The Grammar of English Grammars Part 96

RULE XVI.--FINITE VERBS.

When a Verb has two or more nominatives connected by _and_, it must agree with them jointly in the plural, because they are taken together.

RULE XVII.--FINITE VERBS.

When a Verb has two or more nominatives connected by _or_ or _nor_, it must agree with them singly, and not as if taken together.

RULE XVIII.--INFINITIVES.

The Infinitive Mood is governed in general by the preposition TO, which commonly connects it to a finite verb.

RULE XIX.--INFINITIVES.

The active verbs, _bid, dare, feel, hear, let, make, need, see_, and their participles, usually take the Infinitive after them without the preposition TO.

RULE XX.--PARTICIPLES.

Participles relate to nouns or p.r.o.nouns, or else are governed by prepositions.

RULE XXI.--ADVERBS.

Adverbs relate to verbs, participles, adjectives, or other adverbs.

RULE XXII.--CONJUNCTIONS.

Conjunctions connect words, sentences, or parts of sentences.

RULE XXIII.--PREPOSITIONS.

Prepositions show the relations of words, and of the things or thoughts expressed by them.

RULE XXIV.--INTERJECTIONS.

Interjections have no dependent construction; they are put absolute, either alone, or with other words.

GENERAL OR CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS ON SYNTAX.

OBS. 1.--An explanation of the relation, agreement, government, and arrangement, of words in sentences, const.i.tutes that part of grammar which we call _Syntax_. But many grammarians, representing this branch of their subject as consisting of two parts only, "_concord_ and _government_" say little or nothing of the _relation_ and _arrangement_ of words, except as these are involved in the others. The four things are essentially different in their nature, as may be seen by the definitions given above, yet not so distinct in practice that they can well be made the basis of any perfect division of the rules of syntax. I have therefore, on this occasion, preferred the order of the parts of speech; each of which will form a chapter in the Syntax of this work, as each forms a chapter in the Etymology.

OBS. 2.--_Agreement_ and _concord_ are one and the same thing. _Relation_ and _agreement_, though different, may yet coincide, and be taken together.

The latter is moreover naturally allied to the former. Seven of the ten parts of speech are, with a few exceptions, incapable of any agreement; of these the _relation_ and _use_ must be explained in parsing; and all _requisite agreement_ between any of the rest, is confined to words that _relate_ to each other. For one word may _relate_ to an other and not _agree_ with it; but there is never any _necessary agreement_ between words that have not a _relation_ one to the other, or a connexion according to the sense. Any similarity happening between unconnected words, is no syntactical concord, though it may rank the terms in the same cla.s.s etymologically.

OBS. 3.--From these observations it may be seen, that the most important and most comprehensive principle of English syntax, is the simple _Relation_ of words, according to the sense. To this head alone, ought to be referred all the rules of construction by which our articles, our nominatives, our adjectives, our participles, our adverbs, our conjunctions, our prepositions, and our interjections, are to be pa.r.s.ed. To the ordinary syntactical use of any of these, no rules of concord, government, or position, can at all apply. Yet so defective and erroneous are the schemes of syntax which are commonly found in our English grammars, that _no rules_ of simple relation, none by which any of the above-named parts of speech can be consistently pa.r.s.ed, are in general to be found in them. If there are any exceptions to this censure, they are very few, and in treatises still marked with glaring defects in regard to the syntax of some of these parts of speech.

OBS. 4.--Grammarians, of course, do not utter falsehoods intentionally; but it is lamentable to see how often they pervert doctrine by untruths uttered ignorantly. It is the design of this pandect, to make every one who reads it, an intelligent judge of the _perversions_, as well as of the true doctrines, of English grammar. The following citations will show him the scope and parts which have commonly been a.s.signed to our syntax: "The construction of sentences depends princ.i.p.ally upon the _concord_ or _agreement_, and the _regimen_ or _government_, of words."--_Lowth's Gram._, p. 68; _Churchill's_, 120. "Words in sentences have a _twofold relation_ to one another; namely, that of _Concord_ or Agreement; and that of _Government_ or Influence."--_Dr. Adam's Latin and English Grammar_, p.

