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Sanctius and Mr . R . Johnson take nondtice of defective verbs , probably because they thought them only fragments of verbs , grown obsolete : thus , as is observed by the Port Royal Grammar , Memini comes from meno ( meiis ) :
and novi from gnoo , ( Not ^ , ) better perhaps than , as the same grammar states , abbreviated , novi for nocivi , from nosco . Now , though the grammars taught at present in our schools do not , as I am aware ( at least some
do not , ) expressly say , that novi has no imperative mood , ( and therefore some young gentlemen may be a little in the dark on this point , ) yet JLily does ; " Odi , novi , et coepi carent im ~
pefativo . " And as Lily is so often faulty , and only gives laws , but not reasons , it may not be out of place to furnish here a proof of what Lily says expressly , and is only indirectly said in our school gramrnars .
It has not been thought necessary at every turn to say that norim , &c . is abbreviated from noverim * &c , that being well known , but it may be proper to observe , that novi is a peculiar defective form , which serves
both for present and past time , though its regular form nosco is in full use * Now , our grammars do very correctly inform us that these two verbs , memini and novi , have the tenses only that are formed from the preter-perfect tense of the indicative mood . Agreeably thereto , from memini we have
, enm , essem , ero , isse ; and the only two persons , which it possesses in the imperative , memento , mementote , follow the same analogy . Now with respect to noviy considered as a defective , the imperative of the regular ( nosce , noscaut , let them know ) may seem to come to its assistance ;
but had it possessed an imperative of the defective form , it would have followed the same analogy with memini : novi would have given something like novite , novitote ; and a third person plural , something like novant , novttnto , let them know ; but as to any think like n 6 ri , ( for noveri , ) giving riorint for noverint , let them know , as
an imperative , your young gentlemen should look for better authority than your Correspondent ' s . * — —_ , Sic novit utrumq * Sig-iiifieat , pleuo licet usiu nosco remansit . RUDMMAN .
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But grammarians will please to take notice * 1 am so far from denying , that I have already admitted , the po * tential mood very often supplies the place of an imperative , as , " Neque tu ipsum metuas : " Terence Des mihi
frui , &c . even elegantiee grati& , where the verb has a regular imperative : nor would I deny that a pr&terperfect will admit of a similar application and substitution , as , " Ne facite manusimposueris ; " Tertullian ?—nay , the future present will supply the place of an
imperative . And the way to account for it in such cases seems to be this ; that the preterperfect takes that sense of the preterimpeffect tense , which amounts to , « ' they should or ought , " which in import reaches to the hortative and precative view , as it is called , of the imperative mood . Mr . Johnson ,
iadeed , denies that the preterperfect will admit the sense of { debeo ) should , or ought ; but as he admits that the preterimperfect will , it seems to follow that the preterperfect will , from the very nature of defective verbs , which , besides their own preterite significations , seem to take also the sense
of those tenses which are wanting , whether present or preterimperfect , as in the present case ndrim might supply the place of the tenses wanting , novam and norem * This seems to be the rationale of the word ; in which case it would admit , " they
should know , or they ought to know , " amounting to the hortatory form of the imperative mood , as we have seen the potent , present is susceptible of . But this point is submitted to th § grammarian . And your young gen * tlemen , who are tied to modal
distinctions in technical school-terms , should be advised against speaking of such verbs as modi imperative . And I have gone thus far , because 1 am clearly of opinion that your Correspondent has fallen into two blunders here 9 one in supposing Mr . R . took norint for an indicative mood ; another , in taking it himself for an imperative ; and without some such detail , I could have given no correct idea of my meaning , nor of theirs . In general , Sir , 1 beg leave to ob ~ serve of Tertullian , that he is a close , nervous , acute writer . Cardinal Per-: ron well observes of him : " Est un terrible auteur , et qui ne se Jaisse pas mauler a tout Ie monde . II est pleia
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On Mr . Belshatri ' s " Plea for Infant Baptism" 239
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1819, page 239, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1771/page/27/
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