ON CONCORD.
In inflectional languages, words relating to the same thing in the same
way are commonly made to correspond formally with each other. This
correspondence we call grammatical concord. Thus we find concord in
gender, number, case, and person subsisting between a substantive and
its predicate or attribute, or between a substantive and a pronoun or
adjective representing the latter. Similarly we find a correspondence in
tense and mood within the same period, or complex of sentences. This
concord can hardly be said to be the necessary result of the logical
relation of the words; the English collocation, _the good father’s
child_, where no formal concord is established between ‘the good’ and
‘father’s,’ seems as logical as _des guten vater’s kind_, where the
article and the adjective have their respective genitive forms as well
as the noun. Concord seems to have taken its origin from cases in which
the formal correspondence of two words with each other came about, not
owing to the relation borne by the former to the latter, but merely to
the identity of their relation to some other word. Thus we should have
an example of primitive concord in _fratris puer boni_, if felt by the
speaker’s linguistic consciousness something like _of (my) brother
(the) child of (the) good (one)_, i.e., _the child of (my) brother, the
good_, i.e., _the child of (my) good brother_.
After such correspondence began to be regularly conceived of as concord,
_i.e._, as a habit natural to language, we must suppose that, owing to
the operation of analogy, it extended its area to other cases to which
it did not logically belong. We shall be confirmed in our theory that
such was the procedure, if we examine certain cases in which the
extension of concord can still be historically followed.
In the first place, let us take such a case as _Ce sont mes frères_. In
English we translate this by _Those are my brothers_. The subject,
however, in this case merely directs attention to something unknown
until the predicate states what has to be known: the English pronoun,
therefore, should strictly speaking stand in the neuter singular, as,
indeed, it habitually did in A.S. _ðæt sindon_, etc., and as it does in
Modern German to the present day--_Das sind meine brüder_. Even in
Modern English we have cases like _It is we who have won_; _’Twas men I
lacked_; _Is it only the plebeians who will rise?_ (Bulwer, Rienzi, i.
5); but commonly, in Modern English and elsewhere, it appears brought
into concord with the predicate, as _These are thy glorious works_
(Milton): in Italian--_È questa la vostra figlia?_ = ‘Is this (fem.)
your daughter?’ Spanish--_Esta es la espada_ = ‘This (fem.) is the
sword’ (fem.): in Greek--Αὕτη τοι δίκη ἐστι θεῶν (Homer) = ‘This (fem.),
then, is the judgment (fem.) of the gods:’ and in Latin this use is
extremely common; as, _Eas divitias, eam bonam famam, magnamque
nobilitatem, putabant_ (Sall., Cat., 7),[165] = ‘These (fem. plur.) they
considered riches (fem. plur.), this (fem. sing.) a good name (fem.),
and great nobility (fem.);’ _i.e._, ‘This they looked upon as true
riches; by such means they strove for fame; that was what they thought
conferred true rank:’ _Patres C. Mucio agrum dono dedere quæ postea sunt
Mucia prata appellata_ (Livy, ii. 13) = ‘The fathers (senate) gave to C.
Mucius _a field_ as a present which (neut. plur.) afterwards _were_
called the Mucian fields (neut. plur.).’
On the other hand, we find instances like _Sabini spem in discordia
Romana ponunt: eam impedimentum delectui fore_ (Livy, iii. 38) = ‘The
Sabines base their expectations on the domestic quarrels of the Romans;
(they hoped) that _this_ (fem. sing. agreeing with _spem_) would be a
preventative (neut. sing.): and so _Si hoc profectio est_ (Livy, ii. 38)
= If this (neut.) is a setting-out (fem.).’ It seems that, in the former
cases, the subject has been made to agree with the predicate just as the
predicate in other cases conforms to the subject.
