wholly unsusceptible of inflection. Like prepositions, they are never made by means of a derivational element. Like prepositions they are either simple (as and, if), or complex (as also, nevertheless).

The conjunctions of deflection originate chiefly in imperative moods (as all save one, all except one); participles used like the ablative absolute in Latin (as all saving one, all excepting one); adverbs (as so); prepositions (as for); and relative neuters (as that).

The absolute conjunctions in the English language are and, or, but, if.

§ 445. Yes, no.-Although not may be reduced to an adverb, nor to a conjunction, and none to a noun, these two words (the direct affirmative and the direct negative) are referable to none of the current parts of speech. Accurate grammar places them in a class by themselves.

§ 446. Particles.-The word particle is a collective term for all those parts of speech that are naturally unsusceptible of inflection; comprising, 1, interjections; 2, direct affirmatives; 3, direct negatives; 4, absolute conjunctions; 5, absolute prepositions; 6, adverbs unsusceptible of degrees of comparison; 7, inseparable prefixes.

PART V.

SYNTAX.

CHAPTER I.

ON SYNTAX IN GENERAL.

§ 447. THE word syntax is derived from the Greek syn (with or together), and taxis (arrangement). It relates to the arrangement, or putting together of words. Two or more words must be used before there can be any application of the study of syntax.

Much that is considered by the generality of grammarians as syntax, can either be omitted altogether, or else be better studied under another name.

To reduce a sentence to its elements, and to show that these elements are, 1, the subject, 2, the predicate, 3, the copula; to distinguish between simple terms and complex terms,―this is the department of logic.

To show the difference in force of expression, between such a sentence as great is Diana of the Ephesians, and Diana of the Ephesians is great, wherein the natural order of the subject and predicate is reversed, is a point of rhetoric.

I am moving.-To state that such a combination as I am moving is grammatical, is undoubtedly a point of syntax. Nevertheless it is a point better explained in a separate treatise, than in a work upon any particular language. The expression proves its correctness by the simple fact of its universal intelligibility.

I speaks. To state that such a combination as I speaks, admitting that I is exclusively the pronoun in the first person,

and that speaks is exclusively the verb in the third, is undoubtedly a point of syntax. Nevertheless, it is a point which is better explained in a separate treatise, than in a work upon any particular language. An expression so ungrammatical, involves a contradiction in terms, which unassisted common sense can deal with.

There is to me a father.-Here we have a circumlocution equivalent to I have a father. In the English language the circumlocution is unnatural. In the Latin it is common. To determine this, is a matter of idiom rather than of syntax.

I am speaking, I was reading.-There was a stage in the Gothic languages when these forms were either inadmissible, or rare. Instead thereof, we had the present tense, I speak, and the past, I spoke. The same is the case with the classical languages in the classical stage. To determine the difference in idea between these pairs of forms is a matter of metaphysics. To determine at what period each idea came to have a separate mode of expression is a matter of the history of language. For example, vas láisands appears in Ulphilas (Matt. vii. 29). There, it appears as a rare form, and as a literal translation of the Greek v didαoкóv (was teaching). The Greek form itself was, however, an unclassical expression for didaσKE. In Anglo-Saxon this mode of speaking became common, and in English it is commoner still. This is a point of idiom involved with one of history.

Swear by your sword-swear on your sword.—Which of these two expressions is right? This depends on what the speaker means. If he mean make your oath in the full remembrance of the trust you put in your sword, and with the imprecation, therein implied, that it shall fail you, or turn against you, if you speak falsely, the former expression is the right one. But, if he mean swear with your hand upon your sword, it is the latter which expresses his meaning. To take a different view of this question, and to write as a rule that verbs of swearing are followed by the preposition on (or by) is to mistake the province of the grammarian. Grammar tells no

*See Deutsche Grammatik, iv. 5.

one what he should wish to say. It only tells him how what he wishes to say should be said.

Much of the criticism on the use of will and shall is faulty in this respect. Will expresses one idea of futurity, shall another. The syntax of the two words is very nearly that of any other two. That one of the words is oftenest used with a first person, and the other with a second, is a fact, as will be seen hereafter, connected with the nature of things, not of words.

§ 448. The following question now occurs. If the history of forms of speech be one thing, and the history of idioms another; if this question be a part of logic, and that question a part of rhetoric; and if such truly grammatical facts as government and concord are, as matters of common sense, to be left uninvestigated and unexplained, what remains as syntax? This is answered by the following distinction. There are two sorts of syntax; theoretical and practical, scientific and historical, pure and mixed. Of these, the first consists in the analysis and proof of those rules which common practice applies without investigation, and common sense appreciates, in a rough and gross manner, from an appreciation of the results. This is the syntax of government and concord, or of those points which find no place in the present work, for the following reason-they are either too easy or too hard for it. If explained scientifically, they are matters of close and minute reasoning; if exhibited empirically, they are mere rules for the memory. Besides this they are universal facts of languages in general, and not the particular facts of any one language. Like other universal facts, they are capable of being expressed symbolically. That the verb (A) agrees with its pronoun (B) is an immutable fact: or, changing the mode of expression, we may say that language can only fulfil its great primary object of intelligibility when AB. And so on throughout. A formal syntax thus exhibited, and even devised à priori, is a philological possibility. And it is also the measure of philological anomalies.

Notwithstanding the previous limitations, there is still a considerable amount of syntax in the English, as in all other languages. If I undertook to indicate the essentials of mixed syntax, I should say that they consisted in the explanation of

combinations apparently ungrammatical; in other words, that they ascertained the results of those causes which disturb the regularity of the pure syntax; that they measured the extent of the deviation; and that they referred it to some principle of the human mind-so accounting for it.

I am going.-Pure syntax explains this.

I have gone.-Pure syntax will not explain this. Nevertheless, the expression is good English. The power, however, of both have and gone is different from the usual power of those words. This difference mixed syntax explains.

Mixed syntax requires two sorts of knowledge-metaphysical, and historical.

1. To account for such a fact in language as the expression the man as rides to market, instead of the usual expression the man who rides to market, is a question of what is commonly called metaphysics. The idea of comparison is the idea common to the words as and who.

2. To account for such a fact in language as the expression I have ridden a horse is a question of history. We must know that when there was a sign of an accusative case in English the words horse and ridden had that sign; in other words, that the expression was, originally, I have a horse as a ridden thing. These two views illustrate each other.

§ 449. In the English, as in all other languages, it is convenient to notice certain so-called figures of speech. They always furnish convenient modes of expression, and sometimes, as in the case of the one immediately about to be noticed, account for facts.

Personification.-The ideas of apposition and collectiveness account for the apparent violations of the concord of number. The idea of personification applies to the concord of gender. A masculine or feminine gender, characteristic of persons, may be substituted for the neuter gender, characteristic of things. In this case the term is said to be personified.

The cities who aspired to liberty.-A personification of the idea expressed by cities is here necessary to justify the expression.

It, the sign of the neuter gender, as applied to a male or female child, is the reverse of the process.

Ellipsis (from the Greek elleipein to fall short), or a