Grammar and style

Though problems of style as such are outside the scope of this book, some remarks concerning the stylistic value of grammatical categories and grammatical elements may prove appropriate to a thorough study of English grammatical structure.

From the stylistic viewpoint, it should first of all be noted that some grammatical categories and phenomena are neutral while others are not. To be more explicit, this means that some grammatical phenomena may appear in any sort of speech, whether oral or written, whether solemn or vulgar, etc., without in any way conflicting with the stylistic colouring of the text, whatever it may happen to be. Other grammatical phenomena, on the other hand, have a distinct stylistic colouring and will produce an effect of inappropriateness if applied outside their stylistic sphere.

To illustrate this general statement, we might say that the past indefinite tense is devoid of any stylistic colouring, it is stylistically neutral and it appears both in a solemn hymn and in a street song, and indeed in any kind of text without any exception whatsoever. On the other hand, the so-called absolute construction, as in the sentence She picked up a large split-oak basket and started down, the back stairs, each step jouncing her head until her spine seemed to be trying to crash through the top of her skull (M. MITCHELL) has a distinctly literary flavour. Constructions of this kind are not used in colloquial speech and if, say, an author were to put a construction of this kind into the mouth of a character in a comedy of modern English life, it would sound singularly inappropriate. To take a different example: the forms of the personal pronouns him, her, us, them, used in the function of a predicative after the subject it and the link verb is, or was, have a very distinct low colloquial tinge, and they would be completely inappropriate in a literary, still more so in a solemn context. A sentence like It was them that did it has that peculiar stylistic colouring which creates a certain atmosphere, even if nothing preceded that sentence (for example, if it were the opening sentence of some short story). All this has to be reckoned with in characterising the grammatical resources of the Modern English language.

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We will now give a brief survey of the grammatical categories and the grammatical phenomena which bear (or tend to bear) some kind of stylistic colouring or other, first those of morphology, then those of syntax.

Morphology

In the sphere of nouns there is not much to be noted in the way of stylistic colouring.

In a very few cases where a noun has alternative plural forms, the irregular form (the one not in -s) naturally tends to have a high-flown, archaic, or poetic flavour. The very fact that there exists a plural form in -s alongside of it gives the other form the character of something unusual and restricted in use to special purposes. The only two words that have to be mentioned in this connection are, brother with its alternative plural form brethren differing from brothers not in stylistic colouring alone, and cow, with its alternative plural form kine having a very strong archaic and poetic tinge.

In the sphere of case it can be noted that the genitive in -'s tends to acquire a specific stylistic flavour when formed from a noun not denoting a living being. As a rule the of -phrase is used to express relation between the thing denoted by the noun and that denoted by another noun. For instance, if this sort of relation has to be expressed between England and history, the usual, stylistically neutral way of expressing it is to say the history of England, and this, indeed, is the title, for instance, of most textbooks on the subject. But alongside of it the variant England's history is also permissible. It has a poetic and possibly patriotic shade about it and it will do very well in an emotional context, but would be out of place in a strictly scientific one.

The exact sphere of nouns whose forms in -'s tend to acquire such a peculiar stylistic character is however extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define, as the forms in -'s tend to spread in recent times, as we noted in our chapter on case (see p. 43). Much concrete observation and analysis is necessary before anything more definite can be said on the subject.

There is little to be said about adjectives, too, which have only degrees of comparison as a morphological characteristic.

What matters here is the stylistic colouring of degrees of comparison in -er, -est of such adjectives as do not usually possess such forms. Where such forms do appear they tend to have a peculiar solemn stylistic quality which would make them unfit for any other context. The English nineteenth-century writer and philosopher Thomas Carlyle would use a superlative in -est of two-syllable

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adjectives derived from present participles in -ing, as will be seen from the following example: With unabated bounty the land of England blooms and grows. Waving with yellow harvests, thick-studded with workshops, industrial implements, with fifteen millions of workers, understood to be the strongest, the cunningest and the willingest our Earth ever had... Neither of these forms occur in ordinary style: the analytic formations most cunning, most willing, etc. would be used instead.