We sometimes find, in Latin, words which commonly occur in the singular
only, placed in the plural when connected with words used in the plural
only; as, _summis opibus atque industriis_ (Plautus, Mostellaria, 348) =
‘with the greatest means (exertions) and _zeals_ (for _zeal_):’ _neque
vigiliis neque quietibus_ (Sallust, Cat., 15) = ‘neither during
watchings nor during _rests_ (for _rest_):’ _paupertates_--_divitiæ_
(Varro,[166] Apud Non.) = ‘_poverties_ (for _poverty_)--riches.’
Similarly, we find _She is my goods, my chattels_ (Shakespeare, Tam. of
Shrew, III. ii.), where the singular would be the natural form for
_chattel_; but _good_ in the singular would have a different meaning
from _goods_, and _chattels_ is made to conform to _goods_.
The so-called predicatival dative in Latin seems to have started from
cases like _quibus hoc impedimento erat_ = ‘to whom this was for a
hindrance:’ _Mihi gaudio fuit_ = ‘It was for a joy to me:’ etc.
It was felt that the ordinary predicate was put in the same case as its
subject, and the concord was analogically extended to the dative. Thus
Cicero (Dom., 3) writes _Illis incuria inimicorum probro non fuit_ = ‘To
them (dat.) the negligence of their enemies was not _(for a) reproach_’
(dat.), _i.e._, ‘was no reproach,’ as contrasted with _tuum scelus meum
probrum esse_ = ‘that your wickedness (acc.) should be my reproach
(acc.).’
In a sentence like _They call him John_ the name _John_ ought strictly
speaking to have no case; the simple stem should stand: and we might
even expect the vocative to occur after verbs of naming, as it actually
does sometimes in Greek; as, Τί με καλεῖτε κύριε; (Luke vi. 46),
translated, in the Vulgate, _Quid vocatis me domine?_[167] and in the
authorised version, _Why call ye me lord, lord?_ Thus in Latin, too:
_Clamassent ut litus Hyla, Hyla, omne sonaret_ (Vergil, Eclogue vi. 43),
‘They were shouting so that the whole shore was echoing Hylas! Hylas!’
(voc.); _Matutine pater seu Jane libentius audis_ (Hor., Sat. II., vi.
10), ‘O Father Matutinus, or Janus, if thou givest readier ear thus
addressed.’ But the most common usage at the present day is the
accusative; which is already found at least once in the few remnants of
Gothic literature which we possess: in Luke iv. 13, we read: _Jah
gavaljands us im tvalib, ðanzei jah apaustuluns namnida_ = ‘and choosing
out (from) them twelve whom also apostles (acc. plur.) (he) named.’ This
accusative seems to be an analogical transference from such cases as the
common construction, _Izei ðiudan sik silban taujið_ = _Qui regem se
facit_ = _Who king himself makes_.
In cases like _He bears the name John_, the pure stem, or the nominative
which most nearly represents it, should stand; as it does in the
instance given. In English, we often use phrases like ‘the name of
John,’ after the analogy of ‘the city of Rome,’ etc. In Latin, we find
merely exceptionally such cases as _Lactea nomen habet_ (Ovid, Metam.,
i. 168) = ‘It (the Milky Way) has the name milky,’ where _milky_ is
nominative. In classical Latin, concord is observed by placing the
nominative side by side with _nomen_ when this word stands in the
nominative; as, _Cui nomen Arethusa est_ (Cicero, Verr., iv. 53) =
‘Whose name is Arethusa;’ _Ei morbo nomen est avaritia_ (Cicero, Tusc.
Disp., iv. 11) = ‘To that malady the name is avarice.’ But we not
uncommonly find in Latin that, while the word _nomen_ is in the
nominative, the name itself is made to agree with the noun or pronoun
expressing the person who bears it; as, _Nomen Mercurio est mihi_
(Plautus, Amph., Prol. 19) = ‘The name is Mercury (dat.) to me (dat.),’
_i.e._ ‘My name is Mercury;’ _Puero ab inopia Egerio inditum nomen_
(Livy, i. 34) = ‘To the boy (dat.) from his poverty Egerius (dat.) was
given the name,’ _i.e._ ‘The name of Egerius was given to the boy from
his poverty.’ Nay, we find a similar vacillation in concord where
_nomen_ is in the accusative case; as, _Filiis duobus Philippum et
Alexandrum et filiæ Apamam nomina imposuerat_ (Livy, xxxv. 47) = ‘To his
two sons he had given the names Philip and Alexander, and to his
daughter, Apama.’ In this sentence, we have _nomen_ in the accusative
plural and the names _Philip_, etc., also in the accusative, though
singular; so that the latter agree in case with _nomen_, and not with
the datives (_filiis duobus_ and _filiæ_) of the persons bearing them.
