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.

OBS. 11.—­The notion that one verb governs an other in the infinitive, just as a transitive verb governs a noun, and so that it cannot also govern an objective case, is not only contradictory to my scheme of parsing the infinitive mood, but is also false in itself, and repugnant to the principles of General Grammar.  In Greek and Latin, it is certainly no uncommon thing for a verb to govern two cases at once; and even the accusative before the infinitive is sometimes governed by the preceding verb, as the objective before the infinitive naturally is in English.  But, in regard to construction, every language differs more or less from every other; hence each must have its own syntax, and abide by its own rules.  In regard to the point here in question, the reader may compare the following examples:  “[Greek:  Echo anagkaen exelthein].”—­Luke, xiv, 18.  “Habeo necesse exire.”—­Leusden.  English:  “I have occasion to go away.”  Again:  “[Greek:  O echon hota akouein, akoueto].”—­Luke, xiv, 35.  “Habens aures audiendi, audiat.”—­Leusden.  “Qui habet aures ad audiendum, audiat.”—­Beza.  English:  “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  But our most frequent use of the infinitive after the objective, is in sentences that must not be similarly constructed in Latin or Greek;[342] as, “And he commanded the porter to watch.”—­Mark, xiii, 34.  “And he delivered Jesus to be crucified.”—­Mark, xv, 15.  “And they led him out to crucify him.”—­Mark, xv, 20.  “We heard him say.”—­Mark, xiv, 58.  “That I might make thee know.”—­Prov., xxii, 21.

OBS. 12.—­If our language does really admit any thing like the accusative before the infinitive, in the sense of a positive subject at the head of a clause, it is only in some prospective descriptions like the following:  “Let certain studies be prescribed to be pursued during the freshman year; some of these to be attended to by the whole class; with regard to others, a choice to be allowed; which, when made by the student, (the parent or guardian sanctioning it,) to be binding during the freshman year:  the same plan to be adopted with regard to the studies of the succeeding years.”—­GALLAUDET:  Journal of the N. Y. Literary Convention, p. 118.  Here the four words, some, choice, which, and plan, may appear to a Latinist to be so many objectives, or accusatives, placed before infinitives, and used to describe that state of things which the author would promote.  If objectives they are, we may still suppose them to be governed by let, would have, or something of the kind, understood:  as, “Let some of these be attended to;” or, “Some of these I would have to be attended to,” &c.  The relative which might with more propriety be made nominative, by changing “to be binding” to “shall be binding;” and as to the rest, it is very

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