a general and demonstrative sense, to denote persons or things not previously mentioned; as, "He that hath knowledge, spareth his words."—Bible. Here he is equivalent to the man, or the person. "The care of posterity is most in them that have no posterity."—Bacon. Here them is equivalent to those persons. "How far do you call it to such a place?"—Priestley's Gram., p. 85. Here it, according to Priestley, is put for the distance. "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth."—Malachi, ii, 7. Here they is put indefinitely for men or people. So who and which, though called relatives, do not always relate to a noun or pronoun going before them; for who may be a direct substitute for what person; and which may mean which person, or which thing: as, "And he that was healed, wist not who it was."—John, v, 13. That is, "The man who was healed, knew not what person it was." "I care not which you take; they are so much alike, one cannot tell which is which."

OBS. 4.—A pronoun with which a question is asked, usually stands for some person or thing unknown to the speaker; the noun, therefore, cannot occur before it, but may be used after it or in place of it. Examples: "In the grave, who shall give thee thanks?"—Ps., vi, 5. Here the word who is equivalent to what person, taken interrogatively. "Which of you convinceth me of sin?"—John, viii, 46. That is, "Which man of you?" "Master, what shall we do?"—Luke, iii, 12. That is, "What act, or thing?" These solutions, however, convert which and what into adjectives: and, in fact, as they have no inflections for the numbers and cases, there is reason to think them at all times essentially such. We call them pronouns, to avoid the inconvenience of supposing and supplying an infinite multitude of ellipses. But who, though often equivalent (as above) to an adjective and a noun, is never itself used adjectively; it is always a pronoun.

OBS. 5.—In respect to who or whom, it sometimes makes little or no difference to the sense, whether we take it as a demonstrative pronoun equivalent to what person, or suppose it to relate to an antecedent understood before it: as, "Even so the Son quickeneth whom he will."—John, v, 21. That is—"what persons he will," or, "those persons whom he will;" for the Greek word for whom, is, in this instance, plural. The former is a shorter explanation of the meaning, but the latter I take to be the true account of the construction; for, by the other, we make whom a double relative, and the object of two governing words at once. So, perhaps, of the following example, which Dr. Johnson cites under the word who, to show what he calls its "disjunctive sense:"—

"There thou tellst of kings, and who aspire; Who fall, who rise, who triumph, who do moan."—Daniel.

OBS. 6.—It sometimes happens that the real antecedent, or the term which in the order of the sense must stand before the pronoun, is not placed antecedently to it, in the order given to the words: as, "It is written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see; and they that have not heard, shall understand."—Romans, xv, 21. Here the sense is, "They to whom he was not spoken of, shall see." Whoever takes the passage otherwise, totally misunderstands it. And yet the same order of the words might be used to signify, "They shall see to whom (that is, to what persons) he was not spoken of." Transpositions of this kind, as well as of every other, occur most frequently in poetry. The following example is from an Essay on Satire, printed with Pope's Works, but written by one of his friends:—

"Whose is the crime, the scandal too be theirs; The knave and fool are their own libellers."—J. Brown.

OBS. 7.—The personal and the interrogative pronouns often stand in construction as the antecedents to other pronouns: as, "He also that is slothful in his work, is brother to him that is a great waster."—Prov., xviii. 9. Here he and him are each equivalent to the man, and each is taken as the antecedent to the relative which follows it. "For both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one: for which cause, he is not ashamed to call them brethren."—Heb., ii, 11. Here he and they may be considered the antecedents to that and who, of the first clause, and also to he and them, of the second. So the interrogative who may be the antecedent to the relative that; as, "Who that has any moral sense, dares tell lies?" Here who, being equivalent to what person, is the term with which the other pronoun agrees. Nay, an interrogative pronoun, (or the noun which is implied in it,) may be the antecedent to a personal pronoun; as, "Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him again?"—Romans, xi, 35. Here the idea is, "What person hath first given any thing to the Lord, so that it ought to be repaid him?" that is, "so that the gift ought to be recompensed from Heaven to the giver?" In the following example, the first pronoun is the antecedent to all the rest:—

"And he that never doubted of his state, He may perhaps—perhaps he may—too late."—Cowper.

OBS. 8.—So the personal pronouns of the possessive case, (which some call adjectives,) are sometimes represented by relatives, though less frequently than their primitives: as, "How different, O Ortogrul, is thy condition, who art doomed to the perpetual torments of unsatisfied desire!"—Dr. Johnson. Here who is of the second person, singular, masculine; and represents the antecedent pronoun thy: for thy is a pronoun, and not (as some writers will have it) an adjective. Examples like this, disprove the doctrine of those grammarians who say that my, thy, his, her, its, and their plurals, our, your, their, are adjectives. For, if they were mere adjectives, they could not thus be made antecedents. Examples of this construction are sufficiently common, and sufficiently clear, to settle that point, unless they can be better explained in some other way. Take an instance or two more: "And they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."—1 Cor., x, 11.