151. "The third part of Grammar is SYNTAX, which treats of the _agreement and construction_ of words in a sentence."--_E. G. Greene's Grammatical Text-Book_, p. 15. "Syntax princ.i.p.ally consists of two parts, _Concord_ and _Government_."--_Murray's Gram._, p. 142; _Ingersoll's_, 170; _Alger's_, 51; _R. C. Smith's_, 119; and many others. "Syntax consists of two parts, _Concord_ and _Government_."--_Kirkham's Gram._, p. 175; _Wright's_, 124.

"The Rules of Syntax may all be included under three heads, _Concord, Government_, and _Position_."--_Bullions's E. Gram._, p. 87. "_Position_ means the _place_ which a word occupies in a sentence."--_Ib._ "These rules may be mostly ranked under the two heads of _agreement_ and _government_; the remainder may be termed _miscellaneous_."--_Nutting's Gram._, p. 92.

"Syntax treats of the agreement, government and proper arrangement of words in _a sentence_."--_Frost's El. of Gram._, p. 43. This last-named author, in touching the text of my books, has often _corrupted_ it, as he does here; but my definitions of _the tenses_ he copied without marring them much. The borrowing occurred as early as 1828, and I add this notice now, lest any should suppose _me_ the plagiarist.

OBS. 5.--Most of our English grammars have _more_ rules of syntax than are needed, and yet are very deficient in _such_ as are needed. To say, as some do, that articles, adjectives, and participles, _agree_ with nouns, is to teach Greek or Latin syntax, and not English. To throw, as Nutting does, the whole syntax of adverbs into a remark on _such a rule of agreement_, is to choose disorder for its own sake. To say, with Frost, Hall, Smith, Perley, Kirkham, Sanborn, Rand, and others, "The nominative case _governs_ the verb in number and person," and again, "A verb must _agree_ with its nominative case in number and person," is to confound the meaning of _government_ and _agreement_, to say the same thing in different words, and to leave the subject of a verb still without a rule: for rules of government are applicable only to the words governed, and nothing ever agrees with that which governs it.[325] To say, with Murray and others, "Participles have the same government as the verbs from which they are derived," is to say nothing by which either verbs or participles may be pa.r.s.ed, or any of their errors corrected: those many grammarians, therefore, who make this their only rule for participles, leave them all without any syntax. To say, with Murray, Alger, and others, "Adverbs, _though they have no government of case, tense, &c._, require an appropriate _situation_ in the sentence," is to squander words at random, and leave the important question unanswered, "To what do adverbs relate?"

To say again, with the same gentlemen, "Conjunctions connect _the same moods and tenses of verbs, and cases_ of nouns and p.r.o.nouns," is to put an ungrammatical, obscure, and useless a.s.sertion, in the place of an important rule. To say merely, "Prepositions govern the objective case," is to rest all the syntax of prepositions on a rule that never applies to them, but which is meant only for one of the constructions of the objective case. To say, as many do, "Interjections _require_ the objective case of a p.r.o.noun of the first person after them, and the nominative case of the second," is to tell what is utterly false as the words stand, and by no means true in the sense which the authors intend. Finally, to suppose, with Murray, that, "the Interjection _does not require a distinct, appropriate rule_," is in admirable keeping with all the foregoing quotations, and especially with his notion of what it _does_ require; namely, "the _objective case_ of the first person:" but who dares deny that the following exclamation is good English?

"_O_ wretched _we!_ why were we hurried down This lubric and adulterate age!"--_Dryden_.

OBS. 6.--The _truth_ of any doctrine in science, can be nothing else than its conformity to facts, or to the nature of things; and chiefly by what he knows of the things themselves, must any one judge of what others say concerning them. Erroneous or inadequate views, confused or inconsistent statements, are the peculiar property of those who advance them; they have, in reality, no relationship to science itself, because they originate in ignorance; but all science is knowledge--it is knowledge methodized. What general rules are requisite for the syntactical parsing of the several parts of speech in English, may be seen at once by any one who will consider for a moment the usual construction of each. The correction of false syntax, in its various forms, will require more--yes, five times as many; but such of these as answer only the latter purpose, are, I think, better reserved for notes under the princ.i.p.al rules. The doctrines which I conceive most worthy to form the leading canons of our syntax, are those which are expressed in the twenty-four rules above. If other authors prefer more, or fewer, or different principles for their chief rules, I must suppose, it is because they have studied the subject less. Biased, as we may be, both by our knowledge and by our ignorance, it is easy for men to differ respecting matters of _expediency_; but that clearness, order, and consistency, are both _expedient_, and _requisite_, in didactic compositions, is what none can doubt.

