Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/540



RULE VII.--OBJECTIVES.

A Noun or a Pronoun made the object of a preposition, is governed by it in the objective case: as, "The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars, is kindled from the ashes of great men"--Hazlitt.

"Life is His gift, from whom whate'er life needs, With ev'ry good and perfect gift, proceeds."--Cowper, Vol. i, p. 95.

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE VII.

OBS. 1.--To this rule there are no exceptions; for prepositions, in English, govern no other case than the objective.[364] But the learner should observe that most of our prepositions may take the ''imperfect participle for their object, and some, the pluperfect, or preperfect''; as, "On opening the trial they accused him of having defrauded them."--"A quick wit, a nice judgment, &c., could not raise this man above being received only upon the foot of contributing to mirth and diversion."--Steele. And the preposition to is often followed by an infinitive verb; as, "When one sort of wind is said to whistle, and an other to roar; when a serpent is said to hiss, a fly to buzz, and falling timber to crash; when a stream is said to flow, and hail to rattle; the analogy between the word and the thing signified, is plainly discernible."--Blair's Rhet., p. 55. But let it not be supposed that participles or infinitives, when they are governed by prepositions, are therefore in the objective case; for case is no attribute of either of these classes of words: they are indeclinable in English, whatever be the relations they assume. They are governed as participles, or as infinitives, and not as cases. The mere fact of government is so far from creating the modification governed, that it necessarily presupposes it to exist, and that it is something cognizable in etymology.

OBS. 2.--The brief assertion, that, "Prepositions govern the objective case," which till very lately our grammarians have universally adopted as their sole rule for both terms, the governing and the governed,--the preposition and its object,--is, in respect to both, somewhat exceptionable, being but partially and lamely applicable to either. It neither explains the connecting nature of the preposition, nor applies to all objectives, nor embraces all the terms which a preposition may govern. It is true, that prepositions, when they introduce declinable words, or words that have cases, always govern the objective; but the rule is liable to be misunderstood, and is in fact often misapplied, as if it meant something more than this. Besides, in no other instance do grammarians attempt to parse both the governing word and the governed, by one and the same rule. I have therefore placed the objects of this government here, where they belong in the order of the parts of speech, expressing the rule in such terms as cannot be mistaken; and have also given, in its proper place, a distinct rule for the construction of the preposition itself. See Rule 23d.

OBS. 3.--Prepositions are sometimes elliptically construed with adjectives, the real object of the relation being thought to be some objective noun understood: as, in vain, in secret, at first, on high; i. e. in a vain manner, in secret places, at the first time, on high places. Such phrases usually imply time, place, degree, or manner, and are equivalent to adverbs. In parsing, the learner may supply the ellipsis.

OBS. 4.--In some phrases, a preposition seems to govern a ''perfect participle; but these expressions are perhaps rather to be explained as being elliptical: as, "To give it up for lost;"--"To take that for granted which is disputed."--Murray's Gram.'', Vol. i, p. 109. That is, perhaps, "To give it up for a thing lost;"--"To take that for a thing granted," &c. In the following passage the words ought and should are employed in such a manner that it is difficult to say to what part of speech they belong: "It is that very character of ought and should which makes justice a law to us; and the same character is applicable to propriety, though perhaps more faintly than to justice."--''Kames, El. of Crit.'', Vol. i, p. 286. The meaning seems to be, "It is that very character of being owed and required, that makes justice a law to us;" and this mode of expression, as it is more easy to be parsed, is perhaps more grammatical than his Lordship's. But, as preterits are sometimes put by enallage for participles, a reference of them to this figure may afford a mode of explanation in parsing, whenever they are introduced by a preposition, and not by a nominative: as, "A kind of conquest Cæsar made here; but made not here his brag Of, came, and saw, and overcame"--Shak., Cymb., iii, 1. That is,--"of having come, and seen, and overcome." Here, however, by assuming that a sentence is the object of the preposition, we may suppose the pronoun I