DR. VERB’S THREE TENSES AND NUMBER AND PERSON.
[Illustration: TENSE OR TIME
TIME
FUTURE
PAST
PRESENT]
“Now, Dr. Verb,” said Judge Grammar, the next day, “we have well
examined this that you call your ‘Song of the verb To be.’”
“Conjugation, my lord, if you like,” said Dr. Verb, bowing.
“I _do_ like, certainly,” replied the Judge. “Conjugation is a much
better word than _song_--longer and more respectable, and in every way
more suited to Grammar-land. Con-ju-ga-tion--this conjugation of the
verb ‘to be.’ We require you to explain it.”
“With pleasure, my lord. You see, it is divided into three verses.”
“Verses!” exclaimed Serjeant Parsing. “You know it is not to be called
a song, Dr. Verb.”
“Quite so, quite so,” said Dr. Verb, bowing again. “Well, Tenses, then.
It is divided into three tenses, the Present Tense, the Past Tense,
and the Future Tense, which mean the present time, the past time, and
the future time; and your lordship knows that all time must be either
present time, or past time, or future time. Just as when you are
reading a book. There is the part you have read, that is the past; the
part you are going to read, that is the future; and the part you are
reading now, that is the present.”
“We understand,” said Judge Grammar; “but pray explain why you divide
your _verbs_ into these three parts.”
“To show how my verbs change when they have to mark the present, past,
or future time. You see, the verb ‘to be’ takes _am_ for the present,
_was_ for the past, and adds on _will_ or _shall_ for the future. _I
am_ in the present time talking to your lordship. I _was_ in the past
time talking to your lordship. I _shall be_ in the future time talking
to your lordship.”
“Indeed, I hope not,” cried the Judge, putting his hands to his ears.
“Pray do not go on forever talking to me. I have heard quite enough
of your voice already. Step back, and allow Mr. Pronoun to take your
place, and explain the rest of the conjugation to us.”
“Allow me to say one thing more,” said Dr. Verb. “Please, Mr. Parsing,
whenever you see a _will_ or _shall_, or any other little verb put in
to show the time, will you remember that it is only a little helping
verb, used to make up the tense of some other verb, and therefore to be
counted in with that, and not taken alone.”
“Just give an example of what you mean,” said Serjeant Parsing; “I do
not quite understand.”
“I mean to say that when you see ‘he will go,’ you must take _will
go_ as part of the verb _to go_; and when you see _am coming_, _was
dancing_, _has eaten_, _had fought_, you must take them as parts of
the verbs to come, to dance, to eat, to fight. The first words, _am_,
_was_, _has_, _had_, are very good and respectable words by themselves,
of course; but when they are used with another verb, they are never
offended if you just take them as part of that other verb.”
“Thank you. I will remember,” said Serjeant Parsing, laughing. “Now
please to stand back, and allow Mr. Pronoun to answer.--Mr. Pronoun,
pray why do you use these particular six words, _I_, _thou_, _he_,
_we_, _you_, and _they_, to make up Dr. Verb’s tenses?”
“I use _I_ and _we_,” answered Pronoun, “to stand for the first person;
_thou_ and _you_ to stand for the second person; and _he_ and _they_ to
stand for the third person.”
“What do you mean by the first person?” asked Serjeant Parsing.
“My lord,” answered Mr. Pronoun, turning to Judge Grammar, “may I ask
you who is the first person in Grammar-land?”
“_I_ am, of course,” answered the Judge.
“That is what I find all my friends answer,” said Pronoun. “When I ask
them who is the most important, the first person in the world to them,
they say _I_ am; so my little _I_ stands for the person who is speaking
about himself, and I call it the _first_ person.”
“Then who is the _second_ person?” asked the Judge.
“_You_ are, my lord,” answered Pronoun, bowing politely.
“You said just now that _I_ was the _first_ person,” said the Judge.
“Yes, my lord,” replied Mr. Pronoun, putting his hand on his breast;
“_I_ first, and _you_ second.”
“But it ought to be _I_ first, and _you_ second,” said the Judge,
angrily.
“That is exactly what I said, my lord,” repeated Pronoun. “_I_ first,
and _you_ second.”
The Judge was getting so angry, that Pronoun’s friends began to
tremble for his head, when suddenly Dr. Syntax rose and said: “The
first person is always the person speaking, and the second is the
person spoken to. Let every one in the court say, ‘_I_ am the first,’
and we shall all be right, and all satisfied.”