OBS. 7.--Those English grammarians who tell us, as above, that syntax is divided into _parts_, or included under a certain number of _heads_, have almost universally contradicted themselves by treating the subject without any regard to such a division; and, at the same time, not a few have somehow been led into the gross error of supposing broad principles of concord or government where no such things exist. For example, they have invented general RULES like these: "The adjective _agrees_ with its noun in number, case, and gender."--_Bingham's English Gram._, p. 40.

"Interjections _govern_ the nominative case, and sometimes the objective: as, '_O thou! alas me!_'"--_Ib._, p. 43. "Adjectives _agree_ with their nouns in number."--_Wilbur and Livingston's Gram._, p. 22. "Participles _agree_ with their nouns in number."--_Ib._, p. 23. "Every adjective _agrees in number_ with some substantive expressed or understood."-- _Hiley's Gram._, Rule 8th, p. 77. "The article THE _agrees_ with nouns in either number: as, _The wood, the woods_."--_Bucke's Cla.s.sical Grammar of the English Language_, p. 84. "O! oh! ah! _require_ the accusative case of a p.r.o.noun in the first person after them: as '_Ah me!_' But when the second person is used, _it requires_ a nominative case: as, '_O thou!_'"--_Ib._, p. 87. "Two or more Nominatives in the singular number, connected by the Conjunction _or, nor_, EITHER, NEITHER, _govern_ a singular Verb. But p.r.o.nouns singular, of different persons, joined by _or_, EITHER, _nor_, NEITHER, _govern_ a plural Verb."--_Ib._, p. 94. "One Nominative frequently _governs_ many Verbs."--_Ib._, p. 95. "Participles are sometimes _governed_ by the article."--_Murray's Gram._, 8vo, p. 192. "An adverb, an adjective, or a participle, may involve in itself the force of _a preposition, and govern_ the objective case."--_Nutting's Gram._, p. 99. "The nominative case _governs_ the verb." [326]--_Greenleaf's Gram._, p. 32; _Kirkham's_, 176; and others. "The nominative case _comes before_ the verb."--_Bingham's Gram._, p. 38; _Wilbur and Livingston's_, 23. "The Verb TO BE, _always governs_ a Nominative, _unless it be_ of the Infinitive Mood."--_Buchanan's Syntax_, p. 94. "A verb in the infinitive mood _may be governed_ by a verb, noun, adjective, participle, or p.r.o.noun."--_Kirkham's Gram._, p. 187. Or, (as a subst.i.tute for the foregoing rule,) say, according to this author: "A verb in the infinitive mood, _refers_ to some noun or p.r.o.noun, as its subject or actor."--_Ib._, p. 188. Now what does he know of English grammar, who supposes any of these rules to be worthy of the place which they hold, or have held, in the halls of instruction?

OBS. 8.--It is a very common fault with the compilers of English grammars, to join together in the same rule the syntax of different parts of speech, uniting laws that must ever be applied separately in parsing. For example: "RULE XI. Articles and adjectives _relate to nouns_ expressed or understood; and the adjectives _this, that, one, two_, must agree in number with the nouns to which they relate."--_Comly's Gram._, p. 87. Now, in parsing an _article_, why should the learner have to tell all this story about _adjectives_? Such a mode of expressing the rule, is certainly in bad taste; and, after all, the syntax of adjectives is not here comprised, for they often relate to p.r.o.nouns. "RULE III. Every adjective and participle _belongs_ to some noun or p.r.o.noun expressed or understood."--_Frost's El.

of Gram._, p. 44. Here a compiler who in his etymology supposes participles to be _verbs_, allows them no other construction than that of _adjectives_.

His rule implicitly denies that they can either be parts of their verbs in the formation of _tenses_, or be governed by prepositions in the character of _gerunds_. To suppose that a _noun_ may govern the objective case, is both absurd in itself, and contrary to all authority; yet, among his forty-nine rules, this author has the following: "RULE XXV. A participial _noun_ is sometimes governed by a preposition, and _may govern an objective case_; as, 'George is too fond of _wasting time_ in trifles.'"--_Frost's El. of Gram._, p. 47. Here again is the fault of which I am speaking, two rules in one; and this fault is combined with an other still worse.