In the following instance the reverse is the case: _Cui Superbo
cognomen facta indiderunt_ (Livy, i. 49) = ‘To whom (dat.) Superbus
(dat.) the name (acc.) his deeds have given,’ _i.e._ ‘To whom his deeds
have given the name Superbus.’ This very vacillation proves that the
speakers recognised no logical necessity for employing one case rather
than another; but, in default of an absolute stem, chose a case which
seemed to tally with some existing principle of concord already
prevailing in language.
A similar vacillation occurs in cases of the predicatival noun or
predicatival attributive with an infinitive, as in _It suited him to
remain unknown_.
In English no doubt could arise, as the adjectives maintain an absolute
form; but even in German, where the adjectives when used as predicates
have different forms from those which they bear when used as epithets,
it is correct to say, _Es steht dir frei als verständiger mann zu
handeln_ = ‘It stands thee free as sensible man to act,’ _i.e._ ‘You are
free to act as a man of sense,’--in which case we find the declined
nominative ‘verständiger,’ used as it is whenever the adjective is
followed by a noun, and when, consequently, according to the rules of
German grammar, the undeclined form cannot be employed.
In Latin the nominative stands if it can be connected with the subject
of the governing verb: as, _Pater esse disce_ (‘Learn to be a father’);
_Omitto iratus esse_ (‘I cease to be angry’); _Cupio esse victor_ (‘I
desire to be victor’). In poetry we find expressions like _ait fuisse
navium celerrimus_ (Catullus, iv. 2) = ‘Says that it was the fastest of
ships,’--a construction copied by Milton in ‘And knew not eating death’
(Par. Lost, ix. 792:) ‘_Sensit medios delapsus in hostes_’ (Vergil, Æn.,
ii. 377) = ‘He perceived that he had fallen into the midst of enemies.’
In these cases, _celerrimus_ and _delapsus_ are nominative, instead of
the usual accusative; and similarly, in Greek, we find the nominative
coupled with the infinitive used substantively, though this may be in
another case: as, Ὁπόθεν ποτὲ ταύτην τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν ἔλαβες τὸ μανικὸς
καλεῖσθαι, οὐκ οἶδα ἔγωγε (Plato, Symp., 173 D), ‘Whence ever thou didst
take this name the-to-be-called mad (nom. sing. masc.), I don’t know;’
Ὀρέγονται τοῦ πρῶτος εκαστος γίγνεσθαι (Thucydides, ii. 65), ‘They wish
for the (gen.) first (nom.) each (nom.) to become (gen.),’ i.e. ‘They
all wish to become first.’ Nay, in Greek, it is possible to connect with
the infinitive even a genitive or dative depending on the governing
sentence; as in Εὐδαίμοσιν ὑμῖν ἔξεστι γίγνεσθαι (Demosthenes, Dem. iii.
23), ‘It is permitted you (dat.) to become happy (dat.);’ Ἐδέοντο Κύρου
ὡς προθυμοτάτου γενέσθαι (Xenophon, Hell., I. v. 2), ‘They were begging
Cyrus (gen.) to show himself as energetic-as-possible (gen.).’
