193. Illustrations of these Modes of Formation. 1 (a). The usual adverbial suffix is -ly, a corruption of like: so, 'godlike' became 'godly.' (b). In Old English, adverbs were formed from adjectives by adding -e: fast-e, hard-e. This suffix disappeared along with many of our other inflexions, and adjective and adverb were no longer distinguishable in form. 'A fast rider': 'He rode fast.' 2. The comparative and superlative forms of such adverbs as are referred to above in 1(b) are the same as those of the adjectives: 'A faster rider': 'He rode faster.' The comparative and superlative forms of several adjectives which have irregular comparison are used adverbially also. See p. III. With these exceptions, more and most are generally employed in the comparison of adverbs. 3. Relics of case-inflexions appear in some adverbs :— (a) genitive ending -s is present in needs, unawares, and disguised in once, twice. (6) dative plural ending -um survives in seldom and in the archaic whilom, 'formerly.' (c) instrumental case is seen in why, the (in 'the more the better,' originally thi), and how. 4. The survival of inflexions is illustrated by the adverbs which are derived from the pronouns he, who, and the demonstrative adjective the. 5. In a few cases a compound adverb is formed from two words written in one: meanwhile, straightway, yesterday, thereupon, herein, hitherto, aboard (where a is a corruption of on), perchance, elsewhere, whensoever, 194. The following points deserve attention: (a) Words belonging to other parts of speech are sometimes used as adverbs: Nouns for adverbs: 'He went home,' 'I don't mind a rap,' 'The wound was skin deep.' Pronouns for adverbs: 'somewhat steep,' 'none the worse.' Verbs for adverbs: 'It went crash through the window,' 'Smack went the whip.' (6) Adverbs are sometimes used with nouns as if the adverbs were adjectives: 'The then prime-minister,' 'The above remarks,' 'My arrival here,' 'His journey abroad.' (c) Is there any difference of meaning between 'He arrived safe' and 'He arrived safely'? The adjective safe marks a quality of the agent he, the adverb safely marks the mode of the action arrived. If his horse ran away, and he narrowly escaped being upset, he might arrive 'safe,' but he certainly would not arrive 'safely,' that is, 'in a safe manner.' (d) Is any correction required in-'It not only smells but tastes sweetly'? Sweetly is right: sweet is right too. With regard to this alternative use of adverbs and adjectives in certain connexions, we may say that the adverb qualifies the action indicated by the verb and the adjective denotes a quality of the agent. But we employ the adverb or the adjective without giving any heed to this subtle distinction. Whether it is adverb or adjective or both that we make use of, seems to be very much a matter of idiom. We say 'I feel queer,' 'He seems disagreeable,' 'You look unpleasant,' using adjectives. We say 'I ride clumsily,' 'He speaks rapidly,' 'You play capitally,' using adverbs. And we say 'I speak plain, or plainly,' 'He looks splendid, or splendidly,' 'You came quick, or quickly,' using adjectives or adverbs indifferently. QUESTIONS. I. What difficulty would arise in conversation, if there were (a) no adjectives, (b) no adverbs? [Illustrate the difficulty by an example of this sort. By the aid of adjectives we can distinguish different varieties of things, each of which distinctions would require a separate noun, if we had no adjectives. Thus, if we take wine as our noun, and good, old, and red, as its limiting adjectives, with these four words we can mark eight distinctions: viz., (putting initial letters to represent the words) W, GW, OW, RW, GOW, GRW, ORW, GORW, and for these eight distinctions we should need eight nouns. This gives a very inadequate idea however of the economy of words which adjectives enable us to effect. For if we take the same three adjectives good, old, and red, and change the noun from wine to velvet, we shall need another eight nouns to express the varieties of velvet; another eight would be required to express the varieties of curtains, and so on. The three nouns wine, velvet, and curtains, in combination with the adjectives good, old and red, would need twenty-four words instead of six. The same point might be illustrated as regards verbs and adverbs. By combining write, ride, walk, with gracefully, slowly, well, we express by means of six words twenty-four distinctions. If we had no adverbs and wished to mark these distinctions, we should do so either (1) by using phrases composed of a preposition and a noun, e.g. 'with grace,' ‘in a slow manner,' 'in a good style,' or (2) by adding twenty-one verbs to our vocabulary.] 2. Parse the word above in the following sentence:-"The above remarks, as we noticed above, apply above all to the third class.' 