What Command Syntax Tells Us About Book of Mormon Authorship

[Page 175]Abstract: The variety of command syntax found in the Book of Mormon is very different from what is seen in the King James Bible. Yet it is sophisticated and principled, evincing Early Modern English linguistic competence. Interestingly, the syntactic match between the 1829 text and a prominent text from the late 15th century is surprisingly good. All the evidence indicates that Joseph Smith would not have produced the structures found in the text using the King James Bible as a model, nor from his own language. The overall usage profile of command syntax seen in the Book of Mormon strongly supports the view that the Lord revealed specific words to Joseph Smith, not simply ideas.

This paper considers the systematic use of the verb command when it governs another verb, in both the 1829 Book of Mormon and the 1611 King James Bible (excluding the Apocrypha). This analysis leads to some important conclusions in relation to Book of Mormon authorship. Because there are profound differences between the two scriptural texts, and because there are more than 150 instances of command syntax in each text, it is possible to make strong claims with respect to this question.

As part of this study, some structural properties of command syntax are examined. The two main parameters to be investigated are (1) whether an infinitive or a finite verb [Page 176]follows the command verb, and (2) whether the command verb itself is in the active voice or in the passive voice.

As shown in this paper, the Book of Mormon is a relatively strong match with an important 1483 English translation out of Latin by the early printer / publisher / translator William Caxton. From this match we can conclude that the Book of Mormon’s systematic use of command syntax is not unheard of in the annals of English literature. Yet neither is it commonly found. Although I have discovered that another text is close to the Book of Mormon in terms of command syntax, the particular usage patterns were not prevalent in the general textual record, and they have been thoroughly obscured by language change and the passage of time.

While the forms found in the Book of Mormon constitute old syntax, they are not difficult to understand or impenetrable in meaning. Yes, the syntax can be complex and even a bit cumbersome (especially when judged according to present-day sensibilities), but the meaning is usually plain. Of course the text often sacrifices economy for clarity, and its favored form of command syntax fits within that paradigm.

Grammatical Details of Command Syntax

In the particular grammatical construction of interest to this study, some form of the verb command is followed by a syntactically related finite clause or infinitival complement. The finite clause may or may not have an auxiliary (should or shall):

Finite command syntax (past tense, active voice)

X commanded that Y (should) do something

Infinitival command syntax (past tense, active voice)

X commanded Y to do something

Command syntax is, generally speaking, complex. That is because two or more verbs are involved — either active or passive in construction — and often there are multiple [Page 177]grammatical subjects and objects. As a result, the usage of this structure is diverse and exhibits interesting patterns of use.

Even so, the syntax can occasionally be fairly simple. The following example involves two verbs and just one subject and one object — pronominal he and him:

1483 Caxton, tr. Golden Legend [spelling modernized]

He commanded to put him in prison

Here is one example from the Book of Mormon that we will take a look at in order to facilitate an initial understanding of the structure (Skousen’s Earliest Text of the Book of Mormon is used throughout this discussion):[1]

3 Nephi 20:14 [here the standard lds text is the same]

the Father hath commanded me that I should give unto you this land for your inheritance

More than half of the occurrences of command syntax in the Book of Mormon (BofM) have this general structure. In this verse the verb hath commanded has both an indirect object (me) and a direct object clause headed by that. Along with its grammatical subject, these are the main-clause arguments:

[the Father]subject [hath commanded]present-perfect verb

[me]indirect object [that I should give unto you this land]direct object clause

The object clause in this kind of syntax is commonly referred to as both embedded and finite. In 3 Nephi 20:14 this clause has a ditransitive verb give that has three arguments of its own: subject, direct object, and indirect object:

[that]conjunction / complementizer [I]embedded subject

[should]subjunctive auxiliary [give]embedded infinitive[unto you]embedded indirect object [this land]embedded direct object

[Page 178]The pronouns me and I are referentially identical; they are the main-clause indirect object and the embedded subject of the structure. In this paper I will refer to command syntax with such an object and subject as layered. In this passage the auxiliary should functions as a subjunctive marker indicating compulsion, a notion inherent in the semantics of command syntax.

Unlike what is commonly encountered in Modern English and in the King James Bible (KJB), an infinitive is not employed after hath commanded me in this and most cases of command syntax in the BofM. If this verse had used an infinitive, it would have simply read:

the Father hath commanded me to give unto you this land for your inheritance

The construction with an infinitival complement is more compact. A parenthetical phrase elsewhere in the text provides evidence that the above syntax would have been permissible:

Helaman 4:22

— or that which the Lord commanded him to give unto the people —

In this verse the relative pronominal that which precedes the main-clause verb commanded but it is notionally the direct object of the embedded verb give. This parenthetical phrase thus illustrates the connectedness of command syntax. The option of using either finite or infinitival complementation in command syntax is an example of usage variation that is a feature of all texts. The general meaning is the same but the syntactic expression is different.

