Chapter II: Syntax (2)

The essential to coordination is that the coordinates should be performing the same function in the sentence. It is not necessary, nor is it enough, that they should be in the same grammatical form: things of the same form may have different functions, and things of different forms may have the same function. If we say ‘Unambitious men, and who have no experience’, ‘unambitious’ and ‘who have no experience’ are not in the same form, but they have the same function--that of specifying the class of men referred to. Their grammatical forms (vocabulary permitting) are interchangeable: a defining adjective can always take the form of a relative clause, and a defining relative clause can often take the form of an adjective: ‘inexperienced men, and who have no ambition’. ‘Unambitious’ is therefore the true grammatical equivalent of ‘who have no ambition’, and latent coordination between it and a relative clause is admissible.

On the other hand, among things that have the same grammatical form, but different functions, are the defining and the non-defining relative clause. A non-defining clause, we know, can be removed without disturbing the truth of the predication; it has therefore no essential function; it cannot therefore have the same function as a defining clause, whose function we know to be essential. It follows that open coordination is not admissible between a defining and a non-defining clause; and, generally, coordination, whether open or latent, is admissible between two defining or two non-defining coordinates, but not between a defining and a non-defining.

Our object, however, in pointing out what seems to be the true principle of relative coordination is not by any means to encourage the latent variety. It has seldom any advantage over full coordination; it is perhaps more apt to lead to actual blunders; it is usually awkward; and it does violence--needless violence, as often as not--to a very widespread and not unreasonable prejudice. Many writers may be suspected of using it, against their better judgement, merely for the purpose of asserting a right; it is their natural protest against the wholesale condemnation of ignorant critics, who do not see that latent coordination may be nothing worse than clumsy, and that open coordination may be a gross blunder. For the benefit of such critics it seems worth while to examine the correctness of various examples, both open and latent; on the other merits and demerits of the latent variety the reader will form his own judgement.

(i) =Open coordination.=

A few minutes brought us to a large and busy bazaar, with the localities of which the stranger appeared well acquainted, and where his original demeanour again became apparent.--POE.

Mr. Lovelace has seen divers apartments at Windsor; but not one, he says, that he thought fit for me, and which, at the same time, answered my description.--RICHARDSON.

All the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for, are the self-same thing.--EMERSON.

All these are correct: in the first both clauses are non-defining, in the others both define.

The hills were so broken and precipitous as to afford no passage except just upon the narrow line of the track which we occupied, and which was overhung with rocks, from which we might have been destroyed merely by rolling down stones.--SCOTT.

Wrong: the first clause defines, the second not.

From doing this they were prevented by the disgraceful scene which took place, and which the leader of the Opposition took no steps to avert.--_Times._

Wrong. The first clause defines, the second is obviously one of comment: the ‘scene’ is not distinguished from those that the leader _did_ take steps to avert.

They propose that the buildings shall belong ... to the communes in which they stand, and which, it is hoped, will not permit their desecration.--_Spectator._

Wrong. The communes that ‘will not permit’ are not meant to be distinguished from those that will. The second clause is comment, the first defines.

The way in which she jockeyed Jos, and which she described with infinite fun, carried up his delight to a pitch....--THACKERAY.

In the best French which he could muster, and which in sooth was of a very ungrammatical sort....--THACKERAY.

Peggy ... would have liked to have shown her turban and bird of paradise at the ball, but for the information which her husband had given her, and which made her very grave.--THACKERAY.

All these are wrong. Thackeray would probably have been saved from these false coordinations if he had observed the distinction between ‘that’ and ‘which’: ‘In the best French (that) he could muster, which in sooth was...’.

There goes another sort of animal that is differentiating from my species, and which I would gladly see exterminated.--H. G. WELLS.

Probably the second clause, like the first, is meant to define: if so, the coordination is right; if not, it is wrong. We have alluded to the tendency to avoid ‘that’ when the relative is widely separated from its antecedent; here, the result is ambiguity.

And here he said in German what he wished to say, and which was of no great importance, and which I translated into English.--BORROW.

Wrong: ‘what (that which)’ defines, the ‘and which’ clauses do not.

(ii) =Latent coordination=, between relative clause and equivalent, is seldom correct when the relative clause is non-defining; for the equivalent, with few and undesirable exceptions, is always a defining adjective or phrase, and can be coordinate only with a defining clause. The equivalent must of course be a true one; capable, that is, of being converted into a relative clause without altering the effect of the sentence. Neglect of this restriction often results in false coordination, especially in one particular type of sentence. Suppose that a historian, after describing some national calamity, proceeds: ‘In these distressing circumstances....’ Here we might seem to have two possible equivalents, ‘these’ and ‘distressing’. First let us expand ‘these’ into a relative clause: ‘In the distressing circumstances that I have described’. This, in the context, is a fair equivalent, and as often as not would actually appear instead of ‘these’. But next expand ‘distressing’: ‘In these circumstances, which were distressing’, a non-defining clause. To this expansion no writer would consent; it defeats the object for which ‘distressing’ was placed before the antecedent. That object was to record his own sensibility without disparaging the reader’s by telling him in so many words (as our relative clause does) that the circumstances were distressing; and it is secured by treating ‘distressing’ not as a separate predication but as an inseparable part of the antecedent. ‘Distressing’, it will be observed, cannot give us a defining clause; it is obviously meant to be co-extensive with ‘these’; we are not to select from ‘these’ circumstances those only that are ‘distressing’. Moreover, as ‘these’, although capable of appearing as a relative clause, can scarcely require another relative clause to complete the limitation of the antecedent, it follows that in sentences of this form coordination will generally be wrong. We have examples in the Cowper quotation below, and in the anonymous one that precedes it.

