Grammatical case

“ Even in etymological parsing, some regard must be had to the syntactical relations of words. By modifications, we commonly mean actual changes in the forms of words, by which their grammatical properties are inherently distinguished; but, in all languages, the distinguishable properties of words are somewhat more numerous than their actual variations of form; there being certain principles of universal grammar, which cause the person, number, gender, or case, of some words, to be inferred from their relation to others ”

“ Whether these verbal nouns admit of the dative case only, and whether some of those datival terminations have become obsolete, are questions which do not concern the grammarian, and nothing would be more unphilosophical than to make such points the specific characteristic of a new grammatical category, the infinitive. The very idea that every noun must possess a complete set of cases, is contrary to all the lessons of the history of language ”

“ To parse a noun is to state the class to which it belongs, its gender, number, case, and its grammatical relation to other words in the sentence.
The changes in meaning and use which nouns undergo with or without a change in form, are called their inflections.
The inflections of the noun are number and case.
EXERCISE.
Parse all the nouns in the following sentences:—
Model.—John, a proper, concrete noun; masculine gender; singular number; nominative case, subject of lost.
Teacher’s, a common, concrete noun; masculine or feminine gender; singular number; possessive case, possessing book. ”

“ He will understand that my design is, here, as well as in the body of this work, to teach grammar practically, by rectifying, so far as I may, all sorts of mistakes either in it or respecting it; to compose a book which, by a condensed exposition of such errors as are commonly found in other grammars, will at once show the need we have of a better, and be itself a fit substitute for the principal treatises which it censures. Grammatical errors are universally considered to be small game for critics. ”

“ From grammarians who form their ideas, and make their decisions, respecting this part of english grammar, on the principles and constructions of languages which, in these points, do not suit the peculiar nature of our own, but differ considerably from it, we may naturally expect grammatical schemes that are not very perspicuous nor perfectly consistent, and which will tend more to perplex than to inform the learner. ”

“ We shall thus have a comparative grammar and an historical grammar, the latter being devoted to tracing the history of grammatical forms and usages in the same language. Of course, an historical grammar is only possible where a succession of written records exists; where a language possesses no older literature we must be content with a comparative grammar only, and look to cognate idioms to throw light upon its grammatical peculiarities. ”

“ Now when a speech is merely in conformity with the principles and rules of the language, without having sweetness, beauty, polish, and embellishment, in the simple and complex forms, and is not free from superfluity or excessive brevity compared with the meaning intended to be conveyed, such a discourse is said to be merely grammatical; the man who essentially and constantly speaks in that manner is said to be a grammarian; and the power by which he speaks in that manner is called grammar. ”

“ The history of the Romance, as well as of the Germanic, languages shows in the clearest manner how a grammar, once powerful and copious, has been gradually weakened and impoverished, until at last it preserves only a few fragments of its ancient inflections. Now there is no doubt that this luxuriance of grammatical forms is not an essential part of a language, considered merely as a vehicle of thought. ”

“ When a gerund and a preposition are used, the phrase should be in logical and immediate connection with the substantive it modifies, and the phrase should never introduce a sentence unless it logically belongs to the subject of that Page 82 sentence. Exception: When the gerund phrase denotes a general action, it may be used without grammatical connection to the sentence; as, In traveling, good drinking water is essential. ”

“ In nonsense, absurdity, or falsehood, there can never be any grammatical authority; because, however language may be abused, the usage which gives law to speech, is still that usage which is founded upon the common sense of mankind.
18. Grammar appeals to reason, as well as to authority, but to what extent it should do so, has been matter of dispute. "The knowledge of useful arts," says Sanctius, "is not an invention of human ingenuity, but an emanation from the Deity, descending from above for the use of man, as Minerva sprung from the brain of Jupiter. ”

“ To say again, with the same gentlemen, "Conjunctions connect the same moods and tenses of verbs, and cases of nouns and pronouns," is to put an ungrammatical, obscure, and useless assertion, in the place of an important rule. To say merely, "Prepositions govern the objective case," is to rest all the syntax of prepositions on a rule that never applies to them, but which is meant only for one of the constructions of the objective case. ”

“ It must also be noticed that we must not sharply separate the grammatical and the logical relations of language, as if they were in no way connected. Grammatical rules are simply convenient descriptions of the most ordinary and striking ways in which a language expresses itself at a particular time. ”

“ And I shall merely add that the grammatical norm, which in the realistic conception of grammar is presented as a rule, anteceding actual speech both in time and ideally, has in reality no validity whatsoever excepting as a law internal to the speaking itself, which brings out its normative force only in the act itself of speaking. ”

“ For these plain reasons a competent Grammatical knowledge of our own Language is the true foundation upon which all Literature, properly so called, ought to be raised. If this method were [xiii] adopted in our Schools; if children were first taught the common principles of Grammar by some short and clear System of English Grammar, which happily by its simplicity and facility is perhaps of all others the fittest for such a purpose, they would have some notion of what they were going about, when they should enter into the Latin Grammar ”

“ All speculative minds are fond of generalization; and, in the vastness of the views which may thus be taken of grammar, such may find an entertainment which they never felt in merely learning to speak and write grammatically. But the pleasure of such contemplations is not the earliest or the most important fruit of the study. The first thing is, to know and understand the grammatical construction of our own language. ”

