Part 291 (1/2)
[196] The latter part of this aard and complex rule was copied from Lowth's Gramree_ with the _nouns_ for which they _stand_, or to which they _refer_, in _Nuender_”--_Grammatical Institutes_, p 54 I quote this _exactly as it stands_ in the book: the Italics are his, not norant of the change which Murray made in his fifth rule: for he still publishes as Murray's a principle of concord which the latter rejected as early as 1806: ”RULE V Corresponding with Murray's Graree with the nouns for which they stand, in gender, number_, AND PERSON”--_Smith's New Gralish Graed_ and Ilish Grammar,” p 113; where, from the titles, every reader would expect to find the latest doctrines of Murray, and not what he had so long ago renounced or changed
[197] L Murray's Graer's, 21; Bacon's, 19; Fisk's, 20; Kirkham's, 17; Merchant's Murray, 35; Merchant's American Gram, 40; F H Miller's Gram, 26; Pond's, 28; S
Putnam's, 22; Russell's, 16; Rev T Smith's, 22
[198] Dr Crombie, and some others, represent I and thou, with their inflections, as being ”masculine and feminine” Lennie, M'Culloch, and others, represent the ”masculine or feminine” But, if either of them can have an antecedent that is _neuter_, neither of these views is strictly correct (See Obs 5th, above) Mackintosh says, ”We use _our, your, their_, in speaking of a thing or things belonging to plural nouns of any gender”--_Essay on English Gram_, p 149 So William Barnes says, ”_I, thou, we, ye_ or _you_, and _they_, are of _all_ genders,”-- _Philosophical Gram_, p 196
[199] ”It is perfectly plain, then, that _my_ and _mine_ are but different forms of the same word, as are _a_ and _an_ _Mine_, for the sake of euphony, or from custom, stands for the possessive case without a noun; but ed for _my_ when the noun is expressed: and _my_, for a sied for _mine_ when the noun is dropped_Mine_ and _my, thine_ and _thy_, will, therefore, be considered in this book, as different forms of the possessive case from _I_ and _Thou_ And the same rule will be extended to _her_ and _hers, our_ and _ours, your_ and _yours, their_ and _theirs_”--_Barnard's analytic Gra been fashi+onable, in the ordinary intercourse of the world, to substitute the plural forh all the cases Thus, by the figure ENALLAGE, ”_you are_,” for instance, is commonly put for ”_thou art_” See Observations 20th and 21st, below; also Figures of Syntax, in Part IV
[201] The original nominative was _ye_, which is still the only noinal objective was _you_, which is still the only objective that our grarammatical or not, _ye_ is now very often used, in a familiar way, for the objective case (See Observations 22d and 23d, upon the declensions of pronouns) T Dilworth gave both cases alike: ”_Nom_ Ye _or_ you;”
”_Acc_ [or _Obj_] Ye _or_ you”--His _New Guide_, p 98 Lathaives these forms: ”_Nom_ ye _or_ you; _Obj_ you or ye”--_Elementary Gram_, p 90 Dr Campbell says, ”I am inclined to prefer that use which makes _ye_ invariably the nominative plural of the personal pronoun _thou_, and _you_ the accusative, when applied to an actual plurality”--_Philosophy of Rhetoric_, p 174 Professor Fowler touches the case, rather blindly, thus: ”Instead of the true nominative YE, we use, with few exceptions, _the objective case_; as, 'YOU _speak_;' 'YOU _two are speaking_' In this we _substitute_ one case _for_ another”--_Fowler's E Grarammarian, however, discards _you_ as a nominative of ”actual plurality;” and the present casual practice of putting _ye_ in the objective, has prevailed to soe approaches, when all these delights Will vanish and deliver _ye_ to woe”
--_Milton_, P L, B iv, l 367
[202] Dr Young has, in one instance, and with very doubtful propriety, converted this pronoun into the _second person_, by addressing himself thus:--
”O _thou, myself I_ abroad our counsels roam And, like ill husbands, take no care at home”
--_Love of Fa the plural nuular, or _you_ for _thou_, has also substituted _yourself_ for _thyself_, in common discourse
In poetry, in prayer, in Scripture, and in the fainal compound is still retained; but the poets use either terhtness of their style But _yourself_, like the regal coular number, and always applied to one person only, is, in its very nature, an anoraree with a pronoun or a verb that is singular Swift indeed wrote: ”Conversation is but carving; carve for all, _yourself is starving_” But he wrote erroneously, and hisis doubtful: probably he meant, ”To carve for all, is, _to starve yourself_” The compound personals, when they are nominatives before the verb, are commonly associated with the simple; as, ”I _myself_ also _auide”--_Rom_, ii, 19 ”If it stand, as _you yourself_ still _do_”--_Shakspeare_ ”That _you yourself_ are much condemned”--_Id_ And, if the simple pronoun be omitted, the compound still requires the same form of the verb; as, ”Which way I fly is hell; _ example is different: ”I love mankind; and in a monarchy myself _is_ all that I _can_ love”--_Life of Schiller, Follen's Pref_, p x Dr Follen objects to the British version, ”Myself _were_ all that I _could_ love;” and, if his own is good English, the verb _is_ agrees with _all_, and not with _myself_ _Is_ is of the third person: hence, ”_ood syntax; nor does any one say, ”_yourself art_,” or, ”_ourself am_,” but rather, ”_yourself are_:” as, ”Captain, _yourself are_ the fittest”--_Dryden_ But to call this a ”_concord_,” is to turn a third part of the language upsidedown; because, by analogy, it confounds, to such extent at least, the plural nuh all our verbs; that is, if _ourself_ and _yourself_ are singulars, and not rather plurals put for singulars by a figure of syntax But the words are, in some few instances, written separately; and then both theand the construction are different; as, ”Your _self_ is sacred, profane _it_ not”--_The Dial_, Vol i, p 86 Perhaps the word _ht rather to have been tords; thus, ”And, in a monarchy, _my self is all_ that I can love” The tords here differ in person and case, perhaps also in gender; and, in the preceding instance, they differ in person, nuender, and case But the coender of its first part, and only the case of its last The notion of soht others whom he cites for it,) that _you_ and _your_ are actually e, is demonstrably untrue Do _we, our_, and _us_, beco or a critic applies the can be worse syntax than, _we ah some contend for this last construction
[204] _Whose_ is soion _whose_ origin is divine”--_Blair_ See Observations 4th and 5th, on the Classes of pronouns
[205] After _but_, as in the following sentence, the double relative _what_ is sometimes applied to persons; and it is here equivalent _to the friend who_:--
”Lorenzo, pride repress; nor hope to find A friend, but _what_ has found a friend in thee”--_Young_
[206] Of all these compounds L Murray very improperly says, ”They are _seldom used_, in modern style”--_Octavo Gram_, p 54; also _Fisk's_, p
65 None of theenerally preferred The following suggestion of Cobbett's is erroneous; because it implies that the shorter forms are innovations and faults; and because the author carelessly speaks of the only_: ”We _sometimes_ omit the _so_, and say, _whoever, whomever, whatever_, and even _whosever_ _It is_ a mere _abbreviation_ The _so_ is understood: and, it is best not to o Gram_, -- 209 R C Smith dismisses the compound relatives with three lines; and these he closes with the following notion: ”_They are not often used!_”--_New Granorance of the history of those words, teaches thus: ”_Mine_ and _thine_ appear to have been for _n_, and then subjoining _e_ to retain the long sound of the vowel”--_analytical Grauillemets and a remark in his preface, he borrowed from ”Parkhurst's Systematic 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 Graularity 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 fewhere 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 Gra the possessives with ellipsis to be instances of the possessive case, but stupidly s for a third which is totally unlike to either,--i e, assuether for _substitution_ both an _ellipsis_ of one word and an _equivalence_ to two--(as soely done--) he supposes all this class of pronouns to have forsaken every property of their legitiender, their case,--and to have assu 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 nuender, and nominative case; and not, as it plainly is, of the first person, plural nu 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 _nuree in _nuical--G Brown
[210] Cardell assails the corammarians on this point, with similar assertions, and still e_, p 80 The notion that ”these _pretended possessives_ [are]
uniforh denant to what is ”_usually considered_” to be their true explanation--was adopted by Jaudon, in 1812; and has recently found several new advocates; a 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 ular or plural, in the no_ 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 _no 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 hi It is therefore of the _first_ person, _singular_ nuender, and _possessive case_; being governed by the nas 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 caht _fruit_ thereon, and found _none_”--_Luke_, xiii, 6 Wells opposes this doctrine, citing a passage froues three classes of pronouns--”personal, relative, and interrogative;” and then, excluding these words fro 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 coue 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 beco changed from _mine_ to _my_; so that we area word_ understood, before which it cannot properly be used The word _mine_ is here evidently employed as a substitute for the tords, _my_ and _book_”--_Wells, ibid_ This note appears to me to be, in n 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 tords_” It is a substitute, or pronoun, for the _name of the speaker or writer_; and so is _ with, that naoverns 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 co this, than a writer should who meant to deny it In the third place, the exaood one for its purpose The word ”_ularly parsed as a possessive, without supposing any ellipsis; for ”_book_,” the naiven, and in obvious connexion with it And further, the_different cases_; and not the _identity_ of so under different names, which must be put in the _saimen for possession, and thence speak of _one word ”as possessing” an other_, anote, is not only unscholarlike, but positively absurd But, possibly, the author y 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 _nu 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 froreeable 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_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