3. What parts of speech may an adverb modify? Parse fully the words alone, almost, in each of the following sen tences: (a) He almost succeeded alone. [As explained at the beginning of the chapter, adverbs limit, or modify, verbs and adjectives, words expressing actions and attributes: they also qualify other adverbs. As participles are verbal adjectives, participles admit of adverbial modification: 'much disappointed,' 'twice blessed.' The following are exceptional uses of the adverb. In 'Yours faithfully' the pronoun is modified, as it expresses a quality. In 'fully master of the language' a noun is modified, but the noun is used like a verb to express an attribute: 'He was fully master of the language' means 'He had fully mastered the language.' In 'I am entirely at your disposal,' 'He died far from his native land,' the adverb looks as if it modified a preposition, but it really modifies the whole adverbial phrase. See Bain's Higher Eng. Gram. p. 66, Angus' Handbook of the English Tongue, p. 225.] 4. Mention two adverbs of place, two of time, and two of degree; and form adverbs from north, other, three, whole. 5. Explain the use of right in-‘Right against the stream they pulled.' 6. Apply your definition of adverb to the adverb in the phrase 'Quite within my recollection.' [It appears at first sight as if the adverb quite qualified the preposition within. But this is not the case. It qualifies the whole phrase within-my-recollection. What sort of phrase is "within-my-recol lection'?] CHAPTER XIX. PREPOSITIONS. 195. A Preposition is a word which is used with a noun or pronoun to show its relation to some other word in the sentence. Case was defined as the form of a noun or pronoun by which we show its relation to some other word in the sentence. But the relations in which a noun may stand are far more numerous than those which the supply of cases, even in an inflexional language like Latin, will enable us to represent. And in a non-inflexional language like our own, we are almost entirely dependent on Prepositions for the means of expressing these relations. Thus the Romans, like ourselves, had recourse to prepositions when they said 'before the town,' 'against the town,' 'through the town,' across the town,' ante urbem, contra urbem, per urbem, trans urbem, although case-endings served their purpose in some instances in which we have to fall back on prepositions, and they could say moenia urbis, 'the walls of the town,' dat agros urbi, 'he gives lands to the town.' 196. A preposition and noun together form a phrase which is equivalent to either an adjective or an adverb. So, 'a statesman of eminence' is 'an eminent statesman'; 'a town in Holland' is 'a Dutch town'; 'a man without education' is 'an uneducated man.' The combination here is adjectival. In the following examples it is adverbial: by force, in a W. E. G. 12 curious fashion, with courage, at the present time, from this spot: for these phrases we might substitute the adverbs forcibly, curiously, courageously, now, hence. 197. In the language of grammar we speak of the preposition as 'governing' the noun or pronoun to which it is attached. In Greek, or Latin, or German, the student finds it a serious business to learn the cases which follow the various prepositions, but in modern English, owing to the loss of inflexions, we are spared any trouble of this kind. The noun governed by the preposition is 'in the objective case,' and the form of the objective is identical with the form of the nominative. In the pronouns the differences of form are limited to the pronouns of the First, Second, and Third Persons, and to the Relative who. The preposi So, we may Notice however that, though we speak of the noun as governed by the preposition, it is not necessary that the noun should come after the preposition. tion is often put at the end of the sentence. say 'This is the boy whom I gave it to,' 'What are you talking about?' and the construction is the same as if we had said 'This is the boy to whom I gave it,' 'About what are you talking?' 198. Prepositions might be classified, as Adverbs were classified in the preceding chapter, according to their meaning. But such a classification would be out of place in an elementary book. The relations in which things stand to other things are so various that the prepositions expressing these relations would require a large number of classes for their arrangement. Or, if the number of classes were small, the names of the classes would necessarily be so vague that the student would attach to them no clear and distinct meaning. Then again, the classification would be complicated by the fact that the same preposition is used in widely different senses and would therefore have its place in |