incarnation."--"The chief cause of this appears to me to be, that grammarians have considered them solely as signs of tense."
OBS. 29.--It is certain that the noun or pronoun which "limits the meaning of a participle," cannot always be "put in the genitive" or possessive case; for the sense intended sometimes positively forbids such a construction, and requires the objective: as, "A syllable consists of one or more letters forming one sound."--Allen's Gram., p. 29. The word representing or denoting would here be better than forming, because the letters do not, strictly speaking, form the sound. But chiefly let it be noticed, that the word letters could not with any propriety have been put in the possessive case. Nor is it always necessary or proper, to prefer that case, where the sense may be supposed to admit it; as, "'The example which Mr. Seyer has adduced, of the gerund governing the genitive of the agent.' Dr. Crombie."--Grant's Lat. Gram., p. 237. "Which possibly might have been prevented by parents doing their duty."--N. E. Discipline, p. 187. "As to the seeming contradiction of One being Three, and Three One."--Religious World, Vol. ii, p. 113. "You have watched them climbing from chair to chair."--PIERPONT: Liberator, Vol. x, p. 22. "Whether the world came into being as it is, by an intelligent Agent forming it thus, or not."--Butler's Analogy, p. 129. "In the farther supposition of necessary agents being thus rewarded and punished."--Ib., p. 140. "He grievously punished the Israelites murmuring for want of water."--Leslie, on Tythes, p. 21. Here too the words, gerund, parents, One, Three, them, Agent, agents, and Israelites, are rightly put in the objective case; yet doubtless some will think, though I do not, that they might as well have been put in the possessive. Respectable writers sometimes use the latter case, where the former would convey the same meaning, and be more regular; as, "Which is used, as active verbs often are, without its regimen's being expressed."--Grant's Lat. Gram., p. 302. Omit the apostrophe and s; and, if you please, the word being also. "The daily instances of men's dying around us."--Butler's Analogy, p. 113. Say rather,--"of men dying around us." "To prevent our rashly engaging in arduous or dangerous enterprises."--Brown's Divinity, p. 17. Say, "To prevent us from," &c. The following example is manifestly inconsistent with itself; and, in my opinion, the three possessives are all wrong: "The kitchen too now begins to give 'dreadful note of preparation;' not from armourers accomplishing the knights, but from the shop maid's chopping force meat, the apprentice's cleaning knives, and the journeyman's receiving a practical lesson in the art of waiting at table."--West's Letters to a Lady, p. 66. It should be--"not from armorers accomplishing the knights, but from the shopmaid chopping forcemeat, the apprentice cleaning knives, and the journeyman receiving," &c. The nouns are the principal words, and the participles are adjuncts. They might be separated by commas, if semicolons were put where the commas now are.
OBS. 30.--Our authors, good and bad, critics and no critics, with few exceptions, write sometimes the objective case before the participle, and sometimes the possessive, under precisely the same circumstances; as, "We should, presently, be sensible of the melody suffering."--Blair's Rhet., p. 122. "We should, presently, be sensible of the melody's suffering."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 327. "We shall presently be sensible of the melody suffering."--Murray's Exercises, 8vo, p. 60. "We shall presently be sensible of the melody's suffering."--Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 195. "And I explain what is meant by the nominative case governing the verb, and by the verb agreeing with its nominative case."--Rand's Gram., p. 31. "Take the verb study, and speak of John's studying his lesson, at different times."--Ib., p. 53. "The following are examples of the nominative case being used instead of the objective."--J. M. Putnam's Gram., p. 112. "The following are examples of an adverb's qualifying a whole sentence."--Ib., p. 128. "Where the noun is the name of a person, the cases may also be distinguished by the nominative's answering to WHO, and the objective to WHOM."--Hart's Gram., p. 46. "This depends chiefly on their being more or less emphatic; and on the vowel sound being long or short."--Churchill's Gram., p. 182. "When they speak of a monosyllable having the grave or the acute accent."--Walker's Key, p. 328. Here some would erroneously prefer the possessive case before "having;" but, if any amendment can be effected it is only by inserting as there. "The event of Maria's loving her brother."--O. B. Peirce's Gram., p. 55. "Between that and the man being on it."--Ib., p. 59. "The fact of James placing himself."--Ib., p. 166. "The event of the persons' going."--Ib., p. 165. Here persons' is carelessly put for person's, i.e., James's: the author was parsing the puerile text, "James went into a store and placed himself beside Horatio."--Ib., p. 164. And I may observe, in passing, that Murray and Blair are both wrong in using commas with the adverb presently above.
OBS. 31.--It would be easy to fill a page with instances of these two cases, the objective and the possessive, used, as I may say, indiscriminately; nor is there any other principle by which we can determine which of them is right, or which preferable, than that the leading word in sense ought not to be made the adjunct in the construction, and that the participle, if it remain such, ought rather to relate to its noun, as being the adjunct, than to govern it in the possessive, as being the principal term. To what extent either of these cases may properly be used before the participle, or in what instances either of them may be preferable to the other, it is not very easy to determine. Both are used a great deal too often, filling with blemishes the style of many authors: the possessive, because the participle is not the name of any thing that can be possessed; the objective, because no construction can be right in which the relation of the terms is not formed according to the sense. The former usage I have already criticised to a great extent. Let one example suffice here: "There can be no objection to a syllable's being long, on the ground of its not being so long, or so much protracted, as some other long syllables are."--Murray's Gram.,
