PART II. SYNTAX, OR GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION OF WORDS IN FRENCH. CHAPTER I. § I. OF THE SUBSTANTIVE OR NOUN. The substantive has already been considered as to its individual nature, that is to say, its gender and number; its functions in a sentence are now to be considered. The noun is either the subject of the verb, or the governing word; or it is governed by the verb, or what is called the regimen. 170. EXPLANATION OF THE TERMS REGIMEN DIRECT, REGIMEN INDIRECT, OR CASES. In le père aime ses enfants, the father loves his children; le père is the subject, or governing word, or nominative case; and enfants is the governed word, or regimen, or accusative case. Ses enfants is also called a direct case, because there is no preposition intervening between it and the verb aime. In les enfants obéissent au père, the children obey to the father; les enfants is the subject, and au père is the governed noun or regimen; and the regimen is called indirect because it has a preposition (a) before it. It is also called the dative case. In le père envoie un présent à ses enfants, the father sends a present to his children: les enfants reçoivent une lettre de leur père, the children receive a letter from their father, le père, les enfants, are subjects, un présent, une lettre are objects, or accusative, or direct cases, à ses enfants, de leur père are indirect cases because governed by a preposition, the former being what is called the dative, and the latter, the ablative case. In the construction of a sentence two things are to be considered: 1st. ORDER, or arrangement. 2nd. GOVERNMENT, or cases. OF ORDER. 171. Order is invariable, 1st. the subject, whether the verb be affirmative or interrogative. 2ndly. The verb; 3rdly, the direct case or object; 4thly, the indirect case, or dative, or genitive or ablative. It need hardly be told that if there is not a direct case, the indirect comes next to the verb, les enfants obéissent au père. A deviation from this order or arrangement is called an INVERSION. See Inversion, p. 497. My mother received recevoir ind-4 much pain. EXERCISE. two letters this morning, which (have faire Did not the soldiers resist the résister à ind-4 given) her * Send this game to Mr. L. Have bought a venir de 437+ penser à beautiful house in Paris. Has the (nurse maid) given (any thing to bonne eat) to these poor children? Will not James send à manger these envoyer ind-7 books to his cousin when he has read them? avoir ind-7 GOVERNMENT OR CASES. 172. By government, is meant the case in which a noun is to be put after the verb, that is, whether it will be direct or accusative, indirect or dative, genitive or ablative, or, to speak more plainly, whether that noun will be preceded by à or de. * Personal pronouns me, te, nous, vous, lui, leur, in the dative case, are placed before the verb, as is explained in the article Pronoun Personal 61. What is said here, must, in fact, be understood solely of nouns substantives. + See Examples on Difficulties, Chapter XIX, to which this figure refers. The learner must bear in mind that the figures which he will occasionally meet with in the Exercises refer to the general series of riles. 284 SYNTAX AND IDIOM OF THE SUBSTANTIVE 173. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO LANGUAGES AS TO THE GOVERNMENT OF VERBS. To those who are acquainted with the Latin language, this will present little or no difficulty, accustomed as they are to the proper distinction of cases; but to those who are not, and to young ladies principally, the distinction is not so obviously clear. As in learning the French language, much of the task consists in turning English into French; and also, as, when endeavouring to speak, people first think in English, and then translate, a very natural propensity leads them to translate lite rally, thereby expressing themselves in a way little in accordance with the peculiar construction of the French language. We cannot devise a more efficacious method to guard them from such erroneous proceeding, than by showing the different cases used in the one or the other language, after the corres ponding verb. The list of the instances in which the two languages differ, in respect to the case of the governed words, might easily be extended to several pages, but the few examples here given, must be sufficient to awake the attention and carefulness of the learner, and to make him sensible of the necessity of mastering this point. A few more remarks may tend to impress still deeper in his mind the necessity of attending to it. 174. NECESSITY OF ATTENDING TO THE GOVERNMENT, WITH REGARD TO THE RELATIVE PRONOUNS. Sometimes, and even frequently, verbs govern a relative pronoun representing some noun antecedently expressed, and such pronoun must be put in the proper case, according to the preposition which would be placed before the noun. For instance, to translate "such is the law which you have not obeyed," telle est la loi QUE vous n'avez pas obéi, would be wrong, it must be à LAQUELLE, because we have seen that obéir requires the dative, or the preposition d. Again, to say je vous donne de bons avis AUXQUELS vous n'écoutez pas, would be literal and wrong, because, as we have seen also, écouter is active in French, that is, requires no preposition. thinking of my poor brother. He did not discharge à ind-2 s'acquitter de ind-4 his duty devoir m. to my satisfaction. I advise you to go and conseiller 2 1 d'aller change your shoes. changer de se tromper de ind-4 * Have we not mistaken the road? We are very grateful for your kindness. You have gone too near the river. Are you not afraid s'approcher de ind-4 * craindre of that cruel man? We did not expect such an answer. If you 'attendre à ind-2 2 1 2 1 3 être reconnaissant de |