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

3. After verbs of PREVENTING; as, "Our sex are happily prevented from engaging in these turbulent scenes."—West's Letters to a Lady, p. 74. "To prevent our frail natures from deviating into bye paths [write by-paths] of error."—Ib., p. 100. "Prudence, prevents our speaking or acting improperly."—Blair's Rhet., p. 99; Murray's Gram., p. 303; Jamieson's Rhet., p. 72. This construction, though very common, is palpably wrong: because its most natural interpretation is, "Prudence improperly prevents our speech or action." These critics ought to have known enough to say, "Prudence prevents us from speaking or acting improperly." "This, however, doth not hinder pronunciation to borrow from singing."—Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 70. Here the infinitive is used, merely because it does not sound well to say, "from borrowing from singing;" but the expression might very well be changed thus, "from being indebted to singing." "'This by no means hinders the book to be a useful one.'—Geddes. It should be, 'from being.'"—Churchill's Gram., p. 318.

4. After verbs of AVOIDING: as, "He might have avoided treating of the origin of ideas."—Tooke's Diversions, i, 28. "We may avoid talking nonsense on these subjects."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 281. "But carefully avoid being at any time ostentatious and affected."—Blair's Rhet., p. 233. "Here I cannot avoid mentioning[420] the assistance I have received."—Churchill's Gram., p. iv. "It is our duty to avoid leading others into temptation,"—West's Letters, p. 33. "Nay, such a garden should in some measure avoid imitating nature."—Kames, El. of Crit., ii, 251. "I can promise no entertainment to those who shun thinking."—Ib., i, 36. "We cannot help being of opinion."—ENCYC. BRIT. Murray's Gram., p. 76. "I cannot help being of opinion."—Blair's Rhet., p. 311. "I cannot help mentioning here one character more."—Hughes. Spect., No. 554. "These would sometimes very narrowly miss being catched away."—Steele. "Carleton very narrowly escaped being taken."—Grimshaw's Hist., p. 111. Better, "escaped from being taken;"—or, "escaped capture."

OBS. 19.—In sentences like the following, the participle seems to be improperly made the object of the verb: "I intend doing it."—"I remember meeting him." Better, "I intend to do it."—"I remember to have met him." According to my notion, it is an error to suppose that verbs in general may govern participles. If there are any proper instances of such government, they would seem to be chiefly among verbs of quitting or avoiding. And even here the analogy of General Grammar gives countenance to a different solution; as, "They left beating of Paul."—Acts, xxi, 32. Better, "They left beating Paul;"—or, "They quit beating Paul." Greek, "[Greek: Epausanto tuptontes ton Paulon.]" Latin, "Cessaverunt percutientes Paulum."—Montanus. "Cessarunt coedere Paulum."—Beza. "Cessaverunt percutere Paulum."—Vulgate. It is true, the English participle in ing differs in some respects from that which usually corresponds to it in Latin or Greek; it has more of a substantive character, and is commonly put for the Latin gerund. If this difference does not destroy the argument from analogy, the opinion is still just, that left and quit are here intransitive, and that the participle beating relates to the pronoun they. Such is unequivocally the construction of the Greek text, and also of the literal Latin of Arias Montanus. But, to the mere English grammarian, this method of parsing will not be apt to suggest itself: because, at first sight, the verbs appear to be transitive, and the participle in ing has nothing to prove it an adjunct of the nominative, and not the object of the verb—unless, indeed, the mere fact that it is a participle, is proof of this.

OBS. 20.—Our great Compiler, Murray, not understanding this construction, or not observing what verbs admit of it, or require it, has very unskillfully laid it down as a rule, that, "The participle with its adjuncts, may be considered as a substantive phrase in the objective case, governed by the preposition or verb, expressed or understood: as, 'By promising much and performing but little, we become despicable.' 'He studied to avoid expressing himself too severely.'"—Octavo Gram., p. 194.[421] This very popular author seems never to have known that participles, as such, may be governed in English by prepositions. And yet he knew, and said, that "prepositions do not, like articles and pronouns, convert the participle itself into the nature of a substantive."—Ibid. This he avouches in the same breath in which he gives that "nature" to a participle and its adverb! For, by a false comma after much, he cuts his first "substantive phrase" absurdly in two; and doubtless supposes a false ellipsis of by before the participle performing. Of his method of resolving the second example, some notice has already been taken, in Observations 4th and 5th on Rule 5th. Though he pretends that the whole phrase is in the objective case, "the truth is, the assertion grammatically affects the first word only;" which in one aspect he regards as a noun, and in an other as a participle: whereas he himself, on the preceding page, had adopted from Lowth a different doctrine, and cautioned the learner against treating words in ing, "as if they were of an amphibious species, partly nouns and partly verbs;" that is, "partly nouns and partly participles;" for, according to Murray, Lowth, and many others, participles are verbs. The term, "substantive phrase," itself a solecism, was invented merely to cloak this otherwise bald inconsistency. Copying Lowth again, the great Compiler defines a phrase to be "two or more words rightly put together;" and, surely, if we have a well-digested system of grammar, whatsoever words are rightly put together, may be regularly parsed by it. But how can one indivisible word be consistently made two different parts of speech at once? And is not this the situation of every transitive participle that is made either the subject or the object of a verb? Adjuncts never alter either the nature or the construction of the words on which they depend; and participial nouns differ from participles in both. The former express actions as things; the latter generally attribute them to their agents or recipients.

