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

the reader may parse them as exceptions, if he does not choose to censure them as errors. The mixed construction in which participles are made to govern the possessive case, has already been largely considered in the observations on Rule 4th. Murray, Allen, Churchill, and many other grammarians, great and small, admit that participles may be made the subjects or the objects of verbs, while they retain the nature, government, and adjuncts, of participles; as, "Not attending to this rule, is the cause of a very common error."—Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 200; Comly's Gram., 188; Weld's Gram., 2d Ed., 170. "Polite is employed to signify their being highly civilized.'"—Blair's Rhet., p. 219. "One abhors being in debt."—Ib., p. 98; Jamieson's Rhet., 71; Murray's Gram., 144. "Who affected being a fine gentleman so unmercifully."—Spect., No. 496. "The minister's being attached to the project, prolonged their debate."—Nixon's Parser, p. 78. "It finds [i.e., the mind finds,] that acting thus would gratify one passion; not acting, or acting otherwise, would gratify another."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 109. "But further, cavilling and objecting upon any subject is much easier than clearing up difficulties."—Bp. Butler's Charge to the Clergy of Durham, 1751.

OBS. 2.—W. Allen observes, "The use of the participle as a nominative, is one of the peculiarities of our language."—Elements of Gram., p. 171. He might have added, that the use of the participle as an objective governed by a verb, as a nominative after a verb neuter, or as a word governing the possessive, is also one of the peculiarities of our language, or at least an idiom adopted by no few of its recent writers. But whether any one of these four modern departures from General Grammar ought to be countenanced by us, as an idiom that is either elegant or advantageous, I very much doubt. They are all however sufficiently common in the style of reputable authors; and, however questionable their character, some of our grammarians seem mightily attached to them all. It becomes me therefore to object with submission. These mixed and irregular constructions of the participle, ought, in my opinion, to be generally condemned as false syntax; and for this simple reason, that the ideas conveyed by them may generally, if not always, be expressed more briefly, and more elegantly, by other phraseology that is in no respect anomalous. Thus, for the examples above: "Inattention to this rule, is the cause of a very common error."—"Polite is employed to signify a high degree of civilization;" or, "that they are highly civilized."—"One abhors debt."—"Who affected the fine gentleman so unmercifully."—"The minister's partiality to the project, prolonged their debate."—"It finds [i.e., the mind finds,] that to act thus, would gratify one passion; and that not to act, or to act otherwise, would gratify another."—"But further, to cavil and object, upon any subject, is much easier than to clear up difficulties." Are not these expressions much better English than the foregoing quotations? And if so, have we not reason to conclude that the adoption of participles in such instances is erroneous and ungrammatical?

OBS. 3.—In Obs. 17th on Rule 4th, it was suggested, that in English the participle, without governing the possessive case, is turned to a greater number and variety of uses, than in any other language. This remark applies mainly to the participle in ing. Whether it is expedient to make so much of one sort of derivative, and endeavour to justify every possible use of it which can be plausibly defended, is a question well worthy of consideration. We have already converted this participle to such a multiplicity of purposes, and into so many different parts of speech, that one can well-nigh write a chapter in it, without any other words. This practice may have added something to the copiousness and flexibility of the language, but it certainly has a tendency to impair its strength and clearness. Not every use of participles is good, for which there may be found precedents in good authors. One may run to great excess in the adoption of such derivatives, without becoming absolutely unintelligible, and without violating any rule of our common grammars. For example, I may say of somebody, "This very superficial grammatist, supposing empty criticism about the adoption of proper phraseology to be a show of extraordinary erudition, was displaying, in spite of ridicule, a very boastful turgid argument concerning the correction of false syntax, and about the detection of false logic in debate." Now, in what other language than ours, can a string of words anything like the following, come so near to a fair and literal translation of this long sentence? "This exceeding trifling witling, considering ranting criticising concerning adopting fitting wording being exhibiting transcending learning, was displaying, notwithstanding ridiculing, surpassing boasting swelling reasoning, respecting correcting erring writing, and touching detecting deceiving arguing during debating." Here are not all the uses to which our writers apply the participle in ing, but there would seem to be enough, without adding others that are less proper.

OBS. 4.—The active participles, admitting, allowing, considering, granting, speaking, supposing, and the like, are frequently used in discourse so independently, that they either relate to nothing, or to the pronoun I or we understood; as, "Granting this to be true, what is to be inferred from it?"—Murray's Gram., p. 195. This may be supposed to mean, "I, granting this to be true, ask what is to be inferred from it?" "The very chin was, modestly speaking, as long as my whole face."—Addison. Here the meaning may be, "I, modestly speaking, say." So of the following examples: "Properly speaking, there is no such thing as chance."—W. Allen's Gram., p. 172. "Because, generally speaking, the figurative sense of a word is derived from its proper sense."—Kames, El. of Crit., i, 190. "But, admitting that two or three of these offend less in their morals than in their writings, must poverty make nonsense sacred?"—Pope's Works, Vol. iii, p. 7. Some grammarians suppose such participles to be put absolute in themselves, so as to have no reference to any noun or pronoun; others, among whom are L. Murray and Dr. James P. Wilson, suppose them to be put absolute with a pronoun understood. On the former supposition, they form an other exception to the foregoing rule; on the latter, they do not: the participle relates to the pronoun, though both be independent of the rest of the sentence. If we supply the ellipsis as above, there is nothing put absolute.

