Stoddart, Universal Grammar and Glossology

THE
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.
îterartt mifr |pIjLlos0}}J)t,caI Utamtals.
i.
MENTAL
SCI ENCE;
Coleridge,
AID
COMPBIS!XO
METHOD, by Samcel Taylor
LOGIC and RHETORIC, by Archbishop Whately.

Croion Svo,
5s. cloth.
II.
THE VOCABULARY OF PHILOSOPHY,

MORAL, MENTAL, AND METAPHYSICAL.
ISy
William Klkmiso, D.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy

Second
/Cdilion, enlarged.
in the University of Glasgow.

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MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY.

ANCI1.NT.
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Maurice, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's
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Press.
IV.
THE OCCULT SCIENCES:

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THE
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE;
COMl'BISING
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR,
THE PURE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE;
GLOSSOLOGY,
THE HISTORICAL RELATIONS OF LANGUAGES.
SIR
JOHN STODDAET,
Knt., LL.D.
THIKl) KD1TION, MtVllBD
AND
ENLAltCiKH.
LONDON AND GLASGOW. RICHARD GRIFFIN AND COMPANY. %

publishers to
Slnibersitg of (Shsgofco.
1861.
S3
18GI
PREFACE.
The
present
work was originally composed
for the
Encyclopaedia
Metropolitana, a publication which was designed to have been
produced under the editorial care

Coleridge.
of*
the late Samuel Taylor
That accomplished
scholar, distinguished poet,
and
ill
profound metaphysician, was unfortunately prevented by

health,
and other adverse circumstances, from carrying the

effect.
intended editorship into
He, however, not only devised
the comprehensive plan which was described in the Prospectus

of
tlu:
Encyclopaedia, but furnished the original materials fcr a
general introduction, which his friend,
my
uncle,
Sir
John
Stoddart, undertook, at the desire of the proprietors, to arrange

for publication, in the
form in which
it
eventually appeared.
My
article
uncle was led, from this circumstance, to draw
up an
on Grammar, which, though hastily executed, in the
intervals of a laborious profession,
was deemed by Mr. Cole-
ridge not
unworthy
to
occupy a place in the Encyclopaedia.

atten-
The
subject
was one which had attracted the author's
tion at a
very early period.
He was
educated at the school in
the Close of Salisbury, an institution attached to the Cathedral,
and of which a Minor Canon, Dr. Skinner, was Master, and the
Rev. E. Coleridge (an elder brother of the poet), Under Master.
Grammar was
then taught on the ancient plan of the once
VI
PREFACE.
famous WILLIAM Lilly, whose Propria quce martinis and
As
in prossenti English boys were, for centuries, compelled to

repeat
by
rote,
without the
like
slightest
suspicion that
they
involved anything
a rational
principle.
Fortunately,
Earle,
however, for
my
uncle, his godfather,
Mr. Benson
was a
sound
classical scholar,
and had been a ward of the celebrated

Hermes.
Tliis
James
Harris, the author of
book Mr. Earle put
into the hands of
Ms
godson, then about fourteen years of aye.

it,
and the young student, on opening
felt as if his
mental eye
lessons
had been couched, discovering with surprise that the
which had appeared
to him, of all his scholastic tasks, the driest
and most un meaning, involved many profound speculations of

intellectual philosophy.
Of course he was not yet

all
in a capacity
to
judge of the correctness of
Mr. Harris's theories; but
he saw enough to convince him that Hermes contained much

of that acute investigation, perspicuous explication, and
ele-
gance of method
for
which
it
had been celebrated by Dr. Lowtli.
His classical pursuits at Christchurch, Oxford, of which oollege
he was elected a Student, somewhat moderated, though they

did
not wholly extinguish,
his
estimation
of
Air.
Harris's
work; and the perusal of Hickcs's Thesaurus, in the Bodleian

Library,
showed him
that the northern
languages aflbrded a
his
new
in
field lor
grammatical research.
On
subsequent arrival
literal v
fh'r, r-
London, to follow the study of the law. he found the

day much occupied with
circles of the
r.
lorne Tooke's
results
Kunix
i'f
rurl./i,
* WOrk which promised great

<
from the
cultivation of Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and

hilling into
lid
Knglish etymolo
company with Mr.
I'orson.
he consulted him
first
on
oj
tl
ii> n&erita.
The
Professor said, that, on the
appearance
Mi
iginality
Litt.r to I>unuit);i, he had
been struck with
of
ita
\iews; but though the

first
Divtrwms
of
1'nrl.ii o,|
which only the
volume hud then appeared)
PREFACE.
certainly contained
vii
some new and curious matter, he did not
perceive that
it
effected
much toward
the development of the
principle set forth in the early pamphlet.
This opinion con-
firmed li:
himself.
my
uncle in his resolution to investigate the subject for

the Ecclesiastical
Having chosen
and Admiralty
he bad
Sourts
for the future scene of his professional exertions, for miscellaneous study
;
some time before him sc
and
as
he had
devoted part of his leisure at Oxford to the Bodleian Library,
he employed much more in London among the Anglo-Saxon
and Old English manuscripts of the British
Museum
first
until
he
was called to the Bar in Doctors' Commons, from which period

he was for several years too
fessional duties
much
occupied,
with his pro-
and subsequently with
political discussions, to
do more towards Philology than add an occasional

large mass of notes
article to the
which he had previously
collected.
Several
of these articles, however, threw no small light on the legal

institutions,
as well of
England
as of other countries.
its
For
instance,
he traced the word cavere from
use in the
Twelve
Tables, the earliest
monument of Eoman
Legislation, to the
Mediaeval cautio, the Italian cauzione, the Spanish caugion, the
French cautionnement, the Scotch cautioner, the English

veat,
ca-
and writ cautione admittenda, and numerous other
legal
terms, ancient and modern, derived from the
same
source.
So
he found the vades publicus

Livy,
(a security first
given at Rome, as
Book
iii.
cap. 13, tells us,
460 years before the Christian

vas, vadari,
era) to agree in origin
with the Latin
vadimo-
niurn
the Mediaeval vadium-mortuum, gadiator, contragagia-
mentum;
setter
the Italian gaggio, gaggio-morto,
ingaggiare
the
French gage, gages, engager ; the Scotch wad, wadset, wad;
the English wed, wedding,
wedlock, gage,
mortgage,
battle,
engagement, wages, wager, wager of law, wager of

&c. &c.
Again, in the Italian subastatore (an auctioneer), he
viii
PREFACE.
" most bitter voice " (as Cicero recognized the Prseco, to whose sub hasta. the goods of the great Pompey were subjected
says)
Many
serious
more other such investigations kept alive, amidst the regard for the study of occupations of the Law, Ms
;
language
and
applied to for
was under these circumstances that he was that treatise on Grammar which appeared in the
it
Encyclopedia Metropolitana.
raised to the high station
A few years afterwards he was

the
of Chief Justice of Malta;
arduous duties of which

the whole of his time.
office absorbed, for
many
years, nearly
At
length, in 1839, he
was relieved
life
from that important charge, and left otium cum dignitate which he still enjoys.
to close a long
in the
For the
*/
last
observer of the very
ten years he has not been an inattentive valuable accessions which this branch of
literature has received, not only
own
country.
Many
on the Continent but in our ages elapsed before Philology ventured

of the Greek and
beyond the
classic circle
Roman
tongues.
The languages of modern Europe were long thought unworthy they were firsts^ the grammarian^ attention; and when
of
j.rtod to rules,
I1K11
it
was
in
the vain endeavour to

step.
make them
zealous
wlueli
vh only
in
the
fuvek or Roman
Some
Divines put in a claim for
the supremacy of Hebrew,
first parents they essayed to prove was the language of our impression on the scholastic systems hut this theory made little
thm OriinOe
judaioal
treati.-e
in U8e.
CONKAD
tiKSNKI!
had the merit of

Sue
first
extending philological -peculation very

bounda.
Latin.
beyond the
olassioal
In 1555 appeared
I
his Mithridatot,
in
"
>e
dilleicntiis
linguarum turn veterum
turn
(|ii:i-
hodie apud diverts nationes in toto orhe terrariim
ubu Mint."
as
His notices of various Languages, however, were,
might Ixm -xpert,,! from the then limited knowledge of the

ooumrilight,
lilli-iviit
and
led to little
that
was con-
PREFACE.
elusive in point of principle.
IX
grati-
Nor can anything be more
fying, in this branch of study, than to observe the vast progress
which had been made between the Mithridates of Gesner,
in
the ICth century, and the Mithridatea of Adelung, in the

19th.
In the 16th century,
too,
Goropius Becanus perbetween the Indian
ceived, though
indistinctly, that affinity
and Teutonic languages, which
has, in
our day, been so clearly
made out by Grimm, Bopp, Schlegel, Eichhoff, &c, and

recently in our
in his
own country by the very learned
Dr.
Bosworth,
Origin of the English,
German, and Scandi?iavian
Languages and Nations.
To
these,
as
well
as
to
the
ingenious
speculations of
Drs. Jamiesox,
Latham, and
others,
to
Prichard, Messrs. Johnes,
Welsford, and
my
uncle has paid
much
attention,
and has from time

labours, in correcting
time availed himself of their learned

his
and extending
own
views, as well of
the philosophy as of the history of language.
When,
therefore,
Messrs. Griffin, in the prosecution of their energetic purpose to
reproduce,
form,
in
an improved shape, both as to matter and

Metropolitana,
of which they had
the Encyclopcedia
jcome the proprietors, invited
my
uncle to revise his Treatise

the subject, he
Grammar, desirous of doing
full justice to
solved not simply on correcting the Treatise as originally

rinted,
it
and inserting such notes
as
had since occurred
to him,
on entirely reconstructing the work, and dividing the

This, therefore, he
of
purely Scientific part from the Historical.

lid
;
but as he
felt that,
at his
advanced age, the labour
iting the
whole would be more than he could prudently
ndertake, he devolved that task on
me;
placing at
my
dis-
mal
all
the materials which, in a long course of years, he had
^llected,
and giving
me
every
facility for the fulfilment
of my
nimble share in the work.
PREFACE.
From what
Philosophy
amounts,
in
has been said,
it is
seen that the Treatise on
tlie
of
Language, now
certainly,
presented
and,
to a
to
the
public,
manner,
large
extent,
in
matter, to a
new work,
bringing
up our knowledge on
this
most important subject
to the present day.
WILLIAM HAZL1TT.
Chelsea, Nov., 1849.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction
1
PART
Chap.
I.
I.
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR.
Intellect
Preliminary View of those Faculties of the

depends
.
and Will on which the Science of Language

.
.
. .
Chap.
II. Of Sentences
III. Of Words, as Parts of Speech
Chap.
Chap. Chap. Chap.
....
24
30
IV. Of Nouns
V.
VI.
47
53
Of Nouns Substantive Of Nouns Adjective

Participles
93
Chap. VII. Of
103
108 119
157
Chap. VIII. Of Pronouns Chap.

Chap. Chap.
IX. Of Verbs
X. Of Articles
Chap.
Of Prepositions XII. Of Conjunctions

XI.
168
. . . . .
.196
221
Chap. XIII.Of Adverbs Chap. Chap.
XIV. Of Interjections
266 278
.
XV.Of Particles
.
.
Chap. XVI. Of the Mechanism of Speech
.287
INTRODUCTION.
In attempting to treat of any subject philosophically, it is advisable to define the term or terms employed to designate that subject, and then to explain the philosophical method of treating it which the
1
.
Method,
first
author intends to pursue.
The word " Language," which comes immediately to us from French word langage, originates in the Latin lingua, " the tongue ;" and therefore anciently signified only the use of the tongue A just analogy, however, has extended its meaning to all in speech. intentional modes of communicating the movements of the mind thus we use the expressions, " articulate language," " written lanfor man is formed as well guage," " the language of gesture," &c.
2.
Langi^s*.
the
internally,
feelings.
as
externally,
is
for
it
the communication of thoughts and

necessity of receiving,
is
He
urged to
by the
desire of imparting,
whatever
useful or pleasant.
:
wishes cannot be satisfied by individual power his cannot be limited to individual emotion. The fountains of his wis-
and by the His wants and joys and sorrows
dom and
soil,
of his love spontaneously flow to fertilize the neighbouring and to augment the distant ocean. 3. But the thoughts and feelings of man, which belong to his mental and spiritual nature, can only be communicated by means of corporeal acts and objects by gestures, sounds, characters more or less expressive and permanent, instruments not merely useful, as signs, for this particular purpose, but many times pleasing in them-
selves,
or rendered so,
by the long-continued operation of
habit.
of his Creator, enables him to select, to combine, to arrange and the result is a language. 4. Speech, the language of articulate sounds, is the most wonderful, Speeeh. the most delightful of the arts which adorn and elevate our being. It is also the most perfect. It enables us, as it were, to express things beyond the reach of expression, the infinite range of existence, the exquisite fineness of emotion, the intricate subtleties of thought. Of such effect are those shadows of the soul, those living sounds, which
These, reason, the peculiar gift to
;
man
2.
INTRODUCTION.
call words ! Compared with them, how poor are all other mom ments of human power, or perseverance, or skill, or genius The render the mere clown an artist ; nations immortal ; orators, poet;
we
philosophers, divine
Words, how
5. Yet it is not to be supposed that spoken language, " with a appliances and means to boot," can always fully convey to others th conceptions or emotions of the speaker ; and much less that it ahvav
spvii, it divMtio*.
does so. Joys beyond expression, and griefs too sad to vent themselvt words, are of every day's occurrence. On the other hand, there ai persons, who habitually wrap up their thoughts in the language c mystery, equivocation, or falsehood, for the very purpose, or at lea; with the constant result, of misleading their hearers and there ai words and phrases susceptible of so many different interpretation: that nothing but an attentive comparison of them with the who! context, or with all the concomitant circumstances, can enable any on Dugald Stewart has wo to comprehend their full force and effect. observed that, in consulting Johnson's Dictionary, the reader ma meet with a multitude of words with five, six, or more signification attached to each of them, and after all the pains that the lexicograplu has taken, may perhaps find no one of the definitions applicable to th passage which he has in view ; and yet when he considers the who] passage together he may have no difficulty whatever in comprehendin This proves that the pow the intended sense of the particular word. erful effects of speech are not owing to the mere signification of sep; rate Words, but to the activity of the Mind in Belling on the relation which they bear to each other, and in giving scope to the thoughts an feelings they are meant to excite. 6. Again, the dialects, or systems of speech adopted by varioi; races f m( M( M |jj|;. n Ilt ggoj ;llH ootmtries, have been, in man may remark the oopioi respects, striatoglj distinguishable. Arabic, the high-sounding Spanish, tho broad Dutch, the voJub] French, the son Italian: we may trace minute gradations from th
in
:
,
,
We
Sanscrit; or
.
monosyllables of the Chinese, to the long paragraph words of tl] we may rise, still more gradually, io the scale of espm from the barbarous muttering of a poor Esquimaux in his solitar
canoe, tn tin thanders of Athenian eloquence, and those d strains of our own Shakspeare, which are "musical as is Apollo Nor is this all lut<-," lad " I |i|>ctu;il .i-t of DJ tS."
I',
circumstanoss tend still further to diversify tl Not onlj does time produi numerous spoken languages of the world. gradual progress, or sudden change in their forms; but their effect endlessly modified by combination with other arts of expression, \\ it
th-iusiind collateral
I
in
actions, w i*h
sounds.
observations,
shall
io f
7.
in this labyrinth ol
what objects ha\

content to
this*
leai
weto
pui He.
ui,.it
due to guide us ?
rott)
ko
if
we be
one of tv
understanding?
burthen the memory without ess
Or,
we would riseabova
boaknoi
INTRODUCTION.
ledge of their construction, must we draw our general principles from the minute comparison of those numberless particulars, which the longest life would be too short even to contemplate, and which the
The veryunited wisdom of ages has never attempted to arrange ? They statement of these questions is a sufficient solution of them. indicate at once the necessity of assuming some comprehensive princiThese first elements of our reasoning must afterwards be followed out into all their concrete The history of language must verify the science; but the forms.
ples as the rule and basis of our further inquiries.
Science
8.
must precede.
is the distinction between science and history, be- The sck-m e tween a principle and an event; yet several writers on language, SStwrof Un uae especially within the last seventy or eighty years, and particularly in England, have strangely confounded these two modes of knowledge. Whether there be two parts of speech, or twenty, or any other number, am how they are to be distinguished from each other, are questions of science whether a given word in one language be derived from another given word in the same or a different language, or whether both be derived from a common source, and through what transitions and changes of sound or meaning they have respectively The method which I propose to passed, are questions of history. pursue, is to treat of the former topics first, and afterwards of the latter; but in like manner as it would not be easy to acquire a knowledge of Geometry (at least in its early stages) without the aid of diagrams, so there might be some difficulty in making the first principles of the science of Language intelligible, without occasional reference to examples drawn from particular languages. 9. The science of Language has for some centuries been usually Grammar, known by the name of Grammar, a word which, like the word Language, we have borrowed from the French but which (like the word Language also) is far removed from its original source. The Greek word ypafw, " I write," is connected with many Teutonic
Obvious as
applied to engraving on stone.

bolical, or alphabetical, so
words, signifying to cut into, or engrave; and was, no doubt, first Signs or letters, hieroglyphical, sym-
engraved, were, according to a common analogy in the Greek tongue, called ypaîfiara, " things engraved," and that term being afterwards extended to letters written, as well as engraved, a knowledge of reading and writing letters in general was called ypafXfxuTi^ri, " the grammatical art." In the course of time,
|
.teachers of reading
Bary to lay
any one language, found it necesand writing it well, which rules were deemed the Grammatice, or Grammar, of that Language; and these again were found to result from certain common principles, ivhich constitute the science of Universal Grammar, and of which I ntend to speak in the first part of the following treatise. The rules which form the Grammar of a particular language, in so far as they liffer from those of any other, are owing to accidental and temporary
in
and writing,
down
rules for reading
b2

4
INTRODUCTION.
circumstances, the investigation of which belongs rather to the histo Universal Grammar, on the cc than to the science of Language.
trary, disregarding that
which
is
peculiar to the speech of this or
tli
individual, tribe, nation, or race, considers only
what
is
common
Glossology.
in all ages and countries, both as to the arrangement of 1 thoughts and feelings, with a view to their communication to othej and also as to the bodily organs, or instruments, with which t Almighty has furnished him, for the purpose of such communicatioi 10. The History of Language, in all its various bearings, may not improperly designated by the term Glossology, which I prefer
man
Glottology, a word recently employed by some continental writers; firi because the former sounds to English ears less harsh ; and, secondl because it suits better with several words which we already posses such as Gloss, Glosser, Glossator, Glossographer, Glossography, derived from the common Greek word yXwacra (Attice, yXwrra), t Tongue. Glossology, then, will form the subject of my secoi treatise, comprehending,
j
1.
2.
The Etymology, or derivation, of particular words. The different modes of their Construction in different
guages.
la
3.
The comparative The The
similarities
and
dissimilarities of
words
ai
construction in those languages.

4.
5.
theoretical origin of languages in

possibility
one or more sources. and probability of forming from the existil
languages, or otherwise, an Universal Language,
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR.
CHAPTER
I.
PRELIMINARY VIEW OF THOSE FACULTIES OF THE INTELLECT AND WILL ON WHICH THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE DEPENDS.
In order to study Universal Grammar with effect, it is necessary view of those faculties of the intellect and will on which the science of language depends.
.
,
to take a preliminary
12. In the mind of man the consciousness of simple existence is the consdousne88source and necessary condition of all other powers ; as in language, verb to be, is at the root of the expression of that consciousness by the
all
connected expression.
13.
:
But we are conscious of different states of existence, in some and thus in lanof which we act, and in others we are acted upon guage, a verb is a word which signifies to do, or to suffer, as well as to be. No language, indeed, ever was, or ever could be, formed without such verbs ; but the case is different with regard to theories of lanThese may be, and have been conguage, and systems of Grammar. structed, on the hypothesis, that the mind of man is a mere passive a something which may be imrecipient of mechanical impressions pelled like a foot-ball, but which cannot give to itself, or to anything
;
the slightest impulse beyond that which it has first received. such a question as this, the only appeal lies to the common sense and daily experience of mankind ; and the result of that experience is clearly attested by all languages, living and dead a species of evidence which is the less to be resisted, because it is not the result of any common agreement. Every language in the world has grown up from ithe necessities of those who have used it, and not from intention
else,
On
from accident, and not from theory and yet there is among them an universal acquiescence in certain fundamental principles these principles, then, are indisputably founded on the common constitution
;
:
of the
14.
human mind. The mind is, no doubt,
passive in
some
respects.
If I open
sensations
my
eye to the light, I cannot choose but see ; if a sound strikes my ear, I cannot help hearing. These, and many like states of existence, derived from the bodily organs, are called sensations ; there are other
states, in
emotions.
which we are more or
less passive, derived
from the mind,
and commonly called emotions.

latter,
When we come
we
:
to analyse these
we
"
shall easily discover that

is
are not so entirely passive in
their reception, as
often supposed
nevertheless, as
we
in
both
;ases
suffer," that is to say, are acted
upon by external
causes,
we
6
Feeling,
FACULTIES OF THE MIND
[CHAP.
not improperly include sensation and emotion' as modes of tr common name of feeling. The states sensation, which are agreeable to our nature, we properly call plei
passive principle, under the
<
may
sure, those of
an opposite kind
naturally transferred to those emotions of the
gous to the respective

guilt is
called painful,
and the same names ai mind which seem anak sensations of the body. Thus the feeling and that of joy pleasant. The pleasurab
call
we
pain
<
sensations and emotions, and their real or supposed causes, are a

called
evil.
The
by the common name of good, and their opposites by that expression of feeling is what constitutes in language tr
passive verb.
Wil1
-
have called the passive principle, feeling; so I call tli will, or volition. It is this principle, which may trul be called the life of the human mind it is this, which forms an fashions the mind it is this, which impels and governs the man. Th conscious being, in his active state, has a power he says, I do this c that and hence arises the active verb. Hence also arises the pronoun for the very idea of an act involves the idea of a cause ; and it has bee clearly enough shown by different writers, that if the idea of a cause di not exist within the mind, it could never be suggested from without 16. The will, in its growth, becomes a moral energy that is, impels us to good, as good, and consequently to the greater goo To choose the greater good is to do right, t rather than to the less. Let philosophers argue, as the choose the less good is to do wrong. please, on liberty and necessity ; let them reconcile, as they can, tho*
15.
I
As
active principle
high doctrines
Of Providence,
foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;
still
the individual, from the
right from wrong,
other; ;ind feels

t;il.
first dawnings of reason, distinguish and knows that he is a cause of the one, or of th that the power which lie exercises as a cause, is
Thus is formed Conscience, th lor which he is responsible. and guide of life. I have not now to discuss at length the natui and clli-cts of this prottom faculty: other and fitter occasions may
nt
li^lit
I
fimnd
cannot avoid noticing, that as tli .tii-lit and wnui;/ arc seated nut merely in the mind, hut in th leinetitary rudiments <A' the mind, it is a dangerous and tilt;
fix that Investigation
;
hut
error
to
represent
them as oontrivanoM of language, to no other than the past participle of the Latin verb r.ynr,
and
M.
...,.
that
"
it
Wron^
is
rely
die past
it
tense of the
is
of the histon of words:

Inine;
in
verb to wring. no part of their philosophy

an}
limit.
17.
Neither will nor feeling has

us
:,d
is
s.,lt
in
it
itself
The
slivai
i
continuous;
exists
alike
amid the mar

in
the
bfMthing
"I
the venial air:
the deep, DTI

i
d meditation of a
NlWTOVi
111
it
I.
md
1 1
In
the briei
glimpet that
caught
ot
TllP I1"U
ill
J <
.
1 1
till'
IV
I'.
II
nut
wlilti
lur
ml
CHAP.
I.]
is it,
ON WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS.

then, that reduces the chaos of will
7
first
Whit
distinguishable elements,
and feeling and then into individual masses ?
into
It is the
It is the divine faculty, forming and shaping power within us. " looking before and after," to which in its perfection we give the name of reason. Reason holds, as it were, the balance between the passive and active powers of the mind. It is fed and nourished by the it grows and moves by the energy of the impressions of the one
:
has several stages or degrees, of which the first is Conception. 18. By conception, I mean that faculty which enables the mind to apprehend one portion of existence, separately from all others. In other
other.
It
Conception
words, the first act, or exercise of the reasoning power is to conceive Hence arises in language the noun ; for one object, or thing, as one. " the noun is the name of a thing." Here it is that many modern They seem to have considered no writers on Grammar have erred. such power in the mind to be necessary, and no such act to be performed.
the
They seem mind as such, by
to
their
passive in this respect.
have supposed that things, or objects, ailected own power and that the mind was quite When we come to examine this fundamental
;
part of their system,
we
find the greatest possible confusion of terms.
According to one, the first elements of thought are ideas, another calls them objects, a third sensations, and so forth. If you ask what is meant by these respective terms, you are still more bewildered. " An idea," says one, " is that which the mind is employed about whilst thinking." most vague and insignificant expression, then, it must surely be; and yet it has been justly observed, that " vague and insignificant forms of speech and abuse of language have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words, with little or no meaning, have by prescription such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance and hinderance of true knowledge." All this is eminently true of the abuse and misapplication of the word idea, which had a perfectly distinct and specific meaning, until it was in an evil hour made " to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks," or " whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking." 19. Some of these ideas, it has been said, are simple, and some complex. In the former the mind is passive, in the latter there is an act of the mind combining several simple ideas into one complex one but this distinction has been altogether denied, in more recent times and we have been told, that " it is as improper to speak of a complex idea, as it would be to call a constellation a complex star." Be these ideas, however, simple or complex ; be they ideas of sensation, or ideas of reflection ideas of mode, of substance, or of relation, the great difficulty is to understand in every case how each idea exists as one; how it is bounded, limited, and set out in the mind; and this, I say,
[CHAP.
I.
cannot be done, in any case, without an act of the mind, an exercise of

the peculiar faculty which I call conception.
objects.
20.
objects.
What
"
one set of writers say of
ideas,
another set say of
An
object, in general," says Condillac,
"
is
whatever
is
presented to the senses, or to the mind."

returns:
But
is
still
the question
one pre-
What
Is
constitutes one object ?