Juices ready prepared, and which can be absorbed immediately.--HUXLEY.

A deliberate attempt to frame and to verify general rules as to phenomena of all kinds, and which can, therefore, be propagated by argument or persuasion....--L. STEPHEN.

‘Rules that shall be general, and that can....’

A painful, comprehensive survey of a very complicated matter, and which requires a great variety of considerations, is to be made.--BURKE.

The goldsmith to the royal household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker, ... was a person of too much importance to...--SCOTT.

‘The man who was goldsmith to ... and who’.

It is a compliment due, and which I willingly pay, to those who administer our affairs.--BURKE.

All these are correct, with defining coordinates throughout.

‘A junior subaltern, with pronounced military and political views, with no false modesty in expressing them, and who (sic) possesses the ear of the public, ....’--(Quoted by the _Times_.)

‘Who has ... views, and who....’ ‘Sic’ is the comment of the _Times_ writer. The coordination is correct.

While there, she had ample opportunity afforded her of studying fashionable life in all its varied and capricious moods, and which have been preserved to posterity in her admirable delineations of character.

I am sensible that you cannot in my uncle’s present infirm state, and of which it is not possible to expect any considerable amendment, indulge us with a visit.--COWPER.

These are the instances of false expansion alluded to above. The former is based on the non-defining expansion ‘in all its moods, which are varied and capricious’; the true expansion being ‘in all the varied and capricious moods in which it reveals itself’, a defining clause, which will not do with the ‘and which’. Similarly, the second is based on the non-defining expansion ‘in my uncle’s present state, which is an infirm one’; the true expansion is ‘in the infirm state in which my uncle now is’. In both, a non-defining clause is coordinated with words that can only yield a defining clause.

Previous to the innovations introduced by the Tudors, and which had been taken away by the bill against pressing soldiers, the King in himself had no power of calling on his subjects generally to bear arms.--J. R. GREEN.

If the writer means us to distinguish, among the innovations introduced by the Tudors, those that had also been taken away, the ‘and which’ clause defines, and the coordination is right. But more probably the clause conveys independent information; the coordination is then wrong.

[The various arrangements of _pueri puellam amabant_] all have the same meaning--the boys loved the girl. For _puellam_ shows by its form that it must be the object of the action; _amabant_ must have for its subject a plural substantive, and which must therefore be, not _puellam_, but _pueri_.--R. G. WHITE.

Wrong. ‘A plural substantive’ can yield only the defining clause ‘a substantive that is plural’. Now these words contain an inference from a general grammatical principle (that a plural verb must have a plural subject); and any supplementary defining clause must also be general, not (like the ‘and which’ clause) particular. We might have, for instance, ‘Amabant, being plural, and finite, must have for its subject a plural substantive, and which is in the nominative case’. But the ‘and which’ clause is evidently non-defining; the inference ends at ‘substantive’; then comes the application of it to the particular case.

He refused to adopt the Restrictive Theory, and impose a numerical limit on the Bank’s issues, and which he again protested against in 1833.--H. D. MACLEOD.

Wrong. The ‘and which’ clause is non-defining; none of the three possible antecedents (‘Theory’, ‘limit’, ‘imposition’) will give a non-defining clause.

The great obstacle ... is the religion of Europe, and which has unhappily been colonially introduced into America.--BEACONSFIELD.

This illustrates an important point. ‘Of Europe’ gives the defining clause ‘that prevails in Europe’; the coordination therefore requires that the ‘and which’ clause should define. Now a defining clause must contain no word that is not meant to contribute to definition; if, then, the ‘and which’ clause defines, the writer wishes to distinguish the religion in question, not only from those European religions that have not been colonially introduced into America, but also from those European religions that have been introduced, but whose introduction is not a matter for regret; that is the only defining meaning that ‘unhappily’ can bear, and unless we accept this interpretation the clause is non-defining.--We shall allude to this sentence again in d., where the possibilities of parenthesis in a defining clause are discussed.

It may seem strange that this important place should not have been conferred on Vaca de Castro, already on the spot, and who had shown himself so well qualified to fill it.--PRESCOTT.

One of our ‘few and undesirable exceptions’, in which the clause-equivalent is non-defining (‘who was already on the spot’); for a person’s name can only require a defining clause to distinguish him from others of the same name. The sentence is an ugly one, even if we remove the ‘and who’ clause; but the coordination is right.

(iii) =Insubordination.=

The struggler, the poor clerk, mechanic, poorer musician, artist, or actor, feels no right to intrude, and who quickly falls from a first transient resentment....--_Daily Telegraph._

Such a person may reside there with absolute safety, unless it becomes the object of the government to secure his person; and which purpose, even then, might be disappointed by early intelligence.--SCOTT.

All this when Madame saw, and of which when she took note, her sole observation was:--...--C. BRONTË.

To these we may add examples in which the coordinated relatives have different antecedents. In practice, nothing can justify such coordination: in theory, it is admissible when the antecedents are coordinate, as in the following sentence:

We therefore delivered the supplies to those individuals, and at those places, to whom the special grants had been made, and for which they were originally designed.

But in the following instances, one antecedent is subordinate to another in the same clause, or is in a clause subordinate to that of the other.

They marched into the apartment where the banquet was served; and which, as I have promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall have the liberty of ordering himself.--THACKERAY.

