234 INTERROGATIVE AND IMPERATIVE SENTENCES. [480–481 480. In ordinary speech, instead of the optative subjunctive we generally use the verb may as optative auxiliary, always putting the subject after it. Thus, for example, may retain your friendship; may we part in peace; may some heavenly power guide us hence; may the thought perish; may there be no ill-will between us. With such phrases, the imperative verb-phrase with let (477) is generally equivalent in meaning and interchangeable. THE EXCLAMATORY INTERROGATIVE SENTENCE. 481. The interrogative pronouns and adjective who and what (not which, nor whether), and the interrogative adverbs (especially how), are often used in an EXCLAMATORY sense - that is, to make an exclamation, expressing some strong feeling, such as surprise, admiration, disapprobation. Thus, for example, what a sad sight was this! how are the mighty fallen! Such are to be called exclamatory sentences in the interrogative form. The form may also be that of a dependent clause: thus, what a sad sight this was! how the mighty are fallen! But this is an instance of incomplete expression: as if it were see what a sad sight this was! it is strange, how the mighty are fallen! It belongs, then, like the optative preterit, in the next chapter (501). EXERCISES TO CHAPTER XVI. ON INTERROGATIVE AND IMPERATIVE SENTENCES. Thus far we have had (except in here and there an exceptional in. stance) only assertive sentences to describe, and have had no need to define them as being such; but after this, in taking up any sentence, we have to tell first of all whether it is an assertive, an interrogative, or an imperative sentence (or, if the instructor prefers, only one of the last two kinds is to be defined as such, it being understood otherwise that the sentence is of the first kind, assertive). Then we may proceed to analyze it and parse its members according to the methods which have been followed hitherto. An interrogative sentence may be re-arranged in the assertive order, and divided into subject and predicate. But an imperative sentence without an expressed subject cannot be so treated. If we have, for example, the sentence give me that book, we must say that it is an imperative sentence, composed of the imperative verb give (with its adjuncts), used without a subject, for the purpose of giving a command to the person or persons addressed. An inverted conditional clause (471) should be defined as such; and also an inverted optative clause (479); other cases of inverted order (as in said he, never will I consent, great is Diana) do not call for particular notice, unless the general subject of the order of words in the sentence is taken up-which is not attempted in this work. XXXI. Miscellaneous examples. So Heaven decrees; with Heaven who can contest? Peace! what can tears avail? Lives there who loves his pain? What need a man forestall his date of grief? Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? What proof, alas! have I not given of love? What fear we then? what doubt we to incense his utmost ire? Had I not four or five women once that tended me? Feelest thou not, O world, the earthquake of his chariot thundering up Olympus? For what intent have ye sent for me hither? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: why hast thou made me thus? 236 INTERROGATIVE AND IMPERATIVE SENTENCES. [CHAP. XVI. How hand in hand we've gone, Heart with heart linked in one, They leave us the dangers, the repulses which how long will you bear? Awake! arise! or be forever fallen. And see, he cried, the welcome, Whose seal is set. Lochiel! Lochiel! beware of the day When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array. Be aye sticking in a tree, Jack; it'll be growing while ye 're sleeping. Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye. O make her a grave where the sunbeams rest, When they promise a glorious morrow. Reap we not the ripened wheat, Till yonder hosts are flying. Let me not forget what I have gained from their own mouths. Let us go round, and let the sail be slack, the course be slow. Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together, and let the dry land appear. The bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. To a solemn feast I will invite young Simon Calymath— where be thou present. Vex not thou the poet's mind. The Lord judge between thee and me. Green be the turf above thee. May'st thou find with Heaven the same forgiveness as with thy father here! How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! How sleep the brave, that sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest! Had I a daughter worthy of such a husband, he should have such a wife. Wast thou a monarch, me wouldst thou make thy queen? Is my young master a little out of order, the question is: “What will my dear eat?" CHAPTER XVII. ABBREVIATED AND INCOMPLETE EXPRES SION. 482. A sentence or a clause is complete when it has its own subject and its own predicate, both given in full. But we often express ourselves by sentences which are not complete, but lack more or less of the regular structure of a sentence; and we have now to look at some of the principal cases of this mode of expression. BREVIATION 483. Sentences are rendered incomplete chiefly by ABthat is to say, they are made shorter or briefer (hence the name), by omitting parts which it seems to us unnecessary to express, because, either through the connection or in some other way, the meaning is well enough understood without them. A part of the sentence which is thus omitted, because the mind understands it to be there, or understands the sentence as if it were there, without needing to express it, is said to be UNDERSTOOD. And the omission is often called an ELLIPSIS (which is a Greek word for 'leaving out'). 484. The abbreviation of sentences, in one or another way, is made in all styles of speaking and writing, and in sentences of every kind. But it is especially common, 1. in familiar colloquial speech and in conversation, because there the mutual understanding of speaker and hearer, and the aid of tone and gesture, do much to fill out the expression; and 2. in lively and picturesque, and especially in impassioned or emotional speech, because there it is sought to impress the mind more strongly by putting before it only the emphatic or most important ideas. 485. The simplest and commonest kind of abbreviation, which is used in almost every sentence we make, is that by which, when two or more co-ordinate clauses following one another would be made up in part by repeating the same words, these words are omitted in all but one, and left to be understood, or supplied from the connection, in the others. Thus, for example, in the following sentences we should usually leave out the words which are put in brackets: he is present, she [is] absent; he is present, she [is] not [present]; I am well, [I am] not sick; I have something to sing, [I have something to] say; these are dark [woods, these are] gloomy [woods, these are] unfrequented woods. 486. Then, as we more often connect the clauses together by means of conjunctions when they are fully expressed, so we also make great use of conjunctions in connecting the fragments of them that remain when the unnecessary repetitions are omitted: thus, for example, or I am not sick, but well; he is good, and handsome, and clever; he is good, handsome, and clever; I have something to sing or say. By this means, conjunctions, which are originally connectives of clauses only, have come to be, on a very large scale, connectives of words or phrases which are co-ordinate – that is to say, which have the same office or construction with one another in a single clause. And we have seen (327) that words of all the parts of speech, and in constructions of every kind - subjects, predicate verbs, objects, qualifying words, prepositions, and so on are thus bound together by conjunctions within the limits of one clause, |