An English grammar

ADVERBS OF BELIEF.

'even so,' 'just so,' 'yes,' 'yea,'* with a variety of phrases, as most assuredly, by all manner of means,' 'on every ground,' without fail,' 'without exception,' ' beyond all doubt,' beyond the possibility of question.'

For the expression of disbelief, we have principally the great particle of negation, no,' or not,'* and phrases deriving their negative force from it: no,' 'not,' nay,' 'not so,' 'not at all,' no wise,' 'by no means,' by no manner of means,' on no account,' in no respect,' 'not in the least,' not a whit,' 'not a bit,' 'not a jot,' forsooth' (an ironical phrase in modern English, but used at one time seriously, for verily').

For probability, contingency, or uncertainty, we have, 'perhaps,' 'probably,' possibly,' ' maybe,' ' haply,' ‘likely,' 'perchance,' 'peradventure.'

15. V. CAUSE and EFFECT; as therefore,'' wherefore,' 'why.'

Under this head we may include instrumentality, which meaning, however, although abundantly expressed by phrases and clauses, is seldom answered by any single word.

16. VI. MANNER, or QUALITY; as well,' ill,' wisely,' 'bravely,'' softly,' 'quickly,' 'remarkably,' 'rightly.'

As with adjectives, this is the class that includes the great body of adverbs. Of the five previous classes it is possible to give an exhaustive enumeration, but adverbs of Quality make a large part of the vocabulary of the language. The mode or manner of doing an action may be very various, as we may see on a little reflection. Suppose the subject is putting something in motion; we may move quick, slow, steady, violently, suddenly, abruptly, hurriedly, straight, zigzag, strongly, rightly, beautifully, unexpectedly, and so on. And every kind of action that it is possible to mention has varieties of manner peculiar to itself. Thus to speak,' 'to sing,'' to eat,' 'to look,' 'to work,' 'to govern,' 'to die,' have all their special modes, exclusive of the attributes of time, place, and degree, above enumerated; and the word, or phrase, or clause, expressive of that mode, is considered in grammar as an adverb. 'He spoke, long, clearly, to the purpose.' He looked hard, with anxiety, as if he were in earnest.' He governed wisely, with discretion, so as to gain esteem. He died easily, without suffering, in the way that one. would have predicted.' A word, or combination of words, answering to the interrogative 'how' is an adverb of manner, as replying

* The words yes, yea, ay, no, are called adverbs, and seem to have an adverbial force; but, as Mr. C. P. Mason remarks, they are never used to qualify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, and therefore appear scarcely entitled to the appellation. He proposes to call them interjections; but this too seems objectionable, as they are not outbursts of emotion, like 'alas!' 'hurrah!' and the like. They are rather a species of relative words, which express a speaker's assent or denial to a particular statement, not by repeating the statement, but by referring to it as having just been enounced. Many of the words in the above list, may be detached in the same way from the sentence that they qualify; for example-certainly, surely, indeed, &c.

to an inquiry into the special mode or circumstances of an action. If we say the sun shines,' any one may demand a more specific account of this fact, which is known to take place in a variety of ways, and the words employed to give such more specific information are adverbs or the equivalent of adverbs: the sun shines bright, or with intermission, or so as to light up the landscape, or as if we were in the tropics.' The name for the specifying attribute of a noun corresponds to the adjective in grammar; the specifying attributes of the verb are given by the adverb. Now, from the great variety of ways and circumstances of the performance of actions, adverbs, and adverbial phrases and clauses, like adjectives and their equivalents, are necessarily innumerable.

17. The equivalents of the Adverb in composition are phrases and adverbial clauses.

(1.) PLACE. Phrases: At the seat of judgment,' 'in the skies,' under the greenwood tree.' Clauses: Where the tree falls, there will it lie; whither I go, ye cannot come ;'go whence you came.' The relative adverbs-where,' 'whither,' 'whence,' 'wheresoever,' &c., are the connectives of these clauses with the main clause, while they also qualify, by the attribute of place, the verb in the dependent clause. (2.) TIME. Phrases: Once on a time,' 'the day before yesterday,' 'next year,' 'a century ago.' Clauses: I will come when I can while I live, I will follow truth;' the thing was done before I came.' These clauses are introduced either by the relative adverbs of time-'ere,' until,' when,' while,' whenever-or by the prepositions 'before,' after,' 'since,' which in this application govern clauses, instead of nouns.

