The English Language Part 79

_Busk ye_, _busk ye_, my bonny, bonny bride, _Busk ye_, _busk ye_, my winsome marrow,

the construction is ambiguous. _Ye_ may either be a nominative case governing the verb _busk_, or an accusative case governed by it.

This is an instance of what may be called the _equivocal reflective_.

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CHAPTER VI.

ON THE SYNTAX OF THE DEMONSTRATIVE p.r.o.nOUNS, AND THE p.r.o.nOUNS OF THE THIRD PERSON.

-- 508. Reasons have been given in p. 249, for considering the so-called p.r.o.nouns of the third person (_he_, _she_, _it_, _they_) demonstrative rather than truly personal.

-- 509. As _his_, and _her_, are genitive cases (and not adjectives), there is no need of explaining such combinations as _his mother_, _her father_, inasmuch as no concord of gender is expected. The expressions are respectively equivalent to

_mater ejus_, not _mater sua_; _pater ejus_, -- _pater suus_.

-- 510. From p. 250, it may be seen that _its_ is a secondary genitive, and it may be added, that it is of late origin in the language. The Anglo-Saxon form was _his_, the genitive of _he_ for the neuter and masculine equally.

Hence, when, in the old writers, we meet _his_, where we expect _its_, we must not suppose that any personification takes place, but simply that the old genitive common to the two genders is used in preference to the modern one limited to the neuter, and irregularly formed. This has been ill.u.s.trated by Mr. Guest.

The following instances are the latest specimens of its use.

"The apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy. I have read the cause of _his_ effects in Galen; _it_ is a kind of deafness."--2 _Henry IV._ i. 2.

"If the salt have lost _his_ flavour, wherewith shall it be seasoned.

_It_ is neither fit for the land nor yet for the dunghill, but men cast _it_ out."--_Luke_ xiv. 35.

"Some affirm that every plant has _his_ particular fly or caterpillar, which it breeds and feeds."--WALTON'S _Angler_.

"This rule is not so general, but that _it_ admitteth of _his_ exceptions."--CAREW.

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"The genitive _its_ is of late introduction into our language. Though used by our dramatists and many of their cotemporaries, it does not occur in the versions of our Bible, the subst.i.tute being _his_ or the compound term _thereof_."--Phil. Trans., No. 25.

-- 511. For the archaic and provincial use of _him_ and _he_ for _it_ see _ibid._; remembering that the two cases are different. _His_ for _its_ is an old form retained: _him_ and _he_ for _it_ are really changes of gender.

-- 512. _Take them things away._--Here we have _them_ for _those_. The expression, although not to be imitated, is explained by the originally demonstrative power of _them_.

Sometimes the expression is still more anomalous, and we hear the so-called nominative case used instead of the accusative. In the expression _take they things away_, the use of _they_ for _them_ (itself for _those_) is similarly capable of being, down to a certain period of our language, explained as an archaism. The original accusative was _a_, and _o_: the form in _-m_ being dative.

-- 513. _This_ and _that_.--The remarks upon the use of these words in certain expressions is brought at once to the Latin scholar by the quotation of the two following lines from Ovid, and the suggestion of a well-known rule in the Eton Latin Grammar.

_Quocunque aspicies nihil est nisi pontus et aer;_ _Nubibus hic tumidus, fluctibus ille minax._

Here _hic_ (=_this_ or _the one_) refers to the antecedent last named (the _air_); whilst _ille_ (=_that_ or _the other_) refers to the antecedent first named (the _sea_).

Now on the strength of this example, combined with others, it is laid down as a rule in Latin that _hic_ (_this_) refers to the last-named antecedent, _ille_ to the first-named.

-- 514. What is the rule in English?