In Latin we find the connection with a dative, though not so widely as
in Greek: as, _Animo otioso esse impero_ (Terence, Phorm., II. ii. 26) =
‘Mind (dat.) easy (dat.) to be I command (myself--_dative understood_),’
_i.e._ ‘I order my mind to be at ease;’ _Da mihi fallere, da justo
sanctoque videri_ (Hor., Ep. I. xvi. 61), ‘Grant me to deceive, grant
_me_ (dat.) to seem _just and holy_ (dat.);’ _Vobis necesse est fortibus
viris esse_ (Livy, xxi. 44), ‘It is necessary for you (dat.) to be brave
men (dat.);’ and commonly with _licet_ (‘it is allowed,’) as _in
Republica mihi neglegenti esse non licet_ (Cicero, ad Att., i. 17), ‘In
politics I dare not be indifferent.’[168] To take this last example, for
instance, we have (1) the governing sentence _Non mihi licet_ (‘It is
not lawful _for me_,’ dat.), (2) the infinitive _esse_ (‘to be’), and
(3) the dative (depending on the governing sentence, and connected with
the infinitive), _neglegenti_ (‘indifferent’).
There are a few exceptions to this customary usage.[169] The accusative
is sometimes found after _licet_, as in the passage _Si civi Romano
licet esse Gaditanum, etc._, ‘If it is allowed a _Roman Citizen_ (dat.)
to be _a citizen of Gades_ (acc.).’ This use depends on the fact that
the accusative is the ordinary case of the subject with the infinitive,
e.g. _Permitto civem Romanum esse Gaditanum_,[170] ‘I permit a _Roman
Citizen_ (acc.) to be _a citizen of Gades_ (acc.).’
There are, again, other cases in which no concord is expressed; in which
concord, indeed, is almost incapable of being carried out. In these
cases, in default of the pure stem which--were it possible to employ
it--would be the only natural form to employ, the place has been
supplied by the nominative. In English, for instance, we are familiar
with such phrases as _My profession as teacher_, _his position as
advocate_. In Latin we find such constructions as _Sempronius causa ipse
pro se dicta damnatur_ (Livy, iv. 44.), ‘Sempronius is condemned, _his
cause having been defended_ (abl. abs.) _himself_ (nom.);’ _Omnes in
spem suam quisque acceptis prœlium poscunt_ (Livy, xxi. 45), ‘All they
having been accepted after their own hopes, each demand battle’ (here
_omnes_ (‘all’) is nominative, while _acceptis_ (‘having been accepted’)
is ablative absolute); _Flumen Albin transit longius penetrata Germania
quam quisquam priorum_ (Tacitus, Annals, iv. 45), ‘He crosses the river
Elbe after penetrating Germany further than any of his predecessors,’
lit. ‘Germany having been penetrated (abl. abs.) further than any (nom.)
of his predecessors (_i.e._ had penetrated it).’ In these cases, no
doubt _ipse_ and _quisquam_, ‘himself’ and ‘any,’ depend,
_grammatically_ speaking, on the subject of the finite verb, but they
belong _logically_ to the ablative absolute only, with which they cannot
be brought into concord.
Variation of concord exists between two parts of the same sentence in
various languages, as in the case of ‘What _is_ six winters?’
(Shakespeare, Rich. II., I. iii.), as against ‘What _are_ six winters?’
‘Such _was_ my orders,’ as against ‘Such _were_ my orders;’ ‘She _is_ my
goods;’[171] ‘What _means_ these questions?’ (Young, Night Thoughts, iv.
398). Bacon (Advancement of Learning, II. ii. 7) has ‘A portion of the
time wherein there _hath been_ the greatest varieties.’ The original
rule was that the copula, like every other verb, followed the number of
the subject, as in the first-named instances; and as, again, in French,
in such cases as _C’est eux_, ‘It is they;’ _Il est cent usages_, ‘There
is hundred usages;’ _C’était les petites îles_, ‘It was the little
islands.’ In Latin, also, _Nequam pax est indutiæ_ (A. Gellius), ‘A
truce (lit. _truces_) is a bad peace;’ _Contentum rebus suis esse maximæ
sunt divitiæ_ (Cicero, Pro. Ar., vi. 3), ‘To be content with one’s
circumstances are the greatest riches.’ In these cases it is indifferent
which substantive be considered the logical subject.
