The Grammar of English Grammars Part 117

RULE X.--p.r.o.nOUNS.

A p.r.o.noun must agree with its antecedent, or the noun or p.r.o.noun which it represents, in person, number, and gender:[379] as, "This is the friend _of whom I spoke_; he has just arrived."--"This is the book _which I_ bought; it is an excellent work."--"_Ye_, therefore, _who_ love mercy, teach _your_ sons to love _it_ too."--_Cowper._

"Speak _thou, whose_ thoughts at humble peace repine, Shall Wolsey's wealth with Wolsey's end be _thine_?"--_Dr. Johnson_.

EXCEPTION FIRST.

When a p.r.o.noun stands for some person or thing _indefinite_, or _unknown to the speaker_, this rule is not _strictly_ applicable; because the person, number, and gender, are rather a.s.sumed in the p.r.o.noun, than regulated by an antecedent: as, "I do not care _who_ knows it."--_Steele_. "_Who_ touched me? Tell me _who_ it was."--"We have no knowledge how, or by _whom_, it is inhabited."--ABBOT: _Joh. Dict._

EXCEPTION SECOND.

The neuter p.r.o.noun _it_ may be applied to a young child, or to other creatures masculine or feminine by nature, when they are not obviously distinguishable with regard to s.e.x; as, "Which is the real friend to the _child_, the person who gives _it_ the sweetmeats, or the person who, considering only _its_ health, resists _its_ importunities?"--_Opis._ "He loads the _animal_ he is showing me, with so many trappings and collars, that I cannot distinctly view _it_"--_Murray's Gram._, p. 301. "The _nightingale_ sings most sweetly when _it_ sings in the night."--_Bucke's Gram._, p. 52.

EXCEPTION THIRD.

The p.r.o.noun _it_ is often used without a definite reference to any antecedent, and is sometimes a mere expletive, and sometimes the representative of an action expressed afterwards by a verb; as, "Whether she grapple _it_ with the pride of philosophy."--_Chalmers._ "Seeking to lord _it_ over G.o.d's heritage."--_The Friend_, vii, 253. "_It_ is not for kings, O Lemuel, _it_ is not for kings _to drink_ wine, nor for princes strong drink."--_Prov._, x.x.xi, 4. "Having no temptation to _it_, G.o.d cannot _act unjustly_ without defiling his nature."--_Brown's Divinity_, p. 11.

"Come, and trip _it_ as you go, On the light fantastic toe."--_Milton._

EXCEPTION FOURTH.

A singular antecedent with the adjective _many_, sometimes admits a plural p.r.o.noun, but never in the same clause; as, "Hard has been the fate of _many_ a great _genius_, that while _they_ have conferred immortality on others, _they_ have wanted themselves some friend to embalm their names to posterity."--_Welwood's Pref. to Rowe's Lucan._

"In Hawick twinkled _many a light_, Behind him soon _they_ set in night."--_W. Scott._

EXCEPTION FIFTH.

When a plural p.r.o.noun is put by enallage for the singular, it does not agree with its noun in number, because it still requires a plural verb; as, "_We_ [Lindley Murray] _have followed_ those authors, who appear to have given them the most natural and intelligible distribution."--_Murray's Gram._, 8vo, p. 29. "_We shall close our_ remarks on this subject, by introducing the sentiments of Dr. Johnson respecting it."--_Ib._ "My lord, _you know_ I love _you_"--_Shakspeare._

EXCEPTION SIXTH.

The p.r.o.noun sometimes disagrees with its antecedent in one sense, because it takes it in an other; as, "I have perused Mr. Johnson's _Grammatical Commentaries_, and find _it_[380] a very laborious, learned, and useful Work."--_Tho. Knipe_, D. D. "_Lamps_ is of the plural number, because _it_ means more than one."--_Smith's New Gram._, p. 8. "_Man_ is of the masculine gender, because _it_ is the name of a male."--_Ib._ "The _Utica Sentinel_ says _it_ has not heard whether the wounds are dangerous."--_Evening Post_. (Better: "The _editor_ of the Utica Sentinel says, _he_ has not heard," &c.) "There is little _Benjamin_ with _their_ ruler."--_Psalms_, lxviii, 27.

"_Her_ end when _emulation_ misses, _She_ turns to envy, stings, and hisses."--_Swift's Poems_, p. 415.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE X.