In the sphere of pronouns, there is the use of the forms I or me, etc., which we have already considered in Chapter VI, and we need not dwell on it here.

Another point to be noted about pronouns in the morphological way is the form 'em in sentences like I'll show 'em alongside of I'll show them. Strictly speaking this is a morphological point if we consider 'em to be a different form, not merely a phonetically weakened variant of them. If we take it that way we will state that the morphological variant 'em for the objective case of the third person plural personal pronoun has a definite stylistic colouring of low colloquial style. It would be, for instance, entirely out of place in a serious scientific treatise. It is, however, quite appropriate in reproducing low colloquial (and possibly vulgar) speech.

The main bulk of stylistic remarks in the sphere of morphology belongs of course to the verb. There are a considerable number of details here which point to a peculiar stylistic colouring, either solemn and archaic, or low colloquial and eventually vulgar.

The first to be noted are the forms in -th for the third person singular, present indicative, that is, forms like liveth, knoweth, saith, doth, hath, etc. These have acquired (since the 17th century) a definite archaic and poetical flavour and cannot accordingly be used in any other, or in any neutral stylistic surroundings. Examples of their use in modern texts are rare indeed.

The same stylistic colouring as with the -th- formsis also inherent in forms in -st for the second person singular of both the present and the past indicative (that is, the forms livest, knowest, sayst, dost, livedst, knewest, saidst, didst, hadst, etc.) and also the forms shalt, wilt, art, wert (or wast) of the verbs shall, will, be. These forms are practically inseparable from the second person singular personal pronoun thou. In every other respect the - st -forms of the second person are exactly similar to the -th- formsof the third. They are quite rare in Modern English.

These, then, are forms which may, generally speaking, be derived from every verb.

The other forms with special stylistic colouring belong to definite individual verbs only, though some of them, belonging to verbs which are or may be auxiliary, can accordingly be brought into the system of all verbs which use the auxiliary.

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Here we must first of all mention the form ain't pronounced [eint], or ain [ein] of the verb be, corresponding to the forms am not, is not, and are not of the stylistically neutral set. The essence of all of them is, of course, that the combination of a verb form with the negative particle not differs from the same form without the particle. The difference between am not, is not, and are not is in these cases neutralised. So this whole question also has some bearing on the categories of person and number in the verb be. The stylistic tinge of the form ain't is a very definite one: it is low colloquial with a clear tendency towards vulgarity, and of course it would be inadmissible in any serious literary style. Here are some examples: The house aint worth livin in since you left it Candy. (SHAW, Burgess's speech in " Candida") Our quarrel's made up now, ain it? (Idem) James and me is come to a nunnerstanding — a honorable unnerstandin. Ain we, James? (Idem)

A similar stylistic character attaches to the forms has, is, and was for the plural, e. g. Yes: limes 'as changed mor 'n I could a believed. (Idem ) I hused to wonder you was let preach at all. (Idem)

As the verb be is an auxiliary of the continuous aspect and of the passive voice, the form ain't can accordingly appear in every verb possessing either of these categories, or both, e. g. Ope you ain't lettin James put no foolish ideas into your ed? (Idem)

Besides, a certain number of verbs have, alongside of their normal and neutral forms, some special ones, differing from the usual by a distinct archaic or solemn colouring, e. g. spake for spoke (past tense of the verb speak); throve for thrived (past tense of the verb thrive); bare for bore (past tense of the verb bear).

In the opposite way, there are some forms having at present a very distinct vulgar or illiterate stylistic character and only used in writing to characterise an illiterate speaker. They are forms of the past tense and second participle on -ed of verbs regularly deriving these forms by ablaut (vowel change) or by adding the -n-suffix for the second participle, e. g. seed for saw (past tense) or seen (second participle of the verb see); knowed for knew (past tense) or known (second participle of the verb know). These forms are distinctly illiterate and in this they differ from the form ain't, for instance, which is somehow within the standard, though certainly at the lowest level of it.

