CHAPTER XVII.

ON CONCORD.

In inflectional languages, words relating to the same thing in the same way are commonly made to correspond formally with each other. This correspondence we call grammatical concord. Thus we find concord in gender, number, case, and person subsisting between a substantive and its predicate or attribute, or between a substantive and a pronoun or adjective representing the latter. Similarly we find a correspondence in tense and mood within the same period, or complex of sentences. This concord can hardly be said to be the necessary result of the logical relation of the words; the English collocation, _the good father’s child_, where no formal concord is established between ‘the good’ and ‘father’s,’ seems as logical as _des guten vater’s kind_, where the article and the adjective have their respective genitive forms as well as the noun. Concord seems to have taken its origin from cases in which the formal correspondence of two words with each other came about, not owing to the relation borne by the former to the latter, but merely to the identity of their relation to some other word. Thus we should have an example of primitive concord in _fratris puer boni_, if felt by the speaker’s linguistic consciousness something like _of (my) brother (the) child of (the) good (one)_, i.e., _the child of (my) brother, the good_, i.e., _the child of (my) good brother_.

After such correspondence began to be regularly conceived of as concord, _i.e._, as a habit natural to language, we must suppose that, owing to the operation of analogy, it extended its area to other cases to which it did not logically belong. We shall be confirmed in our theory that such was the procedure, if we examine certain cases in which the extension of concord can still be historically followed.

In the first place, let us take such a case as _Ce sont mes frères_. In English we translate this by _Those are my brothers_. The subject, however, in this case merely directs attention to something unknown until the predicate states what has to be known: the English pronoun, therefore, should strictly speaking stand in the neuter singular, as, indeed, it habitually did in A.S. _ðæt sindon_, etc., and as it does in Modern German to the present day--_Das sind meine brüder_. Even in Modern English we have cases like _It is we who have won_; _’Twas men I lacked_; _Is it only the plebeians who will rise?_ (Bulwer, Rienzi, i. 5); but commonly, in Modern English and elsewhere, it appears brought into concord with the predicate, as _These are thy glorious works_ (Milton): in Italian--_È questa la vostra figlia?_ = ‘Is this (fem.) your daughter?’ Spanish--_Esta es la espada_ = ‘This (fem.) is the sword’ (fem.): in Greek--Αὕτη τοι δίκη ἐστι θεῶν (Homer) = ‘This (fem.), then, is the judgment (fem.) of the gods:’ and in Latin this use is extremely common; as, _Eas divitias, eam bonam famam, magnamque nobilitatem, putabant_ (Sall., Cat., 7),[165] = ‘These (fem. plur.) they considered riches (fem. plur.), this (fem. sing.) a good name (fem.), and great nobility (fem.);’ _i.e._, ‘This they looked upon as true riches; by such means they strove for fame; that was what they thought conferred true rank:’ _Patres C. Mucio agrum dono dedere quæ postea sunt Mucia prata appellata_ (Livy, ii. 13) = ‘The fathers (senate) gave to C. Mucius _a field_ as a present which (neut. plur.) afterwards _were_ called the Mucian fields (neut. plur.).’

On the other hand, we find instances like _Sabini spem in discordia Romana ponunt: eam impedimentum delectui fore_ (Livy, iii. 38) = ‘The Sabines base their expectations on the domestic quarrels of the Romans; (they hoped) that _this_ (fem. sing. agreeing with _spem_) would be a preventative (neut. sing.): and so _Si hoc profectio est_ (Livy, ii. 38) = If this (neut.) is a setting-out (fem.).’ It seems that, in the former cases, the subject has been made to agree with the predicate just as the predicate in other cases conforms to the subject.