OBS. 5.—Participles are almost always placed after the words on which their construction depends, and are distinguished from adjectives by this position; but when other words depend on the participle, or when several participles have the same construction, the whole phrase may come before the noun or pronoun: as, "Leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement."—Sterne.

"Immured in cypress shades, a sorcerer dwells."—Milton.

"Brib'd, bought, and bound, they banish shame and fear; Tell you they're stanch, and have a soul sincere."—Crabbe.

OBS. 6.—When participles are compounded with something that does not belong to the verb, they become adjectives; and, as such, they cannot govern an object after them. The following construction is therefore inaccurate: "When Caius did any thing unbecoming his dignity."—Jones's Church History, i, 87. "Costly and gaudy attire, unbecoming godliness."—Extracts, p. 185. Such errors are to be corrected by Note 15th to Rule 9th, or by changing the particle un to not: as, "Unbecoming to his dignity;" or, "Not becoming his dignity."

OBS. 7.—An imperfect or a preperfect participle, preceded by an article, an adjective, or a noun or pronoun of the possessive case, becomes a verbal or participial noun; and, as such, it cannot with strict propriety, govern an object after it. A word which may be the object of the participle in its proper construction, requires the preposition of, to connect it with the verbal noun; as, 1. THE PARTICIPLE: "Worshiping idols, the Jews sinned."—"Thus worshiping idols,—In worshiping idols,—or, By worshiping idols, they sinned." 2. THE VERBAL NOUN: "The worshiping of idols,—Such worshiping of idols,—or, Their worshiping of idols, was sinful."—"In the worshiping of idols, there is sin."

OBS. 8.—It is commonly supposed that these two modes of expression are, in very many instances, equivalent to each other in meaning, and consequently interchangeable. How far they really are so, is a question to be considered. Example: "But if candour be a confounding of the distinctions between sin and holiness, a depreciating of the excellence of the latter, and at the same time a diminishing of the evil of the former; then it must be something openly at variance with the letter and the spirit of revelation."—The Friend, iv, 108. Here the nouns, distinctions, excellence, and evil, though governed by of, represent the objects of the forenamed actions; and therefore they might well be governed by confounding, depreciating, and diminishing, if these were participles. But if, to make them such, we remove the article and the preposition, the construction forsakes our meaning; for be confounding, (be) depreciating, and (be) diminishing, seem rather to be verbs of the compound form; and our uncertain nominatives after be, thus disappear in the shadow of a false sense. But some sensible critics tell us, that this preposition of should refer rather to the agent of the preceding action, than to its passive object; so that such a phrase as, "the teaching of boys," should signify rather the instruction which boys give, than that which they receive. If, for the sake of this principle, or for any other reason, we wish to avoid the foregoing phraseology, the meaning may be expressed thus: "But if your candour confound the distinctions between sin and holiness; if it depreciate the excellence of the latter, and at the same time diminish the evil of the former; then it must be something openly at variance with the letter and the spirit of revelation."

OBS. 9.—When the use of the preposition produces ambiguity or harshness, let a better expression be sought. Thus the sentence, "He mentions Newton's writing of a commentary," is not entirely free from either of these faults. If the preposition be omitted, the word writing will have a double construction, which is inadmissible, or at least objectionable. Some would say, "He mentions Newton writing a commentary." This, though not uncommon, is still more objectionable because it makes the leading word in sense the adjunct in construction. The meaning may be correctly expressed thus: "He mentions that Newton wrote a commentary." "Mr. Dryden makes a very handsome observation on Ovid's writing a letter from Dido to Æneas."—Spect., No. 62; Campbell's Rhet., p. 265; Murray's Key, ii, 253. Here the word writing is partly a noun and partly a participle. If we make it wholly a noun, by saying, "on Ovid's writing of a letter," or wholly a participle, by saying, "on Ovid writing a letter;" it may be doubted, whether we have effected any improvement. And again, if we adopt Dr. Lowth's advice, "Let it be either the one or the other, and abide by its proper construction;" we must make some change; and therefore ought perhaps to say; "on Ovid's conceit of writing a letter from Dido to Æneas." This is apparently what Addison meant, and what Dryden remarked upon; the latter did not speak of the letter itself, else the former would have said, "on Ovid's letter from Dido to Æneas."

OBS. 10.—When a needless possessive, or a needless article, is put before the participle, the correction is to be made, not by inserting of, but by expunging the article, according to Note 16th to Rule 1st, or the possessive, according to Note 5th to Rule 4th. Example: "By his studying the Scriptures he became wise."—Lennie's Gram., p. 91. Here his serves only to render the sentence incorrect; yet this spurious example is presented by Lennie to prove that a participle may take the possessive case before it, when the preposition of is not admissible after it. So, in stead of expunging one useless word, our grammarians often add an other and call the twofold error a correction; as, "For his avoiding of that precipice, he is indebted to his friend's care."—Murray's Key, ii, 201. Or worse yet: "It was from our misunderstanding of the directions that we lost our way."—Ibid. Here, not our and of only, but four other words, are worse than useless. Again: "By the exercising of our judgment, it is improved. Or thus: By exercising our judgment, it is improved."—Comly's Key in his Gram., 12th Ed., p. 188. Each of these pretended corrections is wrong in more respects than one. Say, "By exercising our judgement, we improve it" Or, "Our judgement is improved by being exercised" Again: "The loving of our enemies is a divine command; Or, loving our enemies [is a divine command]."—Ibid. Both of these are also wrong. Say, "'Love your enemies,' is a divine command." Or, "We are divinely commanded to love our