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

living souls. But persons, in common parlance, or in ordinary life, are intelligent beings, of one or the other sex. These objects, different as they are in their nature, are continually confounded by the makers of English grammars: as, "The first person is the person who speaks."—Comly's Gram., p. 17. So Bicknell, of London: "The first person speaks of himself; as, I John take thee Elizabeth. The second person has the speech directed to him, and is supposed to be present; as, Thou Harry art a wicked fellow. The third person is spoken of, or described, and supposed to be absent; as, That Thomas is a good man. And in the same manner the plural pronouns are used, when more than one are spoken of."—Bicknell's Grammatical Wreath, p. 50. "The person speaking is the first person; the person spoken to, the second; and the person spoken of, the third."—Russell's Gram., p. 16. "The first person is the speaker."—Parker & Fox's Gram., Part i, p. 6. "Person is that, which distinguishes a noun, that speaks, one spoken to, or one spoken about."—S. B. Hall's Gram., p. 6. "A noun that speaks!" A noun "spoken to!" If ever one of Father Hall's nouns shall speak for itself, or answer when "spoken to," will it not reprove him? And how can the first person be "the person WHO speaks," when every word of this phrase is of the third person? Most certainly, it is not HE, nor any one of his sort. If any body can boast of being "the first person in grammar," I pray, Who is it? Is it not I, even I? Many grammarians say so. But nay: such authors know not what the first person in grammar is. The Rev. Charles Adams, with infinite absurdity, makes the three persons in grammar to be never any thing but three nouns, which hold a confabulation thus: "Person is defined to be that which distinguishes a noun that speaks, one spoken to, or one spoken of. The noun that speaks [,] is the first person; as, I, James, was present. The noun that is spoken to, is the second person; as, James, were you present? The noun that is spoken of is the third person; as, James was present."—Adams's System of English Gram., p. 9. What can be a greater blunder, than to call the first person of a verb, of a pronoun, or even of a noun, "the noun that speaks?" What can be more absurd than are the following assertions? "Nouns are in the first person when speaking. Nouns are of the second person when addressed or spoken to."—O. C. Felton's Gram., p. 9.

OBS. 4.—An other error, scarcely less gross than that which has just been noticed, is the very common one of identifying the three grammatical persons with certain words, called personal pronouns: as, "I is the first person, thou the second, he, she or it, the third."—Smith's Productive Gram., p. 53. "I is the first person, singular. Thou is the second person, singular. He, she, or it, is the third person, singular. We is the first person, plural. Ye or you is the second person, plural. They is the third person, plural."—L. Murray's Grammar, p. 51; Ingersoll's, 54; D. Adams's, 37; A. Flint's, 18; Kirkham's, 98; Cooper's, 34; T. H. Miller's, 26; Hull's, 21; Frost's, 13; Wilcox's, 18; Bacon's, 19; Alger's, 22; Maltby's, 19; Perley's, 15; S. Putnam's, 22. Now there is no more propriety in affirming, that "I is the first person," than in declaring that me, we, us, am, ourselves, we think, I write, or any other word or phrase of the first person, is the first person. Yet Murray has given us no other definitions or explanations of the persons than the foregoing erroneous assertions; and, if I mistake not, all the rest who are here named, have been content to define them only as he did. Some others, however, have done still worse: as, "There are three personal pronouns; so called, because they denote the three persons, who are the subjects of a discourse, viz. 1st. I, who is the person speaking; 2d thou, who is spoken to; 3d he, she, or it, who is spoken of, and their plurals, we, ye or you, they."—Bingham's Accidence, 20th Ed., p. 7. Here the two kinds of error which I have just pointed out, are jumbled together. It is impossible to write worse English than this! Nor is the following much better: "Of the personal pronouns there are five, viz. I, in the first person, speaking; Thou, in the second person, spoken to; and He, she, it, in the third person, spoken of."—Nutting's Gram., p. 25.

OBS. 5.—In written language, the first person denotes the writer or author; and the second, the reader or person addressed: except when the writer describes not himself, but some one else, as uttering to an other the words which he records. This exception takes place more particularly in the writing of dialogues and dramas; in which the first and second persons are abundantly used, not as the representatives of the author and his reader, but as denoting the fictitious speakers and hearers that figure in each scene. But, in discourse, the grammatical persons may be changed without a change of the living subject. In the following sentence, the three grammatical persons are all of them used with reference to one and the same individual: "Say ye of Him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God?"—John, x, 36.

