SECTION V.

PRONOUNS.

The principal part of the artifice of Naming is now explained. We have considered the nature of the more necessary marks, and the manner in which they are combined so as to represent the order of a train. Beside those marks, which are the fundamental part of language, there are several classes of auxiliary words or marks, the use of which is, to abbreviate expression, and to render it, what is of great importance, a more rapid vehicle of thought. These are usually comprehended under the titles of pronoun, adverb, preposition, and conjunction; a classification which, for our present purpose, has the best recommendation, that of being familiarly known.

It is to be distinctly understood, that in the account which is here to be given of the subsidiary parts of speech, it is but one part of the explanation of them which will be attempted. The ideas, which many of them stand for, are of the most complicated kind, and have not yet been expounded. We are, therefore, not yet prepared to point out the items which they mark. Our present business is only to indicate the mode in which they are used in Predication, as part of the great contrivance for marking the order of a train of ideas, and for economizing the number of words.

It is also necessary to observe, that I have limited myself, in this part, to brief indications, without 195 going into minute development, the length of which, it appeared to me, would not be compensated by the advantage.

In all speech there is a speaker; there is some person spoken to; and there is some person or thing spoken of. These objects constitute three Classes, marks of which are perpetually required. Any artifice, therefore, to abridge the use of marks, of such frequent recurrence, was highly to be desired. One expedient offered itself obviously, as likely to prove of the highest utility. Speakers constituted one class, with numerous names; persons spoken to, a second class; persons and things spoken of, a third. A generical name might be invented for each class; a name, which would include all of a class, and which singly might be used as the substitute of many. For this end were the Personal Pronouns invented and such is their character and office. “I,” is the generical mark which includes all marks of the class, speakers. “Thou,” is a generical mark, which includes all marks of the class, persons spoken to. “He,” “she,” “it,” are marks, which include all marks of the class, persons or things spoken of.

By forming Adjectives from certain kinds of Nouns we obtain a useful class of specific names. From wool we make woollen; and woollen, attached to various generic names, furnishes us with specific names; thus we say woollen cloth, which is a species of cloth; woollen yarn, which is a species of yarn; woollen garment, which is a species of garment. So, from the word gold we make golden, which furnishes us with a greater number of specific names; from wood wooden, which furnishes us with a still greater number. Adjectives are 196 formed in like manner from the personal pronouns: from I, my or mine; from Thou, thy or thine; from He, She, It, his, hers, its; also from the plurals of them, ours, yours, theirs. These adjectives answer a purpose of very frequent recurrence; that of singling out, from any class of objects, a sub-class, or an individual, bearing a peculiar relation, to the person speaking, the person spoken to, or the person or thing spoken of. Thus, when I say, my sheep or my oxen, I denote a sub-class of those animals, those which stand in the relation of property to the speaker; when I say thy sheep or oxen, I denote a sub-class in the same relation to the person spoken to; and when I say his sheep or oxen, a sub-class, standing in that relation to the person spoken of. When I say my son, thy wife, his father, I single out individuals having that relation.

The Demonstrative Pronouns, This and That, are of great utility. They serve to individualize any thing in a class. One of these marks put upon a specific mark, makes it an individual mark. Thus, the mark “man,” is the name of a class: put upon it the mark this, or that; this man, and that man, are marks, signs, or names, of individuals. In this manner innumerable individual names can be made, without adding a single word to the cumbrous materials of language.

The nature of the Relative Pronoun is not difficult to understand. It supplies the place of a personal pronoun and a conjunction, in connecting a Predication with the subject, or predicate of another proposition. Thus, “John received a wound, which occasioned his death,” is of the same import as “John received a wound, and it occasioned his death.” This 197 is a case in which the Relative connects a subsequent predication with the predicate of an antecedent predication. The following are cases in which it connects a subordinate predication with the subject of the principal one: “Erasmus, who was a lover of truth, but of a timid character, hesitated between the new and the old religion.” Erasmus, and he was a lover of truth, &c. “The man who spoke to you is my father.” “The man spoke to you, and he is my father.”59

59 There is really no well marked distinction between relative pronouns and demonstrative pronouns, either in their origin or in their use. Of the demonstrative roots ka, sa, ta, ja, derivatives from the guttural ka prevail as relatives in Latin and its modern descendants (Lat. qui, It. che, Fr. qui), and in the Teutonic languages (Goth. hva, Eng. who, Ger. wer, welch), but by no means exclusively. In Greek the relative differs little from the article, which is also used as a demonstrative and a personal pronoun. Modern Italian uses as a demonstrative a compound of the Latin qui with iste and illa—questo, quella. In German the relative proper, viz. welch, is comparatively little used, its place being supplied by the article der, which is merely an unemphatic demonstrative; and in English that is perhaps as often used as who or which.

The relative serves for two purposes, which it is useful to distinguish. (1) It may add on either a clause containing an independent proposition, as in the example in the text, “John received a wound, which occasioned his death;” or a clause dependent in some way upon the preceding—e.g. assigning the reason of it, as, “It was unjust to punish the servant, who only did what he was ordered.” (2) The clause introduced by the relative may serve simply to limit or define a noun, in the way that an adjective or another noun in apposition does, as “The man who spoke to you is my father.” It is in this latter use of the relative, and in no other, that it is permissible in English to use that; to substitute that for which in the first of the other two sentences, or for who in the second, would give a different meaning. Now it is only in the cases in which that could not be substituted for who or which that the relative involves the force of a conjunction; and it is not always and that is the conjunction involved. The conjunction has no verbal expression, and never had; it is only suggested, and the mind supplies that which best suits the logical connection. When the predication of the relative clause is co-ordinate with the preceding, as in the first example, and is the proper conjunction to supply. In the sentence about the punishment of the servant, who is equivalent to for he; and in that about Erasmus, in the text, to inasmuch as he. When the relative clause merely defines, no conjunction of any kind is even implied. In such a sentence as “He rewarded the man that rescued him,” the relative clause is the answer to a question naturally suggested by “He rewarded the man”—what man? “The or that (man) rescued him;” which is equivalent to, “his rescuer.” To resolve it into “And that man rescued him,” gives quite a different meaning; namely, that he rewarded some man (otherwise known to the hearers) for something (likewise known to them), and that this man now rescued him.—F.

198 The Interrogative is easily explained. It is merely the Relative, in a very elliptical form of expression. The interrogative sentence, “Who gave you that book?” when the subaudition is supplied, is thus expressed: The person gave you the book, and him I will you to name to me. “What is the hour of the day?” is an elliptical form of,—It is an hour of the day, and it I will you to tell me.

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