A large mineral-water firm in London, whose ordinary shares are a million in value, and which shares always paid a dividend before the imposition of the sugar-tax, have not paid any dividend since.--_Times._

He very much doubted whether I could find it on his mine, which was located some five miles from St. Austell, Cornwall, and upon whose property I had never been.--_Times._

But I have besought my mother, who is apprehensive of Mr. Lovelace’s visits, and for fear of whom my uncles never stir out without arms, ...--RICHARDSON.

It was of Mr. Lovelace that the uncles were afraid.

=d. Case of the relative.=

Special attention was not drawn, in the section on Case, to the gross error committed in the following examples:

Instinctively apprehensive of her father, whom she supposed it was, she stopped in the dark.--DICKENS.

That peculiar air of contempt commonly displayed by insolent menials to those whom they imagine are poor.--CORELLI.

It is only those converted by the Gospel whom we pretend are influenced by it.--_Daily Telegraph._

We found those whom we feared might be interested to withhold the settlement alert and prompt to assist us.--GALT.

Mr. Dombey, whom he now began to perceive was as far beyond human recall.--DICKENS.

Those whom it was originally pronounced would be allowed to go.--_Spectator._

But this looks as if he has included the original 30,000 men whom he desires ‘should be in the country now’.--_Times._

We feed children whom we think are hungry.--_Times._

The only gentlemen holding this office in the island, whom, he felt sure, would work for the spiritual good of the parish.--_Guernsey Advertiser._

These writers evidently think that in ‘whom we think are hungry’ ‘whom’ is the object of ‘we think’. The relative is in fact the subject of ‘are’; and the object of ‘we know’ is the clause ‘who are hungry’; the order of the words is a necessary result of the fact that a relative subject must stand at the beginning of its clause.

(The same awkward necessity confronts us in clauses with ‘when’, ‘though’, &c., in which the subject is a relative. Such clauses are practically recognized as impossible, though Otway, in a courageous moment, wrote:

Unblemished honour, and a spotless love;
_Which tho’_ perhaps now _know_ another flame,
Yet I have love and passion for their name.)

Some writers, with a consistency worthy of a better cause, carry the blunder into the passive, renouncing the advantages of an ambiguous ‘which’ in the active; for in the active ‘which’ of course tells no tales.

As to all this, the trend of events has been the reverse of that which was anticipated would be the result of democratic institutions.--_Times._

‘Which _it_ was anticipated would be’. Similarly, the passive of ‘men whom we-know-are-honest’ is the impossible ‘men who are-known-are-honest’: ‘men who we know are honest’ gives the correct passive ‘men who it is known are honest’.

Nor must it be supposed that ‘we know’ is parenthetic. In non-defining clauses (Jones, who we know is honest), we can regard the words as parenthetic if we choose, except when the phrase is negative (Jones, who I cannot think is honest); but in a defining clause they are anything but parenthetic. When we say ‘Choose men who you know are honest’, the words ‘you know’ add a new circumstance of limitation: it is not enough that the men should in fact be honest; you must know them to be honest; honest men of whose honesty you are not certain are excluded by the words ‘you know’. Similarly, in the _Guernsey Advertiser_ quotation above, the writer does not go the length of saying that these are the only gentlemen who would work: he says that they are the only ones of whom he feels sure. The commas of parenthesis ought therefore to go, as well as the comma at ‘island’, which is improper before a defining clause.

The circumstances under which a parenthesis is admissible in a defining clause may here be noticed.

(i) When the clause is too strict in its limitation, it may be modified by a parenthesis:

Choose men who, during their time of office, have never been suspected.

A whole class, excluded by the defining clause, is made eligible by the parenthesis.

(ii) Similarly, a parenthesis may be added to tell us that within the limits of the defining clause we have perfect freedom of choice:

Choose men who, at one time or another, have held office.

They must have held office, that is all; it does not matter when.

(iii) Words of comment, indicating the writer’s authority for his limitation, his recognition of the sentiments that it may arouse, and the like, properly stand outside the defining clause: when they are placed within it, they ought to be marked as parenthetic.

There are men who, so I am told, prefer a lie to truth on its own merits.

The religion that obtains in Europe, and that, unhappily, has been introduced into America.

The latter sentence is an adaptation of one considered above on p. 91. ‘Unhappily’ there appeared not as a parenthesis but as an inseparable part of the relative clause, which was therefore defining or non-defining, according as ‘unhappily’ could or could not be considered as adding to the limitation. But with the altered punctuation ‘unhappily’ is separable from the relative clause, which may now define: ‘that obtains in Europe and (I am sorry to have to add) in America.’

In sentences of this last type, the parenthesis is inserted in the defining clause only for convenience: in the others, it is an essential, though a negative, part of the definition. But all three types of parenthesis agree in this, that they do not limit the antecedent; they differ completely from the phrases considered above, which do limit the antecedent, and are not parenthetic.

=e. Miscellaneous uses and abuses of the relative.=

(i) A relative clause is sometimes coordinated with an independent sentence; such coordination is perhaps always awkward, but is not always incorrect. The question arises chiefly when the two have a common subject expressed only in the relative clause; for when the subject is expressed in both, the independent sentence may be taken to be coordinate, not with the relative clause, but with the main sentence to which the relative clause is attached, as in the following instance:

To begin with, he had left no message, which in itself I felt to be a suspicious circumstance, and (I) was at my wits’ end how to account plausibly for his departure.

