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CHAP. II.

OF THE SYNTAX OF ONE NOUN WITH ANOTHER.

YNTAX appertaineth, both to words of number, and without number, where the want and superfluity of any part of speech are two general and common exceptions. Of the former kind of syntax is that of a noun, and verb.

The syntax of a noun, with a noun, is in number and gender; as

Esau could not obtain his father's blessing, though
he sought it with tears.

Jezabel was a wicked woman, for she slew the
Lord's prophets.

An idol is no God, for it is made with hands.

In all these examples you see Esau and he, Jezabel and she, idol and it, do agree in the singular number. The first example also in the masculine gender, the second in the feminine, the third in the neuter. And in this construction (as also throughout the whole English syntax) order and the placing of words is one special thing to be observed. So that when a substantive and an adjective are immediately joined together, the adjective must go before; as

Plato shut poets out of his commonwealth, as effeminate writers, unprofitable members, and

enemies to virtue.

When two substantives come together, whereof one is the name of a possessor, the other of a thing possessed, then hath the name of a possessor the former place, and that in the genitive:

All man's righteousness is like a defiled cloth. Gower, lib. 1:

An owl flieth by night,

Out of all other birds sight.

But if the thing possessed go before, then doth the preposition of come between:

Ignorance is the mother of Error.

Gower, lib. 1:

So that it proveth well therefore
The strength of man is sone lore.

Which preposition may be coupled with the thing possessed, being in the genitive.

Nort. in Arsan.

A road made into Scanderbech's country by the duke of Mysia's men: for, the men of the duke of Mysia.

Here the absolute serveth sometimes instead of a genitive:

All trouble is light, which is endured for righteousness sake; i. e. for the sake of righteous

ness.

Otherwise two substantives are joined together by apposition.

Sir Thomas More, in king Richard's story:

George duke of Clarence, was a prince at all points fortunate.

Where if both be the names of possessors, the latter shall be in the genitive.

Fox, in the 2d volume of Acts and Monuments: King Henry the eighth, married with the lady Katherine his brother, prince Arthur's, wife.

The general exceptions:

The substantive is often lacking.

Sometime without small things, greater cannot stand: i. e. greater things, &c. Sir Thomas More.

The verb is also often wanting:

Chaucer :

For some folk woll be won for riches,

And some folk for strokes, and some folk for gentleness:

Where woll be won once expressed, serves for the three parts of the sentence.

Likewise the adjective:

It is hard in prosperity to preserve true religion,
true godliness, and true humility.

Lidgate, lib. 8, speaking of Constantine,
That whilome had the divination

As chief monarch, chief prince, and chief president
Over all the world, from east to occident.

But the more notable lack of the adjectives is the want of the relative;

In the things which we least mistrust, the greatest danger doth often lurk.

Gower, lib. 2:

Forthy the wise men ne demen

The things after that there they semen;

But, after that, which they know, and find.

Psal. 118, 22. The stone the builders refused: for, which the builders refused.

And here, besides the common wanting of a substantive, whereof we spake before: there is another more special, and proper to the absolute, and the genitive.

Chaucer, in the 3d book of Fame.

This is the mother of tidings.

b In Greek and Latin this want were barbarous: the Hebrews notwithstanding use it.

a

As the sea is mother of wells, and is mother of springs.

Rebecca clothed Jacob with garments of his

brothers.

Superfluity also of nouns is much used:

Sir Thomas More: Whose death king Edward (although he commanded it) when he wist it was done, pitiously bewailed it, and sorrowfully repented it.

Chaucer, in his Prologue to the Man of Law's Tale:

Such law, as a man yeveth another wight,

He should himself usen it by right.

Gower, lib. 1:

For, whoso woll another blame,

He seeketh oft his own shame.

Special exceptions, and first of number. Two singulars are put for one plural:

All authority and custom of men, exalted against the word of God, must yield themselves pri

soners.

Gower:

In thine aspect are all alich,

The poor man, and eke the rich.

The second person plural is for reverence sake to one singular thing:

Gower, lib. I:

O good father dear,

Why make ye this heavy chear.

Where also after a verb plural, the singular of the noun is retained:

I know you are a discreet and faithful man, and therefore am come to ask your advice.

Exceptions of Genders.

The articles he and it, are used in each other's

gender.

Sir Thomas More: The south wind sometime swelleth of himself before a tempest.

Gower, of the Earth:

And forthy men it delve, and ditch,
And earen it, with strength of plough:
Where it hath of himself enough,

So that his need is least.

It also followeth for the feminine: Gower, lib. 4:
He swore it should nought be let,
That, if she have a daughter bore,
That it ne should be forlore.

CHAP. III.

OF THE SYNTAX OF A PRONOUN WITH A NOUN.

HE articles a and the are joined to substantives common, never to proper names of men.

William Lambert in the Perambulation

of Kent:

The cause only, and not the death maketh a martyr.

Yet, with a proper name used by a metaphor, or borrowed manner of speech, both articles may be coupled :

Who so avoucheth the manifest and known truth, ought not therefore to be called a Goliah, that is a monster, and impudent fellow, as he was.

Jewel against Harding:

You have adventured yourself to be the noble David to conquer this giant.

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