(3.) DEGREE. Phrases: By ever so little,' ' to a small extent,'' in a very intense degree.' Clauses: The sea is as deep as the mountains are high; as thy day is, so shall thy strength be.' 'As' is the principal word employed in these clauses. The degree being expressed by comparison with some other thing as a standard, the connective required is a word or words of comparison or proportionality: as-as, as-so, than, the (the more). 'He knows more than I (do);' 'the longer we live, the more charitable we become.'

(4.) BELIEF and DISBELIEF. Phrases: With the highest certainty.' 'with great hesitation.' Clauses: If my life depended on it, I would maintain my opinion;' 'I am as certain as if I had seen it.'

(5.) CAUSE and EFFECT.

CAUSE. Phrases: By the action of the sun,' 'by force of kindness,' 'by the influence of the government.' Clauses: The crops are bad, because the spring was ungenial;' we lost the fight, because our numbers were reduced.' The conjunction because,' and its equivalents (inasmuch as, by reason that) are the connecting links in this kind of clause.

EFFECT. Phrases: To his own hurt,' 'with the highest success.' Clauses: 'He stood his ground, and therefore triumphed.'

(6.) MANNER generally. The phrases and combinations for this

ADJECTIVES AS ADVERBS.

purpose are innumerable. In a manful way,' &c. The clauses are introduced by the relative or connecting adverb 'as,' upon the same principle of comparison as that involved in degree. 'He behaved as if his all had been at stake;' he took such perusal of my face as he would draw me.'

18. Other parts of speech are occasionally used as adverbs.

Nouns: 'He goes to-morrow' (the morrow) (time) ' he sent the man home' (place); he cares not a groat (degree).

This is not an unfrequent usage. We may explain it by the abbreviation of the adverbial phrases, 'on the morrow,' 'to his house, or home,'' so much as a groat.' The word 'somewhat' is given as an example of a pronoun serving as an adverb: 'somewhat large.' (Scotticism, some,'—some hot.)

Adjectives; as drink deep,' 'the green trees whispered soft and low,' 'this looks strange,'' standing erect.' We have also examples of one adjective qualifying another adjective, as wide open,' 'red hot,' 'the pale blue sky. Sometimes the corresponding adverb is used, but with a different meaning, as I found the way easy-easily; it appears clear-clearly.' Although there is a propriety in the employment of the adjective in certain instances, yet such forms as indifferent well,' 'extreme bad,' are grammatical errors. 'He was interrogated relative to that circumstance,' should be relatively, or in relation to. It is not unusual to say 'I would have done it independent of that circumstance,' but independently is the proper

construction.

The employment of adjectives for adverbs is accounted for by the following considerations:

(1.) In the classical languages the neuter adjective may be used as an adverb, and the analogy would appear to have been extended to English.

(2.) In Anglo-Saxon, the adverb was often formed from the adjective, by adding 'e,' as soft, softe, which 'e,' being dropped, left the adverb in the adjective form; thus 'cloene,' adverb, became 'clean,' and appears in the phrase 'clean gone;' foeste, fast,' to stick fast.'

(3.) There are cases where the subject is qualified rather than the verb, as with verbs of incomplete predication, being,' 'seeming,' 'arriving,' &c. In the matter seems clear,'clear' is part of the. predicate of matter.' 'They arrived safe;' 'safe' does not qualify 'arrived,' but goes with it to complete the predicate. So he sat silent,' he stood firm.' 'It comes beautiful,' and 'it comes beautifully,' have different meanings. This explanation applies especially to the use of participles as adverbs, as in Southey's lines on Lodore; the participial epithets applied there are adjectives qualifying water,' and not adverbs qualifying 'came.' The church stood gleaming through the trees; gleaming' is the predicate of 'church,” and an

adjective regularly used.* Passing strange' is elliptical; 'passing (surpassing) what is strange.'

