parts may be indicated by a conjunction or by a relative; or the connection may be left unmarked.

Clauses are either SUBORDINATE in sense to something else, giving, that is, some condition, some restriction, some accompaniment of time, place, or manner; or coORDINATE with something else, that is, giving a fact or assertion of the same rank and importance. This is rhetorically the most important thing to learn about clauses; for a great deal of the management of sentences depends on knowing what is subordinate and what coördinate, and on being able to make any element one or the other at will.

ILLUSTRATIONS. The sentence above given contains only one kind of clause, a subordinate clause with conjunction: "as he stood by the grave of his dear friend Lazarus."

The following will exemplify various kinds of clauses :

Conjunctional Clauses.

"The peace

that was now made,

which is known as the peace of Westphalia,

made some important changes in Europe."

In the last example it will be noted that clauses may be subordinated to something else, and yet be coördinated together ("whom we saw and of whom,” etc.).

Important Requisites. For proficiency in phraseology, it is of special importance to know in all its parts how a sentence is grammatically built; to know just what is the office and what the rank of every element; and to keep track of the relations of parts to each other, however near or remote, and whatever their order. This your study of grammar has already taught you, in what is called PARSING.

But parsing, as related to rhetoric, has to be understood in its broadest sense. We are concerned, not so much with the form of any element, whether word, phrase, or clause as with its office, what it does in making up the assertion. And, in getting at the office of elements, we have even to discard to some extent the grammatical terms to which we have been used, and speak in a broader, more distinctively rhetorical dialect.

Whether word, phrase or clause, then, any element of a sentence is either (1) a principal element, or (2) a modifier, or (3) a connective.1

1. If a principal element, it is either a subject or a predicate; for the definition of which terms see above, page 49. To determine these two parts is the first great step in the mapping-out of a sentence; it is like laying down the theme and the proof of a discourse.

2. If a modifier, it may be referred either to the subject or to the predicate or to a modifier of higher rank,

1 For rhetorical parsing we may leave out of account at present those irregular parts of speech called Interjections.

that is, it may be either adjective or adverbial; but the important rhetorical question is not so much concerning the kind of modification as the placing of the modifier; it must be put where it will be associated without fail with the element it is intended to modify.

3. If a connective, it may serve to introduce either a phrase or a clause; but the grammatical question whether it is thus proved to be prepositional (participial, infinitive) or conjunctive yields to the more important rhetorical question whether what it introduces is subordinate or coördinate, and the accompanying question how to give just the right degree of subordination to what is introduced.

It will be remembered that as soon as we have built a phrase or a clause this becomes in its turn a realm in itself, wherein we have to note the principal elements, the modifiers, and the connectives, in the same way as in the larger constructions of which it is part. This opens a new field wherein we have to compare part with part, and wherein we have to balance constructions. Thus a complicated sentence becomes something like the government of the United States; wherein the national government is concerned with the principal subject and predicate, their modifiers and connectives, and wherein the state governments are concerned with the internal structure of subordinate phrases and clauses. It is evident, then, that it will not do to let a state government so encroach on the national as to seem too obtrusive or important.

Synopsis of Phraseology. The practical rules that are of most importance in phraseology may be gathered under the following six heads :

1. Grammatical Forms needing Caution.

2. Placing of Modifiers.

3. Concord.

4. Words with Antecedents.

5. Correlation.

6. Precautions for Clearness.

These rules comprehend, if not the most interesting, certainly some of the most important processes in composition.

I.

GRAMMATICAL FORMS NEEDING CAUTION.

Some of the forms of noun and verb, of participles and auxiliaries, of adjectives, adverbs, and possessives, are so frequently disregarded or used wrongly that, although fully treated in any grammar, they need to be recapitu·lated here.

зы

14. Be heedful of foreign and irregular plurals.

I.

Grammatical Rules especially important. It is the object here not to give a multitude of rules but as few as possible, and only such as contain important principles. It is a frequent tendency of those who have not studied foreign languages to regard all words that do not end in -s or -es as singular; which tendency leads sometimes to ludicrous errors.

In a similar way some people are inclined to regard all words ending in -s or -es (the letters or the sound) as plurals, and to use the verb accordingly or make singulars to correspond.

ILLUSTRATIONS. -I. Of foreign plurals treated as singular. When Addison writes, "The zeal of the seraphim as the character

which is given us of him," he is unmindful of the fact that the word seraphim is the plural of the word seraph. Some show their ignorance of this Hebrew plural in -im by putting an English plural after it, as cherubims. So also to write, "The Aurora Borealis is a very strange phenomena,” "our data for determining character here is very meagre," is to show ignorance of the Greek form of the plural.

"His pulse were

2. Of singulars treated as plural. "In Fayal the Azore" assumes that "Azores" is plural, which it is not. "The huge Cyclop," as if Cyclops were more than one. about ninety a minute" assumes the existence of some unknown singular for the word. — The word news is best treated as a singular ; the tendency also by the best writers seems to be to treat most words ending in -ics (mathematics, politics, tactics), except perhaps athletics, as singular.1

The plural sign of a compound word should be affixed to the main or fundamental part of the compound; except in some words of measure where the sense of main and subordinate parts is not regarded.

ILLUSTRATIONS. "Mothers-in-law" is correct because mothers is the main word. "Maid-servants," "man-clerks," "woman-clerks,” are correct for a similar reason. "Men-servants," " women-servants,” Biblical forms, are an exception. 99 66 shovel"Spoonfuls," "cupfuls," fuls are correct forms, because the endings are not thought of as a subordinate part of the word.

15. Confine the possessive form mostly to persons.

In ordinary prose the accepted usage of the possessive form is limited, for the most part, (1) to persons, as, “my father's house," "Thackeray's cynical moments "; (2) to time expressions, as, "after an hour's delay"; and (3) some idioms, as, "for brevity's sake," "a day's march." Beyond this usage the possessive form is to be employed with great parsimony and caution.

1 Hill, Foundations of Rhetoric, pp. 45, 46.