Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/614

 tive may, in most instances, be repeated without injury to the sense; but this fact is no proof of such an ellipsis; because many a sentence which is not incomplete, may possibly take additional words without change of meaning. But these authors, (as I have already suggested under the head of conjunctions,) have not been very careful of their own consistency. If they teach, that, "Every finite verb has its own separate nominative, either expressed or implied," which idea Murray and others seem to have gathered from Lowth; or if they say, that, "Conjunctions really unite sentences, when they appear to unite only words," which notion they may have acquired from Harris; what room is there for that common assertion, that, "Conjunctions connect the same moods and tenses of verbs," which is a part of Murray's eighteenth rule, and found in most of our grammars? For no agreement is usually required between verbs that have separate nominatives; and if we supply a nominative wherever we do not find one for each verb, then in fact no two verbs will ever be connected by any conjunction.

OBS. 13.--What agreement there must be, between verbs that are in the same construction, it is not easy to determine with certainty. Some of the Latin grammarians tell us, that certain conjunctions connect "sometimes similar moods and tenses, and sometimes similar moods but different tenses." See Prat's Grammatica Latina, Octavo, Part ii, p. 95. Ruddiman, Adam, and Grant, omit the concord of tenses, and enumerate certain conjunctions which "couple like cases and moods." But all of them acknowledge some exceptions to their rules. The instructions of Lindley Murray and others, on this point, may be summed up in the following canon: "When verbs are connected by a conjunction, they must either agree in mood, tense, and form, or have separate nominatives expressed." This rule, (with a considerable exception to it, which other authors had not noticed.) was adopted by myself in the Institutes of English Grammar, and also retained in the Brief Abstract of that work, entitled, The First Lines of English Grammar. It there stands as the thirteenth in the series of principal rules; but, as there is no occasion to refer to it in the exercise of parsing, I now think, a less prominent place may suit it as well or better. The principle may be considered as being less certain and less important than most of the usual rules of syntax: I shall therefore both modify the expression of it, and place it among the notes of the present code. See Notes 5th and 6th below.

OBS. 14.--By the agreement of verbs with each other in form, it is meant, that the simple form and the compound, the familiar form and the solemn, the affirmative form and the negative, or the active form and the passive, are not to be connected without a repetition of the nominative. With respect to our language, this part of the rule is doubtless as important, and as true, as any other. A thorough agreement, then, in mood, tense, and form, is generally required, when verbs are connected by and, or, or nor; and, under each part of this concord, there may be cited certain errors which ought to be avoided, as will by-and-by be shown. But, at the same time, there seem to be many allowable violations of the rule, some or other of which may perhaps form exceptions to every part of it. For example, the tense may be varied, as it often is in Latin; thus, "As the general state of religion has been, is, or shall be, affected by them."--Butlers Analogy, p. 241. "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shall be, because thou hast judged thus."--Rev., xvi, 5. In the former of these examples, a repetition of the nominative would not be agreeable; in the latter, it would perhaps be an improvement: as, "who art, and who wast, and who shalt be." (I here change the pronoun, because the relative which is not now applied as above.) "This dedication may serve for almost any book, that has been, or shall be published."--Campbell's Rhet. p. 207; Murray's Gram., p. 222. "It ought to be, 'has been, is, or shall be, published.'"--Crombie's Treatise, p. 383. "Truth and good sense are firm, and will establish themselves."--Blair's Rhet. p. 286. "Whereas Milton followed a different plan, and has given a tragic conclusion to a poem otherwise epic in its form."--Ib., p. 428. "I am certain, that such are not, nor ever were, the tenets of the church of England."--West's Letters, p. 148. "They deserve, and will meet with, no regard."--Blair's Rhet., p. 109. "Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,   Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be." --Pope, on Crit.

OBS. 15.--So verbs differing in mood or form may sometimes agree with the same nominative, if the simplest verb be placed first--rarely, I think, if the words stand in any other order: as, "One may be free from affectation and not have merit"--Blair's Rhet., p. 189. "There is, and can be, no other person."--Murray's Key. 8vo. p. 224. "To see what is, and is allowed to be, the plain natural rule."--Butler's Analogy, p. 284. "This great experiment has worked, and is working, well, every way well"--BRADBURN: Liberator, ix. 162. "This edition of Mr. Murray's works on English Grammar, deserves a place in Libraries, and will not fail to obtain it."--BRITISH CRITIC: Murray's Gram., 8vo, ii, 299. "What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy."--Pope.

"Some are, and must be, greater than the rest."--Id.

OBS. 16.--Since most of the tenses of an English verb are composed of two or more words, to prevent a needless or disagreeable repetition of auxiliaries, participles, and principal verbs, those parts which are common to two or more verbs in the same sentence, are generally expressed to the first, and understood to the rest; or reserved, and put last, as the common supplement of each; as, "To which they do or can extend."--Butler's Analogy, p. 77. "He may, as any one may, if he will, incur an infamous execution from the hands of civil justice."--Ib., p. 82. "All that has usurped the name of virtue, and [has] deceived us by its semblance, must be a mockery and a delusion."--Dr. Chalmers. "Human praise, and human eloquence, may acknowledge it,