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

The conjunction that sometimes serves merely to introduce a sentence which is made the subject or the object of a finite verb;[433] as, "That mind is not matter, is certain."

"That you have wronged me, doth appear in this."—Shak.

"That time is mine, O Mead! to thee, I owe."—Young.

When two corresponding conjunctions occur, in their usual order, the former should generally be parsed as referring to the latter, which is more properly the connecting word; as, "Neither sun nor stars in many days appeared."—Acts, xxvii, 20. "Whether that evidence has been afforded [or not,] is a matter of investigation."—Keith's Evidences, p. 18.

EXCEPTION THIRD. Either, corresponding to or, and neither, corresponding to nor or not, are sometimes transposed, so as to repeat the disjunction or negation at the end of the sentence; as, "Where then was their capacity of standing, or his either?"—Barclay's Works, iii, 359. "It is not dangerous neither."—Bolingbroke, on Hist., p. 135. "He is very tall, but not too tall neither."—Spect., No. 475.

OBS. 1.—Conjunctions that connect particular words, generally join similar parts of speech in a common dependence on some other term. Hence, if the words connected be such as have cases, they will of course be in the same case; as, "For me and thee"—Matt., xvii, 27. "Honour thy father and thy mother."—Ib., xviii, 19. Here the latter noun or pronoun is connected by and to the former, and governed by the same preposition or verb. Conjunctions themselves have no government, unless the questionable phrase "than whom" may be reckoned an exception. See Obs. 17th below, and others that follow it.

OBS. 2.—Those conjunctions which connect sentences or clauses, commonly unite one sentence or clause to an other, either as an additional assertion, or as a condition, a cause, or an end, of what is asserted. The conjunction is placed between the terms which it connects, except there is a transposition, and then it stands before the dependent term, and consequently at the beginning of the whole sentence: as, "He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second."—Heb., x, 9. "That he may establish the second, he taketh away the first."

OBS. 3.—The term that follows a conjunction, is in some instances a phrase of several words, yet not therefore a whole clause or member, unless we suppose it elliptical, and supply what will make it such: as, "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, AS to the Lord, AND not unto men"—Col., iii, 23. If we say, this means, "as doing it to the Lord, and not as doing it unto men," the terms are still mere phrases; but if we say, the sense is, "as if ye did it to the Lord, and not as if ye did it unto men," they are clauses, or sentences. Churchill says, "The office of the conjunction is, to connect one word with an other, or one phrase with an other."—New Gram., p. 152. But he uses the term phrase in a more extended sense than I suppose it will strictly bear: he means by it, a clause, or member; that is, a sentence which forms a part of a greater sentence.

OBS. 4.—What is the office of this part of speech, according to Lennie, Bullions, Brace, Hart, Hiley, Smith, M'Culloch, Webster, Wells, and others, who say that it "joins words and sentences together," (see Errors on p. 434 of this work,) it is scarcely possible to conceive. If they imagine it to connect "words" on the one side, to "sentences" on the other; this is plainly absurd, and contrary to facts. If they suppose it to join sentence to sentence, by merely connecting word to word, in a joint relation; this also is absurd, and self-contradictory. Again, if they mean, that the conjunction sometimes connects word with word, and sometimes, sentence with sentence; this sense they have not expressed, but have severally puzzled their readers by an ungrammatical use of the word "and." One of the best among them says, "In the sentence, 'He and I must go,' the word and unites two sentences, and thus avoids an unnecessary repetition; thus instead of saying, 'He must go,' 'I must go,' we connect the words He, I, as the same thing is affirmed of both, namely, must go."—Hiley's Gram., p. 53. Here is the incongruous suggestion, that by connecting words only, the conjunction in fact connects sentences; and the stranger blunder concerning those words, that "the same thing is affirmed of both, namely, [that they] must go." Whereas it is plain, that nothing is affirmed of either: for "He and I must go," only affirms of him and me, that "we must go." And again it is plain, that and here connects nothing but the two pronouns; for no one will say, that, "He and I must go together" is a compound sentence, capable of being resolved into two simple sentences; and if, "He and I must go," is compound because it is equivalent to, "He must go, and I must go;" so is, "We must go," for the same reason, though it has but one nominative and one verb. "He and I were present," is rightly given by Hiley as an example of two pronouns connected together by and. (See his Gram., p. 105.) But, of verbs connected to each other, he absurdly supposes the following to be examples: "He spake, and it was done."—"I know it, and I can prove it."—"Do you say so, and can you prove it?"—Ib. Here and connects sentences, and not particular words.

OBS. 5.—Two or three conjunctions sometimes come together; as, "What rests, but that the mortal sentence pass?"—Milton. "Nor yet that he should offer himself often."—Heb., ix, 25. These may be severally parsed as "connecting what precedes and what follows," and the observant reader will not fail to notice, that such combinations of connecting particles are sometimes required by the sense; but, since nothing that is needless, is really proper, conjunctions should not be unnecessarily accumulated: as, "But AND if that evil servant say in his heart," &c.—Matt., xxiv, 48. Greek, "[Greek: Ean de eipæ o kakos donlos ekeinos,]" &c. Here is no and. "But AND if she depart."—1 Cor., vii, 11. This is almost a literal rendering of the Greek, "[Greek: Ean de kai choristhæ.]"—yet either but or and is certainly useless. "In several cases," says Priestley, "we content ourselves, now, with fewer conjunctive particles than our ancestors did [say used]. Example: 'So AS that his doctrines were embraced by great numbers.' Universal Hist., Vol. 29, p. 501. So that would have been much easier, and better."—Priestley's Gram., p. 139. Some of the poets have often used the word that as an expletive, to fill the measure of their verse; as,

"When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept."—Shakspeare.

