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

Greek and Latin, the pronoun of the first person, according to our critics, is generally[398] placed first; as, "[Greek: Ego kai su ta dikaia poiæsomen]. Xen."—Milnes's Gr. Gram., p. 120. That is, "Ego et tu justa faciemus." Again: "Ego et Cicero valemus. Cic."—Buchanan's Pref., p. x; Adam's Gram., 206; Gould's, 203. "I and Cicero are well."—Ib. But, in English, a modest speaker usually gives to others the precedence, and mentions himself last; as, "He, or thou, or I, must go."—"Thou and I will do what is right."—"Cicero and I are well."—Dr. Adam.[399] Yet, in speaking of himself and his dependants, a person most commonly takes rank before them; as, "Your inestimable letters supported myself, my wife, and children, in adversity."—Lucien Bonaparte, Charlemagne, p. v. "And I shall be destroyed, I and my house."—Gen., xxxiv, 30. And in acknowledging a fault, misfortune, or censure, any speaker may assume the first place; as, "Both I and thou are in the fault."—Adam's Gram., p. 207. "Both I and you are in fault."—Buchanan's Syntax, p. ix. "Trusty did not do it; I and Robert did it."—Edgeworth's Stories.

   "With critic scales, weighs out the partial wit,
    What I, or you, or he, or no one writ."
        —Lloyd's Poems, p. 162.

OBS. 12.—According to the theory of this work, verbs themselves are not unfrequently connected, one to an other, by and, or, or nor; so that two or more of them, being properly in the same construction, may be parsed as agreeing with the same nominative: as, "So that the blind and dumb [man] both spake and saw."—Matt., xii, 22. "That no one might buy or sell."—Rev., xiii, 17. "Which see not, nor hear, nor know."—Dan., v, 23. We have certainly very many examples like these, in which it is neither convenient nor necessary to suppose an ellipsis of the nominative before the latter verb, or before all but the first, as most of our grammarians do, whenever they find two or more finite verbs connected in this manner. It is true, the nominative may, in most instances, be repeated without injury to the sense; but this fact is no proof of such an ellipsis; because many a sentence which is not incomplete, may possibly take additional words without change of meaning. But these authors, (as I have already suggested under the head of conjunctions,) have not been very careful of their own consistency. If they teach, that, "Every finite verb has its own separate nominative, either expressed or implied," which idea Murray and others seem to have gathered from Lowth; or if they say, that, "Conjunctions really unite sentences, when they appear to unite only words," which notion they may have acquired from Harris; what room is there for that common assertion, that, "Conjunctions connect the same moods and tenses of verbs," which is a part of Murray's eighteenth rule, and found in most of our grammars? For no agreement is usually required between verbs that have separate nominatives; and if we supply a nominative wherever we do not find one for each verb, then in fact no two verbs will ever be connected by any conjunction.

OBS. 13.—What agreement there must be, between verbs that are in the same construction, it is not easy to determine with certainty. Some of the Latin grammarians tell us, that certain conjunctions connect "sometimes similar moods and tenses, and sometimes similar moods but different tenses." See Prat's Grammatica Latina, Octavo, Part ii, p. 95. Ruddiman, Adam, and Grant, omit the concord of tenses, and enumerate certain conjunctions which "couple like cases and moods." But all of them acknowledge some exceptions to their rules. The instructions of Lindley Murray and others, on this point, may be summed up in the following canon: "When verbs are connected by a conjunction, they must either agree in mood, tense, and form, or have separate nominatives expressed." This rule, (with a considerable exception to it, which other authors had not noticed.) was adopted by myself in the Institutes of English Grammar, and also retained in the Brief Abstract of that work, entitled, The First Lines of English Grammar. It there stands as the thirteenth in the series of principal rules; but, as there is no occasion to refer to it in the exercise of parsing, I now think, a less prominent place may suit it as well or better. The principle may be considered as being less certain and less important than most of the usual rules of syntax: I shall therefore both modify the expression of it, and place it among the notes of the present code. See Notes 5th and 6th below.

OBS. 14.—By the agreement of verbs with each other in form, it is meant, that the simple form and the compound, the familiar form and the solemn, the affirmative form and the negative, or the active form and the passive, are not to be connected without a repetition of the nominative. With respect to our language, this part of the rule is doubtless as important, and as true, as any other. A thorough agreement, then, in mood, tense, and form, is generally required, when verbs are connected by and, or, or nor; and, under each part of this concord, there may be cited certain errors which ought to be avoided, as will by-and-by be shown. But, at the same time, there seem to be many allowable violations of the rule, some or other of which may perhaps form exceptions to every part of it. For example, the tense may be varied, as it often is in Latin; thus, "As the general state of religion has been, is, or shall be, affected by them."—Butlers Analogy, p. 241. "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shall be, because thou hast judged thus."—Rev., xvi, 5. In the former of these examples, a repetition of the nominative would not be agreeable; in the latter, it would perhaps be an improvement: as, "who art, and who wast, and who shalt be." (I here change the pronoun, because the relative which is not now applied as above.) "This dedication may serve for almost any book, that has been, or shall be published."—Campbell's Rhet. p. 207; Murray's Gram., p. 222. "It ought to be, 'has been, is, or shall be, published.'"—Crombie's Treatise, p. 383. "Truth and good sense are firm, and will establish themselves."—Blair's Rhet. p. 286. "Whereas Milton followed a different plan, and has given a tragic conclusion to a poem otherwise epic in its form."—Ib., p. 428. "I am certain, that such are not, nor ever were, the tenets of the church of England."—West's Letters, p. 148. "They deserve, and will meet with, no regard."—Blair's Rhet., p. 109.