it
What
meant by
sentation?
the sensation, or thought, which takes place in a Is it the minute, in a second, or in any other portion of time ? impression made on one sense, or on one part of the organ of that Is it the sensation of warmth, for instance, experienced by sense ?
the whole
Is it
body
or that of light experienced
the impression
made on
the retina
by the whole eye ? by a house, by the door of the
house, by the panel of the door, or the pane of the
window ?
Is
it
the
Attention.
These questions are endless, and perfectly insoluble, if that which makes an object one thing to the mind be not an act of the mind itself; but if it be an act of the mind, then it follows, that with regard to the very first materials of our knowledge, the mind is not wholly passive, but exorwhich faculty I call conception. cises some peculiar faculty 21. Mons. Condillac, indeed, admits that objects are #nly distinguished by remarking someone or other of them particularly; and this particular remarking he calls attention ; and attention, according to him, is a simple faculty, acting only in one mode, and acting Thus he states that the cause necessarily from an external cause. of attention to sensible objects is an accidental direction of the organs; manifestly, therefore, according to him, the mind is no less passive
altitude of the building, or the colour of the brick?
;
in attention
Conception.
than
in
sensation.
in
The conception the mind acts. an easy explanation of the mode of action. This word, which is derived from oon and oapio, expresses the action by which I take up together a portion of my sensations, as it were water, in BOOM vessel adapted bo contain a cer22. I say, on the contrary, that
to conceive,"
in its origin,
word "
ullbrds
tain quantity; for I have before observed that sensation is in itself continuous, as an ocean, without shore or soundings: it does not divide if into separate portions, but is divided by the proper faculty of thi mind. The faculty of conception, like all other faculties, opa
rtain
laws, in
certain direction,
It
and
In
certain
manner
tor
Oob
is
its
constitution.
cannot enable us to view things temporal
under the farm of

j..i.
et.'inity, to conce ve that a certain time occupies a i miis; Of thai iin emotioi Jealousy, for instance, is red, or I'lvm, or blue, or smooth, or which regulate the Th or square, or triangular. a
;
of Conceiving thought
I
<,
it
ill
1-
ne.v.-, .ary
lor a
\\
lule to
eon-
WHr%
are shaD notice, is that, of extension. Ian th.it so constituted, that ue cannot oonosiTt osrtaln objects otherwise than isoocopyJng tpcu$% The hcnltjj of ooooarring them, tharafbre, p*a>
We
CHAP.
I.]
ON WHICn LANGUAGE DEPENDS.

in
this sense has again its In other words, we cannot conceive space but as extending in length, and breadth, and thickness, and bounded by points, and lines, and surfaces. It is by applying these laws to certain objects, that we conceive them to be more or To say that less extended, and to possess different shapes and forms. we get the idea of space by the sense of sight or touch, is to con-
supposes
the
necessary laws or
mind a sense of space modes of operation.
but
found our notions of sense, which imply an existence

to reverse the order of
in
space
it is
knowledge
for if the
mind were
originally
unfurnished with a peculiar faculty, enabling, and indeed compelling to refer the sensations of sight and touch to some part of space, it could no more acquire an idea of space from those sensations, than
it
from the emotions of gratitude or fear. This peculiar faculty, applied to the sensations of sight and touch, of hearing, taste, and smell, enables us to conceive our own bodily existence, and that of
the external world.
hensively,
According as
we
apply
it
we
conceive the existence of objects larger or
more or less compremore minute
and according as we exercise it with more or less care and attention, the external forms and disposition of objects appear to us more or It is not, therefore, the external object which lass accurately denned. necessarily gives shape and form to the conception ; but the conception, which by its own act embraces a given portion of space, and thus gives shape and form to the external object. 24. Similar observations may be made on the law of duration, or Tiiae. time. To say that time is a complex idea gathered from reflection on the train of other ideas, is to forget that the very notion of a train is that of a succession in time, and therefore presupposes what it is adduced to prove. There is nothing complex in the nature of time or duration, but it is a form under which we are necessarily forced to contemplate all things external to us, and some things within ourselves. It is a law of our nature, and so far as regards its peculiar objects, is inseparable from the human mind. But again, it is not the lapse of any particular portion of time which necessarily limits the duration of any object of our thoughts, for we can as easily think and speak of a century as of a second it is the mind which conceives, as one object, the life of a man, or the gleam of the lightning, a long year of toil, or a brief moment of delight. 25. By these laws of simple conception, whatever occupies a certain Number, portion of time, or of space, or of both, may be considered as one thing, or one thought but things or thoughts succeed each other incessantly, and by dividing sensation into units, we have done no more than we should do by dividing the ocean into drops, or the sand into grains. A further law of conception succeeds. This faculty takes a more com: ;
plex form.
conceptions by their number ; and hence, noun has a plural number as well as a singular, in signification, and generally in form. But as the plural is derived from the singular, so the power of conceiving many depends on the
in all languages, the
We distinguish

'
10
[CHAP.
power of conceiving
that " there
is
Identity.
one. It has been justly observed bv Mr. Locke, no idea more simple than that of unity, or one." " Every object our senses are employed about," says he, " ever) idea in our understandings, every thought in our minds brings this idea along with it." Now since this is the case, since no object, nc idea, no thought, ever is conceived in our minds without this impres sion of unity, why should we imagine that any can be so conceived And if it cannot be conceived without such impression, then must w< consider the power by which that impression is produced as essentia Before we can speak or think of anything, w( to the conception. must first conceive it to be one. This one may be finite or infinite that is, our conception may be perfect or imperfect but still, ir order to become an element of reason, it must exist, as one, in th< mind. Even the conception of many exists in the mind as that of om multitude ; and if that multitude be divided into distinct parts, so ai to be numerically reckoned, the number, whatever it may be, is stil contemplated as one number. Simple conception, indeed, could nevei have advanced us beyond the notion of an unit or integer it is b) the aid of the other reasoning faculties, which I shall hereaftei notice, that we are enabled to form the complex conceptions o: number, and so to build up the whole science of Arithmetic. 26. Conceptions succeed each other indifferently, whether they an like or unlike; but the mind can only number them by classing them, and can only class them by their similarity which similarity
when
complete,
is in
the contemplation of the
mind
Identity.
Mod
has been said of the source from whence we derive the notion of oui own personal identity. Surely if anything is essential, not only t< reason, but to feeling, to will, and even to consciousness, it is thi; notion. When Descait66 invented his famous reasoning, Cogito, erg<
sum, he clearly assumed his personal identity and it is utterly impossible for a human being to reason or think at all, without such BJ Kveii in madness, though the actual identity is oftei assumption. (out. miided, though a man may fancy himself to he Alexander tin (beat, or even to he the Almighty, he has before his mind an imaginary identity: he thinks and acts as one bring, and not as two: and again, in dreams, when we sometimes see ourselves dead, oi ifo, vet tlie self which we conteiii| ilate is a mere ima man personage, with whom \\e h.ive a strong sympathy, as we have with tin romance. The contemplator always seems to think and act Of as a separati- indh idual. and twrar loses the deep sense of identity.
:
SiiWnivn
'J7.
I,
It
W'- next
in<|tiiit*
into the different kinds of conception then
we
ii
shall
!'
find
.
that
the ancients were
right
in
dividing then
in
I.
into
two,
iihltanaS
'i'l;<
and
It
<tttnl<iite
t\w substantive
ni>'\
rtn
..
must
In-
whence arise remembered
mi. I'm
that
wi
first
Conceive, as one thin/
or on<> thought,
given portion of sensation,
and that thoft WiutMtioiM laws of time an*
their simplest
form are limited by tlif on tin
CHAP.
I.J
11
Sut*tnc,
mind together, though not always with equal force. Sensations which spread over a large extent of space may occupy a short time,
and those which continue for a long time may lie within very narrow bounds of space. Many parts of space too may be contemplated in one moment of time, and many portions of time may refer to the
same point of space.
Our first notion of substance is personal, unless should prefer saying that the notion of substance is derived from that of person ; which might perhaps be a more philosophical mode though the former more immediately applies to the of speaking refer all our states of common arrangements of grammarians. being to a substance called self, to which each man gives the name of /: and thus I feel and know that I am the cause of all the active states of my being. By an inevitable necessity of my nature I am
we
We
led to believe that there

all
must be a cause or causes

act.
foreign to
me
of
the impressions
made on me without my own
With
;
respect
to myself, the conceptions
me
the notions of matter and motion as belonging to
which are limited by time and space give me those which

the notion of mind.
is
are not so limited give
me
To
external causes,
therefore, I attribute the
same
distinctions of character:
and hence
the most general notion of external substance
that of a cause of the
impressions formed in me.
But one cause
often appears to be
comit
mon
one
to several different sensations.

thing.
I
I therefore
conclude that
is
have, for instance, the sensations of heat, and light, and colour, cotemporaneously, and this not once, but often and I conclude, that there is some common cause of all these sensations, to
:
which cause
28.
I give the
name of
Fire.
it is said is obscure ; it is no Mtemi su tanc** otherwise obscure, than as a thinking and sentient being cannot sympathise with an unthinking and insentient one. Obscure as it is said
The
notion of material substance
is what the common bulk of mankind conand clearest of all their notions. A common man is never troubled with any doubts of the existence of the table or chair that he sees before him, any more than he is of his own per-
to be
by philosophers,
it
sider as the very plainest
sonal identity.
29. Others again think, that they have a very clear notion of the Attract
existence of these external objects or substances.
They
think that
eas*
'
they can easily understand how the mind conceives the cause of a particular sensation of heat, and a particular sensation of light, to be one object, called fire, and contemplates that object as separate
from the sensations produced by it; but they cannot understand how the mind should conceive as one thing, or thought, or one object
of contemplation, a notion common to all similar sensations. Yet it is certain that men frequently use words expressive of such notions, e. g. Gr. auxppoavyrj, Lat. temperantia, Eng. temperance so, Gr. Xevtcornc, Lat. albitudo, Eng. whiteness, &c. These notions are by some writers called " abstract ideas," and supposed to be formed by a
process of generalisation, in which the mind, after contemplating several
12
AN-tr.ict
FACULTIES OF THE MJXD
[CHAP.
I.
particular objects, abstracts from each

all
agree,
and regards
it
some one quality, in which they as " a sort of Universal, or One Being
Many," " ut universale quiddam,

from concrete
;
sive
Ens unum
in multis."
But
this
neither accords with the old signification of abstract, as distinguished
nor with the proper meaning of Idea
and the greater
may be shown a totally different manner. Thus the conception ot a straight line, and the consequent conception of straightness in general, is certainly not formed by abstracting it from various lines of various inequality; for if it were so, every man would have a different notion of a straight line from every other man, and every man would go on abstracting, and consequently improving his conception of straightness as long as he lived. Whereas, in truth, the idea of a straight line, as soon as it is once steadily contemplated in the mind, is perfect, and is equally so in all minds. This could not be the case if all minds did not act by some general laws and since we are so constituted as to be able to reflect on such laws, we may separate those reflections from the general mass of consciousness, as easily as we can separate a particular sensation from the same mass we may form of each, a conception, a thought, as distinct from all other thoughts as one external object is conceived to be separate from all other external
part of the conceptions represented to be so formed,
to be produced in
;
;
objects.
indeed objected, that them laws have no real existence; no truth but that of opinion, and consequently, that " two persons may contradict each other, and yet both speak truth ;" (Vol. ii. p. for such are the precise words of Mr. Home Tooke.
30. It
is
that there
is
404.)
The same
objection
may be made with much more

;
force
against the existence of the external world

reality
for the learned
and pious
Bishop Berkeley has rally shown, that *-e have no assurance or the of matter or motion, but that which depends on our intuiinception ofthefar existence, as causes of the charges which we
in
is
experience
ourselves.
lint
we
are
utterly unable to believe,
then
no truth
air,"
in
our
own
existence; and, as
we
find
it
hard
b> imagine, that this
"goodly frame,
the earth, " this most "excellent
oiaopy, the
tie.il
this
" bra vo
o'erhangirjg
firmament," this "majeS"
so
it
roof firetted with golden lires," are all fictions and nonentities is dillicult for us to imagine, that, truth and virtue, beauty and
Wisdom, glory and happiness, are all empty names: we cannot well believe that turn- and space are mere fictions of our own minds; and
;
is
easier so
believe this, then
to conceive
their existence ac-
cording to laws
Mier, for space, than that
lli.it
from those which we actually experience; instance, to conceive that there is no real existence in
dillerent.
it it exists, a straight line in space is ool the shortest can lie Itwecn two given points, Of that B figure may be OOffilines, or that the radii of a circle are plcU'lv Ixainded by
I
it
mie.jual, or
oi
that the
1n.
.:
lim d
triangle an
|ej|
than two n^ht angles.
CHAP.
81.
I.]
OX WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS.

arises the
13
Hence
distinction
of subjective and objective truth.

is
MMn
'**
truth.
The former we
in objects
consider as existing in ourselves, the latter as existing

;
out of ourselves
the truth of a mere opinion

is
subjective,
;
the truth of the fact to which that opinion relates

all
objective
but
if
truth were merely subjective, each man's
mind would be the onlv
universe, and it would be a solitary universe, without a creator, without time, or space, or matter, or motion, or men, or angels, or heaven, or earth, or virtue, or vice, or beginning, or ending one wild delusion without even a framer of the monstrous spell Now, since it is utterly impossible to believe this, either deliberately or in-
stinctively,
it
follows that there
is
some
objective truth,
what a man
tryeth, troweth, or trusteth to (for these are all said to
and that be
of the etymological family of the icord truth) is in itself, more or less, substantial and permanent. But if this be the case with our conception of a stone, why not of a man ? And if of the motion of a stone, why not of the thoughts of a man ? And if of thoughts bounded by the laws of time and space, of number and identity, of good and evil, why not of those laws themselves ? For the purposes of Grammar, it is hardly necessary to press this argument ; for language has been made by men, according to their instinctive opinions and certainly the prevalent opinion has always been, that there is something which the mind contemplates, when it reasons on man in general, as well as when it reasons on Peter or John. It is probable that Sir Isaac Newton had some object before his mind when he argued on light and colours, as well as a lamp-lighter has, when he lights a lamp or as a country lass has, when she buys a yard of blue or red ribbon at a fair. 32. Conceptions are either particular, general, or universal. In Particular """^p 110 "* strictness of speech nothing is particular, but that which occupies only one given portion of time, or of space, or of both. Thus the emotion of fear at a certain moment of time the sensation of warmth at a given moment, and in a certain part of the body ; or the sensation of
; ; ;
brightness in a particular part of the retina, are

tions
;
all
particular concep-
and it is somewhat remarkable in language, that men (in early ages, Mid before they had much turned their thoughts to reflection), so entirely confounded the subjective and objective truth, both of sensations and emotions, that they used the same word to denote both. A man, for instance, would say indillerently, " I am hot," or " the fire is Aoi." So, in common parlance, we say " the bird fears the
scarecrow
lent in
;
some
" but Shakspeare uses the verb fears in a sense parts of the country,
still
preva-
We
Setting
must not make a scarecrow of the law, it up to fear the birds of prey.
33. Nor is it only a single sensation or emotion, of which we may form a particular conception. may certainly conceive as one thmg, a substance ; that is, many sensations or emotions united in
We
: ;
14
one
[CHAP.
I.
whether that substratum be active as a person, or passive as a thing for the notion of a person is founded on self, as an active being, and that of a thing on the same self, as
substratum
; ;
common
passive.
Particular eunceptions.
34. These, I say, are the only conceptions which, in strictness ot
but almost all writers call those persons or things particular, which they consider to be identical thus Peter or John is said, perhaps, to be a particular individual, though the name Peter, or John, may be given to an object which I have only seen on some particular occasions, and only known to be identical by reflection and comparison. In like manner, Pall Mall is the name of a particular street, though consisting of many houses and the Thames is a particular river, though flowing through several
speech, are absolutely particular
;
dwell the more on this observation, because it shows strongly contend for the existence of nothing but particular objects, overlook the fact, that what they call particulars are not such in strictness of speech ; and that, if the only business of the mind were to receive impressions, we could never acquire even wliat they call a particular idea or conception we could never know that the John of to-day was the same person as the Jolin of
counties.
I
that those
who
yesterday.
35. This latter species of particulars, however,
is
the
first
element
of language. employ signs, not to indicate a single impression, but the same impression often repeated ; and these are of three kinds, the simple sensation or simple quality producing it, which we call an
adjective; the simple action,
We
which we call a participle; and the person or substance in which the cause of sensation or of action resides, which we call a substantive, or personal pronoun.
36.
To
these particulars
;
distinct or confused
for the notion of
we may add the many
notion of numbers, either

objects or
many
qualities
may
MMfUMi
be viewed as a particular notion: and hence arise, not only the plural of nouns, but the singulars which imply plurality, and are commonly called nouns of multitude, as a troop, an army, a crowd. 117. 1 have shown that, a particular conception is formed by the mind and sorting its sensations and emotions according to
still
certain
necessary laws,
and
form
ig
is
them
that
in certain
ot"
le8B distinct.
*
Thus
a certain
.iiii
applies nearly to John, the

to
same
nearly,
forms more Of but the same though with some other

l'eter
;
difference,
William
and so on.
Now, when we contemplate

particulars,
;
thu form ai possibly applicable bo a jariet] of what may be called a gewrul ((inception
ptions,
'
it
oontti
and these
within the other, form duly ordered and arranged and species; and ot these, more or less distinct, opinion is
(
chief!
I'nlvi-rwl
But
iiam.-h.
in
,
then-
is
vet
one higher step
the 1'niver.sal.
!(.
This
is
in the power of conception, .elf when we OOOtemplate the f>nu

it.
which our
Horn
wow east,
the /"" which governs them.
CHAP.
I.]
15
Thus, there is a certain law by which the mind can only conceive a straight line in a certain manner, namely, as length, and as partaking in no degree of curvature, nor interrupted, nor distorted in any manNow, the first line that we actually conceive to be ner whatsoever.
sufficiently to
approaches to the form in the mind name of straight. The second, the third, the fourth, and all successive lines, are perhaps equally deficient and, by comparing them with each other, were there no common standard to refer them to, we should never attain the knowstraight, is not exactly so, yet
it
make us
give
it
the
All the lines which we actually see, have breadth together with their length, all have some curvature or irregularity but reflection shows us in the mind, a line, which is merely length without breadth, and which lies evenly between its
ledge of a simple straight line.
;
Of this we when we have once

points.
are able to
attained to,
make a we find
distinct conception, which,

it
entirely independent of
time or space, always the same, necessarily true in all its relations, equally applicable to all the particulars which fall under it a law of the mind in short, what was alone and properly called by the an idea. The higher, the ancients, and ought still to be called in tier, the purer these ideas are, the more difficult is it for man to conceive them. They are never conceived without meditation and effort ; and the deepest meditation, the highest stretch of our faculties, leaves us lost in admiration and awe at the great overpowering idea of our Almighty Father. 39. Conceptions present themselves to our minds, either as accom- Conception* Tf panied, or not accompanied, with a sense of objective reality. 111 inriitt the mlnd they are not so accompanied, they are mere creatures of the imagination : if they are so accompanied, then, if the object producing them is past, they are conceptions of memory, and if yet to come, of expectation ; but, when the object is present, the conception becomes a perception, whether it be of an external thing, or of a general notion, or of an idea. 40. I have hitherto spoken only of the faculty of conception, by A-wrfon: which the mind gives its thoughts their separate forms but we have next to see these forms put into action, and rendered, as it were, living
"
and operative. Thoughts and opinions come to us in the mass and it is by resolving them into their constituent parts that we ourselves understand them but in order to communicate them to others, we must pursue the contrary process we must state the parts, and assert their union. Assertion, then, is the faculty which we have next to consider it is, as it were, the uniting and marrying together of two thoughts, and pronouncing them to be one. Hence the word, which expresses that function of the mind, is called, by some writers, the copula, or bond but in common Grammars, the verb : and I rather adopt the latter term, because the former may be apt to lead to the erroneous conclusion, that the mind in assertion, passively contem; ; ;
:
plates
two thoughts as
united, whereas,
it is
active in declaring that
16
union, as
it
FACULTIES OF THE MIXD

were, by
its
[CHAP.
AflimmtiTe and u-^dtive.
proper authority ; an authority, indeed, ofte still the proper act of the mind itsel Conception, then, forms nouns, including under that term substantive; adjectives, and even pronouns and participles but these nouns lie dea and inoperative to any purpose of reasoning, till they are vivified b Thus Johr the verb, which pronounces their existence to lx> a truth. existing, good, loving, are all perfectly intelligible as conceptions of th mind yet so long as they stand alone, we see not what use is to b made of them in reasoning but let us introduce the verb, and a trut immediately flows from the mind, whence possibly some etymologist might derive firjfia, a verb, and reor, to think, from pito, to tlow Thus we say, John exists, John is good, John loves, and each of thes assertions at once takes the form of a truth, and becomes, as will b hereafter shown, the germ and seed of other truths in the mind. assort, tha 41. To assertion belong affirmation and negation. / conceptions exist, or that they do not exist and the one of thes thing cannot be, and not be at the same time excludes the other.
exercised hastily and amiss, but
; ; ;
.
111
.11 We
;
" such is the 7rpoe a\\j\o avTiKtiuivuv avriStoiQ, which the Kleati Philosopher, in Plato's * Sophist, applies to the ideas of existe&C and non-existence, and which accompanies every other idea as it
shadow, whether in physics, is necessarily opposed to the
the good," &c.
white,
is
in intellect,
infinite,
or in morals; for the
l'mit
t
the false to the true, the evil
And
as these conceptions are the opposites

is
of eac
i
other, so affirming the one

therefore, in
denying the other.

parlance, to utter
To
say that black
common
a gross and palpabl

is
untruth.
MN*t
42. Neither affirmation nor negation, however,
always positta
is
The mind contemplates some

ceives the subjective truth
truths as actual, that

itself to
to say,
it
con
the ob jective truth in unhesitatingly and distinctly upon

j'vtive truths
it
be certainly agreeing witl the nature of things, and therefore pronounce

its
within
existence
but of other suli
sees no objective counterpart, and therefore pronounce

is
them
not actual, but hypothetical, that
On
Vbhi
this distinction
.
depend
certain differences
probable, or merely possibk in the mOOCk ot' verbs.

tin
Again,
in
we
assert truths either
with or without reference to
which we speak. When we speak with such reference, a we BOOSt frequently do when we speak of particulars, \\e are neces sarily coiiipeiied bo distinguish the present from the pasf snd future
time
mill
assert anything o and therefore we use tin present tense in itu inost comprehensive Import Thus, when we isj 'he John i, I, we imply a possibility that he mighl :it BO ' rt:iin; time I'e bad; and when We a\ John is writing, we implj
hence
the origin
of
tenses;
but
when we
ideas,
we speak
J
Of a truth e\ei
prCSflt.
:i
MM
only a
ilh
1
writing at soma previous time, and will not bewritinj tune bttt Whtfl WS n two and two are four, we no
;
it
a truth
of to-day, or of
lie
tin
\ear, or of tbil ceiitun
bu
r
which
inii.,1
e\er present;
since
we
cannot
conceive

CHAP,
I.]

