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EFIEA ПITEPOENTA, &c.

CHAP. VII.

OF PARTICIPLES.

F. LET us proceed, if you please, to the PARTICIPLE: which, you know, is so named becausé ...." partem capit a nomine, partem a verbo.".... "Ortum a verbo, says Scaliger, traxit secum "tempora et significationem, adjunxitque generi "et casibus."...." Ut igitur mulus, says Vossius, "asini et equæ, unde generatur, participat indolem ; "ita hujus classis omnia, et nominis et verbi participant naturam: unde, et meritò, participia

"nominantur."

I have a strong curiosity to know how you will dispose of this mule, (this tertium quid,) in English; where the participle has neither cases nor gender ; and which (if I understood you rightly some time since) you have stripped also of time. We certainly cannot say that it is, in English,...." Pars orationis "cum tempore et casu:" or,...." Vox variabilis

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per casus, significans rem cum tempore." Indeed since, by your account, it takes nothing from the verb, any more than from the noun; its present name ought to be relinquished by us for at all events it cannot be a PARTICIPLE in English. This however will not much trouble you: for, though Scaliger declares the PARTICIPLE to exist

in language "necessitate quadam ac vi naturæ ;" you by denying it a place amongst the parts of speech, have decided that it is not a necessary word, and perhaps imagine we may do as well without it.

H. I fear you have mistaken me. I did not mean to deny the adsignification of time to ALL the par-, ticiples; though I continue to withhold it from that which is called the participle present.

F. All the participles! Why, we have but two in our language.... The present and the past.

H. We had formerly but two. But so great is the convenience and importance of this useful abbreviation; that our authors have borrowed from other languages and incorporated with our own, four other participles of equal value.

We are

obliged to our old translators for these new participles. I wish they had understood what they were doing at the time: and had been taught by their wants, the nature of the advantages which the learned languages had over ours. They would then perhaps have adopted the contrivance itself into our own language instead of contenting themselves with taking individually the terms which they found they could not translate. But they proceeded in the same manner with these new participles, as with the new adjectives I before mentioned to you: they did not abbreviate their own language in imitation of the others; but took from other languages their abbreviations ready made. And thus again the foreigner, after having learned all our English verbs, must again have recourse to other languages

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in order to understand the meaning of many of our participles.

I cannot however much blame my countrymen for the method they pursued: because the very nations who enjoyed these advantages over us, were not themselves aware of the nature of what they possessed: at least so it appears by all the accounts which they have left us of the nature of speech; and by their distribution and definitions of the parts of which it is composed and their posterity (the modern Greeks and the Italians) have been punished for the ignorance or carelessness of their ancestors, by the loss of great part of these advantages: which I suppose they would not have lost, had they known what they were.

As for the term PARTICIPLE, I should very willingly get rid of it: for it never was the proper denomination of this sort of word. And this improper title, I believe, led the way to its faulty definition and both together have caused the obstinate and still unsettled disputes concerning it; and have prevented the improvement of language, in this particular, generally through the world.

The elder Stoics called this word....." modum "verbi casualem." And, in my opinion, they called it well: except only that, instead of casualem, they should have said adjectivum: for the circumstance of its having cases was only a consequence of its adjection. But this small error of theirs cannot be wondered at in them, who, judging from their own transposed language, had no notion of a noun, much less of an adjective of any kind, without cases.

I desire therefore, instead of PARTICIPLE, to be permitted to call this word generally a verb adjective. And I call it by this new name; because I think it will make more easily intelligible what I conceive to be its office and nature.

This kind of word, of which we now speak, is a very useful abbreviation: for we have the same occasion to adjective the VERB as we have to adjective the NOUN. And, by means of a distinguishing termination, not only the simple verb itself, but every mood, and every tense of the verb, may be made adjective, as well as the noun. And accordingly some languages have adjectived more, and some languages have adjectived fewer of these moods and tenses.

And here I must observe that the moods and tenses themselves are merely abbreviations: I mean that they are nothing more than the circumstances of manner and time, added to the verb in some languages by distinguishing terminations.

When it is considered that our language has made but small progress, compared either with the Greek or with the Latin (or some other languages) even in this modal and temporal abbreviation; (for we are forced to perform the greatest part of it by what are called auxiliaries, i. e. separate words signifying the added circumstances;) when this is considered; it will not be wondered at, that the English, of itself, could not proceed to the next abbreviating step, viz. of adjectiving those first abbreviations of mood and tense, which our language had not and that it has therefore been obliged to

borrow many of the advantages of this kind which it nows enjoys, either mediately or immediately from those two first-mentioned languages. And when it is considered, that the nature of these advantages was never well understood, or at least not delivered down to us, even by those who enjoyed them; it will rather be matter of wonder that we have adopted into our language so many, than that we have not taken all.

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This sort of word is therefore by no means the same with a noun adjective (as Sanctius, Perizonius and others after them have asserted.) But it is a verb adjective. And yet what Perizonius says, true...." Certè omnia quæ de nomine adjectivo "affirmantur, habet participium." This is true. The participle has all that the noun adjective has : and for the same reason, viz. for the purpose of adjection. But it has likewise something more than the noun adjective has: because the verb has something more than the noun. And that something more, is not (as Perizonius proceeds to assert) only the adsignification of time. For every verb has a signification of its own, distinct from manner and time. And language has as much occasion to adjective the distinct signification of the verb, and to adjective also the mood, as it has to adjective the time. And it has therefore accordingly adjectived all three....the distinct signification of the simple verb; and the verb with its moods; and the verb with its tenses. I shall at present notice only six of these verb adjectives which we now employ in English: viz. The simple verb itself adjective; two adjective tenses; and three adjective moods.

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