_Wasting_ is a participle, governed by _of_; and _time_ is a _noun_, governed by _wasting_. The latter is a declinable word, and found in the objective case; the former is indeclinable, and found in no case. It is an error to suppose that cases are the only things which are susceptible of being governed; nor is the brief rule, "Prepositions govern the objective case," so very clear a maxim as never to be misapprehended. If the learner infer from it, that _all_ prepositions must necessarily govern the objective case, or that the objective case _is always_ governed by a preposition, he will be led into a great mistake.

OBS. 9.--This error of crowding things together, is still more conspicuous in the following examples: "RULE IV. Every article, adjective, and participle, _must qualify_ some noun, or p.r.o.noun, either expressed or understood."--_Nutting's Gram._, p. 94. "RULE IX. The objective case is governed by a transitive verb or a preposition, usually coming before it."--_Ib._, p. 98. Here an author who separates participles from verbs, has attempted first to compress the entire syntax of three different parts of speech into one short rule; and, secondly, to embrace all the forms of dependence, incident to objective nouns and p.r.o.nouns, in an other as short.

This brevity is a poor exchange for the order and distribution which it prevents--especially as none of its objects are here reached. Articles do not relate to p.r.o.nouns, unless the obsolete phrase _the which_ is to be revived;[327] participles have other constructions than those which adjectives admit; there are exceptions to the rules which tie articles to nouns, and adjectives to nouns or p.r.o.nouns; and the objective case may not only be governed by a participle, but may be put in apposition with an other objective. The objective case in English usually stands for the Latin genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative; hence any rule that shall embrace the whole construction of this one case, will be the sole counterpart to four fifths of all the rules in any code of Latin syntax.

For I imagine the construction of these four oblique cases, will be found to occupy at least that proportion of the syntactical rules and notes in any Latin grammar that can be found. Such rules, however, are often placed under false or equivocal t.i.tles;[328] as if they contained the construction of the _governing_ words, rather than that of the _governed_. And this latter error, again, has been transferred to most of our English grammars, to the exclusion of any rule for the proper construction of participles, of adverbs, of conjunctions, of prepositions, or of interjections. See the syntax of Murray and his copyists, whose treatment of these parts of speech is noticed in the fifth observation above.

OBS. 10.--It is doubtless most convenient, that, in all rules for the construction of _cases_, nouns and p.r.o.nouns be taken together; because the very same doctrines apply equally well to both, and a case is as distinct a thing in the mind, as a part of speech. This method, therefore, I have myself pursued; and it has indeed the authority of all grammarians--not excepting those who violate its principles by adopting two special rules for the relative p.r.o.noun, which are not needed. These special rules, which I shall notice again hereafter, may be seen in Murray's Rule 6th, which is double, and contains them both. The most complex rule that I have admitted, is that which embraces the government of objectives by verbs and participles. The regimen by verbs, and the regimen by participles, may not improperly be reckoned distinct principles; but the near alliance of participles to their verbs, seems to be a sufficient reason for preferring one rule to two, in this instance.

OBS. 11.--An other common fault in the treatment of this part of grammar, is the practice of making many of the rules _double_, or even _triple_, in their form. Of L. Murray's twenty-two rules, for instance, there are six which severally consist of two distinct paragraphs; and one is composed of three such parts, with examples under each. Five others, though simple in their form, are complex in their doctrine, and liable to the objections which have been urged above against this characteristic. These twelve, therefore, I either reject entirely from my catalogue, or divide and simplify to fit them for their purpose. In short, by comparing the twenty-two rules which were adopted by this popular grammarian, with the twenty-four which are given in this work, the reader may see, that twelve of the former have pleased me too little to have any place at all among the latter, and that none of the remaining ten have been thought worthy to be copied without considerable alteration. Nor are the rules which I adopt, more nearly coincident with those of any other writer. I do not proffer to the schools the second-hand instructions of a mere compiler. In his twenty-two rules, independently of their examples, Hurray has used six hundred and seventeen words, thus giving an average of twenty-eight to each rule; whereas in the twenty-four rules which are presented above, the words are but four hundred and thirty-six, making the average less than nineteen.

