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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.

16

Collective nouns in the singular are often followed by verbs in the plural, but they must not be preceded by these or those. It is a common error to say 'those sort,' 'these kind.' Thus:

'Those sort of things do not affect me at all.' The best way of correcting this is to say 'Things of that sort do not.' There is a harshness which should be avoided whether we say 'That sort of things do not,' or 'That sort of things does not,' though either expression admits of defence as grammatical, if sort is taken as a collective noun signifying 'class.'

249. The uses of many and few.

We may say (1) 'many roses,' using many as an indefinite numeral adjective; or (2) 'many a rose,' using many as a multiplicative numeral adjective, so that the expression is equivalent to 'a rose manifold,' or 'many times one rose'; or (3) ‘a many roses,' a construction which survives in poetry, but occurs in ordinary use only with great prefixed to many, a great many roses.' Here we may regard many as a collective noun and suppose that there is an ellipsis of a following of: 'a great many of roses.'

Notice the difference of meaning between 'few,'' a few,' and 'the few. Few means 'not many': a few means 'some': the few means 'not many, but all there are.' Thus, 'I gave him the few shillings I had' signifies (1) 'I had not many shillings,' (2) 'I gave him all.' Similar distinctions are expressed by little, a little, the little. Less is often wrongly used where fewer would be the right word. Less denotes quantity, fewer denotes number. Hence we ought not to say 'No less than twenty persons were present.'

250. Each, every, either, neither, are distributives, and their construction is therefore singular. Hence the following are wrong:

Each of the boys read in their turn.' We may alter each of to all, making turn plural, or we may alter their to his.

'They followed each in their turn.'

This sentence is not on precisely the same footing as the last, for if we substitute his for their, we may be making a mistake, as they may mean women, or both men and women. Supposing that 'they' refers to both men and women, are we to say 'his or her turn respectively'? This phraseology is suggestive of a legal document rather than of

ordinary diction. In such a case two courses are open to us,—to say simply 'in turn,' or to dispense with the each and say all.

The use of adjectives as adverbs has been dealt with on p. 175, and of adjectives as nouns on p. 106.

251. Errors in connexion with the use of the comparative and the superlative degree are illustrated in the following passages:

I. Use of the superlative when fewer than three things are compared

"Of London and Paris the former is the wealthiest.' 'Which is the most learned of the two scholars?'

and of the comparative when more than two things are compared

"The town consists of three distinct quarters, of which the western one is by far the larger.'

To object to speaking of the division of a town into three quarters would be hypercritical: when used of a town, 'quarter' means 'a part,' not necessarily a fourth part.' In like manner we may speak of 'a weekly journal,' though originally a journal must have been a publication issued every jour or 'day.'

2.

Confusion of the comparative and superlative forms of expression

'Of all other nations England is the greatest.'

Unless we have already specified one nation as the greatest and are making a comparison between all the remaining nations, this sentence is faulty. To say 'America is the greatest nation, and of all other nations England is the greatest' is correct. But if this is not our meaning, we must say either (1) England is the greatest of all nations,' or (2) England is greater than all other nations.' To blend the two expressions produces an illogical result, for England is not one of the other nations and therefore cannot be the greatest of the other nations. 'All other nations' signifies all the nations except England. Milton, imitating a Greek construction, speaks of

'Adam the goodliest man of men since born
'His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.'

But how could Adam be one of men since born,' or Eve one of her own daughters?

An analogous mistake is illustrated in this sentence:

'Tennyson was greater than all the poets of his age.' 'All the poets' includes Tennyson. He could not be greater than himself. Say therefore all the other poets.'

Double com

3. Pleonasm or excess of expression. paratives and superlatives were common in Shakespeare's time: 'more better,' 'most unkindest,' 'most straitest.' We avoid such obvious redundancies of form now-a-days, but sometimes employ expressions which really are pleonastic: 'more perfect,' 'most universal.'

'He advised me to choose the smallest of the two, and which certainly appears to be the most preferable.' Note here (1) 'smallest and most preferable of two'; (2) 'preferable' is already comparative in meaning; 'most preferable' is therefore pleonastic; (3) and is redundant. Say, 'Of the two he advised me to choose the smaller, which certainly appears to be preferable.'

Observe however that although 'most preferable,' or even more preferable,' is pleonastic in this context, since only two things are compared, a case might occur in which the use of 'more preferable' and 'most preferable' would be legitimate. Suppose that four things, A, B, C, and D, are set before us, and a choice is allowed. Then, if we like B better than A, C better than B, and D better than C, we may say that in our opinion B is preferable to A, but C is more preferable, and D the most preferable of all.

252. Should we say, 'The two first' or 'The first two'?

Strictly speaking there can be only one first, but 'first' and 'last' are often used to signify 'in front' and 'towards the end' respectively: so we say 'the first remarks I have to make,' 'the first days of the year,' 'the last lines of the play.' Now if we talk of 'the first' or 'the last days of the year,' we may talk of 'the two first' or 'the two last days of the year.' 'The first two' is free from this objection, but it is open to another. It suggests a 'second two,' whereas there may be only three in the entire series.

253. The uses of the so-called Definite and Indefinite Articles are given on p. 109.

Some care is necessary in the use of the Articles to avoid ambiguity in those cases in which ambiguity is possible. 'A black and a white horse' means two horses, one black, the other white; 'a black and white

horse' means one piebald horse. 'The secretary and the treasurer' means two officials; 'the secretary and treasurer' means one man who holds both offices. But when no misunderstanding is possible, the article is frequently repeated for the purpose of emphasis: 'A dark and a distant unknown,' 'This machine is the cheapest and the best.' The following are clearly wrong:

'I saw the secretary and treasurer, and they examined my accounts.' 'He could not distinguish between the red and green signal.' 'A statesman and politician are two very different persons.'

When there is no chance of ambiguity, because the adjectives cannot be taken as descriptive of a single thing, English idiom allows us either to repeat the article with the noun in the singular, or to use it only once with the noun in the plural. So we may say 'The Old and the New Testament,' or 'The Old and New Testaments;' 'the singular and the plural number,' or 'the singular and plural numbers;' 'the primary and the secondary meaning,' or 'the primary and secondary meanings.' But 'the black and white horses' might signify either the piebald horses, or those horses which are all black and those which are all white. When the latter meaning is intended, there are two forms of expression free from all risk of misinterpretation, namely, 'the black and the white horses,' or 'the black horses and the white ones.'

Correct: 'It is sometimes said that the Nile is longer than all the rivers of the eastern and of the western hemispheres. During the past week it has overflown its right and left banks.'

The following points require consideration: (1) As the Nile is one of the rivers of the eastern hemisphere, can it be longer than 'all the rivers of the eastern hemisphere?' (2) 'The eastern and the western hemispheres,'-'the eastern and the western hemisphere,'-'the eastern and western hemispheres:' which of these forms may we use? why? Apply the same principle to 'right and left banks.' (3) From what verb does overflown come?

254. Government. The adjectives like and near govern an objective case: 'I met a man like him,' ‘The