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.

OBS. 7.—­The Pronominal Adjectives are comparatively very few; but frequency of use gives them great importance in grammar.  The following words are perhaps all that properly belong to this class, and several of these are much oftener something else:  All, any, both, certain, divers, each, either, else, enough, every, few, fewer, fewest, former, first, latter, last, little, less, least, many, more, most, much, neither, no or none, one, other, own, only, same, several, some, such, sundry, that, this, these, those, what, whatever, whatsoever, which, whichever, whichsoever.[172] Of these forty-six words, seven are always singular, if the word one is not an exception; namely, each, either, every, neither, one, that, this:  and nine or ten others are always plural, if the word many is not an exception; namely, both, divers, few, fewer, fewest, many, several, sundry, these, those.  All the rest, like our common adjectives, are applicable to nouns of either number. Else, every, only, no, and none, are definitive words, which I have thought proper to call pronominal adjectives, though only the last can now with propriety be made to represent its noun understood.  “Nor has Vossius, or any else that I know of, observed it.”—­Johnson’s Gram.  Com., p. 279.  Say, “or any one else.”  Dr. Webster explains this word else thus:  “ELSE, a. or pron. [Sax. elles] Other; one or something beside; as, Who else is coming?”—­Octavo Dict. “Each and every of them,” is an old phrase in which every is used pronominally, or with ellipsis of the word to which it refers; but, in common discourse, we now say, every one, every man, &c., never using the word every alone to suggest its noun. Only is perhaps most commonly an adverb; but it is still in frequent use as an adjective; and in old books we sometimes find an ellipsis of the noun to which it belongs; as, “Neither are they the only [verbs] in which it is read.”—­Johnson’s Grammatical Commentaries, p. 373.  “But I think he is the only [one] of these Authors.”—­Ib., p. 193. No and none seem to be only different forms of the same adjective; the former being used before a noun expressed, and the latter when the noun is understood, or not placed after the adjective; as, “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.”—­Romans, xiv, 7. None was anciently used for no before all words beginning with a vowel sound; as, “They are sottish children; and they have none understanding.”—­Jeremiah, iv, 22.  This practice is now obsolete. None is still used, when its noun precedes it; as,

   “Fools! who from hence into the notion fall,
    That vice or virtue there is none at all.”—­Pope.

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The Grammar of English Grammars from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.