Part 80 (1/2)

OBSERVATIONS

OBS 1--Some have supposed that both the simple participles denote present _time_; some have supposed that the one denotes present, and the other, past time; some have supposed that the first denotes no time, and the second tiard to time; and soard to the distinction of _voice_, or the nification, some have supposed the one to be active, and the other to be passive; so_ to be active or neuter, and the other active or passive; and some have supposed that either of them may be active, passive, or neuter Nor is there any rammarians, in respect to the coiven to each of the participles: and sometiations, calls _being_, ”Active,”--and _been, having been, having had_, ”Passive” Learnedthe nature of words, but grammar can never well deserve the name of _science_, till at least an ordinary share of reason and knowledge appears in the language of those who teach it

OBS 2--The FIRST participle has been called the Present, the Progressive, the Imperfect, the Simple Imperfect, the Indefinite, the Active, the Present Active, the Present Passive, the Present Neuter, and, in the passive voice, the Preterimperfcct, the Compound Imperfect, the Coh it is always but _one word_, so _two participles_, or _three_, has been called the Perfect, the Preter, the Preterperfect, the Imperfect, the Simple Perfect, the Past, the Simple Past, the First Past, the Preterit, the Passive, the Present Passive, the Perfect Active, the Past Active, the Auxiliary Perfect, the Perfect Passive, the Perfect Neuter, the Simple Perfect Active, the Simple Perfect Passive The THIRD has been called the Compound, the Compound Active, the Compound Passive, the Compound Perfect, the Compound Perfect Active, the Compound Perfect Passive, the Compound Preter, the Present, the Present Perfect, the Past, the Second Past, the Past Compound, the Compound Past, the Prior-perfect, the Prior-present, the Perfect, the Pluperfect, the Preterperfect, the Preperfect[302]

In teaching others to speak and write well, it becomes us to express our doctrines in the reat consequence, so that the thing itself be rightly understood by the learner Graht in a style at once neat and plain, clear and brief Upon the choice of his terms, the writer of this work has bestowed much reflection; yet he finds it impossible either to please everybody, or to explain, without intolerable prolixity, all the reasons for preference

OBS 3--The participle in _ing_ represents the action or state as _continuing_ and ever _incohtly termed the IMPERFECT participle: whereas the participle in _ed_ always, or at least usually, has reference to the action as _done_ and _complete_; and is, by proper contradistinction, called the PERFECT participle It is hardly necessary to add, that the terlish participles, have no reference to _time_, or to those _tenses_ of the verb which are usually (but not very accurately) named by these epithets The terms _present_ and _past_, which some still prefer to _imperfect_ and _perfect_, do denote _time_, and are in a kind of oblique contradistinction; but hoell they apply to the participles,texts: ”God _was_ in Christ, _reconciling_ the world unto himself”--”We pray you in Christ's stead, _be_ ye _reconciled_ to God”--ST PAUL: _2 Cor_, v, 19, 20 Here _reconciling_ refers to the death of Christ, and _reconciled_, to the desired conversion of the Corinthians; and if we call the former a _present_ participle, and the latter a _past_, (as do Bullions, Burn, Clark, Felton, S S Greene, Lennie, Pinneo, and perhaps others,) we nominally reverse the order of tiiously h the participle in _ing_ has, by many, been called the _Present_ participle, it is as applicable to past or future, as to present ti_,”--”I _shall be writing_,” would be solecisms It has also been called, almost as frequently, the _Active_ participle But it is not always active, even when derived frooods are _selling_,”--”The shi+ps are now _building_,” are in use, and not without good authority: as, ”And hope to allay, by rational discourse, the pains of his joints _tearing_ asunder”--_Locke's Essay_, p 285 ”Insensible of the designs now _for_ by Philip”--_Goldsmith's Greece_, ii, 48 ”The i_”--BP HALIFAX: _Pref to Butler_ ”The present tense expresses an action now _doing_”--_E characteristic of this participle is, that it denotes an unfinished and progressive state of the being, action, or passion; it is therefore properly denominated the IMPERFECT participle If the term were applied with reference to _time_, it would be no more objectionable than the word _present_, and would be equally supported by the usage of the _Greek_ linguists I am no more inclined to ”_innovation_,” than are the pedants who, for the choice here ainst me This name, authorized by Beattie and Pickbourn, is approved by Lindley Murray,[303] and adopted by several of the rammarians See the works of Dr Crombie, J Grant, T O Churchill, R

Hiley, B H Smart, M Harrison, and W G Lewis, published in London; and J M M'Culloch's Grarammars, as E Hazen's, N Butler's, D B Tower's, W H Wells's, the Sanderses'

