WORDS KNOWN BY THEIR FUNCTIONS,
AND NOT BY THEIR INFLEXIONS.
1. The Oldest English. — When our language first came over to this
island, in the fifth century, our words possessed a large number of inflexions;
and a verb could be known from a noun, and an adjective from either, by the mere
look of it. Verbs had one kind of inflexion, nouns another, adjectives a
third; and it was almost impossible to confuse them. Thus, in O.E. (or
Anglo-Saxon) thunder, the verb, was thunrian—with the
ending an; but the noun was thunor, without any ending at all.
Then, in course of time, for many and various reasons, the English language
began to lose its inflexions; and they dropped off very rapidly between the 11th
and the 15th centuries, till, nowadays, we possess very few indeed.
2. Freedom given by absence
of Inflexions.—In the 16th century, when Shakespeare began to write, there
were very few inflexions; the language began to feel greater liberty, greater
ease in its movements; and a writer would use the same word sometimes as one
part of speech, and sometimes as another. Thus Shakespeare himself uses the
conjunction but both as a verb and as a noun, and makes one of his
characters say, “But
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me no buts!” He employs the
adverb askance as a verb, and says, “From their own misdeeds they askance
their eyes.” He has the adverb backward with the function of a noun, as
in the phrase “The backward and abyss of time.” Again, he gives us an adverb
doing the work of an adjective, as in the phrases “my often rumination,” “a
seldom pleasure.” In the same way, Shakespeare has the verbs “to glad” and “to
mad.” Very often he uses an adjective as a noun; and “a fair” is his phrase for
“beauty,”—“a pale” for “a paleness.” He carries this power of using one “part of
speech” for another to the most extraordinary lengths. He uses happy for
to make happy; unfair for to deface; to climate for to live; to
bench for to sit; to false for to falsify; to path for to
walk; to verse for to speak of in verse; and many others. Perhaps the
most remarkable is where he uses tongue for to talk of, and
brain for to think of. In “Cymbeline” he says:—
“ ’Tis still a dream; or else such stuff as madness
Will tongue, and brain not. . . .”
3. Absence of Inflexions.—At
the present time, we have lost almost all the inflexions we once had. We have
only one for the cases of the noun; none at all for ordinary adjectives (except
to mark degrees); a few in the pronoun; and a few in the verb. Hence we can use
a word sometimes as one part of speech, and sometimes as another. We can say,
“The boys had a good run;” and “The boys run very well.” We can say, “The train
travelled very fast,” where fast is an adverb, modifying travelled;
and we can speak of “a fast train.” We can use the phrase, “The very man,” where
very is an adjective marking man; and also the phrase “A very good
man,” where very is an adverb modifying the adjective good.
4. Function.—It follows
that, in the present state of our language, when we cannot know to what class a
word belongs by its look, we must settle the matter by asking ourselves
what is its function. We need not inquire what a word is; but we
must ask what it does. And just as a bar of iron may be used as a lever,
or as a crowbar, or as a poker, or as a hammer, or as
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a weapon, so a word may be
an adjective, or a noun, or a verb,—just as it is used.
5. Examples.—When we
say, “He gave a shilling for the book,” for is a preposition connecting
the noun book with the word gave. But when we say, “Let us assist
them, for our case is theirs,” the word for joins two sentences together,
and is hence a conjunction. In the same way, we can contrast early in the
proverb, “The early bird catches the worm,” and in the sentence “He rose early.”
Hard in the sentence “He works hard” is an adverb; in the phrase “A hard
stone” it is an adjective. Right is an adverb in the phrase “Right
reverend;” but an adjective in the sentence “That is not the right road.”
Back is an adverb in the sentence “He came back yesterday;” but a noun in
the sentence “He fell on his back.” Here is an adverb, and where
an adverbial conjunction; but in the line—
“Thou losest here, a better where to find,”
Shakespeare employs those
words as nouns. The, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, is an
adjective; but in such phrases as “The more, the merrier,” it is an adverb,
modifying merrier and more. Indeed, some words seem to exercise to
functions at the same time. Thus Tennyson has—
“Slow and sure comes up the golden year,”—
where slow and sure
may either be adverbs modifying comes, or adjectives marking year;
or both. This is also the case with the participle, which is both an adjective
and a verb; and with the gerund, which is both a verb and a noun.
6. Function or Form?—From
all this it appears that we are not merely to look at a the form of the word, we
are not merely to notice and observe; but we must think—we must
ask ourselves what the word does, what is its function? In
other words, we must always—when trying to settle the class to which a word
belongs—ask ourselves two questions—
(i) What
other word does it go with? and
(ii) What
does it do to that word?