OBS. 6.-The speaker seldom refers to himself by name, as the speaker; and, of the objects which there is occasion to name in discourse, but comparatively few are such as can ever be supposed to speak. Consequently, nouns are rarely used in the first person; and when they do assume this relation, a pronoun is commonly associated with them: as, "I John,"—"We Britons." These words I conceive to agree throughout, in person, number, gender, and case; though it must be confessed, that agreement like this is not always required between words in apposition. But some grammarians deny the first person to nouns altogether; others, with much more consistency, ascribe it;[140] while very many are entirely silent on the subject. Yet it is plain that both the doctrine of concords, and the analogy of general grammar, require its admission. The reason of this may be seen in the following examples: "Themistocles ad te veni." "I Themistocles have come to you."—Grant's Latin Gram., p. 72. "Adsum Troius Æneas."—Virgil. "Romulus Rex regia arma offero."—Livy. "Annibal peto pacem."—Id. "Callopius recensui."—See Terence's Comedies, at the end. "Paul, an apostle, &c., unto Timothy, my own son in the faith."—1 Tim., i, 2. Again, if the word God is of the second person, in the text, "Thou, God, seest me," why should any one deny that Paul is of the first person, in this one? "I Paul have written it."—Philemon, 19. Or this? "The salutation by the hand of me Paul."—Col., iv, 18. And so of the plural: "Of you builders."—Acts, iv, 11. "Of us the apostles."—2 Pet., iii, 2. How can it be pretended, that, in the phrase, "I Paul," I is of the first person, as denoting the speaker, and Paul, of some other person, as denoting something or somebody that is not the speaker? Let the admirers of Murray, Kirkham, Ingersoll, R. C. Smith, Comly, Greenleaf, Parkhurst, or of any others who teach this absurdity, answer.

OBS. 7.—As, in the direct application of what are called Christian names, there is a kind of familiarity, which on many occasions would seem to indicate a lack of proper respect; so in a frequent and familiar use of the second person, as it is the placing of an other in the more intimate relation of the hearer, and one's self in that of the speaker, there is a sort of assumption which may seem less modest and respectful than to use the third person. In the following example, the patriarch Jacob uses both forms; applying the term servant to himself, and to his brother Esau the term lord: "Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will lead on softly."—Gen., xxxiii, 14. For when a speaker or writer does not choose to declare himself in the first person, or to address his hearer or reader in the second, he speaks of both or either in the third. Thus Moses relates what Moses did, and Cæsar records the achievements of Cæsar. So Judah humbly beseeches Joseph: "Let thy servant abide in stead of the lad a bondman to my lord."—Gen., xliv, 33. And Abraham reverently intercedes with God: "Oh! let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak."—Gen., xviii, 30. And the Psalmist prays: "God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us."—Ps., lxvii, 1. So, on more common occasions:—

"As will the rest, so willeth Winchester."—Shak.

"Richard of York, how fares our dearest brother?"—Id.[141]

OBS. 8.—When inanimate things are spoken to, they are personified; and their names are put in the second person, because by the figure the objects are supposed to be capable of hearing: as, "What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back? Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs? Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob."—Psalms, cxiv, 5-7.

NUMBERS.

Numbers, in grammar, are modifications that distinguish unity and plurality.

There are two numbers; the singular and the plural.

The singular number is that which denotes but one; as, "The boy learns."

The plural number is that which denotes more than one; as, "The boys learn."

The plural number of nouns is regularly formed by adding s or es to the singular: as, book, books; box, boxes; sofa, sofas; hero, heroes.

When the singular ends in a sound which will unite with that of s, the plural is generally formed by adding s only, and the number of syllables is not increased: as, pen, pens; grape, grapes.

But when the sound of s cannot be united with that of the primitive word, the regular plural adds s to final e, and es to other terminations, and forms a separate syllable: as, page, pages; fox, foxes.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—The distinction of numbers serves merely to show whether we speak of one object, or of more. In some languages, as the Greek and the Arabic, there is a dual number, which denotes two, or a pair; but in ours, this property of words, or class of modifications, extends no farther than to distinguish unity from plurality, and plurality from unity. It belongs to nouns, pronouns, and finite verbs; and to these it is always applied, either by peculiarity of form, or by inference from the principles of concord. Pronouns are like their antecedents, and verbs are like their subjects, in number.

OBS. 2.—The most common way of forming the plural of English nouns, is that of simply adding to them an s; which, when it unites with a sharp consonant, is always sharp, or hissing; and when it follows a vowel or a flat mute, is generally flat, like z: thus, in the words, ships, skiffs, pits, rocks, depths, lakes, gulfs, it is sharp; but in seas, lays, rivers, hills, ponds, paths, rows, webs, flags, it is flat. The terminations which always make the regular plural in es, with increase of syllables, are twelve; namely, ce, ge, ch soft, che soft, sh, ss, s, se, x, xe, z, and ze: as in face, faces; age, ages; torch, torches; niche, niches; dish, dishes; kiss, kisses; rebus, rebuses; lens, lenses; chaise, chaises; corpse, corpses; nurse, nurses; box, boxes; axe, axes; phiz, phizzes; maze, mazes. All other endings readily unite in sound either with the sharp or with the flat s, as they themselves are sharp or flat; and, to avoid an increase of syllables, we allow the final e mute to remain mute after that letter is added: thus, we always pronounce as monosyllables the words babes, blades, strifes, tithes, yokes, scales, names, canes, ropes, shores, plates, doves, and the like.

OBS. 3.—Though the irregular plurals of our language appear considerably numerous when brought together, they are in fact very few in comparison with the many thousands that are perfectly simple and regular. In some instances, however, usage is various in writing, though uniform in speech; an unsettlement peculiar to certain words that terminate in vowels: as, Rabbis, or rabbies; octavos, or octavoes; attornies, or attorneys. There are also some other difficulties respecting the plurals of nouns, and especially respecting those of foreign words; of compound terms; of names and titles; and of words redundant or deficient in regard to the numbers. What is most worthy