OBS 5--The participle in _ed_, as is , action, or passion, and should therefore be denominated the PERFECT participle But this completion may be spoken of as present, past, or future; for the participle itself has no tenses, and makes no distinction of time, nor should the naation of any passive verb, is a sufficient proof of all this: nor is the proof invalidated by resolving verbs of this kind into their component parts Of the participles in _ed_ applied to _present_ ti is an example: ”Such a course would be less likely to produce injury to health, than the _present course pursued_ at our colleges”--_Literary Convention_, p 118 Tooke's notion of grammatical tie one: he accords with those who call this a _past_ participle, and denies to the other not only the naeneral idea_ of ti of the old participial terlo-Saxon ancestors used where rite _ing_, he says, ”I do not allow that there are any _present_ participles, or any _present tense_ of the verb” [305]--_Diversions of Purley_, Vol ii, p

41

OBS 6--The _Perfect_ participle of transitive verbs, being used in the formation of passive verbs, is sometimes called the _Passive_ participle

It usually has in itself a passive signification, except when it is used in for the compound tenses of the active verb Hence the difference between the sentences, ”I have written a letter,” and, ”I have a letter written;” the for equivalent to _Scripsi literas_, and the latter to _Sunt mihi literae scriptae_ But there are many perfect participles which cannot with any propriety be called passive Such are all those which come from intransitive or neuter verbs; and also those which so often occur in the tenses of verbs not passive I have already noticed some instances of this ether, by adhering to the true name of this Participle, THE PERFECT Nor is that entirely true which some assert, ”that this participle in the _active_ is only found in combination;” that, ”Whenever it stands alone to be parsed as a participle, it is passive”--_Hart's English Gram_, p 75 See also _Bullions's analyt and Pract Gram_, p 77; and _Greene's analysis, or Gra examples, cannot with any propriety be called a _passive_ participle:

”_Rebelled_, did I not send them terms of peace, Which not my justice, but ht, rid Heav'n of these _rebell'd_, To their prepar'd ill mansion driven down”--_Milton_, vi, 737

OBS 7--The third participle has enerally been called the _Compound_, or the _Compound perfect_ The latter of these terth; and against the foration, the first or i seen_ Dr

Ada loved_ the _perfect_ participle _active_, which he says must be rendered in Latin by the _pluperfect_ of the subjunctive; as, he having loved, _quu Gram_, p 140;) but it is manifest that the perfect participle of the verb _to love_, whether active or passive, is the simple word _loved_, and not this compound Dr Adam, in fact, if he denies this, only contradicts hiives the participles as two only, and both si; _Perfect_, Loved:”--”_Present_, Having; _Perfect_, Had” So of the Neuter Verb: ”_Present_, Being; _Perfect_, Been”--_Ib_, pp 81 and 82 His scheme of either nae, unless there is a misprint in several editions, he calls the _Second_ participle the ”_i, ”The whole of the passive voice in English is formed by the auxiliary verb _to be_, and the participle _imperfect_; as, _I am loved, I was loved, &c_” Further: ”In many verbs,” he adds, ”the _present_ participle also is used in a passive sense; as, _These things are doing, were doing_, &c; _The house is building, was building_, &c”--_Ib_, p

83 N Butler, in his Practical Grammar, of 1845, names, and counts, and orders, the participles very oddly: ”Every verb,” he says, ”has _two_ participles--the _imperfect_ and the _perfect_”--P 78 Yet, for the verb _love_, he finds these six: two ”IMPERFECT, _Loving_ and _Being loved_;”

two ”PERFECT, _Having loved_, and _Having been loved_;” one ”AUXILIARY PERFECT, _Loved_,” of the ”_Active Voice_;” and one ”PassIVE, _Loved_,” of the ”_Passive Voice_” Many old writers erroneously represent the participle in _ing_ as always active, and the participle in _ed_ or _en_ as always passive; and so no distinction between the si loved_, place the latter with the former, and call it passive also The absurdity of this isseen_ is active; _having been_ or _having sat_ is neuter; and _having been loved_ or _having been seen_ is passive Again, the triple co been sitting_ is neuter; but if one speak of goods as _having been selling_ low, a similar compound is passive

OBS 8--Now all the co_ are essentially alike; and, as a class of terht to have a na characteristic

_Having loved_ differs fronification as well as in form; and, if this participle is to be na_, there is no more suitable term for it than the epithet PREPERFECT,--a hich explains itself, like _prepaid_ or _prerequisite_ Of the many other names, the most correct one is PLUPERFECT,--which is a ter Not because this compound is really of the pluperfect _tense_, but because it always denotes being, action, or passion, that is, or was, or will be, _co else; and, of course, when the latter thing is represented as past, the participle must correspond to the pluperfect tense of its verb; as, ”_Having explained_ her views, it was necessary she should expatiate on the vanity and futility of the enjoyments pro explained_ is exactly equivalent to _when she had explained_ Again: ”Icommanded_, we obeyed”--_Fetch's Comprehensive Gram_, p ix Here the two phrases in Italics correspond in ih not in construction