We sometimes find, in Latin, words which commonly occur in the singular only, placed in the plural when connected with words used in the plural only; as, _summis opibus atque industriis_ (Plautus, Mostellaria, 348) = ‘with the greatest means (exertions) and _zeals_ (for _zeal_):’ _neque vigiliis neque quietibus_ (Sallust, Cat., 15) = ‘neither during watchings nor during _rests_ (for _rest_):’ _paupertates_--_divitiæ_ (Varro,[166] Apud Non.) = ‘_poverties_ (for _poverty_)--riches.’ Similarly, we find _She is my goods, my chattels_ (Shakespeare, Tam. of Shrew, III. ii.), where the singular would be the natural form for _chattel_; but _good_ in the singular would have a different meaning from _goods_, and _chattels_ is made to conform to _goods_.

The so-called predicatival dative in Latin seems to have started from cases like _quibus hoc impedimento erat_ = ‘to whom this was for a hindrance:’ _Mihi gaudio fuit_ = ‘It was for a joy to me:’ etc.

It was felt that the ordinary predicate was put in the same case as its subject, and the concord was analogically extended to the dative. Thus Cicero (Dom., 3) writes _Illis incuria inimicorum probro non fuit_ = ‘To them (dat.) the negligence of their enemies was not _(for a) reproach_’ (dat.), _i.e._, ‘was no reproach,’ as contrasted with _tuum scelus meum probrum esse_ = ‘that your wickedness (acc.) should be my reproach (acc.).’

In a sentence like _They call him John_ the name _John_ ought strictly speaking to have no case; the simple stem should stand: and we might even expect the vocative to occur after verbs of naming, as it actually does sometimes in Greek; as, Τί με καλεῖτε κύριε; (Luke vi. 46), translated, in the Vulgate, _Quid vocatis me domine?_[167] and in the authorised version, _Why call ye me lord, lord?_ Thus in Latin, too: _Clamassent ut litus Hyla, Hyla, omne sonaret_ (Vergil, Eclogue vi. 43), ‘They were shouting so that the whole shore was echoing Hylas! Hylas!’ (voc.); _Matutine pater seu Jane libentius audis_ (Hor., Sat. II., vi. 10), ‘O Father Matutinus, or Janus, if thou givest readier ear thus addressed.’ But the most common usage at the present day is the accusative; which is already found at least once in the few remnants of Gothic literature which we possess: in Luke iv. 13, we read: _Jah gavaljands us im tvalib, ðanzei jah apaustuluns namnida_ = ‘and choosing out (from) them twelve whom also apostles (acc. plur.) (he) named.’ This accusative seems to be an analogical transference from such cases as the common construction, _Izei ðiudan sik silban taujið_ = _Qui regem se facit_ = _Who king himself makes_.

In cases like _He bears the name John_, the pure stem, or the nominative which most nearly represents it, should stand; as it does in the instance given. In English, we often use phrases like ‘the name of John,’ after the analogy of ‘the city of Rome,’ etc. In Latin, we find merely exceptionally such cases as _Lactea nomen habet_ (Ovid, Metam., i. 168) = ‘It (the Milky Way) has the name milky,’ where _milky_ is nominative. In classical Latin, concord is observed by placing the nominative side by side with _nomen_ when this word stands in the nominative; as, _Cui nomen Arethusa est_ (Cicero, Verr., iv. 53) = ‘Whose name is Arethusa;’ _Ei morbo nomen est avaritia_ (Cicero, Tusc. Disp., iv. 11) = ‘To that malady the name is avarice.’ But we not uncommonly find in Latin that, while the word _nomen_ is in the nominative, the name itself is made to agree with the noun or pronoun expressing the person who bears it; as, _Nomen Mercurio est mihi_ (Plautus, Amph., Prol. 19) = ‘The name is Mercury (dat.) to me (dat.),’ _i.e._ ‘My name is Mercury;’ _Puero ab inopia Egerio inditum nomen_ (Livy, i. 34) = ‘To the boy (dat.) from his poverty Egerius (dat.) was given the name,’ _i.e._ ‘The name of Egerius was given to the boy from his poverty.’ Nay, we find a similar vacillation in concord where _nomen_ is in the accusative case; as, _Filiis duobus Philippum et Alexandrum et filiæ Apamam nomina imposuerat_ (Livy, xxxv. 47) = ‘To his two sons he had given the names Philip and Alexander, and to his daughter, Apama.’ In this sentence, we have _nomen_ in the accusative plural and the names _Philip_, etc., also in the accusative, though singular; so that the latter agree in case with _nomen_, and not with the datives (_filiis duobus_ and _filiæ_) of the persons bearing them. In the following instance the reverse is the case: _Cui Superbo cognomen facta indiderunt_ (Livy, i. 49) = ‘To whom (dat.) Superbus (dat.) the name (acc.) his deeds have given,’ _i.e._ ‘To whom his deeds have given the name Superbus.’ This very vacillation proves that the speakers recognised no logical necessity for employing one case rather than another; but, in default of an absolute stem, chose a case which seemed to tally with some existing principle of concord already prevailing in language.

