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CHAPTER XIII.

SYNTAX: THE SIMPLE SENTENCE.

337. Syntax treats of the combinations of words for use. in the expression of our thoughts.

Not a few of the leading principles and rules of syntax have been already stated and illustrated; we have here to take them up in a more connected and systematic way, repeating many things that have been said before, and adding others that are new.

338. The combinations of words which we make in expressing ourselves are called SENTENCES; and these sentences are of three kinds :

1. Assertions or statements; 2. Questions;

3. Commands (demands, wishes).

339. The usual sentence is the assertion or statement; or (as we have called it before: see 22) the ASSERTIVE SEN

TENCE.

This is the regular form of our expression; it is the model, as it were, of which the other two are variations. For this reason we shall for the present consider it alone, then afterward (Chapter XVI.) taking up the other two kinds of sentences, and also (Chapter XVII.) the incomplete or abbreviated sentence, in which one or another part, usually expressed, is wanting.

340. No sentence can be made except by means of a verb, since the verb is the only part of speech that asserts, or declares, or predicates.

341. All that is absolutely necessary besides a verb to make a complete assertion, or a full sentence, is the name of some person or thing about which the assertion is made.

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This name must be either a noun (which is the part of speech that names'), or a pronoun, the usual substitute of a noun, or some other part of speech used substantively, or with the value of a noun (143 etc.).

342. As this name is the subject of the statement, or that about which the statement is made, it is called in grammar the SUBJECT of the sentence; and the verb is called the PREDICATE: that is, 'the thing stated or asserted.'

343. As the verb is the essential part of every sentence, or the part that makes the assertion, the subject of the sentence is also called the subject (or subject-nominative) of the verb. And every verb, since it implies a statement, must have along with it its subject, or the word showing what the statement is about.

344. Examples of the simplest sentence, composed only of a verb and its subject, are

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Others have been given in the second chapter and the exercises upon it.

As we shall see more plainly hereafter, however long a sentence may become, it can still be divided into the same two parts the subject being the full definition or description of the person or thing about which the statement is made, and the predicate being the complete assertion made about it (compare 28).

345. In all those words-namely, most of the pronouns which have, besides the genitive or possessive, a double case-form (72), the nominative or subjective case is alone used as the subject of a statement: thus,

I give, not me give; they went, not them went;

he loved, not him loved;

who spoke, not whom spoke.

346. Again, so far as the verb has different forms of person and number, the form used is of the same person and number with the subject-being, therefore, always in the third person if its subject is a noun (141): thus,

I give, not I gives; he runs, not he run;

thou goest,

not thou go or goes;

the man runs, not the man runnest;

we are, not we am or is; the men were, not the men was.

This (as we have seen before, 60) is also expressed by saying that the verb agrees with its subject in number and person; or that the subject governs the verb in number and person— that is, requires the verb to be of a certain character in these respects: the subject being given, the verb is compelled to correspond with it in number and person.

347. We have, then, these first rules of syntax, which apply to all sentences, but which are the only ones that apply to a bare sentence, a sentence composed of a verb and its subject and nothing more:

I. A sentence is composed of subject and predicate: the subject, a noun (or a word or words having the value of a noun), names that of which something is asserted or declared; the predicate, a verb, expresses that which is asserted or declared of the subject.

II. The subject of the sentence (also called the subjectnominative of the verb) is in the nominative case.

III. The verb agrees in person and number with its subject.

348. A few special cases under these rules need to be noticed here:

a. A verb sometimes has for its subject the pronoun it (163 b), not as standing for any real actor, but as helping to signify that a certain condition or action exists or is going on. Thus,

it rains, it thunders, it is dark, it strikes seven.

These are called IMPERSONAL expressions: see 307.

b. A verb is often used in the plural along with a collective

noun (114) in the singular, when we have in mind the separate individuals composing the collection: thus,

the happy pair go hand in hand; the crowd throng the streets;

the jury give their verdict; a half of them are gone.

c. Two or more words connected by and, even if singular, are so combined into one that, as subject, they regularly take a plural verb (compare 488): thus,

my father and mother are here;
anger and spite were in his face.

[See Exercise XIII., at the end of the chapter.]

349. But it is comparatively seldom that a sentence is made up of a bare noun or pronoun and a bare verb; and we have next to look and see how this simple and necessary framework is extended and filled out, so as to let us express more, or express things more definitely, in a single sentence.

PREDICATE NOUN AND ADJECTIVE.

350. Many verbs are not in themselves complete as predicates; we almost never put them alone along with a subject; when so put, they do not make a sentence that seems to have a full meaning; we wait for something more to be added.

351. One class of these verbs is made up of such as call for something more to be added relating to the subject, and further describing or qualifying it. For example,

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We may complete such statements by adding a noun or an adjective: thus,

I am poor;

we were brothers;

they seem hungry;

the man looked tired.

352. A word thus used is called a PREDICATE NOUN or a PREDICATE ADJECTIVE; or, the noun or adjective is said to stand in the predicate, or to be used predicatively.

This is because it in a manner completes the predication or assertion made by the verb; it qualifies the subject, being made part of the assertion respecting the latter; it does so by the help of the verb, which brings it into connection with the subject. 353. The number of verbs thus taking a predicate adjective or noun is not a very large one. They are sometimes called Such are:

VERBS OF INCOMPLETE PREDICATION.

a. The verb be: thus,

I am ill;

he was angry;

you are a scholar; she was the heroine;

they will be tired;
they have been soldiers.

This is by far the commonest of the whole class. The verb be, in all its various forms, has come to stand as a mere connective of assertion between a subject and some word or words describing that subject, and so to have no meaning of its own except that of signifying the assertion. It simply couples together two words in the relation of a subject and a predicate. It is therefore commonly called the COPULA (that is, 'coupler').

Indeed, every verb admits of being taken apart, or analyzed, into some form of this copula be, which expresses the act of assertion, and a predicate noun or adjective (especially the verbal adjective, the present participle), expressing the condition or quality or action predicated. Thus,

I stand

is nearly am erect, or, still more nearly,

again,

are equivalent to

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we were givers, or we were giving;
they are beggars, or they are begging;

and in a similar way we form the "progressive" verb-phrases (281) by the side of all the simple tenses and the simpler phrases: thus,

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b. Become, with its near equivalents grow, get, turn, and the like

thus,

I became ill; his face grew black.

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