The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

some, the object of an active participle is placed before it; as, money-getting, time-serving, self-consuming, cloud-compelling, fortune-hunting, sleep-disturbing. (4.) Some, embracing numerals, form a series, though it is seldom carried far; as, one-legged, two-legged, three-legged, four-legged. So, one-leaved, two-leaved, three-leaved, four-leaved: or, perhaps better as Webster will have them, one-leafed, two-leafed, &c. But, upon the same principle, short-lived, should be short-lifed, and long-lived, long-lifed. (5.) In some, there is a combination of an adjective and a participle; as, noble-looking, high-sounding, slow-moving, thorough-going, hard-finished, free-born, heavy-laden, only-begotten. (6.) In some, we find an adverb and a participle united; as, ever-living, ill-judging, well-pleasing, far-shooting, forth-issuing, back-sliding, ill-trained, down-trodden, above-mentioned. (7.) Some consist of a noun and a participle which might be reversed with a preposition between them; as, church-going, care-crazed, travel-soiled, blood-bespotted, dew-sprinkled. (8.) A few, and those inelegant, terminate with a preposition; as, unlooked-for, long-looked-for, unthought-of, unheard-of. (9.) Some are phrases of many words, converted into one part of speech by the hyphen; as, "Where is the ever-to-be-honoured Chaucer?"—Wordsworth.

   "And, with God-only-knows-how-gotten light,
    Informs the nation what is wrong or right."
        —Snelling's Gift for Scribblers, p. 49.

OBS. 24.—Nouns derived from compound adjectives, are generally disapproved by good writers; yet we sometimes meet with them: as, hard-heartedness, for hardness of heart, or cruelty; quick-sightedness, for quickness of sight, or perspicacity; worldly-mindedness, for devotion to the world, or love of gain; heavenly-mindedness, for the love of God, or true piety. In speaking of ancestors or descendants, we take the noun, father, mother, son, daughter, or child; prefix the adjective grand; for the second generation; great, for the, third; and then, sometimes, repeat the same, for degrees more remote: as, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather. "What would my great-grandmother say, thought I, could she know that thou art to be chopped up for fuel to warm the frigid fingers of her great-great-great-granddaughters!"—T. H. Bayley.

MODIFICATIONS.

Adjectives have, commonly, no modifications but the forms of comparison. Comparison is a variation of the adjective, to express quality in different degrees: as, hard, harder, hardest; soft, softer, softest.

There are three degrees of comparison; the positive, the comparative, and the superlative.

The positive degree is that which is expressed by the adjective in its simple form: as, "An elephant is large; a mouse, small; a lion, fierce, active, bold, and strong."

The comparative degree is that which is more or less than something contrasted with it: as, "A whale is larger than an elephant; a mouse is a much smaller animal than a rat."

The superlative degree is that which is most or least of all included with it: as, "The whale is the largest of the animals that inhabit this globe; the mouse is the smallest of all beasts."—Dr. Johnson.

Those adjectives whose signification does not admit of different degrees, cannot be compared; as, two, second, all, every, immortal, infinite.

Those adjectives which may be varied in sense, but not in form, are compared by means of adverbs; as, fruitful, more fruitful, most fruitful—fruitful, less fruitful, least fruitful.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—"Some scruple to call the positive a degree of comparison; on the ground, that it does not imply either comparison, or degree. But no quality can exist, without existing in some degree: and, though the positive is very frequently used without reference to any other degree; as it is the standard, with which other degrees of the quality are compared, it is certainly an essential object of the comparison. While these critics allow only two degrees, we might in fact with more propriety say, that there are five: 1, the quality in its standard state, or positive degree; as wise: 2, in a higher state, or the comparative ascending; more wise: 3, in a lower, or the comparative descending; less wise: 4, in the highest state, or superlative ascending; most wise: 5, in the lowest state, or superlative descending; least wise. All grammarians, however, agree about the things themselves, and the forms used to express them; though they differ about the names, by which these forms should be called: and as those names are practically best, which tend least to perplex the learner, I see no good reason here for deviating from what has been established by long custom."—Churchill's Gram., p. 231.

OBS. 2.—Churchill here writes plausibly enough, but it will be seen, both from his explanation, and from the foregoing definitions of the degrees of comparison, that there are but three. The comparative and the superlative may each be distinguishable into the ascending and the descending, as often as we prefer the adverbial form to the regular variation of the adjective itself; but this imposes no necessity of classing and defining them otherwise than simply as the comparative and the superlative. The assumption of two comparatives and two superlatives, is not only contrary to the universal practice of the teachers of grammar; but there is this conclusive argument against it—that the regular method of comparison has no degrees of diminution, and the form which has such degrees, is no inflection of the adjective. If there is any exception, it is in the words, small, smaller, smallest, and little, less, least. But of the smallness or littleness, considered abstractly, these, like all others, are degrees of increase, and not of diminution. Smaller is as completely opposite to less small, as wiser is to less wise. Less itself is a comparative descending, only when it diminishes some other quality: less little, if the phrase were proper, must needs be nearly equivalent to greater or more. Churchill, however, may be quite right in the following remark: "The comparative ascending of an adjective, and the comparative descending of an adjective expressing the opposite quality, are often considered synonymous, by those who do not discriminate nicely between ideas. But less imprudent does not imply precisely the same thing as more prudent; or more brave, the same as less cowardly."—New Gram., p. 231.

