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

OBS. 24.—A participle construed after the nominative or the objective case, is not in general equivalent to a verbal noun governing the possessive. There is sometimes a nice distinction to be observed in the application of these two constructions. For the leading word in sense, should not be made the adjunct in construction. The following sentences exhibit a disregard to this principle, and are both inaccurate: "He felt his strength's declining."—"He was sensible of his strength declining." In the former sentence, the noun strength should be in the objective case, governed by felt; and in the latter, it should rather be in the possessive, governed by declining. Thus: "He felt his strength declining;" i.e., "felt it decline."—"He was sensible of his strength's declining;" i.e., "of its decline." These two sentences state the same fact, but, in construction, they are very different; nor does it appear, that where there is no difference of meaning, the two constructions are properly interchangeable. This point has already been briefly noticed in Obs. 12th and 13th on Rule 4th. But the false and discordant instructions which our grammarians deliver respecting possessives before participles; their strange neglect of this plain principle of reason, that the leading word in sense ought to be made the leading or governing word in the construction; and the difficulties which they and other writers are continually falling into, by talking their choice between two errors, in stead of avoiding both: these, as well as their suggestions of sameness or difference of import between the participle and the participial noun, require some farther extension of my observations in this place.

OBS. 25.—Upon the classification of words, as parts of speech, distinguished according to their natures and uses, depends the whole scheme of grammatical science. And it is plain, that a bad distribution, or a confounding of such things as ought to be separated, must necessarily be attended with inconveniences to the student, for which no skill or learning in the expounder of such a system can ever compensate. The absurdity of supposing with Horne Tooke, that the same word can never be used so differently as to belong to different parts of speech, I have already alluded to more than once. The absolute necessity of classing words, not according to their derivation merely, but rather according to their sense and construction, is too evident to require any proof. Yet, different as are the natures and the uses of verbs, participles, and nouns, it is no uncommon thing to find these three parts of speech confounded together; and that too to a very great extent, and by some of our very best grammarians, without even an attempt on their part to distinguish them. For instances of this glaring fault and perplexing inconsistency, the reader may turn to the books of W. Allen and T. O. Churchill, two of the best authors that have ever written on English grammar. Of the participle the latter gives no formal definition, but he represents it as "a form, in which the action denoted by the verb is capable of being joined to a noun as its quality, or accident."—Churchill's New Gram., p. 85. Again he says, "That the participle is a mere mode of the verb is manifest, if our definition of a verb be admitted."—Ib., p. 242. While he thus identifies the participle with the verb, this author scruples not to make what he calls the imperfect participle perform all the offices of a noun: saying, "Frequently too it is used as a noun, admits a preposition or an article before it, becomes a plural by taking s at the end, and governs a possessive case: as, 'He who has the comings in of a prince, may be ruined by his own gaming, or his wife's squandering.'"—Ib., p. 144. The plural here exhibited, if rightly written, would have the s, not at the end, but in the middle; for comings-in, (an obsolete expression for revenues,) is not two words, but one. Nor are gaming and squandering, to be here called participles, but nouns. Yet, among all his rules and annotations, I do not find that Churchill any where teaches that participles become nouns when they are used substantively. The following example he exhibits for the express purpose of showing that the nominatives to "is" and "may be" are not nouns, but participles: "Walking is the best exercise, though riding may be more pleasant."—Ib., p. 141. And, what is far worse, though his book is professedly an amplification of Lowth's brief grammar, he so completely annuls the advice of Lowth concerning the distinguishing of participles from participial nouns, that he not only misnames the latter when they are used correctly, but approves and adopts well-nigh all the various forms of error, with which the mixed and irregular construction of participles has filled our language: of these forms, there are, I think, not fewer than a dozen.

OBS. 26.—Allen's account of the participle is no better than Churchill's—and no worse than what the reader may find in many an English Grammar now in use. This author's fault is not so much a lack of learning or of comprehension, as of order and discrimination. We see in him, that it is possible for a man to be well acquainted with English authors, ancient as well as modern, and to read Greek and Latin, French and Saxon, and yet to falter miserably in describing the nature and uses of the English participle. Like many others, he does not acknowledge this sort of words to be one of the parts of speech; but commences his account of it by the following absurdity: "The participles are adjectives derived from the verb; as, pursuing, pursued, having pursued."—Elements of E. Gram., p. 62. This definition not only confounds the participle with the participial adjective, but merges the whole of the former species in a part of speech of which he had not even recognized the latter as a subdivision: "An adjective shows the quality of a thing. Adjectives may be reduced to five classes: 1. Common—2. Proper—3. Numeral—4. Pronominal—5. Compound."—Ib., p. 47. Now, if "participles are adjectives," to which of these five classes do they belong? But there are participial or verbal adjectives, very many; a sixth class, without which this distribution is false and incomplete: as, "a loving father; an approved copy." The participle differs from these, as much as it does from a noun. But says our author, "Participles, as simple adjectives, belong to a noun; as, a loving father; an approved copy;—as parts of the verb, they have the same government as their verbs have; as, his father, recalling the pleasures of past years, joined their party."—Ib., p. 170. What confusion is this! a complete jumble of adjectives, participles, and "parts of verbs!" Again: "Present participles are often construed as substantives; as, early rising is conducive to health; I like writing; we depend on seeing you."—Ib., p. 171. Here rising and writing are nouns; but seeing is a participle, because it is active and governs you, Compare this second jumble with the definition above. Again he proceeds: "To participles thus used, many of our best authors prefix the article; as, 'The being chosen did not prevent disorderly behaviour.' Bp. Tomline. 'The not knowing how to pass our vacant hours.' Seed."—Ib., p. 171. These examples I take to be bad English. Say rather, "The state of election did not prevent disorderly behaviour."—"The want of some entertainment for our vacant hours." The author again proceeds: "If a noun limits the meaning of a participle thus used, that noun is put in the genitive; as, your father's coming was unexected."—Ib., p. 171. Here coming is a noun, and no participle at all. But the author has a marginal note, "A possessive pronoun is equivalent to a genitive;" (ibid.;) and he means to approve of possessives before active participles: as, "Some of these irregularities arise from our having received the words through a French medium."—Ib., p. 116. This brings us again to that difficult and apparently unresolvable problem, whether participles as such, by virtue of their mixed gerundive character, can, or cannot, govern the possessive case; a question, about which, the more a man examines it, the more he may doubt.

