The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (read books for money TXT) 📖

Introduction." Dr. Lowth says, "The Saxon Ic hath the possessive case Min; Thu, possessive Thin; He, possessive His: From which our possessive cases of the same pronouns are taken without alteration."—Lowth's Gram., p. 23.

[208] Latham, with a singularity quite remarkable, reverses this doctrine in respect to the two classes, and says, "My, thy, our, your, her, and their signify possession, because they are possessive cases. * * * Mine, thine, ours, yours, hers, theirs, signify possession for a different reason. They partake of the nature of adjectives, and in all the allied languages are declined as such."—Latham's Elementary E. Gram., p. 94. Weld, like Wells, with a few more whose doctrine will be criticised by-and-by, adopting here an other odd opinion, takes the former class only for forms of the possessive case; the latter he disposes of thus: "Ours, yours, theirs, hers, and generally mine and thine, are POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS, used in either the nominative or objective case,"—Weld's Gram., Improved Ed., p. 68. Not only denying the possessives with ellipsis to be instances of the possessive case, but stupidly mistaking at once two dissimilar things for a third which is totally unlike to either,—i. e., assuming together for substitution both an ellipsis of one word and an equivalence to two—(as some others more learned have very strangely done—) he supposes all this class of pronouns to have forsaken every property of their legitimate roots,—their person, their number, their gender, their case,—and to have assumed other properties, such as belong to "the thing possessed!" In the example, "Your house is on the plain, ours is on the hill," he supposes ours to be of the third person, singular number, neuter gender, and nominative case; and not, as it plainly is, of the first person, plural number, masculine gender, and possessive case. Such parsing should condemn forever any book that teaches it.

[209] This word should have been numerals, for two or three reasons. The author speaks of the numeral adjectives; and to say "the numbers must agree in number with their substantives," is tautological—G. Brown.

[210] Cardell assails the common doctrine of the grammarians on this point, with similar assertions, and still more earnestness. See his Essay on Language, p. 80. The notion that "these pretended possessives [are] uniformly used as nominatives or objectives"—though demonstrably absurd, and confessedly repugnant to what is "usually considered" to be their true explanation—was adopted by Jaudon, in 1812; and has recently found several new advocates; among whom are Davis, Felch, Goodenow, Hazen, Smart, Weld, and Wells. There is, however, much diversity, as well as much inaccuracy, in their several expositions of the matter. Smart inserts in his declensions, as the only forms of the possessive case, the words of which he afterwards speaks thus: "The following possessive cases of the personal pronouns, (See page vii,) must be called PERSONAL PRONOUNS POSSESSIVE: mine, thine, his, hers, ours, yours, theirs. For these words are always used substantively, so as to include the meaning of some noun in the third person singular or plural, in the nominative or the objective ease. Thus, if we are speaking of books, and say [,] 'Mine are here,' mine means my books, [Fist] and it must be deemed a personal pronoun possessive in the third person plural, and nominative to the verb are."—Smart's Accidence, p. xxii. If to say, these "possessive cases must be called a class of pronouns, used substantively, and deemed nominatives or objectives," is not absurd, then nothing can be. Nor is any thing in grammar more certain, than that the pronoun "mine" can only be used by the speaker or writer, to denote himself or herself as the owner of something. It is therefore of the first person, singular number, masculine (or feminine) gender, and possessive case; being governed by the name of the thing or things possessed. This name is, of course, always known; and, if known and not expressed, it is "understood." For sometimes a word is repeated to the mind, and clearly understood, where "it cannot properly be" expressed; as, "And he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none."—Luke, xiii, 6. Wells opposes this doctrine, citing a passage from Webster, as above, and also imitating his argument. This author acknowledges three classes of pronouns—"personal, relative, and interrogative;" and then, excluding these words from their true place among personals of the possessive case, absurdly makes them a supernumerary class of possessive nominatives or objectives! "Mine, thine, his, ours, yours, and theirs, are POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS, used in construction either as nominatives or objectives; as, 'Your pleasures are past, mine are to come.' Here the word mine, which is used as a substitute for my pleasures, is the subject of the verb are."—Wells's School Gram., p. 71; 113 Ed., p. 78. Now the question to find the subject of the verb are, is, "My what are to come?" Ans. "pleasures." But the author proceeds to argue in a note thus: "Mine, thine, etc. are often parsed as pronouns in the possessive case, and governed by nouns understood. Thus, in the sentence, 'This book is mine,' the word mine is said to possess book. That the word book is not here understood, is obvious from the fact, that, when it is supplied, the phrase becomes not 'mine book,' but 'my book,' the pronoun being changed from mine to my; so that we are made, by this practice, to parse mine as possessing a word understood, before which it cannot properly be used. The word mine is here evidently employed as a substitute for the two words, my and book."—Wells, ibid. This note appears to me to be, in many respects, faulty. In the first place, its whole design was, to disprove what is true. For, bating the mere difference of person, the author's example above is equal to this: "Your pleasures are past, W. H. Wells's are to come." The ellipsis of "pleasures", is evident in both. But ellipsis is not substitution; no, nor is equivalence. Mine, when it suggests an ellipsis of the governing noun, is equivalent to my and that noun; but certainly, not "a substitute for the two words." It is a substitute, or pronoun, for the name of the speaker or writer; and so is my; both forms representing, and always agreeing with, that name or person only. No possessive agrees with what governs it; but every pronoun ought to agree with that for which it stands. Secondly, if the note above cited does not aver, in its first sentence, that the pronouns in question are "governed by nouns understood," it comes much nearer to saying this, than a writer should who meant to deny it. In the third place, the example, "This book is mine," is not a good one for its purpose. The word "mine" may be regularly parsed as a possessive, without supposing any ellipsis; for "book," the name of the thing possessed, is given, and in obvious connexion with it. And further, the matter affirmed is ownership, requiring different cases; and not the identity of something under different names, which must be put in the same case. In the fourth place, to mistake regimen for possession, and thence speak of one word "as possessing" an other, a mode of expression occurring twice in the foregoing note, is not only unscholarlike, but positively absurd. But, possibly, the author may have meant by it, to ridicule the choice phraseology of the following Rule: "A noun or pronoun in the possessive case, is governed by the noun it possesses."—Kirkham's Gram., p. 181; Frazee's, 1844, p. 25.

