The Grammar of English Grammars eBook

Goold Brown
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,149 pages of information about The Grammar of English Grammars.

The Grammar of English Grammars eBook

Goold Brown
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,149 pages of information about The Grammar of English Grammars.
But when a clause or a sentence is the antecedent, it is better to consider the as a conjunction, and to supply the pronoun it, if the writer has not used it; as, “He is angry, as [it] appears by this letter.”  Horne Tooke says, “The truth is, that AS is also an article; and (however and whenever used in English) means the same as It, or That, or Which.”—­Diversions of Purley, Vol. i, p. 223.  But what definition he would give to "an article,” does not appear.

OBS. 10.—­In some examples, it seems questionable whether as ought to be reckoned a pronoun, or ought rather to be parsed as a conjunction after which a nominative is understood; as, “He then read the conditions as follow.”—­“The conditions are as follow.”—­Nutting’s Gram., p. 106.  “The principal evidences on which this assertion is grounded, are as follow.”—­Gurney’s Essays, p. 166.  “The Quiescent verbs are as follow.”—­Pike’s Heb.  Lex., p. 184.  “The other numbers are duplications of these, and proceed as follow”—­Dr. Murray’s Hist. of Lang., Vol. ii, p. 35.  “The most eminent of the kennel are bloodhounds, which lead the van, and are as follow.”—­Steele, Tattler, No. 62.  “His words are as follow.”—­Spect., No. 62.  “The words are as follow.”—­Addison, Spect., No. 513.  “The objections that are raised against it as a tragedy, are as follow.”—­Gay, Pref. to What d’ ye call it.  “The particulars are as follow.”—­Bucke’s Gram., p. 93.  “The principal interjections in English are as follow.”—­Ward’s Gram., p. 81.  In all these instances, one may suppose the final clause to mean, “as they here follow;”—­or, supposing as to be a pronoun, one may conceive it to mean, “such as follow.”  But some critical writers, it appears, prefer the singular verb, “as follows” Hear Campbell:  “When a verb is used impersonally, it ought undoubtedly to be in the singular number, whether the neuter pronoun be expressed or understood:  and when no nominative in the sentence can regularly be construed with the verb, it ought to be considered as impersonal.  For this reason, analogy as well as usage favour [say favours] this mode of expression, ’The conditions of the agreement were as follows;’ and not ‘as follow.’  A few late writers have inconsiderately adopted this last form through a mistake of the construction.  For the same reason we ought to say, ’I shall consider his censures so far only as concerns my friend’s conduct;’ and not ’so far as concern.’”—­Philosophy of Rhet., p. 229.  It is too much to say, at least of one of these sentences, that there is no nominative with which the plural verb can be regularly construed.  In the former, the word as may be said to be a plural nominative; or, if we will have this to be

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