14 HISTORY OF LANGUAGE 



that the subject of the verb was merely in danger of death; ijt meant 

 that he was actually dead. The form therefore, as applicable to all 

 verbs, broke down. 



There is hardly anything more interesting in the history of our 

 speech than the various devices to which speakers and writers 

 resorted to get round the difficulty the construction of the passive 

 presented, the efforts they put forth to contrive something which 

 would be of universal applicability. The various attempts made give 

 us a peculiarly vivid conception of the infinite pains that are taken in 

 speech, often unconsciously, to render expression clear. All of these 

 efforts were for a long time unsatisfactory. They involved a change 

 of construction or a change of the form of the sentence or they were 

 made ineffective by the clumsiness of circumlocution. At last a way 

 was opened. A construction already existed in the speech which, 

 though fully authorized, belonged in its origin to the class of so-called 

 corruptions. To certain verbs, but especially to the substantive verb, 

 a verbal noun preceded by the preposition on or in had been added to 

 complete the sense, as, for instance, "he was gone on hunting." The 

 form of the connecting preposition was in the first place corrupted 

 into a ; finally it was dropped altogether. This caused the verbal 

 noun, when joined to the substantive verb, to be regarded not as 

 a noun, but as the present participle; but a present participle, not in 

 its usual active signification, but in the sense of a passive. Hence 

 arose such expressions as "the dinner is preparing," "the house is 

 building." In these the verb is active in form but passive in meaning. 

 But the goafcould not be reached in this way. The form suffered from 

 exactly the same embarrassment which attended the ordinary one 

 with the past participle. Satisfactory with certain verbs, it could not 

 be used with all. The moment an object with life was introduced as 

 the subject, the passive sense disappeared. When we hear it said that 

 " a man is eating," we think of him as the doer of an action and not 

 the object of one. It does not occur to us that he himself is under- 

 going mastication from others. Here, too, in consequence the form 

 broke down. It was to remedy this condition of things that the 

 verb to be was at last united with the compound past participle. 

 This passive form conveyed an unmistakable meaning, and if desired 

 could be applied to any verb whatever. When we are told, to use the 

 previous illustration, that "a man is being eaten," there is not the 

 slightest doubt in the mind of any one as to what is actually taking 

 place. 



This particular form first began to be distinctly noticeable towards 

 the end of the eighteenth century. For a while, however, it attracted 

 but little attention. But no sooner did the sentinels who profess to 

 watch over the purity of speech have their attention called to it, than 

 a violent outcry at once arose. Few at the present day have any 



