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XVI.—Shakespeare's Present Indicative S-Endings with Plural Subjects: A Study in the Grammar of the First Folio
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
I purpose in the following paper to proffer an explanation of such constructions as “My old bones aches “ (Tempest, III, 3), “All his successors (gone before him) hath done't” (Merry Wives, I, 1), “Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word” (Errors, III, 2), “As the events stamps them” (Much Ado, I, 2), “Their drenched natures lies as in a death” (Macbeth, I, 7),” Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus” (Hamlet, III, 1), “And great affections wrestling in thy bosom Doth make an earthquake of nobility” (King John, v, 2).
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References
page 363 note 1 The use of a singular predicate with a compound subject—“And the flax and the barley was smitten” (Exodus, IX, 31)—is, of course, an entirely different construction. Though not sanctioned by good usage to-day, was in such cases is easily explained. See § III.
page 363 note 1 Several months after the reading of this paper my attention was called to a dissertation by Statius Spekker, Ueber die Kongruenz des Subjekts und des Prädikats in der Sprache Shakespeares (Bremen, 1881), in which the author attempts to explain all the difficulties of concord that occur in Shakespeare by a simple appeal to the constructio ad sensum theory. The reader will hardly believe into what forced straits Spekker is driven in his efforts to apply this theory to all the recalcitrant sentences that he cites. I have tried to show that Shakespeare's syntax was governed more by sense than is the syntax of nineteenth century English. But to proffer this view as an explanation of all apparent incongruities of concord is to surrender oneself to the most palpable absurdities. So far as I know, Spekker is the only scholar who goes to this extreme.
page 363 note 2 English Lang., II, 474.
page 363 note 3 But not in the literary dialect as represented by Barbour, King James, Henryson, Dunbar, Douglas, and Lyndesay.
page 363 note 1 Historical Outlines of English Syntax, § 89.
page 363 note 2 Zupitza's remark is an illustration of the meaningless statements that are so often made about the use of a singular predicate with a plural subject. Discussions of this subject will continue to be worthless until the following four sentence-types are rigidly kept apart:
page 363 note 1. They live here (= pronominal subject).
page 363 note 2. The men live here (= substantival subject).
page 363 note 3. They (or, The men) who live here (= relative pronoun as subject).
page 363 note 4. Here live they (or, the men) (= inverted subject).
Shakespeare never uses a singular predicate in No. 1; but in 2, 3, and 4, the singular occurs with crescendo frequency.
Zupitza (l. c.: Note to 1. 253), to prove that “was occurs as a plural,” cites two sentences that fall under type 4: “There was few there so hardy;” and three that fall under type 3: “All myght here, þat was þerynne.” He then considers himself justified in altering “The leche was wyse” to “The lechys was wyse,” deeming a change of was to were unnecessary in view of the citations just made. But these citations miss the mark, for his contention relates to type 2, whereas the citations relate to types 3 and 4.
page 363 note 1 The prevalent ignorance of Historical English Grammar during the seventeenth century is amusingly shown in Ben Jonson's explaining have, in “It is preposterous to execute a man before he have been condemned,” as an exception to the rule that singular nouns require singular verbs. And even Dryden criticises Jonson for using his instead of its.
page 363 note 1 Progress in Language, p. 63.
page 363 note 2 Launce (Two Gentlemen of Verona, IV, 4) says: “I … knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dog.”
page 363 note 1 Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, V.
page 363 note 2 The natural trend of the mind seems to be toward the conception of unity rather than of plurality. Many words show the result of this bunching process. Thus gallows was plural in Middle English, but is singular now, presumably because it no longer connotes the several parts composing the framework of a gallows, these parts being now fused by the mind into a single conception. The German words Ostern, Pfingsten, Weihnachten, old plurals, are now singulars. Latin litterae, meaning letters of the alphabet combined into an epistle, has passed into Italian lettera and French lettre, both singular. And Latin minaciae is French menace, Italian minaccia. Greek, Latin biblia, little books, has become singular in all modern languages.
Shakespeare frequently bunched his numerals: “Look where three farthings goes” (King John, I, 1). Cf. modern English, a dozen, a score, a fortnight, a hundred, a thousand, in which a still suggests the Early West-Saxon singular construction with the larger numerals. In Wülfing's Syntax in den Werken Alfreds des Grossen, Pt. I (Bonn, 1894), it is shown that the larger numerals, being followed by the partitive genitive and regarded as collective nouns, could take a singular as well as a plural predicate. They could be preceded even by a singular demonstrative. Thus in Boethius (559, 36) we find “þæt feowertig daga ser Cristes gebyrd tide, & æt feowertig daga æfter Pentecosten” = That forty (of) days, c.
page 363 note 1 The operation of analogy may sometimes be due simply to contiguity, or association. Cf. the frequent use of says I in juxtaposition with says he. In an old poem on the Death of Washington, there occur these lines (Ulster Co. Gazette, N. Y., Jan. 4, 1800):
“What means that solemn dirge, that strikes mine ear ?
What means those solemn sounds—why shines the tear ? “
The clearest example that I find in Shakespeare is in Winter's Tale, IV, 4:
“Not … for all the sun sees, or
The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hides
In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath.”
It is evident that the use of the singular predicate in seas hides is due to the parallelism of sun sees and earth wombs.
page 363 note 1 Cf. Matthew, XVI, 17. In his Revisers’ English, Mr. Moon grows insurgent and lachrymose over “where moth and rust doth corrupt,” and Tucker (Our Common Speech, p. 85) thinks a ten-year-old boy ought to be ashamed of it.
page 363 note 2 See Arber's English Garner, v, 334.
page 363 note 1 When an Elizabethan writer wished his multiple subject to be carried over as a plural to the predicate, and not broken up into its parts, he frequently employed the so-called redundant pronouns:
“Virtue and grace,
With steadfastness,
They be the base
Of her support.”
Puttenham, Art of English Poesy, p. 110.
They supplements the copulative force of and, which was weakened by such constructions as “Thou and I am one.”
page 363 note 1 Stood is either singular or plural (see Ten Brink's Chaucers Sprache und Verskunst, § 193). That we cannot emend hem to him is shown by the opening sentence of the Monk's Tale. Also in the Tale of Melibeus (Harl. Ms.), the same construction occurs: “For the lawe seith, upon thinges that newely bitydeth, bihoveth newe counseil.”
I have no doubt that the absence of plural endings in our relative pronouns has aided the singularizing influence that they exert upon their predicates.
page 363 note 1 Cf. “Ond se dæl þe þær aweg com wurdon on fleame generede.”—Chronicle. A. D. 894.
page 363 note 1 Frequently the subject is not expressed at all: “There's for thy pains” (Much Ado, v, 1), “Here is for thy pains” (Two Gentlemen, I, 1).