Introduction to the study of the history of language

by Herbert A. Strong; Willem Sijbrand Logeman; Benjamin Ide Wheeler

In the sentences I make him and I make a king, we have two accusatives of slightly different functions: the one indicating the OBJECT of the action (him), and the other indicating the RESULT of the action (a king). If the two statements be now combined, then, applied as they are to convey to the hearer the two distinct pieces of information as to the object and as to the results of the action, both of which were previously unknown to him, we have undoubtedly one verb with two distinct and equipoised accusatives. But assuming that either the object of the action or the result is already known, it is then only the other member of the pair which has the full predicatival force, whilst the former inevitably enters into a closer relationship with the verb. The member which retains the full force of a predicate becomes predicate to the group; nay, even—as in our example, where the verb cannot be taken in its literal meaning—the one noun becomes almost a predicate to the other, I make him king being very similar in meaning to He becomes king through my agency. If this is the correct explanation of the origin of similar constructions, we must perhaps consider the use of an adjective as second accusative as due to analogy with this use of the noun. We must not forget, however, that the line of demarcation between adjective and noun was once very much more vague and indefinite than it is now.

In a similar way, the sentence I teach him to speak and I declare him to be an honest man must be a combination, with consequent displacement of relation, of two independent clauses—the one with a noun, or the equivalent thereof, and the other with an infinite as object. It is thus we explain the origin of the Latin accusative with infinitive.

An example of displacement, or re-arrangement of relations, is next furnished by the origin and history of our correlatives either, or, both, and. Either means originally (A.S. ægðer, contracted from æghwæðer = á + ge + hwæðer) one of two, so that either he or you is really = one of the two; you or he, where the word either, as it were, sums up or comprehends the whole of the following enumeration. It stands, therefore, in syntactical relation to both the members of the clause which are connected (or contrasted) by or; but is now usually felt as connected with the first only, the sentence being divided as either he + or you. Similarly, both means two together. Hence both you and I originally had the full force of the two together, i.e., you and I. The word which stood in syntactical relation with the pair has therefore, as in the former case, become co-ordinate with the word and, which once formed part of the group it governed, and we now feel and explain expressions like our examples as consisting of the two groups, both you + and I.

In the last two examples the words are now flectionless, and have become, when used in such constructions, connecting words, a change entirely owing to such displacement of relationship between the parts of the sentence as we have been studying in this chapter.

In the discussion of our example on page 270 we noticed how even a grammatically simple clause might in reality be a logically complex one. Vice versâ, a clause logically simple may be expressed by a grammatically complex sentence. I asked him after his health, as an answer to What were you asking him? is a psychologically and grammatically simple sentence.[163] The answer might, however, without in the least degree altering the thought expressed, have been cast in the form I asked him how he was—a grammatically complex sentence.

Again, logical independence and grammatical co-ordination do not by any means necessarily go together—a sentence like He first went to Paris, whence he proceeded to Rome, where he met his friend being in form complex with main and subordinate clauses; in meaning, however, equivalent to an aggregate of three co-ordinate ‘main’ clauses: He went + from there he proceeded + there he met.

Nay, it occasionally happens that syntactical form and logical function are in direct opposition. Thus, e.g., in Scarcely had he entered the house, when his mother exclaimed, There is John! what is logically the main clause has the grammatical or syntactical form of a subordinate one.

It cannot now, therefore, seem strange that in syntax we also meet with the parallel of the process which gave birth to such words as adder, orange, newt, and nickname. Adder, cf. Ger. natter, Icelandic naðr, was in Anglo-Saxon nædre. Similarly, orange, derived from the Persian nâranj, was originally preceded by an n. In the combination with the indefinite article a or an (the older form) this n was thought to belong to the article only, and the sound-groups anorange, anadder were wrongly split up into an + orange, an + adder. On the other hand, the groups anekename (really an + ekename) and anewt (really an + ewt) were erroneously broken up into a + newt, a + nickname.[164]

A precisely similar occurrence in syntax has given us our conjunction that. I know that (= ‘I know this thing’) + he can sing, when combined into the group of subject I, predicate know, object (double, the one part being explanatory of the other) that and he can sing, gradually became divided, or divisible for the linguistic consciousness, into I know + he can sing, with the conjunction that for connecting word.

In some cases the correspondence between psychological and grammatical distribution is so incomplete, the subordinate and main clauses are so interwoven in the grammatical form, that it becomes impossible to separate the parts in our ordinary analysis. This happens more especially when a part of the grammatically subordinate clause really contains the psychological subject, and when, consequently, that part, with a construction similar to that discussed on page 274 is put at the head of the clause. When, in the sentence I believe that something will make you smile, the word something expressed the psychological subject, Goldsmith emphasised this fact by writing, Something, that I believe will make you smile; cf. Milton’s Whereof I gave thee charge thou shouldst not eat; With me I see not who partakes, etc. This arrangement, then, places the main clause between parts of what is grammatically the subordinate one. In not a few cases confusion or uncertainty may, then, arise as to whether the words which head the sentence must be considered as belonging to the subordinate clause or as governed by the verb of the main clause. If we say The place which he knew that he could not obtain, we may hesitate as to whether place is really object to knew or to obtain. We can, and often do, avoid this ambiguity and intermixture of main and subordinate clauses by a kind of double construction, like The place, of which he knew that he could not obtain it.