PART I.

SENTENCE-MAKING.

SECTION FIRST.

SIMPLE SENTENCES.

Composition is the art of arranging our thoughts, and expressing them in appropriate language.

All thoughts are expressed by means of Sentences. The formation of Sentences is therefore the first step in Composition.

The Simple Sentence is the basis of composition, and the foundation of all other sentences. It is so called because it is the expression of a single thought, and contains only one Subject and one Predicate.

All other sentences are merely combinations of Simple Sentences. They must therefore contain two or more Subjects, and two or more Predicates.

The Subject in every Simple Sentence is that of which something is affirmed; the Predicate is that which is affirmed of the Subject.

In the first example we have the simplest form of the Subject and Predicate; in the other three, we have expanded forms.

The Object.-When the Predicate contains a transitive verb, it can be subdivided into Predicate and Object. Thus:

The Subject of a Simple Sentence may be either (1) a Noun, (2) a Pronoun, (3) an Adjective used as a noun, (4) an Infinitive, or (5) a Participle. Thus:

(1) Procrastination is the thief of time.-YOUNG. (2) He taught us how to live and how to die.-TICKELL (of Addison). (3) The upright shall prosper. (4) To suppress the truth may be a duty to others; never to utter a falsehood is a duty to ourselves.-HARE. (5) Doing his duty is the delight of a good man.

EXERCISE I.-Complete the following sentences by supplying appropriate subjects.

NOTE I.-Every affirming sentence begins with a Capital, and ends with a Period. See page 257.

-enlightens the -succeeds sum

Example.-The shepherd tends his flock. -tends his flock. -praises the scholar. -overcomes difficulties. earth. promotes health. -import cargoes. mer. -cultivates the ground. -produces fruit.

-moves the

train. gather moss. -lash the shore. sounds the charge.

-cleaves the air. -ploughs the main. -build nests. -make long voyages. -guards the house. -yields a costly fur. buries its eggs in the sand. walks rapidly over the hot desert. -often baffles the hounds. -is adapted to their kind of life. -are termed oviparous. -forms a diphthong. -are called polysyllables. is the ear. -directs all animals in the choice of food. lies between the tropics. is situated between the torrid and the north frigid zone. -affords a striking illustration of the doom of insatiable ambition. cannot vie with the beau

ties of nature. —will prove a source of happiness.

Obs. 1.-The subject usually precedes the predicate; but may follow it when the sentence is introduced by it, this, there, now, etc., as in the following sentence: It is easy to go.

It is necessary that there should be a general understanding as to the relative position of the subject and the object, since both have in English the same form. In the sentence, John struck James, it would be impossible to tell which struck and which received the blow except on the general principle of arrangement that the subject precedes and the object follows the verb. Hence in poetry, the fact that this principle is often disregarded may occasion ambiguity. Thus :

And all the air a solemn stillness holds.-GRAY.

The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose,

And him outlive, and die a violent death.-SHAKSPERE.

See also pages 293, 294.

Infinitives commonly give up their formal place as subject or as object, mostly in favor of a provisional pronoun-it, this, that.

The anticipation of the infinitive by means of it is exceedingly frequent. "It was not easy to wound his feelings; My patron had it not in his power to introduce me personally;" it is the formal subject in the one case, and the formal object in the other, while the infinitives to wound and to introduce, which are the real subject and object, are formally said to be in apposition to the

pronoun. In careful writing, the form in to has a monopoly of this usage.-BAIN.

Thus, we should not say, "It was not easy wounding his feelings; "He had it not in his power introducing me personally."

Obs. 2.—The natural order of words in a sentence may be varied in accordance with the first law of Force, that emphatic words must stand in positions emphatic because unusual; as when the subject is removed from the beginning of a sentence, or the predicate is put there. Thus:

Much is this inculcated by Cicero and Quintilian.-BLAIR.

Flashed all their sabres bare.-TENNYSON.

And shrieks the wild sea-mew.-BYRON.

But whoso went his rounds, when flew bat, flitted midge.-BROWNING.

When the subject is a pronoun, the object may in like manner be put before the verb. Thus :

Some he imprisoned, others he put to death.

Military courage, the boast of the sottish German, of the frivolous and prating Frenchman, of the romantic and arrogant Spaniard, he neither possesses nor values.

But where both subject and object are substantives, such inversion would produce ambiguity (see Obs. 1, page xix). To indicate emphasis, therefore, the form of the sentence must be changed. In the sentence, "John struck James," we can in speaking give special stress to either of the three words that we wish especially to emphasize. In writing we can italicize either of the three, as, "John struck James," where it is assumed that James is struck, and the question is as to who did it; or, "John struck James," where it is assumed that John did something to James, and the question is as to what he did to him; or, "John struck James," where it is assumed that John struck somebody, and the question is as to whom he struck. But both vocal emphasis and written italics are so frequently misused that it is better so to construct the sentence that the arrangement shall make the meaning clear. Thus the three meanings of the sentence given are indicated clearly as follows:

It was John that struck James; What John did to James was to strike him; It was James that was struck by John.