DISPLACEMENT OF THE SYNTACTICAL DISTRIBUTION.
The reader who remembers and fully apprehends the wider meaning, which
in Chapter VI. we assigned to the terms (Psychological) ‘subject’ and
‘predicate,’ must realise how comparatively seldom the grammatical
categories of the same name coincide with the corresponding parts of the
thought to which the sentence is to give utterance. We defined the
subject as the expression for that which the speaker presupposes known
to the hearer, and the predicate as that which indicates what he wishes
the hearer to think or learn about it. Hence, as we saw, the sentence
theoretically consists of two parts; but, as each of these parts may be
extended, we get--if we indicate subject and predicate by the letters
_S_ and _P_ respectively, and the extensions by _a_, _b_, _c_, etc.--the
following scheme for a simple sentence: _Sabc_ + _Pdef_.
Now, in such a sentence, the grammatical subject, with all its
extensions, will correspond with the psychological subject, and the
grammatical predicate and its extensions with the psychological
predicate, _only in case_ the extensions of the subject are really no
more than additions made in order to specify the _known_ or
_presupposed_, and if the predicate contains nothing which serves any
further purpose than to convey the thought about that subject. But as
soon as to the subject-noun, for instance, an adjective is added which
conveys _new_ thought about the subject; or, again, as soon as the
object is indicated by a noun accompanied by a similar ‘additional’
qualification, then these additions or extensions become _ipso facto_
psychological predicates, and the sentence, grammatically simple,
becomes a psychologically complex one. Thus, suppose a good Charles and
a wicked Charles have been spoken of, and the latter is known to have
done something with his thick stick to the speaker; then, and then only,
can a sentence like _The wicked Charles has beaten me with his thick
stick_ be a psychologically simple one. In this sentence then, _The
wicked Charles_ is subject, _has beaten_ is predicate, and _with his
stick_ extension, and the psychological and grammatical divisions
coincide completely. But suppose that it was known that the same person
had beaten the speaker, but that the instrument was not known; or that
the action and the instrument were known, but not the recipient of the
blows: in this case the sentence, though remaining a simple one, would
at once cease to correspond in its grammatical parts to the
psychological divisions of (_a_) _Charles has beaten me_ (subject) +
_with his stick_ (predicate), or, (_b_) _Charles has beaten with his
stick_ (subject) + _me_ (predicate). In fact, if we wished to make the
grammatical form correspond to the divisions of that psychologically
simple statement, we should have to adopt a form grammatically complex;
such as _The instrument with which Charles has beaten me is his thick
stick_, or, _The person whom Charles has beaten with his thick stick is
I_, according to the circumstances of the case.
In any of the cases enumerated above, the psychological subject and
predicate were simple. But suppose that the hearer was not aware that
anything had happened, nor could be supposed to have any predisposition
to call the individual in question ‘wicked.’ Then, though the sentence
remains grammatically a simple one, we really get the following complex
PSYCHOLOGICAL analysis:--
1. Subject: _Charles_
Predicate: _is (in my opinion) wicked_.
2. Subject: _The wicked Charles_
Predicate: _has beaten_.
3. Subject: _The object of that beating_
Predicate (with copula): _is I_.
4. Subject: _The instrument with which that beating was inflicted upon me_
Predicate (with copula): _is a stick_.
5. Subject: _That stick_
Predicate (with copula): _is thick_.