Suppose we say _John's is a good sword and so is Charles's_; _this cut through a thick rope, the other cut through an iron rod_. Or instead of saying _this_ and _that_ we may say _the one_ and _the other_. It is clear that, in determining to which of the {414} two swords the respective demonstratives refer, the meaning will not help us at all, so that our only recourse is to the rules of grammar; and it is the opinion of the present writer that the rules of grammar will help us just as little. The Latin rule is adopted by scholars, but still it is a Latin rule rather than an English one.

The truth is, that it is a question which no authority can settle; and all that grammar can tell us is (what we know without it) that _this_ refers to the name of the idea which is logically the most close at hand, and _that_ to the idea which is logically the most distant.

What const.i.tutes nearness or distance of ideas, in other words, what determines the sequence of ideas is another question. That the idea, however, of sequence, and, consequently of logical proximity and logical distance, is the fundamental idea in regard to the expressions in question is evident from the very use of the words _this_ and _that_.

Now the sequence of ideas is capable of being determined by two tests.

1. The idea to which the name was last given, or (changing the expression) the name of the last idea may be the nearest idea in the order of sequence, and, consequently, the idea referred to by the p.r.o.noun of proximity. In this case the idea closest at hand to the writer of the second line of the couplet quoted above was the idea of the _atmosphere_ (_aer_), and it was, consequently, expressed by (_this_) _hic_.

2. Or the idea to which the name was first given, or (changing the expression) the name of the first idea may be the nearest idea in the order of sequence, and consequently the idea referred to it by the p.r.o.noun of proximity; inasmuch as the idea which occurs first is the most prominent one, and what is prominent appears near. In this case, the idea closest at hand to the writer of the second line of the couplet quoted above would have been the idea of the _sea_ (_pontus_), and it would, consequently, have been the idea expressed by _this_ (_hic_).

As Ovid, however, considered the idea at the end of the last half of one sentence to be the idea nearest to the {415} beginning of the next, we have him expressing himself as he does. On the other hand, it is easy to conceive a writer with whom the nearest idea is the idea that led the way to the others.

As I believe that one and the same individual may measure the sequence of his ideas sometimes according to one of these principles, and sometimes according to another, I believe that all rules about the relations of _this_ and _that_ are arbitrary.

It is just a matter of chance whether a thinker take up his line of ideas by the end or by the beginning. The a.n.a.logies of such expressions as the following are in favour of _this_, in English, applying to the _first_ subject, _that_ to the _second_; since the word _attorney_ takes the place of _this_, and applies to the first name of the two, _i. e._, to _Thurlow_.

"It was a proud day for the bar when Lord North made Thurlow (1) and (2) Wedderburn (1) Attorney (2) and Solicitor General."--_Mathias from Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors._

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CHAPTER VII.

ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE WORD SELF.

-- 515. The undoubted constructions of the word _self_, in the present state of the cultivated English, are three-fold.

1. _Government._--In _my-self_, _thy-self_, _our-selves_, and _your-selves_, the construction is that of a common substantive with an adjective or genitive case. _My-self_=_my individuality_, and is similarly construed--_mea individualitas_ (or _persona_), or _mei individualitas_ (or _persona_).

2. _Apposition._--In _him-self_ and _them-selves_, when accusative, the construction is that of a substantive in apposition with a p.r.o.noun.

_Him-self_=_him, the individual._

3. _Composition._--It is only, however, when _himself_ and _themselves_, are in the accusative case, that the construction is appositional. When they are used as nominatives, it must be explained on another principle. In phrases like

He _himself_ was present.

They _themselves_ were present.

There is neither apposition nor government; _him_ and _them_, being neither related to _my_ and _thy_, so as to be governed, nor yet to _he_ and _they_, so as to form an apposition. In order to come under one of these conditions, the phrases should be either _he his self_ (_they their selves_), or else _he he self_ (_they they selves_). In this difficulty, the only logical view that can be taken of the matter, is to consider the words _himself_ and _themselves_, not as two words, but as a single word compounded; and even then, the compound will be of an irregular kind; inasmuch as the inflectional element _-m_, is dealt with as part and parcel of the root.