A Handbook of the English Language Part 49

1. The king _he_ is just.

2. I saw _her_, the queen.

3. The _men_, they were there.

4. The king, _his_ crown.

Of these forms, the first is more common than the second and third, and the fourth more common than the first.

-- 437. The fourth has another element of importance. It has given rise to the absurd notion that the genitive case in -'s (_father-'s_) is a contraction from _his_ (_father his_).

To say nothing about the inapplicability of this rule to feminine genders, and plural numbers, the whole history of the Indo-Germanic languages is against it.

1. We cannot reduce _the queen's majesty_ to _the queen his majesty_.

2. We cannot reduce _the children's bread_ to _the children his bread_.

3. The Anglo-Saxon forms are in -es, not in _his_.

4. The word _his_ itself must be accounted for; and that cannot be done by a.s.suming it to be _he_ + _his_.

5. The -s in _father's_ is the -is in _patris_, and the -?? in pat????.

-- 438. The preceding examples ill.u.s.trate an apparent paradox, viz., the fact of pleonasm and ellipsis being closely allied. _The king he is just_, dealt with as a _single_ sentence, is undoubtedly pleonastic. But it is not necessary to be considered as a mere simple sentence. _The king_--may represent a first sentence incomplete, whilst _he is just_ represents a second sentence in full. What is pleonasm in a single sentence is ellipsis in a double one.

CHAPTER V.

THE TRUE PERSONAL p.r.o.nOUNS.

-- 439. _Personal p.r.o.nouns._--The use of the second person plural instead of the second singular has been noticed already. This use of one number for another is current throughout the Gothic languages. A p.r.o.noun so used is conveniently called the _p.r.o.nomen reverentiae_.

-- 440. _Dativus ethicus._--In the phrase

Rob me the exchequer,--_Henry IV._,

the _me_ is expletive, and is equivalent to _for me_. This expletive use of the dative is conveniently called the _dativus ethicus_.

-- 441. _The reflected personal p.r.o.noun._--In the English language there is no equivalent to the Latin _se_, the German _sich_, and the Scandinavian _sik_, and _sig_.

It follows from this that the word _self_ is used to a greater extent than would otherwise be the case.

_I strike me_ is awkward, but not ambiguous.

_Thou strikest thee_ is awkward, but not ambiguous.

_He strikes him_ is ambiguous; inasmuch as _him_ may mean either the _person who strikes_ or some one else. In order to be clear we add the word _self_ when the idea is reflective. _He strikes himself_ is, at once idiomatic and unequivocal.

So it is with the plural persons.

_We strike us_ is awkward, but not ambiguous.

_Ye strike you_ is the same.

_They strike them_ is ambiguous.

This shows the value of a reflective p.r.o.noun for the third person.

As a general rule, therefore, whenever we use a verb reflectively we use the word _self_ in combination with the personal p.r.o.noun.

Yet this was not always the case. The use of the simple personal p.r.o.noun was current in Anglo-Saxon, and that, not only for the first two persons, but for the third as well.

The exceptions to this rule are either poetical expressions, or imperative moods.

He sat _him_ down at a pillar's base.--BYRON.

Sit thee down.

-- 442. _Reflective neuters._--In the phrase _I strike me_, the verb _strike_ is transitive; in other words, the word _me_ expresses the object of an action, and the meaning is different from the meaning of the simple expression _I strike_.

In the phrase _I fear me_ (used by Lord Campbell in his lives of the Chancellors), the verb _fear_ is intransitive or neuter; in other words, the word _me_ (unless, indeed, _fear_ mean _terrify_), expresses no object of any action at all; whilst the meaning is the same as in the simple expression _I fear_.

Here the reflective p.r.o.noun appears out of place, i.e., after a neuter or intransitive verb.

Such a use, however, is but the fragment of an extensive system of reflective verbs thus formed, developed in different degrees in the different Gothic languages; but in all more than in the English.

-- 443. _Equivocal reflectives._--The proper place of the reflective is _after_ the verb.

The proper place of the governing p.r.o.noun is, in the indicative and subjunctive moods, _before_ the verb.

Hence in expressions like the preceding there is no doubt as to the power of the p.r.o.noun.

The imperative mood, however, sometimes presents a complication. Here the governing person may follow the verb.

_Mount ye_ = either _be mounted_, or _mount yourselves_. In phrases like this, and in phrases

_Busk ye, busk ye_, my bonny, bonny bride, _Busk ye, busk ye_, my winsome marrow,

the construction is ambiguous. _Ye_ may either be a nominative case governing the verb _busk_, or an accusative case governed by it.

This is an instance of what may be called the _equivocal reflective_.

CHAPTER VI.

ON THE SYNTAX OF THE DEMONSTRATIVE p.r.o.nOUNS, AND THE p.r.o.nOUNS OF THE THIRD PERSON.