This remark
is
17
sufficient to
ever to have beginning or ending.
show
that those grammarians are in error,
who make
the signification of
time a necessary characteristic of the verb. 44. In whatever way we assert anything, the assertion is a de- j" md daring of some truth, real or supposed ; it is a propounding of that assertion, truth, or, in the language of logicians, it is the enunciating of a proposition. This is not done by a peculiar word, as for instance the word be ; but by the force and effect of the word in construction for the word be, in some of its forms, as, to be, and being, is the mere name of a conception ; and so are the words love, hate, icalk, and inEvery verb, therefore, deed all others which may be used as verbs. includes a noun ; or, as has been truly said, it is " a noun, and something more." What that "something more" is, has been much disputed but it is clearly something which shows the mind of man
;
to be active, not only in forming conceptions, but in uttering, pro-
pounding, predicating, declaring, asserting them to be truths. 45. The truth declared or asserted, regards either existence or KxU'en.* ami Aft a .i action. It the former, we either assert it simply ot a conception, as, " God exists ;" or we assert it conjointly of two conceptions, which are of a nature to exist together, as the substance with its attribute, or the whole with all its parts, or the universal with the particular.
Tci^
!/
Thus we say " God

is
is
good," " two and two are four," " gratitude
a virtue."
If
we
its
assert an action,
we must
by
its
consider
it
either as
is
proceeding from
to say,
cause, or as received
passive object, that

;
and (if such be the nature of the action) add the other secondarily. There are, indeed, actions which rest in their causes and the verbs expressing these, whether
or the passive verb
;
we must employ either the active whichever we employ primarily, we may
active or passive, in construction, are really of the kind called neuter,
or intransitive, such as,
"
to rejoice,"
"
to sing,"
and the
like.
Conclusion.
40.
truth asserted leads to a further truth,

calls
by
that faculty,
which Shakspeare and accurate term

passage
" discourse," from the ancient scholastic discursus. Hence that beautiful and philosophic
He
that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason
To
rust in us unused.
The power of forming conceptions, and that of giving life and animation to them by assertions, would leave human reason barren and useless for the purposes for which it was conferred on mankind, without the additional power of drawing from them conclusions. All
;
human
tinctly
;
beings exercise this last-mentioned power more or less disbut it is still matter of dispute among very able writers on
to be explained. Without enterassume that the most perfect form that known by the name of Svllogism,
is
what
;
principle its correct exercise
ing into this discussion, I shall here
of reasoning or argument
is
18
[chap.
I.
as the which may be shortly described
inferring of a particular con-
Keview.
TTrt because the premises themselves are not necessarily *"# ^J^ have^1 enumerated the three faculties which go
so.
to the
which are conception, ass,rI \n of the reasoning power, and judk***, to the ft**** apf*hmsk>, ^^nnclu^nTswennl toon, and condusion, ]nued exercise tf lvasou r R only of these faculties; and the tc produced by one conclusion serve enfferencf s that the truths are employed in ir.un.ng Improve the conceptions which
SLS^2d^
"t;:ror
Secondary
speech.
^f^
to notice only those operatic*** a,u primary parts of speech, the noun the mind and the p. and the active, the pronoun SevZ't substantive to, ml, cultivated languages istogmshed dole which arc in most preposition, by hem,: sub, t h
^S
'
itv^'had oeSsion
îvin, birth to the
;.,rl
conjunction,
and the
'
fe
,l,,t.
1,,
Bind Motemplatt. truth,
at tol . the
Into
,,;'],,,!
bmb
down
that
porto.
' i
,,.,,-,.
l
,,(
ti.
;
1
;;;;: M ;;:::
1
.
'.,..,!,
,
'
l
.
composition,
as ,
wo
find in
tnem
of
tn<
,i, general
parts
1
a^.
ho d
.i
V -'""""',
,,;k 1II
[g
with the subordinate

th
a Bentend
M)1
vssiou,tn
.hsw
.!umn,.l.
;s Prâreeaehn,h,e,b!,
' ,
,
althar
ertlon,
that u'rMêir.n.un.i-w,,,!.: buf upon tl n, which are aasumed, I,;
or atjnost gTOUnd-WOrici
:
".-^
Each adverb,
each con unction,
each preposltf
Ire.
ertion.tndofco
CIIAI'. I.J
is

therefore true,
19
Ception; it resolve themselves into nouns and verbs

the
first
that these parts of speech ultimate]
ultimately,
I say,
but
in
glance and motion of the mind, as it were, they only appear in their secondary character, as helps and expletives to the principal words in the sentence.
49.
The
passions
must not be overlooked,

It
in considering the
mind
operation of
in its relation to language.
often happens that an abruptness, a

called an irregularity, if
transposition,
and that which might be
we
become appropriate, and even necessary forms of speech, when the mind is under the influence The reasoning powers are then disturbed and imperfect: of passion. the emotions become inordinate, the will obtains a preternatural force. Hence arises the interjection, which some grammarians have refused to reckon among the parts of speech but their refusal is vain: so long as there are men with human passions and affections, there will be interji ctions in their speech, words which stand out from the rest,
referred only to the
operations of reason,
very significant of emotion though not of conception, defying the ordinary rules of construction and arrangement, because such rides bear reference principally to the power of reason, wdiich is suspended
or superseded,
sive interjection.
whenever passion produces the animated and expr Passion, too, has given birth to what we commonlv (though not always very appropriately) call the imperative mood. When Esau says, " Bless me, even me also, " O my father !" we feel the earnestness of the prayer, widely different as it is from a command. Again, this same example shows us, that the vocative case " O my father," is a strong exof the noun is of similar origin.
but it is totally dissevered in construction from any truth, and has no immediate relation to anv Many other forms and modes of speech take operation of reason. their character from passion as may be particularly observed of the interrogative, so often the result of an eager desire to know the very fact, which, it may be, we fear and tremble to assert. 50. It is to be observed, that all the exercises of all the human faculties may be clear or obscure, distinct or confused. Our vcrv consciousness may be that of mere dotage, our feelings may be blunted, our will wavering and undetermined, our conceptions vague, our assertions doubtful, our conclusions uncertain, our passions a chaos. It has been elsewhere said, that " the thousand nameless affections, and vague opinions, and slight accidents which pass by us like the idle wind,' are gradations in the ascent from nothingness to infinity these dreams and shadows, anil bubbles of our nature, are a great part of its essence, and the chief portion of its harmony, and gradually acquire strength and firmness and pass, by no perceptible steps, into rooted habits and distinctive characteristics." Still the channels in which the stream of mind flows, so long as it has any current, remain always the same the mental faculties which we
pression of passion
the enunciation of
;
;
Conclusion.
'
exercise, so long as
we
can exercise anv, are subordinated to the same
c2
20
FACULTIES OF THE MIXD
[CHAP.
I.
the laws, and display themselves in

in all nations, necessarily
same manner. Hence speech is formed on the same principles and though
;
no one language was ever constructed
artificially,
yet
it is
astonishing
how
of the distinctly all present the traces
same mental powers,
Gr.da.ion,
w e*aa,
materials so exceedingly different. operating in the same manner, on to view thus taken of the human mind, appeared 51 The general of the science of me to' be indispensable toward a right understanding to be a signifying or showing language; for as I consider language would have been impossible for me to have renforth of the mind, it the laws or modes of significadered mvself intelligible, in explaining be the nature ol not first stated what I understood to tion, had I ,.the thing signified. are some things accidentally d.f52. In different languages there It has been owing to things essentially the same.
.
of mankind, for instance, that accidental circumstances in the history Jews, was Jehovah; name of the Universal Creator, among the the Dieu, and in English God; and that the Latin that it is in France into the Italian word luogowords locum tenens came to be changed the Fnghsh word which we the French word lieutenant, and temnte, pronounce kftemnt. It is also by accident spell like the French, but in some parte of Italy, the ny.l that the word luogotenente signifies, trance and England the of a -small community; that in magistrate a rank in the military and marine services; word lieutenant expresses viceroy, or chiei representative and that in Ireland it is applied to the On the other hand it is owing to causes which sovereign. of the in human nature, that in the sounds exist more or less permanently Hottentot, or a Chinese, as language by an Esquimaux, a uttered eloquenl voieesol qualities common to them with the there arecertS Though their articulations vary in man? a Cicero or a Demosthenes. nations that whistled like birds, they all articulate ; and the existed but in the inventionsd the ssnu , hissed like serpen*, who toM of CynocephalJ and < yctops , a* .,, of travellers, as th the ana* who sheltered the,.- whole body while they slept, by of men Newton Cicero or Demosthenes, Plato or foot.
md
some
unr
.lean,-, lovelie n.i-.l.t express sublimer, bolder, only exprea than men of i common stamp, but they could thouffhts must nsces the laws by which every human mind according to Here thm we arrive s ., .i llt ten..gtli..ugl.t.
i
one enormous IHmte , Shakspeare,
Grammar,
knowl-d
ai
an immoveable
-rts
!
the purr srinur, which places this pari basis, renders .1 demonstrable an.
that
andr
it
with
TBUTH, which
is
one and umiorn
irbiefa
ttshossi sod Ignorance perpetuallj
bm
It
''"'
ii
necessary to
different
keep
in
view
,.
the
distinction
betweei
rtalGrav,
uVd, and the Varticula

nations,
Grammars of
snetent
and
modern.
The
won;
omprshsxi
may be
briefly 04
CHAP.
I.]

of
the relations
21
significant
;
fined, the science
of language considered as
accurately, the science of tlie relations, which the constituent parts Now, of those of speech bear to each other in significant combination. relations in any particular language, for instance the English, some are peculiar to that language, some are common to it with certain
or
more
other languages, but not with

guages.
all, and some are common to all lanEvery particular Grammar then has to do with all these but Universal Grammar with the last only. three classes of relations It has been disputed whether Grammar be a science or an art. Universal Grammar is a science, Particular Grammar is an art though like all other arts its foundations must be laid in science and the science on which it rests is Universal Grammar. 54. I am far from asserting that Universal Grammar has been
; ;
\y r
hitherto so successfully cultivated, as to leave to future investigators no hope of improving this science. Its principles have certainly been
laid down with that happy and lucid order, which has rendered Euclid's Elements, for above two thousand years, a text-book Much, however, has been done. The ancient Greek in geometry. and Latin writers have traced all the principal paths of the labyrinth, and elegant edifices of science have been raised in modern times by such writers as Sanctius, Vossius, the writers of Port Royal, and These grammarians, as well as the learned and amiable Harris. those who in the middle ages cultivated the Arabic and its kindred dialects, and those whose disquisitions on Indian Philology have been laid open to us by recent discoveries, all agree in founding the science of Grammar on that of the mental operations. 55. Recent authors have rashly called in question the utility of these It is not to be denied, that the many new sources learned labours.
(jri'mmar.
nowhere
Fallacies of
writers,
of information opened to us in modern times, the numerous dialects, barbarous and polished, which we have the means of studying, the progress of the same language through many successive ages, which we are enabled historically to trace, and, in short, the extended sphere of our experimental investigations in language, may have served to correct some errors and oversights even in our scientific views of Universal Grammar. But if the ancients failed (as they generally did fail)
much more lamentably
some modern writers have what regards its science. Instead of founding language on the mind, they most preposterously found the mind on language. " The business of the mind (says one) as far
in
what regards the
history of language,
failed in
as
it
concerns language,
its
is
very simple
is,
it
extends no further than to
receive impressions, that
to have sensations, or feelings.
What
are called
operations, are merely the operations of language." *
Another says: "

taching to
is
We
I
cannot distinguish our sensations, but by at-
them signs which represent and characterise them. This what made Condillac say, that we cannot think at all without the
repeat
it,
help of language.
without signs there exists neither

i.
* Diversions of Purley, vol.
p. 70.

22
FACULTIES OF THE MJKD

[CHAP.
thought, nor perhaps even, to speak properly, any true sensation. In order to distinguish a sensation, we must compare it with a different now their relation cannot be expressed in our mind, unless sensation by an artificial sign, since it is not a direct sensation." *
:
0f
\v'rds
sornewnrt difficult to deal seriously with phrases so incolet us ask, what can be meant by " the operations of language ? " Every operation must have an operator and it is the It is not operator that causes the operation, and not the contrarv. the amputation that causes the surgeon, but the surgeon that performs It is not the furrow that directs the ploughman the amputation. but the ploughman who guiding his plough gives shape to the furrow. True it is, that eveiy person who uses a word is not its inventor True also it is, that an indibut somebody must have invented it. vidual may have many thoughts which never would have entered his mind, had they not been first excited in it by words he might never have thought of such a place as Timbuctoo, or such an animal as the Ornithorhynchus, had he not read or heard of them ; but the name It of the place or of the animal did not start into existence of itself.
*
^' ^
herent.
But
was imposed by some

person's mind.
lieiwatimw.
1
person,
and
for
some reason
existing in that
IruuWi!"
57. Again, it sounds absurd to say that we cannot distinguish our sensations otherwise than by attaching signs to them. A burnt child dreads the lire because he has felt the sensation of burning, and not because somebody may have spoken of it in his hearing by the Wold burnt, or brule, or hrmjiato. Still more absurd is it to say that Ami as to without a sign there exists neither sensation nor thought. the concluding assertion, that the relation between two sensations IBOl lie expressed in the mind except by an artificial sign, it seems
to
!,.
altogether unintelligible!
.
The chief around of these inconsistencies is an incapacity or unwillingness on the pari 01 their authors to view the human mind as anything more than an inert mass, receiving impressions from external
and returning them back, with some modification, perhaps, from the Structure OX the mental machine, but purely mechanical; <.t' Mi.h, for the candle might undergo, If thrown
.
ii
1 1
;i
lor of
main
facets.
:i'l
I'.ut
Ota
vciitmn
vctuiii
all
Mt,MBfttt| BMHPMqiM
iv|Hiîi:iut.
The The
practical testimony of
i.
human conduct
is
against this theory.
human
fin if
<n In nfcourt
being has within him an active energy,

[xx'tn
"
lew
ettachanl dei signal, qui
lei
repre*
/>-nsci
qui fait
det laiyptet.
o
din
Condillm
(/'>
m-
Jo
itgni
U n'exilte ni
i
"pratnent parlor, do vo'riial.lr M-usaiinn.
I'mir ilistinûcr tine
une actuation diffen nto

.niih,
i,
or, Itor rtpport
m
|m
.
1,
).m
,|H,
<
n'r
prat ime
t"
Vol.
|.
j
Oasj
Phjstqnett da Morale de l'Homme,

CHAP.
;i
I.
23
.sell-moving power, in short a mind governed by its own laws, and burthened with its own responsibilities, is a simple truth, obvious alike to every unprejudiced individual, high and low, learned and
unlearned.
The
Treads on
it
it
dull swain
daily with his clouted shoon
was
the chosen
theme of Socrates
well-inspired, the Oracle pronounc'd
Whom,
Wisest of men.
59. Tt is this active energy, this mind or spirit of man, which gives Forms of to speech its farms; that is to say, the characteristics of noun, of verb, SSdbjrtha
and of those other constituent parts of speech which I have noticed as The essential to a combined signification of any thought or feeling. matter of speech consists in the articulate sounds which serve to These sounds have certain properties express the different forms. common to the bodily organization of man in general, and others which have been differently employed by different nations and communities.
Ml " a
'
The
consideration of the former
is
necessary as a subordi-
nate part of Universal
Grammar
the latter belongs to particular
grammars, and consequently to the History of Language.
24
CHAPTER
OF SENTENCES.
Forms of
II.
nSecU>ytiie
kind.
60. Ike forms of speech to which I have above adverted, thougn we employ them, with more or less accuracy, from the very dawn of our man reason, are far from being obvious to the great mass of mankind. It
is
a remarkable circumstance
in
the constitution of our nature, that
the most complex things are most familiar to us, that the most general laws, by the very reason that they are most general, and most constantly in action, become habitual to us without our reflecting upon,
and consequently without our understanding them. We conform to the complex and intricate laws of sight, we judge of distances and magnitudes by the angles which objects subtend, and yet during a great part of our lives we have not the most distant suspicion that any
such things as angles exist, or that they are subtended on the retina nay, ninety-nine men out of a hundred, and probably a much greater proportion of mankind, exercise the power of vision throughout their whole lives, without so much as wasting a thought on its laws. So All men, even the lowest, can speak their it is in regard to speech.
mother-tongue; yet how many of this multitude can neither writ*' how many of those who read know nothing even of the nor read grammar of their own language; and how many who have been The fact instructed so f;u\ have never studied Universal Grammar! is, that men at first regard the practice of speech, as the exercise of some natural faculty, which proceeds spontaneously from the wish By and by they of communicating their thoughts and feelings. observe, that this faculty operates partly from sudden impulses, and gives birth to expressions not easily to be analysed into any component parts, as in the ejaculations of Philoctetes, which till an many lines of the (ireek tragedy, represent ine; his Sufferings J and that, on the other hand, it is in HOT greater part the result of thought, and
;
.liable
into
pi
portions separate!)
intelligible.
e,
In
tbste,
<
m
it
I'
anal]
si
;
once
raetvc thai everj dl oour
however
long, consists
sentence*
and
l>e
thtrtfora,
before
further,
may
el,
u ;eful to notice the different kinds
proceed to analyse speech any of sentences.

in
Icj.mI
mm
81.
"ni"
word
sentence
is
ji
from the Latin mntantia, and that from

;
Stn/i" to
to think, |o
idee
whence
I
language a sentence
signified priuiaril)
the judgment fen
In
the
MOM
to the
atin'n
judgment pronounced by him. Greek term \i'jyoc, um defined by Aristotle, î.ir,) (tviOiti) ' a complex significant <" ftfpm ""' n| n,i)i,iini rt -/, >V

the judge's id, and then iranimaticallv, it answers
.<

CHAP.
II.]
25
OF SENTENCES.
themselves ; "* which sound, of which certain parts are significant by understandgoes, is correct; but for the fuller definition, so far as it " sentence is a the following iiig of the subject, I would suggest combination, number of words put together, and obtaining from their enunciating some truth, real or supposed, absoa particular power of distinct passion, together lute or conditional, or else of expressing some this definition, it would follow, that the
:
with
its
object."
From
main distinction in classifying sentences should be into the of assertion, and the passionate ; or, as Harris calls them, sentences Other writers have classed them somewhat sentences of volition. and
differently,
enunciatwe,
but yet with reference to similar principles.

that
Thus
Am-
there are four kinds of sentences besides the namely, the interrogative, the optative, the deprecatory, enunciative, contained and the imperative ; but that in the enunciative alone is
monius
states
truth or falsehood.
62.
The
enunciative sentence, like all others, obtains its
power
ot tiveseuU nce>
.
^^ emincia
of which expressing fact or opinion, by the connection of the words (what indeed is self-evident), it is composed ; for Aristotle observes " of those words which are spoken without connection, there is
that
'
no one
either
runneth
'
'
true or false conquereth.' "
But
white ' as for instance, ' man let us put together only these two
'
'
words
Jesus wept,
and we have recorded an historical fact most affecting in itself, and furnishing abundant food for deep and interesting meditation.
When we
read in Shakspeare
The
quality of mercy
is
not strained,
we immediately
is
perceive the enunciation of a beautiful truth, which presented under an expressive form to the imagination by the again
droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
the place beneath.
following lines
It
Upon
So when Milton says

in the soul
Are many
lesser faculties,
which serve
Reason, as chief,
a truth respecting our intellectual (as the former did our moral) nature is distinctly asserted. 63. This kind of sentence may enumerate many particulars, all bearing on one point of time, or referring to one general idea such is the following picturesque delineation of what presented itself to young Orlando, when in pacing through the forest, chewing the cud of sweet
:
and
bitter fancy,
he threw his eye aside

* Poetic,
s.
34.

26
OF SENTENCES.
[CHAP.
age,
II.
Under an oak. whose boughs were moss'd with And high top bald, of dry antiquity, A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,
; about his neck snake had wreath'd itself, Who, with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd The opening of his mouth but suddenly Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself, And with indented glides, did slip away Into a bush ; under which bush's shade lioness, with udders all drawn dry, Lay couching, head on ground with cat-like watch, When that the sleeping man should stir.
Lay
sleeping on his back
A green and gilded
Such
Taylor's
office
also
is
the
following
Sermon on the Duties of
argumentative sentence in Bishop the Tongue, urging the Christian

:
of administering consolation to the afflicted
speech, and the endearments of society, and pleasantness of conversation, and powers of seasonable discourse, arguments to allay the sorrow by abating our apprehensions, and taking out the sting; or telling the periods of
God hath given us
comfort; or exciting hope; or urging a precept, and reconciling our affections, and reciting promises or telling stories of the Divine mercy or changing it into duty; or making the burden less by comparing it with greater, or by proving it to be less than we deserve, and that it is so intended and may become the instrument
;
;
of virtue.
Thetetrrro'
G4.
gative
;
t.-'iR,-.
Under the head of enunciative sentences I include the intcrrofor the same fact which is simply asserted may be Stated 88
beyond the sphere of the speaker's knowledge, or as being doubted by This is commonly effected in him, and desirable to be known. language by a slight transposition of the words, sometimes by a mere As in Sterne's celebrated sermon, " We trust change of accentuation. "Trust that we have a good eonthat we have a good conscience." Again, by transposing the lines above quoted, we make science?" them interrogations
Is not the quality of
Droppttfa
it
as
tin-
mercy strained ? gentle rain bom heaven?
to be observed, that as some degree of emotion is implied verv nature of an Interrogation, so it is often used by the poets, OfatOrS, and Others, to give life and animation tO their style, although
But
it is
in the
ueir mind or that of their hearers, and the matter do doubt whieh is questioned In point, of form, is meant to be averted In point
of
laet.
Thus whan
Tin
.
the poet says
who
to
dumb
forgotfulneu n prey,
rasjj
pleasing, anxious being e'er
be
means
,
positively to assort
that no
ver <|uitte<i
life
with
iu-
difTen.-nci'.
The
!
h umorous
s]
illu itrates
tin'
..t
.'lull
our observation
Shall tie
bof
i
Falstaff,
when
personating the
.shall
mlohtr, and eat
tO 1)0 itxkiM.
Ih-
w "I
l.n.-.land p|..\e a thief
blaokberriM? and t.d.e pn.
In

CHAP.
II.]
OF SENTENCES.
27
05. Again,
thi'jont;
the enunciative sentence

is,
may be
conditional or
eoaar
gtgwwMtence.
be placed in dependence on, or in counterbalance against, some other troth; as in Macbeth

that
it
may
If
It
it were done, when were done quickly.
'tis
done, then t'were well
Or
in
Hamlet
Duller should'st thou he than the
fat
weed
That rots itself at ease by Lethe's stream, Wouldst thou not stir In this.
Or again
obstacles
in
Macbeth, where the contingency takes place which might be supposed capable of preventing
Though Birnam wood be come
to Dunsinane,
in
it
spite of
And
thou oppos'd being of no

I
woman
born,
Yet will
try the last.
is
66. In all these and similar instances, the enunciation of a truth The passionate 8euteutebut another class of sentences owe the immediate object in view of which they their form and construction solely to some passion,
:
Indicate the object.
And
is
it
is
to
be observed, that the indication of
an
object
of passion
essential to the constituting such sentences as
young lady dead,
Thus, when the Nurse, in Romeo and Juliet, on finding her cries and laments vociferously, and the parents What is the matter?" her enter, asking, "What noise is here? answers, " O lamentable day " " O heavy day," are not sentences for, though they plainly show the grief with which she is agitated, But they do not at all express the cause or object of that grief.
these.
!
when Hamlet
cries
O
we
as
that this too, too solid flesh

resolve itself into a
Thaw and
would dew
!
melt,
perceive a distinct expression of the wish to be delivered of life, burthensome to him. The sentence is as complete and grammatical, and much more poetic, than if the place of the interjection O had been supplied by a verb for instead of an impassioned and beautiful line, it would have been perfectly absurd, if the poet had said
!
/ wish
67. quite
that this too solid flesh would melt
We
as
rest
;
may
observe,
readily as
"
that these passionate sentences combine the enunciative with dependent sentences, as,
!
Then would I flee away and wings like a dove which implies (but more forcibly) the same fact as the sentence, " If I had wings like a dove, I would flee away," &c. 68. Sentences of the passionate kind either express a passive feeling, as admiration and its contrary, or an active volition, as desire and its contrary. Of the former kind, is that passage of the apostle, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God " and the line of Milton, comparing the receptacle of the fallen Spirits with their former happy seat
!
"
that I had
be at
how
unlike the place from whence they
fell

28
!!
0F SENTENCES.
desire
fCHAP.
STsKS:
Those sentences which express

expressed by the
imperative; but they as often imp humble supplication or mild intreaty, as authoritative command and in such cases are called by some precative. Thus the poet describe Adam gently calling on Eve to awake
'
mood
and aversion are coramonl
called
My fairest, my espous'd, my latest found,

Heav'n's
last, best gift,
He, with voice Mild as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, Her hand soft touching whisper'd thus Awake.
:
my
ever
Awake!
new delight,
'
And
morning
again,
when our
first
parents offer
up
in
orisons, they
say
lowly adoration thei J
Hail, universal Lord, be bounteous
still
To give us only good
th^m^ enof same form f

the
i01 arG Wklel different from others > f r sentence: as when King Henry says to
jessed
ir
Hotspur-
Send us your prisoners by the
Or you shall hear from As may displease you.
speediest means,
us in such a sort
Or when
Juliet exclaims
Gallop apace, ye fi'ry-footed steeds,
To
Phoebus' mansion
Or when Macbeth
cries to the
ghost of
!
Banquo
!
Avaunt I and quit
my
sight
Let the earth hide thee
onSnm'i^T"
69. Passionate sentences are generally short ; but their repetition in continuous succession is often a beauty of the highest kind especiaUy in poetry. The mighty Master of Poetry, instable in '.his, .u, nail th.vast variety of styles which he adopt* has given ;1I instance of the passmnate iteration of feeling, in one of his earliest products the Rape of Lucrece." Altera beautiful ,nun ^.powerful eflects of time-( Time's glory is to calm contending UCret,aCalls nTime t0hca evils ^theheaS ''
,
Disturb his hours otrc.it with

Atih.-t
him
in
U*M with MHtfgroaot

h.udrnM
t
restless trances
MM
And
H
1,-t
Let there bechance him, pitiful wis, To mukohim moan, but pity not hit monns!
him
u,tl,
m,t,l u
l,,. 1, ,,,!, ti,.m t |,i, |,,. tlu-ir mil.iness.

i^.-r.s
U
r to Inn, tl,:,

'''
in th.
it-
,rit,lncss I
,li
'" ||iv "
'i
1
1
lo
i
mm
ha
1.
l.-t
In,,,
h a rt
in.-,
hairl ,, U|
Let
hi, ,, !,;, (,,,, ,,1'T,
Lot him htrl timo, a beggar's oris to nrt| And Urns toM*onn that \>\ ..h,,. ,i,,n, IVI
| .
\ halptocUntirl
'
i'lvliin tuliiiii
,1, (d
,.;

CIIAP. II.]
OF SENTENCES.
29
foes,
Let him have time, to see his friends his
And merry
fools to
mock
at
him
resort
Let him have time, to mark how slow time goes In time of sorrow ; and how swift and short, His time of folly, and his time of sport ! And ever let his unrecalling crime Have time to wail th' abusing of his time !
The
was)
70.
passjon,
in its maledictions,
which would dictate this terrific variety of imagery might well arm the injured woman (Roman as she
hitherto given are of perfect sentences
;
to the act of self-sacrifice so celebrated in history.
The examples
but
imperfwt
which a sentence is manifestly left imperfect, and that with great beauty, as in the well-known line of Virgil
instances often occur in
Quos ego
sed motos pncstat componere fluctus.
And
so Satan
first
addresses Beelzebub, in the opening of the
Paradise Lost
If thou
Iii
be'st
he
but oh
how
chang'd,
how
fallen
both these cases, the words, though not in themselves fully and clearly expressive of the thought which we may suppose to be in the speaker's mind, are yet not wholly unconnected, and, therefore, show at once that they are parts of sentences which, indeed, it would be
easy for the reader to
fill
up
in Ins
own
imagination.
30
CHAPTER
III.
OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH.

Wortu.
71. The next step in the grammatical analysis of Speech is to resolvi Sentences into their significant parts, namely Words ; for most per sons will readily grant that a sentence consists of words ; and tha every word has some separate force or meaning, as so used. Th< origin of our term " Word" is lost in the obscurity of ages. It come: to us from a Teutonic source, and appears in many dialects, at in Moeso-Gothic, Waurd ; Anglo-Saxon, Word; Dutch, Woord Frankish and Alamannic, Wort; Danish, Swedish, and let lam tic Ord, whence it would seem not improbably to be allied to Oro,
which in old Latin was to speak. Be this as it may, in its grammatical import, as it will here be used, Word answers to the Lath Dictio, which that admirable grammarian Prisciah defines " the
least part of a constructed (that is, orderly-composed) sentence understanding a part to be such in relation to the meaning of tlie wholt
sentence."
ComTwition
or word*.
72.
Words
themselves may, indeed, generally be subdivided as
fcc
l'.ut where 8 gounci into syllables, and these syllables into letters, word is capable of such subdivision, the syllables or letters, though they may signify something separately in other sentences, are not separately significant with relation to the sentence in which the word i&
Used.
Thus, to take Priseian's instance,
in VirgU'fl
it
sentence,
Fama
vires no|uii
cundo
the two syllables r/ and res- form parts of tin- word vires but they are only parts of its sound; they have no separate signification with relation to the sentence here quoted. Yet, in other sentences, each of
;
thatl
\l!aU. 1
may form
it
a word,
:
it'
it
be significant,
in relation
to the
006
in
which
is
oied
as
volnt vi fcrvirius axis.
els.'
when.
Ret dure
M.-liri.
ct rogni novitai
me
|>.-
talia
cogunt
So
(fat
'
nn hamlsom
which
in
it
is
to
taken as one word

:il
i<
re, in relation to
tiful,
has one
si-nili.
.n,
..</.,
in a Sencomely, beau-
or
hlier.il
but
another .sentence,
where hand
n
:
signifies
DOCtion of the
ber,
it
I
human
i
IhmIv,
and soma an
i
indelinite quantity or
s
num-
words.
The same
nit
WMi-.is,
be said even of ha no &epo"

i

CHAP.
III.]
OF WORDS, AS TARTS OF SPEECH.