Retain ‘I’, and ‘I was’ may be coordinate with ‘he had left’: remove it, and the coordination is necessarily between ‘I was’ and ‘I felt’. In our next examples the writers are committed:

These beatitudes are just laws which we have been neglecting, and have been receiving in ourselves the consequences that were meet.--_Daily Telegraph._

The idea which mankind most commonly conceive of proportion, is the suitableness of means to certain ends, and, where this is not the question, very seldom trouble themselves about the effect of different measures of things.--BURKE.

Fictitious capital, a name of extreme inaccuracy, which too many persons are in the habit of using, from the hasty assumption that what is not real must necessarily be fictitious, and are more led away by a jingling antithesis of words than an accurate perception of ideas.--H. D. MACLEOD.

The first two of these are wrongly coordinated: the third, a curiosity in other respects, is in this respect right. The reason is that in the first two we have a defining, in the third a non-defining relative clause. A defining clause is grammatically equivalent to an adjective (‘violated laws’, ‘the popular idea’), and can be coordinated only with another word or phrase performing the same function; now the phrase ‘we have been receiving’, not being attached to the antecedent by means of a relative, expressed or understood, is not equivalent to an adjective. We could have had ‘and (which we) have been properly punished _for neglecting_’, or we could have had the ‘and’ sentence in an adverbial form, ‘with the fitting result’; but coordination between the two as they stand is impossible.

The Burke sentence is a worse offender. Coordination of this kind is not often attempted when the antecedent of the relative is _subject_ of the main sentence; and when it is attempted, the two coordinates must of course not be separated by the predicate. If we had had ‘the idea which mankind most commonly conceive of proportion, and very seldom trouble themselves about anything further’, the coordination would have been similar to the other, and could have been rectified in the same way (‘and beyond which they very seldom ...’, or ‘to the exclusion of any other considerations’). But this alteration we cannot make; for there is a further and an essential difference. The _Daily Telegraph_ writer evidently _meant_ his second coordinate to do the work of a defining clause; he has merely failed to make the necessary connexion, which we supply, as above, either by turning the words into a second defining clause, or by embodying them, adverbially, in the first. Burke’s intention is different, and would not be represented by our proposed alteration in the order. All that a defining clause can do in his sentence is to tell us _what_ idea is going to be the subject. If we were to give a brief paraphrase of the whole, italicizing the words that represent the second coordinate, it would be, not ‘mankind’s _sole_ idea of proportion is the suitableness ...’, but ‘mankind’s idea of proportion is the suitableness ..., _and very little else_’; for the question answered is, not ‘what is mankind’s sole idea?’ but ‘what is mankind’s idea?’ In other words, the second coordinate belongs in intention not, like the relative clause, to the subject, but to the predicate; to rectify it, we must either make it part of the predicate (‘and is not concerned with ...’), or, by inserting ‘they’, coordinate it with the main sentence. Obvious as the latter correction is, the sentence repays close examination, as illustrating the incoherence of thought that may underlie what seems a very trifling grammatical slip.

But in our third example, the relative clause is non-defining; it is grammatically equivalent to, and could be replaced by, an independent sentence: ‘Many persons are in the habit of using it’. There is nothing grammatically wrong in this type of coordination; it is objectionable only because it seems to promise what it does not fulfil. When the common subject of two coordinates is expressed only with the first, it is natural to assume that all words preceding it are also to be applied to both coordinates; and the violation of this principle, though not of course ungrammatical, is often felt to be undesirable in other than relative clauses.

(ii) In the sentences considered above, the antecedent of the relative did not belong to the second coordinate, and could not have been represented in it without the material alterations there proposed. But it may also happen that the antecedent, as in the following examples, belongs equally to both coordinates, being represented in the first by a relative, in the second by some other pronoun.

There were two or three _whose_ accuracy was more scrupulous, _their_ judgement more uniformly sober and cautious.--BRYCE.

He renewed the old proposal, _which_ Pizarro treated as a piece of contemptible shuffling, and curtly rejected _it_.

_Which_ she has it in her option either to do or to let _it_ alone.--RICHARDSON.

In the pair of parallel coordinates from Mr. Bryce, insert the suppressed ‘was’, and it becomes clear that ‘whose’, not ‘their’, is the right pronoun.

In the ‘Pizarro’ sentence, ‘it’ is not only superfluous, but disturbing to the reader, who assumes that ‘which’ is common to both clauses, and on reaching ‘it’ has to glance back and check the sentence. Here, as often, the pronoun seems to be added to restore an ill-balanced sentence; but that can be done in several other ways. In the Richardson sentence also the ‘it’ should go.

More commonly, the repetition of the antecedent in another form results from the superstitious avoidance of a preposition at the end:

A demand by Norway for political separation, to which Sweden will not assent, but will not go to war to prevent it.--_Times._

‘To (which)’ is not common to both coordinates: accordingly the writer finds it necessary to give ‘it’ in the second. But, even if we respect our superstition, and exclude ‘which Sweden will not assent to, but will not go to war to prevent’, we have still the two possibilities of (1) complete relative coordination, ‘to ..., but which ...’; (2) subordination, ‘though she will not go to war to prevent it’.

In our next example, Lord Rosebery, again for fear of a preposition at the end, falls into the trap clumsily avoided by the _Times_ writer:

That promised land for which he was to prepare, but scarcely to enter.

So perhaps Bagehot, though his verb may be _conceive of_:

English trade is carried on upon borrowed capital to an extent of which few foreigners have an idea, and none of our ancestors could have conceived.