In German, on the other hand, it is common, when the predicate is
plural, to put the copula in the same number; as, _das sind zwei
verschiedene dinge_ = ‘That are two different things.’ Other languages
have corresponding usages; thus, in Modern Greek, Ἔπρεπε νὰ ἦναι
τέσσαρα, ‘There behoves to be four.’ In Old Greek we find Τὸ χωρίον
τοῦτο, ὅπερ πρότερον Ἑννέα ὁδοὶ εκαλοῦντο, ‘This spot which _were_
before _called_ the nine ways’ (Thuc., iv. 102); and in French we find
such expressions as _Ce sont des bêtises_, ‘This are stupidities.’ Even
in English we find such phrases as ‘Their haunt _are_ the deep gorges of
the mountains.’[172] The usage seems due to the fact that the plural
makes itself more characteristically felt than the singular. On the
other hand, in several languages the converse usage is possible; _i.e._
the copula in the singular stands with a plural subject and before a
singular predicate: as, in Greek, Αἵ χορηγίαι ἱκανὸν εὐδαιμονίας σημεῖον
ἐστι, ‘The services is a sufficient token of prosperity:’ in
Latin--_Loca quæ Numidia appellatur_ (Sallust), ‘Places which is called
Numidia;’ _Quas geritis vestes sordida lana fuit_ (Ovid, Ars Am., iii.
222), ‘The clothes you wear was dirty wool:’ in English--_Two paces in
the vilest earth is room enough_ (Shakespeare, 1 Hen. IV., V. iv. 91);
_Forty yards is room enough_ (Sheridan, Rivals, v. 2). We also find the
curious instance of ‘Sham heroes, _what_ are called quacks’ (Carlyle,
Past and Present, ii. 7): in Spanish we have _Los encamisados era gente
medrosa_, ‘The highwaymen (lit. ‘shirtclad’) was a cowardly lot’
(Cervantes).
Similarly, we find in the person of the verb a corresponding usage: _It
was you_; _Is that they?_ in French--_C’est moi_ (‘It is I’); _C’est
nous_ (‘It is we’); _C’est vous_ (‘It is you’): in Old French it was
possible to say _C’est eux_ (‘It is they’). On the other hand, in Modern
German we find such forms as _Das waren sie_ (‘That were you’); _Sind
sie das_ (‘Are you that’): and in Old French, _Ce ne suis je pas_ =
‘This no am I (at-all);’ _C’estez vous_ (‘This are you’); but _C’ont
été_ (‘This they have been’); _Ce furent les Phéniciens qui inventèrent
l’écriture_ (Bossuet), ‘It were (3rd plur.) the Phenicians who invented
writing.’
In sentences beginning in English with _there_, and in French with the
(neut.) _il_, we find that commonly in English the verb agrees in number
with the subject which follows it, whilst in French it agrees with the
pronoun _il_, as _Il est des gens de bien_ (‘There _is_ good people’);
_Rarement il arrive des révolutions_ (‘Rarely there happens
revolutions’). In English we more commonly find the plural; cf. Mätzner,
vol. ii., p. 106--_There were many found to deny it_: but we also find
_There is no more such Cæsars_ (Shakespeare, Cymb., III. i.).[173]
A participle employed as a predicate or copula may agree with the
predicatival substantive instead of the subject; as, Πάντα διήγησις οὖσα
τυγχάνει (Plato, Rep., 392 D), ‘Everything happens to be an
explanation,’ where the part. οὖσα (lit. ‘being’) agrees with διήγησις
(‘explanation’); _Paupertas mihi onus visum_ (Terence, Phorm., I. ii.
44), ‘Poverty (fem.) to me a burden (neut.) seemed (neut. part.)’ =
‘Poverty seemed to me a burden;’ _Nisi honos ignominia putanda est_
(Cicero, pro Balb., 3), ‘Unless honour (masc.) is to be thought (fem.)
shame (fem.).’ On the other hand, we find _Semiramis puer esse credita
est_ (Justin, i. 2) = ‘Semiramis was thought to be a boy,’ where the
part. _credita_ (‘thought’) takes its gender from _Semiramis_, and not
from _puer_.