OBS. 21.—The Latin gerund is "a kind of verbal noun, partaking of the nature of a participle."—Webster's Dict. "A gerund is a participial noun, of the neuter gender, and singular-number, declinable like a substantive, having no vocative, construed like a substantive, and governing the case of its verb."—Grant's Lat. Gram., p. 70. In the Latin gerund thus defined, there is an appearance of ancient classical authority for that "amphibious species" of words of which so much notice has already been taken. Our participle in ing, when governed by a preposition, undoubtedly corresponds very nearly, both in sense and construction, to this Latin gerund; the principal difference being, that the one is declined, like a noun, and the other is not. The analogy, however, is but lamely maintained, when we come to those irregular constructions in which the participle is made a half-noun in English. It is true, the gerund of the nominative case may be made the subject of a verb in Latin; but we do not translate it by the English participle, but rather by the infinitive, or still oftener by the verb with the auxiliary must: as, "Vivendum est mihi rectè, I must live well."—Grant's L. Gram., p. 232. This is better English than the nearer version, "Living correctly is necessary for me;" and the exact imitation, "Living is to me correctly," is nonsense. Nor does the Latin gerund often govern the genitive like a noun, or ever stand as the direct object of a transitive verb, except in some few doubtful instances about which the grammarians dispute. For, in fact, to explain this species of words, has puzzled the Latin grammarians about as much as the English; though the former do not appear to have fallen into those palpable self-contradictions which embarrass the instructions of the latter.

OBS. 22.—Dr. Adam says, "The gerund in English becomes a substantive, by prefixing the article to it, and then it is always to be construed with the preposition of; as, 'He is employed in writing letters,' or, 'in the writing of letters:' but it is improper to say, 'in the writing letters,' or, 'in writing of letters.'"—Latin and English Gram., p. 184. This doctrine is also taught by Lowth, Priestley, Murray, Comly, Chandler, and many others; most of whom extend the principle to all participles that govern the possessive case; and they might as well have added all such as are made either the subjects or the objects of verbs, and such as are put for nominatives after verbs neuter. But Crombie, Allen, Churchill, S. S. Greene, Hiley, Wells, Weld, and some others, teach that participles may perform these several offices of a substantive, without dropping the regimen and adjuncts of participles. This doctrine, too, Murray and his copyists absurdly endeavour to reconcile with the other, by resorting to the idle fiction of "substantive phrases" endued with all these powers: as, "His being at enmity with Cæsar was the cause of perpetual discord."—Crombie's Treatise, p. 237; Churchill's Gram., p. 141. "Another fault is allowing it to supersede the use of a point."— Churchill's Gram., p. 372. "To be sure there is a possibility of some ignorant reader's confounding the two vowels in pronunciation."—Ib., p. 375. It is much better to avoid all such English as this. Say, rather, "His enmity with Cæsar was the cause of perpetual discord."—"An other fault is the allowing of it to supersede the use of a point."—"To be sure, there is a possibility that some ignorant reader may confound the two vowels, in pronunciation."

OBS. 23.—In French, the infinitive is governed by several different prepositions, and the gerundive by one only, the preposition en,—which, however, is sometimes suppressed; as, "en passant, en faisant,—il alloit courant."—Traité des Participes, p. 2. In English, the gerundive is governed by several different prepositions, and the infinitive by one only, the preposition to,—which, in like manner, is sometimes suppressed; as, "to pass, to do,—I saw him run." The difficulties in the syntax of the French participle in ant, which corresponds to ours in ing, are apparently as great in themselves, as those which the syntax of the English word presents; but they result from entirely different causes, and chiefly from the liability there is of confounding the participle with the verbal adjective, which is formed from it. The confounding of it with the gerundive is now, in either language, of little or no consequence, since in modern French, as well as in English, both are indeclinable. For this reason, I have framed the syntactical rule for participles so as to include under that name the gerund, or gerundive, which is a participle governed by a preposition. The great difficulty with us, is, to determine whether the participle ought, or ought not, to be allowed to assume other characteristics of a noun, without dropping those of a participle, and without becoming wholly a noun. The liability of confounding the English participle with the verbal or participial adjective, amounts to nothing more than the occasional misnaming of a word in parsing; or perhaps an occasional ambiguity in the style of some writer, as in the following citation: "I am resolved, 'let the newspapers say what they please of canvassing beauties, haranguing toasts, and mobbing demireps,' not to believe one syllable."—Jane West's Letters to a Young Lady, p. 74. From these words, it is scarcely possible to find out, even with the help of the context whether these three sorts of ladies are spoken of as the canvassers, haranguers, and mobbers, or as being canvassed, harangued, and mobbed. If the prolixity and multiplicity of these observations transcend the reader's patience, let him consider that the questions at issue cannot be settled by the brief enunciation of loose individual opinions, but must be examined in the light of all the analogies and facts that bear upon them. So considerable are the difficulties of properly distinguishing the participle from the verbal adjective in French, that that indefatigable grammarian, Girault Du Vivier, after completing his Grammaire des Grammaires in two large octavo volumes, thought proper to enlarge his instructions on this head, and to publish them in a separate book, (Traité des Participes,) though we have it on his own authority, that the rule for participles had already given