[211] In respect to the numbers, the following text is an uncouth exception: "Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir."—Micah, i, 11. The singular and the plural are here strangely confounded. Perhaps the reading should be, "Pass thou away, O inhabitant of Saphir." Nor is the Bible free from abrupt transitions from one number to the other, or from one person to an other, which are neither agreeable nor strictly grammatical; as, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which [who] are spiritual, restore such an [a] one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."—Gal., vi, 1. "Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches," &c—Amos, vi, 9.

[212] "The solemn style is used, chiefly, in the Bible and in prayer. The Society of Friends retain it in common parlance. It consists in using thou in the singular number, and ye in the plural, instead of using you in both numbers as in the familiar style. * * * The third person singular [of verbs] ends with th or eth, which affects only the present indicative, and hath of the perfect. The second person, singular, ends with st, est, or t only."—Sanborn's Gram., p. 58. "In [the] solemn and poetic styles, mine, thine, and thy, are used; and THIS is the style adopted by the Friends' society. In common discourse it appears very stiff and affected."—Bartlett's C. S. Man'l, Part II, p. 72.

[213] "And of the History of his being tost in a Blanket, he saith, 'Here, Scriblerus, thou lessest in what thou assertest concerning the blanket: it was not a blanket, but a rug.—Curlliad, p. 25."—Notes to Pope's Dunciad, B. ii, verse 3. A vulgar idea solemnly expressed, is ludicrous. Uttered in familiar terms, it is simply vulgar: as, "You lie, Scriblerus, in what you say about the blanket."

[214] "Notwithstanding these verbal mistakes, the Bible, for the size of it, is the most accurate grammatical composition that we have in the English language. The authority of several eminent grammarians might be adduced in support of this assertion, but it may be sufficient to mention only that of Dr. Lowth, who says, 'The present translation of the Bible, is the best standard of the English language.'"—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 166. I revere the Bible vastly too much to be pleased with an imitation of its peculiar style, in any man's ordinary speech or writing.—G. BROWN.

[215] "Ye, except in the solemn style, is obsolete; but it is used in the language of tragedy, to express contempt: as, 'When ye shall know what Margaret knows, ye may not be so thankful.' Franklin."—W. Allen's Gram., p. 57. "The second person plural had formerly YE both in the nominative and the objective. This form is now obsolete in the objective, and nearly obsolete in the nominative."—Hart's Gram., p. 55.

[216] So has Milton:—

   "To waste it all myself, and leave ye none!
    So disinherited how would you bless me!"—Par. Lost, B. x, l. 820.

[217] "The word what is a compound of two specifying adjectives, each, of course, referring to a noun, expressed or understood. It is equivalent to the which; that which; which that; or that that; used also in the plural. At different periods, and in different authors, it appears in the varying forms, tha qua, qua tha, qu'tha, quthat, quhat, hwat, and what. This word is found in other forms; but it is needless to multiply them."—Cardell's Essay on Language, p. 86.

[218] This author's distribution of the pronouns, of which I have taken some notice in Obs. 10th above, is remarkable for its inconsistencies and absurdities. First he avers, "Pronouns are generally divided into three kinds, the Personal, the Adjective, and the Relative pronouns. They are all known by the lists."—Kirkham's Gram., p. 96. These short sentences are far from being accurate, clear, or true. He should have made the several kinds known, by a good definition of each. But this was work to which he did not find himself adequate. And if we look to his lists for the particular words of each kind, we shall get little satisfaction. Of the Personal pronouns, he says, "There are five of them; I, thou, he, she, it."—Ib., p. 97. These are simple words, and in their declension they are properly multiplied to forty. (See Ib., p. 99.) Next he seems to double the number, thus: "When self is added to the personal pronouns, as himself, myself, itself, themselves, &c. they are called Compound Personal Pronouns."—Ib., p. 99. Then he asserts that mine, thine, his, hers, ours, yours, and theirs, are compounds of ne or s with mi, thi, hi, &c.: that their application invariably "gives them a compound character:" and that, "They may, therefore, be properly denominated Compound Personal Pronouns."—Ib., p. 101. Next he comes to his Adjective pronouns; and, after proving that he has grossly misplaced and misnamed every one of them, he gives his lists of the three kinds of these. His Relative pronouns are who, which, and that. "What is generally a compound relative."—Ib., p. 111. The compounds of who, which, and what, with ever or soever, he calls "compound pronouns, but not compound relatives."—Ib., pp. 110 and 112. Lastly he discovers, that, "Truth and simplicity" have been shamefully neglected in this his third section of