326 Report 8. A. A. Advancement of 8cience. 



The participial phrase i« the more flexible and vivid of the two. 

 The wealth of paiticipial forms in Greek is one of the characteristic 

 beauties of the language. English also has a very effective participle 

 in i'tiy. A group of these participles gives what has heen called a 

 feeling of radiant activit}* to a sentence. 



The following lines from Walt Whitman illustrate what is 

 meant : — 



" Splendour of setting sun floating and filling me, 

 Hour proplietic, hour resuming the past." 



Latin, on the other hand, is weak as to its participial system. 

 The so-called present participle has only a limited use. The most 

 useful of all the participles — the perfect participle active — is wanting 

 — a great defect in the language. Shift has to be made with the per- 

 fect participle passive, and the useful construction, known as the 

 Ablatixe Absolute, has been developed. It is, however, but an 

 awkward substitute for an active participle, as will be .seen by com- 

 paring Dvx, hosfibus vicfiif with o rrTpUTtjyo^ I'lKijcra^ tov9 TroXefxiovif. 



One common error in grannnatical analysis should be noticed here. 

 In sentence analysis it is the custom to take all participial phrases 

 without exception as adjectival and regard them as enlaigements of 

 the subject or tlie object, as the case mav be. This is not correct, for 

 while a participle may be attributi^e, it is much more frequently 

 adverbial. Its function is best seen by turning it into a clause. If 

 the clause is adjectival, then the participial phrase is adjectival ; but, 

 if the clause is adverbial, so also must be the phrase. 



The weakness of the participial system in Latin gives all the 

 greater importance to the clause. 



The typical Latin sentence is the long, elaborately constructed, 

 skilfully balanced, to the modern mind somewhat complicated sentence, 

 called the period. To follow it, we must understand the nature of 

 the clause ; and it will be useful to return again to the parallel of 

 the algebraic bracket. A clause is something enclosed. Just as in the 

 bracket the curved lines enclosing the terms attract the eye of the 

 student, so in the clause the words that mark the beginning and end 

 are of special importance. The introductory word is general!}' of pro- 

 nominal origin, is easily recognisable and indicates the nature of the 

 clause. The word mai-king the conclusion is the verb, and in many 

 cases it is put in in the subjunctive, so that in popular consciousness 

 the suVtjunctive mood came to he, as its name indicates, the mood of 

 the subordinate clause. 



Again, as in algebra one may have brackets within, so a clause 

 may, and often does, contain among its terms both clauses and 

 phrases. 



Only the briefest survey is possil)Ie here of the various types of 

 clauses. They fall into three classes (i) adjectival ; (ii) substantival ; 

 (iii) adverbial. 



Adjectival clauses are simple, and do not call for any j-emark. 