OBS. 1.--Respecting a p.r.o.noun, the main thing is, that the reader perceive clearly _for what it stands_; and next, that he do not misapprehend _its relation of case_. For the sake of completeness and uniformity in parsing, it is, I think, expedient to apply the foregoing rule not only to those p.r.o.nouns which have obvious antecedents expressed, but also to such as are not accompanied by the nouns for which they stand. Even those which are put for persons or things unknown or indefinite, may be said to agree with whatever is meant by them; that is, with such nouns as their own properties indicate. For the reader will naturally understand something by every p.r.o.noun, unless it be a mere expletive, and without any antecedent. For example: "It would depend upon _who_ the forty were."--_Trial at Steubenville_, p. 50. Here _who_ is an indefinite relative, equivalent to _what persons_; of the third person, plural, masculine; and is in the nominative case after were, by Rule 6th. For the full construction seems to be this: "It would depend upon _the persons who_ the forty were." So _which_, for _which person_, or _which thing_, (if we call it a p.r.o.noun rather than an adjective,) may be said to have the properties of the noun _person_ or _thing_ understood; as,

"His notions fitted things so well, That _which_ was _which_ he could not tell."--_Hudibras_.

OBS. 2.--The p.r.o.noun _we_ is used by the speaker or writer to represent himself and others, and is therefore plural. But it is sometimes used, by a sort of fiction, in stead of the singular, to intimate that the speaker or writer is not alone in his opinions; or, perhaps more frequently, to evade the charge of egotism; for this modest a.s.sumption of plurality seems most common with those who have something else to a.s.sume: as, "And so lately as 1809, Pope Pius VII, in excommunicating his 'own dear son,' Napoleon, whom he crowned and blessed, says: '_We_, unworthy as _we_ are, represent the G.o.d of peace.'"--_Dr. Brownlee_. "The coat fits _us_ as well as if _we_ had been melted and poured into it."--_Prentice_. Monarchs sometimes prefer _we_ to _I_, in immediate connexion with a singular noun; as, "_We Alexander_, Autocrat of all the Russias."--"_We the Emperor_ of China,"

&c.--_Economy of Human Life_, p. vi. They also employ the anomalous compound _ourself_, which is not often used by other people; as, "Witness _ourself_ at Westminster, 28 day of April, in the tenth year of _our_ reign. CHARLES."

"_Caes._ What touches _us ourself_, shall be last serv'd."

--_Shak., J. C._, Act iii, Sc. 1.

"_Ourself_ to h.o.a.ry Nestor will repair."

--_Pope, Iliad_, B. x, l. 65.

OBS. 3.--The p.r.o.noun _you_, though originally and properly plural, is now generally applied alike to one person or to more. Several observations upon this fashionable subst.i.tution of the plural number for the singular, will be found in the fifth and sixth chapters of Etymology. This usage, however it may seem to involve a solecism, is established by that authority against which the mere grammarian has scarcely a right to remonstrate. Alexander Murray, the schoolmaster, observes, "When language was plain and simple, the English always said _thou_, when speaking to a single person. But when an affected politeness, and a fondness for continental manners and customs began to take place, persons of rank and fashion said _you_ in stead of _thou_. The innovation gained ground, and custom gave sanction to the change, and stamped it with the authority of law."--_English Gram._, Third Edition, 1793, p. 107. This respectable grammarian acknowledged both _thou_ and _you_ to be of the second person singular. I do not, however, think it necessary or advisable to do this, or to enc.u.mber the conjugations, as some have done, by introducing the latter p.r.o.noun, and the corresponding form of the verb, as singular.[381] It is manifestly better to say, that the plural is used _for the singular_, by the figure _Enallage_. For if _you_ has literally become singular by virtue of this subst.i.tution, _we_ also is singular for the same reason, as often as it is subst.i.tuted for _I_; else the authority of innumerable authors, editors, compilers, and crowned, heads, is insufficient to make it so. And again, if _you_ and the corresponding form of the verb are _literally of the second person singular_, (as Wells contends, with an array of more than sixty names of English grammarians to prove it,) then, by their own rule of concord, since _thou_ and its verb are still generally retained in the same place by these grammarians, a verb that agrees with one of these nominatives, must also agree with the other; so that _you hast_ and _thou have, you seest_ and _thou see_, may be, so far as appears from _their_ instructions, as good a concord as can be made of these words!

OBS. 4.--The putting of you for thou has introduced the anomalous compound _yourself_, which is now very generally used in stead of _thyself_. In this instance, as in the less frequent adoption of _ourself_ for _myself_, Fashion so tramples upon the laws of grammar, that it is scarcely possible to frame an intelligible exception in her favour. These p.r.o.nouns are essentially singular, both in form and meaning; and yet they cannot be used with _I_ or _thou_, with _me_ or _thee_, or with any verb that is literally singular; as, "_I ourself am._" but, on the contrary, they must be connected only with such plural terms as are put for the singular; as, "_We ourself are_ king."--"Undoubtedly _you yourself become_ an innovator."--_L.

