Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/766

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tive sentences? 22. Do we ever find the subjunctive mood put after a relative pronoun? 23. What is remarked of the difference between the indicative and the subjunctive mood, and of the limits of the latter?


LESSON XXIII.—VERBS.

24. In respect to collective nouns, how is it generally determined, whether they convey the idea of plurality or not? 25. What is stated of the rules of Adam, Lowth, Murray, and Kirkham, concerning collective nouns? 26. What is Nixon's notion of the construction of the verb and collective noun? 27. Does this author appear to have gained "a clear idea of the nature of a collective noun?" 28. What great difficulty does Murray acknowledge concerning "nouns of multitude?" 29. Does Murray's notion, that collective nouns are of different sorts, appear to be consistent or warrantable? 30. Can words that agree with the same collective noun, be of different numbers? 31. What is observed of collective nouns used partitively? 32. Which are the most apt to be taken plurally, collections of persons, or collections of things? 33. Can a collective noun, as such, take a plural adjective before it? 34. What is observed of the expressions, these people, these gentry, these folk? 35. What is observed of sentences like the following, in which there seems to be no nominative: "There are from eight to twelve professors?" 36. What rule does Dr. Webster give for such examples as the following: "There was more than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds?" 37. What grammarians teach, that two or more nouns connected by and, "always require the verb or pronoun to which they refer, to be in the plural number?" 38. Does Murray acknowledge or furnish any exceptions to this doctrine? 39. On what principle can one justify such an example as this: "All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy?" 40. What is remarked of instances like the following: "Prior's Henry and Emma contains an other beautiful example?" 41. What is said of the suppression of the conjunction and? 42. When the speaker changes his nominative, to take a stronger one, what concord has the verb? 43. When two or more nominatives connected by and explain a preceding one, what agreement has the verb? 44. What grammarian approves of such expressions as, "Two and two is four?" 45. What is observed of verbs that agree with the nearest nominative, and are understood to the rest? 46. When the nominatives connected are of different persons, of what person is the verb?


LESSON XXIV.—VERBS.

47. What is the syntax of the verb, when one of its nominatives is expressed, and an other or others implied? 48. What is the syntax of the verb, when there are nominatives connected by as? 49. What is the construction when two nominatives are connected by as well as, but, or save? 50. Can words connected by with be properly used as joint nominatives? 51. Does the analogy of other languages with ours prove any thing on this point? 52. What does Cobbett say about with put for and? 53. What is the construction of such expressions as this: "A torch, snuff and all, goes out in a moment?" 54. Does our rule for the verb and disjunct nominatives derive confirmation from the Latin and Greek syntax? 55. Why do collective nouns singular, when connected by or or nor, admit of a plural verb? 56. In the expression, "I, thou, or he, may affirm," of what person and number is the verb? 57. Who says, "the verb agrees with the last nominative?" 58. What authors prefer "the nearest person," and "the plural number?" 59. What authors prefer "the nearest nominative, whether singular or plural?" 60. What author declares it improper ever to connect by or or nor any nominatives that require different forms of the verb? 61. What is Cobbett's "clear principle" on this head? 62. Can a zeugma of the verb be proved to be right, in spite of these authorities? 63. When a verb has nominatives of different persons or numbers, connected by or or nor, with which of them does it commonly agree? 64. When does it agree with the remoter nominative? 65. When a noun is implied in an adjective of a different number, which word is regarded in the formation of the verb? 66. What is remarked concerning the place of the pronoun of the first person singular? 67. When verbs are connected by and, or, or nor, do they necessarily agree with the same nominative? 68. Why is the thirteenth rule of the author's Institutes and First Lines not retained as a rule in this work? 69. Are verbs often connected without agreeing in mood, tense, and form?


LESSON XXV.—VERBS.

70. What particular convenience do we find in having most of our tenses composed of separable words? 71. Is the connecting of verbs elliptically, or by parts, anything peculiar to our language? 72. What faults appear in the teaching of our grammarians concerning do used as a "substitute for other verbs?" 73. What notions have been entertained concerning the word to as used before the infinitive verb? 74. How does Dr. Ash parse to before the infinitive? 75. What grammarians have taught that the preposition to governs the infinitive mood? 76. Does Lowth agree with Murray in the anomaly of supposing to a preposition that governs nothing? 77. Why do those teach just as inconsistently, who forbear to call the to a preposition? 78. What objections are there to the rule, with its exceptions, "One verb governs an other in the infinitive mood?" 79. What large exception to this rule has been recently discovered by Dr. Bullions? 80. Are the countless examples of this exception truly elliptical? 81. Is the infinitive ever governed by a preposition in French, Spanish, or Italian? 82. What whimsical account of the English infinitive is given by Nixon? 83. How was the infinitive expressed in the Anglo-Saxon of the eleventh century? 84. What does Richard Johnson infer from the fact that the Latin infinitive is sometimes governed by a preposition? 85. What reasons can be adduced