It would seem that no verb has archaic and vulgar variants at the same time, that is, no verb has three variants: the normal one, an archaic one, and an illiterate one. For instance, the verb speak has an archaic variant spake for its past tense spoke but it has no illiterate variant; on the other hand, the verb see has an illiterate variant seed for its past tense saw but it has no archaic variant, etc.

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Some peculiarities in the sphere of stylistically coloured verb forms should also be noted in American English. The chief of these concerns forms of the present perfect tense. In low colloquial American style there is a very clear tendency to drop the auxiliary have (has) in the present perfect, so that only the second participle remains. Now, if the second participle is homonymous with the past tense, as is the case with most verbs, the result of the omission is a form not to be distinguished from the past tense, for instance, I have found > I found. If, however, the second participle is not homonymous with the past tense, the result of omitting the auxiliary is a new form, not coinciding with the usual past tense: I have taken > I taken, he has written > he written, etc. We may see this in the following quotation from an American author representing low colloquial speech: I been around to see her a coupla times since then, only Esta didn't want me to say anything about that either. (DREISER)

However, such forms may also be found in England, e. g. James: three year ago, you done me a hill turn. You done me hout of a contrac. (SHAW, Burgess's speech)

H. L. Mencken, the author of the well-known book, " The American language" (first published in 1919), treats such forms as I taken, he written as a past tense. He also asserts that with the auxiliary have preserved, the form of the second participle is took, wrote, etc., so that the British paradigms take, took, taken; write, wrote, written correspond to the American take, taken, took; write, written, wrote, and gives a list of irregular verbs arranged in this way. ¹ Mencken's view appears to be an exaggeration not borne out by American narrative and dramatic literature. I taken is common enough in American colloquial style, but I have took does not appear to be so.

It is clear that forms like I taken have a stylistic tinge but their peculiarity is that they hardly appear outside the USA.

This is about all that can be said about stylistic values of morphological forms in present-day English.

Syntax

In the sphere of syntax we have to look for syntactical synonyms differing from each other by their stylistic colouring. We may look for two sets of cases: (1) each of the two syntactical synonyms has a peculiar stylistic colouring of its own, (2) of two syntactical synonyms one is stylistically neutral, that is, it may appear in every sort of style, while the other has a distinct stylistic colouring, that is to say, its use is limited to definite stylistic conditions.

¹ See H. L. Mencken, The American Language, 3rd ed., 1929, pp. 279—283.

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The first of these sets of cases can hardly be frequent, since it would imply that there is no neutral syntactical means available to express the idea in question.

As a rare example of the first kind we can point to the variants It is I and It is me. The difference between them is certainly one of style, and it seems that neither of them is really neutral stylistically. It is me has a very clear colloquial colouring, while It is I is stiff and formal. This of course is a state of affairs due to a historical development in the course of which It is me has been steadily gaming ground, and most probably it will in a near future lose that specific colouring of colloquial style, and become the normal, that is, the stylistically neutral variant, while It is I will be relegated to a distinctly archaic sphere.

Far more numerous are the cases when one of a pair of syntactical synonyms has a specific stylistic colouring while the other is stylistically neutral. This is the case, for example, with the absolute construction and its synonyms — subordinate adverbial clauses of time or cause. The absolute construction has practically always — with very few exceptions, phraseological units like all things considered, or weather permitting — a distinctly literary or even bookish character.

A distinctly literary or bookish colouring also attaches to non-defining attributive clauses. For instance, the following sentence would not be possible in colloquial style: Cathleen Calvert, who came out of the house at the sound of voices, met Scarlett's eyes above her brother's head and in them Scarlett read knowledge and bitter despair. (M. MITCHELL)

These notes on the stylistic values of some grammatical facts are no more than hints. They are meant to suggest that alongside of grammatical phenomena that are indifferent to style there are some which have a distinct stylistic colouring and are decidedly inappropriate outside a certain stylistic sphere. This is most essential both from a purely theoretical viewpoint and from the viewpoint of teaching the language to foreigners. A bookish grammatical construction appearing in a colloquial context, though " grammatically correct", is as serious an error against English usage as a mistake in grammatical construction. This should especially be remembered in giving exercises of the kind providing for changing one construction into another (such as replacing a subordinate clause by an absolute construction, and the like).

