Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/643

 without becoming absolutely unintelligible, and without violating any rule of our common grammars. For example, I may say of somebody, "This very superficial grammatist, supposing empty criticism about the adoption of proper phraseology to be a show of extraordinary erudition, was displaying, in spite of ridicule, a very boastful turgid argument concerning the correction of false syntax, and about the detection of false logic in debate." Now, in what other language than ours, can a string of words anything like the following, come so near to a fair and literal translation of this long sentence? "This exceeding trifling witling, considering ranting criticising concerning adopting fitting wording being exhibiting transcending learning, was displaying, notwithstanding ridiculing, surpassing boasting swelling reasoning, respecting correcting erring writing, and touching detecting deceiving arguing during debating." Here are not all the uses to which our writers apply the participle in ing, but there would seem to be enough, without adding others that are less proper.

OBS. 4.--The active participles, ''admitting, allowing, considering, granting, speaking, supposing'', and the like, are frequently used in discourse so independently, that they either relate to nothing, or to the pronoun I or we understood; as, "Granting this to be true, what is to be inferred from it?"--Murray's Gram., p. 195. This may be supposed to mean, "I, granting this to be true, ask what is to be inferred from it?" "The very chin was, modestly speaking, as long as my whole face."--Addison. Here the meaning may be, "I, modestly speaking, say." So of the following examples: "Properly speaking, there is no such thing as chance."--W. Allen's Gram., p. 172. "Because, generally speaking, the figurative sense of a word is derived from its proper sense."--''Kames, El. of Crit.'', i, 190. "But, admitting that two or three of these offend less in their morals than in their writings, must poverty make nonsense sacred?"--Pope's Works, Vol. iii, p. 7. Some grammarians suppose such participles to be put absolute in themselves, so as to have no reference to any noun or pronoun; others, among whom are L. Murray and Dr. James P. Wilson, suppose them to be put absolute with a pronoun understood. On the former supposition, they form an other exception to the foregoing rule; on the latter, they do not: the participle relates to the pronoun, though both be independent of the rest of the sentence. If we supply the ellipsis as above, there is nothing put absolute.

OBS. 5.--Participles are almost always placed after the words on which their construction depends, and are distinguished from adjectives by this position; but when other words depend on the participle, or when several participles have the same construction, the whole phrase may come before the noun or pronoun: as, "Leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement."--Sterne.

"Immured in cypress shades, a sorcerer dwells."--Milton.

"Brib'd, bought, and bound, they banish shame and fear;   Tell you they're stanch, and have a soul sincere."--Crabbe.

OBS. 6.--When participles are compounded with something that does not belong to the verb, they become adjectives; and, as such, they cannot govern an object after them. The following construction is therefore inaccurate: "When Caius did any thing unbecoming his dignity."--Jones's Church History, i, 87. "Costly and gaudy attire, unbecoming godliness."--Extracts, p. 185. Such errors are to be corrected by Note 15th to Rule 9th, or by changing the particle un to not: as, "Unbecoming to his dignity;" or, "Not becoming his dignity."

OBS. 7.--An imperfect or a preperfect participle, preceded by an article, an adjective, or a noun or pronoun of the possessive case, becomes a verbal or participial noun; and, as such, it cannot with strict propriety, govern an object after it. A word which may be the object of the participle in its proper construction, requires the preposition of, to connect it with the verbal noun; as, 1. THE PARTICIPLE: "Worshiping idols, the Jews sinned."--"Thus worshiping idols,--In worshiping idols,--or, By worshiping idols, they sinned." 2. THE VERBAL NOUN: "The worshiping of idols,--Such worshiping of idols,--or, Their worshiping of idols, was sinful."--"In the worshiping of idols, there is sin."

OBS. 8.--It is commonly supposed that these two modes of expression are, in very many instances, equivalent to each other in meaning, and consequently interchangeable. How far they really are so, is a question to be considered. Example: "But if candour be a confounding of the distinctions between sin and holiness, a depreciating of the excellence of the latter, and at the same time a diminishing of the evil of the former; then it must be something openly at variance with the letter and the spirit of revelation."--The Friend, iv, 108. Here the nouns, ''distinctions, excellence, and evil, though governed by of, represent the objects'' of the forenamed actions; and therefore they might well be governed by confounding, depreciating, and diminishing, if these were participles. But if, to make them such, we remove the article and the preposition, the construction forsakes our meaning; for be confounding, (be) depreciating, and (be) diminishing, seem rather to be verbs of the compound form; and our uncertain nominatives after be, thus disappear in the shadow of a false sense. But some sensible critics tell us, that this preposition of should refer rather to the agent of the preceding action, than to its passive object; so that such a phrase as, "the teaching of boys," should signify rather the instruction which boys give, than that which they receive. If, for the sake of this principle, or for any other reason, we wish to avoid the foregoing phraseology, the meaning may be expressed thus: "But if your candour confound the distinctions between sin and holiness; if it depreciate the excellence of the latter, and at the same time diminish the evil of the former; then it must be something openly at variance with the letter and the spirit of revelation."

OBS. 9.--When the use of the preposition produces ambiguity or harshness, let a better expression