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an arme of flesh?
At no hand. They trusted in him that hath the key of
Dauid, opening and no man shutting; they prayed to the Lord.-The
Translators to the Reader, 1611.

Some of the phrasal adverbs have assumed the form of single words, by that symphytism which naturally attaches these light elements to each other. Hence the forms withal, whatever, nevertheless, notwithstanding, likewise for 'in like wise.'

contrariwise.

Not rendring euill for euill, or railing for railing but contrarywise blessing.-1 Peter iii. 9.

at leastwise.

And every effect doth after a sort contain, at leastwise resemble, the cause from which it proceedeth.-Richard Hooker, Of the Laws &c. I. v. 2; also id. II. iv. 3.

Upside-down is an adverb that has been altered by a false light from up-so-down, or, as Wiclif has it, up-se-down, wherein so or se is the old relative, 471, and the expression is equivalent to up-what-down.

He is traitour to God & turnep pe chirche upsedown.-John Wiclif, Three Treatises, ed. J. H. Todd, Dublin, 1851, p. 29.

Thus es this worlde torned up-so-downe.

which way, that way.

Halliwell, v. Upsodoun.

Marke which way sits the Wether-cocke,
And that way blows the wind.

Ballad Society, vol. i. p. 344.

519. The progress of modern languages, turning as it does in great measure upon the development of the symbolic element, naturally sets towards the production of grouped expressions, and this displays itself with particular activity in the adverbial parts of language, whether they be presentively or symbolically adverbial, that is to say, whether

the nounal or the pronounal character is prevalent. For the tendency of novelty is to show itself prominently in the adverbs of either category, much on the same principle as the extremities of a tree are the first to display the newest movements of growth. The adverbs are the tips or extremities of all that is material in speech.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LINK-WORD GROUP.

520. UNDER the title of Link-word I comprise all that vague and flitting host of words which, starting forth from time to time out of the formal ranks of the previous parts of speech to act as the intermediaries of words and sentences, are commonly called Prepositions and Conjunctions.

These two parts of speech have a certain fundamental identity, combined with a bold divergence in which they appear as perfectly distinct from one another. Their distinction is based on the definition that prepositions are used to attach nouns to the sentence, and conjunctions are used to attach sentences or introduce them.

The neutral ground on which they meet, and where no such discrimination is possible, is in the generic link-words and, or, also, for, but, than.

1. OF PREPOSITIONS.

521. The preposition may be defined as a word that expresses the relation of a noun to its governing word. A few examples must suffice for the illustration of a class of words so familiarly known and so various in their shades of signification. The examples will be mostly of the less common uses, as we shall consider the common uses to be

familiar to the mind of the reader; the object being to suggest the almost endless variety of shades of which prepositions are susceptible. First, the prepositions of the simpler and mostly elder sort.

Flat Prepositions.

At. Now used only (in its restful sense) of time and place, but formerly also with reference to persons:—

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I think he will consider it a right thing by Mrs. Grant as well as by Fanny.-Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, ch. v.

Where we should now say 'as regards Mrs. Grant,' or as far as Fanny is concerned.'

522. By having originally meant about, acquired in certain localities a power of indicating the knowledge of something bad about any person, insomuch that 'I know nowt by him' is provincially used for 'I know no harm of him.' And it is according to this idiom that in our version St. Paul witnesses of himself, I know nothing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified': and the expression occurs more than once in the curious book from which the following is quoted :

Then I was committed to a darke dungeon fifteene dayes, which time they secretly made enquiry where I had lyen before, what my wordes and behauiour had beene while I was there, but they could find nothing by me.Webbe his trauailes, 1590.

But still exists as a preposition in the connections no one but,

nothing but

No two objects of interest could be more absolutely dissimilar in kind than the two neighbouring islands, Staffa and Iona :-Iona dear to Christendom for more than a thousand years;-Staffa known to the scientific and the curious only since the close of the last century. Nothing but an accident of geography could unite their names.-The Duke of Argyll, Iona, init.

for.

Wherefore getting out again, on that side next to his own House; he told me, I should possess the brave Countrey alone for him: So he went his way, and I came mine.—Pilgrim's Progress, facsimile ed. p. 35.

like.

Out of that great past he brought some of the sterner stuff of which the martyrs were made, and introduced it like iron into the blood of modern religious feeling.-J. C. Shairp, John Keble, 1866.

nigh.

There shall no euell happen vnto the, nether shall eny plage come nye thy dwellyng.-Psalm xc. 10 (1539).

523. Of is the most frequent preposition in the English language. Probably it occurs as often as all the other prepositions put together. It is a characteristic feature of the stage of the language which we call by distinction English, as opposed to Saxon. And this character, like so many characters really distinctive of the modern language, is French. Nine times out of ten that of is used in English it represents the French de. It is the French preposition in a Saxon mask. The word of is Saxon, if by 'word' we understand the two letters o and f, or the sound they make when

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