would be absurd. As a fact however we do employ this elliptical construction for purposes of disparagement, real or pretended, in cases where it is logically indefensible. Thus we say 'that disreputable old father of John's,' 'this sweet wee wife of mine.'

There are other ellipses, or omissions, of the noun which ought to follow the noun in the possessive case, and these we have to supply according to the sense required by the context. 'He goes to St Paul's' may signify in different connexions 'St Paul's cathedral,' 'St Paul's school,' or 'St Paul's station.' 'A picture of Agnew's' and 'a picture of Gainsborough's' alike require the word 'pictures' to supply the ellipsis, but in the former case the meaning is 'belonging to Agnew,' in the latter 'painted by Gainsborough.'

241.

How are we to explain such expressions as 'the city of Rome,' 'the month of June'?

When we bear in mind that the function of the noun in the genitive case is to limit the application of the noun on which it depends, the explanation of such phrases as 'the city of Rome,' 'the month of June,' seems fairly simple. "The city of Rome' is a particular city, 'the month of June' a particular month, just as 'the top of the mountain' is a particular top. We do not say 'the river of Rhone' but we might have done so we use river and Rhone in apposition. It is merely a matter of idiom, or form of expression peculiar to our language. The Latin idiom was to say 'city Rome,' Urbs Roma; our idiom is to say 'city of Rome.'

The construction of two nouns in apposition in the possessive case has been already discussed.

242. Order. The inflected possessive always stands before the noun on which it depends; 'Carlyle's praise,' 'the master's cane.' The preposition of and its noun in the objective usually come after the governing noun: 'the praise of Carlyle,' 'the cane of the master.' But for emphasis this order may be inverted: 'Of the spoil each man received a share,' 'Of virtue a great part consists in this.'

Objective Case.

243. The objective case in modern English marks relations which are expressed in Latin by the accusative and by the dative. It is the case both of the direct and of the indirect object. The following are its chief uses.

The objective is the case

(1) of the direct object of a transitive verb: Brutus killed him.' (2) of the factitive object : 'They made him consul,' 'He called her Mary,' 'We thought him a lunatic.

(3) of the noun of kindred meaning which sometimes follows intransitive verbs: 'I dreamt a dream,' 'He slept a sound sleep.' This is called the cognate objective. See p. 137.

(4) of the noun in apposition to another in the objective: 'They slew him, their archbishop.'

(5) of the adverbial adjunct of the predicate, marking limitations as regards time, space, or manner: 'We stayed a year,' 'The ditch is three yards wide,' 'This is worth half-a-crown.'

(6) of nouns governed by prepositions: 'He plays for money.'

(7) of the indirect object: the noun in this case stands for the thing to or on behalf of which the thing is done. The verb 'to give' may be, taken as the type of verbs which are followed by an indirect object: 'Give me (indir. obj.) the book' (dir. obj.).

(8) of the pronoun in the two surviving impersonals, methinks,

meseems.

(9) after the adjectives like, worth, and near: 'like me,' 'worth us two together,' ' near him.'

(10) of the person for whose advantage a thing is done, or by whom it is regarded with interest: these uses correspond with the Dativus Commodi and Dativus Ethicus of the Latin Grammar. Do me this favour' is an example of the Dativus Commodi, or Dative of Advantage; me signifies for me. 'Just as I was approaching, he whips me out his dagger': here me marks merely the fact that the speaker had an interest in the action: it gives a lively touch to the narrative. Me is called the Ethical Dative.

The Retained or Adverbial Object.

The reader will remember that many transitive verbs which take two objects in the active voice, may retain either of these as its object in the passive. Thus 'He taught me music' converted into the passive becomes either I was taught music by him,' or 'Music was taught me by him.' In the first form, music, in the second, me, may be described as the Retained Object after the passive verb. Or we may describe music and me as adjuncts of the predicate, or adverbial objectives. Just as we call three miles,' 'three hours,' adverbial objectives when we say 'He walked three miles,'' He walked three hours,'-objectives because they are in the objective case (though there is no inflexion of the nouns from which we can see this) and adverbial because they limit or qualify the statement that he walked,'-so we may call music an adverbial objective limiting the statement that he 'taught me,' or me an adverbial objective limiting the statement that he 'taught music.'

