Copulative Verbs. 135. There are many Verbs in English of which the meaning is sometimes completed by an Adjective, Participle, or Noun, in the same case as the subject. Such Verbs, occupying the position and having the effect of the copula, are called Copulative Verbs. Such are LIE. COME. His other parts besides Prone on the flood, extended long and large, All these and more came flocking.-Milton. Omission of the Verb. 136. Completeness of grammatical construction is often neglected, that brevity of speech or vividness of expression may be obtained. For example, the Copula and the Verb are often omitted in quick and animated speech: What news abroad?-Shakespeare. Upon them! Victory sits on our helms.-Shakespeare. A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse.-Shakespeare. Strike up the drum! cry-Courage! and away.-Shakespeare. Throw physic to the dogs: I'll none of it.-Shakespeare. Another rib afford, yet loss of thee Emphatic Order of Words in the Simple Sentence. 137. The natural order of words in the simple sentence is the order in which they stand in § 11. Emphasis is obtained when this order is changed: for example 1. When the predicate is brought forward : 2. When the Verb is put before the subject: Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell, Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave.-Byron. Stood Dido with a willow in her hand Upon the wild sea-banks, and wav'd her love 3. When the object, or an adverbial expression, is put These delights if thou canst give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live.—Milton. Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear.-Gray. Much good may your humanity do you, as it does so much good to others.-Cowper. From our enemies we expect evil treatment of every sort, we are prepared for it, we are animated by it, and we sometimes triumph in it; but when our friends abandon us, when they wound us, and when they take, to do this, an occasion where we stand the most in need of their support, and have the best title to it, the firmest mind finds it hard to resist.— Bolingbroke. Loose Parts of the Sentence. 138. A word, or phrase, may form part of a sentence, without being a member of the sentence: that is, not being the subject, verb, or object, and not qualifying any one of these. Such words and phrases are: 1. The Vocative Case. This is a form of address used when a person, or personified object, is spoken to by name: Caesar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.-Shakespeare. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.—Shakespeare. These pleasures, Melancholy, give, And I with thee will choose to live.-Milton. Auspicious Hope, in thy sweet garden grow Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe.-Campbell. Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn, Draw forth the cheerful day from night: O Father, touch the East, and light The light that shone when Hope was born.-Tennyson. 2. Interjections. These are either sounds expressing sudden feelings, as of joy, sorrow, approbation; as Hah! Ah! Oh! Alas! Hurrah! or abbreviated sentences; as Well done! Prithee (I pray thee). Some stand alone: others have Nouns or prepositional phrases attached to them. Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow.-Shakespeare. Hurrah! for the great triumph, That stretches many a mile.-Macaulay. Why so pale and wan, fond lover, Prithee, why so pale?--Suckling. F Ah me! how weak a thing The heart of woman is.-Shakespeare. Vain men! how little do we know what to wish or to pray for!-Bolingbroke. On a day (alack the day!) Love, whose month is ever May, Playing in the wanton air.-Shakespeare. Out and alas! that was my lady's voice: 3. The Absolute Case: Shakespeare. This construction, in which a Noun and Adjective (or participle) are usually combined, to express circumstances attending a state or action, is of frequent Occurrence: There was a time when Ætna's silent fire Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire.-Cowper. Mourns o'er the field he heaped with dead.-Scott. And now, my stock of corn increasing, I wanted to build my barns bigger.-Defoe. The poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.—Shakespeare. They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder.-Coleridge. Six frozen winters spent, Return with welcome home from banishment. Shakespeare. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.-Shakespeare. It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning to every man in the parish a great frieze coat.— Addison. NOTE. Such expressions as hand in hand (§ 129) are perhaps instances of abbreviation of this construction; thus, hand in hand hand placed in hand: face to face = face turned to face. = 4. The Prepositional Infinitive. This is common in such expressions as to tell you the truth, so to speak, to say the truth, to be brief, to wit. Here Sir Joshua lies, and, to tell you my mind, He has not left a wiser or better behind.-Goldsmith. We last night received a piece of ill news at our club, which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my readers themselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep them no longer in suspense, Sir Roger de Coverley is dead.—Addison. And, to add greater honours to his age, Than man could give him, he died fearing God. Pray, do not mock me: I am a very foolish fond old man, Shakespeare. Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; I fear I am not in my perfect mind.—Shakespeare. 5. Many Prepositional Phrases, as in a word, in truth, in deed; One thing, indeed, is to be said in excuse for him.Macaulay. This is, in truth, the sum of almost all the instructions that Hastings ever received from home.-Macaulay. Money, in a word, is the most universal incitement, iron the most powerful instrument, of human industry.-Gibbon. |