Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/360

 at all. In direct contradiction to himself, he proceeds to inflect the verb as follows: "I work, Thou workest, He works; &c. I worked, Thou workedst, He worked; &c. I shall or will work, Thou shalt or wilt work, He shall or will work;" &c.--Ib., ¶ 98. All the compound tenses, except the future, he rejects, as things which "can only serve to fill up a book."

OBS. 21.--It is a common but erroneous opinion of our grammarians, that the unsyllabic suffix st, wherever found, is a modern contraction of the syllable est. No writer, however, thinks it always necessary to remind his readers of this, by inserting the sign of contraction; though English books are not a little disfigured by questionable apostrophes inserted for no other reason. Dr. Lowth says, "The nature of our language, the accent and pronunciation of it, inclines [incline] us to contract even all our regular verbs: thus loved, turned, are commonly pronounced in one syllable lov'd, turn'd: and the second person, which was originally in three syllables, lovedest, turnedest, is [say has] now become a dissyllable, lovedst, turnedst."--Lowth's Gram., p. 45; Hiley's, 45; Churchill's, 104. See also Priestley's Gram., p. 114; and Coar's, p. 102. This latter doctrine, with all its vouchers, still needs confirmation. What is it but an idle conjecture? If it were true, a few quotations might easily prove it; but when, and by whom, have any such words as lovedest, turnedest, ever been used? For aught I see, the simple st is as complete and as old a termination for the second person singular of an English verb, as est; indeed, it appears to be older: and, for the preterit, it is, and (I believe) always has been, the most regular, if not the only regular, addition. If sufferedest, woundedest, and killedest, are words more regular than sufferedst, woundedst, killedst, then are heardest, knewest, slewest, sawest, rannest, metest, swammest, and the like, more regular than ''heardst, knewst, slewst, sawst, ranst, metst, swamst, satst, saidst, ledst, fledst, toldst'', and so forth; but not otherwise.[246] So, in the solemn style, we write ''seemest, deemest, swimmest, like seemeth, deemeth, swimmeth'', and so forth; but, when we use the form which has no increase of syllables, why is an apostrophe more necessary in the second person, than in the third?--in ''seemst, deemst, swimst, than in seems, deems, swims''? When final e is dropped from the verb, the case is different; as,

"Thou cutst my head off with a golden axe,   And smil'st upon the stroke that murders me."--Shakspeare.

OBS. 22.--Dr. Lowth supposes the verbal termination s or es to have come from a contraction of eth. He says, "Sometimes, by the rapidity of our pronunciation, the vowels are shortened or lost; and the consonants, which are thrown together, do not coalesce with one another, and are therefore changed into others of the same organ, or of a kindred species. This occasions a farther deviation from the regular form: thus, loveth, turneth, are contracted into lov'th, turn'th, and these, for easier pronunciation, immediately become loves, turns."--Lowth's Gram., p. 46; Hiley's, 45. This etymology may possibly be just, but certainly such contractions as are here spoken of, were not very common in Lowth's age, or even in that of Ben Jonson, who resisted the s. Nor is the sound of sharp th very obviously akin to flat s. The change would have been less violent, if lov'st and turnst had become loves and turns; as some people nowadays are apt to change them, though doubtless this is a grammatical error: as,

"And wheresoe'er thou casts thy view." --Cowley.

"Nor thou that flings me floundering from thy back." --''Bat. of Frogs and Mice'', 1,123.

"Thou sitt'st on high, and measures destinies." --Pollok, Course of Time, B. vi, 1, 668.

OBS. 23.--Possibly, those personal terminations of the verb which do not form syllables, are mere contractions or relics of est and eth, which are syllables; but it is perhaps not quite so easy