Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/502



OBS. 2.--The subject, or nominative, is generally placed before the verb; as, "Peace dawned upon his mind."--Johnson. "What is written in the law?"--Bible. But, in the following nine cases, the subject of the verb is usually placed after it, or after the first auxiliary: 1. When a question is asked without an interrogative pronoun in the nominative case; as, "Shall mortals be implacable?"--Hooke. "What art thou doing?"--Id. "How many loaves have ye?"--Bible. "Are they Israelites? so am I."--Ib.

2. When the verb is in the imperative mood; as, "Go thou"--"Come ye" But, with this mood, the pronoun is very often omitted and understood; as, "Philip saith unto him, Come and see"--John, i, 46. "And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted."--Mark, xvi, 5.

3. When an earnest wish, or other strong feeling, is expressed; as, "May she be happy!"--"How were we struck!"--Young. "Not as the world giveth, give I unto you."--Bible.

4. When a supposition is made without the conjunction if; as, "Had they known it;" for, "If they had known it."--"Were it true;" for, "If it were true."--"Could we draw by the covering of the grave;" for, "If we could draw," &c.

5. When neither or nor, signifying and not, precedes the verb; as, "This was his fear; nor was his apprehension groundless."--"Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it."--Gen., iii, 3.

6. When, for the sake of emphasis, some word or words are placed before the verb, which more naturally come after it; as, "Here am I."--"Narrow is the way."--"Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have, give I thee."--Bible.

7. When the verb has no regimen, and is itself emphatical; as, "Echo the mountains round."--Thomson. "After the Light Infantry marched the Grenadiers, then followed the Horse."--Buchanan's Syntax, p. 71.

8. When the verbs, say, answer, reply, and the like, introduce the parts of a dialogue; as, "'Son of affliction,' said Omar, 'who art thou?' 'My name,' replied the stranger, 'is Hassan.'"--Dr. Johnson.

9. When the adverb there precedes the verb; as, "There lived a man."--Montgomery. "In all worldly joys, there is a secret wound."--Owen. This use of there, the general introductory adverb of place, is idiomatic, and somewhat different from the use of the same word in reference to a particular locality; as, "Because there was not much water there."--John, iii, 23.

OBS. 3.--In exclamations, and some other forms of expression, a few verbs are liable to be suppressed, the ellipsis being obvious; as, "How different [is] this from the philosophy of Greece and Rome!"--DR. BEATTIE: Murray's Sequel, p. 127. "What a lively picture [is here] of the most disinterested and active benevolence!"--HERVEY: ib., p. 94. "When Adam [spake] thus to Eve."--MILTON: Paradise Lost, B. iv, l. 610.

OBS. 4.--Though we often use nouns in the nominative case to show whom we address, yet the imperative verb takes no other nominative of the second person, than the simple personal pronoun, thou, ye, or you, expressed or understood. It would seem that some, who ought to know better, are liable to mistake for the subject of such a verb, the noun which we put absolute in the nominative by direct address. Of this gross error, the following is an example: "Study boys. In this sentence," (says its author,) "study is a verb of the second person, plural number, and agrees with its nominative case, boys--according to the rule: A verb must agree with its nominative case in number and person. Boys is a noun of the second person, plural number, masculine gender, in the nominative case to the verb study."--Ingersoll's Gram., p. 17.[339] Now the fact is, that this laconic address, of three syllables, is written wrong; being made bad English for want of a comma between the two words. Without this mark, boys must be an objective, governed by study; and with it, a nominative, put absolute by direct address. But, in either case, study agrees with ye or you understood, and has not the noun for its subject, or nominative.

OBS. 5.--Some authors say, and if the first person be no exception, say truly: "The nominative case to a verb, unless it be a pronoun, is always of the third person."--Churchill's Gram., p. 141. But W. B. Fowle will have all pronouns to be adjectives. Consequently all his verbs, of every sort, agree with nouns "expressed or understood." This, and every other absurd theory of language, can easily be made out, by means of a few perversions, which may be called corrections, and a sufficient number of interpolations, made under pretence of filling up ellipses. Thus, according to this author, "They fear," means, "They things spoken of fear."--''True Eng. Gram.'', p, 33. And, "John, open the door," or, "Boys, stop your noise," admits no comma. And, "Be grateful, ye children," and, "Be ye grateful children," are, in his view, every way equivalent: the comma in the former being, in his opinion, needless. See ib., p. 39.

OBS. 6.--Though the nominative and objective cases of nouns do not differ in form, it is nevertheless, in the opinion of many of our grammarians, improper to place any noun in both relations at once, because this produces a confusion in the syntax of the word. Examples: "He then goes