hem (2192.). It stands particularly readily before proper names: This Arcite and this Palamon ben mette (1638.), where the ancient language even employed the unaccented article: At last the Duglas and the Persè met (PERCY Rel. p. 3. II.). b) The indefinite article an, a, Anglosaxon ân, unus, Old-English an, on, a, o &c. existing only in the singular, according to the precepts of grammarians, stands, in its abbreviated form a, before all words beginning with a consonant sound. Among these are of course also reckoned those beginning with the semiconsonants w and y, as well as accented syllables beginning with an h which is not mute, and words beginning with u, eu, ew, an aspirate sounding before these words, as well as one and once, since to these a labial (w) is prefixed: a man, a tree, a heathen, a unit, such a one, a oneness &c. The fuller form an stands before all vowels (which are not heard with an initial consonant), before words beginning with a mute h, as well as before words beginning with an aspirated h, when the syllable beginning with his followed by the accented syllable: an inn, an umpire, an hour, an heir, an harángue, an histórical subject &c.

Usage is however not quite in harmony with this precept, since we often find an used even before aspirated vowels and before an aspirate h in the accented syllable: An useless waste of life (MACAULAY). An eunuch (CONGREVE). An unanimous resolution (GOLDSMITH). I'd rather be an unit of an united and imperial Ten" (L. BYRON); an héro &c.

Old-English early adopted the custom of retaining, an, on before vowels and h, and of setting, on the other hand, a, o before other consonants, and that even where not the unaccented article, but the numeral came in. Robert of Gloucester often has an before consonants: So pat per com of an wode . . an six pousend of Brutons (I. 211.); and thus too subsequent writers, yet compare: There scholde be but o masse sayd at on awtier, upon o day (MAUNDEV. p. 19.). Hyre lord and sche be of a blode. persones in a Godhede (Ms. in HALLIWELL S. v.).

Thre

From this assimilation of the proper numeral to the article, with regard to form, is to be explained the still frequent use of the article, where the numeral one, especially with the meaning one and the same, seems to be required: For a day or two I've lodg'd her privately (OTWAY). Halloo, said my uncle, falling back a step or two (DICKENS); and this is common in similar combinations. Compare: With a charme or twayne (SKELTON 1, 57.). We are both of an age (FIELDING). Then the poor woman would sometimes tell the 'Squire, that she thought him and Olivia extremely of a size (GOLDSMITH).

In union with other an is now treated as the ingredient of a compound: In less than another year we had another daughter (GOLDSMITH).

The indefinite article is capable of no change of form; of and to, serving as substitutes for the case-inflection, come before it: They made a bet of a new hat (DICKENS). These attentions . . were directed to a young lady (ID.).

B) The Verb.

The verb, or time-word, is that part of speech which predicates of a subject an activity falling in the sphere of time. But every phenomenal mode of the subject, which is predicated of it, is to be regarded as an activity of the subject, whether spoken of as its action, its passion or its condition, since it belongs to the successive moments of time, therefore can only be apprehended as a movement and a becoming. The division and separation of the sphere of time into spaces of time from the most general points of view produces the tenses, or time forms, of the verb.

Sorts of the Verb, and their interchange.

With reference to their grammatical relation inside of speech, verbs are divided into various sorts, a decision which is partly governed by the relation to an object, partly by that to the subject of the sentence.

a) With regard to the relation to objective determinations of the sentences, verbs are divided into transitive verbs, denoting an activity directed outwards, and intransitive verbs, expressing an activity concluded within itself.

1) Transitive verbs are accordingly those verbs which denote an activity directed to an object as its goal, whether the object is produced by the activity itself or is determined thereby as a being existing independently.

Transitive verbs are distinguished into those which are such in the narrower and those which are such in the wider sense. The former are those whose object undergoes the effect of the activity immediately, and therefore stands in the accusative with the active of the verb: Hamilton murdered the old man in cold blood (MACAULAY). The latter are those whose activity requires an object participating mediately, which therefore stands to the verb in the relation of another case (the genitive or dative): If solitude succeed to grief, Release from pain is slight relief (BYRON).