Murray's Gram._, p. 364; _Campbell's Rhet._, 167.

"Try touch, or sight, or smell; try what you will, _You_ strangely _find_ nought but _yourself_ alone."

--_Pollok, C. of T._, B. i, l. 162.

OBS. 5.--Such terms of address, as _your Majesty, your Highness, your Lordship, your Honour_, are sometimes followed by verbs and p.r.o.nouns of the second person plural, subst.i.tuted for the singular; and sometimes by words literally singular, and of the third person, with no other figure than a subst.i.tution of _who_ for _which_: as, "Wherein _your Lordship, who shines_ with so much distinction in the n.o.blest a.s.sembly in the world, peculiarly _excels_"--_Dedication of Sale's Koran_. "We have good cause to give _your Highness_ the first place; _who_, by a continued series of favours _have obliged_ us, not only while _you moved_ in a lower orb, but since the Lord hath called _your Highness_ to supreme authority."--_Ma.s.sachusetts to Cromwell_, in 1654.

OBS. 6.--The general usage of the French is like that of the English, _you_ for _thou_; but Spanish, Portuguese, or German politeness requires that the third person be subst.i.tuted for the second. And when they would be very courteous, the Germans use also the plural for the singular, as _they_ for _thou_. Thus they have a fourfold method of addressing a person: as, _they_, denoting the highest degree of respect; _he_, a less degree; _you_, a degree still less; and _thou_, none at all, or absolute reproach. Yet, even among them, the last is used as a term of endearment to children, and of veneration to G.o.d! _Thou_, in English, still retains its place firmly, and without dispute, in all addresses to the Supreme Being; but in respect to the _first person_, an observant clergyman has suggested the following dilemma: "Some men will be pained, if a minister says _we_ in the pulpit; and others will quarrel with him, if he says _I_."--_Abbott's Young Christian_, p. 268.

OBS. 7.--Any extensive perversion of the common words of a language from their original and proper use, is doubtless a matter of considerable moment. These changes in the use of the p.r.o.nouns, being some of them evidently a sort of complimentary fictions, some religious people have made it a matter of conscience to abstain from them, and have published their reasons for so doing. But the _moral objections_ which may lie against such or any other applications of words, do not come within the grammarian's province. Let every one consider for himself the moral bearing of what he utters: not forgetting the text, "But I say unto you, that _every idle word_ that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement: for _by thy words_ thou shalt be justified, and _by thy words_ thou shalt be condemned."--_Matt._, xii, 36 and 37. What scruples this declaration _ought to_ raise, it is not my business to define. But if such be G.o.d's law, what shall be the reckoning of those who make no conscience of uttering continually, or when they will, not idle words only, but expressions the most absurd, insignificant, false, exaggerated, vulgar, indecent, injurious, wicked, sophistical, unprincipled, ungentle, and perhaps blasphemous, or profane?

OBS. 8.--The agreement of p.r.o.nouns with their antecedents, it is necessary to observe, is liable to be controlled or affected by several of the figures of rhetoric. A noun used figuratively often suggests two different senses, the one literal, and the other tropical; and the agreement of the p.r.o.noun must be sometimes with this, and sometimes with that, according to the nature of the trope. If the reader be unacquainted with tropes and figures, he should turn to the explanation of them in Part Fourth of this work; but almost every one knows something about them, and such as must here be named, will perhaps be made sufficiently intelligible by the examples. There seems to be no occasion to introduce under this head more than four; namely, personification, metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche.

OBS. 9.--When a p.r.o.noun represents the name of an inanimate object _personified_, it agrees with its antecedent in the figurative, and not in the literal sense; as, "There were others whose crime it was rather to neglect _Reason_ than to disobey _her_."--_Dr. Johnson_. "_Penance_ dreams her life away."--_Rogers_. "Grim _Darkness_ furls _his_ leaden shroud."--_Id._ Here if the p.r.o.noun were made neuter, the personification would be destroyed; as, "By the progress which _England_ had already made in navigation and commerce, _it_ was now prepared for advancing farther."--_Robertson's America_, Vol. ii, p. 341. If the p.r.o.noun _it_ was here intended to represent England, the feminine _she_ would have been much better; and, if such was not the author's meaning, the sentence has some worse fault than the agreement of a p.r.o.noun with its noun in a wrong sense.