A similar vacillation occurs in cases of the predicatival noun or predicatival attributive with an infinitive, as in _It suited him to remain unknown_.

In English no doubt could arise, as the adjectives maintain an absolute form; but even in German, where the adjectives when used as predicates have different forms from those which they bear when used as epithets, it is correct to say, _Es steht dir frei als verständiger mann zu handeln_ = ‘It stands thee free as sensible man to act,’ _i.e._ ‘You are free to act as a man of sense,’--in which case we find the declined nominative ‘verständiger,’ used as it is whenever the adjective is followed by a noun, and when, consequently, according to the rules of German grammar, the undeclined form cannot be employed.

In Latin the nominative stands if it can be connected with the subject of the governing verb: as, _Pater esse disce_ (‘Learn to be a father’); _Omitto iratus esse_ (‘I cease to be angry’); _Cupio esse victor_ (‘I desire to be victor’). In poetry we find expressions like _ait fuisse navium celerrimus_ (Catullus, iv. 2) = ‘Says that it was the fastest of ships,’--a construction copied by Milton in ‘And knew not eating death’ (Par. Lost, ix. 792:) ‘_Sensit medios delapsus in hostes_’ (Vergil, Æn., ii. 377) = ‘He perceived that he had fallen into the midst of enemies.’ In these cases, _celerrimus_ and _delapsus_ are nominative, instead of the usual accusative; and similarly, in Greek, we find the nominative coupled with the infinitive used substantively, though this may be in another case: as, Ὁπόθεν ποτὲ ταύτην τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν ἔλαβες τὸ μανικὸς καλεῖσθαι, οὐκ οἶδα ἔγωγε (Plato, Symp., 173 D), ‘Whence ever thou didst take this name the-to-be-called mad (nom. sing. masc.), I don’t know;’ Ὀρέγονται τοῦ πρῶτος εκαστος γίγνεσθαι (Thucydides, ii. 65), ‘They wish for the (gen.) first (nom.) each (nom.) to become (gen.),’ i.e. ‘They all wish to become first.’ Nay, in Greek, it is possible to connect with the infinitive even a genitive or dative depending on the governing sentence; as in Εὐδαίμοσιν ὑμῖν ἔξεστι γίγνεσθαι (Demosthenes, Dem. iii. 23), ‘It is permitted you (dat.) to become happy (dat.);’ Ἐδέοντο Κύρου ὡς προθυμοτάτου γενέσθαι (Xenophon, Hell., I. v. 2), ‘They were begging Cyrus (gen.) to show himself as energetic-as-possible (gen.).’

