Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/509



OBS. 14.--To express a reciprocal action or relation, the pronominal adjectives each other and one an other are employed: as, "They love each other;"--"They love one an other." The words, separately considered, are singular; but, taken together, they imply plurality; and they can be properly construed only after plurals, or singulars taken conjointly. Each other is usually applied to two persons or things; and one an other, to more than two. The impropriety of applying them otherwise, is noticed elsewhere; (see, in Part II, Obs. 15th, on the Classes of Adjectives;) so that we have here to examine only their relations of case. The terms, though reciprocal and closely united, are seldom or never in the same construction. If such expressions be analyzed, each and one will generally appear to be in the nominative case, and other in the objective; as, "They love each other;" i. e. each loves the other. "They love one an other;" i. e. any or every one loves any or every other. Each and one (--if the words be taken as cases, and not adjectively--) are properly in agreement or apposition with they, and other is governed by the verb. The terms, however, admit of other constructions; as, "Be ye helpers one of an other."--Bible. Here one is in apposition with ye, and other is governed by of. "Ye are one an other's joy."--Ib. Here one is in apposition with ye, and other's is in the possessive case, being governed by joy. "Love will make you one an other's joy." Here one is in the objective case, being in apposition with you, and other's is governed as before. "Men's confidence in one an other;"--"Their dependence one upon an other." Here the word one appears to be in apposition with the possessive going before; for it has already been shown, that words standing in that relation never take the possessive sign. But if its location after the preposition must make it objective, the whole object is the complex term, "one an other." "Grudge not one against an other."--James, v, 9. "Ne vous plaignez point les uns des autres."--French Bible. "Ne suspirate alius adversus alium."--Beza. "Ne ingemiscite adversus alii alios."--Leusden. "[Greek: Mæ stenazete kat hallælon]."--Greek New Testament.

OBS. 15.--The construction of the Latin terms alius alium, alii alios, &c., with that of the French l'un l'autre, l'un de l'autre, &c., appears, at first view, sufficiently to confirm the doctrine of the preceding observation; but, besides the frequent use, in Latin and Greek, of a reciprocal adverb to express the meaning of one an other or each other, there are, from each of these languages, some analogical arguments for taking the English terms together as compounds. The most common term in Greek for one an other, ([Greek: Hallælon], dat. [Greek: hallælois, ais, ois], acc. [Greek: hallælous]: ab [Greek: hallos], alius,) is a single derivative word, the case of which is known by its termination; and ''each other is sometimes expressed in Latin by a compound: as, "Et osculantes se alterutrum, fleverunt pariter."--Vulgate''. That is: "And kissing each other, they wept together." As this text speaks of but two persons, our translators have not expressed it well in the common version: "And they kissed one an other, and wept one with an other"--1 Sam., xx, 41. Alter-utrum is composed of a nominative and an accusative, like each-other; and, in the nature of things, there is no reason why the former should be compounded, and the latter not. Ordinarily, there seems to be no need of compounding either of them. But some examples occur, in which it is not easy to parse each other and one an other otherwise than as compounds: as, "He only recommended this, and not the washing of one another's feet."--Barclay's Works, Vol. iii, p. 143.

"The Temple late two brother sergeants saw,   Who deem'd each other oracles of law."--Pope, B. ii, Ep. 2.[345]

OBS. 16.--The common and the proper name of an object are very often associated, and put in apposition; as, "The river Thames,"--"The ship Albion,"--"The poet Cowper"--"Lake Erie,"--"Cape May"--"Mount Atlas." But, in English, the proper name of a place, when accompanied by the common name, is generally put in the objective case, and preceded by of; as, "The city of New York,"--"The land of Canaan,"--"The island of Cuba,"--"The peninsula of Yucatan." Yet in some instances, even of this kind, the immediate apposition is preferred; as, "That the city Sepphoris should be subordinate to the city Tiberias."--Life of Josephus, p. 142. In the following sentence, the preposition of is at least needless: "The law delighteth herself in the number of twelve; and the number of twelve is much respected in holy writ."--Coke, on Juries. Two or three late grammarians, supposing of always to indicate a possessive relation between