arise from the employment of 'who' or 'which.' But the custom of the language has so far sanctioned the indiscriminate use of the pronouns, that an attempt to revive the distinction will hardly find general acceptance.

94. The relative is sometimes omitted in English, but only in constructions where, if expressed, it would stand in the objective case: as,

that is,

The man I met was an old friend,

The man whom (or that) I met was an old friend.

But we must be careful to avoid ambiguity; and if the omission of the relative might possibly throw doubt upon the meaning of the sentence, we ought to insert it. Thus,

The man I saw was your friend,

might mean, either

or,

The man, whom I saw, was your friend,

The man, as I saw (i. e., as I observed), was your friend.

Caution.

95. Care must be taken not to confound the noun-clause with an adjective-clause. They may both be introduced by the same connective:

I know when we ought to start.

I know the time when we ought to start

I know where it is.

I know the place where it is

Noun-clause.
Adjective-clause.

Noun-clause.

. Adjective-clause.

The test is this. When the clause is used to qualify a noun, it is an adjective-clause. But when the whole clause stands in the place of a subject or an object, it is a noun-clause.

CHAPTER IV.

CONTRACTED SENTENCES.

96. We have said that any sentence containing more than one subject-nominative, or more than one predicate-verb, is called a Compound Sentence.

But considerable difficulties arise where two or more subject-nominatives have only one predicate-verb, or where one subject-nominative has two or more predicate-verbs.

Take for example sentences of the copulative class :— 1. Where two subject-nominatives have one predicateverb: as,

Cæsar and Pompey came to Rome,

2. Where one subject-nominative has two predicateverbs: as,

Cæsar conquered the Gauls, and invaded Britain. The question is, how we must deal with examples of this kind. But this question, which has been much perplexed, is connected with another enquiry, namely, whether conjunctions can be said to couple words as well as sentences; or whether we ought to hold that conjunctions can couple sentences only, and not individual words.

97. Those grammarians who maintain that conjunctions couple sentences only, explain all these cases upon one principle that of contraction. They say, for example, that 'Cæsar and Pompey came to Rome' is a contraction for two simple sentences, Cæsar came to Rome,' and 'Pompey came to Rome.' Similarly, 'Cæsar conquered the Gauls, and invaded Britain' will be a contraction of the two simple sentences, 'Cæsar conquered the Gauls,' and ' Cæsar invaded Britain.'

But, on the other hand, it is objected that the principle will not always hold good. For, if we examine the sentence 'John and Jane are a handsome couple,' we cannot say that 'John is a couple,' and 'Jane is a couple.' Or, if we take ‘one and one make two,' we cannot explain it as contracted from 'one makes two,' and 'one makes two.'

98. Those who are moved by this objection have recourse to another explanation. They say, that 'Cæsar and Pompey came to Rome' is a simple sentence with a compound subject, the conjunction and coupling the words 'Cæsar' and ' Pompey,' as though it were '[Cæsar and Pompey] came to Rome.'

They wish to know why conjunctions may not couple individual words. The answer is, that if conjunctions couple words, grammarians find a difficulty in discriminating between conjunctions and prepositions. But this is met by the rejoinder, that prepositions can govern the cases of nouns, whereas conjunctions cannot. This part of the subject we shall consider hereafter; see §§ 441–445.

99. Similar diversity is found in explaining sentences of the alternative class. We are told, for instance, that, ‘Neither Cæsar nor Pompey came to Rome,' is a contracted compound sentence, made up of two simple sentences, 'Neither Cæsar came to Rome,' 'nor Pompey came to Rome.'

But 'All men are black or white,' cannot be contracted from all men are black,' or 'all men are white;' for the meaning is ‘all men are [either black or white].'

100. It may be, that perplexity has arisen from the confusion of form and meaning which sometimes enters into grammatical investigations. Similar forms are sometimes employed in cases where the meaning is at variance with the form. It does not follow, because the application of the principle will not suit the meaning in all instances, that therefore the principle itself did not originate from the method of contraction.

