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2. It may take an object.

3. It may be qualified by an adverb.

In these three points, it agrees with the Infinitive; in the three following, it differs from the Infinitive.

4. It has a subject.

5. It cannot be qualified by an adjective or a possessive. 6. It tends to become an Adjective, as it drops the peculiarities of the verb.

The value of the Participle as a means of condensation has been shown under the Relative Pronoun and the Adjective. Instead of two clauses, with two finite verbs, one clause and participle will suffice, when there is a common subject having come thus far, I will go on'; I have come thus far, and will therefore go on'.

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The participial construction has touches of meaning special to itself. The form 'I wrote, asking', 'John bear record, saying', happily expresses concurrent action; whereas 'I wrote, and asked', implies succession, which may not be meant. So, 'strangers now came from afar, scenting the prey'. 'We went on again, picking up shells and pebbles'. 'Long after it was dark I sat there, wondering whether anybody else would come'. 'I yesterday passed the whole of the afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tombstones and inscriptions'. (Addison.) The participle in apposition with a noun is sometimes co-ordinating, and sometimes restrictive. After an object, it is usually, but not always, restrictive: 'he postponed all cases requiring much preparation' is the equivalent of cases that required'. 'As of some one gently rapping', 'that was gently rapping'.

When the object is a single person or a single thing, the participle cannot be restrictive. Yet we have such constructions as the following:- They found her drawing water'; 'I saw the Spirit descending like a dove'; 'It is with much pleasure that I hear this great city enquiring day by day after these my papers'.

Are these appositions co-ordinating? Apparently not. 'I ear this great city, and it is enquiring', does not give the

meaning. It is-'I hear the city in the act of enquiring, as it is enquiring'; the participle is not the equivalent of an adjective clause, it corresponds rather to an adverbial clause. The form has the advantage, stated above, of fusing the action with the subject of it; it gives a compound or qualified subject, a subject at work in a particular way.

Compare the Latin form 'post Romam conditam', ' after Rome-built, after the fact that Rome had been built; otherwise, ' after the building of Rome'.

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The king's revenues, economically administered, were sufficient to meet the ordinary charges of government'. (Macaulay.) 'The king's revenues, if, or when, or seeing that they were, economically administered'. The revenues are not restricted in the ordinary sense of adjective restriction; they are conditioned or qualified by the circumstance of being economically administered. 'The economically administered king's revenues' would mean the same thing; but we should have to parse 'economically administered, not as an adjective, either restrictive or co-ordinating, but as a participle condensed from an adverbial clause.

'Mantling in the goblet see

The pure beverage of the bee'.

The beverage as it mantles, in the act of mantling, the mantling beverage.

'Nor the pride nor ample pinion
That the Theban Eagle bear
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air.'

The Eagle as it sails.

'I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue-' (Acts xxvi. 14) is a literal translation (ἤκουσα φωνὴν λαλοῦσαν πρός με καὶ λέγουσαν κ. τ. λ.).

We have an infinitive form that readily slides into the participial construction: 'in case of your being absent'; 'being' is an infinitive qualified by the possessive 'your'; such possessive constructions being frequent, especially with persons. It is the same as 'in case that you are absent';

and follows the law of transformation of a verb into a noun or infinitive, the subject becoming a possessive-‘ he died', 'his dying, or death'. There is a tendency to pass from this to the form ‘in case of you being absent', which would have to be construed as a participle. The possessive and infinitive is, in this case, the primitive and regular form; the other is a mere lapse.

So with the following: 'It seems that the catalogue derives its origin from Hermippus enumerating the titles of works in the Alexandrine library'. It should be 'Hermippus's enumerating'-'from the fact that Hermippus enumerated'.

The difficulty of adhering to the possessive form occurs when the subject is not a person: 'It does not seem safe to rely on the rule of demand creating supply'; in strictness, ' demand's creating supply': the equivalence is the rule that demand creates supply', which would be the preferable form.

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The following intimation is put up in the Zoological Gardens, London: The keepers in this building have strict orders to interfere in every case of the rule against smoking being neglected'. Rule' should be in the possessive, or else the sentence should be recast: Strict orders are given to the keepers to interfere whenever any one violates the rule against smoking'.

