more important than any other phase of grammar study, and for three reasons: I. it is a study of thought, and as such must discipline the mind; 2. it trains the student through practice, which is the most effective way, to interpret the thought of others; 3. by presenting to him the best models for imitation, it aids him in communicating clearly his own thoughts. Believing this, and knowing from much experience that not until students have examined the structure of sentences in relation to the thought embodied, do they have any vital or useful knowledge of etymology and syntax, I have long thought that a book was needed which should deal only with the analysis of sentences, the culminating phase of grammar study, for which all previous work is a preparation. The book that I have prepared is not intended to supplant any text-book in grammar, but rather to provide for a profitable continuation of grammarstudy in high schools and normal schools. It is based upon the English sentence as it has been written during the present century. No attempt has been made to criticize any form or variation of sentence structure. Instead, sentences are examined as they have been constructed by reputable authors, with a view to determining the adequacy of their structure to the communication of thought. My highest aim and my sincerest hope have been to present worthy matter in such a way as to require and stimulate good thinking on the part of students, and to make them marvel and rejoice at the perfect adaptability of the English sentence to the noble burden that it bears, that of communicating thought. OSHKOSH, WIS., May, 1900. L. G. K. IV. The Classification of Sentences according to Form VIII. Analysis of Sentences containing Noun Clauses IX. The Adverbial Clause of Time X. The Adverbial Clause of Place The Adverbial Clause of Manner XII. The Analysis of Sentences XIII. The Adverbial Clause of Cause '. XIV. Clauses of Purpose and Result XV. The Adverbial Clause of Condition. XVI. The Adverbial Clause of Concession THE STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH SENTENCE CHAPTER I THE PROPOSITION In the mind of every human being there are innumerable ideas, or mental pictures, gathered from previous experience. Whenever we perceive a relation between any two of these ideas, we form a judgment, or, in other words, have a thought. If we wish to communicate our thought we ordinarily express it in words, and this verbal expression of a thought we call a sentence. For example, I have an idea of children and an idea of the activity called play; I see a relation between them, that of agent and thing done; I affirm this relation, and have the sentence, Children play. Or I detect a relation between flower and whiteness, and say, The flower is white. Or I fail to establish such a relation and so deny the former statement by saying, The flower is not white. In each case my sentence serves the great purpose of communicating thought; and it does this by calling up in the mind of the reader the same combination of ideas that exists in my mind. Another name for sentences like those just formed, is proposition, a proposition being the expression of one thought. But since a proposition is the statement of a judgment, it must contain two ideas. One of these, de noting that of which something is asserted, we call the subject; the other, denoting what is said of the subject, we call the predicate. The relation between these two ideas cannot always be expressed by means of two words. If we wish to assert a relation between water and freshness, we must use at least three words, Water is fresh; the word is contains little, if any, meaning, but is necessary for the grammatical expression of the thought. Although a proposition must contain at least two ideas, it may contain any number of them. For example, I may expand the proposition, Children play, by additional ideas, telling (1) whose children, (2) a characteristic of the children, (3) what they play, (4) where they play, (5) when they play, My neighbor's little children play hide and seek in their yard every evening. Still I have only one proposition, for the number of propositions in a sentence depends on the number of judgments, or thoughts, expressed, in other words, on the number of assertions made; and here there is but one, that made essentially by the verb play. All sentences, however, are not single propositions, for in building sentences we often go a step further than seeing the relation between ideas, that is, we see the relation between thoughts; and so, instead of combining mere words, we combine whole propositions into one sentence. Take, for example, the two propositions, Children play, and Children enjoy play. I may see that the second fact is a cause of the first, and, by combining the two so as to bring out this relation of cause and effect, get the sentence, Children play because they enjoy it, wherein I substitute the pronouns they and it for the already known words children and play. |