;
31
rate signification
sentence,
it is
but when it stands alone, as a significant part of a then a word, as in the Latin
Zdecus,
i,
nostrum, melioribus utere
fatis
And
so in the English
always
/ am
Ca;sar.
73. "
If,
therefore, all speech," says Han-is,

,
" whether
i
in prose or Words, the

smallr-t par
verse, every whole, every section, every paragraph, every sentence,
UmA.
imply a certain meaning, divisible into other meanings, but words imply a meaning which is not so divisible, it follows that words will be the smallest parts of speech ; inasmuch as nothing less has any meaning at all." This argument would have been more accurately stated had the accomplished author inserted, after " a meaning not so divisible," the clause above employed, viz., " with relation to the sentences in which they are used." The want of some such explanatory clause has led to much misapprehension of Mr. Harris's whole doctrine. It has been assumed that he meant by signification something positive that a certain sound must be under all circumstances significant, or under all circumstances destitute of signification whereas the science of Grammar is relative the signification of a sentence, be it a simple or a complex, a long or a short one, depends on the mutual relation of all its parts and the signification of one word in a sentence depends on its relation to another in the same sentence. In this sense, we must understand the proposition that words are the least parts of sjyeech capable of grammatical classification how they are to be classed remains to be considered, for some principles of classification are better than others. It is not sufficient that we comprehend all our notions on a given subject under certain heads but we must be prepared to show why we choose those heads rather than others. 74. Take, for instance, Shakspearc's well-known lines
; ;
;
The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is
fit
for treasons
Parts of
Here we know that various grammatical writers call the word the article man, music, concord, and sounds, substantives, or nouns substantive no, sweet, and fit, adjectives, or nouns adjective that, and himself, pronouns hath and is, verbs moved, a participle ; not, an adverb; and, a conjunction; in, vtith, and for, prepositions. 75. The first question that occurs to us is, whether these classes themselves are all recognised in all languages, and by all grammarians ? And a very little experience will show that they are not. The same thing has happened in Grammar, which has happened in all other Some authors have divided speech into two parts, some sciences. into three, four, and so on to ten or twelve. Others again have made their division depend on the supposed utility of words; others on
an
;
32
fpeech/

'
[CHAP.
I]
îe
and
others on the external objects to which they refe ; others on the mental operations which they express. On th
variation
it is
worth while to hear what Quintilian says, in the fourt "On the number of the parts of speed first book For the ancients, amongst whom wei there is but little agreement. Aristotle and Theodectes, laid it down, that there were only verl and nouns, and combinatives (convinctiones) intimating that there wt in verbs the force of speech, in nouns the matter (because what w speak is one thing, and what we speak about is another), and thi the union of these was effected by the comlnnatives, which I knoi most persons call conjunctions ; but I think the former word answei By degrees the philosopher; better to the original Greek avvletrp.oQ. and particularly the Stoics, augmented the number and first, the added to the combinative the article, then the preposition. To th noun they added the appellative, then the pronoun, and then the part and finally to the ver ciple, being of a mixed nature with the verb
point,
chapter of his
Our (Latin) language does nc they subjoined the adverb. require articles, and therefore they are scattered among the other part of speech ; but we have added to the others the interjection. Sum writers of good repute, however, follow the doctrine of the eight pari of speech, as Aristarchus, and in our own day Paljkmon, who hav ranked the vocable, or appellative under the noun, as one of its species A ,i: whilst those who divide it from the noun, make nine parts. there are others who divide the vocable from the appellative, callin by the former name all bodies distinguishable by sight and touch, a
itself,
bed, or a house, and by the latter what is not distinguishable by on These last or both these means, as the wind, Iieaven, virtue, God.
mentioned authors, too, add what they
call asseverations,
:
as
(th
hut thes Latin) lieu! and attractations, as (the Latin) /ascent im distinctions I cannot approve. As to the question whether or not th vocable or appellative should be called irpoa^yopUt, and ranked unde
th" noun, as it is a matter of little moment, 1 leave it to the fro judgment of my readers." 78, Although Quintilian, who only touches on Grammar incident ally, speaks of is maintaining that there were three parts \.t Vaibo sayi truly that Aristotle asserted then' were tie :., In tact, Aristotle, in hi parts of Speech, the Veil) and the noun. Trip) ipfinrt (<'.. treats of these two alone; considering that, o them is made a perfect sentence, ai "Socrates philosophises:" am theiet,,!,- PHKBAI says "the parts of i| h are, according bo thi the \erl>, Pecause these alone, eon .tli.S, two, vi/., the noun and l>u Joined by their own force, make up u full speech, or sentence
<
called
in,
;
the
other
parts
si/ncatct/orematics,
or consignificants,
Speech
however, maintained thai there were eight parts o m to have Keen implicitly followed In main lilt le consequence U hether we in culmies; Iml, thoc
him.seli',
and
he
.,
name
,.l
pai
to particular divisions or subdivisions ,
it
is
of great
ini

CHAP.
III.J
portance to determine on
subdivided.
what
principle speech should be divided
and
77. Recurring, therefore, to the sentence above quoted from Shak-
how the words can be grammatically distinand many various modes will readily present themselves 78. It may be observed that some of the words admit of varia- Varabtoaid Thus man may be varied into mans and rod? tion, and others do not. men hath into have, hast, had, and haviit*/ si /ret into sweeter, and sweetest, &c, and, on the contrary, the words the, in, and, not, &c, cannot be altered. But this is manifestly not an essential distinction, since it does not take place in the same manner in all languages but, on the contrary, ever}' language is distinguished, more or less, from every other, by peculiar modes of varying its words. Thus the Gothic, Greek, Hebrew, Sanscrit, and Arabic languages, and it is said, those of Patagonia, Lapland, and Greenland, have a variation in some or all of their nouns to mark the dual number, which is unknown to our own and many other tongues. So the Greeks and Romans varied their adjectives by the triple change of gender, number, and whereas the English never vary them in any of those ways. If then the distinction of variable and invariable will not answer our purpose, let us look for one that is more essential. 79. Having considered in the former instance the sound of the Afcctfrmid word, I shall now take a distinction which arises from its significaspeare, let us inquire
guished
tion.
of
Thus M. Beauzee divides the parts of speech into two classes, which he says " the first includes the natural signs of sentiment, the
:
speech
other the arbitrary signs of ideas
the former constitute the language

;
of the heart, and
may be
called affective
the latter belong to the lanIt

is
guage of the understanding, and are discursive."

the principle of this distinction
is
manifest that
universal
for
though M. Beauzee
docs not use the word " Ideas" in the senseless manner introduced by Descartes and followed by Locke, "pro omni re cogitata," but for
acts of the understanding or reason alone, as distinguished from senti-
ment or
language
feeling, yet the

in
two
classes taken together are applicable to
influenced by sentiment and understanding, and all languages must possess some means of distinguishing these different faculties. But the question is, whether this
general
for all
men must be
distinction
is sufficient
it is
to account for the different classes of words:

;
not for though there are some words which express only the objects of sentiment, and others which express onlv the objects of knowledge, yet there are many which express both together,
and most assuredly
and many which directly express neither. Nor is it alwavs a word of one class in order to convey either an emotion or a truth. These circumstances more frequently depend upon the combination, than upon the distinction of words. 80. Let us now come to a third distinction, that of the Port Royal 0*** and maniH r Grammarians, who say " the greatest distinction of what passes in
suiiicient to use
'
our minds,
2.
is
to consider in
it
the objects of our thoughts, and the
34
OF WORDS, AS TARTS OF SPEECH.
[CHAI\
II:
form or manner of our thoughts, of which latter the principal is res soning or judging but to this must be added the other movements c
;
the soul, as desire,
command,
to apply
it
interrogation,
&c."
This, again,
will be
is
distinction universally applicable to language in point of signification
and when we come

sufficiently accurate.
to existing languages,
it
foun
wo^dHmi
alluvia-
nas ^ een observed, that this may be done with mor and despatch; and that some words are absolutel; necessary for the communication of thought, whilst others may b considered as abbreviations, in order to make the communication mor rapid and easy; as a sledge may have been first constructed t draw along heavy goods, and may have been afterwards placed o: Such is the theory of Mi wheels to add celerity to the motion.
^1*
û*
'*
r less facility
Horxk Tooke, and

is
i
so far as
we
are here considering
it,
that
tlieor;
perfectly just,
rincipai
and
ry
A
:
ordT
The words which are necessary for communicating the though any given sentence with the utmost simplicity, may well be callei principals, and those which only help to make out the though more fully and distinctly may be called accessories. These are th terms employed by Mr. Harris, and consequently his theory s Mr. Harris, however, adds far coincides with that of Mr. Tooke. that the principals are significant by themselves, and the accessorie significant by relation: whereas, Mr. Tooke says that the necessar words are signs of things, and the abbreviations are signs of necessar words. I shall hereafter have occasion to enter more ;it large inn
82.
in
It is sufficient at present to observe, tha this part of his doctrine. the doctrine does not interfere with the fundamental principle o tli.it is u classification in all Grammars which deserve the name
;
say, of all
igd "
'
oftnlon.
which have proceeded on the signification of words, am not merely on their sound. 83. Now, this principle, in whatever terms it is clothed, is, tha and that with the noun and the verb are the primary parts of speech
;
out them, neither ran a truth be enunciated, nor a passion expressed This principle is the most ancient ta' combination with its object. It boasts the support of the greatest of philosophers, of him, whon t'.>r many ages, even Christianity recognised by the title of "th divine," ai approaching the nearest of all heathens to the divine ligh l'l.Alo, in his Dialogue! called The Sophist, liavinj of the (iospel. profoundly and onanswerabl] argued on the nature of truth " We have in language two kinds of man]
1
.'i.
in
We
call
is
te called nouns, the other wrfa respecting existence, th the manifestation of action a verb; but that sign of speed
imposed on the agent himself a noun. Therefore, of noun in anv order, no sentence (or rational s] ih can b thu OOinpOSSd, neither ran it lie composed of verbs without nouns sleeps,' and such other words as signify action 'runs,' 'goes,' thou -ii the] should all be repeated in succession, would no
which
alone, uttered
'
CHAP.
III.]

sentence.
35
'
any one should say lion,' names of all the things which do the actions before-mentioned, still no sentence would be made up by all this enumeration for, neither in the one way, nor in the other, do the words spoken manifest any real action, or inaction, or declare that anything exists, or does not exist, until the verbs are mixed with Then, at length, the very first interweaving of them tothe nouns. gether, makes a sentence, however short; thus, if any one should say, 'man learns,' you would pronounce at once that it was a senagain, if
'
make up a
stag,'
'
And
horse,' or should repeat the
Noun and
tence,
is
though as short a one as possible
for then, at last,

is
something
declared which either exists, or has been done, or

;
doing, or will
be done and the speaker does not merely name things, but limits and marks out their existence, by interweaving verbs with nouns, and then, at last, we say he discourses, and does not merely recite
'
words.' "
The only
great
name
that for nearly
2000 years was ever
brought into competition with Plato's, was that of his scholar Aris- Ar totle but Aristotle also, as has been seen, agreed with Plato, in stating the noun and the verb as the two primary parts of speech, and indeed the only parts necessary to be considered in the formation of a simple sentence. In other portions of his works, looking at the composition of language in a more general point of view, he enumerated three parts, viz., the noun, the verb, and the connective and, finally, in his treatise on Poetry, s. 34, he enumerated two parts of speech as significant, viz., the noun and the verb ; and two as non-significant,
;
viz.,
the article and conjunction.
84.
speech,
The doctrine that parts of ...incontestable. the noun and verb are the primarv f them Apollonius, the grammarian, calls
.
General We*
ol spevWi.
'
is
grammarians concede to them, at least, the superiority over all the other parts of speech, in whatever manner they choose to account for their preference. I am not, however, inclined to adopt this, as the first step in a methodical arrangement because I conceive that by approaching to the most general idea of speech, it will be easier to reconcile the apparent differences, and to correct the real errors of the different grammatical systems. I have already defined speech to be the language of articulate sounds and language to be any intentional mode of communicating the mind. The most general idea of speech, therefore, is, that it is any intentional mode of communicating the mind by articulate so'unds. Now, keeping in view this idea, let us see how it will apply to the doctrines of those grammarians whom I have already mentioned, in respect to
;
the most animated
and
all
of distributing speech into its parts. writers of any eminence advance a particular doctrine, we may generally be persuaded, that it is not wholly destitute of foundation ; although, from the natural partiality that men have for their own thoughts, they may probably rank such doctrines higher
the 85.
mode
When
Comt.ination
'
ol tl,t
'
om
'
s-
than they deserve.
All the different theories that I have here noticed
i)2
3f>
[CHAP.
Ill
are true, to a certain degree, and,
by combining them
together, tb
best and clearest view of our subject

Combination
may
perhaps be attained.
86. In the
method which
first
am
disposed to pursue, the principl
namely, interjections; all other words are discursive inasmuch as they may be employed in expressing the operations c Again, all words which are employed in reasoning must b reason. considered either as principals, or as accessoiies, and thus the commo principle of Harris and Tookb may be combined with that c Beauzee; but with this caution, that the question whether a part: cular word be a principal or an accessory, depends on the relatiu
affective,
of M. simply
Beauzke
merits attention.
There are words which ar
ichich that
ward bears
to the sentence in tchich it is employed.
repel
because it has been often overlooked by grammarians, manv c whom seem not to have adverted to the circumstance that speech an expression of the mind, when actually engaged in some operative They treat words as if they were corporeal substances, cast in mould, for use. Now, the very same words, that arc principals i
this
;
i
one sentence,
words
may become accessories in the next. The princip? a sentence are of course necessary for the communication c thought; but we cannot communicate what we do not comprehend and as we cannot comprehend any thought without first conceivi'iiy as an object, so we cannot communicate it to others, unless we (it In assert something concerning it, or express some emotion in connexio Here, therefore, the theory of the Port ROYAL pan with it. marians properly iinds its place; for they include the assertion of truth and the expression of an emotion under the words, " tli manner of thinking." With respect, to the writers who divide word> according as they are suscept.il >le of variation, or the contrary, althoug e\ sts in the words of most lat it is true that such a quality
in
;
ltd*
cannot be taken into consideration in treating of (JniveHJI miar, being a circumstance merely contingent and accidental. The result, therefore, Of the preceding remarks, is, that speec
.
huiild
be Considered as intended to communicate either passion passion, without an\ precis when it communicate., ll
(
it supplies the part of speech called the interjection; when communicates- passion, and at the same time indicates an object, Indirectly ret one, and therefore employs some at least of the parts Now, the parts of speec Speech, which are required in reasoning. required in rea oningare either such as a.v neces ary to form a simp] nee, or hiii lor accessories, in order to i\e complexit :mp|e sentence cannot lie Conned without a iiou and a \'il', and || immediately formed by putting a IS and a ver
Object,
it
.1
thor.
'I'h.>
noun and the

bO
verli
form
name
or
then are the necessary parts the conception, the latter

in
<
supply in reasoning the

in,
nss.it ion,
pa ..ion the emotion.

t" be
Thei
re pen
bo
"i
wrj Important
made with
CHAP.
111.1
OF WORDS, AS PASTS OF SPEECH.
C7
to the verb, namely, that it involves a noun ; that is to say, we cannot assert a truth, or express an emotion, which truth or emotion may not be considered by the mind as a conception. Thus, if we
Bay " God exists," we excite in the mind the two distinct conceptions of " God" and " Existence," as much as if we said, " God is m existence :" and so if we say " Come, Antony," we excite the conbut the difference is, that ception of coming, as well as of Antony the words " come" and " exists" are not presented to the hearer as mere objects of thought, but as modes of thinking about other objects,
;
viz.,
"Antony" and " God."

us to clear
the verb are to be reckoned

fixed, will enable
The principle, on which the noun and among the parts of speech, being thus up several diliiculties which occur in the
subdivision of these classes.

old grammarians in general divided nouns into nouns sub- Sui a" and nouns adjective but R. Johnson, Harris, Lowth, and and Harris ranks others, consider the substantive alone as a noun the adjective with the verb, under the common name of attributive. Tooke asserts that the adjective is truly and simply a substantive: whilst a recent writer contends that primitive nouns are not names of
88.
The
stantive
things,
qualities or attributes.
at least not of substances or material objects, but of their The latter theory is so far plausible, that the
Dames of many substances are derived from their qualities, as the words denoting a Fox, in English, German, and Sanscrit, signify a hairy animal, while those in Persian and Icelandic denote a thievish animal but this is a mere fact in the history of language, and involves
;
in the constitution of the human mind, as to render The question is, whether a principle in the science of language. we cannot as readily form a conception of an attribute or quality, as Now, if we of the substance to which it belongs, and vice versd. appeal to common experience, we shall find that men of the most untutored or most uncultivated minds have as clear a conception ot
no such necessity
it
distinguish
" blue," as they have of a garment, and can as readily " blue" from " red," as they can a " coat" from a " cloak." To every ordinary understanding, the "Sun," a " Hoi or a " Man," is an object of thought, and therefore may have a name, which name is a noun; but "bright," "swift," " wise," are also objects of thought, and therefore have names, which names should in Mke manner be deemed nouns.
the colour
noun is considered substantively, when in asserting anything Noun Mb89. st " concerning it, we make it the subject of the assertion, and regard it as that to which some other noun relates, expressing a quality belonging to
belongs.
by it, or a class to which it Thus, when we say, " Socrates was wise," " the Horse is running," " Prudence is a virtue," the words " Socrates," " Horse," and " Prudence," are nouns substantive. noun is considered adjectively, when in asserting anything Noun 90. concerning it, we refer it to some other noun, as that of which it
it,
or an action done or suffered
ad.:w-
38

Thus, when
is
[CHAP.
III.
expresses a quality.
we
say,
" Socrates was wise,"

;
we
and
contemplate wisdom only so

the noun " wise"
assertion
is
far as it
was
a quality of Socrates
lies.
therefore a noun adjective. In this case, the but the same consequence results where the assertion is merely implied; for, if we say " wise Socrates dwelt at Athens," we impliedly assert that he icas wise, though the direct " wise," therefore, in this assertion is only that he dwelt at Athens instance also, is a noun adjective. As to the above-mentioned sentences, " the Horse is running," and " Prudence is a virtue," they will hereafter demand consideration, in a different point of view. 91. When we speak of Socrates as wise, we speak of him as possessing a quality fixed and permanent but if, instead of saving Socrates is wise, we say " Socrates is speaking," or " is walking," or " was speaking " or " was walking," or " will be speaking " or " will
direct;
; ;
speak of a quality in action at a given time and of meaning has led grammarians to distinguish words of the latter class from nouns, and to call them participles ; because they participate of the nature of a noun, and also of the nature of a verb, as it will presently be explained. Since the word participle has been so long in use among grammarians as designating a separate part of
be walking,"
:
we
this difference
not hesitate so to use it; for although in some lansaid, in the Ethiopic) there is no peculiar form corresponding to this distinction, there must always exist in the human mind a difference between the operations which answer to our word adjective, and those which .answer to our went participle. It must he
speech,
I shall
guages (as
it is
,rw.
fall under the definition of a noun, as of a conception in the mind, without asserting that it does exist or does not; for " Socrates walking" is no more an assertion than " Socrates wise," without the interposition of a verb, such as " is," or "lias been," or M will be." Of the Latin gerunds and supines, which some reckon among participles, l shall speak hereafter. haw spokea of nouns substantive and adjective in 92. Hitherto
remembered, however, that both

tlir
men name
is a secondary operation of the mind, which makes certain doom art as mere representatives (so to of whole ciaases of othet nouns. These representative, 01 secondary nouns, are called by grammarians pwnouns, and form in all They are divided, like peech. languages very conspicuous tln> primary nouns which they represent, into substantive and adns representing ave; thus, " /," " taw," and "Ac," are proi K, "I," the peaker, when speaking of hin> substantive nouns, n:i thou," the |i ,,|, i,, whom he directs his discourse; and " he" SOIXM Other person. <>n the other hand, when we say "this man and that man," this and that are pronoun the former represent h as "near," or " present," or "first," IpgaoOM noun adj " nt noun adjective, such as " distant, lattei rep
their
primary mod.' of use; but there
-i
"
the pronoun
!
...
ond."
Hut
1
these
and
other
di
it
notions
of
shall
pr<
consider more
in detail.
The
Artiile,
CHAP.
III.]
39
Ankle,
which has frequently been treated as a pronoun, and which, in those The languages in which it exists, was originally a pronoun, represents the exercise of that faculty of the mind by which we limit an universal
In this to a particular conception. from the pronoun, as well as from the adjective and substantive nouns, and may therefore properly be considered as a but inasmuch as it neither expresses an separate part of speech emotion, nor is necessary to form a simple sentence, I shall notice it
or
general conception
respect
it differs
among
is
the accessories. 93. Besides the noun, the only principal necessary part of speech, The the Verb. Of this I shall hereafter speak at large. For the present,
is
Verb,
it
only material to remark that they who confound it with the and the participle, overlook its peculiar function, which is as the function of the noun, is that of naming. As that of asserting to the separate classes of verbs, the verb substantive, the transitive,
adjective
;
the active, the passive, &c, since these have not been treated of by any grammarians as separate parts of speech, it will not be necessary
to notice
94.
them in The great
this chapter.
dispute, especially in
modem
times, has been with
Axm
speech.
respect to the accessory parts of speech, the nature of which has been They have been said to be like illustrated by a variety of similes.
stones in the
summit
or curve of an arch, or like the springs of a
vehicle, or like the flag of
a ship, or
like the hair of
a man, or
;
like
the nails and cement uniting the
wood and
stones of an edifice
and
hence some persons have contended that they are only significant by and some that they relation ; some that they are not parts of speech Thus Apuleius says, " they are are not even words but particles. no more to be considered as parts of speech than the flag is to be considered a part of the ship, or the hair a part of the man ; or, at least, in the compacting and fitting together of a sentence, they only perform the office of nails, or pitch, or mortar." 1'iusoian, however, one of the most acute and intelligent of grammarians, observes, that if these words are not to be considered as parts of speech because they serve to connect together others which are parts, we must sav that the muscles and sinews of a man are no parts of a man and he, therefore, concludes by declaring his opinion, that the noun and verb are the principal and chief parts of speech, but that these others are the subordinate and appendant parts. 95. The decision of this and similar questions will be easilv made, Bg|* if we only advert to the mental operations which these accessory words express and in order to explain this, we must first ask, what words in a sentence are accessories? This question again is answered by referring to what has been said of sentences. In a simple sentence,
Thus " Man is fit," contains two the words are principals. nouns, which are the names of two conceptions, viz., "man" and " fitness," and the assertion of their coincidence by the verb " is ;" and moreover, since the conception of fitness is regarded as existing
all
40
[CHAP.
III.
word " fit" is an a substantive. The same would be the case if the place of the noun " man" were supplied by the pronoun " he" and that of the adjective " fit," by the participle suited.
not separately but in the other conception, man, the
adjective
and "
man"
is
Compl icated
to consider
when the sentence is simple but we are next a simple sentence is rendered complex ; and this is no otherwise done than by engrafting on it other sentences ; but in these
9g
#
Such
is
the case
how
latter the conceptions only are expressed,
assumed or understood.
and the assertive part is Thus, if referring to the passage before quoted from Shakspeare, we say " Man is fit," we may be asked, of what kind is the aptitude of which you are speaking ? The answer must be " it is treasonable." And again if we are asked, of what
disposition
is
may the man of whom you make this assertion ? unmusical-" and suppressing the assertions in the two secondary sentences, we may form of the whole one complex sentence, thus, " unmusical men possess treasonable aptitudes." 97. In this first process of complication we find only words capable ratbff com" "' of being used as principals, viz., nouns, substantive or adjective; pronouns, participles, and verbs but suppose we again resolve these
say
We
"he
is
and assertions; suppose we ask what do you mean when you speak of a treasonable fitness, or
into their constitutent conceptions
aptitude?
treason
is
;
We
treason
may
is
answer,
we mean
that the fitness looks to
before the fitness (as its
for treason. Here it is plain that the conception of foreness (or objectiveness), and applies that conception to the other conception of treason: but it does so still more rapidly
and obscurely than
in this
mark or object), the fitness word "for" involves tin
in the cases before supposed ; and hence it is that second process of complication we meet with words which art
and therefore no longer called nouns 01 and prepositions; and thes< words are the more numerous and frequent of occurrence, in proportion as nun become more civilised, and more frequently render theii sentences complex by subdividing the primary truth into many others. the word "treasonable" may be supplied by the word* Thus,
no longer thought,
significant,
verbs, but articles, adverbs, conjunctions,
'
for treasons," so the
word "unmusical" may be Supplied

in
first
bj
the
words " hath DO music

not
himself," and secondly, by the words

1"
moved nritfa concord of sweet sounds;" both which, and \arioiis aggregations of senmodes of speech, consist in which the .subordinate assertions are assumed l>\ the mind the manner ahead}) shown. 98. The words, which, by use, come to be must frequently em
many
]
ii.
similar
-.,
ii
ployed
loee
in
any (.articular langtm/e
l,,r
these secondary purposes,
oftei:
tlieir
prmiar\
;
iud
.in
ili...'
mlii at ion, and perhaps in. little clmngi from which circumstances a great di pule has arisen of lal<
:
grammarians whether
,
the]
preposition fur, which, us u

,.7i.
is
.n.- ugnifloant words or not. Thus have shown, conveys the Conception
nothing more than the
word fun:
in
foremost, hrfore,

;
CHAP.
III.
41
fore and aft, and the like words and phrases but by use, and by the slight change which it has undergone, it has come to lose the property of forming a principal part in a sentence. These circumstances, howthey may happen ever, it must be observed, are merely accidental and, to the same conception in one language and not in another therefore, they cannot form a just scientific criterion between the parts of speech but on the other hand, those parts may, and must, be distinguished by the different operations of mind which thev
; ; ;
express
articles,
and as
we
have seen that the operations, expressed by the
adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions, are clearly distin-
guishable from those expressed by the nouns, pronouns, verbs, and participles, inasmuch as they relate to a subordinate step in the
so there can be no impropriety in calling them with reference to the others, which we call principals. 99. From what I have said, it will not appear strange, that the Et>moio*v accessory words should be for the most part traceable to their origin w OI as principals that is to say, that the parts of speech last mentioned should in general be found to have been once used (with little or no dillerence of sound) as nouns and verbs. It has been supposed that this was a new discovery of Mr. Horne Tooke's, and in many parts of his work he seems to have entertained that notion himself; how justly, may be seen from the following, among other authorities to the
anal) sis of thought
;
accessories,
'
like effect.
his
100. B. de Spinoza composed a Hebrew Grammar, published with posthumous works in 1677. In this, he says, " Omnes Hebrcece
Spinoza,
tantum Interjectionibus et Conjunctionibus, et una a tit vim et proprietates Nominis habent." (p. 17.) 101. The same doctrine is laid down in a treatise by C. Koerber, printed at Jena, in 1712, entitled " Lexicon Particularum Ebrsearum, vel potius Nominum et Verborum, vulgo pro particulis habitorum." This writer says, in his preface, that his tutor Danzius taught that " most, if not all the separate particles, were in their own nature nouns ;" that this was indeed a " new and unheard of hypothesis ;" but that on investigation the reader would find reason to conclude universally (in respect to the Hebrew language at least) that " all the separate particles are either nouns or verbs." His words are these " Particular separata; si non omnes certe pleraque sua naturd sunt Nomina" " hanc thesin hactenus novam et inauditam;" and again, " Omnes omnino Ebrceorumparticulas separatas aut nomina esse aut verba." Koerber illustrates his position by comparing the Hebrew particles with radical words, both in that and the cognate languages, particularly in the Arabic. Among the instances which he gives, are the
voces, exceptis
altera particula,
KoerUr.
following, viz.
Juxta, near, being the same as Lotus, side.