“_I_ first, _we_ first,” they all shouted; “and _you_, _you_, _you_,
only the second.”
The noise was tremendous, and the Judge, finding himself only one
against a number, thought he had better turn the subject; and clapping
his hands loudly, to call for silence, he called out:
“But if we are all firsts and seconds, pray where is the third person
to go?”
“Oh, the third person,” said Pronoun, contemptuously, “is only the one
we are talking about. He may not be here, so it cannot matter if we
call him only the third person.”
“And what is the use of your having pronouns to stand for all these
three persons in Dr. Verb’s tenses?” asked Serjeant Parsing.
“Dr. Verb and I agree together to alter our words according to the
person they represent,” said Mr. Pronoun. “When my pronoun is in the
first person, Dr. Verb has to make his verb in the first person too. He
has to say _am_ when I have put _I_, and _are_ when I have put _we_. _I
is_, or _we art_, would make Dr. Syntax there very angry.”
“And he would be rightly angry,” replied the Judge. “You know that very
well.”
“Oh, I am not complaining, my lord,” answered Pronoun; “I was merely
stating a fact. Of course I am rather pleased than otherwise that Dr.
Verb should have to alter his words to make them agree with mine.
My pronouns show the person (that is why, you know, they are called
personal pronouns), and then Dr. Verb has to make his words agree with
them.”
“Very fine!” remarked Serjeant Parsing, “But tell us, Mr. Pronoun,
why, when there are only three different persons, you should have six
different pronouns in each tense?”
“Three of them are for the singular number, standing for only one--_I_,
_thou_, _he_,” replied Pronoun; “and the other three are for the plural
number, standing for as many as you like--_we_, _you_, and _they_.”
“Singular number only one, _I_, _thou_, _he_; plural number more than
one, _we_, _you_, _they_;--that is it, is it not, Mr. Pronoun?” asked
Serjeant Parsing.
“Yes, sir,” replied Pronoun, “that is it exactly; I could not have
explained it better myself. And whatever number the pronoun is, that
the verb must be also.”
“You mean that when the pronoun only stands for one thing or person,
then both it and the verb that comes after it are said to be in the
singular number: is it not so?” said Serjeant Parsing.
“Quite so, Mr. Parsing,” said Pronoun, delighted; “the verb has to
agree with the pronoun in number, just as it has to do in person. If my
pronoun stands for only one, then it and the verb are called singular
number; but if my pronoun stands for more than one thing, then it and
the verb are said to be in the plural number. You quite understand me,
I see, my dear Mr. Parsing, and I am sure you will take care to see
that the verb always agrees with me in number and person.”
“Whenever it is proper that it should,” replied Serjeant Parsing,
gravely.
“But it ought always to agree with my words when we are conjugating a
verb together,” said Pronoun, eagerly; “that is the very reason why it
is useful to conjugate verbs. In every tense you have the first person,
second person, and third person in the singular number; and the first
person, second person, and third person in the plural number; and then
you see how the verb alters each time to agree with the pronoun.”
“It does not alter every time,” put in Dr. Verb; “in some tenses it
hardly alters at all. Just listen,--‘I had, thou hadst, he had, we
had, you had, they had; I lived, thou livedst, he lived, we lived, you
lived, they lived; I sang, thou sangest, he sang, we sang, you sang,
they sang; I rang, thou rangest, he rang, we rang, you rang, they
rang.’”
“That will do, that will do, Dr. Verb,” cried the Judge. “We have had
your talking in the past tense, we do not want it in the present tense,
and if we should happen to require it in the future tense, we will let
you know another time. Instead of talking here, you had much better
go to Schoolroom-shire, and help the people there to write out the
present, past, and future tenses of the verbs you have mentioned--_to
have_, _to live_, _to sing_, _to ring_; and show them how the words
alter, not only to mark the different times, but to agree with Mr.
Pronoun’s words in number and person.”
“I shall be most happy, my lord,” said Dr. Verb; “but Mr. Pronoun must
come too, to help me.”
“With great pleasure, my dear Doctor,” said Mr. Pronoun, gaily: “there
is no one in Grammar-land I can work with so easily as you, because you
agree with me so beautifully.”
Then, bowing to the Judge, he and Dr. Verb walked out of the court,
arm-in-arm, humming the present tense of the verb _to be_, and the
Schoolroom-shire people, with their help, easily wrote out the four
verbs mentioned,--_to have_, _to live_, _to sing_, and _to ring_.
[Illustration]