(iii) When the relative is the subject of both coordinates, or the object of both, its repetition in the second is a matter of choice. But to omit the relative when it is in a different case from the first is a gross, though not uncommon, blunder. The following are instances:

A league which their posterity for many ages kept so inviolably, and proved so advantageous for both the kingdoms of France and Scotland.--LOCKHART.

Questions which we either do not put to ourselves, or are turned aside with traditional replies.--MARK RUTHERFORD.

It is just conceivable that in the last of these the subject of ‘are’ is ‘we’: if so, the sentence is to be referred to (i) above (wrong coordination of an independent sentence with a defining relative clause).

It is not easy to see why the relative more than other words should be mishandled in this way; few would write (but see p. 61, s. f.) ‘This league we kept and has proved advantageous’.

The condensed antecedent-relative ‘what’ is only an apparent exception to this universal rule. In the sentence ‘What I hold is mine’, ‘what’ is only object to ‘hold’, not subject to ‘is’; the subject to ‘is’ is the whole noun-clause ‘what I hold’. Sentences of this type, so far from being exceptions, often give a double illustration of the rule, and leave a double possibility of error. For just as a single ‘what’ cannot stand in different relations to two coordinate verbs in its clause, so a single noun-clause cannot stand in different relations to two coordinate main verbs. We can say ‘What I have and hold’, where ‘what’ is object to both verbs, and ‘what is mine and has been fairly earned by me’, where it is subject to both; but we cannot say ‘what I have and has been fairly earned by me’. Similarly, we can say ‘What I have is mine and shall remain mine’, where the noun-clause ‘what I have’ is subject to both verbs, and ‘What I have I mean to keep, and will surrender to no man’, where it is object to both; but not ‘What I have is mine, and I will surrender to no man’. Of the various ways of avoiding this error (subordination, adaptation of verbs, insertion of a pronoun, relative or otherwise), that chosen by Miss Brontë below is perhaps the least convenient. Her sentence is, however, correct; that from the _Spectator_ is not.

Not mere empty ideas, but what were once realities, and that I long have thought decayed.--C. BRONTË.

Whatever we possessed in 1867 the British Empire possesses now, and is part of the Dominion of Canada.--_Spectator._

‘Things that were once realities, and that I long have thought decayed’; a pair of defining clauses.

The condensed ‘what’ must of course be distinguished from the ‘what’ of indirect questions, which is not relative but interrogative. In the following example, confusion of the two leads to an improper coordination.

What sums he made can only be conjectured, but must have been enormous.--MACAULAY.

In the first sentence, ‘what’ is an interrogative, in the second, a condensed antecedent-relative, standing for ‘the sums that’. It is the sums that were enormous: it is the answer to the question ‘What sums did he make?’ that can only be conjectured. The mistake is possible only because ‘can’ and ‘must’ do not reveal their number: ‘can’ is singular, ‘must’ plural.

The differentiation between the two _what_s and their equivalents is not, indeed, complete: just as the condensed antecedent-relative resembles in form, though not in treatment, the unresolved interrogative, so the interrogative, by resolution into ‘the ... that (which)’, not only resembles, but is grammatically identified with, the uncondensed relative and antecedent. The resolution is, no doubt, convenient: it should be noticed, however, that the verbs with which alone it can be employed (verbs that may denote either perception of a fact or other kinds of perception) are precisely those with which ambiguity may result. ‘I know the house (that) you mean’: it may (antecedent and relative) or may not (resolved interrogative) follow that I have ever seen it. ‘We must first discover the scoundrel who did it’; antecedent and relative? then we must secure the scoundrel’s person; resolved interrogative? then only information is needed. ‘I can give a good guess at the problem that is puzzling you’: and the solution?--I know nothing of the solution; I was resolving an interrogative.

This, however, does not affect sentences like the Macaulay one above: for although the resolved or uncondensed forms (‘the ... which’) are grammatically identified, the condensed or unresolved forms (‘what’) are not.

(iv) The omission of the relative in isolated clauses (as opposed to coordinates) is a question not of correctness but of taste, so far as there is any question at all. A non-defining relative can never be omitted. The omission of a defining relative subject is often effective in verse, but in prose is either an archaism or a provincialism. It may, moreover, result in obscurity, as in the second of our examples, which may possibly puzzle the reader for a moment:

Now it would be some fresh insect won its way to a temporary fatal new development--H. G. WELLS.

No one finds himself planted at last in so terribly foul a morass, as he would fain stand still for ever on dry ground.--TROLLOPE.

But when the defining relative is object, or has a preposition, there is no limit to the omission, unless euphony is allowed to be one. We give three instances in which the reader may or may not agree that the relative might have been retained with advantage:

We do that in our zeal our calmer moments would be afraid to answer.--SCOTT.

But did you ever see anything there you had never seen before?--BAGEHOT.

These ethical judgements we pass on self-regarding acts are ordinarily little emphasized.--SPENCER.

(v) When a defining relative has the same preposition as its antecedent, it is not uncommon, in the written as well as in the spoken language, to omit the preposition in the relative clause. There is something to be said for a licence that rids us of such cumbrous formulae as ‘in the way in which’, ‘to the extent to which’, and the like; in writing, however, it should be used with caution if at all.

In the first place, if the preposition is to go, the relative should go too, or if retained should certainly be ‘that’, not ‘which’; and if the verb of the relative clause is the same as in the main sentence, it should be represented by ‘do’, or (in a compound tense) by its auxiliary component.

Because they found that it touched them in a way which no book in the world could touch them.--_Daily Telegraph._

The man who cleaned the slate in the manner which Sir E. Satow has done both in Morocco and Japan might surely rank as a reflective diplomatist.--_Spectator._

‘In a way no other book in the world could’: ‘in the way (that) Sir E. Satow has done’.