While, therefore, the scheme could grammatically be symbolised _aS_ +
_Pbc_, we should have to symbolise the psychological analysis somewhat
as follows:--
_P_ + _S_
{_____}
_S´_ + _P´_
{_______}
_S´´_ + _P´´_
{_________}
_S´´´_ + _P´´´_
{___________}
_S´´´´_ + _P´´´´_
{_____________}
At first sight this may seem far-fetched and uselessly refined, but the
student will find that it is desirable to force himself in some such
manner to fully realise the absolute inadequacy of our grammatical terms
and distinctions when we apply them to psychological questions: and to
realise, also, the vagueness with which long habit has taught us to be
satisfied in our modes of expression, and in our constructions for
various thoughts, differing essentially, though perhaps not always
widely.[160] It is the full conception of the somewhat haphazard nature
of our constructions which will help us to understand how uncertain and
how different in various speakers must, on the one hand, be the
correspondence between the grammatical and psychological subject and
predicate; and, on the other, how vague must often be the distinctions
between the parts of our sentences, and how varying the grouping of
these parts, as we more or less consciously conceive of them as
connected or as ‘belonging together.’ All is here fluctuating and
indefinite. Thus, as a rule, the word _is_ in sentences like _He is
king_, _He is subject_, is mere copula, and _king_ the real predicate;
though, when we utter the same words in order to state that _he_ and no
one else occupies the throne, _he_ becomes psychologically predicate,
and _king_, or rather _is king_, becomes subject, whatever the
grammatical form of the sentence may seem to prove to the contrary.
Again, in _He_ IS _king_ (_i.e._ now, and not only going to be so), _he
as king_ is subject, _is (now)_ predicate.
Psychologically, the idea of the copula as mere link between subject and
predicate is far more extensive than ordinary grammar admits. Thus, in
_What is the matter with him? He has got the toothache_, the predicate
of the latter sentence is _the toothache_, _has got_ is copula.
In _Will he be quick, do you think? Oh yes, he was running very
quickly_, the words _was running_ are a mere copula, unless, emphasised
by stress of accent, they are made to convey the specially desired
statement that the person spoken of _ran_, and did not walk slowly or
ride, etc., in which case they are a true predicate.
We have here illustrated how one of the means for distinguishing the
predicate from the other parts of the sentence is found in _accent_ or
_stress_.
But we do not invariably thus emphasise our predicate. An interrogative
pronoun, for instance, is always a psychological predicate. If we ask
_Who has done this?_ we usually lay our stress on _done_ or on _this_,
though these words, being mere expressions for the observed and known
fact, contain the psychological subject, and the unknown person
indicated by _who_ is the predicate sought for by the questioner.
There exist other elements of speech which are regularly subjects or
predicates; for instance, a demonstrative referring back to a
substantive previously expressed and commencing a sentence, is
necessarily a psychological subject, or part of it: _I know those men
are my enemies: them I despise_. A relative pronoun, of course, has the
same function: _there is a man whom I respect highly_. Again, every
element of a sentence whose connection with the rest is denied by means
of a negative particle is generally a psychological predicate; as,
_Yield not me the praise_ (Tennyson) = ‘The person to whom praise is due
is not I.’ _But not to me returns day_ (Milton, Par. Lost, iii. 41) =
‘Day returns to many, but among those is[161] not I.’
This, of course, includes any words expressing the contrast with the
negatived element: _Give not me but him the praise_ = ‘The person to
whom praise is due is not I, (but) he.’
Besides emphasis, we have, in so-called inverted constructions, the
means of characterising any part of a sentence as subject or predicate.
Thus: _One thing thou lackest_ (Mark x. 21) = ‘One thing there is which
thou hast not.’ ‘_No pause of dread Lord William knew_’ (Scott, Harold,
v. 15) = ‘Not a pause of dread existed which Lord William knew’ = ‘Not a
pause of dread was made by Lord William.’
A means of establishing correspondence between the grammatical and
psychological predicate has been incidentally illustrated in the
foregoing discussion. It is the periphrastic construction with _is_, of
which instances are very numerous. _It is to you, young people, that I
speak_; _What I most prize in woman, is her affections, not her
intellect_ (Longfellow); _It is thou that robbest me of my Lord_
(Shakespeare, 2 Hen. VI., IV. ii.); _It was not you that sent me hither,
but God_ (Gen. xlv. 8).
This construction is quite common in many other languages:
French--_C’est a vous que je m’adresse_ (= ‘It is to you that I myself
address’); German--_Christen sind es, die das getan haben_ (lit.
‘Christians are it, that that done have’ = ‘It is (the) Christians that
have done this’).
