In this way we can follow up the development of the sentence from its simplest to its most complex form. After thus studying the hypotaxis in all its bearings, we need only touch briefly on the subject of parataxis.
Though, of course, it may occur that we have reason to make in immediate succession two or more statements which are absolutely independent of one another, this will be naturally rare; and, when it happens, we are not likely to combine these statements into one compound clause. Even in the nearest approach to such a case, where we enumerate different but analogous or contrasting facts, the sentences are not absolutely disconnected and independent: cf. She is crooked, he is lame. Here, undoubtedly, more is expressed by means of the parataxis than the mere enumeration of the two facts; an additional significance being given to each by the very analogy between the two cases. Similarly in He is laughing, she weeps, where the contrast is an additional fact expressed by the coupling of the sentences. Still, the approach to independence is here undoubtedly very close. We already depart a step further from mere co-ordination in the case where—in grammatically absolutely identical manner—two or more sentences are co-ordinated in a story; as, e.g., I arrived at twelve o’clock; I went to the hotel; they told me there was not a single room to be had; I went to another hotel, etc., where each sentence to a certain extent expresses a cause or defines the time of occurrence of the fact which is mentioned in the next. Now, though this additional meaning is clearly there, it is a meaning which at the moment of uttering each clause is not necessarily, nay not probably clearly present in the speaker’s mind: we might more fully and perhaps more correctly, though undoubtedly very clumsily, express the course of thought by: I arrived ..., and when I had arrived, I went ..., but when I had gone to the hotel, they told ..., and because they told ... I went to another, etc.
We have, then, in our example a combination of independence with interdependence which is the first step on the road towards subordination of one member to the other.
Instead of the clumsy method of repetition which, if ever, is of course but very seldom employed, we give partial expression to this mutual relationship by demonstrative pronouns or verbs. (1) I arrived ..., then I went ..., there they told ..., etc. (2) I met a boy; he told me.... (3) He bought a house; that was old. (4) He told a lie; that was a pity. A careful study of these examples,—in the third of which the demonstrative pronoun refers (as in the second) to one part only of the preceding sentence, whilst in the fourth it relates to the whole statement made in the former part,—will show (a) the method of development of demonstrative into relative pronoun; (b) that of demonstrative pronoun into conjunction—It was a pity that he told a lie; (c) the concomitant change from parataxis to hypotaxis—from He bought a house, + that (house) was old, to He bought a house that was old = ‘which was old.’
A peculiar kind of paratactical subordination occurs where an imperative or interrogative clause loses its independence and becomes an expression of condition; e.g., Go there yourself, (and or then) you will see that I am right, or Do you want to do it? then make haste.
CHAPTER VII.
CHANGE OF MEANING IN SYNTAX.
We have considered, in Chapter IV., the different ways in which words change their meanings: and have remarked that change of meaning consists in the widening or narrowing of the scope or application of each word. We wish, in this chapter, to point out that these processes are not confined to words, but that whole syntactical combinations are constantly undergoing changes of meaning of a similar nature. It may be well to give at the outset an instance illustrative of such difference. Let us take the sentence, ‘The book reads like a translation.’ In this sentence the meaning which we attach to the word book has developed from that attached to A.S. bóc, a beech tree.[42] The word read has been specialised in meaning from the more primitive signification ‘to interpret.’ In the same way, translation meant originally nothing more than a transference of any kind, but has been specially applied to a transference of the ideas expressed by one language into those of another. Such, then, are examples of changes of meaning which have occurred in words.
But besides these changes, it is obvious that we have here a sentence in which the relation between the subject and predicate differs considerably from that which is the usual one. We do not in the aforesaid sentence mean to say that the subject book performs the action reads, but we wish to assert that the subject is of such a nature as to admit of some person performing the action in question. This usage of the subject and predicate, though, when employed circumspectly, it need cause no obscurity, yet is an exceptional usage, or, as we have elsewhere called it, an occasional one. Such a construction might, however, easily spread, and become habitual or usual. In that case we should have to admit that the meaning of the general syntactical relation between subject and predicate connected by a verb in the active voice had widened in extent, and contracted in content. Instead of stating that the subject does the action, we should now have to adapt the statement to the wider but more indefinite relation—the subject either does or admits of the action. We shall have occasion to return to these and similar phrases later on.
Now let us take the phrase ‘He reads himself into the mind of his author.’ In this case we shall find that the meaning of reads is the same as that which we usually attach to it; the peculiar meaning lies not in the separate words, but in the phrase taken as a whole. The particular, occasional use of the accusative himself, together with the combination of the words, is what expresses the whole thought implied; and thus we have here an instance of a specific construction in which the force of the accusative connected with the word is different from the force of the case in more common usage. Though the application of the accusative in the way we have just mentioned must originally have been an occasional one, yet the phrase, though it has indeed become specific, has become so common, that we may in this combination call its meaning usual. We have, then, in studying change of meaning in syntactical relations, besides the classification of occasional and usual, another distinction to draw; that between (a) a change of meaning in a general relation, without reference to the individual terms which happen to stand in that relation (such as subject and predicate, verb and object, noun with accompanying genitive, preposition and its régime), and (b) a change in meaning of a case, or other syntactical relation, with regard to a specific word or expression, in connection with which it has come to express a new shade of thought. These two classifications are independent of each other, and cross one another. It is further to be noticed that, just as it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line of distinction between the occasional and usual in the meaning of a word, so it is impossible to always clearly formulate when the change in meaning of a syntactical relation is general or special; nay, it would in many cases be difficult to decide whether a change of meaning in a group of words is owing to a change of meaning in the words, or in their syntactical relations. Yet it is necessary to keep the distinction in view.