A further limitation is suggested by our next example:

The Great Powers, after producing this absolutely certain result, are ending with what they ought to have begun,--coercion.--_Spectator._

Here, of course, the relative cannot be omitted, since relative and antecedent are one. But that is not the principal fault, as will appear from a resolution of the antecedent-relative: ‘they are ending with the very thing (that) they ought to have begun ...’. We are now at liberty to omit our relative or retain it, as we please; in either case, the omission of ‘with’ is unbearable. The reason is that ‘with’ does not, like the ‘in’ of our former examples, introduce a purely adverbial phrase: it is an inseparable component of the compound verbs ‘end-with’ and ‘begin-with’, of which the antecedent and relative are respectively the objects. Similarly, we cannot say ‘He has come to the precise conclusion (that) I thought he would come’, because we should be mutilating the verb to ‘come-to’; we can, however, say ‘to the conclusion (that) I thought he would’, ‘come-to’ being then represented by ‘would’.

Finally, the omission is justifiable only when antecedent and relative have the same preposition. Sentences like the next may pass in conversation, but (except with the one noun _way_) are intolerable in writing:

One of the greatest dangers in London is the pace that the corners in the main streets are turned.--_Times._

(vi) The use of ‘such ... who (which)’, ‘such ... that (defining relative)’, for ‘such ... as’ is sometimes an archaism, sometimes a vulgarism.

Till such time when we shall throw aside our earthly garment.--_Daily Telegraph._

Only such supplies were to be made which it would be inhuman to refuse to ships in distress.--_Times._

The censorship of literature extends to such absurd prohibitions which it did not reach even during the worst period of the forties.--_Times._

A God in such an abstract sense that, as I have pointed out before, does not signify.--_Daily Telegraph._

They would find such faith, such belief, that would be a revelation to them.--_Daily Telegraph._

Swift’s plan was to offer to fulfil it on conditions so insulting that no one with a grain of self-respect could accept.--L. STEPHEN.

=f. ‘It ... that.’=

Two constructions, closely allied, but grammatically distinct, are often confused: (i) Antecedent ‘=it=’ followed by a defining relative clause with ‘that’ (who, which); (ii) ‘=it=’ followed by a clause in apposition, introduced by the conjunction ‘that’. The various correct possibilities are represented in the set of examples given below. Relative clauses are marked R, conjunction clauses C. One impossible example is added in brackets, to mark the transition from relative to conjunction.

(1) It is money that I want. R.

(2) It was you that told me. R.

(3) It was you that I gave it to (or, to whom I gave it). R.

(4) It was to you that I gave it. C.

(5) It was the Romans that built this wall. R.

(6) It is the Romans that we are indebted to for this. R.

(7) It is to the Romans that we are indebted for this. C.

(8) It was Jones whose hat I borrowed. R.

(9) It was Jones’s hat that I borrowed. R.

(10) It was a knife that I cut it with. R.

(11) It was with a knife that I cut it. C.

(12) It was with difficulty that I cut it. C.

(13) (It was difficulty that I cut it with.) R.

(14) It was provisionally that I made the offer. C.

(15) It was in this spring, too, that the plague broke out. C.

(16) Accordingly, it was with much concern that I presently received a note informing me of his departure. C.

In the relative construction, the antecedent ‘it’ is invariable, whatever the number and gender of the relative. The main verb is also invariable in number, but in tense is usually adapted to past, though not (for euphony’s sake) to future circumstances: ‘it was you that looked foolish’, but ‘it is you that will look foolish’.

In both constructions, the ‘that’ clause, supplemented or introduced by ‘it’, gives us the subject of a predication, the relative clause (with _it_) being equivalent to a pure noun, the conjunction clause to a verbal noun in apposition, partly retaining its verbal character. In both, also, the predication answers an imaginary question, recorded distinctly in the relative, less distinctly in the conjunction clause. ‘What do you want?’ ‘It (the thing) that I want is money.’ ‘To whom did you give it?’ ‘It (the persons) that I gave it to was your friends.’ ‘As to your cutting it: give particulars.’ ‘It--that I cut it (my cutting it)--was with a knife.’

From the above examples it will be seen that the two constructions largely overlap. When (as in 1, 2, 5, 8) the relative is subject or direct object of the clause-verb, or is in the possessive case, it cannot be replaced by the conjunction; but when its relation to the clause-verb is marked by a preposition, the conjunction always may take its place, and sometimes must, as in 12 and 13. For the relative clause can only be used when the question reflected in it is calculated to secure the right kind of answer. Now the natural answer to the question ‘What did you cut it with?’ is not ‘difficulty’ but ‘a knife’. The misleading ‘with’ is therefore removed from the relative clause in 13, and placed within the predicate, the definite question ‘What did you cut it with?’ giving place to the vague demand for particulars. ‘With’ being removed, the relative clause falls to pieces, for want of a word to govern the relative, and the conjunction clause takes its place. In the same way, ‘it was _a cab_ (but not _high indignation_) that he drove away in’; ‘it was _a concert_ (but not _curiosity_) that I was returning from’; ‘it was a _beech-tree_ (but not _unpleasant circumstances_) that I found him under’. And, generally, it will be found that a preposition is admissible in the relative clause only when used in the literal or the most obvious sense.