And yet I have not only divided some of his propositions and extended others, but, by rejecting what was useless or erroneous, and filling up the deficiencies which mark his code, I have delivered twice the amount of doctrine in two thirds of the s.p.a.ce, and furnished eleven important rules which are not contained in his grammar. Thus much, in this place, to those who so frequently ask, "Wherein does your book differ from Murray's?"

OBS. 12.--Of all the systems of syntax, or of grammar, which it has been my fortune to examine, a book which was first published by Robinson and Franklin of New York in 1839, a fair-looking duodecimo volume of 384 pages, under the brief but rather ostentatious t.i.tle, "THE GRAMMAR _of the English Language_" is, I think, the most faulty,--the most remarkable for the magnitude, mult.i.tude, and variety, of its strange errors, inconsistencies, and defects. This singular performance is the work of _Oliver B. Peirce_, an itinerant lecturer on grammar, who dates his preface at "Rome, N. Y., December 29th, 1838." Its leading characteristic is boastful innovation; it being fall of acknowledged "contempt for the works of other writers."--P.

379. It lays "claim to _singularity_" as a merit, and boasts of a new thing under the sun--"in a theory RADICALLY NEW, a Grammar of the English Language; something which I believe," says the author, "has NEVER BEFORE BEEN FOUND."--P. 9. The old scholastic notion, that because Custom is the arbitress of speech, novelty is excluded from grammar, this hopeful reformer thoroughly condemns; "repudiating this sentiment to the full extent of it," (_ib._) and "writing his theory as though he had never seen a book, ent.i.tled an English Grammar."--_Ib._ And, for all the ends of good learning, it would have been as well or better, if he never had. His pa.s.sion for novelty has led him not only to abandon or misapply, in an unprecedented degree, the usual terms of the art, but to disregard in many instances its most unquestionable principles, universal as well as particular. His parts of speech are the following ten: "Names, Subst.i.tutes, _a.s.serters_, Adnames, Modifiers, Relatives, Connectives, Interrogatives, Repliers, and Exclamations."--_The Gram._, p. 20. His _names_ are nouns; his _subst.i.tutes_ are p.r.o.nouns, and any adjectives whose nouns are not expressed; his _a.s.serters_ are verbs and participles, though the latter a.s.sert nothing; his _adnames_ are articles, adjectives whose nouns or p.r.o.nouns are expressed, and adverbs that relate to adjectives; his _modifiers_ are such adverbs as "modify the sense or sound of a whole sentence;" his _relatives_ are prepositions, some of which _govern no object_; his _connectives_ are conjunctions, with certain adverbs and phrases; his _interrogatives_ and _repliers_ are new parts of speech, very lamely explained; his _exclamations_ are interjections, and "_phrases used independently_; as, O hapless choice!"--_The Gram._, p. 22. In parsing, he finds a world of "_accommodatives_;" as, "John is _more than five years_ older than William."--_Ib._ p. 202. Here he calls the whole phrase "_more than five years_" "a secondary _adname_" i. e., _adjective_. But, in the phrase, "_more than five years_ afterwards," he would call the same words "a secondary _modifier_;" i. e., _adverb_.--_Ib._, p. 203. And, in the phrase, "_more than five years_ before the war," he would call them "a secondary _relative_;" i. e., _preposition_.--_Ib._, p. 204. And so of other phrases innumerable. His cases are five, two of which are new, "the _Independent_" and "the _Twofold_ case." His "_independent_ case" is sometimes the nominative in form, as "_thou_" and "_she_;" (p. 62;) sometimes the objective, as, "_me_" and "_him_;" (p. 62 and p. 199;) sometimes erroneously supposed to be the subject of a finite verb; while _his nominative_ is sometimes as erroneously said to have _no_ verb. His code of syntax has two sorts of rules, a.n.a.lytical and Synthetical. The former are professedly seventeen in number; but, many of them consisting of two, three, or four distinct parts, their real number is more properly thirty-four. The latter are reckoned forty-five; but if we count their separate parts, they are fifty-six: and these with the others make _ninety_. I shall not particularize their faults. All of them are whimsically conceived and badly written. In short, had the author artfully designed to turn English grammar into a subject of contempt and ridicule, by as ugly a caricature of it as he could possibly invent, he could never have hit the mark more exactly than he has done in this "_new theory_"--this rash production, on which he so sincerely prides himself.