In Latin we find the connection with a dative, though not so widely as in Greek: as, _Animo otioso esse impero_ (Terence, Phorm., II. ii. 26) = ‘Mind (dat.) easy (dat.) to be I command (myself--_dative understood_),’ _i.e._ ‘I order my mind to be at ease;’ _Da mihi fallere, da justo sanctoque videri_ (Hor., Ep. I. xvi. 61), ‘Grant me to deceive, grant _me_ (dat.) to seem _just and holy_ (dat.);’ _Vobis necesse est fortibus viris esse_ (Livy, xxi. 44), ‘It is necessary for you (dat.) to be brave men (dat.);’ and commonly with _licet_ (‘it is allowed,’) as _in Republica mihi neglegenti esse non licet_ (Cicero, ad Att., i. 17), ‘In politics I dare not be indifferent.’[168] To take this last example, for instance, we have (1) the governing sentence _Non mihi licet_ (‘It is not lawful _for me_,’ dat.), (2) the infinitive _esse_ (‘to be’), and (3) the dative (depending on the governing sentence, and connected with the infinitive), _neglegenti_ (‘indifferent’).

There are a few exceptions to this customary usage.[169] The accusative is sometimes found after _licet_, as in the passage _Si civi Romano licet esse Gaditanum, etc._, ‘If it is allowed a _Roman Citizen_ (dat.) to be _a citizen of Gades_ (acc.).’ This use depends on the fact that the accusative is the ordinary case of the subject with the infinitive, e.g. _Permitto civem Romanum esse Gaditanum_,[170] ‘I permit a _Roman Citizen_ (acc.) to be _a citizen of Gades_ (acc.).’

There are, again, other cases in which no concord is expressed; in which concord, indeed, is almost incapable of being carried out. In these cases, in default of the pure stem which--were it possible to employ it--would be the only natural form to employ, the place has been supplied by the nominative. In English, for instance, we are familiar with such phrases as _My profession as teacher_, _his position as advocate_. In Latin we find such constructions as _Sempronius causa ipse pro se dicta damnatur_ (Livy, iv. 44.), ‘Sempronius is condemned, _his cause having been defended_ (abl. abs.) _himself_ (nom.);’ _Omnes in spem suam quisque acceptis prœlium poscunt_ (Livy, xxi. 45), ‘All they having been accepted after their own hopes, each demand battle’ (here _omnes_ (‘all’) is nominative, while _acceptis_ (‘having been accepted’) is ablative absolute); _Flumen Albin transit longius penetrata Germania quam quisquam priorum_ (Tacitus, Annals, iv. 45), ‘He crosses the river Elbe after penetrating Germany further than any of his predecessors,’ lit. ‘Germany having been penetrated (abl. abs.) further than any (nom.) of his predecessors (_i.e._ had penetrated it).’ In these cases, no doubt _ipse_ and _quisquam_, ‘himself’ and ‘any,’ depend, _grammatically_ speaking, on the subject of the finite verb, but they belong _logically_ to the ablative absolute only, with which they cannot be brought into concord.

Variation of concord exists between two parts of the same sentence in various languages, as in the case of ‘What _is_ six winters?’ (Shakespeare, Rich. II., I. iii.), as against ‘What _are_ six winters?’ ‘Such _was_ my orders,’ as against ‘Such _were_ my orders;’ ‘She _is_ my goods;’[171] ‘What _means_ these questions?’ (Young, Night Thoughts, iv. 398). Bacon (Advancement of Learning, II. ii. 7) has ‘A portion of the time wherein there _hath been_ the greatest varieties.’ The original rule was that the copula, like every other verb, followed the number of the subject, as in the first-named instances; and as, again, in French, in such cases as _C’est eux_, ‘It is they;’ _Il est cent usages_, ‘There is hundred usages;’ _C’était les petites îles_, ‘It was the little islands.’ In Latin, also, _Nequam pax est indutiæ_ (A. Gellius), ‘A truce (lit. _truces_) is a bad peace;’ _Contentum rebus suis esse maximæ sunt divitiæ_ (Cicero, Pro. Ar., vi. 3), ‘To be content with one’s circumstances are the greatest riches.’ In these cases it is indifferent which substantive be considered the logical subject.

