Interjections, being seldom any thing more than natural sounds or short words uttered independently, can hardly be said to have any syntax; but since some rule is necessary to show the learner how to dispose of them in parsing, a brief axiom for that purpose, is here added, which completes our series of rules: and, after several remarks on this canon, and on the common treatment of Interjections, this chapter is made to embrace Exercises upon all the other parts of speech, that the chapters in the Key may correspond to those of the Grammar.
RULE XXIV.—INTERJECTIONS.
Interjections have no dependent construction; they are put absolute, either alone, or with other words: as, "O! let not thy heart despise me."—Dr. Johnson. "O cruel thou!"—Pope, Odys., B. xii, l. 333. "Ah wretched we, poets of earth!"—Cowley,
"Ah Dennis! Gildon ah! what ill-starr'd rage
Divides a friendship long confirm'd by age?"
Pope, Dunciad, B. iii,
OBSERVATIONS ON RULE XXIV.
OBS. 1.—To this rule, there are properly no exceptions. Though interjections are sometimes uttered in close connexion with other words, yet, being mere signs of passion or of feeling, they seem not to have any strict grammatical relation, or dependence according to the sense. Being destitute alike of relation, agreement, and government, they must be used independently, if used at all. Yet an emotion signified in this manner, not being causeless, may be accompanied by some object, expressed either by a nominative absolute, or by an adjective after for: as, "Alas! poor Yorick!"—Shak. Here the grief denoted by alas, is certainly for Yorick; as much so, as if the expression were, "Alas for poor Yorick!" But, in either case, alas, I think, has no dependent construction; neither has Yorick, in the former, unless we suppose an ellipsis of some governing word.
OBS. 2.—The interjection O is common to many languages, and is frequently uttered, in token of earnestness, before nouns or pronouns put absolute by direct address; as, "Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand."—Psalms, x, 12. "O ye of little faith!"—Matt., vi, 30. The Latin and Greek grammarians, therefore, made this interjection the sign of the vocative case; which case is the same as the nominative put absolute by address in English. But this particle is no positive index of the vocative; because an independent address may be made without that sign, and the O may be used where there is no address: as, "O scandalous want! O shameful omission!"—"Pray, Sir, don't be uneasy."—Burgh's Speaker, p. 86.
OBS. 3.—Some grammarians ascribe to two or three of our interjections the power of governing sometimes the nominative case, and sometimes the objective. First, NIXON; in an exercise entitled, "NOMINATIVE GOVERNED BY AN INTERJECTION," thus: "The interjections O! Oh! and Ah! require after them the nominative case of a substantive in the second person; as, 'O thou persecutor!'—'O Alexander! thou hast slain thy friend.' O is an interjection, governing the nominative case Alexander."—English Parser, Again, under the title, "OBJECTIVE CASE GOVERNED BY AN INTERJECTION," he says: "The interjections O! Oh! and Ah! require after them the objective case of a substantive in the first or third person; as, 'Oh me!' 'Oh the humiliations!' Oh is an interjection, governing the objective case humiliations."—These two rules are in fact contradictory, while each of them absurdly suggests that O, oh, and ah, are used only with nouns. So J. M. PUTNAM: "Interjections sometimes govern an objective case; as, Ah me! O the tender ties! O the soft enmity! O me miserable! O wretched prince! O cruel reverse of fortune! When an address is made, the interjection does not perform the office of government."—Putnam's Gram., So KIRKHAM; who, under a rule quite different from these, extends the doctrine of government to all interjections: "According to the genius of the English language, transitive verbs and prepositions require the objective case of a noun or pronoun after them; and this requisition is all that is meant by government, when we say that these parts of speech govern the objective case. THE SAME PRINCIPLE APPLIES TO THE INTERJECTION. 'Interjections require the objective case of a pronoun of the first person after them; but the nominative of a noun or pronoun of the second or third person; as, Ah me! Oh thou! O my country!' To say, then, that interjections require particular cases after them, is synonymous with saying, that they govern those cases; and this office of the interjection is in perfect accordance with that which it performs in the Latin, and many other languages."—Kirkham's Gram., According to this, every interjection has as much need of an object after it, as has a transitive verb or a preposition! The rule has, certainly, no "accordance" with what occurs in Latin, or in any other language; it is wholly a fabrication, though found, in some shape or other, in well-nigh all English grammars.
OBS. 4.—L. MURRAY'S doctrine on this point is thus expressed: "The interjections O! Oh! and Ah! require the objective case of a pronoun in the first person after them, as, 'O me! oh me! Ah me!' But the nominative case in the second person: as, 'O thou persecutor!' 'Oh ye hypocrites!' 'O thou, who dwellest,' &c."—Octavo Gram., INGERSOLL copies this most faulty note literally, adding these words to its abrupt end,—i. e., to its inexplicable "&c." used by Murray; "because the first person is governed by a preposition understood: as, 'Ah for me!' or, 'O what will become of me!' &c., and the second person is in the nominative independent, there being a direct address."—Conversations on E. Gram., So we see that this grammarian and Kirkham, both modifiers of Murray, understand their master's false verb "require" very differently. LENNIE too, in renouncing a part of Murray's double or threefold error, "Oh! happy us!" for, "O happy we!" teaches thus: "Interjections sometimes require the objective case after them, but they never govern it. In the first edition of this grammar," says he, "I followed Mr. Murray and others, in leaving we, in the exercises to be turned into us; but that it should be we, and not us, is obvious; because it is the nominative to are understood; thus, Oh happy are we, or, Oh we are happy, (being) surrounded with so many blessings."—Lennie's Gram., Fifth Edition, Twelfth, Here is an other solution of the construction of this pronoun of the first person, contradictory alike to Ingersoll's, to Kirkham's, and to Murray's; while all are wrong, and this among the rest. The word should indeed be we, and not us; because we have both analogy and good authority for the former case, and nothing but the false conceit of sundry grammatists for the latter. But it is a nominative absolute, like any other nominative which we use in the same exclamatory manner. For the first person may just as well be put in the nominative absolute, by exclamation, as any other; as, "Behold I and the children whom God hath given me!"—Heb., "Ecce ego et pueri quos mihi dedit Deus!"—Beza. "O brave we!"—Dr. Johnson, often. So Horace: "O ego lævus," &c.—Ep. ad Pi., 301.
"Ah! luckless I! who purge in spring my spleen—
Else sure the first of bards had Horace been."
—Francis's Hor., ii, 209.