The Grammar of English Grammars

by Goold Brown

LESSON XXII.—VERBS.

1. What is necessary to every finite verb? 2. What is remarked of such examples as this: "The Pleasures of Memory was published in 1702?" 3. What is to be done with "Thinks I to myself," and the like? 4. Is it right to say with Smith, "Every hundred years constitutes a century?" 5. What needless ellipses both of nominatives and of verbs are commonly supposed by our grammarians? 6. What actual ellipsis usually occurs with the imperative mood? 7. What is observed concerning the place of the verb? 8. What besides a noun or a pronoun may be made the subject of a verb? 9. What is remarked of the faulty omission of the pronoun it before the verb? 10 When an infinitive phrase is made the subject of a verb, do the words remain adjuncts, or are they abstract? 11. How can we introduce a noun or pronoun before the infinitive, and still make the whole phrase the subject of a finite verb? 12. Can an objective before the infinitive become "the subject of the affirmation?" 13. In making a phrase the subject of a verb, do we produce an exception to Rule 14th? 14. Why is it wrong to say, with Dr. Ash, "The king and queen appearing in public was the cause of my going?" 15. What inconsistency is found in Murray, with reference to his "nominative sentences?" 16. What is Dr. Webster's ninth rule of syntax? 17. Why did Murray think all Webster's examples under this rule bad English? 18. Why are both parties wrong in this instance? 19. What strange error is taught by Cobbett, and by Wright, in regard to the relative and its verb? 20. Is it demonstrable that verbs often agree with relatives? 21. What is observed of the agreement of verbs in interrogative sentences? 22. Do we ever find the subjunctive mood put after a relative pronoun? 23. What is remarked of the difference between the indicative and the subjunctive mood, and of the limits of the latter?

LESSON XXIII.—VERBS.

24. In respect to collective nouns, how is it generally determined, whether they convey the idea of plurality or not? 25. What is stated of the rules of Adam, Lowth, Murray, and Kirkham, concerning collective nouns? 26. What is Nixon's notion of the construction of the verb and collective noun? 27. Does this author appear to have gained "a clear idea of the nature of a collective noun?" 28. What great difficulty does Murray acknowledge concerning "nouns of multitude?" 29. Does Murray's notion, that collective nouns are of different sorts, appear to be consistent or warrantable? 30. Can words that agree with the same collective noun, be of different numbers? 31. What is observed of collective nouns used partitively? 32. Which are the most apt to be taken plurally, collections of persons, or collections of things? 33. Can a collective noun, as such, take a plural adjective before it? 34. What is observed of the expressions, these people, these gentry, these folk? 35. What is observed of sentences like the following, in which there seems to be no nominative: "There are from eight to twelve professors?" 36. What rule does Dr. Webster give for such examples as the following: "There was more than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds?" 37. What grammarians teach, that two or more nouns connected by and, "always require the verb or pronoun to which they refer, to be in the plural number?" 38. Does Murray acknowledge or furnish any exceptions to this doctrine? 39. On what principle can one justify such an example as this: "All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy?" 40. What is remarked of instances like the following: "Prior's Henry and Emma contains an other beautiful example?" 41. What is said of the suppression of the conjunction and? 42. When the speaker changes his nominative, to take a stronger one, what concord has the verb? 43. When two or more nominatives connected by and explain a preceding one, what agreement has the verb? 44. What grammarian approves of such expressions as, "Two and two is four?" 45. What is observed of verbs that agree with the nearest nominative, and are understood to the rest? 46. When the nominatives connected are of different persons, of what person is the verb?

LESSON XXIV.—VERBS.

