CHAPTER XVII.
ON CONCORD.
In inflectional languages, words relating to the same thing in the same way are commonly made to correspond formally with each other. This correspondence we call grammatical concord. Thus we find concord in gender, number, case, and person subsisting between a substantive and its predicate or attribute, or between a substantive and a pronoun or adjective representing the latter. Similarly we find a correspondence in tense and mood within the same period, or complex of sentences. This concord can hardly be said to be the necessary result of the logical relation of the words; the English collocation, the good father’s child, where no formal concord is established between ‘the good’ and ‘father’s,’ seems as logical as des guten vater’s kind, where the article and the adjective have their respective genitive forms as well as the noun. Concord seems to have taken its origin from cases in which the formal correspondence of two words with each other came about, not owing to the relation borne by the former to the latter, but merely to the identity of their relation to some other word. Thus we should have an example of primitive concord in fratris puer boni, if felt by the speaker’s linguistic consciousness something like of (my) brother (the) child of (the) good (one), i.e., the child of (my) brother, the good, i.e., the child of (my) good brother.
After such correspondence began to be regularly conceived of as concord, i.e., as a habit natural to language, we must suppose that, owing to the operation of analogy, it extended its area to other cases to which it did not logically belong. We shall be confirmed in our theory that such was the procedure, if we examine certain cases in which the extension of concord can still be historically followed.
In the first place, let us take such a case as Ce sont mes frères. In English we translate this by Those are my brothers. The subject, however, in this case merely directs attention to something unknown until the predicate states what has to be known: the English pronoun, therefore, should strictly speaking stand in the neuter singular, as, indeed, it habitually did in A.S. ðæt sindon, etc., and as it does in Modern German to the present day—Das sind meine brüder. Even in Modern English we have cases like It is we who have won; ’Twas men I lacked; Is it only the plebeians who will rise? (Bulwer, Rienzi, i. 5); but commonly, in Modern English and elsewhere, it appears brought into concord with the predicate, as These are thy glorious works (Milton): in Italian—È questa la vostra figlia? = ‘Is this (fem.) your daughter?’ Spanish—Esta es la espada = ‘This (fem.) is the sword’ (fem.): in Greek—Αὕτη τοι δίκη ἐστι θεῶν (Homer) = ‘This (fem.), then, is the judgment (fem.) of the gods:’ and in Latin this use is extremely common; as, Eas divitias, eam bonam famam, magnamque nobilitatem, putabant (Sall., Cat., 7),[165] = ‘These (fem. plur.) they considered riches (fem. plur.), this (fem. sing.) a good name (fem.), and great nobility (fem.);’ i.e., ‘This they looked upon as true riches; by such means they strove for fame; that was what they thought conferred true rank:’ Patres C. Mucio agrum dono dedere quæ postea sunt Mucia prata appellata (Livy, ii. 13) = ‘The fathers (senate) gave to C. Mucius a field as a present which (neut. plur.) afterwards were called the Mucian fields (neut. plur.).’
On the other hand, we find instances like Sabini spem in discordia Romana ponunt: eam impedimentum delectui fore (Livy, iii. 38) = ‘The Sabines base their expectations on the domestic quarrels of the Romans; (they hoped) that this (fem. sing. agreeing with spem) would be a preventative (neut. sing.): and so Si hoc profectio est (Livy, ii. 38) = If this (neut.) is a setting-out (fem.).’ It seems that, in the former cases, the subject has been made to agree with the predicate just as the predicate in other cases conforms to the subject.
We sometimes find, in Latin, words which commonly occur in the singular only, placed in the plural when connected with words used in the plural only; as, summis opibus atque industriis (Plautus, Mostellaria, 348) = ‘with the greatest means (exertions) and zeals (for zeal):’ neque vigiliis neque quietibus (Sallust, Cat., 15) = ‘neither during watchings nor during rests (for rest):’ paupertates—divitiæ (Varro,[166] Apud Non.) = ‘poverties (for poverty)—riches.’ Similarly, we find She is my goods, my chattels (Shakespeare, Tam. of Shrew, III. ii.), where the singular would be the natural form for chattel; but good in the singular would have a different meaning from goods, and chattels is made to conform to goods.
The so-called predicatival dative in Latin seems to have started from cases like quibus hoc impedimento erat = ‘to whom this was for a hindrance:’ Mihi gaudio fuit = ‘It was for a joy to me:’ etc.
It was felt that the ordinary predicate was put in the same case as its subject, and the concord was analogically extended to the dative. Thus Cicero (Dom., 3) writes Illis incuria inimicorum probro non fuit = ‘To them (dat.) the negligence of their enemies was not (for a) reproach’ (dat.), i.e., ‘was no reproach,’ as contrasted with tuum scelus meum probrum esse = ‘that your wickedness (acc.) should be my reproach (acc.).’
In a sentence like They call him John the name John ought strictly speaking to have no case; the simple stem should stand: and we might even expect the vocative to occur after verbs of naming, as it actually does sometimes in Greek; as, Τί με καλεῖτε κύριε; (Luke vi. 46), translated, in the Vulgate, Quid vocatis me domine?[167] and in the authorised version, Why call ye me lord, lord? Thus in Latin, too: Clamassent ut litus Hyla, Hyla, omne sonaret (Vergil, Eclogue vi. 43), ‘They were shouting so that the whole shore was echoing Hylas! Hylas!’ (voc.); Matutine pater seu Jane libentius audis (Hor., Sat. II., vi. 10), ‘O Father Matutinus, or Janus, if thou givest readier ear thus addressed.’ But the most common usage at the present day is the accusative; which is already found at least once in the few remnants of Gothic literature which we possess: in Luke iv. 13, we read: Jah gavaljands us im tvalib, ðanzei jah apaustuluns namnida = ‘and choosing out (from) them twelve whom also apostles (acc. plur.) (he) named.’ This accusative seems to be an analogical transference from such cases as the common construction, Izei ðiudan sik silban taujið = Qui regem se facit = Who king himself makes.