Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/423

 --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 primitive idiom of the language, but the result of a gradual change of the term from the passive to the active voice; (p. 80;)--that, "the participle has changed its mode of signification, so that, instead of being passive, it is now active in sense;" (p. 105;)--that, "having changed its original meaning so 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 himself names the participle in reference to a usage 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 term. He also identifies as one what he professes to distinguish 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 form may be regarded as adjectives, under the following circumstances: 1. When they reject the idea of time, and denote something customary or habitual, rather than a transient act or state; as, "A lying rogue,"--i.e., one that is addicted to lying. 2. When they admit adverbs of comparison; as, "A more learned man." 3. When they are compounded with something 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 them. The words beginning with un, in the following lines may be classed with participial adjectives: "No king, no subject was; unscutcheoned all;   Uncrowned, unplumed, unhelmed, unpedigreed;    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 regimen: as, "He laugheth at the shaking 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. "That any man should make my glorying void."--1 Cor., ix, 15. The terms so converted form the class of verbal or participial nouns. But some late authors--(J. S. Hart, S. S. Greene, W. H. Wells, and others--) have given the name of participial nouns to many participles,--such participles, often, as retain all their verbal properties and adjuncts, and merely partake of some syntactical resemblance to nouns. Now, since the chief characteristics of such words are from the verb, and are incompatible with the specific nature of a noun, it is clearly improper to call them nouns. There are, in the popular use of participles, certain mixed constructions which are reprehensible; yet it is the peculiar nature of a participle, to participate the properties of other parts of speech,--of the verb and adjective,--of the verb and noun,--or sometimes, perhaps, of all three. A participle immediately preceded by a preposition, is not converted into a noun, but remains a participle, and therefore retains its adverb, and also its government of the objective case; as, "I thank you for helping him so seasonably." Participles in this construction correspond with the Latin gerund, and are sometimes called gerundives.

OBS. 13.--To distinguish the participle from the participial noun, the learner should observe the following four things: 1. Nouns take articles and adjectives before them; participles, as such, do not. 2. Nouns may govern the possessive case before them, but not the objective after them; participles may govern the objective case, but not so properly the possessive. 3. Nouns, if they have adverbs, require the hyphen; participles take adverbs separately, as do their verbs. 4. Participial nouns express actions as things, and are sometimes declined like other nouns; participles usually refer actions to their agents or recipients, and have in English no grammatical modifications of any kind.

OBS. 14.--To distinguish the perfect participle from the preterit of the same form, observe the sense, and see which of the auxiliary forms will express it: thus, loved for being loved, is a participle; but loved for did love, is a preterit verb. So held for did hold, stung for did sting, taught for did teach, and the like, are irregular verbs; but held for being held, stung for being stung, taught for being taught, and the like, are perfect participles.

OBS. 15.--Though the English participles have no inflections, and are consequently incapable of any grammatical agreement or disagreement, those which are simple, are sometimes elegantly taken in a plural sense, with the apparent construction of nouns; but, under these circumstances, they are in reality neither nouns nor participles, but participial adjectives construed elliptically, as other adjectives often are, and relating to plural nouns understood. The ellipsis is sometimes of a singular noun, though very rarely, and much less properly. Examples: "To them who are the called according to his purpose."--Rom., x, 28. That is--"the called ones or persons." "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."--Matt., xxii, 32. "Neither is it found in the land of the living."--Job, xxviii, 13. "The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day."--Isaiah, xxxviii, 19. "Till we are made fit to live and reign with him and all his redeemed, in the heavenly glory forever."--Jenks's Prayers, p. 18. "Ye blessed of my Father, come, ye just,   Enter the joy eternal of your Lord."--Pollok, B. x, l. 591.

"Depart from me, ye cursed, into the fire   Prepared eternal in the gulf of Hell."--Id., B. x, l. 449.