In English, another construction often serves the same purpose: _As to
denying, he would scorn it_; _As for that fellow, we’ll see about him
to-morrow_. Or (with the psychological subject simply in the nominative,
without any verbal indication of its connection with what follows),
_Husband and children, she saw them murdered before her very eyes_; _My
life’s foul deed, my life’s fair end shall free it_ (Shakespeare, Rape
of Lucr.); _The prince ... they will slay him_ (Ben Jonson, Sejanus,
III. iii.); _That thing, I took it for a man_ (Lear, IV. vi. 77).
_Antipholus, my husband ... this ill day a most outrageous fit of
madness took him_ (Com. of Errors, V. i. 138). When, in this
construction, the words which head the sentence stand for the same thing
as the subject pronoun of the following clause, the result, of course,
is not a readjustment of the parts, but an (often useless) emphasis: cf.
_John, he said so_; _The king, he went_, etc. When the psychological
subject would, in the simpler constructions appear as a genitive, this
is indicated by the pronoun standing, in that case, e.g., _’Tis certain
every man that dies ill, the ill is upon his head_ (Henry V., IV. i.
197). _That they who brought me in my master’s hate, I live to look upon
their tragedy_ (Rich. III., III. ii. 57); _And vows so born, in their
nativity all truth appears_ (Mid. Night’s Dream, III. ii. 124).
In Chapter VI. we have discussed the point that in reality an adjective
is psychologically a predicate: an expression like _The good man_
containing, in fact, a statement that the man is good. There is a
construction, however,--and one, too, not unfrequent,--in which the
adjective contains the psychological and logical subjects; e.g., _The
short time at my disposal prevented me from calling upon him_--‘The
shortness of the time prevented,’ etc. Though this construction may
perhaps be due to a contamination between, say, _The shortness of the
time prevented_ and _The short time did not allow_, it still remains
certain that in the construction, as it stands, a displacement has
occurred.
It might _a priori_ be expected that all this uncertainty and vagueness
would cause parts of a sentence which grammatically belong together to
cohere but loosely, and eventually to get separated, whilst other
grammatical connections, which at first did not exist, would thereby
arise. It is clear, for instance, that in the sentence _I sit on a
chair_, the preposition _on_ is as closely connected with the verb _to
sit_ as with the noun _a chair_. Nay, it may be said that the ties which
connect it with the noun in this and similar cases must once have been,
and perhaps in the linguistic consciousness of some speakers still are,
stronger than those between the preposition and the verb. This would
appear from the fact that the various prepositions used to govern in
English--as they still do in German, for instance--various cases, while
these ties would be strengthened by the common occurrence of the
preposition with a noun, unaccompanied by any verb; e.g., _That book
there on the chair_; _The man in the garden_, etc. It is, however,
evident in many constructions that the noun has separated from the
preposition, and that the latter has entered into closer connection with
the verb. We owe to this, _e.g._, the Latin and German ‘compound verbs,’
as _excedere_, ‘to go out from,’ _anliegen_, ‘to be incumbent on,’ etc.,
which used to govern, or still do govern the case which would have
followed the preposition if used immediately before the noun and
detached from the verb. In English, this or a similar displacement has
given rise to such constructions as _And this rich fair town we make
him lord of_ (K. John, II. i. 553); _a place which we have long heard
of_; _Washes of all kinds I had an antipathy to_ (Goldsmith); _Logic I
made no account of_ (Smollett, Rod. Random, 6); _This house I no more
show my face in_ (She stoops to conquer, IV.); _The false paiens stood
he by_ (P. Langtoft).
A careful study of the above examples will show that in these and
several of the following, the construction has the effect and is most
likely due to a desire of bringing the psychological subject to the head
of the sentence. It is at present chiefly employed in relative and
interrogative clauses, and in sentences in the passive voice: _The
intended fire your city is ready to flame in_ (Coriolanus, V. 2); _An
idle dare-devil of a boy, whom his friends had been glad to get rid of_
(Green, Short History, p. 732); _Stories of the lady, which he swore to
the truth of_ (Tom Jones, bk. xv., ch. 9); _He was such a lover, as a
generous friend of the lady should not betray her to_ (ibid., xiii. 2);
_A pipe in his mouth, which, indeed, he seldom was without_ (ibid., ii.