Alone as he is, in well-nigh all his opinions, behold how prettily he talks of "COMMON SENSE, the only sure foundation of any theory!" and says, "On this imperishable foundation--this rock of eternal endurance--I rear my superstructure, _the edifice of scientific truth_, the temple of Grammatical consistency!"--_Peirce's Preface_, p. 7.

OBS. 13.--For the teaching of different languages, it has been thought very desirable to have "a Series of grammars, Greek, Latin, English, &c., all, so far as general principles are concerned, upon the same plan, and as nearly in the same words as the genius of the languages would permit."--See _Bullions's Principles of E. Gram._, 2d Ed., pp. iv and vi. This scheme necessarily demands a minute comparison not only of the several languages themselves, but also of the various grammars in which their principles, whether general or particular, are developed. For by no other means can it be ascertained to what extent uniformity of this kind will be either profitable to the learner, or consistent with truth. Some books have been published, which, it is pretended, are thus accommodated to one an other, and to the languages of which they treat. But, in view of the fact, that the Latin or the Greek grammars now extant, (to say nothing of the French, Spanish, and others,) are almost as various and as faulty as the English, I am apprehensive that this is a desideratum not soon to be realized,--a design more plausible in the prospectus, than feasible in the attempt. At any rate, the grammars of different languages must needs differ as much as do the languages themselves, otherwise some of their principles will of course be false; and we have already seen that the non.o.bservance of this has been a fruitful source of error in respect to English syntax. The achievement, however, is not altogether impossible, if a man of competent learning will devote to it a sufficient degree of labour. But the mere revising or altering of some one grammar in each language, can scarcely amount to any thing more than a pretence of improvement. Waiving the pettiness of compiling upon the basis of an other man's compilation, the foundation of a good grammar for any language, must be both deeper and broader than all the works which Professor Bullions has selected to build upon: for the Greek, than Dr. Moor's "_Elementa Linguae, Graecae_;" for the Latin, than Dr. Adam's "_Rudiments of Latin and English Grammar_;" for the English, than Murray's "_English Grammar_," or Lennie's "_Principles of English Grammar_;" which last work, in fact, the learned gentleman preferred, though he pretends to have mended the code of Murray. But, certainly, Lennie never supposed himself a copyist of Murray; nor was he to much extent an imitator of him, either in method or in style.

OBS. 14.--We have, then, in this new American form of "_The Principles of English Grammar_," Lennie's very compact little book, altered, enlarged, and bearing on its t.i.tle-page (which is otherwise in the very words of Lennie) an other author's name, and, in its early editions, the false and self-accusing inscription, "(ON THE PLAN OF MURRAY'S GRAMMAR.)" And this work, claiming to have been approved "by the most competent judges," now challenges the praise not only of being "better adapted to the use of academies and schools _than any yet published_" but of so presenting "_the rules and principles of general grammar_, as that they may apply to, and be in perfect harmony with, _the grammars of the dead languages_"-- _Recommendations_, p. iv. These are admirable professions for a critical author to publish; especially, as every rule or principle of General Grammar, condemning as it must whoever violates it, cannot but "be in _perfect harmony_ with" every thing that is true. In this model for all grammars, Latin, Greek, &c., the doctrines of punctuation, of abbreviations, and of capital letters, and also sections on the rhetorical divisions of a discourse, the different kinds of composition, the different kinds of prose composition, and the different kinds of poetry, are made _parts of the Syntax_; while his hints for correct and elegant writing, and his section on the composition of letters and themes, which other writers suppose to belong rather to syntax, are here subjoined as _parts of Prosody_. In the exercises for parsing appended to his _Etymology_, the Doctor furnishes _twenty-five Rules of Syntax_, which, he says, "are not intended to be committed to memory, but to be used as directions to the beginner in parsing the exercises under them."--_E. Gram._, p. 75. Then, for his syntax proper, he copies from Lennie, with some alterations, _thirty-four other rules_, nine of which are double, and all are jumbled together by both authors, without any regard to the distinction of concord and government, so common in the grammars of the dead languages, and even, so far as I can discover, without any principle of arrangement whatever.

