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Co-ordinate Sentence replaced by Adverbial Clause

(Imperative)

of Condition.

449. Be diligent, and you will succeed'='Iƒ you be diligent, you will succeed.'

Waste not, want not'=' If you do not waste, you will not want.'

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The Imperative gives the condition of the second statement with emphatic directness. The Conditional Clause is comparatively pithless; perhaps, in some measure, because, when the imperative form is present, the condition may also be implied (though not formally stated) after 'and.' Thus: Be diligent, and (if you be diligent) you will succeed'; 'waste not, and (if you do not waste) you will not want.' In this way, the form with the Imperative seems to give the condition twice, first as a direct bidding, and then as an implied qualification.

EXERCISE 378.

1. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 2. Hear, and your soul shall live. 3. Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest. 4. Advance another step, and thou art a dead man.

5. I will be satisfied: deny me this,

And an eternal curse fall on you!

7. Save him,

6. Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man. and I will reward you richly. 8. Satisfy me in this, and I am instantly at your command. 9. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10. Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves.

450. 'Testify instantly to the truth, or thy head shall be severed from thy body'=' If thou do not testify—unless (or except) thou testify-instantly to the truth, thy head shall be severed from thy body.'

'Listen to him, yet hesitate to trust him' = Though you listen to him, (yet) hesitate to trust

him.'

The substitution of the Adverbial clause is a great weakening of the force of the Imperative sentence. Indeed, it may be considered that the force of the adverbial clause is implied in the Adversative Conjunction. Thus: "Testify instantly to the truth; if thou do not testify instantly to the truth, thy head shall be severed from thy body': 'Listen to him; though you do so, hesitate to trust him.'

272

INTERROGATIVE INTO ADVERBIAL CLAUSE.

1.

EXERCISE 379.

Revoke thy gift;

Or, whilst I can vent clamour from thy throat,

I'll tell thee thou dost evil.

2. I was very ill, otherwise I should have been present. 3. He must be connected with the robbery, else how should he have been there? 4. I don't pretend to be a good fellow, but I'm not a scoundrel.

5.

Get thee to church o' Thursday,

Or never after look me in the face. 6. Give me children, or else I die. 7. Be confident, yet be cautious. 8. Unhand me, base peasant, or thou diest on the spot. 9. He has tried and failed; still he will try again.

10.

Look your faith be firm,
Or else his head's assurance is but frail.

Co-ordinate Sentence

(Interrogative)

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451. Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings'' If thou see a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings.'

Do I see this and live?''Though I see this, do I yet live?'—'Do I live after I have seen this?'

EXERCISE 380.

1. Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for thee. 3. Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? there is more hope of a fool than of him. 3. Is any one hungry, let him come to Amir, and he will be fed; is he persecuted, let him fly to Amir, and he will be protected. 4. Ärt thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife, seek not a wife. 5. Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church. 6. Is there any one among you whom I have stricken; here is my back, let him strike me in return. Is there any one whose character I have aspersed ; let him now cast reproach upon me. Is there any one from whom I have taken aught unjustly; let him now come forward and be indemnified. 7. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burnt? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burnt? 8. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

SECOND PART.

ELLIPSIS AND PLEONASM.

452. ELLIPSIS is the leaving out of some part of the complete expression of the meaning. The omitted portion may have just been expressed, and therefore need not be formally repeated; or, it may be readily understood and mentally supplied, owing to the commonness of the form : it is usually dropped in obedience to the general tendency to shortness of statement.

Our examples of Interchange of Forms, including all except the very rarest cases, have necessarily shown by anticipation a considerable amount of ellipsis. Besides such instances, systematic exemplification is fully justified by the importance of the subject. Ellipsis exercises very weighty influence upon the forms of language, sometimes for shortness and avoidance of needless repetition, and again for obscurity, and even for error. The restoration of the full form is necessary in accounting for every elliptical usage, and, it does good service in the explanation of constructions that at first sight appear to be anomalous.

PLEONASM, on the other hand, is the putting in of something not necessary to the full expression. This formally needless repetition is mostly due to the desire for rhetorical effect.

T

ELLIPSIS.

CHAPTER XV.

THE SIMPLE SENTENCE,

I. ELLIPSIS in NOUN POSITIONS.

Noun left out after Adjective.

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453. The omission of the Noun after an Adjective is one of the most common cases of ellipsis. In selecting a particular class from the general community, we regularly leave out the noun; whence such expressions as the brave,' the virtuous,'' the wicked, the selfish,' are sometimes treated as nouns. 'The sublime,' 'the beautiful,' 'the true,' and suchlike, are very little removed from the corresponding abstract nouns-sublimity,' 'beauty,' 'truth,' &c. Many adjectives are more or less fully adopted as nouns, taking the noun inflections: 'Send copies of your testimonials, not the originals,' for the original (testimonial)s'; 'on all fours' is 'on all four (limb)s, (extremitie)s.' Pronominal Adjectives and Adjectives of Quantity (Mass and Number) very often appear without the support of nouns, and in many of such cases they may reasonably be regarded as Pronouns: 'this,'' that,' 'some,' any,' 'the former,' &c.

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454. The rich are not always happy.' The real subject is not expressed: The rich people (persons, &c.) are not always happy.' We might

also regard the complement adjective as a fragmentary expression, the full form being 'happy people, persons, &c.'

We know not the future': 'the future time, course of events, &c.'

'Both are in error.'

That is, 'Both parties, dis

putants, &c.'

EXERCISE 381.

1. How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!

2. The future shall obliterate the past. 3. Yonder is turf of the brightest green. 4. Memories of the past mingle with the pictures of the present. 5. The most careless looked serious. 6. He has exerted himself to the utmost. 7. The crooked shall be made straight. 8. Several of the palace towers were toppled to the earth. 9. This fund is the property of the lame, the blind, the aged, and the infirm. 10. 'Tis but the living who are dumb. 11. One or two of these were actual fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were reckless. 12. None but the brave deserve the fair.

13. To each his sufferings: all are men,

Condemn'd alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,
Th' unfeeling for his own.

EXERCISE 382.

1. It is a true brilliant. 2. He always goes to extremes. 3. Discrimination is an essential of intelligence. 4. The galaxy appeared in its most beautiful white. 5. The failures of the past prepare the triumphs of the future. 6. Few, few shall part where many meet. 7. I resolved to compare the accounts of my two friends, allowing for the prejudices of each, and to form my judgment upon both without adhering to either.

Waves bordered deep with white; the first grey of morning; the military, the wretched, the besieged, the conquered; an incapable, an innocent, a rustic, a black; the deep, the main, the exterior, the interior; the wild, the melancholy, and the wonderful-the picturesque, the beautiful, and the sublime; in vain, in brief, in few, in short, in secret, on high, at present, of late, in public.

Milton has many examples like these: Heaven's azure, hell's concave, Heaven's first-born, the palpable obscure, the vast abrupt, this huge convex of fire, the void profound.

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