Part 9 (2/2)

The priuage; but their predicative power being generally of too indefinite a character to answer the purposes of advancing thought, they were soon encroached upon and almost supplanted by secondary and tertiary radicals

In the secondary roots we can frequently observe that one of the consonants, in the Aryan languages, generally the final, is liable to , which is slightly es of the final consonants Thus, besides _tud_ (_tudati_), we have in Sanskrit _tup_ (_topati_, _tupati_, and _tu to strike; Greek, _typ-to_ We meet likeith _tubh_ (_tubhnati_, _tubhyati_, _tobhate_), to strike; and, according to Sanskrit grammarians, with _tuph_ (_tophati_, _tuphati_, _tumphati_) Then there is a root _tuj_ (_tunjati_, _tojati_), to strike, to excite; another root, _tur_ (_tutorti_), to which the sa is ascribed; another, _tur_ (_turyate_), to hurt Then there is the further derivative _turv_ (_turvati_), to strike, to conquer; there is _tuh_ (_tohati_), to pain, to vex; and there is _tus_ (_tosate_), to which Sanskrit grah we may call all these verbal bases roots, they stand to the first class in about the same relation as the triliteral Semitic roots to the more primitive biliteral(268)

In the third class we shall find that one of the two consonants is always a se more variable than the other consonants; and we can alin, and added to a biconsonantal root in order to render itsmore special Thus we have, besides _spas_, the root _pas_, and even this root has been traced back by Pott to a thening of the root _vad_, like _mand_ of _mad_, like _yu-na-j_ and _yu-n-j_ of _yuj_ The root _yuj_, to join, and _yudh_, to fight, both point back to a root _yu_, to le, and this simple root has been preserved in Sanskrit Weof ether, should be e of hands and the engaging in hostile coress to clearness and definiteness, should have desired a distinction between these two ladly have availed herself of the two derivatives, _yuj_ and _yudh_, to rae to 1706 roots,(269) that is to say, they have admitted soto their systerammatical derivation, all nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions, which occur in Sanskrit According to our explanation of a root, however, this nuh a fe roots would likewise have to be added which Sanskrit grammarians failed to discover, yet the nus, requisite for the etyical analysis of the whole Sanskrit dictionary would not amount to even one third of that number Hebrew has been reduced to about 500 roots,(270) and I doubt whether ant a larger number for Sanskrit This shoise spirit of econoe, for the possibility of for new roots for every new impression was almost unlimited Even if we put the number of letters only at twenty-four, the possible nuether to 14,400; whereas Chinese, though abstaining froer nue, was satisfied with about 450 With these 450 sounds raised to 1263 by various accents and intonations, the Chinese have produced a dictionary of from 40,000 to 50,000 words(271)

It is clear, however, that in addition to these predicative roots, ant another class of radical elee With the 400 or 500 predicative roots at her disposal, language would not have been at a loss to coin nae is a thrifty housewife Consider the variety of ideas that were expressed by the one root _spas_, and you will see that with 500 such roots she ht form a dictionary sufficient to satisfy the wants, however extravagant, of her husband-the human mind If each root yielded fifty derivatives, we should have 25,000 words Noe are told, on good authority, by a country clergyman, that some of the laborers in his parish had not 300 words in their vocabulary(272) The vocabulary of the ancient sages of Egypt, at least as far as it is known to us frolyphic inscriptions, amounts to about 685 words(273) The _libretto_ of an Italian opera seldoreater variety of words(274) A well-educated person in England, who has been at a public school and at the university, who reads his Bible, his Shakespeare, the ”Times,” and all the books of Mudie's Library, seldom uses more than about 3000 or 4000 words in actual conversation Accurate thinkers and close reasoners, who avoid vague and general expressions, and wait till they find the word that exactly fits their er stock; and eloquent speakers may rise to a coreater variety of expression than probably any writer in any language, produced all his plays with about 15,000 words Milton's works are built up with 8000; and the Old Testament says all that it has to say with 5,642 words(275)

Five hundred roots, therefore, considering their fertility and pliancy, was more than anted for the dictionary of our pri ht and splendor, that root ht have formed the predicate in the na, dawn, spring, gladness, joy, beauty, old, riches, &c But if they wanted to express _here_ and _there_, _who_, _what_, _this_, _that_, _thou_, _he_, they would have found it impossible to find any predicative root that could be applied to this purpose Attempts have indeed been made to trace these words back to predicative roots; but if we are told that the demonstrative root _ta_, this or there, may be derived from a predicative root _tan_, to extend, we find that even in our es, the demonstrative pronouns and particles are of too primitive and independent a nature to allow of so artificial an interpretation The sound _ta_ or _sa_, for this or there, is as involuntary, as natural, as independent an expression as any of the predicative roots, and although some of these demonstrative, or pronominal, or local roots, for all these names have been applied to them, may be traced back to a predicative source, we must admit a small class of independent radicals, not predicative in the usual sense of the word, but si, simply expressive of existence under certain more or less definite, local or teive one illustration at least of a pronominal root and its influence in the fores, and particularly in Chinese, a predicative root may by itself be used as a noun, or a verb, or an adjective or adverb Thus the Chinese sound _ta_ reatness, and to be great(276) If _ta_ stands before a substantive, it has the reat man If _ta_ stands after a substantive, it is a predicate, or, as we should say, a verb Thus _jin ta_ (or jin ta ye) would o, would mean, man bad, law not bad

Here we see that there is no outward distinction whatever between a root and a word, and that a noun is distinguished from a verb uages, however, and particularly in the Aryan languages, no predicative root can by itself form a word Thus in Latin there is a root _luc_, to shi+ne In order to have a substantive, such as light, it was necessary to add a pronoeneral subject of which thecontained in the root is to be predicated Thus by the addition of the pronoht, or literally, shi+ning-there Let us add a personal pronoun, and we have the verb _luc-e-s_, shi+ning-thou, thou shi+nest Let us add other pronoet the adjectives, _lucidus_, _luculentus_, &c