Prater, beside or beyond
Inter,
W*,
deficiency.
[lerminus, boundary.
Distinctus, divided.
between
42
Post, after
OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. Tergum, the back. Adde, add.

Elige, choose.
[CHAP.
II]
Qiioque, also
Vel,
or
Buyer.
even explains the interjection Lo! as being identical with tb pronoun of the third person and suggests that the termination of th accusative case is a noun, signifying object. 102. T. S. Bayer, in 1730, published his Museum Siuicum, ii which he says the same of the Chinese Language " Eadem vox e substanticum et adjectivum et verbum, et qualiscumque pars Orationi fieri potest, si id natura rei fert ; v. g. : Siex Sacrijicium, sacrifico
;
He
Hin Icetari, latitia, Ca misceo, mixtura,

u-niwp.
lo?tus,
hilariter
Xo
i.
mollifies,
emollesco, molliter
mixte, confuse" (v.
p. 17.)
103^ j n t jie posthumous work of J. D. van LeNNEP, who died b 1771, on the Analogies of the Greek Language, is this passage : " Ex octo igitur partibus orationis quas vulgo statuunt Gramniatici Verbum et Nomen principem locum obtinent, cum relique omne facile ad harum alterutram referri queant, quare etiam Aristoteles aliique e veteribus duas tantum partes orationis statuerunt. Addon
quidem nonnulli tertiam, utriusque nempe turn, quod nempe particular aliseque ea
omnia
i,i
et verbi et nominis, lit/amen
pertinentia orationem
velut
connectunt, sed qui attentius eas res consideraverit, facile animadverts!

fere*, saltern
quod ad exteriorem formam, referenda
esse vel a<
/milium vel ad verborum classern.
participium
tut,
est
Ita v. g. particula to ovv, ' igitur, contract uni ex toy, quod a participio tioy, verb
pertinet.
undo
tip),
adebquead nominum elassem proprie
Eadea
ratio manifesta est in vocal uilis toi, nrj, ttov," &c.
Tooke.
This treatise was probably written some years previously to th 1752 he delivered an academic discourse com paring tlie analogies of language with those of the mental operations. 104. Whether or not Mr. Tooke ever saw any ol' these treatises immaterial. His discovery may, probably, have been a bond fide one so far as regarded his own relleetions, though not one that was nev to the world. Bat be seems to have connected with it a very mate rial error in Grammar, namely, that because a word was onee a noim so, and consequently that adverbs, conjunctions it alwavs remained Aprested no new or dilleivnt operation Of the mind, and wen
author's death; for in
il
not to
l.e
considered as separate parts

cation.
a
ol'
speech, so far
at
least as re
lated to b
Had Mr. Tooke been

fallen
with the writings of Plato,

.
as well acquaint* with some old Kngliab am

into this error;
for
In
he
would haidh base

t
would ha\e p.i(.'i\ed li.it speech receives Ita forms from the mind and would have acknowledged with that greaj philosopher tha " thought and speeeh are the same; only the internal and silent dis of the mind, with herself, is called by us ^ninmi, thought, O)
i'
itioii
la-,,.
but the effusion of the mind, through
the
It
lips,
Is,
is
articv
linn I,
mind
that
Aoy. ha pus the somen.

i
called
oi
rational speech.
therefore,
tb
mto
it.,
principal parts
and acce
CHAP.
it is
III.]
43
the mind which distributes alike the principal and the accessory
its
parts into subdivisions, according as they are necessary to
own
Ancient
distinguishable operations.
parts of speech,
105. Those ancient grammarians who acknowledged onlv three viz., the noun, verb, and conjunction, ranked some of the parts which we here call accessories under the principal parts. Thus Apollonius of Alexandria, and Priscian, rank the adverb under
the verb, and with them agrees Harris, who calls the adverb a secondary attribute but Alexander Aphrodisiensis, who is followed by
;
it is sometimes more properly referred to the Tooke asserts some adverbs to be nouns and some verbs. The preposition which was referred by Dionysius and Priscian to the conjunctions, is on a similar principle included by Harris with the common conjunction in the class of connectives and Tooke distributes both prepositions and conjunctions (in many instances rightly, as far as their etymology is concerned) among the verbs and Lastly, the article appears to have most disturbed the gramnouns. marians in their arrangements for Fabius says it was first reckoned
Boethius, observes, that and so class of nouns

;
among
have seen that, when Aristotle divided speech into lour parts, he separated the article from the conjunction, making of it a class apart from the three other parts of speech. Vossius inclines to rank it among nouns, like a pronoun ; but Harris having divided the accessory parts of speech into definitives and conTooke says that nectives, makes the article a branch of the former.
conjunctions
;
and
we
our
article the is the

!
imperative
is,
mood
of the Anglo-Saxon verb thean,

is
to take
Lastly, Scaliger says, the article does not exist in Latin,

in
superfluous in Greek, and

tering people.
French, the idle instrument of a chat-
106. Since in this diversity of opinions, I can perceive no common New rnndpit proposed view of any principle which connects itself with the idea of language I before laid down, I find myself compelled to seek a new division. Bay, therefore, that the accessory parts of speech represent operations of the mind, which from their frequent recurrence have become habitual, and from their absolute necessity in modifying other thoughts, must be It is true, that these found more or less in all cultivated languages. operations are not performed by all men with the same distinctness, and therefore do not exist among all nations in the same degree of and lastly, it is true, that in some languages they are experfection pressed by separate words, and in other languages by different inHence a close connection is found between flections of the same word. the prepositions of one language, and the cases of another and between the auxiliary verbs of one language, and the tenses of another. Hence, too, the comparison of adjectives, usually effected in Latin by dif-
ferent terminations,
is often effected in English by adverbs prefixed to In short, numberless illustrations of this remark will easily occur to the recollection of any person at all acquainted with different languages, ancient or modern, barbarous or refined.
the adjectives.
44
107.
0? WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH.
[CHAP.
Ill
Of
the mental operations above described, one, and that no
the least essential, consists in determining whether
we view any
;
givei
<
and if as conception as an universal, a general, or a particular particular, whether as a certain, or an uncertain one ; and if certain whether of one known class, or another known class ; and so forth Thus there is a certain conception of the mind expressed by the wore " man ;" but if we employ that expression for the purpose of commu
it is necessary that those who hear us shouk degree of particularity it is to be applied ; for it wouh be one thing to say, that, according to our idea of human nature, mai and another to say, that men in general Bit is universally benevolent so ; and a third to say that any man, under given circumstances, ma; be so ; and a fourth to say, that this or that man is so. Of these dif
nicating the conception,
know with what
ferent degrees of limitation
some may be marked by separate words and of those words, some may express a conception so distinct aiu self-evident, as to be capable of forming a simple sentence, in whicl case we should reckon them as pronominal adjectives, among tin principal parts of speech as when we say, " this man is good,' " that man is bad," the words this and that, are pronominal adjectives But since we cannot say "the is good," or "a is good," and sine* these words tlie and a, serve no other purpose but to define and par ticularize some other conception, and do not even perform thisfunctioi completely, without reference to some further conceptions, we may in those languages in which they exist, reckon them as a separate, bu
;
Proposition.
name of the article. 108. The word Preposition is badly chosen from its use (and eva that use not without exception) in the Latin language; nevertheless it has become sufficiently intelligible to signify a class of words whicl describe another sort of mental operation. When one object is placec in a certain relation to another object, whether it be a relation o time, of space, of instrumentality, causation, or the like, the con
accessorial part of speech, under the
ception of that relation serves as a bond to unite them
in
the secondan
That expression may form part of a word, a: of a sentence. "to overleap a fence;" or it may constitute a separate word, a: 'l.i leap OMT a fence;" imd in the latter instance the word oirr therefore do not hesitate to rank as called a preposition, which
i:
rata part of ipteeh.
LOO, As the preposition connects conceptions, the Conjunction con necte assertions; or, as it is commonly expressed, the preposition join: l'.v 000 nouns, the conjunction verbs, and OOBMque&tly sentences.
agreement Of
I
mean showiu the relation!, whelhcr o and the ;e al ,o ma\ be expressed either ii tM lorui of the Verb, or by means of a separate particle of which lore (jiioted ulliirds an illustration .sentence
it.-.
I
in.',
in
both instances,
di
l"rccmcnl
><
Duller
u.. <//
1
hnnlil'
lln
.ii
t
In'
luill
the
lilt
wend,
iboa
M'.t
Ifhere,
d rendered
into thl
; more common
ii
in iins
expression,
" if
thot
CHAP.
III.]
OF WOP.I
S,
AS PARTS OF SPEECH.
stirring in the cause,
if,
45
and being
wouldst not
dull,
stir," the relation between would be expressed by the word
to
which
therefore give
conjunction. Hence, it appears, that the conjunction not improperly be reckoned a distinct part of speech, since it expresses a distinct operation of the mind. 110. More doubt may perhaps exist as to the Adverb, a class in Adwh. which grammarians have often confounded words of very various effect and import, such as interjections and conjunctions. ^Neither do I, in this instance, any more than in those of the participle and preposition, pay much regard to the etymology of the word adverb ; but I take it
the
name of a
mav
as a
word in common use, and applicable to a large class of words which describe operations of the mind very distinguishable from those which have been already considered. The adverb either expresses a com rption which serves to modify another conception of quality or
action
;
or else
it
expresses a conception of time, place, or the like,

is
by
which the
assertion itself
modified
in
either
case
it
serves to
modify by its own force, and not, like the preposition, as an intermediate bond between other conceptions. 111. The following TABLE will show how Words, as significant constituents of a complex sentence, may be distributed into classes, or
'Parts
I.
gfyrf
of Speech.
Words used
1.
in enunciative sentences:
principal words,
The Noun,
1.
the
name
of a mental conception,
primarily,
ii.
Expressing a substance, (the Noun substantive). Expressing a quality. 1. without action, (the Noun adjective). 2. with action, (the Participle). secondarily, (the Pronoun).
2.
2.
The
Verb, asserting existence or action,
accessorial words,
1.
limiting the extent of
an universal or general conception

in a
to a particular (the Article).

2.
showing the
relation,
stantive conception to another, or to

Preposition).
3.
complex sentence, of one suban assertion, (the
connecting one assertion with another, according to their relations, (the ( 'o) junction).
modifying a conception of quality or an assertion, (the Adverb). II. Words used either in passionate sentences, or as separate expressions of passion, (the Interjection). 112. The mental operations which these various classes of words represent, are obviously distinct; but it by no means follows from thence that the words themselves are so that a word which has been employed as a substantive may not also be employed as a conjunction
4.
;
Mylf
46
Mental operatious
[CHAP.
II]
bv which we have expressed an assertion ma In short, there is n< not be used as a preposition or an interjection. reason why one word should not successively travel through all th<
or that the very sound
1
for it must be remembered, that word do not communicate thought by their separate power and effect only but infinitely more so by their connection and consequently the modi of connecting the signs, and not the signs themselves, determines thei place in any given class. The first exercise of the reasoning power we have seen, is conception; and of all our mental operations, whetbe different classes here stated
;
:
relative to the external world,
or to the laws of
mind
itself,
con
ceptions
may be formed and to all the conceptions which we form names may be given and those names are nouns and therefore it
; ; ;
ii
not surprising that
all
other words, except interjections, should be his
nouns as their origin. Nay, since reason anc passion are so complicated in man, we must not wonder that a con nection is often to be found even between interjections and nouns
torically traceable to
substantive Woe, which is the Scottish Wae, agrees with th< Latin interjection Vae ! probably pronounced by the Romans Wae and with many interjections and other parts of speech, in varum:
Surely, this afford! Teutonic languages, as will be shown hereafter. no proof, nor shadow of a proof, that the different uses of the same, or different words, do not depend on the different exercise of the mental faculties; but, on the contrary, it absolutely demonstrates the necessity of some mental operation to distinguish between the dilferonl meanings, force, and effect of the same sign, as employed on dilUanl
occasions.
Thus our
47
CHAPTER
OF NOUNS.
113.
IV.
The
classes of words,
which form grammatically the Parts
of Speech, being thus determined, I proceed to explain them in order, beginning with that which, according to all systems, stands first in
importance, the Noun. 114. " It is by nouns," says

nate
all
the beings which exist.

if
Court de Gebelin, " that we desigWe render them known instantly by
The Noun,
Thus, in the they were placed before our eyes. in the most profound obscurity, we are able to pass in review the universality of beings, to represent to ourselves our parents, our friends, all that we have most dear, all that has struck us, all that may instruct or amuse us ; and in pronouncing their names thus keep a register we may reason on them with our associates. of all that is, and of all that we know ; even of those things which we have not seen, but which have been made known to us by means Let us not be of their relation to other things already known to us. astonished, then, that man, who speaks of every thing, who studies every thing, who takes note of every thing, should have given names
these means, as
most
solitary retreat,
We
body and its different parts, to his soul, number of beings which cover the earth or are hid in its bosom, which fill the waters, and move in the air that he gives names to the mountains, the rivers, the rocks, the woods, the stars, to his dwellings, to his fields, to the fruits on which he feeds, to the instruments of all kinds with which he executes the greatest labours, to all the beings which compose his society, or, that the memory of those illustrious persons who deserve well of mankind by their benefactions, and their talents, is perpetuated by their names from age to age. Man does more. He gives names to objects not in
to
all
things that exist, to his
to his faculties, to that prodigious
existence, to multitudes of beings, as if they
formed but a single inand often to the qualities of objects, in order that he may be able to speak of them in the same manner as he does of objects really
dividual,
existing."
115. This great power of the

to that faculty of the
Noun
is
to
be attributed
:
solely
its origin,
mind by which it is formed and that power I have called Conception. Every act of this power produces one thought, presents to our view one object, more or less distinct. We conceive a certain impression to which we give a name, be it " red" or "white," "John" or "Peter," "man" or "woman," "animal"
or "vegetable," "virtue" or vice;" or whatsoever else
tinguish from the
we
can dis-
mass of continued consciousness which
constitutes
our being. 116.
We do not
name every impression
that
we
receive, or ev^ry
48
act that
OF NOUNS.
[CHAP,
we
perform.
and
distinctly
from
:
single instance
it
not name any one separate would be useless to do so in would be impossible to do so in all. But we nan In truth,
all others.
we do
It
what
call
often occurs to us.
We
;
have often a sensation of colour ; v
"white:" we have often a feeling of pleasure; we call "joyous :" we often see an object which affects us with peculiar se we call it " father" or " enemy :" v laments of regard or aversion often meditate on thoughts, which appear to us amiable or the r In this manner verse; we call them "benevolence" or "hatred." is that our catalogue of names is formed. 117. Each of these thoughts or conceptions has its natural ai proper limits but these we do not always very accurately observ No man confounds " red" with "white," but he confounds "whitist with " reddish." A boy does not think his hoop square, but he knov Thus it is, that men do n< not whether it is circular or elliptical. agree in their opinions of many things, to which they neverthele otherwise it would be impo agree in giving some common names sible tor them to communicate to each other anything like the though or feelings which they respectively entertain. 118. The relation between words and thoughts has been express* Plato calls tlu> Vci in various ways by writers on language. " showing forth" and the Noun, otiptiov, a " sign ," Ari C)j\u>fMn, a totle sometimes calls a word aij/jieiov, a sign, and sometimes avfifi6\o\
it
; ;
a symbol
l'lotinus says,
o iv
<pti)rij
Xoyoc
fii^t)jnt
rS iv ipv%fi, "
tl:
word (or sentence)

Cicerq renders the
in the voice is an imitation of that in the soul
(rv^jhXoy of Aristotle by the Latin iVota, writers have described words as the I'icturr, the fibfoes, the Colours, the VtstmMtt of thoughts, the representatioi The author of of thoughts, of ideas, of mental operations, Sec. ivoait work, entitled "The discovery of the Science of Languages, objdCti to all expressions which iniplv that, words in any mania He observes, that if words had this power, " w represent thoughts.
"mark."
More modem
em
should have as manv names lor the same object, we receive \arioii impressions from it;" that. " no single person can ever see the sain thing twice in the same manner;" and that, "no two person have i oft impression of it;" consequently intelligible lai
this supposition, be whollj impossible.
it
guage would, on would Ik- just,
The
objei tkj
! were
to
take
nch
expressions, as
those abo\
en.e; luit ihe\ are obviously ligurative I, in their literal because we have do other means of explaining mental operations the b? the analogies w bJch wt sapyoae then to bear to sensible sets an
1
i
What
the aulhi.rs
in
cjiiestion
mean
in
is
not
that
.\n\ nun
i
lered
by asp' al. mind a1 the tbne;

peiSJBfl
presentation of a thought
but
that
words
I
general serve bo tndicat

this
what pull
is
tlf
human mind.
ition,
ait.
And
indeed
their
words
OR
more by
grammatics
nt.
CHAP. IV.]
119. It
that
it
OF NOUNS.
is
49
in such an arrangement,
according to the place which a particular word occupies The Noun, and to the function which it therein exorcises,
its
grammatical designation as a part of speech. in a simple sentence it serves merely to Indeed, a conception, and not to assert anything concerning it. the English word noun is nothing but a corrupt pronunciation of She French nam, which, like the Italian name, was again a corruption of the Latin notnen, and this latter was of common origin with the Greek ovopu, which, both in the Iliad and Odyssey, signifies the name by which a person is distinguished from others the radix being found in
receives
word name
is
called a
Noun when
tin'
verb
re'/xw,
to allot, attribute, or distribute.
And
as a personal
name
from other men, so a noun distinguishes the thing or thought, to which it is allotted, The trite definition of a noun, as from other things or thoughts. * the name of a thing which may be seen, felt, heard, or understood" for it may or may not include adjectives, and nouns is equivocal commonly called abstract, according as the words " thing " and "understood" receive a stricter or more lax interpretation. I therefore prefer defining a noun, the name of a conception and it has been seen that, by a conception, I mean whatsoever we can contemplate in thought as one existence, either subjectively in the mind, or objectively in the external world, and either as substance, or as attribute for red is as much the name of a certain colour, as Peter is the name of a certain man, or England of a certain country and in like
distinguishes the
it is
man, to
whom
allotted,
manner
the
virtue is as
much
the
;
name of
all
a certain thought, as a ship
is
name of
a certain thing
these, therefore,
and whatever other
words
serve, in a simple
sentence, to
name any conception of the
mind, are nouns.
120. It is next to be considered, how nouns mav lie best distri- OImm1 Nouns. buted into classes, with reference to the different kinds of conceptions, name. "Many grammarians," savs VossiUS, which they serve to 4 and among them some of the highest celebrity, first distribute the
aoun into proper and appellative, and then into substantive and adjecive ; but erroneously ; since even the proper noun is a substantive, ttasmuch as it subsists by itself in speech. But let us seek our method from the schools. Our great IStagirite first divides r'o ov (or
that
which
is)
into that
which
subsists
by
itself,
and
is
therefore
and that which exists in another as in its subject, and is therefore called attribute. Afterwards he proceeds to distinguish substance into primary and secondary, the primary being an individual, the secondary a genus or species. By parity of reason, therefore, we should divide the noun first into that which subsists bv
sailed substance,
itself in
addition of a substantive in speech, and
and that which needs the called adjective ; and afterwards we should distribute the substantive into that which belongs to a single thing, and is called proper, and that which comprehends manv, and is commonly called appellative." K 2.
is
speech, and
called substantive,
is
50
Conception
OF NOUNS.
121.
[CHAP.
The
distribution proposed
I
by Vossiua seems most consone

;
mated,
to grammatical principle.
stantives from adjectives,
therefore begin with distinguishing si
and I call them both JNouns; for they both names of conceptions, and they are nothing more. They do r imply any assertion respecting these conceptions; and herein they clearly distinguished from verbs. It is true that the adjective agrt with the verb in expressing, not substance, but attribute ; and thei fore it is, that Harris, and some other grammarians, rank the two classes of words together under the title of attributives, do not deny that this arrangement is so far correct but I say that interferes with the method which I conceive it advisable to purst as the most direct and scientific. As Vossius justly postpones t consideration of the classes of substantives, to the distinction betwe substance and attribute so I postpone the consideration of t assertion of an attribute, to the consideration of those conceptio both of substance and of attribute, which must necessarily precede assertion. This, I apprehend, is strictly the order of science. La guage is a communication of the mind; the mind, as far as it is car ble of communication, consists of thoughts and feelings. Thougl are formed by the reasoning power. The reasoning power is divid into three faculties, conception, assertion, and conclusion but cc caption necessarily precedes assertion, because we cannot assert tli anything exists, until we know what that thing is.
;
r_''_\ Conceptions are either conceptions of substance, that is something considered as subsisting of itself, or conceptions of at! bote, that is of something considered as a quality or property of It may appear unnecessary to dwell on a distinction substance. obvious. No man, it mav be said, however ignorant, can SUppo that in the phrase "a white horse," the WOra "white'' does n denote a quality belonging to the "horse;" or that in the phra " glorious victory," the word " glorious " does not denote a qua)]
belonging victor}'. No man, when he says "the sun is shinint thinks of the sun but, on the contrary, an attribute of shining considers "shining" to be an energy, or property, or quality, This is no doubt true; but unfortunately the bute of the sun.
t
i
have !"' u writers In modern times, who have treated the distinct!* in question as a "technical impertinence," and as resting OU " 1; philosophy, and obscure because mistaken metaphysics ;" and thei
i! it,
io
examine the arguments on which
th<
tnded.
r_''..
It
has been contended thai " the substantive and adjective a rtible without the smaUtst change qf meaning" and
i
iii.it
ii.it
natural perversity;"
i,
we ma) now
IncUflerentij
saj
" a perver
I
surely, although
would
that
the person advancing such

I
an Illustration
was
altogetb
nature," mighl without offence attribute his opinio on tins particular pout, to a lit ! "natural pervei Ity." In t)
1

CHAP.
IV.]
OF NOUNS.
51
'
of the person in question would understand me to whole mind was tainted with the vices of obstinacy and self-willedness, that he wilfully shut his eyes against the truth,
case, the friends
assert, that
his
A4jecttv
veri
and maintained opinions which he
knew
a description of his character, philosophy, in politics, and in religion In the Hrhich would naturally occasion them to take great offence.
rther case, they
to
lie
wrong
in literature, in
would understand me
;
eading and
I
literary acquirements, as
to give him credit for such might well have corrected what
it
look upon as an error
and they could hardly take
amiss that
attributed that error,
which the best latures are not wholly exempt, than to gross ignorance, or total want So much for the particular expressions quoted as jf understanding. )roof that substantives and adjectives may be convertible without the smallest change of meaning on the other hand, the well-known nstance of a " chesnut horse," and a " horse chesnut," affords an oample of a change of meaning produced by such convertibility,
rather to a slight defect, from
:
scarcely less ludicrous,

)f
than rendering into English the miles gloriosus The fact is, that in all Plautus by the phrase "military glory." nieh instances, the views taken by the mind are different, according
is it
regards the one conception, or the other, as principal
just as the
nan
)c
on the eastern side of the street considers the western to the opposite side whilst he who is on the western side thinks the
is
;
who
ame
may speak of a "religious life," or of of the eastern. ' vital religion." In the one case, we are considering the conception )f " life," as that which must necessarily form the basis of our asserion, and which may be diflerently viewed, according as it is put in onnexion with the conceptions of religion, irreligion, business,
We
asure,
or the like
in the other case,
we
'religion" as the direct object of thought,
and then
take the conception of limit it by the

as regularly be effected Be
aception of
124.
>y
ife
life,
or vitality.
It is objected, that this limitation
may
life," or " the eon of man" is exactly equivalent to "human life;" which I by no ueans deny but then it must be observed, that the sentence takes a liferent form, and instead of simple becomes complex ; the terminate m 's) or the word (of) signifies " possession," or " belonging to," and
u substantive as
by an adjective
and that " man's
gliders oik; sentence resolvable into
two.
dtion
" the
life
of man
is
precious," includes
is
For instance, the propotwo propositions
1.
Life belongs to, or Life

is
possessed by,
man.
2.
)r.
precious.
i
;
WALLIS, indeed, in his valuable English Grammar, first published 1653, treats the genitive "man's" as an adjective. He says, Adjectivum possessivum fit a quovis substantivo (siye singular!, sive fundi) addito s ut man's nature, the nature of man, nature umana vel hominis men's nature, the nature of m$nt nature humana el hominum." But no other grammarian has adopted this notion,
;
e2
52
and the principle on which
all
it
OF NOUNS.
rests,
[chap.
equally go to prove
tl
would
all
the oblique cases of substantives, in