The predicate, again, which would naturally follow the subject, may
follow some apposition of the subject: as, Θήβαι, πόλις ἀστυγέιτων, ἐκ
μέσης τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἀνήρπασται (Æschines v. Ctes., 133 ), ‘Thebes (plur.)
a neighbouring city, _is torn_ from the centre of Greece;’
Latin--_Corinthum totius Græciæ lumen extinctum esse voluerunt_ (Cicero,
Leg. Man., 5), ‘Corinth (fem.), the light of all Greece, they wished to
be extinguished (neut.).’ Again, though the subject is plural, we find
the verb agreeing with its distributival apposition, and placed in the
singular; as, _Pictores et poetæ, suum quisque opus a vulgo considerari
vult_ (Cic., de Offic., i. 41), ‘Painters and poets _each wishes_ that
his work should be examined by the public.’
The construction is more striking still in which the predicate is made
to agree with a noun compared with the subject (1) in gender--as, _Magis
pedes quam arma tuta sunt_ (Sallust, Jugurtha, 74[174]) = ‘Feet (masc.)
are safer (neut.) than arms (neut.):’ (2) in number--_Me non tantum
literæ, quantum longinquitas temporis mitigavit_ (Cicero, Fam., vi. 4) =
‘Me not so much _letters_ as _length_ of time _has_ comforted:’ (3) in
gender and number--as, _Quand on est jeunes, riches, et jolies, comme
vous, mesdames, on n’en est pas réduites à l’artifice_ (Diderot), ‘When
_one_ (sing.) is _young, rich, and pretty_, (fem. plur.) as you are,
_ladies_, one (sing.) is not reduced (fem. plur.) to artifice:’ (4) in
person and number--as, Ἡ τύχη ἀεὶ βέλτιον ἢ ἡμεὶς ἡμῶν αὐτῶν
ἐπιμελούμεθα (Demosthenes, Phil., I. 12), ‘Fortune always for us more
than _we care for_ ourselves.’ In English we meet with many sentences
like ‘Sully bought of Monsieur de la Roche Guzon one of the finest
_horses_ that _was_ ever seen.’ The concord of the predicate with a
second subject connected with the words _and not_ is also curious; as,
_Heaven, and not we, have safely fought to-day_ (Shakespeare, 2 Hen.
IV., IV. ii.).[175]
In Greek, an apposition separated from the noun by a relative sentence
may follow the relative pronoun in case; as, Κύκλωπος κεχόλωται, ὃν
οφθάλμου ἀλάωσεν, ἀντίθεον Πολύφημον (Hom., Od., i. 69), ‘He is wrath
with the _Cyclops_ (gen.) _whom_ (acc.) he deprived of an eye, _the
divine Polyphemus_ (acc.).’
A demonstrative or relative, instead of following the substantive to
which it refers, may follow a noun predicated of it; as, in Latin,
_Leucade sunt hæc decreta; id caput Arcadiæ erat_ (Livy, xxxiii. 17),
‘These things were decreed at Leucas (fem.); that (neut.) in the capital
(neut.) of Arcadia;’ _Thebæ quod Bœotiæ caput est_, ‘Thebes (fem. plur.)
which (neut.) is the capital (neut.) of Bœotia;’ Φόβος ἣν αἰδὼ εἴπομεν
(Plat.), ‘Fear (masc.) which (fem.) we call modesty (fem.).’
A relative pronoun logically referring to an impersonal indefinite
subject usually follows the definite predicate belonging to that
subject; and, of course, the predicate of the pronoun does the same.
