* * * * * {392} PART V. SYNTAX. -------- CHAPTER I. ON SYNTAX IN GENERAL. s. 467. The word _syntax_ is derived from the Greek _syn_ (_with_ or _together_), and _taxis_ (_arrangement_). It relates to the arrangement, or putting together of words. Two or more words must be used before there can be any application of studied syntax. Much that is considered by the generality of grammarians as syntax, can either be omitted altogether, or else be better studied under another name. s. 468. To reduce a sentence to its elements, and to show that these elements are, 1, the subject, 2, the predicate, 3, the copula; to distinguish between simple terms and complex terms,--this is the department of logic. To show the difference in force of expression, between such a sentence as _great is Diana of the Ephesians_, and _Diana of the Ephesians is great_, wherein the natural order of the subject and predicate is reversed, is a point of rhetoric. _I am moving._--To state that such a combination as _I am moving_ is grammatical, is undoubtedly a point of syntax. Nevertheless it is a point better explained in a separate treatise, than in a work upon any particular language. The expression proves its correctness by the simple fact of its universal intelligibility. _I speaks._--To state that such a combination as _I speaks_, {393} admitting that _I_ is exclusively the pronoun in the first person, and that _speaks_ is exclusively the verb in the third, is undoubtedly a point of syntax. Nevertheless, it is a point which is better explained in a separate treatise, than in a work upon any particular language. An expression so ungrammatical, involves a contradiction in terms, which unassisted common sense can deal with. This position will again be reverted to. _There is to me a father._--Here we have a circumlocution equivalent to _I have a father_. In the English language the circumlocution is unnatural. In the Latin it is common. To determine this, is a matter of idiom rather than of syntax. _I am speaking, I was reading._--There was a stage in the Gothic languages when these forms were either inadmissible, or rare. Instead thereof, we had the present tense, _I speak_, and the past, _I spoke_. The same is the case with the classical languages in the classical stage. To determine the difference in idea between these pairs of forms is a matter of metaphysics. To determine at what period each idea came to have a separate mode of expression is a matter of the _history_ of language. For example, _vas l['a]isands_ appears in Ulphilas (Matt. vii. 29). There, it appears as a rare form, and as a literal translation of the Greek [Greek: en didaskon] (_was teaching_). The Greek form itself was, however, an unclassical expression for [Greek: edidaske]. In Anglo-Saxon this mode of speaking became common, and in English it is commoner still.--Deutsche Grammatik, iv. 5. This is a point of idiom involved with one of history.