CHAPTER XVII.
ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE NOUN AND VERB, AND ON THE INFLECTION OF THE INFINITIVE MOOD.
[§ 342]. In order to understand clearly the use of the so-called infinitive mood in English, it is necessary to bear in mind two facts, one a matter of logic, the other a matter of history.
In the way of logic, the difference between a noun and a verb is less marked than it is in the way of grammar.
Grammatically, the contrast is considerable. The inflection of nouns expresses the ideas of sex as denoted by gender, and of relation in place as denoted by cases. That of verbs rarely expresses sex, and never position. On the other hand, however, it expresses what no noun ever does or can express; e.g., the relation of the agent to the individual speaking, by means of person; the time in which acts take place, by means of tense; and the conditions of their occurrence, by means of mood.
The idea of number is the only one that, on a superficial view, is common to these two important parts of speech.
Logically, the contrast is inconsiderable. A noun denotes an object of which either the senses or the intellect can take cognizance, and a verb does no more. To move=motion, to rise=rising, to err=error, to forgive=forgiveness. The only difference between the two parts of speech is this, that, whereas a noun may express any object whatever, verbs can only express those objects which consist in an action. And it is this superadded idea of action that superadds to the verb the phenomena of tense, mood, person, and voice; in other words, the phenomena of conjugation.
[§ 343]. A noun is a word capable of declension only. A
verb is a word capable of declension and conjugation also. The fact of verbs being declined as well as conjugated must be remembered. The participle has the declension of a noun adjective, the infinite mood the declension of a noun substantive. Gerunds and supines, in languages where they occur, are only names for certain cases of the verb.
Although in all languages the verb is equally capable of declension, it is not equally declined. The Greeks, for instance, used forms like