It would be a totally mistaken vieever, e to suppose that all derivative elements, all that remains of a word after the predicative root has been removed, must be traced back to pronominal roots We have only to look at some of our own modern derivatives in order to be convinced that inally predicative, that they entered into composition with the principal predicative root, and then dwindled down to mere suffixes Thus _scape_ in _landscape_, and the more modern _shi+p_ in _hardshi+p_ are both derived from the same root which we have in Gothic,(278) _skapa_, _skop_, _skopulo-Saxon, _scape_, _scop_, _scopon_ It is the same as the Gerain _dom_ in _wisdom_ or _christendom_ is derived from the same root which we have in _to do_ It is the salo-Saxon _dothum_ Sometiinally merely demonstrative or predicative

Thus the termination of the coht, at first sight, be taken for a demonstrative eleo beyond_, which we have likewise in the Latin _trans_ This _trans_ in its French forher or transcendent degree, and the same root ell adapted to forues This root must likewise be admitted in one of the terminations of the locative which is _tra_ in Sanskrit; for instance froinally this e form _anyatra_, in another way; the same as in Latin we say _ali-ter_, fro than the French _autrelish _otherwise_

Most of the teration are demonstrative roots, and the _s_, for instance, of the third person singular, he loves, can be proved to have been originally the deinally not _s_ but _t_ This will require soular of the present is _ti_ in Sanskrit Thus _da_, to give, becoives; _dha_, to place, _dadhati_, he places

In Greek this _ti_ is changed into _si_; just as the Sanskrit _tvam_, the Latin _tu_, thou, appears in Greek as _sy_ Thus Greek _didosi_ corresponds to Sanskrit _dadati_; _tithesi_ to _dadhati_ In the course of time, however, every Greek _s_ between tels, in a terenitive _genesos_, like the Latin _genus_, _genesis_ or _generis_, but _geneos_ = _genous_ The dative is not _genesi_ (the Latin _generi_), but _gene_ = _genei_ In the saular verbs have _ei_ for the terular But this _ei_ stands for _esi_ Thus _typtei_ stands for _typtesi_, and this for _typteti_

The Latin drops the final _i_, and instead of _ti_ has _t_ Thus we get _amat_, _dicit_

Now there is a lahich I alluded before, which is called Gri to it every tenuis in Latin is in Gothic represented by its corresponding aspirate Hence, instead of _t_, we should expect in Gothic _th_; and so we find indeed in Gothic _habai_, instead of Latin _habet_

This aspirate likewise appears in Anglo-Saxon, where _he loves_ is _lufa_ It is preserved in the Biblical _he loveth_, and it is only in radually sank to _s_ In the _s_ of _he loves_, therefore, we have a demonstrative root, added to the predicative root _love_, and this _s_ is originally the saain must be traced back to the demonstrative root _ta_, this or there; which exists in the Sanskrit demonstrative pronoun _tad_, the Greek _to_, the Gothic _thata_, the English _that_; and which in Latin we can trace in _talis_, _tantus_, _tunc_, _tam_, and even in _tamen_, an old locative in _men_ We have thus seen that e call the third person singular of the present is in reality a simple compound of a predicative root with a demonstrative root It is a compound like any other, only that the second part is not predicative, but simply demonstrative As in pay- a person whose office it is to pay, so in _dada-ti_, _give-he_, the ancient fra of soive-he_, is the saular in the indicative mood, of the present tense, in the active voice(279)

We have necessarily confined ourselves in our analysis of language to that faue, and those hich we are best acquainted, belong; but what applies to Sanskrit and the Aryan fae, without a single exception, that has as yet been cast into the crucible of corammar, has been found to contain these two substantial elements, predicative and demonstrative roots In the Semitic family these two constituent elements are even more palpable than in Sanskrit and Greek Even before the discovery of Sanskrit, and the rise of coy, Semitic scholars had successfully traced back the whole dictionary of Hebrew and Arabic to a ses consists of three consonants, the Sees have sometimes been called by the naree the constituent elements are, as it were, on the very surface in the Turanian family of speech It is one of the characteristic features of that family, that, whatever the number of prefixes and suffixes, the root must always stand out in full relief, and must never be allowed to suffer by its contact with derivative elee, the Chinese, in which no analysis of any kind is required for the discovery of its coe in which no coalescence of roots has taken place: every word is a root, and every root is a word It is, in fact, the e to have existed It is language _comme il faut_; it is e should naturally have expected all languages to be

There are, no doubt, numerous dialects in Asia, Africa, America, and Polynesia, which have not yet been dissected by the knife of the graative evidence, that, as yet, no language which has passed through the ordeal of grammatical analysis has ever disclosed any but these two constituent elee, which see and mysterious to the ancient philosophers, assue is e, except the roots, is intelligible, and can be accounted for There is nothing to surprise us in the combination of the predicative and deuages hich we are acquainted, frolish

It is not only conceivable, as Professor Pott ree, as it is handed down to us, reatest simplicity and entire absence of inflections, such as is exhibited to the present day by the Chinese and other es” It is absolutely impossible that it should have been otherwise After we have seen that all languages e, the only portion of the problee that rein of those predicative and demonstrative roots which form the constituent elements of all human speech, and which have hitherto resisted all attempts at further analysis? This problem will form the subject of our two next Lectures

LECTURE VIII MORPHOLOGICAL CLassIFICATION

We finished in our last Lecture our analysis of language, and we arrived at the result that _predicative_ and _demonstrative_ roots are the sole constituent elements of human speech