§ 413. _Personification._--The ideas of apposition and collectiveness account for the apparent violations of the concord of number. The idea of personification applies to the concord of gender. A masculine or feminine gender, characteristic of persons, may be substituted for the neuter gender, characteristic of things. In this case the term is said to be personified. _The cities who aspired to liberty._--A personification of the idea expressed by cities is here necessary to justify the expression. _It_, the sign of the neuter gender, as applied to a male or female _child_, is the reverse of the process. § 414. _Ellipsis_ (from the Greek _elleipein_ = _to fall short_), or a _falling short_, occurs in sentences like _I sent to the bookseller's_. Here the word _shop_ or _house_ is understood. Expressions like _to go on all fours_, and _to eat of the fruit of the tree_, are reducible to ellipses. § 415. _Pleonasm_ (from the Greek _pleoazein_ = _to be in excess_) occurs in sentences like _the king, he reigns_. Here the word _he_ is superabundant. _My banks, they are furnished_,--_the most straitest sect_,--these are pleonastic expressions. In _the king, he reigns_, the word _king_ is in the same predicament as in _the king, God bless him_. The double negative, allowed in Greek and Anglo-Saxon, but not admissible in English, is pleonastic. The verb _do_, in _I do speak_, is _not_ pleonastic. In respect to the sense it adds intensity. In respect to the construction it is not in apposition, but in the same predicament with verbs like _must_ and _should_, as in _I must go_, &c.; i.e., it is a verb followed by an infinitive. This we know from its power in those languages where the infinitive has a characteristic sign; as, in German, Die Augen _thaten_ ihm winken.--GOETHE. Besides this, _make_ is similarly used in Old English,--_But men make draw the branch thereof, and beren him to be graffed at Babyloyne._--Sir J. Mandeville. § 416. _The figure zeugma._--_They wear a garment like that of the Scythians, but a language peculiar to themselves._--The verb, naturally applying to _garment_ only, is here used to govern _language_. This is called in Greek, _zeugma_ (junction). § 417. _My paternal home was made desolate, and he himself was sacrificed._--The sense of this is plain; _he_ means _my father_. Yet no such substantive as _father_ has gone before. It is supplied, however, from the word _paternal_. The sense indicated by _paternal_ gives us a subject to which he can refer. In other words, the word _he_ is understood, according to what is indicated, rather than according to what is expressed. This figure in Greek is called _pros to semainomenon_ (_according to the thing indicated_).