Higher Lessons in English Part 17

Give the substance of the "Introductory Hints" (for example, show clearly what two things are essential to a complete predicate; explain what is meant by a complement; distinguish clearly the three kinds of complements; show what parts of speech may be employed for each, and tell what general idea--action, quality, cla.s.s, or ident.i.ty--is expressed by each attribute complement or objective complement in your ill.u.s.trations, etc.). Repeat and ill.u.s.trate definitions and rules; explain and ill.u.s.trate fully the distinction between an adjective complement and an adverb modifier; ill.u.s.trate what is taught of the forms _I, we,_ etc., _me, us,_ etc.; explain and ill.u.s.trate the use of the possessive sign.

Exercises on the Composition of the Sentence and the Paragraph.

(SEE PAGES 156-159.)

TO THE TEACHER.--See suggestions to the teacher, pages 30, 150.

LESSON 37.

VERBS AS ADJECTIVES AND AS NOUNS--PARTICIPLES.

+Introductory Hints.+--_Corn grows; Corn growing._ Here _growing_ differs from _grows_ in lacking the power to a.s.sert. _Growing_ is a form of the verb that cannot, like _grows_, make a complete predicate because it only a.s.sumes or implies that the corn does the act. _Corn_ may be called the a.s.sumed subject of _growing_.

_Birds, singing, delight us._ Here _singing_ does duty (1) as an adjective, describing birds by a.s.suming or implying an act, and (2) as a verb by expressing the act of singing as going on at the time birds delight us.

_By singing their songs birds delight us._ Here _singing_ has the nature of a verb and that of a noun. As a verb it has an object complement, _songs_; and as a noun it names the act, and stands as the princ.i.p.al word in a prepositional phrase.

_Their singing so sweetly delights us_. Here, also, _singing_ has the nature of a verb and that of a noun. As a verb it has an adverb modifier, _sweetly_, and as a noun it names an act and takes a possessive modifier.

This form of the verb is called the +Participle+ (Lat. _pars_, a part, and _capere_, to take) because it partakes of two natures and performs two offices--those of a verb and an adjective, or those of a verb and a noun.

(For definition see Lesson 131.)

_Singing birds delight us_. Here _singing_ has lost its verbal nature, and expresses a permanent quality of birds--telling what kind of birds,--and consequently is a mere adjective. _The singing of the birds delights us_.

Here _singing_ is simply a noun, naming the act and taking adjective modifiers.

There are two kinds of participles; [Footnote: Grammarians are not agreed as to what these words that have the nature of the verb and that of the noun should be called. Some would call the simple forms _doing_, _writing_, and _injuring_, in sentences (1), (6), and (7), Lesson 38, _Infinitives_.

They would also call by the same name such compound forms as _being accepted_, _having been shown_, and _having said_ in these expressions: "for the purpose of being accepted;" "is the having been shown over a place;" "I recollect his having said that." But does it not tax even credulity to believe that a simple Anglo-Saxon infinitive in _-an_, only one form of which followed a preposition, and that always _to_, could have developed into many compound forms, used in both voices, following almost any preposition, and modified by _the_ and by nouns and p.r.o.nouns in the possessive? No wonder the grammarian Mason says, "An infinitive in _-ing_, set down by some as a modification of the simple infinitive in _-an_ or _-en_, is a perfectly unwarranted invention."

Others call these words modernized forms of the Anglo-Saxon _Verbal Nouns_ in _-ung_, _-ing_. But this derivation of them encounters the stubborn fact that those verbal nouns never were compound, and never were or could be followed by objects. These words, on the contrary, are compound, as we have seen, and have objects. That they are from nouns in _-ung_ is otherwise, and almost for the same reasons, as incredible as that they are from infinitives in _-an_.

Others call these words _Gerunds_. A gerund in Latin is a simple form of the verb in the active voice, never found in the nominative, and never in the accusative (objective) after a verb. A gerund in Anglo-Saxon is a simple form of the verb in the active voice--the dative case of the infinitive merely--used mainly to indicate purpose, and always preceded by the preposition _to_. To call these words in question gerunds is to stretch the term _gerund_ immensely beyond its meaning in Anglo-Saxon, and make it cover words which sometimes (1) are highly compounded; sometimes (2) are used in the pa.s.sive voice; sometimes (3) follow other prepositions than _to_; sometimes (4) do not follow any preposition; sometimes (5) are objects of verbs; sometimes (6) are subjects of verbs; sometimes (7) are modified by _the_; sometimes (8) are modified by a noun or p.r.o.noun in the possessive; and generally (9) do not indicate purpose. We submit that the extension of a cla.s.s term so as to include words having these relations that the Anglo-Saxon gerund never had, is not warranted by any precedent except that furnished above in the extension of the term _infinitive_ or of the term _verbal noun_!

Still others call some of these words _Infinitives_; some of them _Verbal Nouns_; and some of them _Gerunds_.

