[59] Over, under, after.—These, although derived forms, are not prepositions of derivation; since it is not by the affix -er that they are made prepositions. He went over, he went under, he went after—these sentences prove the forms to be as much adverbial as prepositional.
[60] In the first edition of this work I wrote, "Verbs substantive govern the nominative case." Upon this Mr. Connon, in his "System of English Grammar," remarks, "The idea of the nominative being governed is contrary to all received notions of grammar. I consider that the verb to be, in all its parts, acts merely as a connective, and can have no effect in governing anything." Of Mr. Connon's two reasons, the second is so sufficient that it ought to have stood alone. The true view of the so-called verb substantive is that it is no verb at all, but only the fraction of one. Hence, what I wrote was inaccurate. As to the question of the impropriety of considering nominative cases fit subjects for government it is a matter of definition.
[61] The paper On certain tenses attributed to the Greek verb has already been quoted. The author, however, of the doctrine on the use of shall and will, is not the author of the doctrine alluded to in the Chapter on the Tenses. There are, in the same number of the Philological Museum, two papers under one title: first, the text by a writer who signs himself T. F. B.; and, next, a comment, by the editor, signed J. C. H. (Julius Charles Hare). The usus ethicus of the future is due to Archdeacon Hare; the question being brought in incidentally and by way of illustration.
The subject of the original paper was the nature of the so-called second aorists, second futures, and preterite middles. These were held to be no separate tenses, but irregular forms of the same tense. Undoubtedly this has long been an opinion amongst scholars; and the writer of the comments is quite right in stating that it is no novelty to the learned world. I think, however, that in putting this forward as the chief point in the original paper, he does the author somewhat less than justice. His merit, in my eyes, seems to consist, not in showing that real forms of the aoristus secundus, futurum secundum, and præteritum medium were either rare or equivocal (this having been done before), but in illustrating his point from the English language; in showing that between double forms like συνελέχθην and συνελέγην, and double forms like hang and hanged, there was only a difference in degree (if there was that), not of kind; and, finally, in enouncing the very legitimate inference, that either we had two preterites, or that the Greeks had only one. "Now, if the circumstances of the Greek and English, in regard to these two tenses, are so precisely parallel, a simple and obvious inquiry arises, Which are in the right, the Greek grammarians or our own? For either ours must be wrong in not having fitted up for our verb the framework of a first and second preterite, teaching the pupil to say, 1st pret. I finded, 2d pret. I found; 1st pret. I glided, 2d pret. I glode: or the others must be so in teaching the learner to imagine two aorists for εὑρίσκω, as, aor. 1, εὕρησα, aor. 2, ἑῦρον; or for ἀκούω, aor. 1, ἤκουσα, aor. 2, ἤκοον."—p. 198.
The inference is, that of the two languages it is the English that is in the right. Now the following remarks, in the comment, upon this inference are a step in the wrong direction:—"The comparison, I grant, is perfectly just; but is it a just inference from that comparison, that we ought to alter the system of our Greek grammars, which has been drawn up at the cost of so much learning and thought, for the sake of adapting it to the system, if system it can be called, of our own grammars, which are seldom remarkable for anything else than their slovenliness, their ignorance, and their presumption? Is the higher to be brought down to the level of the baser? is Apollo to be drest out in a coat and waistcoat? Rather might it be deemed advisable to remodel the system of our own grammars."
This, whether right or wrong as a broad assertion, was, in the case in hand, irrelevant. No general superiority had been claimed for the English grammars. For all that had been stated in the original paper they might, as compared with the Greek and Latin, be wrong in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. All that was claimed for them was that they were right in the present instance; just as for a clock that stands may be claimed the credit of being right once in every twelve hours. That the inference in favour of altering the system of the Greek grammars is illegitimate is most undeniably true; but then it is an inference of the critic's not of the author's. As the illustration in question has always seemed to me of great value,—although it may easily be less original than I imagine,—I have gone thus far towards putting it in a proper light.
Taking up the question where it is left by the two writers in question, we find that the difficulties of the so-called second tenses in Greek are met by reducing them to the same tense in different conjugations; and, according to the current views of grammarians, this is a point gained. Is it so really? Is it not rather the substitution of one difficulty for another? A second conjugation is a second mode of expressing the same idea, and a second tense is no more. Real criticism is as unwilling to multiply the one as the other. Furthermore, the tendency of English criticism is towards the very doctrines which the Greek grammarian wishes to get rid of. We have the difficulty of a second conjugation: but, on the other hand, instead of four past tenses (an imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, and aorist), we have only one (the aorist). Now, when we find that good reasons can be given for supposing that the strong preterite in the Gothic languages was once a reduplicate perfect, we are at liberty to suppose that what is now the same tense under two forms, was, originally, different tenses. Hence, in English, we avoid the difficulty of a second conjugation by the very same process which we eschew in Greek; viz., the assumption of a second tense. But this we can do, as we have a tense to spare.
Will any process reconcile this conflict of difficulties? I submit to scholars the following hypotheses:—
1. That the true second future in Greek (i.e., the future of verbs with a liquid as a characteristic) is a variety of the present, formed by accentuating the last syllable; just as I beát you=I will beat you.
2. That this accent effects a change on the quantity and nature of the vowel of the penultimate.