2): _The eclipse which the nominal seat of Christianity was under_
(Earle, Anglo-Saxon Liter., p. 25); _Such scruple of conscience as the
terrors of their late invented religion had let them into_ (Puttenham,
Arte of Poesie, Arber’s reprint, p. 24); _An outrage confessed to on a
death-bed_ (Liv. Daily Post, Aug. 1, 1884, p. 5, col. a.); _He was
seldom talked of_, etc. _What humour is the prince of?_ (Hen. IV., II.
iv).[162]
In the sentence _I will never allow you to read this book_, there is no
doubt that every speaker feels _this book_ as object of _read_, and
_read this book_ as object of _allow_. If, however, in order to make
_this book_ if it is psychological subject, appear also as the
grammatical subject, we say _This book I shall never allow you to read_,
we can very well understand how a speaker’s linguistic sense may come to
connect _this book_ directly as object with the entire group _allow to
read_, nay more, with the verb _allow_; as if it stood for _I will never
allow you this book to read_. This may arise all the more easily that,
in a clause like _I have to read this book_, the words _this book_ are
historically the object of _have_ and not of the infinitive _to read_,
and that, in the form _this book I have to read_, the noun is in close
proximity to its historical government _I have_. Hence, such
transference of government from the infinitive to the group _finite
verb_ + _infinitive_ and finally to the _finite verb_ has occasionally
really taken place, as can be shown by the way in which such clauses
have sometimes been turned into the passive voice. A sentence like _The
judge allowed them to drop the prosecution_ can, strictly speaking, be
turned into the passive only in one or other of the following ways:
_They were allowed to drop the prosecution_, or, _The judge allowed that
the prosecution should be dropped_; in each of which cases, the object
of the verb has become the subject of the same verb in the passive
voice. If, however, aided by such constructions as _The prosecution
which the judge allowed them to drop_, the object (_prosecution_) of the
verb _to drop_ becomes, first, object of the syntactical combination
_allow to drop_, and, finally, in the illogical thinker’s consciousness
or linguistic sense, object of the verb _to allow_,--there may arise a
passive construction something like the following: _The prosecution
which was allowed to be dropped_. This construction is indeed incorrect
in English, but its parallel may be occasionally heard from careless
speakers, and a careful study of it will illustrate and make
intelligible such phrases as the German, _Hier ist sie zu spielen
verboten_, literally = ‘Here is she (_i.e._, Minna _v._ Barnhelm,
_i.e._, the play of that name) to play forbidden’ = ‘Here it has been
forbidden to play her (_sc._ it),’ as passive of ‘They have forbidden to
play it here;’ _Die stellung des fürsten Hohenlohe wird zu untergraben
versucht_ = ‘The position of the Prince Hohenlohe is to undermine
attempted’ = ‘An attempt is being made to undermine the position, etc.;’
or again, the Greek χιλίων δράχμων ἀπορρηθεισῶν λαβεῖν (Demosthenes),
lit. ‘One thousand drachms having been agreed to receive’ = ‘It having
been agreed that I should receive one thousand drachms.’ Similarly, the
Latin _Librum legere cœpi_ = (‘I begin to read the book’) is turned into
the passive, _Liber legi cœptus est_ = (‘The book to be read has been
begun’), the perfect parallel of our somewhat fictitious English
example.