I have transformed the following verse in order to exemplify some of the structures that this study discusses:

Alma 52:4 — as it appears in the text

he [Ammoron] did command that his people should maintain those cities which they had taken[Page 179]

Transformations of Alma 52:4 (did command → commanded)

Layered syntax (the most common BofM type)

he commanded his people that they should maintain those cities which they had taken

Infinitival complement with a raised object

he commanded his people to maintain those cities

Infinitival complement without a raised object (KJB)

he commanded to maintain those cities

Finite-clause syntax, no auxiliary (tense-levelled)

he commanded that his people maintain those cities

Main-clause passive, infinitival complement

his people were commanded to maintain those cities

Main-clause passive, finite object clause

the people were commanded by Ammoron that they should maintain those cities

Embedded-clause passive, infinitival complement (KJB)

he commanded those cities to be maintained

Embedded-clause passive, finite object clause (BofM)

he commanded that those cities should be maintained

Multiple embedded verbs

he commanded that his people should guard and maintain those cities which they had taken

Embedded negation

he commanded that his people should not maintain those cities which they had taken

Intervening adverbial

he commanded that his people should with great energy maintain those cities which they had taken

Double passive

those cities were commanded to be maintained[Page 180]

Layered Command Syntax

Returning to consider 3 Nephi 20:14 —

the Father hath commanded me that I should give unto you this land for your inheritance

— we note that the first-person pronoun me is the indirect object of hath commanded. In earlier English the preposition to (indicating dative case) optionally preceded the indirect object. This is seen in the following Oxford English Dictionary[2] (OED) quotation from around the year 1400 (spelling modernized):

c 1400 Mandeville (Roxb.) xxiv. 110

He commanded to all that they should forsake all that they had.

The KJB uses the dative preposition to once (in Daniel 3:4: To you it is commanded); the BofM never does (except after command nominals). This syntactic marking became obsolete in the EModE period. In the Mandeville quotation, as in 3 Nephi 20:14, the indirect object is recapitulated by a pronoun that functions as the subject of the embedded clause. The OED indicates that this layered syntax is obsolete. However, because of biblical influence, its use persisted in a minor way into the 18th century and beyond. Google books Ngram Viewer[3] shows usage rates of approximately 1% between 1700 and 1820 (some of this is biblical, and some is reprinted older language, including sermons using biblical phraseology).

In contexts where both verbs are in the active voice, the BofM has 84 instances of this layered syntax while the KJB has only 9, two in one Old Testament verse. This verse, Nehemiah 13:22, contains the last-dated example of layered syntax that [Page 181]is listed in the OED. That suggests that the KJB’s use of the structure was a vestige of older syntax. Here is the structure with ellipsis shown by brackets and indexing. Main-clause ellipsis is shown in square brackets, and embedded-clause ellipsis is shown in curly brackets; the embedded infinitives are underlined:[4]

Nehemiah 13:22

[I commanded the Levites]i that they should cleanse themselves, and [i] {that they should}j come and {j} keep the gates, to sanctify the sabbath day

The other seven biblical instances of active-voice, obsolete layered syntax are shown below, along with two in passive constructions. Main-clause indirect objects and embedded subjects are in small caps:

Active-voice examples

Genesis 3:11

Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

Exodus 27:20

thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light

Lamentations 1:10

whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation

Mark 6:8

And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey

Acts 1:4

Jesus . . . commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father

[Page 182]Acts 5:28

Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name . . . ?

Acts 24:23

he commanded a centurion . . . that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him

Main-clause impersonal passives

Daniel 3:4–5

Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up

Revelation 9:4

it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree

The last two examples have passive command verbs whose grammatical subject is the expletive it; these are discussed later.

The next example is different from the others since it involves an embedded passive verb phrase should be stoned:

Embedded-clause passive (not a case of layered syntax)

John 8:5

Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned

As a result, the embedded subject such is not related to the indirect object us in the same way that the arguments in the other verses are related to each other. This verse is the only time in the KJB that the embedded subject is different from the indirect object; this state is essentially obligatory in embedded [Page 183]passive syntax.[5] It is similar to the relation between my people and these plates in the following BofM verse:[6]

1 Nephi 19:4

this have I done and commanded my people that they should do after that I was gone and that these plates should be handed down

This syntax is complex since it has a fronted direct object this with subject–verb inversion: have I instead of I have. The fronting of this eliminates the need for a repeat. The pronominal object functions as the understood object of the embedded verb do:

[this]i have I . . . commanded my people that they should do [i]

With all these elements, it qualifies as a fairly typical EModE construction. This is also the only occurrence in the BofM with both an indirect object — my people — and an embedded passive verb phrase:

[I have] commanded my people . . . that these plates should be handed down

Joseph Smith could hardly have authored this elaborate syntax.

