Before I proceed to show how these auxiliary verbs are joined with others, to express the intended accessary ideas, I shall offer a few observations on the participle.
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE PARTICIPLE.
A participle is a part of speech derived from a verb, agreeing with its primitive in denoting action, being, or suffering, but differing from it in this, that the participle implies no affirmation[57].
There are two participles, the present, ending in ing, as reading[58]; and the perfect or past, generally ending in d or ed, as heard, loved.
The present participle denotes the relatively present, or the contemporary continuation of an action, or state of being. If we say, “James was building the house,” the participle expresses the continuation of the action, and the verb may be considered as active. If we say, “the house was building, when the wall fell,” the participle, the same as in the preceding example, denotes here the continuation of a state of suffering, or being acted upon; and the verb may be considered as passive. This participle, therefore, denoting either action or passion, cannot with propriety be considered, as it has been by some grammarians, as entirely an active participle. Its distinctive and real character is, that in point of time it denotes the relatively present, and may therefore be called the present participle; and, in regard to action or passion, it denotes their continuance or incompletion, and may therefore be termed imperfect. In respect to time, therefore, it is present; in respect to the action or state of being, it is continued or imperfect. But whether it express action or passion can be ascertained only by inquiring whether the subject be acting or suffering; and this is a question which judgment only can decide, the participle itself not determining the point. If we say, “the prisoner was burning,” our knowledge of the subject only can enable us to determine whether the prisoner was active or passive; whether he was employing fire to consume, or was himself consuming by fire.
The other participle, ending generally in ed or d, has been called by some grammarians the passive participle, in contradistinction to the one which we have now been considering, and which they have termed the active participle. “This participle has been so called,” says the author of the British Grammar, “because, joined with the verb to be, it forms the passive voice.” If the reason here assigned justify its denomination as a passive participle, there exists the same reason for calling it an active participle; for, with the verb to have, it forms some of the compound tenses of the active voice. The truth is, that, as those grammarians have erred who consider the participle in ing as an active participle, when it in fact denotes either action or passion, so those, on the other hand, commit a similar mistake, who regard the participle in ed as purely passive. A little attention will suffice to show that it belongs to neither the one voice nor the other peculiarly: and that it denotes merely completion or perfection, in contradistinction to the other participle, which expresses imperfection or continuation. If it be true, indeed, that the participle in ing does not belong to the active voice only, but expresses merely the continuation of any act, passion, or state of being, analogy would incline us to infer, that the participle in ed, which denotes the completion of an act or state of being, cannot belong exclusively to the passive voice; and I conceive that, on inquiry, we shall find this to be the case. If I say, “he had concealed a poniard under his coat,” the participle here would be considered as active. If I say, “he had a poniard concealed under his clothes,” the participle would be regarded as passive. Does not this prove that this participle is ambiguous, that it properly belongs to neither voice, and that the context only, or the arrangement, can determine, whether it denote the perfection of an action, or the completion of a passion or state of being? When I say, “Lucretia stabbed herself with a dagger, which she had concealed under her clothes,” it is impossible to ascertain whether the participle be active or passive, that is, whether the verb had be here merely an auxiliary verb, or be synonymous with the verb to possess. If the former be intended, the syntactical collocation is, “she had concealed (which) dagger under her clothes:” if the latter, the grammatical order is, “she had which dagger concealed:” and it requires but little discernment to perceive that “she had concealed a dagger,” and “had a dagger concealed,” are expressions by no means precisely equivalent.
I need not here remind the classical scholar, that the Latins had two distinct forms of expression to mark this diversity; the one, quem abdiderat, and the other quem abditum habebat. The latter is the phraseology of Livy, describing the suicide of Lucretia. His words, if translated, “which she had concealed,” become ambiguous; for this is equally a translation of quem abdiderat. It is observable also, that the phrase quem abdiderat would not imply, that the dagger was in the possession of Lucretia at the time.
The participle in ed, therefore, I consider to be perfectly analogous to the participle in ing, and used like it in either an active or passive sense; belonging, therefore, neither to the one voice nor the other exclusively, but denoting the completion of an action or state of being, while the participle in ing denotes its continuation.
In exhibiting a paradigm of the conjugation of our verbs, many grammarians have implicitly and servilely copied the Latin grammar, transferring into our language the names both of tenses and moods which have formally no existence in English. “I may burn,” is denominated, by the author of the British Grammar, the present subjunctive; “I might burn,” the imperfect subjunctive; “I may have burned,” the preterperfect; and so on. This is directly repugnant to the simplicity of our language, and is in truth as absurd as it would be to call “we two love,” the dual number of the present tense; or “he shall soon be buried,” a paulo post future. Were this principle carried its full length, we should have all the tenses, moods, and numbers, which are to be found in Greek or Latin. It appears to me, that nothing but prejudice or affectation could have prompted our English grammarians to desert the simple structure of their own language, and wantonly to perplex it with technical terms, for things not existing in the language itself.