When even at last the solemn hour shall come, Come then, expressive silence, muse its praise. THOMSON. A FEW FAMILIAR EXPRESSIONS, IN WHICH SOME WORDS ARE MISPLACED. The Old Handsworth Church, is two miles distant. You have a new pair of gloves. An inferior barrel of oysters was sent. Bring to me the most worn pair of shoes. Mend all the worst pairs of stockings. The Old Birmingham Canal. You will clearly understand, when you hear the whole case. You latterly have grown very much. The preserving pots of gooseberries were all sold. The New Edgbaston Church is now open for service. THE SAME EXPRESSIONS AS THE ABOVE, REPEATED, IN WHICH THE WORDS ARE PROPERLY PLACED. The Old Church, Handsworth, is two miles distant. You have a pair of new gloves. A barrel of inferior oysters was sent. Bring to me the pair of shoes most worn. Mend all the pairs of worst stockings. The Birmingham Old Canal. You will understand clearly, when you hear the whole case. You have latterly grown very much. The pots of preserving gooseberries were all sold. The New Church, Edgbaston, is now open for service. I have two suits of new clothes to be brought home. The Birmingham Old Workhouse is pulled down. CONCLUDING REMARKS IN A SUMMARY REVIEW OF SYNTAX. It may be an additional advantage to the learner, after having studied Syntax by rule, to review it in the form of an essay. The fundamental principles of Syntax are concord and government, which are reviewed separately in the following remarks. CONCORD, OR THE AGREEMENT OF SOME PARTS WITH OTHER PARTS OF SPEECH. 1st. An agreement exists between the verb and its subject. The subject is the word or words denoting the thing or things of which the verb is made to speak, as in the language "The water rises," the noun water denotes the thing spoken of, and the verb rises asserts or predicates concerning the water. This assertion, then, simple as it is, contains a nominative case and a verb, or a subject and its predicate. Every sentence contains, at least, these two parts; and some sentences are compounded of several of them. The shortest sentence cannot be made without them; a long sentence cannot be made without several phrases of these two parts. These two parts, then, are what are termed the pillars or the columns of language, or the basis on which other words depend. The learner who has studied the grammar 66 with ordinary application, is now well aware of the incorrectness of the expressions, The water rise," and "The waters rises." And he sees why, according to rule, it should be "The water rises,” and “The waters rise;" viz., the agreement observed between the verb and its subject. 2nd, An agreement exists between Pronouns and the Nouns for which they stand. In the language "I called to see James, but they were not at home," the pronoun they disagrees with the noun James in number. To preserve the agreement, the expression should be, "I called to see James, but he was not at home." The following examples show a disagreement of pronouns with their nouns. "Every tree is known by his fruit." "The mind of man is often his own instructor." "That is the gentleman which came home with us.' "The dog is a brute who knows his own master." "Take the pitcher and fill her with water." In these instances (as is undoubtedly seen by the reader) the expressions should be "its fruit," "its own instructor," "who came home," "which knows," "fill it with water." 3rd, Agreement exists between adjectives of Number and their nouns; as, "Three pairs," instead of "Three pair;"" Five tons," instead of "Five ton;" “Three feet,” instead of "Three foot." 66 4th, Agreement exists between phrases of sentences, joined together by the conjunction and; i.e., the same cases of Pronouns and like tenses of Verbs, should precede and follow the conjunction and, as is seen in the following sentences, He, she, and me, came home last night;" “You, I, and them, were all here in time." Here the pronouns disagree in case. The reading should be, He, she, and I,” &c., “You, I, and they,” &c. The following like phrases of verbs joined together by the conjunction and, disagree in the tenses of the verbs. "The corona 66 tion of Queen Victoria took place on the 28th day of L 66 June, and has been celebrated very generally by the people." "The sun rises in the East, and has set in the West;" which should be, was celebrated," "sets in the West." The summary of agreement in words, then is, that the subject and predicate of every sentence, or the Nominative case and the verb, should agree; Relative Pronouns, with the Nouns to which they relate, should agree; Personal Pronouns, with the Nouns for which they stand, should agree; and Adjectives, with the Nouns to which they belong, should agree. Moreover, the Pronoun being a word used instead of a noun, must agree with the noun for which it stands, in every thing except case. The reason that it may not agree in case, is, that if the noun itself were to be repeated instead of the pronoun, it would sometimes be in the nominative case, or representing the agent of an action, and at another time, in the same sentence, the object of an action; if then, a noun is used as the agent, and a pronoun for a substitute for that noun as the object acted upon, the pronoun must be in the objective case, while its noun, with which it agrees in person, number, and gender, is, in another situation and office in the sentence, and is therefore in another case: as, "Thomas came, but I sent him back again." GOVERNMENT, OR THE EFFECT WHICH ONE WORD HAS UPON ANOTHER WORD. 1st, One noun governs another in the possessive case; i.e., nouns dependent on each other, or used so as to express one person or thing, belonging to another person or thing, require that one or more of such nouns should be in the possessive case; as, "Rebecca's work-bag and John's slate," "The boys' hats are all here." Thus one noun governs another in the possessive case. Also a noun and a participle used together require the noun to be in the possessive case; as, in the following sentence, "The man's having reformed, was the cause of our favour towards him." 2nd, Verbs which denote action performed upon objects, govern the words representing those objects in the objective case. Nouns in the objective case do not vary in form from the nominative case. But pronouns do vary in form from the nominative case. Pronouns, then, are the only words in which you can commit an error in using the nominative form for the objective form. It would be erroneous to say, "He called James and sent he instantly;" because the active transitive verb sent governs the objective case; which case is represented by the word him. In like manner the following verbs govern the pronouns representing the objects acted upon; "You invited me," "We saw her," "They brought them," "I asked him," "She rewarded thee," "They overtook us." The participles derived from active transitive verbs also govern the objective case; as, Having seen him before, I expect he will come." "Not expecting them so soon, we are not prepared to receive them.” 66 3rd, Prepositions govern the objective case, and require the pronouns governed by them to be in the same forms as pronouns governed by active transitive verbs. The reason of this is, that prepositions are used after such verbs as do not express transmission of action to objects without the aid of prepositions; as, "You gazed on me very earnestly." "I go with them frequently." "You spoke to us on the subject." This is a frequent use of prepositions, viz., to connect verbs with their objects; but they always govern the objective case of the pronoun, whether action is expressed in the phrase or not. For, if prepositions merely show the relation between one person and another, or one thing and another, it is the circumstance understood in the phrase, which causes the relation |