Thus we have to say ‘_It_ was a _man who_ told me,’ and not ‘_It_ was a
_man which_ told me:’ ‘It is the lord _Chancellor whose_ decision is
questioned.’ It is the same in German and in French; as, _C’est eux qui
ont bâti_ (‘_It_ is _they who_ have built’). In French, too, the person
of the verb in the relative sentence follows the definite predicate, as
_C’est moi seul qui suis coupable_ (‘_It_ is I alone _who am_ guilty’);
and it is the same in English--‘It is I who am in fault.’ On the other
hand, in N.H.G. the use is to say _Du bist es, der mich gerettet hat_,
‘Thou art _it_ who me saved _has_,’ = ‘It is thou that (who) hast saved
me.’
In a relative sentence, the verb connected with the subject of the
governing sentence goes into the first or second person, even though the
relative pronoun belongs to the predicate, and the third person would
strictly be natural: cf. _Non sum ego is consul qui nefas arbitrer
Gracchos laudare_ = ‘I am not such a consul who _should think_ (1st
pers.) it base to praise the Gracchi’ (Cicero); _Neque tu is es qui
nescias_ = ‘Nor are you he who _would ignore_’ (2nd pers.), _i.e._ ‘Nor
are you such a one as to ignore.’
In English, this construction is very common; as, ‘If thou beest he: but
O how fall’n! how changed From him, who in the happy realms of light
_didst_ outshine myriads’ (Milton, Par. Lost, bk. i., 84, 85); ‘I am the
person who _have_ had’ (Goldsmith, Good-nat. Man, iii.). This
construction was common in Anglo-Saxon; as, _Secga œnigum ðâra ðe
tirleâses trôde sceawode_ = ‘Of the men to any of those (plur.) who of
the inglorious the track looked at (sing.)’ + ‘To any of the men who
looked at the track (of the) inglorious (man)’ (Beowulf, 844).
So in French--_Je suis l’homme qui accouchai d’un œuf_ (Voltaire), ‘I am
the man who laid (1st. pers.) an egg’; _Je suis l’individu qui ai fait
le crime_, ‘I am the person who _have done_ the crime;’ and Italian--_Io
sono colui chi ho fatto_, ‘I am he who _have done_.’
The predicate or attribute, instead of agreeing with the subject, or
with the word which it serves to define, may agree with a genitive
dependent on that subject; as, Ἦλθε δ’ ἐπί ψυχή Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο
χρύσεον σκῆπτρον ἔχων (Homer, Od., xi. 90), ‘The soul (fem.) of the
Theban Teresias (masc.) came having (masc.) a golden sceptre.’ In
English we find ‘There _are_ eleven days’ _journey_ from Horeb unto
Kadesh-barnea’ (Deut. i. 2).
In French it is customary to say _La plupart de ses amis
l’abandonnèrent_, ‘The most part of his friends abandoned (plur.) him;’
but _La plupart du peuple voulait_, ‘The most part of the people wished
(sing.):’ in the former case the quantity of individuals is regarded; in
the latter the people are looked upon as a totality divided.
The attribute sometimes in Latin and Greek, referring to the person
addressed, appears in the vocative: as, _Quibus Hector ab oris Expectate
venis?_ (Vergil, Æn., ii. 282), ‘From what shores, Hector, O long
expected, dost come?’ _Stemmate quod Tusco ramum millesime ducis_
(Persius, iii. 28), ‘Because thou, O thousandth, dost draw thy lineage
from an Etruscan tree.’ Thus, in Greek, Ὄλβιε, κῶρε, γένοιο (Theocr.,
Id., xvii. 66), ‘Mayst thou be happy, O boy,’ lit. ‘O happy, O boy,
mayst thou be!’
Such examples as these may aid us to understand the way in which concord
has spread beyond the area to which it strictly belonged. And we may
gather from these some idea of the way in which this process grew up in
prehistorical times. We must remember, however, that concord was not
felt so indispensable in the earliest stages of language, because
absolute forms without inflectional suffixes were then the rule.