“ OBS. 9.--In the Latin syntax, verbs of asking and teaching are said to govern two accusatives; as, "Posce Deum veniam, Beg pardon of God."--Grant's Latin Gram., p. 207. "Docuit me grammaticam, He taught me grammar."--Grant, Adam, and others. And again: "When a verb in the active voice governs two cases, in the passive it retains the latter case; as, Doceor grammaticam, I am taught grammar."--Adam's Gram., p. 177. These writers however suggest, that in reality the latter accusative is governed, not by the verb, but by a preposition understood. ”

“ Such forms of speech, because they are idiomatical, seldom admit of any literal translation, and are never naturalized by any transfer from one language or dialect into an other; nor is it proper for grammarians to justify them, in vernacular speech, except as figures or anomalies that ought not to be generally imitated. It cannot be truly affirmed, that the genius of our language ever requires that participles, as such, should assume the relations of a noun, or govern the possessive case ”

“ This leads us to the consideration of Grammatical Agreement and Government; carries us over into Syntax, Prosody, Logic, and Rhetoric; back to Lexicology, the domain of the Dictionary or mere Vocabulary in Language; and thence upward to Music, and finally again to Song, the culmination of Speech.
The subject grows upon us, and it is impossible to complete it in a single paper.
The Portions of Language which we have been considering belong to the two Departments: 1. Elementismus (Kant's Quality) , and 2. Relation (Grammar more properly) . ”

“ In every language grammatical correctness is obligatory. Here we see a distinction between mere conversation, which is loose, fragmentary and often, even in the lips of highly educated persons, slightly ungrammatical; and prose, which is bound to weed away whatever is slovenly and incorrect, and to watch very closely lest merely colloquial expressions, which cannot be defended, should slip into careful speech. ”

“ And if such things are too hard for children, then grammar is too hard; for there neither is, nor can be, any grammar without them. And a little experience will satisfy any man, that the young will as easily apprehend them, as gender, number, declension, and other grammar-terms." See R. Johnson's Grammatical Commentaries, p. 4.
11. It is true, that the relation of words—by which I mean that connexion between them, which the train of thought forms and suggests—or that dependence which one word has on an other according to the sense—lies at the foundation of all syntax. ”

“ Wherever there is no clear consciousness of the distinction between root and grammatical suffix, as in our own inflectional family of speech, there we may expect a greater and more rapid amount of change than in agglutinative dialects where the relations of grammar are expressed by independent or semi-independent words. ”

“ When a Verb with its Accusative case, is equivalent to a single verb, it may take this accusative after it in the passive voice; as, 'This has been put an end to.'"--Fowler's English Language, 8vo, §552. Now what is this, but an effort to teach bad English by rule?--and by such a rule, too, as is vastly more general than even the great class of terms which it was designed to include? And yet this rule, broad as it is, does not apply at all to the example given! For "put an end," without the important word "to," is not equivalent to stop or terminate. Nor is the example right. ”

“ The perpetrators of the latter offence may fancy they can shield themselves behind the grammatical law which compels the employment of an adverb, not an adjective, to qualify a verb, and behind the first rule of syntax, which says "a verb must agree with its nominative." But which is the nominative in the expression alluded to? Which performs the act of looking,—the writing or the speaker? To say that a thing looks when we [75] look at it, is an idiom peculiar to our language, and some idioms are not reducible to rules ”

“ But it should be remembered that equivalence of meaning is not sameness of grammatical construction; and, even if the construction be the same, to parse other equivalent words, is not really to parse the text that is given. A good parser, with the liberty to supply obvious ellipses, should know how to explain all good English as it stands; and for a teacher to pervert good English into false doctrine, must needs seem the very worst kind of ignorance. What can be more fantastical than the following etymology, or more absurd than the following directions for parsing? ”

“ They who ridicule the phrase grammatical errors, and substitute the phrase errors in grammar, make an egregious mistake. Can there, it may be asked with some show of reason, be an error in grammar? Why, grammar is a science founded in our nature, referable to our ideas of time, relation, method ”

“ It is true, indeed, that neither any ancient system of grammatical instruction nor any grammar of an other language, however contrived, can be entirely applicable to the present state of our tongue; for languages must needs differ greatly one from an other, and even that which is called the same, may come in time to differ greatly from what it once was. But the general analogies of speech, which are the central principles of grammar, are but imperfectly seen by the man of one language. ”

“ OBS. 6.—Well-educated people commonly utter their words with more distinctness and fullness than the vulgar, yet without adopting ordinarily the long-drawn syllables of poets and orators, or the solemn phraseology of preachers and prophets. Whatever may be thought of the grammatical propriety of such contractions as the foregoing, no one who has ever observed how the English language is usually spoken, will doubt their commonness, or their antiquity. And it may be observed, that, in the use of these forms, the distinction of persons and numbers in the verb, is almost, if not entirely, dropped. ”

“ As tending to exercise the thinking and discriminative powers of the pupil, it is, perhaps, excelled by no branch of study with which we are acquainted. Practically, it accustoms the pupil to the exercise of a keen insight into the laws which regulate correct synthesis or composition, and to an intelligent appreciation of the elegances of style.
Moreover, grammatical analysis is generally one of the prescribed subjects in all our competitive and other examinations ”

“ Grammar is the right method of expressing the ideas of things by signs and sounds adapted for the sensation of the eye and ear, according to their hieroglyfic nature, forms, and modes, and that εντελεχεια or intelligent echo, with which man was originally endued by his Creator. ”