The conjunction clause is, as we have said, a verbal noun; so far a noun that things can be predicated of it, and so far a verb that the things predicated of it are verbal relations and verbal circumstances, indirect object, agent, instrument, means, manner, cause, attendant circumstances; anything but subject and direct object. ‘My giving was to you’; ‘my offering was provisionally’; ‘my concealing it was because I was ashamed’.

The mistakes that constantly occur in careless writers result from hesitation between the two forms where both are possible. The confusion, however, ought not to arise; for always with a relative clause, and never with a conjunction, the complement of the main predicate (the answer to the suppressed question) is a noun or the grammatical equivalent of a noun. ‘A knife’, ‘Jones’, ‘you’, ‘my friend in Chicago’, ‘the man who lives next door’, are the answers that accompany the relative clause: ‘with a knife’, ‘with difficulty’, ‘to you’, ‘occasionally’, ‘because I was ashamed’, are those that accompany the conjunction.

Examples 15 and 16, though quite recognized types, are really artificial perversions. In 15 the true question and answer in the circumstances would be, not, as the sentence falsely implies, ‘When did the plague break out?’ ‘That too happened in this same spring’, but ‘Were there any other notable events in this spring?’ ‘Yes: the plague broke out’. Impressiveness is given to the announcement by the fiction that the reader is wondering when the plague broke out; in fact, he is merely waiting for whatever may turn up in the history of this spring. In 16 we go still further: the implied question, ‘What were your feelings on receiving a (not _the_) note ...?’ could not possibly be asked; the information that alone could prompt it is only given in the ‘that’ clause.

It has been pointed out in b. that a relative clause with antecedent ‘it’ particularly calls for the relative ‘that’, in preference to ‘which’, and even to ‘who’. Even when the relative is in the possessive case, ‘that’, which has no possessive, is often retained by transferring to the main predicate the noun on which it depends; 8 thus gives place to 9, even at the risk of ambiguity; for the relative clause now supplies us with the question (not ‘whose hat ...?’ but) but ‘what did you borrow?’ leaving us theoretically in doubt whether Jones’s hat is distinguished from his other property, from other people’s hats, or from things in general.

On the other hand, the two blunders that are most frequently made almost invariably have the relative ‘who’ or ‘which’.

And it is to me, the original promoter of the whole scheme, to whom they would deny my fair share in the profits!

‘To me’ implies a conjunction clause: ‘to whom ...’ is a relative clause. ‘It is to me that...’.

It was _to Mrs._ Brent, the beetle-browed wife of Mr. Commissary Brent, _to whom_ the General transferred his attentions now.--THACKERAY.

It is to you whom I address a history which may perhaps fall into very different hands.--SCOTT.

‘To you that’, or ‘you to whom’.

It is not taste that is plentiful, but courage that is rare.--STEVENSON.

Again a common blunder; not, however, a confusion between the two constructions above, but between one of them (the relative) and a third. The sentence explains why every one seems to prefer Shakespeare to Ouida (they are afraid to say that they like Ouida best). ‘What is the explanation of this?’ ‘It is not the plentifulness of taste, but the rarity of courage, that explains it.’ Or, less clumsily, using the construction that Stevenson doubtless intended: ‘It (the inference to be drawn) is not that taste is plentiful, but that courage is rare.’

PARTICIPLE AND GERUND

It is advisable to make a few remarks on the participle and gerund together before taking them separately. As the word _gerund_ is variously used, we first define it. A gerund is the verbal noun identical in form with any participle, simple or compound, that contains the termination _-ing_. Thus the verb _write_ has the active participles _writing_, _having written_, _being about to write_, _about to write_, and the passive participles _written_, _having been written_, _being written_, _about to be written_, _being about to be written_. Any of these except _written_, _about to write_, _about to be written_, may be a gerund also; but while the participle is an adjective, the gerund is a noun, differing from other nouns in retaining its power (if the active gerund of a transitive verb) of directly governing another noun.

Both these are of great importance for our purpose. The participle itself, even when confusion with the other cannot occur, is much abused; and the slovenly uses of it that were good enough in Burke’s time are now recognized solecisms. Again, the identity between the two forms leads to loose and unaccountable gerund constructions that will probably be swept away, as so many other laxities have been, with the advance of grammatical consciousness. We shall have to deal with both these points at some length.

It is indeed no wonder that the forms in _-ing_ should require close attention. Exactly how many old English terminations _-ing_ is heir to is a question debated by historical grammarians, which we are not competent to answer. But we may point out that _writing_ may now be (1) participle--I was writing; I saw him writing; writing piously, he acts profanely--, (2) gerund or full verbal noun--I object to your writing that--, (3) hybrid between gerund and participle--I do not mind you writing it--, (4) detached verbal noun--Writing is an acquired art--, (5) concrete noun--This writing is illegible. Moreover, the verbal noun _writing_ has the synonym _to write_, obligatory instead of it in some connexions, better in some, worse in some, and impossible in others; compare, for instance: I do not like the trouble of writing; I shall not take the trouble to write; the trouble of writing is too much for him; it is a trouble to write; writing is a trouble. The grammatical difficulties, that is, are complicated by considerations of idiom.

In these preliminary remarks, however, it is only with the distinction or want of distinction between participle and gerund that we are concerned. The participle is an adjective, and should be in agreement with a noun or pronoun; the gerund is a noun, of which it should be possible to say clearly whether, and why, it is in the subjective, objective, or possessive case, as we can of other nouns. That the distinction is often obscured, partly in consequence of the history of the language, will be clear from one or two facts and examples.

1. _The man is building_ contains what we should all now call, whether it is so or not historically, a participle or verbal adjective: _the house is building_ (older but still living and correct English for _the house is being built_) contains, as its remarkable difference of meaning prepares us to believe, a gerund or verbal noun, once governed by a now lost preposition.