English frequently effaces the distinction of both sorts, especially since the dative and the accusative, as in Lowdutch, are frequently not distinguished from each other in form, and the original reference of the verb to its object vanishes from the consciousness of the language.

The transitive verb becomes reflective, if it has its subject for its object; it then receives a personal pronoun for its object: He hid himself (WEBST.). Here will we rest us (LONGFELLOW). They defended themselves against the Saxons (W. SCOTT). Reflective verbs, in the narrower sense, which can have only a personal pronoun for their object, are now hardly known to Modern-English. Old-English had a multitude of impersonal reflective verbal forms, whereof methinks, meseems are obsolete remains, along with which it irks me, it lists him, and the like remain in use. Old

English: Et this whan the hungreth (PIERS PLOUGHм. p. 276.). Methursteth yit (p. 391.). That I makede man It me forthynketh, = poenitet me (p. 167.). Lene hem whan hem nedeth (p. 185.). More rare even in Old-English are personal verbs of feeling or of affection in the reflective construction: I drede me (PIERS PLOUGHM. p. 164.). I repent me (SKELTON I. 304.); the latter whereof is still in use in Modern-English: She will repent her of all past offences (FIELDING).

The notion of the activity appears as reciprocal, when mutuality of an activity, as the action of a subject upon an object and reaction of this object upon that subject, is denoted. This happens in English by the junction of one another and each other to the transitive verb: If we love one another, Nothing, in truth, can harm us (LONGFELLOW). They.. broke their spears without doing each other further injury (W. SCOTT). The kings obliging themselves to assist each other against all the rest of the world &c. (ID.).

Transitive verbs, with the exception of the reflective ones, appear in a twofold shape: that of the active and that of the passive.

The active is the verbal form whereby the grammatical subject is represented as exercising the activity: The assassins pulled off her clothes (MACAULAY). The active form also belongs to intransitive verbs. The passive lets the grammatical subject appear as undergoing the activity: They were roused from sleep by faithful servants (MACAULAY). The two kingdoms were divided from each other (W. SCOTT). As you were told before (ID.). He was succeeded by his son (ID.).

The freedom in forming the passive is far greater in English than in other tongues. Passives are formed not only from transitive verbs in the narrower and wider sense, but also from verbs in themselves intransitive, which are construed in the corresponding active form by prepositions with adverbial (objective) determinations: Starhed was soon disposed of (W. SCOTT). The Highlands and Islands were particularly attended to (ID.). Had he not been called on to fill the station of a monarch. . he might . . have been regarded as an honest and humane prince (ID.). An old manor-house, and an old family of this kind, are rarely to be met with at the present day (W. IRVING). 2) Intransitive verbs are all those which denote an activity not directed to an object, and which therefore appears as concluded in itself: That evening the great minister died (MACAULAY). The punishment of some of the guilty began very early (ID.). By slow degrees the whole truth came out (ID.). They are also called neuters.

Verbs may be termed, according to their import, frequentative or iterative, diminutive, inchoative and desiderative. They belong to the class of transitives or of intransitives, notwithstanding such further notional determinations.

The specified sorts of the verb are however not distinguished from each other in such a manner as not to be capable of passing into or changing places with one another. The question whether a verb is originally transitive or intransitive in English,

is frequently not to be answered. Only by a recourse to the tongues out of which English grew can this be in many cases decided, while in others the more or less frequent or the older use of a verb as transitive or intransitive may turn the scale where forms and derivative terminations afford but little clew No other tongue avails itself, to the same extent as the English, of the liberty of interchanging notions of activities.

An interchange of this sort is certainly known to most tongues, although not to the like extent. It rests on the one hand on the possibility that the activity which needs a completing object may also in fact be conceived by itself or abstractedly, which is ever the case when no definite object is added; but, on the other hand, the activity concluded in itself, so far as it has any result at all, or so far as it is imagined in contact with objects, may be regarded as the activity producing that result or acting immediately upon those objects. A wider limit will of course be conceded to poetry and the naive speech of common life than to the strictly measured prose. Yet even prose has possessed itself in a wider compass of these interchanges, when warranted by the living speech, and thereby has often rendered the original nature of the verb imperceptible.