;
languages, should be o
kes
Ui^Jv
Mr. Tooke has justly observed, that th although he has not noticed that this owing to the complexity of the sentences in which they are used. 125. The last-mentioned writer contends, that " the adjective equally and altogether as much the name oi a thing, as the noun si stantive." If he means by thing, a conception of the mind, he is p fectly right but if he means by thing, an external substance, such ** a horse," or " a man," or " the globe of the sun," or "a grain "Red" a the light dust of the balance," he is as clearly wrong, * white," " soft" and " hard," " good" and " bad,"'" virtuous" t " wicked," do not represent any such things as the latter but tl do represent conceptions of the mind, some of which conceptions n be considered as belonging exclusively to external bodies, others belonging exclusively to mental existence, and others as common both. Mr. Tooke says, he has " confuted the account given of
sidered as adjectives
for
;
cases cannot stand alone
by Messrs. de Port Royal," who " make substance and at dent the foundation of the difierence between substantive ami adj
adjective
if so, he has confuted an account given not only by Afest de Port Royal, but by every grammarian who preceded them fr the time of Aristotle; and whatever respect may be due to abilities of Mr. Tooke, I must a little hesitate to think that he ak was right, and that so many men of extensive reading, deep reflectt and sound judgment, were all wrong. But how has he confuted Why, truly, by showing that when a conception is doctrine? regarded as a substance, it may be regarded as an attribute; and wl
tive;" but
regarded " There not anyan

it is
not
as
is
attribute, it may lie regarded as a suhsmn accident whatever," says he, " which has do
Its
uiiiatical
substantive for
its
sign,
when
it is
then- any
substance whatever which

sign,
may
not attributed; noi not have a grannnati

'
adjective for
v
when there
is
is occasion to attribute it ;
which
much
like
sa\ in-, there
not any captain whatever
who
not be degraded, and placed In the ranks; nor any private sold rbatever who may not be raised from the ranks and honoured will
captain's
lin
commission; and n private
<!</
thsrtfbn there
is
no different licturcn
arc
tolditr.
The premises
l
incontestable;
only bull
they have nothing to do with the conclusion, irily vindicated the principle
I
1;
down by
tint
Aristotle,
of .Mr. Tooke,
and adopted by all grammarians from his tunc vi/., tint the noun substantive is the nan
conception, considered as possessing a substantial, that is, independi the noun adjective is the name of a conception, con tide]
:
as a quality
or attribute of
tl"'
former,
53
CHAPTER
V.
OF NOUXS SUBSTANTIVE.
26.
tre
Tje
accounts given by different writers of the noun substantive

different.
Various
According to Tooke, it would seem, that vith exception of the verb (if even that be excepted) the noun sub.tantive is to be considered as the only part of speech; whilst a went writer (Mr. Kavanagh) says " there are no such words as subitantives," and he afterwards maintains that the words called subtantives are " adjectives in the fourth degree of comparison." Harris,
remarkably
;
Lowth, S.Johnson, L. Murray and others, consider the substantive as Vossius and most earlier writers consider, as I have the only noun lone, that the term noun comprehends both substantive and adjective. definifa this conflict of opinions, it is no wonder that the various tions of substantive, or noun substantive, are not easily reconcilable
it is a noun of one, or at most two genders, noun adjective, which has three. This defiand is not cor'nition has nothing to do with Universal Grammar A. Caucius ,rect, even in the Latin language, to which he refers. " quod defines a substantive that which signifies something by itself, But this definition may as well be applied aliquid per se significat." to adjectives, verbs, or pronouns, and even to interjections, which by Vossius says, " That is themselves signify emotion, if nothing else. " subcalled a substantive which subsists by itself, in a sentence" Harris speaks stantivum dicitur quod per se subsistit, in oratione." " Substantives are all those principal words, which are signithus
together.
Frischlin says
in contradistinction to a
ficant
stantive
subLowth says, " of substances considered as substances." is the name of a thing, of whatever we conceive in any way And Dr. Johnson deto subsist, or of which we have any notion." fines substantive, " a noun betokening the thing, not a quality." 127. In each of the four last-mentioned definitions there is an ap- n>w
It is p,"^^" proach to accuracy, but neither of them is entirely satisfactory. proper to observe, with Vossius, that the grammatical character of a word is not necessarily attached to its sound, but to the function which Particular languages indeed may appropriate it performs in a sentence. certain forms to certain parts of speech, and therefore in the dictionaries of such languages we find words marked as substantives, .adjectives, adverbs, &c; as, in Latin, Dominus is a substantive, flebilis an adand these words cannot be used otherjective, prudenter an adverb wise in that language but this is matter of particular Grammar, and
:
not of universal. Again, we must agree with Harris, that substantives signify substances considered as substances ; but it must be remem-
54
OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE.
is
[CHAP. \
bered that the significance
not always direct.
The word
signifie
primarily the conception, and if that conception be of an extern;, Lowth introduce object, the word signifies that object secondarily.
in his definition the
tunatelv adds, by
lastly,
word " Thing," which is equivocal but he foi way of interpretation, " whatever we conceive :" an Johnson, who also employs the doubtful word " Thing,
;
limits
it,
by adding
that substantive does not betoken a quality
From
all
these considerations taken together, a
noun substantive ma
not improperly be defined " a word employed in a sentence to nam a conception, existing separately, and not involved as a quality in an
other conception."
Dis'ribution of
tntives.
128. This definition will lead to a distribution of substantives a< The easentu cording to their differences essential or accidental. differences exist in all languages, and may be classed under the head of kind and of gradation : the accidental difierences vary, as to thei mode of expression, in different languages, and these include diilei ences of number, gender, and relation. 129. The kinds of nouns substantive are differently considered b According to Harris, there are three sorts (c different grammarians. kinds) of substantives, representing as many sorts of substances, th To the natural (he says) b< natural, the artificial, and the abstract. long such words as " Animal," " Man," Alexander;" to the artificia
"Edifice," Palace," "Vatican;" and to the abstract, "Motion, " Flight," " this or that flight." This distinction, however, rests natural substance indeed may I) no sound grammatical principle. lith.'i a thing or a person, whilst an artificial substance can only be thing; hut the conception of each is contemplated by the mind a that of an individual substance limited by time and space, and existin
Kinds of
-
out of the mind objectively and so far as regards Universal (iranunai Loth the one and the other sustains the same part in the constructio of a sentence; for we cannot speak of many Alexanders, or man On th Vatican*, otherwise than by a rhetorical figure of speech. other head, the kinds of substatire, which Harris calls natural, e> " Annual," " Man," or the artificial, a d by such words " Edifice, " Palace," without some definitive word or particle t
;
Individualise them, are neither
individual things nor persons, and ai
not limited by time or space, nor have they

in
any objective prototype
the external world, but the\ are subjective conceptions Ot the mini
in this
agreeing,
'
180.
It
respect, with the conceptions expressed by the word or " Bight," w here ion various logical distinction
UDMOMMn
Oi
<
<
applicable o
r*
Complex," WOrdS "
ntivej such at those of words "simple an tin Bl A intention, and of the second intei
I
mean b\ th Bui that difference of substantives, which difference oi kind, i-> U-tween then- expressing conceptions of /"/// To this, the andei Impression, and conosptioni of tntmtal action. in mi M -and 1)io.mi;iii;s alluded, when they defined
CHAP.
V.J
signifying a
55
noun a part of speech

" pars orationis
this also rests the
thing orporeal or incorporeal,
rem corporalem vel incorporalem :" and on popular and ordinary distinction between I Thing and a Thought, as well as the more learned distinction between phtenonwua and noumena. This difference of kind, indeed, is denied by some persons to exist. They say that we can have no conceptions but those of bodily impression that nouns are only the names of
significants
;
Things; and that there being (as they think) no incorporeal things existing, or at least none cognizable by human faculties, there cannot be any noun signifying an incorporeal thing. I answer, that Universal Grammar, as I understand it, rejects alike the two extreme theories, that everything is mind, and that everything is matter. It agrees with the common sense, and common experience of mankind, in assuming that there are certain Things, or objects external to us, and certain Thoughts, or mental acts, which we experience internally. Of both these, the human mind forms conceptions: and to conceptions of each kind names are attached, which names, when the conceptions are contemplated as existing substantially, are nouns substantive. 181. Those nouns substantive, which siniplv express conceptions
s>,
of things external to us are necessarily particular ; those which ex-^SSSSamT press mental acts, whether employed on the generalization of external things, or on the internal operations of the mind, are either general or
Alexander was a particular human being, and the Vatican but the word Conqueror designates a general conception of the mind applicable to Alexander and many other human beings, and the word Palace designates a conception of the mind applicable to the Vatican and many other buildings. Hence arises the ordinary distinction of grammarians between nouns substantive proper, and common, or, as some say, proper and appellative; a distinction marked by Varro with the terms nomina and vocabula, and answering to the logical distinction of words singular and comuniversal.
is
a particular building
mon.
182.
noun substantive proper
is
name of
the conception of a
particular Thing. It must be remembered that our English word " Thing " may be used in different senses, and particularly in two,
viz., first, as any external object contradistinguished to " Thought ;" and secondly, as an external object not personal, contradistinguished
substantives proper *
to
" Person." I here use it in the former sense, including either an Inanimate mass, for instance Mount Etna, or a person, for instance William the Concpieror. Every such particular thing, whether viewed
as present,
remembered
as past, or
imagined as possible,
is
considered
to be always identical.
Etna is, to the present gaze, the same vast mountain mass, which lias towered over the surrounding region for Bges beyond historical record William lives, in memory, as the same bold warrior, who nearly eight centuries ago won the battle of Hastings, and with it the crown of England and so long as our language lasts, even the fictitious Hamlet will remain the same wondrous creature of
;
;
56
[CHAP. V.
the mighty dramatist's imagination, as when he fiist formed it from his rude materials. I sav, the noun substantive proper is the name
not of a thing, but of the conception of a thing ; for though it would idle scepticism to doubt whether such a mountain as Etna exists, or whether such a warrior as William the Conqueror evei existed, yet it must be remembered that words (as has before been shown) represent primarily our thoughts, and secondarily the external I speak of Etna such objects of our thoughts, when anv such exist. as I conceive it to be, and of William such as I conceive him to have been and hence arises one great source of misapprehension among men, when one man has formed a certain conception of a particulai
be an
Examples
formation,
and another man has formed of the same particular thing a very different conception. 133. This will be the more obvious, when we consider how oui They are not conceptions of particular external objects are formed. stamped on the mind by the objects, as an impression is stamped on Wax by a seal for, if so, every man's conception of the same object would be precisely the same, which is certainly not the case. But Let us supthe process which takes place may be thus illustrated. pose that a lofty mountain existed long ago in Sicily, and still exists there and that the first person who gave it the name of Etna had previously seen it; how came he to give it a name? Because he had formed a conception of it. And how came he to form such a conception? Because he had seen the mountain, as a distinct, external thing. But what is seeing? An affection of the nerves of the Now it never happens, when we see any one thing distinctly, aye. that it equally affects all the nerves of the eye. Therefore, \\ hen the " Mountain was first seen, other things were also seen. What was It that distinguished those different affections of the eye into murks,
thing,
; ;
signs, or
thoughts of diflorent things
What was
it
that
made
the
" Mountain,"
vig faculty.
in particular, a thing, in
the contemplation of the
tliink-
Could
neb
by an
act of the thinking faculty itself?
an effect have been produced otherwise than And if this was an act oi
was parent of the thing, so tar, grammar can haw anything to do with it, namely, as capable nown to the mind, and eoinmiinieal ile 1>\ u pmttM this Investigation a little further. The word " Mountain" does not. ligfiifj I thing only seen at one moment of our lives let us suppose, then, that we do in fad see the MffM iiioiiiitain several Lime;; mil-,!, necessarily happen, that we see under very dillennt circumstances. As we isprotcfl i". or recede from it, ever] step makes it affect the eye differently, both i to form and colour. \\ bat
the thinking faculty, then the thought
at least, as
i
l.
it
it,
that
-.till
makes
aions as one thing t iii a second degree, the thought

!
us ffflmHff the rail .e of these different illlpresl'lainlv the thinking fnultv so that here again,
;
is
parent of the thing;
and, he
it
observed, that
it
li
not
until
v\'c
alter
this
secondary
process has been
pealed, that
give the thing a name.
Now,
what, are
CHAP. V.]
57
the acts of the thinking faculty, by which we form the conception of The applying to it certain laics this external object as one thing? of the mind, which enable us to discriminate not only between
By certain laws of the mind we know thoughts, but between things. that an object subtending a given angle at a given distance is of a cercontemplated by us, approximate to it more or less we cannot think the directly contrary. In like manner the laws of similarity, of contrast, of association, &c, enable us to say that the top of the mountain is white with snow, or tinged with a roseate hue from the beams of dawn, that the sides are dark with groves of ilex, the lower declivities bright with verdure ; and 1 >v another law of our nature, we know that all these and numberless other impressions of sense are bound up together in one vast material mass forming the particular object, which we call by the proper name of Etna. 134. It has been truly observed by Mr. Locke, that "it is im,. ,, possible that every particular thing should have a distinct peculiar name ; for the signification and use of words depending on that contain altitude.
The law may not be
distinctly
but
it
so far governs our judgments that

;
we must
iii
liii
Proper nam** cannot form language,
sounds which
mind makes between its internal operations and the uses as signs of them, it is necessary, in the application of names to things, that the mind should have distinct conceptions
nection which the
it
of the things, and retain also the particular name that belongs to every one, with its peculiar appropriation to that conception. But it is beyond the power of human capacity to frame and retain distinct conceptions of all the particular things we meet with ; every bird and beast men saw, every tree and plant that affected the senses, could not find a place in the most capacious understanding. If it be looked on as an instance of a prodigious memory, that some generals have been able to call every soldier in their army by his proper name, we may
easily find a reason
why men have never attempted to give names to each sheep in their flock, or crow that flies over their heads, much less to call every leaf of plants, or grain of sand, that came in their wav, by a peculiar name." So far Mr. Locke, in which quotation I have onlv takeji the liberty to substitute for the word ideas, in one place internal
operations,
and in two others conceptions. The reasoning, however, is not affected by this change, and it is such reasoning as must carry conviction to every mind. I also agree fully with this writer, that to name every particular thing, if possible, would be useless for the purpose of communicating thought, unless every man could first teach the whole of his own endless vocabulary to every other man with whom he conversed, or for whose information he wrote. And again, supposing even this possible, it would not conduce at all to science for as Aristotle has said, " of particular things there is neither definition nor demonstration, and consequently no science, since all definition
is in its
nature universal."
135. Proper names are therefore comparatively few in number. Sometime* They serve to denote a very small part of the immense multitude of common.

58
particular objects
OF XOUXS SUBSTANTIVE.
[CIIAr. V.
which
fall
under our observation.
Some of
;
these,
indeed, obtain a distinguished celebrity within a small circle

are
they
Talked of
>
far
and near
at
home.
raise them to a prouder eminence. He may render them the symbols or representatives of It is thus that " Alexander" the classes to which they belong. becomes the synonym of a conqueror, and " Cicero" of an orator. Even proper names, however, have in general been given to individuals from some quality or action not strictly peculiar to them. Hence the old English rhyme alluded to by Veestegax, in relation to the family name of Smith
But
the poet, the orator, or the historian,
may
Whence oometh Smith, albe lie knight or squire, But from the Smith, that amitetA at the lire?
Nevertheless
it
must be admitted,
that the
common
notion
that
is
soon
lost in the particular application.
Few
people
reflect,
Georgt
originally signified
" a husbandman," or that Charles and Andrea both signified " manly" or " strong," the former from its Gothic, the These names have now come to latter from its Grecian etymology. indicate individuals; and as even thus a single word is not found to answer the purpose sufficiently, we have the baptismal name and suras the Romans had the proenomen, the cognomen, and the ; agnomen. 136. The designation of common is usually civen by Grammarians v to all nouns substantive, except the proper. Consequently, under this term, common, are included alike words answering to general and
name
Common
Sin
.-I
til' IVt
.s
tO
Universal conceptions;
to
buf these tWO classes I think consider Separately; as well because the distinction
it
advisable
in
itsell
is
extremely important; as because different writers have employed the terms expressing it in very different wa\ s. LOCKE, for instance, calls Harris uses the words all common nouns "general words." "general and inn'rersal " as svnonymoiis for he calls all common 8Ub Oilier writers [ncef " symbols of general or universal ideas." employ the term " universal" alone (including general) as the contra
;
nt
to particular.
t
.
MllaiAlitWa*.
Those ns substantive which correspond to general concepin .ii- are names imposed on whole classes ol individual substances, 81 Man, House, Mountain; ill of winch, notwithstanding each may ha\e its n nhar qualities, agree In possessing some one or mure dis> tlnctive qualities. Mr, Locke says truly of these winds, that they an
187.
.
111
"the inventions and creatures of the understanding;" for it is n< doubt a mental act which makes the word " Man" stand for Peter, Jami -. John, and millions of other individuals, past, present, Intuit and \ w beth to the murderers
i
i
men honnd and groj hound mon| rel Bhonghs, ( mid demUwolvei
.
panli
i,
in
oleped
All bj
tin-
oasM
hi dogt.

C1IA1'.
V.]
OF NOUN'S SUBSTANTIVE.
f>9
Yet the word "

that
man
or
Man" or " Dog" alone would not designate this Of dog, without some addition which will presently be
it
noticed.
138. Nor
is
nouns are applicable;
only to classes of corporeal substances that such Corporeal for it must be remembered that by the wojd la pawd
" substance, grammatically speaking, we mean not merely a material and bodily substance, which we can see, or handle, or weigh, or measure; but also any mental conception considered as having an independent and separate existence, and of which something may be affirmed or denied substantively, that is, without reference to any NotUM of this sort, other thing as its basis and necessary support. since they comprehend therefore, form the great bulk of language not onlv such words as man, house, mountain, or animal, plant,
;
ship;
but also such as

of
affection,
thought,
passion,
delight,
spoken
as individuals of a class of particular conceptions.
when Thus
BPENSEB says
What war
As
that
so cruel, or what siege so sore, which strong Affoctiona Jo ajijily Against the fort of Reason ?
So
Coleridge
All Thoughts,
all
Passions, all Delights,
mortal frame, All are hut ministers of Love.
Whatever
stirs this
139. Such words are formed by the process of generalisation described in a former chapter, and though they thus obtain a general signification, they are easily made to express a particular conception,
or a number of particulars, by adding to them a definitive, or numeral, or an attribute, as " that Mountain," " these six men," " the ruling On the other hand, they cannot passion," " the domestic affections."
^{j^^
form the subject of any proposition absolutely and universally true, however nearly it may approach to the truth. Thus it may seem at first sight that Hamlet's mother utters an universal truth, when she
says to her son
Thou know'st
'tis
common
all that live
must
die.
But
the instances of
;
Enoch and
if
Elijah destroy the universality of the
no such instances had occurred hitherto, it some such might not occur hereafter. Indeed, St. Paul expressly says, " we shall not all sleep," (meaning, die,) " but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the
proposition
and even
would not
necessarily
follow, that
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." 140. The other class of nouns substantive
common, namely,
those Uatamal
C0 " tt''>UtUB
maintain) to universal conceptions, have given occasion to great diversities of opinion. To this class belong such words as " Flight," " Whiteness," " Temperance," " Motion,"
which correspond (as
" Colour," " Virtue," when not used as individuals of a class. These Harris considers as expressing " abstract substances," or as others
sav " abstract ideas," and Johnson
calls
them "
abstract names."

60
abstract"
[CHAP.
But the term "

cation.
in these expressions is of equivocal signifi

is
By
some, as has been before observed, abstraction
ex
plained as a process of generalisation, by which the same attribut< being found to exist in many substances is contemplated as one sub stance, forming as it were a part of each, just as a substance callec
saccharine forms part of the sugar-cane, and of various other plants and may therefore give name to them as a class. Harris explains i somewhat differently as a refined operation of the mind, by which w< abstract any attribute from its necessary subject, and consider it apart I do not deny the possibility of either o devoid of its dependence. but they do not explain the real character of th< these operations class of nouns under consideration, namely, their universality. White ness is so called, not because it is found to exist in snow, or in lilies, oi in the foam of the sea, or in all these alike, but because it expressei the result of a certain physical law, which would exist if snow hac Tem never fallen, nor lilies blossomed, nor the sea cast up its foam. perance is a moral habit, and might be contemplated as such by person who had unfortunately passed his whole life among glutton: and drunkards. And similar observations might be made on th< other words of this class above quoted. 141. Certain modern writers have treated the nouns here callec universal, in a way which, I own, I cannot well understand.
;
Oadbf
Abmrict
lde
Condillac, for instance, supposes
them
to serve the purpose of
wha
he
calls
" abstract ideas;"
for
he says that " abstract ideas are onlj
On this notion, Mr. Tooke enlarges at. greal Length denominations." His several chapters on abstraction, which abound with much curiou: etymology, occupy above 400 quarto pages, in the course! of whicl h" is pleased to inform his readers, that " heaven and hell" ar<
Wha merely participles poetically embodied and substantiated." drawn from this statement, 1 know not hut Mr. Tookc's doctrine, so far as it relates to the nouns calle( It may be stated abstract, appears to me confused and contradictory.
44
practical inference is to be
think, in the following propositions:

1. p. M4). The verb is the noun, and something more (vol. The adjective is the noun, directed to In' joined to another noui
ii.
2.
(vol.
3.
ii.
p.
481).
participle
ha,,
is
The
the verb adjectived,

for
t
'.
c.
"
it
has
all
that
tin
noun
4.
a.lj.rtive
<
and
lie
.same reason, viz. for the purpose
Ejection"
'i
sol. h. p,
t
K)8).
4< illy participles or adjectlvi ans substantive to which they can lie joined" (vol. ii. p. 17) Without The result of this seems to be, that when an abstract noun is:
nouns
participle
(as
Mr.
i
'I
heaven
to
is)
!*
it
is
into
a noun iliverted
joined to another noun,
a noun and somethim bu
How far thia mode o noun to wliHi it ran Iv joined. ii td vcitluiut an;/ reasoning gOOS to show thai then ate not m the mind any lUCh ideas as 4t whTtonci," " stn Dgth," " virtue," and the like; or that thesi

CHAP. V.
Gl
words do not serve to communicate anything but conceptions of solid, tangible, corporeal, substance, in an abbreviated form, must be left
for my own part, I to the determination of the judicious reader cannot see that it tends much to enlighten what may be thought obstill less does it scure, in the works of the ancient grammarians appear to me to cast a doubt on those principles, which the ancients
; ;
have stated with great clearness and precision. 142. An unicersal conception, as I have before said, is an Idea, in WeM the true and proper sense of that word; a word which was used by Plato, and according to him by his great instructor Socrates, to expr. a Law of our conceptions, a Form which they must necessarily take, or to which they must at least make some approach, before they can These laws are imbe at all distinguished the one from the other. pressed on the mind of man in the same manner as the laws of vitality, of growth, and of varied action, are impressed on his bodily organs; that is to say, they exist from the first moment of birth as faculties not yet put in action, and in that sense not innate, but capable, from the first, of development, each in its order and degree, and in that sense innate.
So from the root Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves airy, last the bright consummate flow'r Spirits odorous breathes.
More
Hence
that
ideas
were
termed
by
all
the
Stoics
\6yot
cnrepfiariKol,
seminal reasons,
tually,
or forms, of
natural things.
So Cudworth
says,
" the cognoscitive power of the mind contains within

as the future plant
is
itself vir-
contained in the seed,
general notions,
which unfold or discover themselves, as proper circumstances occur." So Leibnitz says, " the germs of our acquired knowledge, or in other words, our Ideas and the eternal truths resulting from them, are contained in the mind itself; nor ought we to be surprised at this; for if we examine our own consciousness, we shall find that we pos-ess in ourselves the ideas of existence, of unity, of substance, of action, and
all
other ideas of the like nature."
And
so
Thomson speaks of the
Seeds of art deep in the mind Implanted.
143. This analogy, which from

individuals,
its
truthfulness has struck so
many
'Jjê
suggests several important considerations regarding the class of conceptions in question. It intimates that, as on the one
which gives form to our no material quality drawn by the organs of sense from surrounding objects, but an intangible and invisible principle in the mind itself; so, on the other hand, that principle may long remain inactive, and unielt, whilst
thoughts,
is
hand, the vivifying and shaping power,
In th' unconscious breast Sleep the lethargic powers.
And
yet
it
may be
preserved
Pure
in the last recesses of the
mind,
62
and ready
to burst forth into
[CHAP. V.
noble thoughts and high actions, under the invigorating impulses of the outward world. The human mind was not intended by its divine Creator, to exist in a perpetual state of solitary contemplation, or amid dreams and phantoms of its own
and be acted on, to influence and be influenced by the scenes and beings amidst which it is placed.
creating, but to act
vmLmmi
conceptions,
nature of man, spiritual, intellectual, and which regulate conceptions, and give them their appropriate forms, belong to the intellectual power, which we commonly call reason ; but those laws and forms may be applied to
tne
'
*^*
*n
tm ee fld
corporeal, the laics
objects as well spiritual
or corporeal, as intellectual.
is
In those of
mere
in
intellect,
indeed, their nature"
mathematical conceptions.
most obvious, and particularly Every one, who knows anything of
circle, can only exist in the mind, that it is true, necessary, absolute, universal, and entirely independent of the question of fact, whether any man ever did, or ever can receive the sensible impression of a perfect circle. And the more we dwell on this idea, the more plainly we perceive, that it not only is not furnished to the mind by the senses,
Geometry, must at once perceive that the pure idea of a
but is directly opposed to what is commonly regarded as the evidence of the senses, for both the radius and the periphery are lines which have length without breadth the centre is a point which has neither parts nor magnitude, which terminates innumerable radii without
;
being a part of any one of them, and which must remain at absolute rest, though the other extremity of a radius proceeding from it should
move with
Nevertheless
incalculable
it
rapidity
round
has been
by applying
the whole circumference. these and similar ideas to
Tf-.ii.....
sensiUe objects, that a great proportion of the physical sciences and aits have reached that high degree of perfection to which they have at present attained. 146, Universal conceptions of the highest order have been termed transcendental. This designation was confined by the old logicians
t.i
-i\
Bartended
(i
conceptions, Ens, nit, dUqvic^ umon, iwum, bowumi but it is by other writers to all conceptions, understood to exist.
that
is
priori,
prior
tit
their
application
to
sensible
impressions.
That the human mind has a power of forming such conceptions, by its Very nature, has been admitted to a greater or less extent, and
d
iu
I
various
terms,
by philosophers of
(
all
Bge8, countries,
sr. Augustin have mentioned Plato and the Stoics, called them "innate notions;" Cardinal inus, " concreated jii' "notions of the divine mind;" MKLA.NOraox, " innate fixed points," and " principles of knowledge " Lord li forms," and "ideas of the divine mind;" Sir K Diody, " universal notions;" Spinoza, "modes of thinking;" N LuiiMi/, " truths Kant, " Notions of the Reason,"
'i
1
I
" TrsAScecdentes," and "Noumena;" Duoald Stewart, " intuitive trutlu;" Abkrcbomdi froths," and M intuitive articli of