The question now comes, What were the rudiments from which concord
proceeded? We must suppose that a period once existed in which
substantives coalesced with the stem of the verb, and in which pronouns
could precede the stem, just as our actual verbal inflections seem to
owe their origin in many cases to the coalition of pronouns with the
stem. We must therefore suppose that, just as it was possible to say
Διδω-μι (‘Give I’), so it was possible to say ‘Go father,’ ‘Father go’
(for ‘Father goes’); and ‘I go,’ just as it was possible to say ‘Go I,’
‘Go thou,’ ‘Go he’ (instead of ‘I go,’ etc.). There are actually some
non-Indo-European languages in which the third person singular differs
from the other persons by dispensing with any suffix. Such is
Hungarian,[176] in which the root ‘fog,’ ‘seize,’ is thus
declined--_fog-ok_, _fogo-s_, _fog_. Here, then, the original plan
maintains itself, of coalition according to the formula ‘Go-father,’ or
‘Father-go.’ In the next stage, the subject is repeated, as, when we say
Ἔγω δίδωμι, we are really saying ‘_I_ give _I_.’ This process is very
common in some modern languages, especially in poetry, when emphasis is
to be given to the subject: as, _The night it was still, and the moon it
shone_ (Kirke White, Gondoline);[177] _The skipper he stood beside the
helm_ (Longfellow): _Je le sais, moi_; _Il ne voulut pas, lui_; _Toi, tu
vivras vil et malheureux_,--‘I know it, I;’ ‘He would not, he;’ ‘Thou,
thou shalt live vile and wretched.’ Similar is the anticipation of the
subject by an indefinite _il_; as, _Il suffisait un mot_, ‘There
sufficed a word.’ The pronoun was originally doubled only where it was
specially emphasised, just as in uneducated conversation at the present
day we hear such forms as _I says_, _says I_. But such pronominal
reduplication must have spread, and have affected the verbal forms when
they were completely formed, just as it, at an earlier period, affected
the tense-stems. It is, however, by this time so far forgotten that the
termination of such a word as _legit_ represents a personal pronoun,
that its most common use is to indicate its relationship with the
subject by mere concord; as _Pater legit_, lit. ‘Father read--he,’
_i.e._ ‘father reads.’ In fact, the personal endings at the present day
merely serve to mark the verb as such, and sometimes to express the
difference between different moods.
In the case of nouns, the concord of gender and number, at any rate, is
first formed in the pronoun to which reference is made, to which gender,
too, owes its origin, as in such cases as _illæ mulieres_, ‘those women
(nom.);’ _illas mulieres_ (acc.).
Concord in case appears first in apposition; as, _Imperatoris Cæsaris
exercitus_, ‘The army of Cæsar (gen.) the commander (gen.),’ where it
serves to show that both nouns have the same relation to _exercitus_.
But here there is no more actual necessity for employing the case-ending
twice, than there is for repeating the pronominal suffix in the case of
the verb. This we may see in such cases as _King Arthur’s seat_; _La
gloire de la nation française_, ‘The glory of the French nation.’ A
concord in gender and number occurs, even at the present day, only where
it is demanded by the nature of the case; as, _La dame sur le visage de
laquelle les grâces étaient peintes_ (Fénelon), ‘The lady on the face of
whom the graces were painted.’
The concord of substantives in apposition having been the first to form
itself--as in _Cæsaris imperatoris Romani_, ‘Of Cæsar (gen.) the
Roman-commander (gen.)’--we must suppose the concord of the attributival
and predicatival adjective to have been modelled upon that use; as,
_Cæsaris domini potentis_, ‘Of Cæsar (gen.) the powerful master (gen.),’
or _Cæsaris invicti_, ‘Of Cæsar (gen.) unconquered (gen.).’ In other
words, their origin reaches back to a time when the adjective still
occupied the same category as the substantive, and was not yet thought
of as occupying a category of its own. The transition is marked by such
substantives as are called, in Latin grammars, _Mobilia_, which in the
forms of their genders resemble adjectives. Such as _coquus_, ‘cook’
(masc.); _coqua_, ‘cook’ (fem.): _dominus_, ‘lord;’ _domina_, ‘lady:’
_rex_, ‘king;’ _regina_, ‘queen.’ As these substantives passed into
adjectives, they maintained the concord, and it then came to be regarded
as of the essence of the adjective.