PECULIAR MODIFICATIONS
It is not uncommon to find words modified in what seems to us an
ungrammatical way; for example, an article modifying an adjective, as
in the phrase _all the same_, or an adverb modifying a noun, as in the
sentence, “We walked the whole distance, _exactly three miles_,” where
the adverb _exactly_ is a modifier of the noun phrase _three miles_.
Some of these modifications we shall now consider.
1. The article _the_ modifying an adjective.--We find this in many
phrases that have become current in literature no less than in
conversation; for example, _all the quicker_, _none the worse_, _quite
the contrary_, _at the best_. In some instances, as in the last
example given, we may say that the adjective has become a substantive
in meaning and hence may be modified by the article. In other cases a
noun may be supplied after the adjective, and the article may be said
to modify the noun. But in most cases the adjective is used in the
sense of an adjective, and it is impossible, too, to supply any noun
after it, so we must take the expression as we find it and say that the
article modifies an adjective, the construction being idiomatical.
Illustrations of this construction are found in the following
sentences:--
(_a_) “Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of seals watched them being
driven, but they went on playing _just the same_.”--_Kipling._
(_b_) “The negroes declared that under the old house were solid
rock chambers which had been built for dungeons, and had served for
purposes which were _none the less_ awful because they were vague and
indefinite.”
Many of these phrases contain a modifying adverb. In _just the same_,
the adverb _just_ modifies _the same_. In _all the more_ we have _all_
used adverbially to modify _the more_.
The base-word of these phrases is just as often an adverb as an
adjective, as in the sentences, “This news only made us walk _the
faster_”; “He did it _none the worse_ for the many interruptions.”
2. In such expressions as _a few books_, _a good many trees_, the
article _a_ may seem at first thought to modify a plural noun; but this
is not the case. The article modifies the pronominal adjectives _few_
and _many_, having the meaning of collective nouns, that is, meaning
individuals taken as a group instead of singly. This pronominal is
then modified by the prepositional phrase _of books_, _of trees_, with
the preposition _of_ understood. Usage alone settles for us when the
preposition is to be expressed. We say _a few of them_; but if we use a
noun in place of the pronoun _them_ we omit the preposition; as, _a few
pennies_. We say _a score of years_, and _a couple of years_, but we
omit the preposition after _dozen_, another word denoting number, and
say _a dozen years_. After the collective noun _crowd_ we express the
preposition; as, _a crowd of boys_; but if we say _a great many_ in
place of _crowd_, we omit the preposition, saying _a great many boys_.
For analysis, however, the preposition should always be supplied.
3. Adverbs sometimes modify nouns.--This comes about often by abridging
an adjective clause to an appositive phrase; for example, “John Adams
was born at Quincy, _then part_ of the ancient town of Braintree, on
the 19th day of October (O. S.) 1735.”--_Webster._ If we supply _which
was_ after the noun _Quincy_, we have an adjective clause, in which the
adverb _then_ modifies the whole predicate--a regular construction. But
in the sentence as originally written, the adverb modifies the noun
_part_.
We occasionally find nouns used in the place of these modifying
adverbs. We may say _thrice the amount_, wherein _amount_ is modified
by the adverb _thrice_, or we may substitute for _thrice_ the noun
phrase _three times_. We also find the noun _something_ used in the
place of the adverb _somewhat_, as in the sentence,--“He had something
the manner of a Southerner.” Such a word restricts the application of
the noun it modifies. The adverbs _almost_ and _about_ are used in the
same way, as in _almost a year_, _about a pound_.
_But_ is frequently used adjectively in the sense of _only_, having a
limiting or restrictive force; thus, “He was but one generation removed
from the soil.”--_Boyesen._
Examples of adverbs modifying nouns are found in the following
sentences:
(_a_) “The Scheld, _almost exclusively a Belgian river_, after leaving
its fountains in Picardy, flows through the pleasant provinces of
Flanders and Hainault.”--_Motley._
(_b_) “It may well be doubted whether Roman literature,
_always a half-hardy exotic_, could ripen the seeds of living
reproduction.”--_Lowell._
(_c_) “South Dome is a vast globe of bold rock, _almost a full mile_ in
height.”--_King._
(_d_) “I fell a helpless prey to a boatman who addressed me in some
words of wonderful English and then rowed me to the sea wall at about
_thrice the usual fare_.”--_Howells._
4. Some nouns like _howl_, _cry_, _shock_, derived from verbs denoting
action, may be modified by an adverbial clause of time or place. We
may say, “He cried out joyfully when he caught sight of me,” where the
clause modifies the predicate _cried out joyfully_; or we may say, “His
cry when he caught sight of me was joyful,” where the same clause with
the same meaning modifies the subject _his cry_.
A clause introduced by _as_, with the meaning and construction of an
adverbial clause of manner, may modify a noun and so save several
words; for example, “Their plays are much shorter than the standard
drama _as it is known to us_.”--_Howells._ Here _as_ is equivalent to
the group of words _in the form in which_.
5. There are some modifiers of verbs consisting of several words which
should not be separated, inasmuch as they express only one idea. Some
of these are _by and by_, _off hand_, _day by day_, _side by side_.
Some of these expressions after they have been considered as units may
be separated into their compound elements. In the sentence, “They have
infested the place time out of mind,” we say that the predicate _have
infested the place_ is modified by the adverbial phrase _time out of
mind_, this having the force of one adverb. We may then say that this
phrase is made up of the noun _time_ modified by the prepositional
phrase _out of mind_.