In this book we have considered a number of problems presented by the grammatical structure of Modern English. In doing so we have applied certain methods developed by modern linguistics, which allow of a more exact analysis and evaluation of lan-

360 Conclusion

guage facts and reduce the sphere of subjective opinions incompatible with one another and admitting of no proof.

In this connection it has proved essential to distinguish as carefully as possible between two kinds of problems. On the one hand there are those which admit of a definite solution, so that an answer to the problem can be found and the problem need not be reconsidered unless and until some new facts emerge which may necessitate a change in the solution. On the other hand, there are the problems which, as far as we can see, do not admit of such a solution, but must remain a field of differing opinions, with the solution depending on a student's basic views of language phenomena in general, or of some narrower language sphere in particular. Some of the latter problems had better be abandoned altogether, since they offer no ground for any truly scientific analysis and only give rise to useless and unpromising dispute. Some of the problems connected with parts of a sentence clearly belong here: a typical example is the so-called problem as to whether a word or phrase accompanying a noun can be an object or must always be an attribute.

It is no use whatever to discuss such problems: the right way to deal with them is to adopt a certain definition (for example, a word or phrase accompanying a noun is termed an attribute) and then act according to the definition accepted. But there are other problems belonging to this category of doubtful cases, which cannot and should not be discarded. Among these is, for example, the problem of the category of voice, which has been causing lively discussion for a considerable length of time. We can by no means say that it has been solved, but in fact it deserves close attention, and its solution may be brought nearer by careful application of more exact and objective methods. It is essential for a student of English to bear in mind these various aspects of linguistic study, if a right perspective of this study is not to be lost sight of.

Another essential point to emerge from a careful scientific study of English grammatical structure is, the necessity of a very concrete approach to the individual structure of this one language, whose structure, such as it is, is probably not to be found in any other language on the globe. This fact tends sometimes to be obscured by a somewhat superficial application of the notions of " synthetic structure", " analytical structure", and the like. It is of course quite right to say that Modern English is a language mainly analytical in its structure but this general statement, true as it is, does not give us any clue to particular questions of grammatical structure, and it cannot replace careful study of these particular questions.

We may as well illustrate this point by an example or two. Both Modern English and Modern French are analytical languages, and that statement is certainly true. But it does not include some essential points of difference between the two languages. Thus, in

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Modern English, adjectives have neither distinctions of gender nor any of number: for instance, the form fine, as it is, will do for all cases. Now, in Modern French, though also an analytical language, adjectives do have those categories, so that here we distinguish between four separate forms: masculine singular fin, masculine plural fins, feminine singular fine, feminine plural fines. Another point of difference between the two languages: English has only analytical forms for the future tenses (shall write, shall have written, shall be writing, shall have been writing in the active voice), while French, analytical as it is, has one synthetic future tense (é crirai) and one analytical (aurai é crit). The same may be said about forms expressing unreal action (whatever terms we may prefer to denote them): English has only analytical forms here (should write, should have written, should be writing, should have been writing in the active voice), whereas French has one synthetic form (é crirais) and one analytical (aurais é crit).

Similar caution is required when comparing English', a language basically analytical, with Russian, a language basically synthetic. These characteristics, though essentially true, should not be pressed too close.

In concluding our survey of English grammatical structure, we shall do well to emphasise that there remains much to be investigated in the future. To say nothing of the theory of phrases, which is still in its infancy, even those parts of grammar which have been studied for a hundred years or more present a number of unsolved problems where much energy and patient effort will have to be applied. The new methods aiming at a more exact and objective study of language facts should enable scholars to overcome outdated ideas and prejudices, which often constitute a formidable obstacle in the way of fundamental scientific research work, and further a complete and unbiassed view of Modern English grammatical structure as it presents itself to-day and as it tends to develop in the foreseeable future,