Page images
PDF
EPUB

subject, we give especial prominence to the fact or facts to which we would direct attention. Participles preserve the government of the verbs to which they belong, and may be accompanied by complement, circumstance, and other peculiarities attendant on the verb itself. The English language owes much of its matchless flexibility to the boldness of its participial constructions, to which latter forms the pupil's attention will be frequently directed.

The English verb has, besides other participial forms which will be explained hereafter, two participles in each voice that are in very general use: the Present Participle and the Perfect Participle. The following are the participles of the verb to love, from which the pupil may form the corresponding participles of any other verb.

Active.

Present participle loving

Perfect participle having loved

Passive.

(being) loved
having been loved

The following sentences will exhibit incidental dicates changed into participial clauses.

pre

Ex.: The king extended his hand, smiled graciously and raised the suppliant. The king, extending his hand, smiled graciously, and raised the suppliant; or, the king, extending his hand, and smiling graciously, raised the suppliant. Cromwell entered the house and expelled the members. Cromwell, having entered the house, expelled the members. The gun was (had been) overcharged, and burst and killed the king. The gun being (having been) overcharged, burst and killed the king.

EXERCISE.

LESSON 95.-Change the leading verb in each of the following compound sentences, so as to connect the two actions with the subject without using a conjunction; and let a comma precede and follow the participial phrase.

The traveller mended his pace, and soon overtook the waggon. The sons dug the field carefully, and thus rendered it fertile. The garrison expected succour, and made a vigorous defence. The rain fell in torrents, and drenched us to the skin. The hawk descended swiftly, and struck its victim to the ground. The stranger called the waiter,

and demanded a newspaper. The messenger was late, and found the post-office closed. The fellow saw the danger, and took to his heels. The coachman got tipsy, and overturned the carriage. The farmer suspected the gipsies, and laid a plan for their detection. The plot had been betrayed by a confederate, and the principal conspirators had taken to flight.

LESSON 96.

-Write ten such sentences yourself, and underline the participial clauses.

SECTION III.

ORDER OF THE COMPOUND SEN

TENCE.

The clauses of a sentence that are connected by conjunctions always have relation to some common member of the sentence, but it frequently happens that they may be variously arranged as to position with regard to such common member; the arrangement depending rather upon the relative prominence that the speaker or writer would give to the different ideas, than upon the etymological character of the clauses.

1. The connected clauses may all follow the common member to which they relate.

2. They may all precede it.

3. They may partly precede and partly follow it.

Ex.: 1. Cleanliness is conducive not only to comfort, but to health also. 2. Not only to comfort, but to health also is cleanliness conducive. 3. Not only to comfort is cleanliness conducive, but to health also.

1. The artist's talent must be estimated not by the frame but by the picture. 2. Not by the frame but by the picture must the artist's talent be estimated. 3. Not by the frame must the artist's talent be estimated, but by the picture. 4. By the picture must the artist's talent be estimated, not by the frame.

When inversion takes place, it often happens that the subject, displaced from the head of the sentence,

follows the inflected verb, as in an interrogative sentence: this, however, is not universally the case.

We have seen that two singular subjects joined by the conjunction "and" require a verb, &c., in the plural number; but should one of the subjects thus coupled follow the verb, the latter will then be in the singular number.

Ex.: Gold and silver are precious metals. Gold is a precious metal, and silver also.

A participial clause of a compound sentence frequently precedes the subject on which it depends.

Ex.: Extending his hand, the king smiled graciously, and raised the suppliant.

EXERCISE.

LESSON 97.-Try if you can find, in the various examples given under Sections I. and II. of the present chapter, and in the exercises that you have written upon those sections, twenty sentences that admit of the order of the words being inverted.

Ex.: The hawk the gamekeeper killed, but missed the weasel. Though shallow, the brook was rapid. Mitigated this feeling may be, if not subdued.

SECTION IV.

DEGREES OF THE ADJECTIVE.

The qualities attributed to objects may be found existing, or may be judged to exist, in an infinite variety of degrees, in the different objects of which we speak; and there are found, in every polished language, a class of words, called ADVERBS of DEGREE, whose office is to augment or diminish the force of an adjective to which they are joined.

Ex.: That gentleman is very rich. Yon lady is exceedingly beautiful. This string is too short. My father is quite well. You are wholly wrong. The moon seems entirely round.

The wolf is an extremely savage beast. The horse is a highly useful animal. We caught an enormously large eel. The rhinoceros is horridly ugly. The elephant is surprisingly sagacious. The news is completely false. The bridge is rather steep. The weather is intensely cold. The pitcher is just full.

A slight degree of a quality is colloquially expressed by adding the termination "ish" to the adjective; a smartish blow, a sweetish taste. "So" serves, in familiar expressions, to increase the force of the adjective: our mother is so good." "How" is frequently used with an adjective to express a very high degree of a quality: how beautiful she is; how stupid you are.

EXERCISE.

LESSON 98.-Write twenty sentences, in each of which is an adjective, whose force is affected by an adverb of degree underlined.

Ex.: Geometry is a highly useful science.

Two or more objects may be spoken of with reference to the degree in which a quality, common to both or all, exists in the one, as compared with the others; or several qualities may be compared as to the degree in which they exist in the same object.

There are three principal ways of predicating a judgment thus based upon comparison. 1. We may assert that several objects are equally distinguished by a certain quality, or that several qualities exist in an equal degree in a certain object. 2. We may assert that a quality exists in a greater or less degree in one object than in another, or that one quality is greater or less than another in the same object. 3. We may assert that a quality exists in the highest or lowest degree in the object of which we speak.

To express these relative degrees, whether of equality, of excess or deficiency, of inferiority or superiority, the adjective has three distinct forms, called the DEGREES OF COMPARISON. They are named the POSITIVE, the COMPARATIVE, and the Su

PERLATIVE DEGREE, and analogous forms of expression are found in all languages.

1. The POSITIVE DEGREE is the adjective in its attributive form, as we have hitherto seen it employed in simple sentences, when it does not necessarily imply direct comparison; or, at least, if the judgment asserted must have been originally based upon that operation, it is not always expressed in the sentence. When the adjective in its simple form is employed to show the result of a comparison, it expresses what is called a Comparison of Equality, in which an adverb of degree, conveying by itself an incomplete idea, requires to be followed by a correlative term of comparison that may be regarded as its complement. In a comparison of equality we use adverbially the word "as," and the same word repeated serves, as a conjunction, to connect the phrase which, forming the complement of the adverb, determines the value of the adjective.

Ex.: Snow is as cold as ice. The carnation is as beautiful as the rose. This book is as instructive as interesting. That young lady is as amiable as beautiful.

If sentences like these, predicating the judgment resulting from a comparison, be strictly analysed, it will be found that a verb has been suppressed; and therefore the consideration of such sentences ought perhaps to be postponed till complex sentences are treated of; but as in this form of expression the ellipsis of the verb is almost universal, and the proposition thus assumes, at first sight, the appearance of an extended simple sentence, I have thought the present the most convenient period of our progress for considering the comparison of the adjective. If the ellipsis be supplied in the sentences just given, we shall find two distinct subjects, grammatically considered, having distinct predicates.

Ex.: Snow is as cold as ice is cold. The carnation is as beautiful as the rose is beautiful. This book is as instructive as it is interesting. That young lady is as amiable as she is beautiful.

« PreviousContinue »