6. Certain absolute phrases have become equivalent to single words
and as such are used adjectively or adverbially to modify nouns or
verbs. Some of these are _wrong side out_, _upside down_, _one behind
the other_. Each of these consists of a substantive--_wrong side_,
_upside_, _one_,--and an attribute of this substantive--_out_, _down_,
and _behind the other_. These attributes are joined directly to the
substantive because of the omission of the participle _being_. Examples
of these phrases are found in the following sentences:
(_a_) “Apoplexy is only egotism _wrong side out_.”--_Holmes._
(_b_) “Salvationists sat _three in a seat_ and played
concertinas.”--_Bolles._
Exercise 37
Find examples of peculiar modifications in the following sentences.
1. One is always the better for a walk in the morning air, a medicine
which may be taken over and over again without any sense of sameness
or any failure of its invigorating quality.--_Lowell._
2. Her gratitude for such thoughtfulness of his smote him like a
reproach; all the more that he knew her gentle heart had never held a
thought of reproach in it towards him.--_H. H._
3. These barges were all tied one behind the other with tow-ropes, to
the number of twenty-five or thirty.--_Stevenson._
4. I ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came facing
the sea.--_Dickens._
5. Æschylus was, head and heart, a lyric poet.--_Macaulay._
6. The dog-whip is six yards long, and the handle but sixteen inches.
7. Civilis was hemmed in by the ocean; his country, long the
basis of Roman military operations, was accessible by river and
canal.--_Motley._
8. Sea Catch was fifteen years old, a huge gray fur-seal with almost a
mane on his shoulders, and long, wicked dog-teeth.--_Kipling._
9. He was the representative of the great dynasty whose name and
effigies had been borne by all the coin of India until within some
twenty years before.--_McCarthy._
10. It is better to do a few things precisely as they should be done,
than to do ten times as many in a loose, slovenly way.
11. One of these tunes, just as it had sounded from her spiritual
touch, had been written down by an amateur of music.--_Hawthorne._
12. He was a lean, nervous, flibbertigibbet of a man, with
something the look of an actor, and something the look of a horse
jockey.--_Stevenson._
13. The shock to the senses there, as one rides out from the level and
sheltered forest, up to which our horses had been climbing two days,
is scarcely less than if he had been instantly borne to a region where
the Creator reveals more of himself in his works than can be learned
from the ordinary scenery of this world.--_King._
14. Thus the whole life upon the globe, as we see it, is the
result of this blind groping and putting forth of nature in every
direction.--_Burroughs._
15. I know very well that he could better himself, and earn twice what
I am able to give him.--_Conan Doyle._
Exercise 38
Analyze the following sentences.
1. The sight of the resting country does his spirit
good.--_Stevenson._
2. To go to bed was to lie awake of cold, with an added shudder of
fright whenever a loose casement or a waving curtain chose to give you
the goose-flesh.
3. The house had been built many generations before by a stranger
in this section, and the owners never made it their permanent
home.--_Page._
4. One stick, pointed, makes him a spear; two sticks rubbed
together make him a fire; fifty sticks tied together make him a
house.--_Drummond._
5. I often thought that he felt the dumb limitations which denied him
the power of language.--_Warner._
6. Lengths of brownish-green and yellow tapestry, none the fresher for
its two centuries and more of existence, still protested against the
modern heresy of wall-paper.--_J. Hawthorne._
7. Centuries ago his granite crumbled and his marble became dust, but
his sweet psalms and songs do still abide.--_Hillis._
8. Besides the cattle we saw no living thing except a few birds and a
great many fishermen.--_Stevenson._
9. I passed some pleasant hours, a few years since, in the Registry
of Deeds and the Town Records, looking up the history of the old
house.--_Holmes._
10. Dennis dealt him a blow upon the face which felled him to the
ground.--_Dickens._
11. The strength of a rope may be but the strength of its weakest
part; but poets are to be judged in their happiest hours, and in their
greatest works.--_Birrell._
12. Why are you not on your way home?--_Froude._
13. Many a gardener will cut you a bouquet of his choicest blossoms
for small fee, but he does not love to let the seeds of his rarest
varieties go out of his own hands.--_Holmes._
14. The spirit of local self-government, always the life-blood of
liberty, was often excessive in its manifestations.--_Motley._
15. Shere Khan was the tiger who lived near the Waingunga River,
twenty miles away.--_Kipling._
16. This was not the first time that I had been refused a
lodging.--_Stevenson._
17. It cost him the best years of his life to conquer them.--_Lord._
18. The society was formed four centuries and a half after the poet’s
death.--_Lowell._
19. The whites have too frequently set them an example of violence,
by burning their villages and laying waste their slender means of
subsistence, and yet they wonder that savages do not show moderation
and magnanimity towards those who have left them nothing but mere
existence and wretchedness.--_Irving._
20. I arrived one winter morning about five o’clock, and was not so
full of soul as I might have been in warmer weather.--_Howells._
21. There is a gentleman with them, who somewhat resembles St.
Nicholas as he appeared to the young Van Gleeks on the fifth of
December.--_Mrs. Dodge._
22. It took him twenty years to subdue these fierce warriors.--_Lord._
23. One good, kind, story-telling, Bible-rehearsing aunt at home, with
apples and gingerbread premiums, is worth all the schoolma’ams that
ever stood by to see poor little fellows roast in those boy-traps
called district schools.--_Beecher._
24. The spectre started full jump with him.--_Irving._
25. As in his tales he had endeavored to concentrate into a few
strongly defined types the modern folk-life of the North, so in his
dramas the same innate love of his nationality leads him to seek the
typical features of his people, as they are revealed in the historic
chieftains of the past.--_Boyesen._