forms. To add an adverb (even more or most) to an adjective is not truly an inflection of comparison, though more and most perform the same office as the terminations of comparison.

The use of more and most as a substitute for the terminations er and est came into use toward the end of the thirteenth century and is due to NormanFrench influence. Chaucer frequently uses such forms as wofuller, fittingest. In the Elizabethan period, and even later, writers paid little attention to the length of the adjective in determining the mode of comparison. Thus Milton has hopefullest; Goldsmith, cunninger and cruelest; and even Washington Irving uses knowingest. Such sentences as "The delectablest lusty sight and movingest object methought it was," arefound in early English literature.

Double forms of comparison were also used by the older writers. Thus the Bible has "most straitest sect."

In Shakespeare we read:

A more longer list of virtues.-ANTONY AND Cleopatra.
Thy most worst.-WINTER'S TALE.

The more better assurance.
DREAM.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S

Ben Jonson speaks of this usage as "a certain kind of English Atticism imitating the manner of the most ancientest and finest Grecians."

In such expressions, more and most seem to have been first added to intensify the force of er and est.

156182A

Later they came to take the place of er and est for long adjectives.

In this connection we may notice the anomalous phrase "less happier land," used by Shakespeare in King Richard II, and also Milton's interesting line,

"And in the lowest depths a lower deep."

Most of the so-called irregular comparisons are merely isolated adjective forms which have lost their associated degrees of comparison. Thus, better and best had an ancient positive, bat; worse and worst had a root adjective, weor meaning bad. Hinder, nether, after, over, either, and other words are ancient comparative forms, from which the other degrees have been lost. Inner, upper, farther and some others have in present usage only an adverb, instead of an adjective, for the positive degree.

Among the irregular forms of comparison there are a few that show traces of vowel modification, and since regular forms are also in use paronyms have been developed, as elder, older; latter, later; last, latest. Of these the irregular form is always the earlier.

There is much interesting word study that can be undertaken in connection with the irregular forms of comparison, but this belongs to general etymological study rather than to the subject of true grammatical inflection.

XXI

VOICE

Grammatical terms are conventional and often unsatisfactory.-TOLMAN.

The absence of a reflexive is one reason why English has never developed a passive voice for any of its verbs.— RAMSEY.

The change of the verb for voice consists in the invention of a Passive variation of the verb, for stating the same action in a different form. To repeat all the tenses and moods of the verb, under a different termination, merely to exhibit a difference such as this, seems a great waste of power.-BAIN.

Voice is that form of a verb which shows whether the subject represents the actor or the one who receives the act. Exactly why the name voice should be given to this property of the verb it is hard to say. But it can be treated as a recognized term in grammar, in spite of its apparent lack of etymological meaning.

There is, however, no real inflection of voice in English, since all the passive verb forms are phrases made by the past participle of the verb with the various forms of be. For this reason some grammarians omit the term voice entirely. But since other languages have voice, grammarians have usually felt that it is convenient to retain the idea in English also, and to treat these passive phrases as a voice inflection of the verb.

The object of the active voice is made the subject of the passive. Where there are two objects, one direct and the other indirect, the direct object is the natural subject of the passive and the indirect object remains in the passive voice as an indirect objective phrase, as, He gave me some oranges. Some oranges were given to me. Yet occasionally we find the indirect object becoming the subject and the direct object remaining over in the passive, and known as the "retained object," as "I was given some oranges." This construction is peculiar to the English tongue.

In the case of an attributive object following the direct object (a construction sometimes called the odjective nredicate or factitive object) it is the habit of the passive to make the direct part of the object the subject, using the following word or phrase as an attribute after the copulative verb phrase, as

They made her queen.
She was made queen.

Only transitive verbs have a passive voice. There is a large class of neuter or intransitive verbs that have no change of voice, and their forms are necessarily all active.

Even in the transitive verbs the passive forms are used far less than the active. Simple and illiterate people, as well as children, seldom use passive verbs, because their thought seldom takes the passive form.

An intransitive verb followed by a preposition is

sometimes thought of as a transitive verb, and then forms a passive, as

He was taken no notice of.

Such means were resorted to.

There are some intransitive phrases that resemble the passive in form, as "He is come," "The tower is fallen." The participle in these cases is sometimes treated like an adjective rather than as a part of a true verb phrase. This construction is very common in Shakespearian English. We read:

"The King himself is rode to view the battle."-KING HENRY VIII.

"I am declined into the vale of years."-OTHELLO. "His lordship is walked forth."-KING HENRY IV. Although these intransitive phrases resemble the passive voice they really conform to the grammar of old English in which be was the auxiliary of the perfect tenses for the intransitive verbs, and have for the transitive verbs. In modern English the transitive auxiliary have has become the perfect tense auxiliary for all verbs.

These are cases in which active verb seems to have a passive meaning, as "Meat will not keep in hot weather."

This also was more common in earlier literature, as "What's to do: "-TWELFTH NIGHT.

To the student of general grammar both of these constructions suggest the so-called "middle voice" of