Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/824

1. 5. are engraved on marble; benefits [are engraved] on sand."—Art of Thinking, p. 41. "To whom thus Eve, yet sinless" [spoke].—Milton.
   6. Of the Participle—"That [being] o'er, they part."—"Animals of various natures, some adapted to the wood, and some [adapted] to the wave."—Melmoth, on Scripture, p. 13.
      "His knowledge [being] measured to his state and place,
      His time [being] a moment, and a point [being] his space."—Pope.
      
      
   7. Of the Adverb—"He can do this independently of me, if not [independently] of you."
      "She shows a body rather than a life;
      A statue, [rather] than a breather." —Shak., Ant. and Cleo., iii, 3.
      
      
   8. Of the Conjunction—"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, [and] joy, [and] peace, [and] long suffering, [and] gentleness, [and] goodness, [and] faith, [and] meekness, [and] temperance."—Gal., v, 22. The repetition of the conjunction is called Polysyndeton; and the omission of it, Asyndeton.
   9. Of the Preposition—"It shall be done [on] this very day."—"We shall set off [at] some time [in] next month."—"He departed [from] this life."—"He gave [to] me a book."—"We walked [through] a mile."—"He was banished [from] the kingdom."—W. Allen. "He lived like [to] a prince."—Wells.
   10. Of the Interjecion—"Oh! the frailty, [oh!] the wickedness of men."—"Alas for Mexico! and [alas] for many of her invaders!"
   11. Of Phrases or Clauses—"The active commonly do more than they are bound to do; the indolent [commonly do] less" [than they are bound to do].—"Young men, angry, mean less than they say; old men, [angry, mean] more" [than they say].—"It is the duty of justice, not to injure men; [it is the duty] of modesty, not to offend them."—W. Allen.

   OBSERVATIONS.

   1. Grammarians in general treat of ellipsis without defining it; and exhibit such rules and examples as suppose our language to be a hundred-fold more elliptical than it really is.^[1] This is a great error, and only paralleled by that of a certain writer elsewhere noticed, who denies the existence of all ellipsis whatever. (See Syntax, Obs. 24th on Rule 22d.) Some have defined this figure in a way that betrays a very inaccurate notion of what it is: as, "Ellipsis is when one or more words are wanting to complete the sense."—Adam's Lat. and Eng. Gram., p. 235; Gould's, 229. "Ellipsis is the omission of one or more words necessary to complete the sense."—Bullions, Lat. Gram., p. 265. These definitions are decidedly worse than none; because, if they have any effect, they can only mislead. They absurdly suggest that every elliptical sentence lacks a part of its own meaning! Ellipsis is, in fact, the mere omission or absence of certain suggested words; or of words that may be spared from utterance, without defect in the sense. There never can be an ellipsis of any thing which is either unnecessary to the construction or necessary to the sense; for to say what we mean and nothing more, never can constitute a deviation from the ordinary grammatical construction of words. As a figure of Syntax, therefore, the ellipsis can only be of such words as are so evidently suggested to the reader, that the writer is as fully answerable for them as if he had written them.
   2. To suppose an ellipsis where there is none, or to overlook one where it really occurs, is to pervert or mutilate the text, in order to accommodate it to the parser's or reader's ignorance of the principles of syntax. There never can be either a general uniformity or a self-consistency in our methods of parsing, or in our notions of grammar, till the true nature of an ellipsis is clearly ascertained; so that the writer shall distinguish it from a blundering omission that impairs the sense, and the reader or parser be barred from an arbitrary insertion of what would be cumbrous and useless. By adopting loose and extravagant ideas of the nature of this figure, some pretenders to learning and philosophy have been led into the most whimsical and opposite notions concerning the grammatical construction of language. Thus, with equal absurdity, Cardell and Sherman, in their Philosophic Grammars, attempt to confute the doctrines of their predecessors, by supposing ellipses at pleasure. And while the former teaches, that prepositions do not govern the objective case, but that every verb is transitive, and governs at least two objects, expressed or understood, its own and that of a preposition: the latter, with just as good an argument, contends that no verb is transitive, but that every objective case is governed by a preposition expressed or understood. A world of nonsense for lack of a definition!
2. Pleonasm is the introduction of superfluous words; as, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it."—Gen., ii, 17. This figure is allowable only, when, in animated discourse, it abruptly introduces an emphatic word, or repeats an idea to impress it more strongly; as, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."—Bible. "All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth."—Id. "There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down."—Id. "I know thee who thou art."—Id. A Pleonasm, as perhaps in these

1. [479] Lindley Murray and some others say, "As the ellipsis occurs in almost every sentence in the English language, numerous examples of it might be given."—Murray's Gram., p. 220; Weld's, 292; Fisk's, 147. They could, without doubt, have exhibited many true specimens of Ellipsis; but most of those which they have given, are only fanciful and false ones; and their notion of the frequency of the figure, is monstrously hyperbolical.