2. In _He stopped, laughing_ we have a participle; in _He stopped laughing_, a verbal noun governed directly by the verb; in _He burst out laughing_, a verbal noun governed by a vanished preposition.

3. Present usage does not bear out the definite modern ideas of the distinction between participle and gerund as respectively adjective and noun. So long as that usage continues, there are various degrees of ambiguity, illustrated by the three following examples. It would be impossible to say, whatever the context, whether the writer of the first intended a gerund or a participle. In the second, a previous sentence would probably have decided the question. In the third, though grammar (again as modified by present usage) leaves the question open, the meaning of the sentence is practically decisive by itself.

Can he conceive _Matthew Arnold permitting_ such a book to be written and published about himself?--_Times._

And no doubt that end will be secured by _the Commission sitting_ in Paris.--_Times._

Those who know least of them [the virtues] know very well how much they are concerned in _other people having_ them.--MORLEY.

In the second of these, if _sitting_ is a participle, the meaning is that the end will be secured by the Commission, which is described by way of identification as the one sitting in Paris. If _sitting_ is gerund, the end will be secured by the wise choice of Paris and not another place for its scene. If _Commission’s_ were written, there could be no doubt the latter was the meaning. With _Commission_, there is, by present usage, absolutely no means of deciding between the two meanings apart from possible light in the context. In the third, common sense is able to tell us, though grammar gives the question up, that what is interesting is not the other people who have them, but the question whether other people have them.

We shall, in the section on the gerund, take up the decided position that all gerunds ought to be made distinguishable from participles. We are quite aware, however, that in the first place a language does not remodel itself to suit the grammarian’s fancy for neat classification; that secondly the confusion is not merely wanton or ignorant, but the result of natural development; that thirdly the change involves some inconveniences, especially to hurried and careless writers. On the other hand it is certain that the permanent tendency in language is towards the correct and logical, not from it; it is merely hoped that the considerable number of instances here collected may attract the attention of some writers who have not been aware of the question, and perhaps convince them that the distinction is a useful one, that a writer ought to know and let us know whether he is using a participle or a gerund, and that to abandon the gerund when it cannot be distinguished without clumsiness need cause no difficulty to any but the very unskilful in handling words.

PARTICIPLES

The unattached or wrongly attached participle is one of the blunders most common with illiterate or careless writers. But there are degrees of heinousness in the offence; our examples are arranged from 1. to 8. in these degrees, starting with perfect innocence.

1. Participles that have passed into prepositions, conjunctions, or members of adverbial phrases.

_Considering_ the circumstances, _you_ may go.

_Seeing_ that it was involuntary, _he_ can hardly be blamed.

Roughly _speaking_, all _men_ are liars.

_Looking_ at it in a shortened perspective of time, those _years_ of transition have the quality of a single consecutive occurrence.--H. G. WELLS.

The _Bill_ ... will bring about, _assuming_ that it meets with good fortune in the remaining stages of its passage through Parliament, a very useful reform.--_Times._

Regarded as participles, these are incorrect. It is not _you_ that consider, but I; not _he_ that sees, but we; not _men_ that roughly speak, but the moralist; not _years_ that look, but philosophic historians; not _the Bill_ that assumes, but the newspaper prophet. The development into prepositions, &c., is a natural one, however; the only question about any particular word of the kind is whether the vox populi has yet declared for it; when it has, there is no more to be said; but when it has not, the process should be resisted as long as possible, writers acting as a suspensive House of Lords; an instance will be found in 4.

Three quotations from Burke will show that he, like others of his time, felt himself more at liberty than most good writers would now feel themselves.

_Founding_ the appeal on this basis, _it was judged_ proper to lay before Parliament....--BURKE.

_Flattering_ themselves that their power is become necessary to the support of all order and government, _everything_ which tends to the support of that power _is sanctified_.--BURKE.

_Having considered_ terror as producing an unnatural tension and certain violent emotions of the nerves; _it_ easily _follows_.--BURKE.

Similar constructions may be found on almost every page of Smollett.

2. Participles half justified by attachment to a pronoun implied in _my_, _your_, _his_, _their_. These are perhaps better avoided.

_Having_ thus _run_ through the causes of the sublime with reference to all the senses, _my_ first observation will be found very nearly true.--BURKE.

_Being_ much _interested_ in the correspondence bearing on the question ‘Do we believe?’, the first difficulty arising in _my_ mind is....--_Daily Telegraph._

_My_ farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land, _having given_ a hundred pounds for my predecessor’s good will.--GOLDSMITH.

3. Mere unattached participles for which nothing can be said, except that they are sometimes inoffensive if the word to be supplied is very vague.

_Doubling_ the point, and _running_ along the southern shore of the little peninsula, the scene changes.--F. M. CRAWFORD.

The most trying ... period was this one of enforced idleness _waiting_ for the day of entry.--_Times._

_Having acquired_ so many tropical colonies there is the undoubted duty attached to such possession of....--_Times._

4. Participles that may some day become prepositions, &c.

Sir--_Referring_ to your correspondent’s (the Bishop of Croydon’s) letter in to-day’s issue, _he_ quotes at the close of it the following passage.--_Daily Telegraph._

_He_ must be the Bishop; for the immediately preceding _Sir_, marking the beginning of the letter, shows that no one else has been mentioned; but if we had given the sentence without this indication, no one could possibly have believed that this was so; _referring_ is not yet unparticipled.