In our examples, ‘He has got the toothache,’ etc., we saw that the
grammatical predicate often has, in reality, no other psychological
function than that of mere copula, or, as it is often called, connecting
word. The regular and constant use of certain words in that manner has
led some grammarians to group these together as a separate grammatical
category, a grouping or distinction to which many others vigorously
object. The view which one takes in this question is mainly influenced
by (_a_) what we call a ‘connecting word,’ and (_b_) a clear distinction
between the grammatical form and the function of a word. Now, a
connecting word is a word which serves to indicate the connection
between two ideas or conceptions, and which accordingly can neither
stand alone, nor have any definite sense if placed with only one such
conception. Such a connecting word between subject and predicate we have
in the verb _to be_, the copula, in most of its uses. It is said by some
that the word _is_ never has any other function than that of true
predicate, and that the predicatival adjective or noun is always to be
considered a determinant of the predicate. This, whilst true as to
grammatical _form_, is certainly incorrect as to _function_. In the
first place, we have already discussed (Chap. VI.) how sentences like
_Borrowing is sorrowing_, contains no less, but also no more than
_Borrow sorrow_, in which the latter word contains the true psychologic
predicate. Further, if we were to attribute to the word _is_ in such
sentences the same force as, for instance, in _God is_, i.e., _God
exists_, we should necessarily have to explain a sentence, _This is
impossible_, as ‘This exists as something impossible;’ which every one
will at once perceive to be nonsense.
We must recognise in sentences like _Borrow sorrow_ an original
construction, by the side of which there sooner or later arose clauses
truly denoting existence, such as _God is_, or even _God is good_, in
which, at first, _is_ had its full meaning of _exists_, and _good_ had
consequently such the function of an adverb. When once, in the latter
and similar sentences, a displacement and redistribution of the function
began to take place, and the adjective _good_ (or, _e.g._, the noun
_king_ in _He is king_) acquired the force of a true logical predicate,
the fuller construction with the copula _is_ more and more frequently
ousted the shorter one, which had no such link between subject and
predicate. The reluctance of some grammarians to admit this is perhaps
partially due, also, to the fact that the copula has always retained the
full inflectional forms of a true predicatival verb. Hence they did not
so easily realise the displacement which had occurred--a displacement
which, in other sentences, where the part thereby affected is
flectionless, is easier to demonstrate.
We shall first discuss one more instance of how a displacement affects
inflected parts of speech, and then one or two in which the words
concerned have no longer any inflection to connect them with other
forms, and to protect them from isolation and change of function.
In the sentences _I make him_ and _I make a king_, we have two
accusatives of slightly different functions: the one indicating the
OBJECT of the action (_him_), and the other indicating the RESULT of the
action (_a king_). If the two statements be now combined, then, applied
as they are to convey to the hearer the two distinct pieces of
information as to the object and as to the results of the action, both
of which were previously unknown to him, we have undoubtedly one verb
with two distinct and equipoised accusatives. But assuming that either
the object of the action or the result is already known, it is then only
the other member of the pair which has the full predicatival force,
whilst the former inevitably enters into a closer relationship with the
verb. The member which retains the full force of a predicate becomes
predicate to the group; nay, even--as in our example, where the verb
cannot be taken in its literal meaning--the one noun becomes almost a
predicate to the other, _I make him king_ being very similar in meaning
to _He becomes king through my agency_. If this is the correct
explanation of the origin of similar constructions, we must perhaps
consider the use of an adjective as second accusative as due to analogy
with this use of the noun. We must not forget, however, that the line of
demarcation between adjective and noun was once very much more vague and
indefinite than it is now.
In a similar way, the sentence _I teach him to speak and I declare him
to be an honest man_ must be a combination, with consequent displacement
of relation, of two independent clauses--the one with a noun, or the
equivalent thereof, and the other with an infinite as object. It is thus
we explain the origin of the Latin accusative with infinitive.
An example of displacement, or re-arrangement of relations, is next
furnished by the origin and history of our correlatives _either_, _or_,
_both_, _and_. _Either_ means originally (A.S. _ægðer_, contracted from
_æghwæðer_ = _á_ + _ge_ + _hwæðer_) _one of two_, so that _either he or
you_ is really = _one of the two_; _you or he_, where the word _either_,
as it were, sums up or comprehends the whole of the following
enumeration. It stands, therefore, in syntactical relation to both the
members of the clause which are connected (or contrasted) by _or_; but
is now usually felt as connected with the first only, the sentence being
divided as _either he_ + _or you_. Similarly, _both_ means _two
together_. Hence _both you and I_ originally had the full force of _the
two together_, i.e., _you and I_. The word which stood in syntactical
relation with the pair has therefore, as in the former case, become
co-ordinate with the word _and_, which once formed part of the group it
governed, and we now feel and explain expressions like our examples as
consisting of the two groups, _both you_ + _and I_.
