IX THE VERBAL ELEMENT OF THE SENTENCE The apparently simple question "What is a verb?" has been from of old the subject of the most ferocious controversies.-HORNE TOOKE. The verbal notion as such is nothing but a copula.TRANSLATED FROM GRAMMATIK VON CONRAD HERMANN. Every verb admits of being taken apart or analyzed into some form of the copula be, which expresses the act of assertion, and a predicate noun or adjective (especially the verbal adjective, the present participle) expressing the condition or quality or action predicated.—WHITNEY. The definition of the verb (as the word which asserts) does not provide for interrogative or imperative sentences. Indeed it is probably impossible to define the verb briefly and clearly, so as to include such sentences. The interrogative and imperative forms, however, may be so easily changed into declarative that this definition will not be found seriously inadequate.-HARPER AND BURGESS. The verb makes the speaker responsible. If we say "The boy" we utter merely a name. But the minute we add a verb to the name, as, "The boy lies," we are held responsible for a statement.-LEWIS. We cannot assert or deny without a finite verb.-BAIN. It is a quaint saying of that quaint, and yet wise, people, the Chinese, that verbs alone are living words.-M. SCHELE DE VERE. The distinction shown to the verb in giving it a name that means the word of the sentence, seems to require that its definition should make plain its superiority as a sentence element. Yet the statement of many grammars that the verb is "a word which expresses being, action, or state," misses the essential fact. In some of the older grammars we read that "the verb is a word that signifies to do, to be, or to suffer," and that "it may be distinguished by its making sense with one of the personal pronouns or the word to before it." Such statements are inadequate as definitions of the verb. Among ancient grammarians the tense variations attracted attention as one of the most distinguishing features. So Aristotle defined a verb as a word that can express time. For a similar reason the common German word for verb is Zeit-wort, or "time-word." Some grammarians have thought the power to denote action the most conspicuous feature and have given names expressive of the idea of "deed-word." A truer thought than any of these, however, is expressed by Madvig, the German author of a celebrated Latin grammar, who designates the verb by a word meaning "outsayings-word," because it "outsays, asserts, or delivers the judgment of the mind.” The force of this definition is best shown by the logical rather than the grammatical view of the sentence. This is, that the ideas expressed by the subject and predicate terms in every sentence are brought into comparison and the mind asserts or denies the agree ment of these ideas. The word which expresses this mental decision is the copula, or true verb. It is the assertive element in every sentence and the presence of this assertive power in any word is the only thing that gives it a true verbal character. In any simple sentence there is only one word in which this assertive power is lodged. A verb may be logically defined, therefore, as the word which is the copula, or which contains the copula of the judgment. 66 When the verb be is used to express an unchangeable or a general truth, it is a pure copula. In the sentences, "God is good," "A triangle is a plane figure," we find the copula stripped of all extraneous ideas and standing alone as the verb of the sentence. Yet the verbal element is seldom found thus in its naked simplicity. The idea to be predicated has many ways in which it can unite itself with the copulative element. There are also many accessory ideas of mood, tense, etc., to be conveyed, so that the verbal element is frequently almost lost sight of in the host of related ideas with which it is attended. In the sentence, "He sings," the verb contains not only the assertive element, but it expresses the action to be predicated as well, with the accessory ideas of time, and the person and number of the subject. But although the student of advanced grammar should recognize the essentially copulative character of the verbal office, the idea that the verb is an "asserting" or "stating" word will be sufficient for elementary classes. Even the youngest students can recognize the word in the predicate whose omission would remove all power of assertion from the sentence. The objection has been raised that to define a verb as a word which asserts or states something about a person or thing," is not logical, since in the interrogatory or imperative sentence no assertion is made. As a substitute for the assertive idea, some grammarians have proposed the definition, "A verb is a word which when placed with a subject can form a sentence. But this transfers the difficulty of definition to the word sentence. It also excludes the copula is and all copulative and transitive verbs, which cannot form a sentence without the aid of an attribute or object following. The seeming impossibility of defining the "verb," without falling back on the logical rather than the grammatical view of the sentence, is an illustration of the difficulties that are often encountered in forming accurate, and at the same time simple, definitions of grammatical terms. In the verb-phrases which constitute the great majority of our English verbal forms, it is the first word alone which has a true verbal character. All the other words are participles and infinitives, which although derived from verbs are grammatically of a different nature. In the sentence "The house might have been burned," the assertive element is wholly within the word might. The predicate idea, however, is distributed throughout the verb-phrase, though centered principally in the participle burned. The logical relations of the words of the predicate |