   "Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
    Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be."
        —Pope, on Crit.

OBS. 15.—So verbs differing in mood or form may sometimes agree with the same nominative, if the simplest verb be placed first—rarely, I think, if the words stand in any other order: as, "One may be free from affectation and not have merit"—Blair's Rhet., p. 189. "There is, and can be, no other person."—Murray's Key. 8vo. p. 224. "To see what is, and is allowed to be, the plain natural rule."—Butler's Analogy, p. 284. "This great experiment has worked, and is working, well, every way well"—BRADBURN: Liberator, ix. 162. "This edition of Mr. Murray's works on English Grammar, deserves a place in Libraries, and will not fail to obtain it."—BRITISH CRITIC: Murray's Gram., 8vo, ii, 299.

"What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy."—Pope.

"Some are, and must be, greater than the rest."—Id.

OBS. 16.—Since most of the tenses of an English verb are composed of two or more words, to prevent a needless or disagreeable repetition of auxiliaries, participles, and principal verbs, those parts which are common to two or more verbs in the same sentence, are generally expressed to the first, and understood to the rest; or reserved, and put last, as the common supplement of each; as, "To which they do or can extend."—Butler's Analogy, p. 77. "He may, as any one may, if he will, incur an infamous execution from the hands of civil justice."—Ib., p. 82. "All that has usurped the name of virtue, and [has] deceived us by its semblance, must be a mockery and a delusion."—Dr. Chalmers. "Human praise, and human eloquence, may acknowledge it, but the Discerner of the heart never will" [acknowledge it].—Id. "We use thee not so hardly, as prouder livers do" [use thee].—Shak. "Which they might have foreseen and [might have] avoided."—Butler. "Every sincere endeavour to amend, shall be assisted, [shall be] accepted, and [shall be] rewarded."—Carter. "Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and [will] stand and [will] call on the name of the Lord his God, and [will] strike his hand over the place, and [will] recover the leper."—2 Kings, v, 11. "They mean to, and will, hear patiently."—Salem Register. That is, "They mean to hear patiently, and they will hear patiently." "He can create, and he destroy."—Bible. That is,—"and he can destroy."

   "Virtue may be assail'd, but never hurt,
    Surpris'd by unjust force, but not inthrall'd."—Milton.

    "Mortals whose pleasures are their only care,
    First wish to be imposed on, and then are."—Cowper.

OBS. 17.—From the foregoing examples, it may be seen, that the complex and divisible structure of the English moods and tenses, produces, when verbs are connected together, a striking peculiarity of construction in our language, as compared with the nearest corresponding construction in Latin or Greek. For we can connect different auxiliaries, participles, or principal verbs, without repeating, and apparently without connecting, the other parts of the mood or tense. And although it is commonly supposed that these parts are necessarily understood wherever they are not repeated, there are sentences, and those not a few, in which we cannot express them, without inserting also an additional nominative, and producing distinct clauses; as, "Should it not be taken up and pursued?"—Dr. Chalmers. "Where thieves do not break through nor steal."—Matt., vi, 20. "None present could either read or explain the writing-."—Wood's Dict., Vol. i, p. 159. Thus we sometimes make a single auxiliary an index to the mood and tense of more than one verb.

OBS. 18.—The verb do, which is sometimes an auxiliary and sometimes a principal verb, is thought by some grammarians to be also fitly made a substitute for other verbs, as a pronoun is for nouns; but this doctrine has not been taught with accuracy, and the practice under it will in many instances be found to involve a solecism. In this kind of substitution, there must either be a true ellipsis of the principal verb, so that do is only an auxiliary; or else the verb do, with its object or adverb, if it need one, must exactly correspond to an action described before; so that to speak of doing this or thus, is merely the shortest way of repeating the idea: as, "He loves not plays, as thou dost. Antony."—Shak. That is, "as thou dost love plays." "This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; and, to do that well, craves a kind of wit."—Id. Here, "to do that," is, "to play the fool." "I will not do it, if I find thirty there."—Gen., xviii, 30. Do what? Destroy the city, as had been threatened. Where do is an auxiliary, there is no real substitution; and, in the other instances, it is not properly the verb do, that is the substitute, but rather the word that follows it—or perhaps, both. For, since every action consists in doing something or in doing somehow, this general verb do, with this, that, it, thus, or so, to identify the action, may assume the import of many a longer phrase. But care must be taken not to substitute this verb for any term to which it is not equivalent; as, "The a is certainly to be sounded as the English do."—Walker's Dict., w. A. Say, "as the English sound it;" for do is here absurd, and grossly solecistical. "The duke had not behaved with that loyalty with which he ought to have done."—Lowth's Gram., p. 111; Murray's, i, 212; Churchill's, 355; Fisk's, 137; Ingersoll's, 269. Say, "with which he ought to have behaved;" for, to have done with loyalty is not what was meant—far from it. Clarendon wrote the text thus: "The Duke had not behaved with that loyalty, as he ought to have done." This should have been corrected, not by changing "as" to "with which", but by saying—"with that loyalty which he ought to have observed;" or, "which would have become him".

OBS. 19.—It is little to the credit of our grammarians, to find so many of them thus concurring in the same obvious error, and even making bad English worse. The very examples which have hitherto been given to prove that do may be a substitute for other verbs, are none of them in point,