In the last two examples the words are now flectionless, and have
become, when used in such constructions, connecting words, a change
entirely owing to such displacement of relationship between the parts of
the sentence as we have been studying in this chapter.
In the discussion of our example on page 270 we noticed how even a
grammatically simple clause might in reality be a logically complex one.
_Vice versâ_, a clause logically simple may be expressed by a
grammatically complex sentence. _I asked him after his health_, as an
answer to _What were you asking him?_ is a psychologically and
grammatically simple sentence.[163] The answer might, however, without
in the least degree altering the thought expressed, have been cast in
the form _I asked him how he was_--a grammatically complex sentence.
Again, logical independence and grammatical co-ordination do not by any
means necessarily go together--a sentence like _He first went to Paris,
whence he proceeded to Rome, where he met his friend_ being in form
complex with main and subordinate clauses; in meaning, however,
equivalent to an aggregate of three co-ordinate ‘main’ clauses: _He
went_ + _from there he proceeded_ + _there he met_.
Nay, it occasionally happens that syntactical form and logical function
are in direct opposition. Thus, _e.g._, in _Scarcely had he entered the
house, when his mother exclaimed, There is John!_ what is logically the
main clause has the grammatical or syntactical form of a subordinate
one.
It cannot now, therefore, seem strange that in syntax we also meet with
the parallel of the process which gave birth to such words as _adder_,
_orange_, _newt_, and _nickname_. _Adder_, cf. Ger. _natter_, Icelandic
_naðr_, was in Anglo-Saxon _nædre_. Similarly, _orange_, derived from
the Persian _nâranj_, was originally preceded by an _n_. In the
combination with the indefinite article _a_ or _an_ (the older form)
this _n_ was thought to belong to the article only, and the sound-groups
_anorange_, _anadder_ were wrongly split up into _an_ + _orange_, _an_ +
_adder_. On the other hand, the groups _anekename_ (really _an_ +
_ekename_) and _anewt_ (really _an_ + _ewt_) were erroneously broken up
into _a_ + _newt_, _a_ + _nickname_.[164]
A precisely similar occurrence in syntax has given us our conjunction
_that_. _I know that_ (= ‘I know this thing’) + _he can sing_, when
combined into the group of subject _I_, predicate _know_, object
(double, the one part being explanatory of the other) _that_ and _he can
sing_, gradually became divided, or divisible for the linguistic
consciousness, into _I know_ + _he can sing_, with the conjunction
_that_ for connecting word.
In some cases the correspondence between psychological and grammatical
distribution is so incomplete, the subordinate and main clauses are so
interwoven in the grammatical form, that it becomes impossible to
separate the parts in our ordinary analysis. This happens more
especially when a part of the grammatically subordinate clause really
contains the psychological subject, and when, consequently, that part,
with a construction similar to that discussed on page 274 is put at the
head of the clause. When, in the sentence _I believe that something will
make you smile_, the word _something_ expressed the psychological
subject, Goldsmith emphasised this fact by writing, _Something, that I
believe will make you smile_; cf. Milton’s _Whereof I gave thee charge
thou shouldst not eat_; _With me I see not who partakes_, etc. This
arrangement, then, places the main clause between parts of what is
grammatically the subordinate one. In not a few cases confusion or
uncertainty may, then, arise as to whether the words which head the
sentence must be considered as belonging to the subordinate clause or as
governed by the verb of the main clause. If we say _The place which he
knew that he could not obtain_, we may hesitate as to whether _place_ is
really object to _knew_ or to _obtain_. We can, and often do, avoid this
ambiguity and intermixture of main and subordinate clauses by a kind of
double construction, like _The place, of which he knew that he could not
obtain it_.