In German, on the other hand, it is common, when the predicate is plural, to put the copula in the same number; as, _das sind zwei verschiedene dinge_ = ‘That are two different things.’ Other languages have corresponding usages; thus, in Modern Greek, Ἔπρεπε νὰ ἦναι τέσσαρα, ‘There behoves to be four.’ In Old Greek we find Τὸ χωρίον τοῦτο, ὅπερ πρότερον Ἑννέα ὁδοὶ εκαλοῦντο, ‘This spot which _were_ before _called_ the nine ways’ (Thuc., iv. 102); and in French we find such expressions as _Ce sont des bêtises_, ‘This are stupidities.’ Even in English we find such phrases as ‘Their haunt _are_ the deep gorges of the mountains.’[172] The usage seems due to the fact that the plural makes itself more characteristically felt than the singular. On the other hand, in several languages the converse usage is possible; _i.e._ the copula in the singular stands with a plural subject and before a singular predicate: as, in Greek, Αἵ χορηγίαι ἱκανὸν εὐδαιμονίας σημεῖον ἐστι, ‘The services is a sufficient token of prosperity:’ in Latin--_Loca quæ Numidia appellatur_ (Sallust), ‘Places which is called Numidia;’ _Quas geritis vestes sordida lana fuit_ (Ovid, Ars Am., iii. 222), ‘The clothes you wear was dirty wool:’ in English--_Two paces in the vilest earth is room enough_ (Shakespeare, 1 Hen. IV., V. iv. 91); _Forty yards is room enough_ (Sheridan, Rivals, v. 2). We also find the curious instance of ‘Sham heroes, _what_ are called quacks’ (Carlyle, Past and Present, ii. 7): in Spanish we have _Los encamisados era gente medrosa_, ‘The highwaymen (lit. ‘shirtclad’) was a cowardly lot’ (Cervantes).

Similarly, we find in the person of the verb a corresponding usage: _It was you_; _Is that they?_ in French--_C’est moi_ (‘It is I’); _C’est nous_ (‘It is we’); _C’est vous_ (‘It is you’): in Old French it was possible to say _C’est eux_ (‘It is they’). On the other hand, in Modern German we find such forms as _Das waren sie_ (‘That were you’); _Sind sie das_ (‘Are you that’): and in Old French, _Ce ne suis je pas_ = ‘This no am I (at-all);’ _C’estez vous_ (‘This are you’); but _C’ont été_ (‘This they have been’); _Ce furent les Phéniciens qui inventèrent l’écriture_ (Bossuet), ‘It were (3rd plur.) the Phenicians who invented writing.’

In sentences beginning in English with _there_, and in French with the (neut.) _il_, we find that commonly in English the verb agrees in number with the subject which follows it, whilst in French it agrees with the pronoun _il_, as _Il est des gens de bien_ (‘There _is_ good people’); _Rarement il arrive des révolutions_ (‘Rarely there happens revolutions’). In English we more commonly find the plural; cf. Mätzner, vol. ii., p. 106--_There were many found to deny it_: but we also find _There is no more such Cæsars_ (Shakespeare, Cymb., III. i.).[173]

A participle employed as a predicate or copula may agree with the predicatival substantive instead of the subject; as, Πάντα διήγησις οὖσα τυγχάνει (Plato, Rep., 392 D), ‘Everything happens to be an explanation,’ where the part. οὖσα (lit. ‘being’) agrees with διήγησις (‘explanation’); _Paupertas mihi onus visum_ (Terence, Phorm., I. ii. 44), ‘Poverty (fem.) to me a burden (neut.) seemed (neut. part.)’ = ‘Poverty seemed to me a burden;’ _Nisi honos ignominia putanda est_ (Cicero, pro Balb., 3), ‘Unless honour (masc.) is to be thought (fem.) shame (fem.).’ On the other hand, we find _Semiramis puer esse credita est_ (Justin, i. 2) = ‘Semiramis was thought to be a boy,’ where the part. _credita_ (‘thought’) takes its gender from _Semiramis_, and not from _puer_.