47. What is the syntax of the verb, when one of its nominatives is expressed, and an other or others implied? 48. What is the syntax of the verb, when there are nominatives connected by as? 49. What is the construction when two nominatives are connected by as well as, but, or save? 50. Can words connected by with be properly used as joint nominatives? 51. Does the analogy of other languages with ours prove any thing on this point? 52. What does Cobbett say about with put for and? 53. What is the construction of such expressions as this: "A torch, snuff and all, goes out in a moment?" 54. Does our rule for the verb and disjunct nominatives derive confirmation from the Latin and Greek syntax? 55. Why do collective nouns singular, when connected by or or nor, admit of a plural verb? 56. In the expression, "I, thou, or he, may affirm," of what person and number is the verb? 57. Who says, "the verb agrees with the last nominative?" 58. What authors prefer "the nearest person," and "the plural number?" 59. What authors prefer "the nearest nominative, whether singular or plural?" 60. What author declares it improper ever to connect by or or nor any nominatives that require different forms of the verb? 61. What is Cobbett's "clear principle" on this head? 62. Can a zeugma of the verb be proved to be right, in spite of these authorities? 63. When a verb has nominatives of different persons or numbers, connected by or or nor, with which of them does it commonly agree? 64. When does it agree with the remoter nominative? 65. When a noun is implied in an adjective of a different number, which word is regarded in the formation of the verb? 66. What is remarked concerning the place of the pronoun of the first person singular? 67. When verbs are connected by and, or, or nor, do they necessarily agree with the same nominative? 68. Why is the thirteenth rule of the author's Institutes and First Lines not retained as a rule in this work? 69. Are verbs often connected without agreeing in mood, tense, and form?

LESSON XXV.—VERBS.

70. What particular convenience do we find in having most of our tenses composed of separable words? 71. Is the connecting of verbs elliptically, or by parts, anything peculiar to our language? 72. What faults appear in the teaching of our grammarians concerning do used as a "substitute for other verbs?" 73. What notions have been entertained concerning the word to as used before the infinitive verb? 74. How does Dr. Ash parse to before the infinitive? 75. What grammarians have taught that the preposition to governs the infinitive mood? 76. Does Lowth agree with Murray in the anomaly of supposing to a preposition that governs nothing? 77. Why do those teach just as inconsistently, who forbear to call the to a preposition? 78. What objections are there to the rule, with its exceptions, "One verb governs an other in the infinitive mood?" 79. What large exception to this rule has been recently discovered by Dr. Bullions? 80. Are the countless examples of this exception truly elliptical? 81. Is the infinitive ever governed by a preposition in French, Spanish, or Italian? 82. What whimsical account of the English infinitive is given by Nixon? 83. How was the infinitive expressed in the Anglo-Saxon of the eleventh century? 84. What does Richard Johnson infer from the fact that the Latin infinitive is sometimes governed by a preposition? 85. What reasons can be adduced to show that the infinitive is not a noun? 86. How can it be proved that to before the infinitive is a preposition? 87. What does Dr. Wilson say of the character and import of the infinitive? 88. To what other terms can the infinitive be connected? 89. What is the infinitive, and for what things may it stand? 90. Do these ten heads embrace all the uses of the infinitive? 91. What is observed of Murray's "infinitive made absolute?" 92. What is said of the position of the infinitive? 93. Is the infinitive ever liable to be misplaced?

LESSON XXVI.—VERBS.

94. What is observed of the frequent ellipses of the verb to be, supposed by Allen and others? 95. What is said of the suppression of to and the insertion of be; as, "To make himself be heard?" 96. Why is it necessary to use the sign to before an abstract infinitive, where it shows no relation? 97. What is observed concerning the distinction of voice in the simple infinitive and the first participle? 98. What do our grammarians teach concerning the omission of to before the infinitive, after bid, dare, feel, &c.? 99. How do Ingersoll, Kirkham, and Smith, agree with their master Murray, concerning such examples as, "Let me go?" 100. What is affirmed of the difficulties of parsing the infinitive according to the code of Murray? 101. How do Nutting, Kirkham, Nixon, Cooper, and Sanborn, agree with Murray, or with one an other, in pointing out what governs the infinitive? 102. What do Murray and others mean by "neuter verbs," when they tell us that the taking of the infinitive without to "extends only to active and neuter verbs?" 103. How is the infinitive used after bid? 104. How, after dare? 105. How, after feel? 106. How, after hear? 107. How, after let? 108. How, after make? 109. How, after need? 110. Is need ever an auxiliary? 111. What errors are taught by Greenleaf concerning dare and need or needs? 112. What is said of see, as governing the infinitive? 113. Do any other verbs, besides these eight, take the infinitive after them without to? 114. How is the infinitive used after have, help, and find? 115. When two or more infinitives occur in the same construction, must to be used with each? 116. What is said of the sign to after than or as?