OBS 9--_Pluperfect_ is a derivative contracted fronifies _more than complete_, or _beyond the perfect_; i e, (as confirmed by use,) _antecedently finished_, or _completed before_ It is the usual name of our fourth tense; is likewise applicable to a corresponding tense in other tongues; and is a word farammarians,--too ready, perhaps, for innovation,--have shown their willingness to discard it altogether Bullions, Butler, Hiley, Perley, Wells, and solish _pluperfect tense_, the _past-perfect_, and understand either epithet to mean--”_completed at or before_ a certain _past_ time;”

(_Bullions's E Gram_, p 39;) that is--”_finished or past, at_ some _past_ time”--_Butler's Pract Gram_, p 72 The relation of the _tense_ is _before the past_, but the epithet _pluperfect_ is not necessarily limited to this relation, any more than what is _perfect_ is necessarily past Butler has urged, that, ”_Pluperfect_ does not mean _completed before_,” but is only ”a technical na from this erroneous assumption, has convinced himself, ”It would be as correct to call this the _second future_ participle, as the _pluperfect_”--_Ib_, p 79 The technical name, as limited to the past, is _preterpluperfect_, from the older term _praeteritum plusquam perfectum_; so _preterperfect_, from _praeteritum perfectum_, i e _past perfect_, is the name of an _other_ tense, now called the _perfect_: wherefore the substitution of _past-perfect_ for _pluperfect_ is the less to be co the name of the tense to differ from that of the participle, and this alone induces me to prefer _preperfect_ to _pluperfect_ for the name of the latter

OBS 10--From the participle in _ed_ or _en_, we form three tenses, which the above-named authors call _perfect_;--”the _present-perfect_, the _past-perfect_, and the _future-perfect_;”--as, _have seen, had seen, will have seen_ Now it is, doubtless, the _participle_, that gives to these their _perfectness_; while diversity in the auxiliaries makes their difference of tieneral, the simple participle in _ed_ or _en_, ”does not denote an action _done_ and _completed_,” and is not to be called _perfect_; (p 80;)--that, ”If ish to express by a participle, an action _completed at any time_, we use the compound form, and _this is_ THE _perfect participle_;” (p 79;)--that, ”_The characteristic_ of the participle in _ed_ is, that it implies the _reception_ of an action;” (p 79;)--that, hence, it should be called _the passive_, though it ”is _usually_ called the _perfect_ participle;” (p

79;)--that, ”The use of _this participle_ in the _perfect tenses_ of the active voice should not be taken into consideration in giving it a name or a definition;” (p 80;)--that its _active, neuter_, or _intransitive_ use is not a priradual _change_ of the term from the passive to the active voice; (p 80;)--that, ”the participle _has changed_ itspassive, it is now active in sense;” (p 105;)--that, ”having changed its originalso entirely, it should not be considered _the same_ participle;” (p 78;)--that, ”in such cases, it is a _perfect_ participle,” and, ”for the sake of distinction [,] this may be called the _auxiliary perfect_ participle”--_Ib_ These speculations I briefly throw before the reader, without designing much comment upon them It will be perceived that they are, in several respects, contradictory one to an other The author hie which he says, ”should not be taken into consideration;” and names it absurdly too; for he calls that ”the _auxiliary_,” which is manifestly the _principal_ teruish as two

OBS 11--Participles often become _adjectives_, and are construed before nouns to denote quality The terms so converted form the class of _participial adjectives_ Words of a participial for circumstances: 1 When they reject the idea of ti customary or habitual, rather than a transient act or state; as, ”A _lying_ rogue,”--ie, one that is addicted to lying 2 When they admit adverbs of comparison; as, ”A _ that does not belong to the verb; as, ”_unfeeling, unfelt_:” there is no verb _to unfeel_, therefore these words cannot be participles Adjectives are generally placed before their nouns; participles, after the lines , no subject was; unscutcheoned all; Uncrowned, unplureed; Unlaced, uncoroneted, unbestarred”

--_Pollok, C of T_, B viii, l 89

OBS 12--Participles in _ing_ often become _nouns_ When preceded by an article, an adjective or a noun or pronoun of the possessive case, they are construed as nouns; and, if wholly such, have neither adverbs nor active regi_ of a spear”--_Job_, xli, 29

”There is _no searching_ of _his understanding_”--_Isaiah_, xl, 28 ”In _their setting_ of their threshold by ray threshold”--_Ezekiel_, xliii, 8