"If that he be a dog, beware his fangs."—Id.

    "That made him pine away and moulder,
    As though that he had been no soldier."—Butler's Poems, p. 164.

OBS. 6.—W. Allen remarks, that, "And is sometimes introduced to engage our attention to a following word or phrase; as, 'Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer.' [Pope.] 'I see thee fall, and by Achilles' hand.' [Id.]"—Allen's E. Gram., p. 184. The like idiom, he says, occurs in these passages of Latin: "'Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit.' Virg. 'Mors et fugacem persequitur virum.' Hor."—Allen's Gram., p. 184. But it seems to me, that and and et are here regular connectives. The former implies a repetition of the preceding verb: as, "Part pays, and justly pays, the deserving steer."—"I see thee fall, and fall by Achilles' hand." The latter refers back to what was said before: thus, "Perhaps it will also hereafter delight you to recount these evils."—"And death pursues the man that flees." In the following text, the conjunction is more like an expletive; but even here it suggests an extension of the discourse then in progress: "Lord, and what shall this man do?"—John, xxi, 21. "[Greek: Kurie, outos de ti;]"—"Domine, hic autem quid?"—Beza.

OBS. 7.—The conjunction as often unites words that are in apposition, or in the same case; as, "He offered himself AS a journeyman."—"I assume it AS a fact."—Webster's Essays, p. 94. "In an other example of the same kind, the earth, AS a common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father's unkindness."—Kames, El. of Crit., Vol ii, p. 168. "And then to offer himself up AS a sacrifice and propitiation for them."—Scougal, p. 99. So, likewise, when an intransitive verb takes the same case after as before it, by Rule 6th; as, "Johnson soon after engaged AS usher in a school."—L. Murray. "He was employed AS usher." In all these examples, the case that follows as, is determined by that which precedes. If after the verb "engaged" we supply himself, usher becomes objective, and is in apposition with the pronoun, and not in agreement with Johnson: "He engaged himself as usher." One late writer, ignorant or regardless of the analogy of General Grammar, imagines this case to be an "objective governed by the conjunction as," according to the following rule: "The conjunction as, when it takes the meaning of for, or in the character of, governs the objective case; as, Addison, as a writer of prose, is highly distinguished."—J. M. Putnam's Gram., p. 113. S. W. Clark, in his grammar published in 1848, sets as in his list of prepositions, with this example: "'That England can spare from her service such men as HIM.'—Lord Brougham."—Clark's Practical Gram., p. 92. And again: "When the second term of a Comparison of equality is a Noun, or Pronoun, the Preposition AS is commonly used. Example—'He hath died to redeem such a rebel as ME.'—Wesley." Undoubtedly, Wesley and Brougham here erroneously supposed the as to connect words only, and consequently to require them to be in the same case, agreeably to OBS. 1st, above; but a moment's reflection on the sense, should convince any one, that the construction requires the nominative forms he and I, with the verbs is and am understood.

OBS. 8.—The conjunction as may also be used between an adjective or a participle and the noun to which the adjective or participle relates; as, "It does not appear that brutes have the least reflex sense of actions AS distinguished from events; or that will and design, which constitute the very nature of actions AS such, are at all an object of their perception."—Butler's Analogy, p. 277.

OBS. 9.—As frequently has the force of a relative pronoun, and when it evidently sustains the relation of a case, it ought to be called, and generally is called, a pronoun, rather than a conjunction; as, "Avoid such as are vicious,"—Anon. "But as many as received him," &c.—John, i, 12. "We have reduced the terms into as small a number as was consistent with perspicuity and distinction."—Brightland's Gram., p. ix. Here as represents a noun, and while it serves to connect the two parts of the sentence, it is also the subject of a verb. These being the true characteristics of a relative pronoun, it is proper to refer the word to that class. But when a clause or a sentence is the antecedent, it is better to consider the as a conjunction, and to supply the pronoun it, if the writer has not used it; as, "He is angry, as [it] appears by this letter." Horne Tooke says, "The truth is, that AS is also an article; and (however and whenever used in English) means the same as It, or That, or Which."—Diversions of Purley, Vol. i, p. 223. But what definition he would give to "an article," does not appear.

OBS. 10.—In some examples, it seems questionable whether as ought to be reckoned a pronoun, or ought rather to be parsed as a conjunction after which a nominative is understood; as, "He then read the conditions as follow."—"The conditions are as follow."—Nutting's Gram., p. 106. "The principal evidences on which this assertion is grounded, are as follow."—Gurney's Essays, p. 166. "The Quiescent verbs are as follow."—Pike's Heb. Lex., p. 184. "The other numbers are duplications of these, and proceed as follow"—Dr. Murray's Hist. of Lang., Vol. ii, p. 35. "The most eminent of the kennel are bloodhounds, which lead the van, and are as follow."—Steele, Tattler, No. 62. "His words are as follow."—Spect., No. 62. "The words are as follow."—Addison, Spect., No. 513. "The objections that are raised against it as a tragedy, are as follow."—Gay, Pref. to What d' ye call it. "The particulars are as follow."—Bucke's Gram., p. 93. "The principal interjections in English are as follow."—Ward's Gram., p. 81. In all these instances, one may suppose the final clause to mean, "as they here follow;"—or, supposing as to be a pronoun,