CHAP.
V.]
necessities
63
of the mind," and "forms of first revealed to us by experience, must vet have pre-existed in order to make experience itself possible;" and WHEWELL, " fundamental ideas," from which he considers " ideal
belief;"
Coleridge, " thinking, which though
conceptions" to be derived. Nor among the ingenious physiologists of the present day are there wanting authorities for the same doctrine. Professor MULLER says, " that innate Jdeas may exist, cannot, in the slightest degree, be denied." Mr. Mayo says, " certain Truths mav
be called intuitive." And Mr. GREEK, in his Hunterian Oration of 1840, describes Ideas, as " principles, which give to the results of sensuous experience their connexion and intelligibility " " powers
predetermining and constructive" 146. The doctrine of Ideas, as
'*
intelligential acts."
first
taught by Plato, and
after-
l
t
m '^7
wards (though
till
less clearly)
by
his scholar Aristotle, continued to
prevail with the great majority of philosophers throughout Europe,
within less than

it
which
two centuries ago. The successive theories, by was to a great degree superseded, were these: 1. That Ideas are not acts of the mind, but separate and distinct objects which it perceives. 2. That Ideas comprise all our thoughts. 3. That Ideas (i. e. all our thoughts) are derived partly from
4.
sensation, and partly from reflection. That Ideas of reflection an mere transcripts or combinations of sensations.
That both sensations and reflections are mere bodily acts. 147. The first and apparently most simple notion of thoughts, proposed as a philosophical theory, was that they were a kind of airy
5.
Ttimwiitsmii
ttoaune."*"
shapes detached from external bodies, and senses to the mind, as Lucretius assures us
qu;c
conveyed through the
reran riwmlacra vocamus
Quff,qnaai
membrana sumnio de coqwre nran
]k'iv]>la',v<jlitant.
And again
QuippectenimnraHd niaîs ha?c stmt tenuia texto Qoain qua> perefphmt oculoa rlsnmqae Ucesaaat; Corporis bee qnoniuo penetrant per nn, ckntque Tenuem animi naturam intus.
But
avro
this
was
directly contrary to the doctrine
oth of Plato and

v\t)c. re
Aristotle, the
latter
of
whom
'
says, 'En-t fiiv
yap tQv uvtv
ici to 'oS' na\ votifisioy,
in incorporeal existences, the
thinking
and the thought are the same thing." Descartes and others, who rejected the gross fiction of forms emanating from external bodies, held, nevertheless, an opinion equally irreconcilable with the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, viz., that an idea is a substance separate from the mind; that the mind can only receive it passively,
faculty
contemplate
the
it
as the eye contemplates a picture, or
work
after
it
as
hand works after a model. " In every exercise of the mind " (says Tucker) " that which discerns is numerically and substantially
6-i
Tu..,,ne-,of
[CHAP. V
from that which is discerned." "Whether this proposition b is a plain question of fact, which every human bein] can determine, if, without being led away by prevalent expressions such as " abstract ideas," " association of ideas," or the like, he wil
diilerent
true or false,
Are nr calmly and quietly appeal to his own internal experience. And thoughts different from myself? or are they my own acts? they are my own acts (which was the doctrine of Plato and Aristotle) then are they wholly capricious and accidental, or are there any laic by which they must be more or less strictly governed ? any form which they must more or less exactly assume ? If there be such law and forms of the mind, as all admit that there are of objects in tin external world ; if we can no more believe that a square is a circle or a triangle a parallelogram, than we can that the sound of a flue is the pain of the gout, or that a grain of wheat sown in the eartl will grow up an elephant; then those laws are ideas, by which ever one must be consciously or unconsciously governed in the exercise o his mental powers; and which are universally, necessarily, and ab solutely true, whether or not the circumstances, in which an indi
i
vidua!
uon
oithc *"
ea
'
is
placed, require
.
him
to call
them
into action.
'
.
148. Nothing however contributed so effectually to pervert tin . . , _ , , , knowledge or this most important part ot our mental constitution, a the very vague use made of the term idea in Mr. Locke's work 01 the Human Understanding. By employing it for all modes and formi of thought without distinction, he introduced into the philosophy the human mind much the same sort of confusion as a mathematiciai would into geometry, who should inform his pupils that all figure) aie circles; and that though Euclid had given that name only t( figurei possessing certain well-defined properties, no regard should In
paid to his doctrines, nor any distinction
made between
curvilinear
and
rectilinear figures.
Unfortunately
for
for
traneous circumstances procured
Mr,
us in England certain ex Locke's book, at Its firs

either
to
its
appearance,
(natter:
popularity
certainly
not due
style
oj
and toe consequence! have been, first, that the original meaning of tin; tenn idea has been totally mistaken and secondly that the word has obtained the must Vague acceptation of any WOT! it in our language, ha, been supposed that Plato meanl by it ai On this assump something like the tMMaVfora of Lucretius. n hi, Dr. Johnson, as we are told by Boswell, "was particularly u indignant at th ..I the word Idsa, in the Sense Ot Notion 01
; ,
wgnify something oi mind." 0, A BE \ n \ M an Idea is wiili reaped to things in general, what an limp- i, with reaped to object! of sight." Ami David HuMEsaya, " nit an hing can Ih; present to the miml Image ot perception j an are the only channel! destined n. receive (and convey) Tli.,e ,u|i|i,,sed mental images answer much more Sttch images."
in,
thinking
/;/(//;/.
ll
clear, that
lie
idea could only

in
which
an
can
formed
the
Dearly to the
âmiffpiVu
ot*
Plato,
and
an
totally
different from

CHAP. V.]
ideas,
OF XOUNS SUBSTANTIVE.
class
65
of Nojj/mra ; the former being particular creations of the fancy, the latter universal laws of the intellect. As to the popular use of Idea, for thought, notion, belief,
conjecture, and, in short, for almost
which belong to the
any vague conception, subjective
can be assimilated to any Platonic term, it must be to 2oa, opinion, which, as Plato says, is at best only a medium between knowledge and ignorance j) 6p$)) dofafieraZv ^pow/fftwe
or objective, if
it
149. Mr. Locke certainly did not intend to expunge the notion of mind from all philosophy. By distributing ideas, as to their origin, between sensation and reflection, he no doubt meant to imply that there was, in the nature of man, an immaterial mind which reflected, as well as a material body which felt but the inevitable consequence of his own vague conceptions on the subject was to employ expressions which might be taken in different senses and accordingly the materialists, not without a plausible appearance of reason, cited him as a conclusive authority in their favour. Thus Condorcet says, I Locke fut le premier qui prouva que toutes nos idees etaient com;
Locke's
^
materialism,
posees de sensations." Locke, at all events, was not the first who maintained such an opinion. It was clearly that of Epicurus, as set forth
by Lucretius,
in the introduction to the

age, quae
passage before quoted,

res accipe, et
Nunc
moveant animum
unde
Quae veniunt veniant in incntem percipe paucis.
Montaigne repeats the maxim which he had heard and seems to have approved: "All knowledge is conveyed to us by the senses; they are our masters Science begins by them and is resolved into them."* Hobbes in England and Gassendi in France had held the same vague opinion before Locke's book appeared and since Locke's time it has become the distinguishing characteristic of modern mental philosophy, as professed in England by Hartley, Priestley, Darwin, Beddoes, &c, and in France by D'Alembert, Diderot, Con-
dillac,
Condorcet,
&c,
until
it
at length attained its climax in the public
atheistical lectures of
M. Comte.
Happily
this
extreme proof of
tht
insanity, to which false principles of philosophy eventually lead, has pro-
duced
in
France a reaction in favour of

is
M.
Cousin's powerful exertions
to restore the writings of Plato to their true place in public estimation.
150. Universal conceptions, that
to say, ideas,
though subjectively
are ob;
cusses of
ideas -
existing in, or rather forming the basis of the

jectively applicable to spiritual, mental,
human mind,
and corporeal substances
for
none of these can be comprehended by the mind otherwise than according to certain laws imposed on them by the Creator, which laws, as felt by the mind, are ideas. Those applicable to spiritual objects are, to us, by far the most interesting and the most important but in each class the more profoundly an idea penetrates into the first
;
principles of existence, the

faculties to
more
difficult is it for
unassisted
human
comprehend
it,
in all its clear
and comprehensive certainty

p. 275.
* Montaigne, by Hazlitt,
6G
OF XOUNS SUBSTANTIVE.
[CHAP.
'
whilst on the other hand,
ceived in the weakest minds

Transcennentaj idea
oi
some faint glimmerings of it are to be pe and there is no human being so co

;
stituted as clearly to conceive its direct contrary.

God.
151 I have said, that in the mind of man the consciousness simple existence is the source and necessary condition of all oth powers ; and accordingly we find that at the head of the six tran cendentals above mentioned, is placed Ens, " Being." This appli
to all objects,
spiritual,
mental, and corporeal
but, above
all,
applies to the great

Spirits, in
Ens Entium, the Being of

live,
Beings, the Spirit
whom
" we
intellectual energies, therefore, that

is
that which oilers to
and move, and have our being." Of i we possess, the most transcendei our finite conception, however imperfectly, tl
Ruler of the Universe.
writers, that
It
idea of an
infinite, spiritual
has been sa
by very worthy and pious
"
the belief of one Almighl

i
Governor of all thing? is not an instinctive and universal principle our nature." Certainly not, if we speak of such an instinct as teach an insect to fly as soon as its wings are unfolded from their sheath, such universality as makes human beings of all ages feel the necessii of food and sleep. But this statement is wholly inconclusive, as the gradual development of ideas in the human mind. It is lil saying, that there is no pure idea of a circle ; because a child, in h early notion of roundness, does not reflect on the position of a cental point, on the equality of radii, or on that combination of centripet and centrifugal forces, which produces a circular movement or it like denying that a particular plant has within it a principle of fru tification, because it has as yet put forth only leaves, or perhaps There is not, there cai just raising its young stem from the earth. not be, such a thing as a pure atheist; but the idea of Deil y develop! itself in the human mind slowly: it is easily overlaid and perverted b the phantoms of imagination and the intellect can make but gradui approaches toward that which, in its brightness, "dark with exeat The word Goi), our Teuton of light," defies human comprehension. name li.r this adorable Being, is in its origin synonymous with 67m the idea of which, Plato, in the Gth book of the WepuMic, niaki Socrates declare to be " the moat sublime of all intellectual concej ttons;"* adding moreover to this Munition, the following remarkabl " We do not sufficiently know it; but it' we were whol] vrorcU; ignorant. dI it, then although we possessed all other knowledge in tli - i" iv,., wuiild, without this, profit us Thi " p.i, :( cannot but lorciNy brin;; to mind the expressions of St l'an .-peak with tli of men and of angels, and have n< though charity, am become 88 sounding hra.s, or a tinkling cymbal." Yt
<
l
ii
it.
>
>
though goodnaaf (which

hf> in its infinite purit)
*
in human nature the Apostle calls charity, one element Oi the ihellali' idea of tin- Divinitjj
f muriit
ft*9m, ,'tt
r*Z iym'itv'lilm /ilyirrt* fiiiSnu*. i-^ IhmtSt "tftifu JJ fth 'tfitr, itiv
Ji
ruirnt
t!
tri umKifrtc rait,**
t.
in tUk
kfih
#>*
^HAP. V.]
67
two other elements are essential to the mental conception of that idea, aamely, the elements of infinite Power and infinite Wisdom. And iough this be not the place for theological discussion, yet I cannot 3mit to observe, that many eminent divines have considered these elements of our finite idea of God to indicate respectively the creative Power of the Father, the enlightening Wisdom of the Son, and the inlivening Love of the Holy Spirit. 152. From that combination of Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, tvhich, in its perfection, belongs to God alone, flows the spiritual idea }f Law; which, in its application, comprehends as well " that which Grod has eternally purposed in all His outward works to observe," as I that which He has set down as expedient to be observed by all His
creatures," spiritual, intellectual,
Spiritual i.iea
"*
and material
and from which
all
human laws
)f language,
are or ought to be derived.
The development of
this
idea has never
been treated with so much depth of thought, or power by any author, ancient or modern, as by our own Richard
Hooker, in his invaluable production, the Ecclesiastical Polity; book of which, with equal truth and beauty, thus concludes I Of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things n heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power both angels and nen, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her, as the mother of their peace and joy." Thus may we see, that the more profoundly we meditate on an idea, the more prolific we shall find it x> be of new and subordinate ideas, each becoming gradually more uminous and comprehensive, as the parent idea is more distinctly en and felt for while we dwell in awe and admiration on the idea of *n Almighty Lawgiver, not only do we obtain more elevated and philosophic views of Law, but new and clearer ideas present themselves to us of right and wrong, justice and injustice, virtue and vice, >rder and disorder, with their attendant trains of thought.
the first
;
;
153. The ideas applicable to
intellectual objects
have been differently

;
ideas or
ottfccta.
irranged, in the systems of different philosophers
for instance, in the
'Categories" of Aristotle, the " Verstandes-begriffen" of Kant, and he " Fundamental Ideas " and " Ideal Conceptions " of Dr. Whewell. Aristotle mixes together those which relate to Space and Time, with )thers which are more clearly intellectual. Kant, properly as it seems o me, separates the former from the latter, inasmuch as space and
ime imply the existence of an external world, whereas the ideas of
imit and infinity, unity and number, substance and attribute, cause md effect, and the like, might be applied to intellectual conceptions
vithout reference to anything beyond the mind itself. It does not ;eem that the ancient, or at least the heathen philosophers, distin;uished spiritual from intellectual
ideas.
Indeed Socrates,
in the
?haedon, places the spiritual
ideas of goodness
and
justice
on the
f2
68
[CHAP.
same footing, in point of reasoning, as the intellectual idea of equalit " We must necessarily have known equality" (says he), " before v first saw equal things, and became aware that they desired (as it wer
to partake of the nature of perfect equality, but
fection."*
fell short of that p< not more applicable equality, than it is to beauty, goodness, justice, and the like."']" ( the other hand, however, it will be remembered that in the passa above cited from Plato's Republic, the same Socrates is represent as attaching to the spiritual knowledge of goodness a value incoi
" And
this reasoning" (he
adds) "
is
ideas of
luiwL.
parably higher than that of any mental acquisition, 154. The remaining class of ideas consists of those which a applicable to corporeal objects. Space and time (purely and sinq
considered) do not necessarily imply the existence of any corpon
them for space may be contemplated as o vacuum, and even if portioned out and limited by lines a figures, there might be no material forms corresponding to these ; a the same might be said of ever-flowing time, if there were no cours of the stars, or revolutions of the planets, by which it could measured. But when a new idea intervenes when we suppc this idea, like all others, becomes prolific of a vj matter to exist
object corresponding to
infinite
;
'"
il
wul ,
train of subordinate ideas, according as we apply to it the higher idc of space, time, substance, attribute, cause, effect, &c. concei of matter as occupying space ; as enduring for a greater or less tim and as a substance holding together vario as the effect of a cause corporeal attributes, as the mind is a substance holding together vario mental attributes. From the idea of matter flows that of motk which combines the idea of force with those of time and space, in; much as it supposes a portion of matter to occupy at one time o part of space, and at another time another, and to be caused so to by some force, whether the force be such as urges the planets to mo round the sun, or such as makes the smallest conceivable atoms attr; All matter, organized and unorganized, and or repel each other. motion, voluntary and involuntary, hive their laws, which become d tinctly or indistinctly known to us by sensation and reflection* a may be contemplated either substantively in themselves, or adj.rtiv. as attributes of other substances. 16& Words whi'-h express ideas substantively, whether refer*] to spiritual, mental, or cor|Mircjil objects, are for the must part coi
We
prtMnded by Harris and others among " abstract substantives," ds expressing "abstract substances:" and the way in which th
.
\plaimd
is,
that " by a relinrd
operation of the mind alone,

uhj.rt,
abstract any attributi
and consider
Xi"" u
oidi
'
it
apa
'
'AmmmA*
o!f Tipmt
{uJ/( ri
,
"lr *(
\hiUov rZ
* rt
T*
T' *
1
Hitrtt t '\rm ittunfufttt,
in
*Zt i
ifiyirui pit
*ri*ra
rawr'
ti
iTvai
ri
"l<ro,
iû
i>)nrri(mt t Of y wt() rZ"lriv

mvriZ rtv ymi)*Z, <
Xy*t
<r.
fifii*
aXX
n*t
<ri{)
aurZrdi KuktZ,
Aw/w
\.
iHAP. V.]
its
69
dependence ;" " for instance " (says Harris). " from body ve abstract to fly, from surface the being white, and from soul the >eing temperate ;" and tlms are formed the words " Flight," " WltiteThat such an operation of the mind is possible tess," " Temperance" as I have before said), I do not deny but that it is often exercised doubt and that it accurately explains all the conceptions of which t is supposed to be the origin, and consequently all substantives laming those conceptions, appears to me more than doubtful. r 156. The term "Abstraction" is the Latin ahstractio, and the "fj t? 3reek ufaipeatc but I can find no classical authority for the tion use of either of the two latter terms, in the sense of the mental Dperation alluded to. Aristotle appears to have incidentally spoken Df geometrical magnitudes as ra il aâiparttoc, "things abstract;" but this was merely to distinguish the reasoning part of geometry from the diagrams, or visible points, or lines, which Themistius calls vXrj ttjq ytu/îerpiag, " the matter of geometry," in opposition to The schoolmen seem first to have used the its intellectual form. term " abstract," as opposed to " concrete." The former they defined, " quod significat formam aliquam cum exclusione subjecti,ut albedo ;" " that which signifies any form, with exclusion of its subject, as whiteness ;" the latter, " quod significat eandem formam cum ha?rentibus
levoid of
;
J
subjecti, ut albus ;"
" that which signifies the same form with the accompaniments of the subject, as white.'" Still this decides nothing as to the mental operation by which the conceptions in question are formed, or the manner in which they arise in the mind I therefore venture to suggest the following explanation, in conformity with the views which I have hitherto taken of the constitution of the human mind. 157. The idea of Substance is enumerated above among those which are applicable to intellectual objects but it has pleased the Almighty that man should possess not only a spirit and a mind, but also a body, which Plato (or whosoever composed the First Alcibiades) has compared to an instrument of the mind. It may also be compared to the soil, in which the spiritual and mental seeds are implanted, and the elements by which they are surrounded, and without which, as seed sown on a rock, they could never put forth their vegetative powers. Hence the idea of an intellectual substance, as an individualising principle, not limited by space, but holding together, as attributes, various mental faculties, has its contra-type in the idea of a corporeal substance, namely, matter, which, as an individualising
:
Corporrai
""k^""**
principle limited
tions,
by
space, holds together, as attributes, various sensa-
and elementary powers of action. These ideas of tr matter, at first vague and obscure, become by experience and observation more and more distinct conceptions, so that we can reason on them, on their parts, constitution, and elements, and hereon is founded ' the whole of Natural Philosophv.
organic,
and
158. Further, the corporeal conceptions do not at
first
come
to us corporeal
attributes.

70
[CHAP. V
in the shape of substances, but of sensations, as of heat and cold, ligh and darkness, &c, all which the mind even of an infant can soon dig
tinguish
and it can form conceptions of them before it can refe ; them, as attributes, to any particular substance. Nay, even in afte life, sensations often occur, such as those of faintness, languor, ennui am or tcedium vita, of which we know neither the seat nor the cause vet we can easily reason on them as independent conceptions. In th early stages of reason, when men first look on external objects a causes of their sensations, they usually suppose the attributes of thos an objects to be similar to the sensations which they experience
; ;
hence they ascribe heat to fire, light to the sun, cold to ice, &( the Still the conceptions of heat, light, cold, &c, remain the same may be viewed in concreto or in abstracto, as the logicians say, that ii
:
Corporeal
actions.
as attributes, or as substantive conceptions. 159. What has been said of the attributes of corporeal substanc may be understood of its actions; which, indeed, are commonl
reckoned among its attributes ; as Harris, speaking of abstractor And so Falstaff humorousl says, " from body we abstract to fly." All corporeal action in ascribes to his size an " alacrity in sinking." plies motion, and the conception of motion (as has been shown) is n The conception of "flight, less an idea than that of matter is. therefore, may be considered not merely as an attribute of the flyin
body, but as a substantive conception derived from the idea ( Moreover, there are certain things, as light, heat, eta motion. tricity, magnetism, &c, of which we form substantive conception: and express them by nouns substantive, though the learned ;u by no means agreed whether they ought to be included amon corporeal substances themselves, or to be reckoned as attribute: The great discovers forms, or modes of some unknown substance. in these, and, indeed, in all branches of physical science, have bee men who traced our knowledge of the operations of Nature up to son" brigfU idea, of which their predecessors had had obscure anticipation:
but had never obtained

That sober certainty of waking
whi< h ever accompanies the
1
bliss
||.
.'MM.
mighty truth. 160. In What has been hitherto said, it must lie observed that wholly disregard the historical origin of the words expressing idea It may be, and it is true, that the Knglish word Right and the 1'iviu word limit are of the num. origin as the Latin word Rego, " rul
a
I
"Heureka" of
govern,
or
command}" but
long before any of these words uvi

In
employed
in their
present signification, there existed
the
human min
an idea of Right (still, alas! too impeilertlv understood, and too litt b\ the great mass of men) whieh is eonvl; ,[, -..ued to 1m- understood, tive With the idea of /hit;/, and, together with it, Hows from
development of the hJghtl IdeftOf LaU.

el\
ii
So
iol< igie. ill
connected with our

ii
common
the word Heaven may verb "to heave," or wit

I
Iwtfotl,
"the head;" but
that
there
is
a state
<

CHAP. V.J
71
greater purity and happiness than can be attained in this mortal life that there is, indeed, "another and a better world," such as we believe
logies,
Heaven to be is an idea wholly independent of these etymoand which even the most barbarous nations have in all ages
General and
not to
i*-
been found to cherish. 161. I have dwelt at some length on the doctrine of Ideas, not only because the gross misuse of the word Idea has become so inveterate, since the time of Mr. Locke, in our literature, but because a dear understanding of it will correct a confusion very injurious to By the grammatical science between the terms general and universal. former we imply that which is equally common to many individuals, n and which therefore may be particularised, as " a man," " a slave by the latter, that which is absolutely and simply true, whether it can be applied or not to any existing individual, as " manliness, " slavery."
;
c<mloumled
These two classes of words are not always distinguishable by their form, but always by their meaning in the sentence in which they are employed. Thus " man " is a general word, when King Henry
says
Wish not a man from England. would not lose so great an honour, As one man more methinks would share from me,
God's peace
!
For the best hope
have.
But
Isabella
employs
it
as an universal in her passionate exclamation
Man, proud Man, Drest in a little brief authority, Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heav'n
As make
the angels
weep
And, on the other hand, the word " Right "

false,
is
an universal in the bold,
and wicked, but too prevalent assertion

That what makes the right and wrong, Is a short sword and a long,
Or
weak arm and a
strong.
becomes merely a general word in the Bill of Rights, where the Lords and Commons of England, after setting forth thirteen specific declarations, " claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular
But
it
far the the premises as their undoubted rights and liberties." distinction between general and universal words may be grammatically
How
by the construction of a sentence, will be noticed hereafter. Logicians term the words indiscriminately " common," which I have
indicated
either
and a proposition in which ; Formally, be the major of a syllogism. therefore, the two classes agree, but materially they differ ; for to general words, strictly speaking, belong only probable arguments, whereas demonstration requires universals. 162. Thus have I considered the first essential distinction of
distinguished as general and universal
is
predicated
may
Gradation.
substantives, that of kind.

tion, that
of gradation,
come now to the other essential distincby which I mean that order or arrangement oi
I
72
[CHAP. V
conceptions, and consequently of the
Harris refers
substances,
vidual."
when he
animal
is
says,
their genus, their species,
to whic " those several (kinds of) substances hav and their individuals ; for example, in nature
words naming them,
a genus,
man
Of
these three distinctions,
a species, Alexander an ind logicians rank the two firs
among
the five predicables, genus, species, differentia, proprium, an that is to say, they hold that whatever is predicated (o : asserted) of anything must be predicated of it as falling under one c
accidens
"
'i.
'"'i
ubonLna,n
Omitting for the present to notice the thre observe, that an individual, which, strictl speaking, is only an object designated by a proper name, as Alexandei Vatican, Etna, may be classed under a species by possessing some on or more qualities common to it, with all other individuals of th same species, as Alexander agrees with John and others in the qual ties of a man the Vatican with the Tuileries and others in those of and Etna with Vesuvius and others in those of a volcanc palace And again, that a species may be classed under a genus In- possossin some one or more qualities common to it with all others of the sam genus, as the species man falls under the genus animal by possessin sensibility; the species palace under the genus edifice by possessin construction ; and the species volcano under the genus mountain b' possessing height. But as there is no one external object which pole) aiil exclusively answers to the terms man or animal, palace or edifice volcano or mountain, it is clear that these are conceptions of th mind, and that the nouns substantive naming them must be not prope but common,* that is, either general or universal. 163. Harris and others speak only of the three gradations abOT mentioned, gentlS, species, and individual but it is easy to see tha
these five distinctions.
last predicables,
may
the intermediate gradation
Thus
be practically multiplied to any extent by an operation of the mind we may divide the species man [nt
free
may
Greek and barbarian, governors am being the genus, created being the fin species, organised being the second, animal the third, and so down " Every genus," says Harris, "ma; ward-, in regular subordination. < found whole and entire in each one of its species; for thus man horse, and dog are each of them distinctly a complete animal." An< "erai tpedei ma* be found whole and entire in each one o
white and black, governed; or we
and
slave,
may make
i.
cUvidunls
for
them completely and

Plato
*
In
thus Socrates, Plato, and Xenophon are each o " This," he adds, "is wlm distinctly a man."
ivlui) lie talks (in the

1 1
-
hav* axprated, in a manner somewhat mysterious Sophist) of ^mtr 'hVur hit noXXwv, ti oc tu'irrn
'i.-
ili''
predii
of every proposition
'.ii
nflirtiititi
'
'i.
"ili.
nc
In
h in
'
"John
i
i;
ii.iini',
in
i-H'i'i't
'i.
iiiiiioii
I,
must lie in effect a common word William is merely to say (hat tuoiiatnr; itn a i>i"|>> Iii ii.' Indh i'lnal. not William," tii.- predicate, though formally i props lli.' Mtertion I"! amount, to llian .(..linn: 10M
i.
i
lliat
or Philip, or urn/ i.lhrr

'
/..r,v../i
J
im.l
in this ninliliiT it nwij
bf Mi
'.
<n.
.i!is.-.|.