The forms in question--_seeing, having seen, being seen, having been seen_, and _having been seeing_, for instance--are now made from the verb in precisely the same way when partaking the nature of the noun as when partaking the nature of the adjective. What can they possibly be but the forms that all grammarians call _participles_ extended to new uses? If the uses of the original participles have been extended, why may we not carry over the name? The name _participle_ is as true to its etymology when applied to the nounal use of the verb as when applied to the adjectival use. For convenience of cla.s.sification we call these disputed forms _participles_, as good grammarians long ago called them and still call them, though some of them may be traced back to the Saxon verbal noun or to the infinitive, and though the Saxon participle was adjectival. The name _participle_ neither confounds terms nor misleads the student. The nounal and the adjectival uses of participial forms we distinguish very sharply.]

one sharing the nature of the verb and that of the adjective; the other, the nature of the verb and that of the noun. Participles commonly end in _ing_, _ed_, or _en_.

The participle, like other forms of the verb, may be followed by an object complement or an attribute complement.

a.n.a.lysis and Parsing.

The +participle+ may be used as an +adjective modifier+.

1. Hearing a step, I turned.

I | turned ===|========= | hea ring | step --------|------ a

+Explanation+.--The line standing for the participle is broken; one part slants to represent the adjective nature of the participle, and the other is horizontal to represent its verbal nature.

+Oral a.n.a.lysis+.--The phrase _hearing a step_ is a modifier of the subject; [Footnote: Logically, or in sense, _hearing a step_ modifies the predicate also. I _turned when_ or _because_ I heard a step. See Lesson 79.] the princ.i.p.al word is _hearing_, which is completed by the noun _step_; _step_ is modified by _a_.

+Parsing+.--_Hearing_ is a form of the verb called participle because the act expressed by it is merely a.s.sumed, and it shares the nature of an adjective and that of a verb.

2. The fat of the body is fuel laid away for use.

+Explanation+.--The complement is here modified by a participle phrase.

3. The spinal marrow, proceeding from the brain, extends down-ward through the back-bone.

4. Van Twiller sat in a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague.

+Explanation+.--The princ.i.p.al word of a prepositional phrase is here modified by a participle phrase.

5. Lentulus, returning with victorious legions, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheater.

The +participle+ may be used as an +attribute complement+.

6. The natives came crowding around.

+Explanation+.--_Crowding_ here completes the predicate _came_, and belongs to the subject _natives_. The natives are represented as performing the act of coming and the accompanying act of crowding. The a.s.sertive force of the predicate _came_ seems to extend over both verbs. [Footnote: Some grammarians prefer to treat the participle in such constructions as adverbial. But is _crowding_ any more adverbial here than are _pale_ and _trembling_ in "The natives came _pale_ and _trembling_"?]

7. The city lies sleeping.

8. They stood terrified.

9. The philosopher sat buried in thought.

and and ........ star ving sav ------- ing gru ---------- bbing ------------- | miser | kept / ======|====================== |

10. The old miser kept grubbing and saving and starving.

The +participle+ may be used as an +objective complement+.

11. He kept me waiting.

+Explanation+.--_Waiting_ completes _kept_ and relates to the object complement _me_. _Kept-waiting_ expresses the complete act performed upon me. _He kept-waiting me_=_He detained me_. The relation of _waiting_ to _me_ may be seen by changing the form of the verb; as, I _was kept waiting_. See Lesson 31.

12. I found my book growing dull. [Footnote: It will be seen by this and following examples that we extend the application of the term _objective complement_ beyond its primary, or fact.i.tive, sense. In "I struck the man _dead_," the condition expressed by _dead_ is the result of the act expressed by _struck_. In "I found the man _dead_," the condition is not the result of the act, and so grammarians say that in this second example _dead_ should be treated simply as an "appositive" adjective modifying _man_. While _dead_ does not belong to _man_ as expressing the result of the act, it is made to belong to _man_ through the a.s.serting force of the verb, and therefore is not a mere modifier of _man_. _Dead_ helps _found_ to express the act. Not _found_, but _found-dead_ tells what was done to the man.

If we put the sentence in the pa.s.sive form, "The man was found _dead_," it will be seen that _dead_ is more than a mere modifier; it belongs to _man_ through the a.s.sertive force of _was found_. If _dead_ is here merely an "appositive" adjective, "I found the man dead" must equal "I found the man, who was dead" (or, "and he was dead"). The two sentences obviously are not equal. "I caught him asleep" does not mean, "I caught him, and he was asleep."

If, in the construction discussed above, _dead_ is an objective complement, _quiet_, _stirring_, and (to) _stir_ in the following sentences are objective complements:--

I saw the leaves quiet.

I saw the leaves stirring.

I saw the leaves stir.

The adjective, the participle, and the infinitive do not here seem to differ essentially in office. See Lesson 31 and page 78.]