The predicate, again, which would naturally follow the subject, may follow some apposition of the subject: as, Θήβαι, πόλις ἀστυγέιτων, ἐκ μέσης τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἀνήρπασται (Æschines v. Ctes., 133 ), ‘Thebes (plur.) a neighbouring city, _is torn_ from the centre of Greece;’ Latin--_Corinthum totius Græciæ lumen extinctum esse voluerunt_ (Cicero, Leg. Man., 5), ‘Corinth (fem.), the light of all Greece, they wished to be extinguished (neut.).’ Again, though the subject is plural, we find the verb agreeing with its distributival apposition, and placed in the singular; as, _Pictores et poetæ, suum quisque opus a vulgo considerari vult_ (Cic., de Offic., i. 41), ‘Painters and poets _each wishes_ that his work should be examined by the public.’

The construction is more striking still in which the predicate is made to agree with a noun compared with the subject (1) in gender--as, _Magis pedes quam arma tuta sunt_ (Sallust, Jugurtha, 74[174]) = ‘Feet (masc.) are safer (neut.) than arms (neut.):’ (2) in number--_Me non tantum literæ, quantum longinquitas temporis mitigavit_ (Cicero, Fam., vi. 4) = ‘Me not so much _letters_ as _length_ of time _has_ comforted:’ (3) in gender and number--as, _Quand on est jeunes, riches, et jolies, comme vous, mesdames, on n’en est pas réduites à l’artifice_ (Diderot), ‘When _one_ (sing.) is _young, rich, and pretty_, (fem. plur.) as you are, _ladies_, one (sing.) is not reduced (fem. plur.) to artifice:’ (4) in person and number--as, Ἡ τύχη ἀεὶ βέλτιον ἢ ἡμεὶς ἡμῶν αὐτῶν ἐπιμελούμεθα (Demosthenes, Phil., I. 12), ‘Fortune always for us more than _we care for_ ourselves.’ In English we meet with many sentences like ‘Sully bought of Monsieur de la Roche Guzon one of the finest _horses_ that _was_ ever seen.’ The concord of the predicate with a second subject connected with the words _and not_ is also curious; as, _Heaven, and not we, have safely fought to-day_ (Shakespeare, 2 Hen. IV., IV. ii.).[175]

In Greek, an apposition separated from the noun by a relative sentence may follow the relative pronoun in case; as, Κύκλωπος κεχόλωται, ὃν οφθάλμου ἀλάωσεν, ἀντίθεον Πολύφημον (Hom., Od., i. 69), ‘He is wrath with the _Cyclops_ (gen.) _whom_ (acc.) he deprived of an eye, _the divine Polyphemus_ (acc.).’

A demonstrative or relative, instead of following the substantive to which it refers, may follow a noun predicated of it; as, in Latin, _Leucade sunt hæc decreta; id caput Arcadiæ erat_ (Livy, xxxiii. 17), ‘These things were decreed at Leucas (fem.); that (neut.) in the capital (neut.) of Arcadia;’ _Thebæ quod Bœotiæ caput est_, ‘Thebes (fem. plur.) which (neut.) is the capital (neut.) of Bœotia;’ Φόβος ἣν αἰδὼ εἴπομεν (Plat.), ‘Fear (masc.) which (fem.) we call modesty (fem.).’

A relative pronoun logically referring to an impersonal indefinite subject usually follows the definite predicate belonging to that subject; and, of course, the predicate of the pronoun does the same. Thus we have to say ‘_It_ was a _man who_ told me,’ and not ‘_It_ was a _man which_ told me:’ ‘It is the lord _Chancellor whose_ decision is questioned.’ It is the same in German and in French; as, _C’est eux qui ont bâti_ (‘_It_ is _they who_ have built’). In French, too, the person of the verb in the relative sentence follows the definite predicate, as _C’est moi seul qui suis coupable_ (‘_It_ is I alone _who am_ guilty’); and it is the same in English--‘It is I who am in fault.’ On the other hand, in N.H.G. the use is to say _Du bist es, der mich gerettet hat_, ‘Thou art _it_ who me saved _has_,’ = ‘It is thou that (who) hast saved me.’