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Lord Brougham copied from Cicero the form- Mihi sæpenumero cogitanti'-'To me, much reflecting on these things, it has seemed a worthier honour'. The English idiom for such a situation seems to be exemplified in Addison's Essay on Westminster Abbey: When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies within me'. The participial form is courted for the advantage of perfectly uniting the act with the person. This is strikingly shown in the following sentence from Cicero:-'Aranti Quintio Cincinnato nuntiatum est eum dictatorem esse fuctum'. We cannot translate literally; we must say, ' as he was ploughing', 'in the act of ploughing', 'at the plough', 'it was announced to Cincinnatus, as he was ploughing'. This is not

INFINITIVE SLIDING INTO THE PARTICIPLE.

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a case for the infinitive-'it was announced to Cincinnatus's ploughing'.

Horace (formally addressing the Lyre) says of Orpheus:

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'Cerberus makes way for you blandishing'. To say your blandishing' would not hit the situation; it is not the blandishing itself, but Orpheus as he blandished, that is the prominent subject. Cerberus made way for you, while you tickled, or in consequence of your tickling, him’.

Compare- A petition was presented against the license being granted'. Here the emphasis does not lie on license, but on the act-' being granted'; and but for the awkwardness of extending the possessive to impersonal subjects, it would be right to say against the license's being granted', The straining, however, is superfluous, when we have such easy forms as against granting the licence', 'for refusing the licence'.

·

'He had conducted the hall without any complaint being urged against him'. The possessive would be suitable, but undesirable and unnecessary: without being complained against by any one', 'without giving rise to any complaint', 'without complaint', 'so that no complaint was urged'.

This construction sometimes occurs even in the subject. 'Even Ecgberit being called Bretwalda was something like Charles being called Emperor'. (Freeman.)

The following seems as if it were literally translated from the Latin ablative absolute: 'He is not a man to go through life with his hands folded'; 'I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold'. In Latin 'velis passis' may be translated with sails outspread'; but this is not our absolute construction; 'sails outspread', 'hands folded', being enough.

On a monument in Westminster Abbey, to Major-General Stringer Lawrence, occurs For discipline established, fortresses protected, settlements extended, French and Indian

armies defeated, and peace concluded, in the Carnatic'. With this construction, the language should have been Latin.

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With a change of order, the disagreeable effect of the construction we have been discussing is done away. ThusThe difficulty arose from the fact of there being two Popes at that time': 'There is a likelihood of there being ample means at his command'. Still, a clause would answer as well, if not better: from the fact that there were then two Popes'.

We may notice one or two varieties of Latin equivalents. Often a clause is used for our infinitive.

'I am surprised at your saying so'-' miror quod tu ita dicis': lit. 'because you say so'. (Altered from Massie, Latin Pr. Comp.)

'James seems to have been the elder, from his being always mentioned first'-' Jacobus major natu videtur fuisse ex eo quod ejus nomen semper prius commemoratur': lit. 'from the fact that his name is (Massie.)

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'This arises from your neglecting my admonitions ’—‘ hoc oritur inde quod meas admonitiones neglexisti': lit. 'from the fact (or circumstance) that you neglected'. (Inde ex eo.) (Massie.)

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'There is no reason for his doing it'—' non est cur id faciat lit. why he should do it'. (Massie.)

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'You were the cause of my being dismissed’—‘of my dismissal'-' why I was dismissed'—' tu causa fuisti cur dimitterer'. (Massie.)

There are Greek constructions exemplifying similar uses of the participle. (We borrow instances from Dr. Donaldson's Greek Grammar.)

ᾔσθησαι πωποτέ μου συκοφαντοῦντος: ‘have you ever yet seen me playing the false accuser?

οἱ στρατηγοὶ ἑώρων τοὺς στρατιώτας ἀχθομένους— the generals saw the soldiers growing dissatisfied'.

συνέλκων πανταχόθεν τὸ δέρμα ἐπὶ τὴν γαστέρα νῦν καλovμévŋv—' drawing together the skin from all sides to that which is now designated as the belly' [lit. 'to the belly (as it is) now designated].

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