244. Order. The noun in the objective case usually follows the verb or the preposition by which it is governed. But

(1) When the word in the objective case is a relative or interrogative pronoun, it comes before the verb: 'The book which you gave me,' 'Which book did you give me?'

(2) When that is used as a relative and governed by a preposition, the preposition comes at the end of the sentence: "This is the book that you told me of.' When who or which are used as relatives and governed by prepositions, they may stand before or after the prepositions: 'This is the man of whom and that is the book of which you told me,' or 'This is the man whom you told me of, and that is the book which you told me of.'

(3) For emphasis the noun in the objective case is sometimes placed before the verb: 'Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?' 'Silver and gold have I none.'

245. Correction of Sentences. In his school exercises the student is sometimes required to alter the construction of faulty sentences. His aim should be to make them formally correct by the introduction of the smallest changes which are necessary for the removal of obscurity or error. A free paraphrase of an ungrammatical passage suggests an evasion of the difficulty. Thus 'I went into the garden and wetted my feet in the grass' expresses grammatically the meaning which the sentence 'Going into the garden, the grass wetted my feet' was intended to convey. But this

new version raises a doubt whether the nature of the mistake has been grasped by the pupil. To take another illustration; the sentence 'Shakespeare is greater than any dramatist' is corrected, if we say 'Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist,' but this correction might be made by one who had failed to see anything amiss with the sentence in its original form.

If, on the other hand, we insert the word other and write 'Shakespeare is greater than any other dramatist,' we introduce the minimum of alteration and put our finger on the faulty spot.

246. Examples of wrong construction with the participle are furnished in the following sentences. Rewrite them correctly.

'Being a fine day, I went out for a walk.'

[To correct this sentence we may either—

(1) Complete the absolute phrase and say 'It being,' or

(2) Substitute an adverbial clause for being and say 'As it was.']

'Sailing in a yacht, the coast seems to move faster than we.'

'Courting the favour of neither rich nor poor, success attended his

career.'

'Foiled and disgraced, his candidature was abandoned.'

'Louis was in some respects a good man, but being a bad ruler his subjects rebelled.'

'Being early killed, I sent a party in search of his mangled body.' 'Having failed in this attempt, no further trial was made.' 'Travelling along the line, the tower of the castle came in sight.' 'Judging from the time taken, the race was rowed quicker than in all previous years.'

'Having perceived the weakness of his poems, they now reappear to us under new titles.'

'Vainly endeavouring to suppress his emotion, the service was abruptly brought to an end.'

'Left for dead upon the ground, his companions rushed to his assistance.'

'Arrived at the spot, a scene of horror presented itself to their eyes.’ 'Hastily discussing the position of affairs, prompt measures were adopted and a telegram was sent to the police station.'

'Not having had the accounts of the company properly audited for some years, it was resolved by the directors that the services of an accountant should be secured.'

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CHAPTER XXIV.

Syntax of ADJECTIVES AND PRONOUNS.

I. Adjectives.

247. ADJECTIVES limit nouns attributively and predicatively. When we say 'a clever boy,' the use of the adjective is attributive: when we say 'The boy is clever,' it is predicative. With certain transitive verbs of incomplete predication, such as make, think, call, consider, an adjective is used factitively to complete the statement: "They made, or thought, or called, or considered, him clever.'

Some adjectives can be used only predicatively. We can say 'The man is afraid, or awake, or well, or ill,' but not 'the afraid man,' 'the awake man,' 'the well or ill man.' Sometimes an adjective changes its meaning when it is used attributively: 'He is a sorry fool' does not signify the same thing as 'The fool is sorry.' 'Glad' can be used attributively in only a few connexions: 'glad tidings,' 'glad heart.'

248. Concord. To speak of the agreement of the Adjective with its Noun in modern English is to use a term which seems scarcely appropriate, for the inflexions marking gender and case have disappeared entirely from English adjectives; and the demonstratives this and that are the only adjectives which admit of the inflexion of number.

W. E. G.

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