OBS. 27.—But, before we say any thing more about the government of this case, let us look at our author's next paragraph on participles: "An active participle, preceded by an article or by a genitive, is elegantly followed by the preposition of, before the substantive which follows it; as, the compiling of that book occupied several years; his quitting of the army was unexpected."—Allen's Gram., p. 171. Here the participial nouns compiling and quitting are improperly called active participles, from which they are certainly as fairly distinguished by the construction, as they can be by any means whatever. And this complete distinction the author considers at least an elegance, if not an absolute requisite, in English composition. And he immediately adds: "When this construction produces ambiguity, the expression must be varied."—Ib., p. 171. This suggestion is left without illustration; but it doubtless refers to one of Murray's remarks, in which it is said: "A phrase in which the article precedes the present participle and the possessive preposition follows it, will not, in every instance, convey the same meaning as would be conveyed by the participle without the article and preposition. 'He expressed the pleasure he had in the hearing of the philosopher,' is capable of a different sense from, 'He expressed the pleasure he had in hearing the philosopher.'"—Murray's Octavo Gram., p. 193; R. C. Smith's Gram., 161; Ingersoll's, 199; and others. Here may be seen a manifest difference between the verbal or participial noun, and the participle or gerund; but Murray, in both instances, absurdly calls the word hearing a "present participle;" and, having robbed the former sentence of a needful comma, still more absurdly supposes it ambiguous: whereas the phrase, "in the hearing of the philosopher," means only, "in the philosopher's hearing;" and not, "in hearing the philosopher," or, "in hearing of the philosopher." But the true question is, would it be right to say, "He expressed the pleasure he had in the philosopher's hearing him?" For here it would be equivocal to say, "in the philosopher's hearing of him;" and some aver, that of would be wrong, in any such instance, even if the sense were clear. But let us recur to the mixed example from Allen, and compare it with his own doctrines. To say, "from our having received of the words through a French medium," would certainly be no elegance; and if it be not an ambiguity, it is something worse. The expression, then, "must be varied." But varied how? Is it right without the of, though contrary to the author's rule for elegance?

OBS. 28.—The observations which have been made on this point, under the rule for the possessive case, while they show, to some extent, the inconsistencies in doctrine, and the improprieties of practice, into which the difficulties of the mixed participle have betrayed some of our principal grammarians, bring likewise the weight of much authority and reason against the custom of blending without distinction the characteristics of nouns and participles in the same word or words; but still they may not be thought sufficient to prove this custom to be altogether wrong; nor do they pretend to have fully established the dogma, that such a construction is in no instance admissible. They show, however, that possessives before participles are seldom to be approved; and perhaps, in the present instance, the meaning might be quite as well expressed by a common substantive, or the regular participial noun: as, "Some of these irregularities arise from our reception of the words—or our receiving of the words—through a French medium." But there are some examples which it is not easy to amend, either in this way, or in any other; as, "The miscarriages of youth have very much proceeded from their being imprudently indulged, or left to themselves."—Friends' N. E. Discipline, p. 13. And there are instances too, of a similar character, in which the possessive case cannot be used. For example: "Nobody will doubt of this being a sufficient proof."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 66. "But instead of this being the fact of the case, &c."—Butlers Analogy, p. 137. "There is express historical or traditional evidence, as ancient as history, of the system of religion being taught mankind by revelation."—Ibid. "From things in it appearing to men foolishness."—Ib., p. 175. "As to the consistency of the members of our society joining themselves to those called free-masons."—N. E. Discip., p. 51. "In either of these cases happening, the person charging is at liberty to bring the matter before the church, who are the only judges now remaining."—Ib., p. 36; Extracts, p. 57. "Deriving its efficacy from the power of God fulfilling his purpose."—Religious World, Vol. ii, p. 235. "We have no idea of any certain portion of time intervening