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

An or a, like one, sometimes gives a collective meaning to an adjective of number, when the noun following is plural; as, A few days,—A hundred men,—One hundred pounds sterling.

Articles should be inserted as often as the sense requires them; as, "Repeat the preterit and [the] perfect participle of the verb to abide."—Error in Merchant's American School Grammar, p. 66.

Needless articles should be omitted; they seldom fail to pervert the sense: as, "The Rhine, the Danube, the Tanais, the Po, the Wolga, the Ganges, like many hundreds of similar names, rose not from any obscure jargon or irrational dialect."—Error in Dr. Murray's Hist. of Europ. Lang., Vol. i, p. 327.

The articles can seldom be put one for the other, without gross impropriety; and of course either is to be preferred to the other, as it better suits the sense: as, "The violation of this rule never fails to hurt and displease a reader."—Error in Blair's Lectures, p. 107. Say, "A violation of this rule never fails to displease the reader."

The articles are distinguished as the definite and the indefinite.

I. The definite article is the, which denotes some particular thing or things; as, The boy, the oranges.

II. The indefinite article is an or a, which denotes one thing of a kind, but not any particular one; as, A boy, an orange.

The English articles have no modifications, except that an is shortened into a before the sound of a consonant; as, "In an epic poem, or a poem upon an elevated subject, a writer ought to avoid raising a simile on a low image."—Ld. Kames.

OBS. 1.—No other words are so often employed as the articles. And, by reason of the various and very frequent occasions on which these definitives are required, no words are oftener misapplied; none, oftener omitted or inserted erroneously. I shall therefore copiously illustrate both their uses and their abuses; with the hope that every reader of this volume will think it worth his while to gain that knowledge which is requisite to the true use of these small but important words. Some parts of the explanation, however, must be deferred till we come to Syntax.

OBS. 2.—With the attempts of Tooke, Dalton, Webster, Cardell, Fowle, Wells,[134] Weld, Butler Frazee, Perley, Mulligan, Pinneo, S. S. Greene, and other writers, to degrade the article from its ancient rank among the parts of speech, no judicious reader, duly acquainted with the subject, can, I think, be well pleased. An article is not properly an "adjective," as they would have it to be; but it is a word of a peculiar sort—a customary index to the sense of nouns. It serves not merely to show the extent of signification, in which nouns are to be taken, but is often the principal, and sometimes the only mark, by which a word is known to have the sense and construction of a noun. There is just as much reason to deny and degrade the Greek or French article, (or that of any other language,) as the English; and, if those who are so zealous to reform our the, an, and a into adjectives, cared at all to appear consistent in the view of Comparative or General Grammar, they would either set about a wider reformation or back out soon from the pettiness of this.

OBS. 3.—First let it be understood, that an or a is nearly equivalent in meaning to the numeral adjective one, but less emphatic; and that the is nearly equivalent in meaning to the pronominal adjective that or those, but less emphatic. On some occasions, these adjectives may well be substituted for the articles; but not generally. If the articles were generally equivalent to adjectives, or even if they were generally like them, they would be adjectives; but, that adjectives may occasionally supply their places, is no argument at all for confounding the two parts of speech. Distinctions must be made, where differences exist; and, that a, an, and the, do differ considerably from the other words which they most resemble, is shown even by some who judge "the distinctive name of article to be useless." See Crombie's Treatise, Chap. 2. The articles therefore must be distinguished, not only from adjectives, but from each other. For, though both are articles, each is an index sui generis; the one definite, the other indefinite. And as the words that and one cannot often be interchanged without a difference of meaning, so the definite article and the indefinite are seldom, if ever, interchangeable. To put one for the other, is therefore, in general, to put one meaning for an other: "A daughter of a poor man"—"The daughter of the poor man"—"A daughter of the poor man"—and, "The daughter of a poor man," are four phrases which certainly have four different and distinct significations. This difference between the two articles may be further illustrated by the following example: "That Jesus was a prophet sent from God, is one proposition; that Jesus was the prophet, the Messiah, is an other; and, though he certainly was both a prophet and the prophet, yet the foundations of the proof of these propositions are separate and distinct."—Watson's Apology, p. 105.

OBS. 4.—Common nouns are, for the most part, names of large classes of objects; and, though what really constitutes the species must always be found entire in every individual, the several objects thus arranged under one general name or idea, are in most instances susceptible of such a numerical distribution as gives rise to an other form of the noun, expressive of plurality; as, horse, horses. Proper nouns in their ordinary application, are, for the most part, names of particular individuals; and as there is no plurality to a particular idea, or to an individual person or thing as distinguished from all others, so there is in general none to this class of nouns; and no room for further restriction by articles. But we sometimes divert such nouns from their usual signification, and consequently employ them with articles or in the plural form; as, "I endeavoured to retain it nakedly in my mind, without regarding whether I had it from an Aristotle or a Zoilus, a Newton or a Descartes."—Churchill's Gram., Pref., p. 8. "It is not enough to have Vitruviuses, we must also have Augustuses to employ them."—Bicknell's Gram., Part ii, p. 61.

   "A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!"
        —SHAK. Shylock.

   "Great Homer, in th' Achilles, whom he drew,
    Sets not that one sole Person in our View."
        —Brightland's Gram., p. 183.