OBS. 10.--When the antecedent is applied _metaphorically_, the p.r.o.noun usually agrees with it in its literal, and not in its figurative sense; as, "Pitt was the _pillar which_ upheld the state."--"The _monarch_ of mountains rears _his_ snowy head."--"The _stone which_ the builders rejected."--_Matt._, xxi, 42. According to this rule, _which_ would be better than _whom_, in the following text: "I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them an other _little horn_, before _whom_ there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots."--_Daniel_, vii, 8. In _Rom._, ix, 33, there is something similar: "Behold, I lay in Sion a _stumbling-stone_ and _rock_ of offence: and whosoever believeth _on him_ shall not be ashamed." Here the _stone_ or _rock_ is a metaphor for _Christ_, and the p.r.o.noun _him_ may be referred to the sixth exception above; but the construction is not agreeable, because it is not regular: it would be more grammatical, to change _on him_ to _thereon_. In the following example, the noun "_wolves_," which literally requires _which_, and not _who_, is used metaphorically for _selfish priests_; and, in the relative, the figurative or personal sense is allowed to prevail:

"_Wolves_ shall succeed for teachers, grievous _wolves_, _Who_ all the sacred mysteries of Heaven To their own vile advantages shall turn."

--_Milton, P. L._, B. xii, l. 508.

This seems to me somewhat forced and catachrestical. So too, and worse, the following; which makes a _star_ rise and _speak_:

"So _spake_ our _Morning Star_ then in _his rise_, And _looking_ round on every side _beheld_ A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades."

--_Id., P. R._, B. i, l. 294.

OBS. 11.--When the antecedent is put by _metonymy_ for a noun of different properties, the p.r.o.noun sometimes agrees with it in the figurative, and sometimes in the literal sense; as, "When _Israel_ was a child, then I loved _him_, and called my son out of Egypt. As they called _them_, so _they_ went from them: [i. e., When Moses and the prophets called the _Israelites_, they often refused to hear:] _they_ sacrificed unto Baalim, and burnt incense to graven images. I taught _Ephraim_ also to go, taking _them_ by _their_ arms; but _they_ knew not that I healed _them_."--_Hosea_, xi, 1, 2, 3. The mixture and obscurity which are here, ought not to be imitated. The name of a man, put for the nation or tribe of his descendants, may have a p.r.o.noun of either number, and a nation may be figuratively represented as feminine; but a mingling of different genders or numbers ought to be avoided: as, "_Moab_ is spoiled, and gone up out of _her_ cities, and _his_ chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter."--_Jeremiah_, xlviii, 15.

"The wolf, who [say _that_] from the nightly fold, Fierce drags the bleating _prey_, ne'er drunk _her_ milk, Nor wore _her_ warming fleece."--_Thomson's Seasons_.

"That each may fill the circle mark'd by _Heaven_, _Who_ sees with equal eye, as G.o.d of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall."--_Pope's Essay on Man_.

"And _heaven_ behold _its_ image in his breast."--_Ib._

"Such fate to suffering _worth_ is given, _Who_ long with wants and woes has striven."--_Burns_.

OBS. 12.--When the antecedent is put by _synecdoche_ for more or less than it literally signifies, the p.r.o.noun agrees with it in the figurative, and not in the literal sense; as,

"A dauntless _soul_ erect, _who_ smiled on death."--_Thomson_

"But to the generous still improving _mind_, _That_ gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy, To _him_ the long review of ordered life Is inward rapture only to be felt."--_Id. Seasons_.

OBS. 13.--p.r.o.nouns usually _follow_ the words which they represent; but this order is sometimes reversed: as, "_Whom_ the cap fits, let _him_ put it on."--"Hark! _they_ whisper; angels say," &c.--_Pope_. "_Thou, O Lord_, art a G.o.d full of compa.s.sion."--_Old Test_. And in some cases of apposition, the p.r.o.noun naturally comes first; as, "_I Tertius_"--"_Ye lawyers_." The p.r.o.noun _it_, likewise, very often precedes the clause or phrase which it represents; as, "Is _it_ not manifest, that the generality of people speak and write very badly?"--_Campbell's Rhet._, p. 160; _Murray's Gram._, i, 358. This arrangement is too natural to be called a transposition. The most common form of the real inversion is that of the antecedent and relative in poetry; as,

"_Who_ stops to plunder at this signal hour, The birds shall tear _him_, and the dogs devour."