which constitutes the chief point of the First Method of Analysis above, is not always plain, even to the learned. The definitions and examples which I have given, will make it generally so; and, where it is otherwise, the question or puzzle, it is presumed, cannot often be of much practical importance. If the difference be not obvious, it can hardly be a momentous error, to mistake a phrase for an elliptical clause, or to call such a clause a phrase.
OBS. 2.--The Second Method above is, I think, easier of application than any of the rest; and, if other analysis than the regular method of parsing seem desirable, this will probably be found as useful as any. There is, in many of our popular grammars, some recognition of the principles of this analysis--some mention of "the principal parts of a sentence," in accordance with what are so called above,--and also, in a few, some succinct account of the parts called "adjuncts;" but there seems to have been no prevalent practice of applying these principles, in any stated or well-digested manner. Lowth, Murray, Alger, W. Allen, Hart, Hiley, Ingersoll, Wells, and others, tell of these "PRINCIPAL PARTS;"--Lowth calling them, "the agent, the attribute, and the object;" (Gram., p. 72;)--Murray, and his copyists, Alger, Ingersoll, and others, calling them, "the subject, the attribute, and the object;"--Hiley and Hart calling them, "the subject or nominative, the attribute or verb, and the object;"--Allen calling them, "the nominative, the verb, and (if the verb is active,) the accusative governed by the verb;" and also saying, "The nominative is sometimes called the subject; the verb, the attribute; and the accusative, the object;"--Wells calling them, "the subject or nominative, the verb, and the object;" and also recognizing the "adjuncts," as a species which "embraces all the words of a simple sentence [,] except the principal parts;"--yet not more than two of them all appearing to have taken any thought, and they but little, about the formal application of their common doctrine. In Allen's English Grammar, which is one of the best, and likewise in Wells's, which is equally prized, this reduction of all connected words, or parts of speech, into "the principal parts" and "the adjuncts," is fully recognized; the adjuncts, too, are discriminated by Allen, as "either primary or secondary," nor are their more particular species or relations overlooked; but I find no method prescribed for the analysis intended, except what Wells adopted in his early editions but has since changed to an other or abandoned, and no other allusion to it by, Allen, than this Note, which, with some appearance of intrusion, is appended to his "Method of Parsing the Infinitive Mood:"--"The pupil may now begin to analyse [analyze] the sentences, by distinguishing the principal words and their adjuncts."--W. Allen's E. Gram., p. 258.
OBS. 3.--These authors in general, and many more, tell us, with some variation of words, that the agent, subject, or nominative, is that of which something is said, affirmed, or denied; that the attribute, verb, or predicate, is that which is said, affirmed, or denied, of the subject; and that the object, accusative, or case sequent, is that which is introduced by the finite verb, or affected by the action affirmed. Lowth says, "In English the nominative case, denoting the agent, usually goes before the verb, or attribution; and the objective case, denoting the object, follows the verb active."--Short Introd., p. 72. Murray copies, but not literally, thus: "The nominative denotes the subject, and usually goes before the verb [,] or attribute; and the word or phrase, denoting the object, follows the verb: as, 'A wise man governs his passions.' Here, a wise man is the subject; governs, the attribute, or thing affirmed; and his passions, the object."--Murray's Octavo, p. 142; Duodecimo, 116. To include thus the adjuncts with their principals, as the logicians do, is here manifestly improper; because it unites what the grammatical analyzer is chiefly concerned to separate, and tends to defeat the main purpose for which "THE PRINCIPAL PARTS" are so named and distinguished.
OBS. 4.--The Third Method of Analysis, described above, is an attempt very briefly to epitomize the chief elements of a great scheme,--to give, in a nutshell, the substance of what our grammarians have borrowed from the logicians, then mixed with something of their own, next amplified with small details, and, in some instances, branched out and extended to enormous bulk and length. Of course, they have not failed to set forth the comparative merits of this scheme in a sufficiently favourable light. The two ingenious gentlemen who seem to have been chiefly instrumental in making it popular, say in their preface, "The rules of syntax contained in this work result directly from the analysis of propositions, and of compound sentences; and for this reason the student should make himself perfectly familiar with the sections relating to subject and predicate, and should be able readily to analyze sentences, whether simple or compound, and to explain their structure and connection. * * * This exercise should always precede the more minute and subsidiary labor of parsing. If the latter be conducted, as it often is, independently of previous analysis, the principal advantage to be derived from the study of language, as an intellectual exercise, will inevitably be lost."--Latin Grammar of Andrews and Stoddard, p. vi. N. Butler, who bestows upon this subject about a dozen duodecimo pages, says in his preface, "The rules for the analysis of sentences, which is a very useful and interesting exercise, have been taken from Andrews' and Stoddard's Latin Grammar, some changes and additions being made."--Butler's Practical Gram., p. iv.[332]
