INVERSION IN IMPERATIVE SENTENCES WITH THE SUBJECT EXPRESSED. 23. a) Inversion is regularly observed in imperative sentences with the subject expressed that contain a complex predicate with to do. (CH. I, 67, c.) See also JESPERSEN, PROGR., § 189, No. Lucy, do you watch! RIv., I, 2. He must want a secretary. He would be shy at an offer of one b) Usage is divided when to do is absent: in literary language we find the subject behind the predicate, in colloquial language before it. But proclitic or enclitic imperatives, such as mark you, mind you, look you, etc. regularly have inverted word-order. i. Laud ye the gods! H. E. GR., 316. Look thou to that. ib. Vex not thou the poet's mind | With thy shallow wit. TENNYSON, THE POET'S MIND. ii. Go, and do thou likewise. LUKE, X, 37. You let that dog alone! N. E. GR. § 1806. You take my advice: give him a pint of old ale before you start! Never you mind that, you give him a pint of old ale! ib., 237. Never you dare to darken my doorstep again! TRILBY, II, 60. iii. Mark you, in my opinion, though it is bad to be misunderstood, it is bad also to misunderstand. BALFOUR (TIMES). But, look you, Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's But there's such a thing as security, look you. SAM. TITM., Salaries alone, mind you! TIMES. ELEMENTS OF THE SENTENCES THAT MAY STAND BETWEEN THE SUBJECT AND THE PREDICATE. 24. Adnominal adjuncts or clauses modifying the subject. of course, take precedence of the predicate. Very soon after the promulgation of this celebrated act, the new bride of Philip, Anne of Austria, passed through the Netherlands, on her way to Madrid. MOTLEY, RISE, III, CH. V, 437a. The broad, clear river Neva, so beautiful in summer, covered with the shipping of all nations, and dotted with gay pleasure-boats, is then a sheet of ice, and becomes the fashionable drive, the most crowded part of the whole city. STOF, HANDL. I, 51. 25. Adverbial adjuncts or clauses, even when of great length and very numerous, are often placed between the subject and the predicate. STOF., HANDL., III, D, § 1. The sun, in midwinter, shines for only a short time on the golden domes of the churches. STOF., HANDL., I, 51. was Montigny accordingly, in a letter enclosed within a loaf of bread He at the same time and with equal propriety pointed out that there Except in poetry and in biblical language, objects are never found to stand between subject and predicate. BAIN, COMP., 300; N. E. GR., § 1820. God the traitor's hope confound! TENNYSON, HANDS ALL ROUND. BAIN, COMP., 300. A fair tale a might I tell you | Of Sigurd, who the dragon slew. Till death us do part. BooK OF COMMON PRAYER. With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my wordly goods I thee endow. ib. 27. Unharmonious is the placing of clauses or predicative adnominal adjuncts between a pronoun-subject and the predicate in subordinate clauses. Thus: Ik hoorde dat zij, zoodra haar taak af was, bij hem zou komen I was told that, as soon as her task should be finished, she would come to him. Ik ben bang dat ik, als vreemdeling, mijn eigen land te veel zou prijzen = I am afraid that, as a foreigner, I should overpraise my own country. EARLE (PHIL., § 374), however, writes: A survey of English nouns would indeed be deficient which should omit that curt, stunt, slang element to which we, as a nation, are so remarkably prone. THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE COMPONENT PARTS OF A COMPLEX PREDICATE. 28. When the predicate consists of more verbs than one, these are arranged thus: I have seen the show. I shall (may, will, etc.) see the show. I might (should, etc.) have seen the show. The show might (should, etc.) have been visited. This order is seldom departed from, even in poetry. SWEET, (N. E. GR. § 1828) mentions the following instance: A strong tyrant who invaded has our country. SPENSER. ELEMENTS OF THE SENTENCE THAT MAY STAND BETWEEN THE COMPONENT PARTS OF A COMPLEX PREDICATE. 29. The subject is placed after the finite verb of a complex predicate: a) mostly in sentences with the inverted word-order. Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, had the condition of the Puritans been so deplorable. MAC. High sparks of honour in thee have I found. N. E. GR., § 1814. But when the subject is accompanied by lengthy or numerous qualifiers, this arrangement would be inconvenient, and the whole predicate is placed before it. Dear is bought the honey that is licked off the thorn. HEREW., And so is fulfilled the story how the sheep-dog went out to be At the head of the preponderating party in the India House had long stood a powerful, able and ambitious director of the name of Sulivan. CLIVE, 527a. Thus also in sentences with weak there and to be in any of the compound senses. Has not there been a lodge near this gate? b) regularly in such sentences as have the verbal standing at the beginning. Yield he would not till he was killed outright. HEREW., CH. I, 14a. Tell him that fight I must and tell him that shrive me he must and that quickly too. ib., CH. III, 28a. Outlawed I shall be before the week is out. ib., CH. I, 13a. For die I shall. N. E. GR., § 1828. 30. Adverbial adjuncts are often placed between the members of a complex predicate, especially when they are considered as less important than the other elements of the sentence. (2.) If the predicate is composed of more than two verbs, we find such adverbial adjuncts mostly after the finite verb, sometimes before the last verb. (53, 57, 60, 63.) i. The country is by foreign invaders called Wallachia. EARLE, PHIL., § 7. ii. The revolt of Granada had at last, after a two years' struggle been subdued. MOTLEY, RISE, III, CH. VI, 457a. I should never have thought of that. N. E. GR., § 1846. iii. The map of Asia has been carefully revised according to the latest. information. TIMES. The offer had been gratefully accepted. ib. Sometimes these adverbial adjuncts are very lengthy and numerous. He had, at the age when the mind and body are in their highest perfection, and when the first effervescence of boyish passions had subsided, been recalled from his wanderings to wear a crown. STOF., HANDL., III, D, § 1. PLACE OF THE NOMINAL PART OF THE 31. As a rule we find the nominal part of the predicate in immediate succession to the copula. It is hot here. In after years he became a rich man. For further examples See Cн. I, 4, ff. In imperative sentences the nominal part of the predicate is sometimes found in front. Neither a borrower nor a lender be! HAML., I, 3, 75. 32. Adverbial sentence-modifiers are not seldom found between the copula and the nom. part of the pred., especially when they are of minor importance. The Jesuits were at the time in very bad odour in France. PEND., Laura saw with alarm that the dear friend became every year more He proved, however, unworthy of his practical partner. FOR HER PLACE OF OBJECTS. 33. The ordinary place of objects, save for the case when they have front-position, is immediately behind the verb or adjective to which they belong. Practically this comes to this, that the placing of adverbial adjuncts between predicate and object is avoided as much as possible. We saw your brother yesterday. Did you see my brother yesterday? We in England don't much like the swarming and rapidly increasing Ever judge of men by their professions. BROWN., SOUL'S TRAG., II. 34. a) When an adverbial adjunct is placed between the verb and its object, this is owing to its being subservient to the other elements of the sentence, especially to the object itself. (2.) Compare He heard again the language of his nursery to He heard it again. (N. E. GR., § 1845; STOF., HANDL., III, D, § 2.) Prepositional objects, bear separation better than non-prepositional, being less closely connected with the verb than the latter. i. He received from his hearers a great deal of applause. VAN. FAIR, We are still ready to consider favourably any reasonable proposal. The Russians had made of Sebastopol another Moscow. SH. HIST., We give this morning an abstract of the Army estimates of 1899–1900. |