They profess indeed to have placed those rules first, which are eaisest [sic--KTH] to learn, and oftenest to be applied; but the syntax of _articles_, which even on this principle should have formed the first of the series, is placed by Lennie as the thirty-fourth rule, and by his amender as the thirty-second. To all this complexity the latter adds _twenty-two Special Rules_, with an abundance of "_Notes_" "_Observations_"

and "_Remarks_" distinguished by these t.i.tles, on some principle which no one but the author can understand. Lastly, his _method of syntactical parsing_ is not only mixed up with etymological questions and answers, but his _directions_ for it, with their _exemplification_, are perplexingly at variance with his own _specimen_ of the performance. See his book, pages 131 and 133. So much for this grand scheme.

OBS. 15.--Strictures like the foregoing, did they not involve the defence of grammar itself, so as to bear upon interests more important than the success or failure of an elementary book, might well be withheld through motives of charity, economy, and peace. There is many a grammar now extant, concerning which a truly critical reader may know more at first sight, than ever did he that made it. What such a reader will be inclined to rate beneath criticism, an other perhaps will confidently p.r.o.nounce above it. If my remarks are just, let the one approve them for the other's sake. For what becomes of the teaching of grammar, when that which is received as the most excellent method, must be exempted from censure by reason of its utter worthlessness? And what becomes of Universal Syntax, when the imperfect systems of the Latin and Greek grammars, in stead of being amended, are modelled to the grossest faults of what is worthless in our own?[329]

OBS. 16.--What arrangement of Latin or Greek syntax may be best in itself, I am not now concerned to show. Lily did not divide his, as others have divided the subject since; but first stated briefly his _three concords_, and then proceeded to what he called _the construction_ of the several parts of speech, taking them in their order. The three concords of Lily are the following: (1.) Of the _Nominative and Verb_; to which the accusative before an infinitive, and the collective noun with a plural verb, are reckoned exceptions; while the agreement of a verb or p.r.o.noun with two or more nouns, is referred to the figure _syllepsis_. (2.) Of the _Substantive and Adjective_; under which the agreement of participles, and of some p.r.o.nouns, is placed in the form of a note. (3.) Of the _Relative and Antecedent_; after which the two special rules for the _cases_ of relatives are given as underparts. Dr. Adam divided his syntax into two parts; of Simple Sentences, and of Compound Sentences. His three concords are the following: (1.) Of one _Substantive with an Other_; which construction is placed by Lily and many others among the figures of syntax, and is called _apposition_. (2.) Of an _Adjective with a Substantive_; under which principle, we are told to take adjective p.r.o.nouns and participles. (3.) Of a _Verb with a Nominative_; under which, the collective noun with a verb of either number, is noticed in an observation. The construction of relatives, of conjunctions, of comparatives, and of words put absolute, this author reserves for the second part of his syntax; and the agreement of plural verbs or p.r.o.nouns with joint nominatives or antecedents, which Ruddiman places in an observation on his _four concords_, is here absurdly reckoned a part of the construction of conjunctions. Various divisions and subdivisions of the Latin syntax, with special dispositions of some particular principles of it, may be seen in the elaborate grammars of Despauter, Prat, Ruddiman, Grant, and other writers. And here it may be proper to observe, that, the mixing of syntax with etymology, after the manner of Ingersoll, Kirkham, R. W. Green, R. C. Smith, Sanborn, Felton, Hazen, Parkhurst, Parker and Fox, Weld, and others, is a modern innovation, pernicious to both; either topic being sufficiently comprehensive, and sufficiently difficult, when they are treated separately; and each having, in some instances, employed the pens of able writers almost to the exclusion of the other.

OBS. 17.--The syntax of any language must needs conform to the peculiarities of its etymology, and also be consistent with itself; for all will expect better things of a scholar, than to lay down positions in one part of his grammar, that are irreconcilable with what he has stated in an other. The English language, having few inflections, has also few concords or agreements, and still fewer governments. Articles, adjectives, and participles, which in many other languages agree with their nouns in gender, number, and case, have usually, in English, no modifications in which they _can agree_ with their nouns. Yet _Lowth_ says, "The adjective in English, having no variation of gender and number, _cannot but agree_ with the substantive in these respects."--_Short Introd. to Gram._, p. 86.