Overview of Command Syntax in the BofM and the KJB

According to the counts carried out for this study,[7] there are 163 instances of command syntax in the BofM, and 170 in the KJB. Overall, the BofM has 92 cases of layered command [Page 184]syntax and the KJB has only 12. Consequently, had the KJB used layered syntax as often as the BofM, there would have been more than 300 of them in the 1611 text. Thus the BofM is markedly different from the KJB in terms of rate of use of this obsolete structure. Yet because layered syntax is found in the KJB, the construction does not constitute evidence on its own that the BofM is independent of the KJB in relation to command syntax. It is the totality of usage patterns that points to independence, as is amply evident from a comprehensive analysis of the construction. This article seeks to perform such an analysis, drawing conclusions from systematic usage patterns and the sum of the evidence.

Table 1 breaks down command syntax in the BofM and KJB according to whether the embedded clause is finite or strictly infinitival:

Table 1. A Comparison of Command Syntax in the 1829 BofM and the 1611 KJB

Embedded syntax

BofM

KJB

finite

129

32

infinitival

34

138

finite rate

79.1%

18.8%

Chi-square test: X² ≈ 120; p < 10–27

The BofM uses finite command syntax nearly 80% of the time, while the KJB prefers compact infinitival syntax, using it slightly more than 80% of the time. (In addition, the BofM uses command syntax at 2.5 times the rate of the KJB.) Statistically speaking, there is a significant difference in usage between the two texts that almost certainly did not arise by accident. So either Joseph Smith consciously preferred and used the less-common biblical syntax, or he dictated specific, revealed words to his scribes. The latter is more plausible as this analysis attempts to show.[Page 185]

Historical Overview of Command Syntax in English

Infinitival command syntax is attested at least from the early 14th century. The OED has examples with to, without to (akin to bid), and with for to (accidentals regularized):

1382 Wyclif Matt. xviii. 25

His lord commanded him to be sold.

c 1350 Will. Palerne 236

Of what kin he were come he commanded him [Ø] tell.

c 1386 Chaucer Clerk’s T. 477

This child I am commanded for to take.

Infinitival usage with to persists to this day and is the nearly exclusive type. The notion is now often expressed with a different verb like order, as in “I was ordered to pay the fine.”

The Early English Books Online database[8] (EEBO) indicates that only in 15th-century EModE was finite command syntax common (see above chart). This is largely due to Caxton. By the [Page 186]year 1500 the infinitival was the default type. Thus a match between the BofM’s command syntax and that of the printed textual record of English can be found only in the 15th century.

Moving beyond EModE into the 18th-century textual record (using Ngram Viewer), we find that finite command syntax was still used less than 5% of the time. Layered syntax, the most common type found in the BofM, and which the OED declares to be obsolete, occurred no more than 1% of the time.

If we consider only active-voice finite constructions, we find that the BofM employs layered syntax 73% of the time; the KJB uses it only 38% of the time. To be clear, here are these structures and their rate of use in the BofM:

Active-voice layered finite syntax (73%) [obsolete]

X commands Y that Y/Z should/shall do something

Active-voice simple finite syntax (27%) [archaic]

X commands that Y should/shall do something

The first set of OED quotes below contains examples of layered finite command syntax (obsolete), with both an indirect object and an object clause. The second group of quotes contains simple finite command syntax (archaic), with only an object clause (spelling has been regularized and some lexical items have been replaced by semantically equivalent modern words):

command + indirect object + that

c 1400 Mandeville (Roxb.) xi. 41

He urgently commanded his subjects that they should let me see all the places.

1530 in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxford 80

The university heads commanded the servants that they should neither buy nor sell with him.

command + that

c 1420 Prose Life Alex. 41 & 76

He commanded that he should go home to his fellows without any harm.

[Page 187]Then commanded Alexander that they should make many fires. For it began to be unsufferable cold.

The use of that in finite command syntax was optional through the centuries. The following OED quotations show the use of should without that. These have embedded passive verbs or intransitive verbs with only a grammatical subject:

1580 North Plutarch (1676) 729

Antonius . . . commanded [Ø] his head and his hands should . . . be set up over the pulpit.

1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. iv. iii. 148

I commanded [Ø] the sleeues should be cut out, and sow’d vp againe.

c 1611 Chapman Iliad vii. 357

Priam commanded [Ø] none should mourne . . .