Verbs; as 'smack went the whip;' he let it go bang at the window;' a very rare usage.

Prepositions; as 'I told you that before.'

The following are familiar examples of prepositions employed as adverbs: before,'' after,'' since,' in,' up,' 'down.'

THE PREPOSITION.

1. A Preposition is a word placed before a noun, or its equivalents, to indicate a relation to something else; as the river runs to the sea,' 'the middle of the street,' 'a house for sale.'

In each of these examples there is a noun preceded by a preposition, and the effect is to unite the noun with the other words of the clause; the action of the river running' is made specific by saying that it is in the direction of the sea; the street' and 'middle' are coupled into one meaning by 'of;' the word 'sale' is introduced to be joined in meaning with house,' and 'for' is the uniting word.

The prepositions, therefore, like the pronouns, are called relational words. The part of speech that they are most liable to be confounded with is the conjunction. A good many of them also serve as adverbs, in which case they qualify verbs instead of governing a noun. 'He runs about the house' (preposition); he runs about' (adverb).

The prepositions are a class of words limited in number, but incessant in their application. The right use of them has a direct bearing on clearness and delicacy of style.

2. Certain Prepositions correspond to the case-endings of nouns in the classical languages; these are, of,'' to,' for,' from,' by,' 'with.'

3. OF' corresponds to the possessive case in English, and the genitive case in other languages.

As the possessive inflection is used only in a small number of nouns, and not uniformly in those, we are dependent on this preposition for conveying the meaning of the possessive case.

'Of' expresses a variety of relations, which may be traced up to a common source. The original import of the root was 'proceeding from,' which easily led to

เ

* Dr. Angus on the English language, art. 311.

CASE PREPOSITIONS.

the meaning now most generally signified, namely, belonging to.' For example, the force of the wind means a property proceeding from the wind, or manifested by it, and therefore inhering in it, or belonging to it.

Any complicated object may be considered as made up in two ways. A house has a foundation, walls, a roof, doors, windows, rooms, &c.; these are its parts, or mechanical divisions. Any one of these being specified, we signify that it belongs to the house by the preposition of the roof of the house.' This leads to the first use of the preposition.

(1.) 'Of' is used to relate the part of anything to the whole the wing of the eagle,' the walls of the town,' *the banks of the river.' This may be called the partitive meaning.

So we may say, 'the army of Britain,' the children of the family,' "the property of the corporation.' These are all separable parts of the wholes that they severally belong to.

A fraction or division of a total is expressed by 'of' on the same principle; a third of the proceeds;' few of the host survived;' a tithe of all he possessed;' one ninth of the remainder.' Hence the adjectives of fullness or want are naturally followed by of:' "full of compassion, of hope;' 'destitute of clothes, of money, of all things.'

But there is a second mode of conceiving a complex or concrete object, namely, as made up of properties, or attributes, inseparable from the object, except in thought. Thus we may speak of the length of a room, but we cannot cut off the length from the other dimensions and properties. We cannot separate the weight, the colour, the value, of gold from the rest of the qualities. These are called abstract qualities: they are spoken of in language, as inhering in the total, or the concrete; and when any one of them is specified, the preposition of' is the connecting word: as 'the sweetness of honey,' the shape of the mountain,' 'the colour of the snow.' This directs us to the second meaning of the preposition.

(2.) 'Of' is used to connect an abstract property, or quality, with the concrete; as the strength of the lion,' the lightness of air,' 'the temper of steel.' This may be called the attributive meaning.

These two meanings are simple and intelligible, being two modes of the same general idea of possession,' property, or belonging.' But we find other meanings apparently very remote from this leading idea.

(3.) 'Of' may serve to specify a subject or make a reference; as 'the Book of Proverbs.' Here Proverbs'

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