101. At the same time we must guard against that love of uniformity which so often leads grammarians astray. We should beware of hastily laying down general rules; and we should rather examine the cases separately as they arise. In instances where two or more subject-nominatives are answered by one predicate-verb, we may distinguish the cases, (1) where the predicate is true of the subjects severally; (2) where the predicate is true of the subjects, not severally, but jointly.

6

For example, in the sentence Cæsar and Pompey came to Rome,' it is true that Cæsar came to Rome,' and that 'Pompey came to Rome.' But in John and Jane are a handsome couple,' the predicate is not true of John and Jane' severally. Here we must analyse thus :

Two subject-nominatives, united by
the conjunction 'and.'
Predicate-verb.

Article, qualifying the predicate-,
nominative, couple.'

Adjective, qualifying the predicate-
nominative, 'couple.'
Predicate-nominative.

And if, in such a case, we are obliged to adopt this method of analysis, the same method must be at least optional in other cases. For example:

Cæsar and Pompey came to Rome.

Cæsar and Pompey. Two subject-nominatives, coupled by the conjunction 'and.' Predicate-verb.

came

to Rome

Adverbial phrase, qualifying the predicate-verb, 'came.'

102. And similarly, where one subject-nominative has two predicate-verbs; as

Cæsar conquered the Gauls and invaded Britain.

Cæsar

Subject-nominative.

conquered First predicate-verb.

Article, qualifying the objective, 'Gauls.' Objective, dependent on the first predicate-verb, conquered.'

Conjunction, coupling the two predicateverbs, 'conquered' and 'invaded.' Second predicate-verb.

Objective, dependent upon the second predicate-verb, 'invaded.'

ELLIPTICAL SENTENCES.

103. Although grammarians have abused the privilege of 'understanding' and 'supplying' words at pleasure, still we must admit that words are sometimes not found where we expect to see them, or where, according to grammatical theory, such words might find place. Nay, further, words are omitted in one language, which must be expressed in another. For example, we omit the relative pronoun in instances where the omission would be considered barbarous in Latin; as, 'This is the man I saw,' meaning 'whom I saw.' We omit the relative in constructions where, if expressed, it would stand in the objective case. The Welsh, however,

carry this much further; as

Gwelais y

dyn oedd yn-canu,
singing,

I saw the man was

for I saw the man who was singing.'

Thus, a Welshman,

who has an imperfect acquaintance with English, will say, 'This is the man was driving the horse,' for ' who was driving the horse.'

104. Let us take these examples:—

This is the book I gave you.
This is the house I live in.
This is the way I came.

He left the day I arrived.

In one stage of the English language, the word that would have been employed in these sentences:

This is the book that I gave you.

This is the house that I live in.
This is the way that I came.

He left the day that I arrived.

Here that has the force of a relative pronoun. In more modern English, there is a tendency to substitute who, which, for that; and as a notion has prevailed that sentences should not end with a preposition, many writers say 'in which I live,' rather than which I live in. Accordingly these sentences might stand,

This is the book which I gave you.
This is the house in which I live.
This is the way by which I came.

He left the day on which I arrived.

105. According to our notions of grammatical construction, founded in a great measure upon the grammar of the Latin language, we cannot analyse sentences of this kind without supplying some word to stand in the place of a relative pronoun; as 'This is the book that I gave you.'

that I gave you Adjective-clause, qualifying the predi

cate-nominative, 'book.'

If I might offer a conjecture, the sentence 'This is the book I gave you,' represents the ancient British idiom, answering to the modern Welsh idiom; for I believe that the traces of the old British are much more numerous in our language than is generally surmised. The sentence 'This is the book that I gave you,' corresponds to the Anglo-Saxon form; and ‘This is the book which I gave you,' is the modern English, founded upon imitation of the Latin construction.