We find command syntax without that at least three times in the BofM, but not in the KJB. The first one we consider is the following:

Mosiah 18:23

he commanded them that they should observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, and also [Ø] every day they should give thanks to the Lord their God

This passage is like the following excerpt from Caxton’s Golden Legend, a text whose command syntax is similar to the BofM’s:

1483 Caxton, tr. Golden Legend [spelling modernized]

anon the cruel tyrant commanded to slay all the people that were with St. Edmund and destroy them, but [Ø] they should hold and keep only the king, whom he knew rebel unto his wicked laws

In both cases it is the second embedded clause that lacks the complementizer that. Other elements — conjunctions and adverbials — take its place.

The other two without that are these:

[Page 188]Alma 63:12

save it were those parts which [had been commanded by Alma] should not go forth

Helaman 6:25

it is these secret oaths and covenants which [Alma commanded his son] should not go forth unto the world

These two examples are similar to the 1611 Chapman quote from the OED seen above (also with an intransitive verb), and they are also similar to the following 17th-century quotes:

1635 William Tyrwhit, tr. A mirrour for Christian states

a Drum . . . which [he commanded] should be beaten up

1664 Peter Wyche, tr. The life of Dom John de Castro

the Fortress, which [he commanded] should be Scal’d

In all four examples command syntax occurs in a relative clause and the complementizer that is not used before should. This particular syntactic match is striking. In the case of the BofM, which clearly favors the use of that-clauses, its absence here strongly suggests knowledgeable EModE authorship.

Nineteenth-Century Usage

The prolific Scottish author Walter Scott never used layered syntax in the first third of the 19th century, but he did use simple archaic syntax with an auxiliary. However, this linguistically conservative writer employed past-tense command syntax with object clauses only seven times (my count) in his extensive writings for his Waverley novels:

1814 – 1831, Walter Scott, Waverley novels [Brit. usage]

it is said the king had commanded that it should not be further inquired into | Sir Richard commanded that he should prepare himself for attending him on an immediate journey | I sent you this morning to attend my nephew on the first tidings of his illness, and commanded that he should make no attempt to be present on this day’s solemnity | he [Page 189]was answered, that the King had commanded that none should be admitted to him for some time | the colonel, in base revenge, commanded that they should not spare that rogue Hudson | then commanded fiercely that I should be deprived of the sight of my eyes! | he commanded that the minstrel should be enlarged from the dungeon.

In contrast to a limited use of command syntax with should, Scott used commanded . . . to + infinitive about 120 times in his Waverley novels (also my count). That means that he used past-tense finite-clause syntax only 6% of the time. These figures and Scott’s conservative style tell us that archaic command syntax was infrequent in British English in the early 1800s.[9] And the absence of layered command syntax in his writings reinforces the assertion made by the OED that it was obsolete.

The American author James Fenimore Cooper used infinitives after commanded approximately 50 times in his copious writings. His output was roughly contemporaneous with the Scottish author. I have found that Cooper used that-clauses with shall and should only twice (my count — a 2% past-tense rate), once with an embedded passive and once in the context of statutory language:

1820 – 1851, James Fenimore Cooper [Amer. usage]

After which he incontinently commanded that the runaways should be apprehended | the statute commanding that all executions shall take place by the light of the sun.

This tells us that archaic command syntax was uncommon in American English in the early 1800s, and perhaps less common than it was in British English.

[Page 190]By the 20th century command syntax with shall or should was defunct, effectively remaining only with bare finite verbs in the shape of present-tense subjunctive verb forms, as in “they commanded that he go.”

Auxiliary Usage in Finite-Clause Syntax

The last example from Cooper has the auxiliary shall. This auxiliary usage was uncommon, but it is found in the EModE textual record despite being absent in the KJB:

1536 Miles Coverdale, tr. A myrrour or glasse for them that be syke [and] in payne [EEBO]

Therfore also doth Christ commaunde that we shall so shewe the lyght of oure fayth before men

1598 Stow Surv. 36 [OED]

I . . . will and command, that they shall [enjoy] the same, well and quietly and honourably

The KJB never uses the auxiliary shall in the object clause of command syntax. Instead, the biblical text always employs bare finite verbs when the tense is non-past:

Leviticus 13:54

the priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the plague is

Yet shall occurs seven times in the BofM in present and future contexts (and other times after command nominals). In this way, then, it is properly independent in its usage, following EModE but not the KJB.

Table 2 shows the breakdown of auxiliary usage and non-usage in the two texts; six BofM examples with shall follow.

Table 2. Comparison of Finite-Clause Auxiliary Usage

Auxiliary

BofM

KJB

none

9

7

shall

7

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