"Be thou the first true merit to befriend; His praise is lost, who stays till all commend."—Pope.

Pronouns are divided into three classes; personal, relative, and interrogative.

I. A personal pronoun is a pronoun that shows, by its form, of what person it is; as, "Whether it[187] were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed."—1 Cor., xv, 11.

The simple personal pronouns are five: namely, I, of the first person; thou, of the second person; he, she, and it, of the third person.

The compound personal pronouns are also five: namely, myself, of the first person; thyself, of the second person; himself, herself, and itself, of the third person.

II. A relative pronoun is a pronoun that represents an antecedent word or phrase, and connects different clauses of a sentence; as, "No people can be great, who have ceased to be virtuous."—Dr. Johnson.

The relative pronouns are who, which, what, that, as, and the compounds whoever or whosoever, whichever or whichsoever, whatever or whatsoever.[188]

What is a kind of double relative, equivalent to that which or those which; and is to be parsed, first as antecedent, and then as relative: as, "This is what I wanted; that is to say, the thing which I wanted."—L. Murray. III. An interrogative pronoun is a pronoun with which a question is asked; as, "Who touched my clothes?"—Mark, v, 30.

The interrogative pronouns are who, which, and what; being the same in form as relatives.

Who demands a person's name; which, that a person or thing be distinguished from others; what, the name of a thing, or a person's occupation and character.

OBS. 1.—The pronouns I and myself, thou and thyself, with their inflections, are literally applicable to persons only; but, figuratively, they represent brutes, or whatever else the human imagination invests with speech and reason. The latter use of them, though literal perhaps in every thing but person, constitutes the purest kind of personification. For example: "The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them: and they said unto the olive-tree, 'Reign thou over us.' But the olive-tree said unto them, 'Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?'" See Judges, ix, from 8 to 16.

OBS. 2.—The pronouns he and himself, she and herself, with their inflections, are literally applicable to persons and to brutes, and to these only; if applied to lifeless objects, they animate them, and are figurative in gender, though literal perhaps in every other respect. For example: "A diamond of beauty and lustre, observing at his side in the same cabinet, not only many other gems, but even a loadstone, began to question the latter how he came there—he, who appeared to be no better than a mere flint, a sorry rusty-looking pebble, without the least shining quality to advance him to such honour; and concluded with desiring him to keep his distance, and to pay a proper respect to his superiors."—Kames's Art of Thinking, p. 226.

OBS. 3.—The pronoun it, as it carries in itself no such idea as that of personality, or sex, or life, is chiefly used with reference to things inanimate; yet the word is, in a certain way, applicable to animals, or even to persons; though it does not, in itself, present them as such. Thus we say, "It is I;"—"It was they;"—"It was you;"—"It was your agent;"—"It is your bull that has killed one of my oxen." In examples of this kind, the word it is simply demonstrative; meaning, the thing or subject spoken of. That subject, whatever it be in itself, may be introduced again after the verb, in any person, number, or gender, that suits it. But, as the verb agrees with the pronoun it, the word which follows, can in no sense be made, as Dr. Priestley will have it to be, the antecedent to that pronoun. Besides, it is contrary to the nature of what is primarily demonstrative, to represent a preceding word of any kind. The Doctor absurdly says, "Not only things, but persons, may be the antecedent to this pronoun; as, Who is it? Is it not Thomas? i. e. Who is the person? Is not he Thomas?"—Priestley's Gram., p. 85. In these examples, the terms are transposed by interrogation; but that circumstance, though it may have helped to deceive this author and his copiers, affects not my assertion.

OBS. 4.—The pronoun who is usually applied only to persons. Its application to brutes or to things is improper, unless we mean to personify them. But whose, the possessive case of this relative, is sometimes used to supply the place of the possessive case, otherwise wanting, to the relative which. Examples: "The mutes are those consonants whose sounds cannot be protracted."—Murray's Gram., p. 9. "Philosophy, whose end is, to instruct us in the knowledge of nature."—Ib., p. 54; Campbell's Rhet., 421. "Those adverbs are compared whose primitives are obsolete."—Adam's Latin Gram., p. 150. "After a sentence whose sense is complete in itself, a period is used."—Nutting's Gram., p. 124. "We remember best those things whose parts are methodically disposed, and mutually connected."—Beattie's Moral Science, i, 59. "Is there any other doctrine whose followers are punished?"—ADDISON: Murray's Gram., p. 54; Lowth's, p. 25.

   "The question, whose solution I require,
    Is, what the sex of women most desire."—DRYDEN: Lowth, p. 25.

OBS. 5.—Buchanan, as well as Lowth, condemns the foregoing