In a relative sentence, the verb connected with the subject of the governing sentence goes into the first or second person, even though the relative pronoun belongs to the predicate, and the third person would strictly be natural: cf. _Non sum ego is consul qui nefas arbitrer Gracchos laudare_ = ‘I am not such a consul who _should think_ (1st pers.) it base to praise the Gracchi’ (Cicero); _Neque tu is es qui nescias_ = ‘Nor are you he who _would ignore_’ (2nd pers.), _i.e._ ‘Nor are you such a one as to ignore.’

In English, this construction is very common; as, ‘If thou beest he: but O how fall’n! how changed From him, who in the happy realms of light _didst_ outshine myriads’ (Milton, Par. Lost, bk. i., 84, 85); ‘I am the person who _have_ had’ (Goldsmith, Good-nat. Man, iii.). This construction was common in Anglo-Saxon; as, _Secga œnigum ðâra ðe tirleâses trôde sceawode_ = ‘Of the men to any of those (plur.) who of the inglorious the track looked at (sing.)’ + ‘To any of the men who looked at the track (of the) inglorious (man)’ (Beowulf, 844).

So in French--_Je suis l’homme qui accouchai d’un œuf_ (Voltaire), ‘I am the man who laid (1st. pers.) an egg’; _Je suis l’individu qui ai fait le crime_, ‘I am the person who _have done_ the crime;’ and Italian--_Io sono colui chi ho fatto_, ‘I am he who _have done_.’

The predicate or attribute, instead of agreeing with the subject, or with the word which it serves to define, may agree with a genitive dependent on that subject; as, Ἦλθε δ’ ἐπί ψυχή Θηβαίου Τειρεσίαο χρύσεον σκῆπτρον ἔχων (Homer, Od., xi. 90), ‘The soul (fem.) of the Theban Teresias (masc.) came having (masc.) a golden sceptre.’ In English we find ‘There _are_ eleven days’ _journey_ from Horeb unto Kadesh-barnea’ (Deut. i. 2).

In French it is customary to say _La plupart de ses amis l’abandonnèrent_, ‘The most part of his friends abandoned (plur.) him;’ but _La plupart du peuple voulait_, ‘The most part of the people wished (sing.):’ in the former case the quantity of individuals is regarded; in the latter the people are looked upon as a totality divided.

The attribute sometimes in Latin and Greek, referring to the person addressed, appears in the vocative: as, _Quibus Hector ab oris Expectate venis?_ (Vergil, Æn., ii. 282), ‘From what shores, Hector, O long expected, dost come?’ _Stemmate quod Tusco ramum millesime ducis_ (Persius, iii. 28), ‘Because thou, O thousandth, dost draw thy lineage from an Etruscan tree.’ Thus, in Greek, Ὄλβιε, κῶρε, γένοιο (Theocr., Id., xvii. 66), ‘Mayst thou be happy, O boy,’ lit. ‘O happy, O boy, mayst thou be!’

Such examples as these may aid us to understand the way in which concord has spread beyond the area to which it strictly belonged. And we may gather from these some idea of the way in which this process grew up in prehistorical times. We must remember, however, that concord was not felt so indispensable in the earliest stages of language, because absolute forms without inflectional suffixes were then the rule.

