The Grammar of English Grammars eBook

Goold Brown
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,149 pages of information about The Grammar of English Grammars.

The Grammar of English Grammars eBook

Goold Brown
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,149 pages of information about The Grammar of English Grammars.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—­By some writers, the words, also, since, too, then, therefore, and wherefore, are placed among the copulative conjunctions; and as, so, still, however, and albeit, among the disjunctive; but Johnson and Webster have marked most of these terms as adverbs only.  It is perhaps of little moment, by which name they are called; for, in some instances, conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs do not differ very essentially. As, so, even, then, yet, and but, seem to belong sometimes to the one part of speech, and sometimes to the other.  I call them adverbs when they chiefly express time, manner, or degree; and conjunctions when they appear to be mere connectives. As, yet, and but, are generally conjunctions; but so, even, and then, are almost always adverbs. Seeing and provided, when used as connectives, are more properly conjunctions than any thing else; though Johnson ranks them with the adverbs, and Webster, by supposing many awkward ellipses, keeps them with the participles.  Examples:  “For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.”—­Acts, ii, 15.  “The senate shall have power to adjourn themselves, provided such adjournment shall not exceed two days at a time.”—­Constitution of New Hampshire.

OBS. 2.—­Since, when it governs a noun after it, is a preposition:  as, “Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days?”—­Job. Albeit is equivalent in sense to although, and is properly a conjunction; but this old compound is now nearly or quite obsolete. As is sometimes a relative pronoun, sometimes a conjunctive adverb, and sometimes a copulative conjunction.  Example of the last:  “We present ourselves as petitioners.”  If as is ever disjunctive, it is not so here; nor can we parse it as an adverb, because it comes between two words that are essentially in apposition.  The equivalent Latin term quasi is called an adverb, but, in such a case, not very properly:  as, “Et colles quasi pulverem pones;”—­“And thou shalt make the hills as chaff.”—­Isaiah, xli, 15.  So even, which in English is frequently a sign of emphatic repetition, seems sometimes to be rather a conjunction than an adverb:  as, “I, even I, am the Lord.”—­Isaiah, xliii, 11.

OBS. 3.—­Save and saving, when they denote exception, are not adverbs, as Johnson denominates them, or a verb and a participle, as Webster supposes them to be, or prepositions, as Covell esteems them, but disjunctive conjunctions; and, as such, they take the same case after as before them; as, “All the conspirators, save only he, did that they did, in envy of great Caesar.”—­Shak. “All this world’s glory seemeth vain, and all their shows but shadows, saving she.”—­Spenser

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The Grammar of English Grammars from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.