OBS. 5.—The article an or a usually denotes one out of several or many; one of a sort of which there are more; any one of that name, no matter which. Hence its effect upon a particular name, or proper noun, is directly the reverse of that which it has upon a common noun. It varies and fixes the meaning of both; but while it restricts that of the latter, it enlarges that of the former. It reduces the general idea of the common noun to any one individual of the class: as, "A man;" that is, "One man, or any man." On the contrary, it extends the particular idea of the proper noun, and makes the word significant of a class, by supposing others to whom it will apply: as, "A Nero;" that is, "Any Nero, or any cruel tyrant." Sometimes, however, this article before a proper name, seems to leave the idea still particular; but, if it really does so, the propriety of using it may be doubted: as, "No, not by a John the Baptist risen from the dead."—Henry's Expos., Mark, vi. "It was not solely owing to the madness and depravity of a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Nero, or a Caracalla, that a cruel and sanguinary spirit, in their day, was so universal."—M'Ilvaine's Evid., p. 398.

OBS. 6.—With the definite article, the noun is applied, sometimes specifically, sometimes individually, but always definitely, always distinctively. This article is demonstrative. It marks either the particular individual, or the particular species,—or, (if the noun be plural,) some particular individuals of the species,—as being distinguished from all others. It sometimes refers to a thing as having been previously mentioned; sometimes presumes upon the hearer's familiarity with the thing; and sometimes indicates a limitation which is made by subsequent words connected with the noun. Such is the import of this article, that with it the singular number of the noun is often more comprehensive, and at the same time more specific, than the plural. Thus, if I say, "The horse is a noble animal," without otherwise intimating that I speak of some particular horse, the sentence will be understood to embrace collectively that species of animal; and I shall be thought to mean, "Horses are noble animals." But if I say, "The horses are noble animals," I use an expression so much more limited, as to include only a few; it must mean some particular horses, which I distinguish from all the rest of the species. Such limitations should be made, whenever there is occasion for them; but needless restrictions displease the imagination, and ought to be avoided; because the mind naturally delights in terms as comprehensive as they may be, if also specific. Lindley Murray, though not uniform in his practice respecting this, seems to have thought it necessary to use the plural in many sentences in which I should decidedly prefer the singular; as, "That the learners may have no doubts."—Murray's Octavo Gram., Vol. i, p. 81. "The business will not be tedious to the scholars."—Ib., 81. "For the information of the learners."—Ib., 81. "It may afford instruction to the learners."—Ib., 110. "That this is the case, the learners will perceive by the following examples."—Ib., 326. "Some knowledge of it appears to be indispensable to the scholars."—Ib., 335.

OBS. 7.—Proper names of a plural form and signification, are almost always preceded by the definite article; as, "The Wesleys,"—"The twelve Cæsars,"—"All the Howards." So the names of particular nations, tribes, and sects; as, The Romans, the Jews, the Levites, the Stoics. Likewise the plural names of mountains; as, The Alps, the Apennines, the Pyrenees, the Andes. Of plural names like these, and especially of such as designate tribes and sects, there is a very great number. Like other proper names, they must be distinguished from the ordinary words of the language, and accordingly they are always written with capitals; but they partake so largely of the nature of common nouns, that it seems doubtful to which class they most properly belong. Hence they not only admit, but require the article; while most other proper names are so definite in themselves, that the article, if put before them, would be needless, and therefore improper.

"Nash, Rutledge, Jefferson, in council great, And Jay, and Laurens oped the rolls of fate; The Livingstons, fair freedoms generous band, The Lees, the Houstons, fathers of the land."—Barlow.

OBS. 8.—In prose, the definite article is always used before names of rivers, unless the word river, be added; as, The Delaware, the Hudson, the Connecticut. But if the word river be added, the article becomes needless; as, Delaware river, Hudson river, Connecticut river. Yet there seems to be no impropriety in using both; as, The Delaware river, the Hudson river, the Connecticut river. And if the common noun be placed before the proper name, the article is again necessary; as, The river Delaware, the river Hudson, the river Connecticut. In the first form of expression, however, the article has not usually been resolved by grammarians as relating to the proper name; but these examples, and others of a similar character, have been supposed elliptical: as, "The [river] Potomac"—"The [ship] Constitution,"—"The [steamboat] Fulton." Upon this supposition, the words in the first and fourth forms are to be parsed alike; the article relating to the common noun, expressed or understood, and the proper noun being in apposition with the appellative. But in the second form, the apposition is reversed; and, in the third, the proper name appears to be taken adjectively. Without the article, some names of rivers could not be understood; as,

   "No more the Varus and the Atax feel
    The lordly burden of the Latian keel."—Rowe's Lucan, B. i. l. 722.

OBS. 9.—The definite article is often used by way of eminence, to distinguish some particular individual emphatically, or to apply to him some characteristic name or quality: as, "The Stagirite,"—that is, Aristotle; "The Psalmist," that is, David; "Alexander the Great,"—that is, (perhaps,) Alexander the Great Monarch, or Great Hero. So, sometimes, when the phrase relates to a collective body of men: as, "The Honourable, the Legislature,"—"The Honourable, the Senate;"—that is, "The Honourable Body, the Legislature," &c. A similar application of the article in the following