OBS. 3.—The definitions which I have given of the three degrees of comparison, are new. In short, I know not whether any other grammarian has ever given what may justly be called a definition, of any one of them. Here, as in most other parts of grammar, loose remarks, ill-written and untrue assertions, have sufficed. The explanations found in many English grammars are the following: "The positive state expresses the quality of an object, without any increase or diminution; as, good, wise, great. The comparative degree increases or lessens the positive in signification; as, wiser, greater, less wise. The superlative degree increases or lessens the positive to the highest or [the] lowest degree; as, wisest, greatest, least wise. The simple word, or positive, becomes [the] comparative by adding r or er; and the superlative by adding st or est, to the end of it. And the adverbs more and most, placed before the adjective, have the same effect; as, wise, more wise, most wise."—Murray's Grammar, 2d Ed., 1796, p. 47. If a man wished to select some striking example of bad writing—of thoughts ill conceived, and not well expressed—he could not do better than take the foregoing: provided his auditors knew enough of grammar to answer the four simple questions here involved; namely, What is the positive degree? What is the comparative degree? What is the superlative degree? How are adjectives regularly compared? To these questions I shall furnish direct answers, which the reader may compare with such as he can derive from the foregoing citation: the last two sentences of which Murray ought to have credited to Dr. Lowth; for he copied them literally, except that he says, "the adverbs more AND most," for the Doctor's phrase, "the adverbs more OR most." See the whole also in Kirkham's Grammar, p. 72; in Ingersoll's, p. 35; in Alger's, p. 21; in Bacon's, p. 18; in Russell's, p. 14; in Hamlin's, p. 22; in J. M. Putnam's, p. 33; in S. Putnam's, p. 20; in R. C. Smith's, p. 51; in Rev. T. Smith's, p. 20.

OBS. 4.—In the five short sentences quoted above, there are more errors, than can possibly be enumerated in ten times the space. For example: (1.) If one should say of a piece of iron, "It grows cold or hot very rapidly," cold and hot could not be in the "positive state," as they define it: because, either the "quality" or the "object," (I know not which,) is represented by them as "without any increase or diminution;" and this would not, in the present case, be true of either; for iron changes in bulk, by a change of temperature. (2.) What, in the first sentence, is erroneously called "the positive state," in the second and the third, is called, "the positive degree;" and this again, in the fourth, is falsely identified with "the simple word." Now, if we suppose the meaning to be, that "the positive state," "the positive degree," or "the simple word," is "without any increase or diminution;" this is expressly contradicted by three sentences out of the five, and implicitly, by one of the others. (3.) Not one of these sentences is true, in the most obvious sense of the words, if in any other; and yet the doctrines they were designed to teach, may have been, in general, correctly gathered from the examples. (4.) The phrase, "positive in signification," is not intelligible in the sense intended, without a comma after positive; and yet, in an armful of different English grammars which contain the passage, I find not one that has a point in that place. (5.) It is not more correct to say, that the comparative or the superlative degree, "increases or lessens the positive," than it would be to aver, that the plural number increases or lessens the singular, or the feminine gender, the masculine. Nor does the superlative mean, what a certain learned Doctor understands by it—namely, "the greatest or least possible degree." If it did, "the thickest parts of his skull," for example, would imply small room for brains; "the thinnest," protect them ill, if there were any. (6.) It is improper to say, "The simple word becomes [the] comparative by adding r or er; and the superlative by adding st or est." The thought is wrong; and nearly all the words are misapplied; as, simple for primitive, adding for assuming, &c. (7.) Nor is it very wise to say, "the adverbs more and most, placed before the adjective, have the same effect:" because it ought to be known, that the effect of the one is very different from that of the other! "The same effect," cannot here be taken for any effect previously described; unless we will have it to be, that these words, more and most, "become comparative by adding r or er; and the superlative by adding st or est, to the end of them:" all of which is grossly absurd. (8.) The repetition of the word degree, in saying, "The superlative degree increases or lessens the positive to the highest or lowest degree," is a disagreeable tautology. Besides, unless it involves the additional error of presenting the same word in different senses, it makes one degree swell or diminish an other to itself; whereas, in the very next sentence, this singular agency is forgotten, and a second equally strange takes its place: "The positive becomes the superlative by adding st or est, to the end of it;" i. e., to the end of itself. Nothing can be more ungrammatical, than is much of the language by which grammar itself is now professedly taught!

OBS. 5.—It has been almost universally assumed by grammarians, that the positive degree is the only standard to which the other degrees can refer; though many seem to think, that the superlative always implies or includes the comparative, and is consequently inapplicable when only two things are spoken of. Neither of these positions is involved in any of the definitions which I have given above. The reader may think what he will about these points, after observing the several ways in which each form may be used. In the phrases, "greater than Solomon,"—"more than a bushel,"—"later than one o'clock," it is not immediately obvious that the positives great, much, and late, are the real terms of contrast. And how is it in the Latin phrases, "Dulcior melle, sweeter than honey,"—"Præstantior auro, better than gold?" These authors will resolve all such phrases thus: "greater, than Solomon was great,"—"more, than a bushel is much," &c. As the conjunction than never governs the objective case, it seems necessary to suppose an ellipsis of some verb after the noun which follows it as above; and possibly the foregoing solution, uncouth as it seems, may, for the English idiom, be the true one: as, "My Father is greater than I."—John, xiv, 28. That is, "My Father is greater than I am;"—or, perhaps, "than I am great." But if it appear that some degree of the same quality must always be contrasted with the comparative, there is still room to question whether this degree must always be that which we call the positive.