The question now comes, What were the rudiments from which concord proceeded? We must suppose that a period once existed in which substantives coalesced with the stem of the verb, and in which pronouns could precede the stem, just as our actual verbal inflections seem to owe their origin in many cases to the coalition of pronouns with the stem. We must therefore suppose that, just as it was possible to say Διδω-μι (‘Give I’), so it was possible to say ‘Go father,’ ‘Father go’ (for ‘Father goes’); and ‘I go,’ just as it was possible to say ‘Go I,’ ‘Go thou,’ ‘Go he’ (instead of ‘I go,’ etc.). There are actually some non-Indo-European languages in which the third person singular differs from the other persons by dispensing with any suffix. Such is Hungarian,[176] in which the root ‘fog,’ ‘seize,’ is thus declined--_fog-ok_, _fogo-s_, _fog_. Here, then, the original plan maintains itself, of coalition according to the formula ‘Go-father,’ or ‘Father-go.’ In the next stage, the subject is repeated, as, when we say Ἔγω δίδωμι, we are really saying ‘_I_ give _I_.’ This process is very common in some modern languages, especially in poetry, when emphasis is to be given to the subject: as, _The night it was still, and the moon it shone_ (Kirke White, Gondoline);[177] _The skipper he stood beside the helm_ (Longfellow): _Je le sais, moi_; _Il ne voulut pas, lui_; _Toi, tu vivras vil et malheureux_,--‘I know it, I;’ ‘He would not, he;’ ‘Thou, thou shalt live vile and wretched.’ Similar is the anticipation of the subject by an indefinite _il_; as, _Il suffisait un mot_, ‘There sufficed a word.’ The pronoun was originally doubled only where it was specially emphasised, just as in uneducated conversation at the present day we hear such forms as _I says_, _says I_. But such pronominal reduplication must have spread, and have affected the verbal forms when they were completely formed, just as it, at an earlier period, affected the tense-stems. It is, however, by this time so far forgotten that the termination of such a word as _legit_ represents a personal pronoun, that its most common use is to indicate its relationship with the subject by mere concord; as _Pater legit_, lit. ‘Father read--he,’ _i.e._ ‘father reads.’ In fact, the personal endings at the present day merely serve to mark the verb as such, and sometimes to express the difference between different moods.

In the case of nouns, the concord of gender and number, at any rate, is first formed in the pronoun to which reference is made, to which gender, too, owes its origin, as in such cases as _illæ mulieres_, ‘those women (nom.);’ _illas mulieres_ (acc.).

Concord in case appears first in apposition; as, _Imperatoris Cæsaris exercitus_, ‘The army of Cæsar (gen.) the commander (gen.),’ where it serves to show that both nouns have the same relation to _exercitus_. But here there is no more actual necessity for employing the case-ending twice, than there is for repeating the pronominal suffix in the case of the verb. This we may see in such cases as _King Arthur’s seat_; _La gloire de la nation française_, ‘The glory of the French nation.’ A concord in gender and number occurs, even at the present day, only where it is demanded by the nature of the case; as, _La dame sur le visage de laquelle les grâces étaient peintes_ (Fénelon), ‘The lady on the face of whom the graces were painted.’

The concord of substantives in apposition having been the first to form itself--as in _Cæsaris imperatoris Romani_, ‘Of Cæsar (gen.) the Roman-commander (gen.)’--we must suppose the concord of the attributival and predicatival adjective to have been modelled upon that use; as, _Cæsaris domini potentis_, ‘Of Cæsar (gen.) the powerful master (gen.),’ or _Cæsaris invicti_, ‘Of Cæsar (gen.) unconquered (gen.).’ In other words, their origin reaches back to a time when the adjective still occupied the same category as the substantive, and was not yet thought of as occupying a category of its own. The transition is marked by such substantives as are called, in Latin grammars, _Mobilia_, which in the forms of their genders resemble adjectives. Such as _coquus_, ‘cook’ (masc.); _coqua_, ‘cook’ (fem.): _dominus_, ‘lord;’ _domina_, ‘lady:’ _rex_, ‘king;’ _regina_, ‘queen.’ As these substantives passed into adjectives, they maintained the concord, and it then came to be regarded as of the essence of the adjective.