I08 TRANSACTIONS iSqQ-'oO 



nouns. Still we recognize the accusative case and talk of its be- 

 ing ' ' governed ' ' by transitive verbs and prepositions. If the 

 question is asked : Why is such a word in the accusative case ? 

 the answer conies pat ; because it is governed by such a veib or 

 such a preposition. But is there any sense in the statement ? 

 Strictly speaking there is not. No word causes, or can cause* 

 any other to be in any case. The truth is that there are just two 

 logical positions a word representing a person or thing can be in. 

 It either is or is not the subject of the sentence. If it is the sub- 

 ject all you need to do is to give it its predicate and you have an in- 

 telligible statement. If it is not the subject, and yet you require 

 to mention it, you just have to tumble it into the sentence and 

 trust to the use of conditioning words to put it into its right 

 position, that is to make it clear why, and in what relation, you 

 mentioned it. The words that are said to govern it are simply 

 those you employ to make, not the word itself, but its presence 

 in the sentence intelligible. Of itself and by itself it is passive, 

 inert, lifeless. It does not stand erect like the subject and claim 

 a predicate. The other words do not put it into the accusative 

 case, or the passive case, as I think it might better be called ; 

 they have come to see what they can do to put it on its legs, so 

 to speak, in some way or other. 



Michel Breal has so well explained the matter in his "Essai 

 de S^mantique" that I should like to be allowed to quote the 

 passage : 



" Just as the stones of an edifice, which have long been closely and com- 

 pactly joined, end by forming' one single mass, so in language certain words, 

 as the result -of contact, seem to fit into and clasp one another. We are ac- 

 customed to see them in juxtaposition; and, through an illusion of which the 

 study of language furnishes many examples, we assume or imagine the exis- 

 tence of some hidden torce which brings them into connection and subordin- 

 ates one to another. Thus arises the idea of a transitive force residmg in 

 certain kinds of words. Everyone knows the difference between so-called 

 neuter, or intransitive, and transitive verbs, the first expressing- a complete 

 action (like rim, walk, sleep, &c.) while those of the second class require what 

 is called a complement. The question has been raised, which of these two 

 classes of verbs is the more ancient. To my mind there is no doubt as to the 

 answer : not ouly are the neuter verbs the older, but we must allow that there 

 was a period when there were none but neuter verbs. Words were created 

 in the first place to have a full meaning ot their own, and not to serve the pur- 

 poses of a syntax as yet unborn. Some of these verbs, having frequently been 

 associated with words which limited their scope by bringing their action to 



