Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/648

 is but lamely maintained, when we come to those irregular constructions in which the participle is made a half-noun in English. It is true, the gerund of the nominative case may be made the subject of a verb in Latin; but we do not translate it by the English participle, but rather by the infinitive, or still oftener by the verb with the auxiliary must: as, "Vivendum est mihi rectè, I must live well."--Grant's L. Gram., p. 232. This is better English than the nearer version, "Living correctly is necessary for me;" and the exact imitation, "Living is to me correctly," is nonsense. Nor does the Latin gerund often govern the genitive like a noun, or ever stand as the direct object of a transitive verb, except in some few doubtful instances about which the grammarians dispute. For, in fact, to explain this species of words, has puzzled the Latin grammarians about as much as the English; though the former do not appear to have fallen into those palpable self-contradictions which embarrass the instructions of the latter.

OBS. 22.--Dr. Adam says, "The gerund in English becomes a substantive, by prefixing the article to it, and then it is always to be construed with the preposition of; as, 'He is employed in writing letters,' or, 'in the writing of letters:' but it is improper to say, 'in the writing letters,' or, 'in writing of letters.'"--Latin and English Gram., p. 184. This doctrine is also taught by Lowth, Priestley, Murray, Comly, Chandler, and many others; most of whom extend the principle to all participles that govern the possessive case; and they might as well have added all such as are made either the subjects or the objects of verbs, and such as are put for nominatives after verbs neuter. But Crombie, Allen, Churchill, S. S. Greene, Hiley, Wells, Weld, and some others, teach that participles may perform these several offices of a substantive, without dropping the regimen and adjuncts of participles. This doctrine, too, Murray and his copyists absurdly endeavour to reconcile with the other, by resorting to the idle fiction of "substantive phrases" endued with all these powers: as, "His being at enmity with Cæsar was the cause of perpetual discord."--Crombie's Treatise, p. 237; Churchill's Gram., p. 141. "Another fault is allowing it to supersede the use of a point."-- Churchill's Gram., p. 372. "To be sure there is a possibility of some ignorant reader's confounding the two vowels in pronunciation."--Ib., p. 375. It is much better to avoid all such English as this. Say, rather, "His enmity with Cæsar was the cause of perpetual discord."--"An other fault is the allowing of it to supersede the use of a point."--"To be sure, there is a possibility that some ignorant reader may confound the two vowels, in pronunciation."

OBS. 23.--In French, the infinitive is governed by several different prepositions, and the gerundive by one only, the preposition en,--which, however, is sometimes suppressed; as, "en passant, en faisant,--il alloit courant."--Traité des Participes, p. 2. In English, the gerundive is governed by several different prepositions, and the infinitive by one only, the preposition to,--which, in like manner, is sometimes suppressed; as, "to pass, to do,--I saw him run." The difficulties in the syntax of the French participle in ant, which corresponds to ours in ing, are apparently as great in themselves, as those which the syntax of the English word presents; but they result from entirely different causes, and chiefly from the liability there is of confounding the participle with the verbal adjective, which is formed from it. The confounding of it with the gerundive is now, in either language, of little or no consequence, since in modern French, as well as in English, both are indeclinable. For this reason, I have framed the syntactical rule for participles so as to include under that name the gerund, or gerundive, which is a participle governed by a preposition. The great difficulty with us, is, to determine whether the participle ought, or ought not, to be allowed to assume other characteristics of a noun, without dropping those of a participle, and without becoming wholly a noun. The liability of confounding the English participle with the verbal or participial adjective, amounts to nothing more than the occasional misnaming of a word in parsing; or perhaps an occasional ambiguity in the style of some writer, as in the following citation: "I am resolved, 'let the newspapers say what they please of canvassing beauties, haranguing toasts, and mobbing demireps,' not to believe one syllable."--Jane West's Letters to a Young Lady, p. 74. From these words, it is scarcely possible to find out, even with the help of the context whether these three sorts of ladies are spoken of as the canvassers, haranguers, and mobbers, or as being canvassed, harangued, and mobbed. If the prolixity and multiplicity of these observations transcend the reader's patience, let him consider that the questions at issue cannot be settled by the brief enunciation of loose individual opinions, but must be examined in the light of all the analogies and facts that bear upon them. So considerable are the difficulties of properly distinguishing the participle from the verbal adjective in French, that that indefatigable grammarian, Girault Du Vivier, after completing his ''Grammaire des Grammaires in two large octavo volumes, thought proper to enlarge'' his instructions on this head, and to publish them in a separate book, (Traité des Participes,) though we have it on his own authority, that the rule for participles had already given rise to a greater number of dissertations and particular treatises than any other point in French grammar.

OBS. 24.--A participle construed after the nominative or the objective case, is not in general equivalent to a verbal noun governing the possessive. There is sometimes a nice distinction to be observed in the application of these two constructions. For the leading word in sense, should not be made the adjunct in construction. The following sentences exhibit a disregard to this principle, and are both inaccurate: "He felt his strength's declining."--"He was sensible of his strength declining." In the former sentence, the noun strength should be in the objective case, governed by felt; and in the latter, it should rather be in the possessive, governed by declining. Thus: "He felt his strength declining;" i.e., "felt it decline."--"He was sensible of his strength's declining;" i.e., "of its decline." These two sentences state the same fact, but, in construction, they are very different; nor does it appear, that where there is no difference of meaning, the two constructions are properly interchangeable. This point has already been briefly noticed in Obs. 12th and 13th on Rule 4th. But the false and discordant instructions which our grammarians deliver respecting possessives before participles; their strange neglect of this plain principle of reason, that the leading word in sense ought to be made the leading or governing word in the construction; and the difficulties which they and other writers are continually falling into, by talking their choice between two errors, in stead of avoiding both: these, as well as their suggestions of sameness or difference of import between the participle and the participial noun, require some farther extension of my observations in this place.

OBS. 25.--Upon the classification of words, as parts of speech, distinguished according to their natures and uses, depends the whole scheme of grammatical science. And it is plain, that a bad distribution, or a confounding of such things as ought to be separated, must necessarily be attended with inconveniences to the student, for which no skill or learning in the expounder of such a system can ever compensate. The absurdity of supposing with Horne Tooke, that the same word can never be used so differently as to belong to different parts of speech, I have already alluded to more than once. The absolute necessity of classing words, not according to their derivation merely, but rather according to their sense and construction, is too evident to require any proof. Yet, different as are the natures and the uses of verbs, participles, and nouns, it is no uncommon thing to find these three parts of speech confounded together; and that too to a very great extent, and by some of our very best grammarians, without even an attempt on their part to distinguish them. For instances of this glaring fault and perplexing inconsistency, the reader may turn to the books of W. Allen and T. O. Churchill, two of the best authors that have ever written on English grammar. Of the participle the latter gives no formal definition, but he represents it as "a form, in which the action denoted by the verb is capable of being joined to a noun as its quality, or accident."--''Ch