Some of the demonstrable interchanges of the sorts of verbs may here be mentioned by way of example.

1. a) The transitive active becomes intransitive, when no appropriate object is given to it, although this cannot, of course, be absent from the activity: About, seek, fire, kill! (SHAKSP. J. C.). Instances of this sort are to be met with everywhere. B) The transitive active becomes intransitive, where the activity could have no other object than the subject itself; wherefore this is also regarded as a transition into the reflective meaning. In Highdutch verbs like nahen, flüchten, stürzen, fürchten, münden, and the like, which run parallel to sich nahen, and the like, form an analogy to this usage. In English reflective formations likewise sometimes run parallel to these intransitives, although they have been more restricted in later times: Yeomen.. were induced to enlist (MACAULAY). When the troops had retired, the Macdonalds crept out of the caverns of Glencoe (ID.). She could not refrain from crying out &c. (FIELDING). I will prove in the end more faithful than any of them (W. SCOTT). Russell meanwhile was preparing for an attack (MACAULAY). Two large brooks which unite to form the river Tile (W. SCOTT). He stole away to England (MACAULAY). The warlike inhabitants. gathered fast to Surrey's standard (W. SCOTT). Mark you he keeps aloof from all the revels (L. BYRON). Instances of this sort are also very frequent. If they can be interchanged with the reflective construction, we must not attribute to them quite the same mode of apprehension. The identity of the objective value does not decide grammatically the identity of the apprehension. These verbs are to be conceived as such whose reference to outward independent objects is hindered by the context, and therefore must be deemed to be concluded within the subject.

Single verbs, which may be referred here, as in: I shame To wear a heart so white (SHAKSP. Macb.) have remained true to their origin, the Anglosaxon scamjan, erubescere, being intransitive, and not having received the common transitive meaning till later.

y) Different from the usage just mentioned is the employment of the transitive active as intransitive, when an activity seems imputed to the subject, whose object it rather is. A transmutation of the active into the passive being here sometimes, though by no means universally, possible, this has been conceived as a transition into the passive meaning: What a delicious fragrance springs From the deep flagon, while it fills (LONGFELLOW). I published some tracts.. which, as they never sold, I have the consolation of thinking were read only by the happy Few (GOLDSMITH). If the cakes at tea ate ⚫ short and crisp, they were made by Olivia (ID.). A godly, thorough Reformation, Which always must be carried on, And still be doing never done (BUTLER). While any favourite air is singing (SHERIDAN). While this ballad was reading, Sophia seemed to mix an air of tenderness with her approbation (GOLDSMITH). While a treaty of union.. was negotiating (RoBERTSON). A great experiment was making (MACAULAY). For you I've a draught that long has been brewing (LONGFELLOW). The periphrastic verbal forms with the participle in ing have especially been thus employed from olden times. The use of these verbs is to be explained by the subject's being considered the mediate author of the activity of which itself is the object. Thus the transitive-active borders partly on the reflective, partly on the passive and on the factitive meaning. Compare above: it fills it fills itself, il filled, makes itself filled.

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2. a) The intransitive verb receives the character of the transitive active, if the result of the activity is made its object. Thus the verb is often put to a substantive of the same stem, denoting the activity in the abstract form: Ye all live loathsome, sneaking, servile lives (OrwAY). He had rather die a thousand deaths (FIELDING). To let them die the death (L. BYRON). How many old men sank down and slept their last sleep in the snow (MACAULAY); as happened early with intransitive and transitive verbs. Old-English: He aschede po pat same asking (ROB. OF GLOUCESTER I. 30.); po kyng sende ys sonde (156.). Suiche domes to deme (II. 562.). Yet objects of another sort than products of the activity may also be considered: In every tear that I do weep (SHAKSP. Love's L. L. 4, 3.). Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums (MILTON). What he lived was more beautiful than what he wrote (LEWES). The realm itself. . yawns dungeons at each step for thee and me (L. BYRON). "' Thou didst not say so." But thou lookedst it (D.). Does the prophet doubt, To whom the very stars shine victory? (id.)

Mätzner, engl. Gr. I.

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