REAP. V.J
Ktifiiru
bird
7o
ywplc, -navvy CLartTafiivrfv kcu 7ro\\ae iripac ii\\t)\wv Now there is really no mystery in tiodev irtpuyoîvaq. these expressions to any one who has well studied the use of the word idea by Plato ; for he is speaking of an accurate reasoner, one who understands the proper method " of dividing by genera, and neither supposes one species to be another, nor the latter to be
pae
" Such a person," Plato says, "will clearly discern the former."* one idea spreading through many things widely separated from each other, and will perceive that those many separate things are held together under one." If any illustrated, 1G4. The philosopher's remark may be thus illustrated: person should profoundly meditate (as Hooker did) on the generic idea of law, and should know how to divide its species with perfect accuracy into the law divine, revealed and rational, the laws of nature, of nations, and of separate polities, civil and ecclesiastical, assigning to each its due limits, he would clearly perceive that this generic idea pervades all its species, and that all the works of the Creator and of man must alike conform to it, or perish. For want of this animating principle in human laws it is
That mighty States characterless are grated
To dusty
nothing.
happen, if we could suppose a like defection from the laws of nature, has been admirably described by the great authoi of the Ecclesiastical Polity himself " If those principal and mothei elements," says he, " whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have ; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might happen ; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture the winds breathe out their last gasp the clouds yield no rain ; the earth be defeated of heavenly
And what must
influence;
the fruits of the earth pine away, as children at the withered breasts of their mothers no longer able to yield them relief, what would become of man himself? See we not plainly that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole
world?"
165. There are two modes then of acquiring knowledge, with refer- Proceedm* ence to the distinction of genus, species, and individual, the ascending tomefe*?" and the descending mode ; and these have been explained or typi- ^Jle fied in various ways, as by the Arbor Porphyriana of logicians, the
Zeiprj x,ov<7t7 of the poet,
and the Ladder of the
patriarch's dream.
IftgM
To Kara y%in
oiaioiitrHai, x.x) u,r,rt retire* iTSas
irsjav, Yiyn<rair6a.i, fttirt
74
[CHAP. V
Porphyry, an eminent philosopher of the third century, in his Isagogt or introduction to the five predicables above enumerated, thus form a scale (usually figured as a tree), viz., Socrates, Homo, rationale animal, vivens, Corpus, Substantia; according to which we ma ascend from the individual, Socrates, to the genus, substance ; c
descend, vice versa.
describes the golden chain
Homer, in Chapman's spirited translation, thu by which Jove holds all things suspended-
Let down our Golden Chain, And at it let all Deities their utmost strengths constrain To draw me to the Earth from Heav'n you never shall
;
prevail,
Though with your most contention ye dare my state assail. But when my will shall be dispos'd to draw you all to me,
Ev'n with the Earth itself and Seas, ye shall enforced be. Then will I to Olympus' top our virtuous engine bind, And by it ev'ry thing shall hang, by my command inclin'd.
The patriarch Jacob, in his dream at Luz (afterwards called Bethel^ " beheld a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached t heaven he saw the angels of the Lord ascending and descending c Ever it; and the Lord stood above it." (Genes, xxviii. 12, 13.)
;
tree, every link of the chain, every step of the ladde: beginning at the lowest, brings us nearer to the source of all knov ledge, until we reach
branch of the
Things not reveal'd, which the Invisible King, Only Omniscient, hath supprest in Night.
In which belief of a wisdom beyond human attainment our grej poet agrees with Plato, who intimates that as the bodily eyes the generality of men are unable to look steadily at the clear mer dian sun, so their mental eyes, contemplating the divine light, ai On the other hand, the knowledj unable to sustain its splendour.* which begins from the highest intelligible genus, and descends in i gradation through subordinate species (as has been above exemplify
<
i*mrtipi
Kniutiun.
To tl of law) is also of inestimable value to mankind. former belongs inductive science, to the latter demonstrative; the are the two wings of the human mind, and he who attempts to f with either alone will efiect but an Imperfect and limited flight. 166. The practical utility of a wdi formed gradation from an Inc vidua! through successive species to a genus, or the contrary, may 1 The general aim and object of the process thai briefly explained. to acquire sonic kn<>\\ l.d " (hat may he useful, not only on one occ
in the idea
m botOO all similar occasions; to know some truth which may Q onlv apply t< PctSf OC John, but to all persons who resemble l'ct or John; hut this cannot he .lone unless we have a comiii.ni woi which implicH that resemblance, and the persons in question cann resemble etofa Other hut by relation to some common conceptio
.si.
which does not neces anl\ helmig to any one of them more than That common conception therefore supplies the clSfl anv otlnr.
T y*(
rni t Vx.X* î/"tS S/tftara K{Ti{i<V

I"'.
irjof
to Bi7 afoûvra at
Mr.
M,
I'M,..;
CHAP. V.]
75
Thus Peter, James, and word, which renders the truth common. Andrew may be slaves ; the conception of slavery therefore is common
to
them
all,
relation to Peter,
and whatever is universally true of James, and Andrew, but to
it is
true not only with
all
others
who
are, or
have been, or may be, in the state of life expressed by the word slave. Again, a slave and a free citizen agree in this, that they are subjects a subject and a sovereign in this, that they are men ; a man and a
beast in
this,
that they are animals.
Now
all
these conceptions, to
and animal nature, are so many mental conceptions or ideas, and they are regularly subordinated, one to another, in a certain gradation, according as they are viewed by the mind which view is determined, not by any accidental impression received from the senses, but, on the contrary, by the general truth of which the understanding is in search. Thus, if I am in search of some truth relative to the state of slavery, I may consider the conception of slave as a genus, and divide it into the species of domestic, or if I wish to reason on political, absolute, limited, and the like animal nature, I may regard animal as the genus, and man, beast, In like manner I may consider an angle as bird, fish, &c. as species. a genus, and right, acute, and obtuse angles as species. 167. They who think that we can have no conceptions but those Certainty, of bodily impression, that there is no substance but matter, and that sensation and reflection are alike bodily acts, will of course contend that there can be no truth or certainty in the mental conceptions which we call genera and species, and consequently no precise meaning in the words by which they are signified, inasmuch as there is no exBut an external ternal standard to which they can be referred. standard, to which there are no means of referring, is in fact no standard at all. Now this must happen, in the great majority of cases, with No sooner have I seen " Peter " or regard to corporeal conceptions. " John," than he may take his departure. Shall I then say he is a nonentity ? And what has truth or certainty to do with external do, in fact, attain greater existence, more than with internal? certainty, and are more confidently persuaded of truth, in regard to some mental, than we possibly can in regard to any corporeal conceptions. Mathematical demonstration is proverbially clear and unquestionable but mathematical demonstration is carried on solely by means of ideal conceptions. If men were to trust to physical measurement, aided by the very nicest instruments, they might be emwit, slavery, subjection,
human
nature,
We
ployed for ages before they could

angles.
satisfy
themselves that the three
angles of a right-lined triangle were universally equal to
two
right
168. The species is to the genus as the individual is to the species. it is, that though (as I have said) an individual, strictly speaking, is an object designated by a proper name, yet a species, though necessarily designated as such by a common noun, may be' contemplated as an individual, with reference to the genus to which
Species
individual,
Hence
7G
[CHAP.
conceptions of virtue and modesty, separately conit belongs. but if the latter be contemplated sidered, may be regarded as genera When only as a species of the former, it may be individualised.
;
The
Hamlet says
to his guilty mother,
Assume a virtue,
if
you have
it
not,
he alludes to modesty as one of several species of the genus virtue. Again, when we say, " Virtue is its own reward," we speak of virtue On this principle as one of the several species of the genus reward. we may correct what seems to be an error of the learned grammarians of Port Royal, and of M. Dumarsais. " There are nouns," say Messrs. de Port Royal, " which pass for substantives, but are really adjectives, " and M. Dumarsais says, in Physician King,' Philosopher,' as Now it surely the phrase " Louis is king," king is an adjective. would be more correct to say that the words alluded to are substantives common, signifying species or genera, of which the person indiLouis was an individual of the species king, cated is an individual. and genus ruler. Davy was an individual of the species chemist, and Condillac says that when a genus natural philosopher, and so forth. substantive is the attribute (he means the predicate), it is the more general of the two terms. Now, this is true with reference to the When we say " Time particular view taken at the time of speaking. is money," we do not mean to use the words time and money both
'
' ; '
as
universal*, implying genera, so as to

identical
make
the proposition merely
an
one; but we suppose the word money to be employee

:
symbolically as a genus, including all the means of acquiring whatsoever men deem valuable we regard time as a species of thai genus, and we might continue the gradations thus, Time is money, Money ii power, Power is happiness. So when we say li Gratitude is justice,'
it is one o: gratitude is a species of the genus justice forms of rendering xuiim citiifiu; such as punishing crime, rewarding merit, paying B debt, returning a kindness, fa lii'.'. md From what has been said it will be manifest that a genu an idea including various species, not as a day includes an hour, or a: mile includes an inch that is to say, as a given measurable portioi Of tiflM OK space, matter or motion, luit as involving conceptions of This distinction < 'icer< lower order and less comprehensive nature. expresses liy the words I'mii/iniuul Divisio. " In partilione," sayfl he
we mean, tin- many
that
i.-
"<)iiasi
mlna Hint, Ut
osetera.
corporis, caput, humeri,
manus,
latent, crura
mom,
In divisione
has
in
forma
sunt,
<|u,is aostrl
species appellant
Formal sunt
in
qoaa
gi
dm,
sine alllua pretermissione, dividitor
To
legem, morem, nqnitatem, dividat." (Topic 6, 7." partition, rather than to difieion, belongs the class of nouns callei mult it iuli\ cucli of which, though it roproaentB a ntunber o
quia joa,
finite
or iudetinite,
still
represents
them
its
one thing
of
thii
urny,"
I,"
" a
flock."
" a regiment," "a troop," "a nation,' Those writers who have not well compre
linided the distinction of genus .md mectee, have sometimes explains
CHAP, v.]
;
77
that is to the words representing them as mere nouns of multitude say, "as representatives of many particular things," instead of being
representatives of an idea
common
to those particular things.
170. Having thus considered the essential distinctions of nouns Number, substantive, viz., kind and gradation, I have next to speak of the
accidental distinctions, viz., number, gender, and relation or case. Whatever is accidental may, or may not, be viewed in connection with
that which
or
is
essential.
Thus the conception of ideas of number may

with other conceptions, as that of
may not be viewed

or
in connection
" whiteness," or "sun," or "star;" and if viewed in connection with any one of these, the complex conception may be expressed by a single word, or by two words, as happens in regard to other combinations of ideas; thus as "saint" is a single word, including the conceptions expressed by the two words, " holy " and " man," so the word " horses " includes the conceptions expressed by the words "horse" and " number." 171. In order to understand when the conceptions of number can, whence and when they cannot, be added to other conceptions, we must conFor this purpose I cannot refer to a more sider what the former are.
sometimes called but the whole passage is too long to be extracted, and I should do it injustice were I to exhibit it in an imperfect state. Suffice it to say that Plato agrees with Mr. Locke in asserting that " number is the simplest and most universal idea," for unity itself is in this sense the origin of all our ideas of number. But the latter philosopher is by no means correct in saying that " its modes are made by addition " for we might as well say that they were made by division, or by subtraction, or by multiplication since addition is, equally with each of the others, one of the powers ol numbers, and presupposes the idea which Mr. Locke imagines it to produce. He says, " by repeating this idea (viz., of unity) in our minds, and adding the repetitions togetJier, we come by the complex ideas of the modes of it. Thus by adding one to one we have the complex idea of a couple." Very true, by adding but not by simply John is one, and repeating, which is a totally different operation. What Peter is one, and Henry is one but one is not two, or three.
satisfactory or better authority than Plato's Epinornis,
" man,"
the Thirteenth
Book on Laws
two or three ? Certainly not the bare act of repeating one, one, one ; for children and idiots who cannot reckon three, can do this and M. de la Condamine mentions whole tribes of savages who cannot reckon beyond three, though certainly they could
ideas of
:
makes me then acquire the
repeat one, two, three, all the day long. There must, then, be something in the nature of the ideas of number without which it would be
impossible for us to " add one to one," and thence to obtain " the complex idea of number." Now, this consists in the still more general nature of all ideas, and in that power, which they have, to grow and multiply by contemplation. Thus, if we enumerate John, and Richard, and Henry, and William, and James, and Edward, and so forth, the
78
is
[CHAP. V
not merely unity
very slightest attention will show us that there but multitude, or the idea of number in its most
threes, or fours,
it
indistinct
in order to distinguish this multitude into given
form ; bu numbers, as twos

;
will
be necessary to
refer
each conception to son*

are tall
other.
Thus
these two,
John and Richard,

;
these three
Henry, William, and James, are short or these three, John, an< these two, William ant Richard, and Henry, stand in the first line James, stand in the second; or the first, John, is counted on th thumb the second, Richard, on the fore finger the third, Henry, oj the fourth, William, on the finger next beyond th the middle finger middle and the fifth, James, on the little finger. This last mode o sorting and classing conceptions has been very generally adopted b; mankind, whence the Greek word irifxiraûv, " to reckon by fives,'
; ; ; ; ;
was used
for
"to number."
Some
;
barbarous tribes never went beyon<
nations employed both hands

are
piurni
; whereas the more cultivate! and this latter mode is the origin o our decimal system of arithmetic, and explains why the numeral figure
the use of one hand for this purpose
still
called digits, that
is,
fingers,
172. I have observed that the first conception of number is simply that it is something beyond, and different from, unity ; that it is unit; repeated, or multitude. Thus far most nations have gone, in expressing by one word, the combination of number with any given conception and this variation in the noun is called, by grammarians, the plura number. The plural number usually differs from the singular in form either by the use of a word altogether different, as " pig and swine
:
or by a change in articulation, as "man and men;" or by a syllable added, as " horse and horses," " ox and oxen ;" but as the variety these forms proves that no one of them is essentially necessary both experience and reflection will show that no change whatever necessary in the noun itself, provided that some other won! serves U show us that the noun is used with reference to plurality; thus English we say " fifty sheep" and " fifty head of cattle;" and so Latin the genitive and dative cases singular, and nominative ttt
;
i
ii
ii
vocative plan] of the

ll'.\.
first
declension, are identical.
which the noun expresses unity of conception but, would not lie possible for nouns t< is called the singular number have a separate inlleetion for every separate conception of Dumber, the Therefore, they canno could be combined with them by the mind. have separate farms for the du<th knot, mtattndl numbers, and so on ltd uiiiiiiiiuu but, tor some of these numbers they may. Experience indeed, bsi OOf Shown OS the! Ihey have ever gone beyond the duct Certain writer: number; and that has n done by very few nations.
The form
in
it,
on
of
this
and
oilier
matters concerning language, as

a
all
if
the formatioi
dillcrciit
II
dialect;
is
were
matter
of premeditation and study

in
whereas
,
oerteln that
languages,
their early state,
grow
u]
without meditation os reflection, and that the cultivation and poushinj ot it Noi results of s nation';, civilization. language ii one of the h
I
CHAP. V.]
OK NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE.
79
can this be otherwise ; for ideas, themselves in practice, and guide our mental operations, just as animal laws direct our bodily actions, long before we suspect either of them walk, and dance, and ride, according to the laws of to exist. gravitation ; we swim by the principles of hydrostatics ; we form and express thoughts by the laws of conception, assertion, and conclusion but it is not until long after we have submitted to those laws, that we begin to take cognizance of them as distinct objects of thought
which are the laws of mind, develop
We
the last operation of the human intellect is that by which it separates itself from outward things, and discovers wr ithin its own
for
nature a world of beauty and order, which even more than this wondrous body of man with all its curious apparatus, chemical and mechanical, more than this terraqueous globe with its animal and vegetable and mineral riches, more than the sun " looking from his
sole
dominion," or even than the countless numbers of the heavenly
host peopling interminable space, discovers to our finite comprehension the traces of that Deity, who cannot be more fully revealed but by his
own
divine word.
174.
Thus
it is,
that in intellectual, as in moral speculation, our Absolut*

trut
'"
simplest conceptions are most closely connected with that absolute
which Mr. Tooke altogether denies the existence. " supposes mankind for whom, and by whom alone, the word is formed. If no man, no truth. There is, therefore, no such unless mankind, such thing as eternal, immutable, everlasting Truth as they are at present, be also eternal, immutable, and everlasting. Two persons may contradict each other, and yet both speak truth." This is not only not common sense, but it is very bad logic. The argument runs thus A man trowed or believed something to exist he used the word "troweth, troth, or truth," to express this belief;
truth, of
" Truth,"
savs he,
therefore no such thing existed.

different things existed
;
Again, two
men
believed that
two
they both used the same word to express the same belief: therefore the belief of both was equally well founded. Turn Mr. Tooke's sentences how we will, they come to this sort of reasoning, and can only be accounted for by his loose and hasty conception of the word thing ; which as he uses it, corresponds exactly to Mods. Condillac's object, and to Mr. Locke's idea ; and really means nothing ; that is to say, nothing certain, definite, or intelligible. 175. That the human mind can embrace Eternal Truth, in the widest sense of these terms, it would be folly and madness to assert but that none of the truths which it is formed to comprehend are eternal, is a proposition, to say the least of it, extremely bold. At all events, the circumstance that men, " such as they are at present," may not be able clearly to comprehend a given truth, is certainly no proof of its falsehood. Suppose a child does not well comprehend that two and two are four, are they the less so ? Now, this is the case with all conceptions of number. begin with unity, we proceed to multitude, we advance to numeration but the elementary
Truth
<>f
We
80
[CHAP. \
books of arithmetic will teach us that this last is the introduction t that science by which Newton brought down the old divinities froi their starry thrones, and converted lovely Venus and potent Jove hit
silent monitors of the lapse of time, or friendly guides of the adventi rous navigator on a lonely ocean; that science, by which judicii astrology was for ever confuted, and men learnt to gaze unmoved o the comet, which, as they had once thought,
from his horrid hair
Shook
pestilence and war.
How
c:nn ;ct<d
with other
truths.
176. Such being the nature and power of the conceptions of numbe: us inquire how, and on what principles it is that they are connecte with other conceptions and here it will be seen that these principle are founded in the essential distinctions of the noun, as ahead for the principal office of numbers is to apply science t described fact, by distributing the genus into its species, and the species into il individuals ; number, therefore, is the bond uniting the universal wit the particular, the highest genus with the lowest individual, Eternj Truth with momentary sensation. Therefore it is, that Plato say
let
: ;
tiirtp
apiSpov tK
Ttjq
<f>p6vi/jLot
ytvoifitSa.
avpumLvT}Q <pvat(OQ lê\oi[XT)v ovk av iron i " If we were to take out nwnber from huma
nature, we should become void of thought on every subject ;" whic he again illustrates by observing, that an animal which has not th distinct conceptions of two or three, or of even and odd, and, cons< quently, is quite ignorant of numeration, can never give any accour of those things which he perceives by sense and memory. 177. "The genus," as has been observed, " is found whole an Il'iu ;ippli.il t<i gMMM and Thus the genus animal is found i entire in each one of its species." specie*. tin- different species, man, horse, and dog; that is to say, a man an animal, a horse is an animal, and a dog is an animal. By nun bering the species, we find that the genus though one, is capable being conceived in them as many, and therefore we can speak of man Again, "the species is found whole and entire in th animals. Thus Socrates is a man, Plato is a man, Xenophon is individual." man and by applying the conception of number to the species man, we call them three men. The plural number, therefore, 1.. to genera and species: and accordingly we find all language apply the plural number to words expressing genera and species, tlin ây, to the words, railed common, or appellative. 178. lint the case is totally diilerent with proper names, whe inwiiUr. strictly Qiad as such; for in that case they are applied to individuals and UM individual is not found whole and entire in the genus Q The conception of Civsur is not, found whole and entire inuiial, or in the specie:; man, or in the class of Kmnans, o
i
<
<
..
'.i
ii,
iquerort, or of generals, or of soldiers, or of scholars. therefore, w hen usei t o ex pn the very individual
I
i
The won
who
passei
i
Rubicon, and who spoke behalf of the ttaiton

tin
i
with
-
so
much
affected
lileraluv
the CatUinariao conspiracy, and
wb
OF XOUXS SURSTANTIVK.
CHAP. V.]
81
doubtod of a future state, and who profligate Antony, and who at once flattered and subjugated the Roman people, cannot receive a plural termination ; and for this reason, because the particular conception which it expresses cannot be associated with number; since there never was nor ever will be more than one such man ; who therefore spoke philosophically and truly, when he said For always I am Ca;sar.
associated with the debauched and
But
it
if if the word Caesar be used to express a different conception mean something which is also found whole and entire in Alexander,
;
and Attila, and Jenghiz Khan, and Napoleon Buonaparte, then indeed "the Caesars" is a proper grammatical form of speech; because the
noun
is
no longer a proper name, but an appellative

;
then
we may
what we say of one will be equally true of another but then the word, though the same and the reason which in sound, will be very different in signification
reason on the Caesars, as on a class or species, and
;
before
prevented our adding to
it
the plural termination will
no
Ifcger exist.
179. Mr. Harris has mentioned various ways in which a proper How they name may come to be used as an appellative. The persons indicated $^ by it may, as members of the same family, or from other accidental Hence the expression of muses, happen to bear the same name.
" the twelve Caesars," to designate twelve
cessively
Roman
emperors
who
suc-
bore that name. Hence too the Howards, Pelhams, and Montagues, " because a race or family is like a smaller sort of pecies ;" so that the family name extends to the kindred, as the Again, another cause winch specific name extends to the individuals.
contributes to
make proper names
plural,
is
the
marked
character of
eminent virtue, or for notorious vice, or simply for anything extraordinary and singular in lis conduct or opinions. It is thus that in speaking on the subject of arammar, we might not improperly say, " these are the opinions of a Condillac " referring to an author of some celebrity (though, as I think, of remarkable inaccuracy) in his views of that subject. So the iberality of Horace's patron and friend has made every patron of literature be called a Mcecenas ; the odious cruelties of Nero have made lis name a synonym with the word tyrant and on the same irinciple Shy lock, when he would express the integrity and acuteness of he supposed young lawyer, exclaims,
individual
ome
who
bears
it,
whether
for
A Daniel come
to
judgment
Yea, a Daniel!
Gender,
180. Gender, as an accidental distinction of nouns, has given rise to nuch litigation among grammarians. " Gender," says Vossius, " is oroperly a distinction of sex but it is improperly attributed to those ;hings which have not sex, and only follow the nature of things havng sex, in so far as regards the agreement of substantive with adjecive. Sex is properlv expressed in reference to male and female, as '
;
2.

82
OF KOUNS SUBSTANTIVE.
[CHAP.
1
Pythagoras and Theano ; ager, a field, therefore, is improperly calk and herba, an herb, is improperly called feminine. Bt masculine animal is neuter, because it is construed neither way." Scaligi says, that the ancients improperly attributed sex to words; and th; with respect to the neuter gender, it is absurd to attribute that gender which is the negation of gender. Neither is it to be born says he, that words should be called of the doubtful gender, from tl circumstance of their being sometimes used with a masculine ar sometimes with a feminine construction. Mr. Harris, however, ha with some ingenuity, endeavoured to assign reasons for the gener " Every substance," says he, " is male distinction of nouns. female, or both male and female, or neither one nor the other. : that with respect to sexes and their negation, all substances coi ceivable are comprehended under this fourfold consideration." Hem lie proceeds to consider language as if it had been really and into tionally formed with a view to this classification of substances. 1 to the first and second class, they are manifestly such as must < many occasions require some mode of expression. The third is rar and its expression would in general be shunned. But as to the fburt
;
i
<
by far the greater portion of the objects In languages which express the natural sexes alone I terms corresponding to them, very little difficulty occurs in this pa In general, every noun denoting a male animal is ma of Grammar. culine every noun denoting a female animal is feminine ; and evei
it
must
necessarily include
thought.
noun denoting neither the one nor the other is neuter. The on exception to this general rule, is an exception which is founded in tl poetical part of our nature; and it happily serves to distinguish tl
The instances to whit language of imagination from that of reality. I allude are those in which the conception of a thing is raised to tl dignity of a person, or where we dwell with such fondness on oi irti thouglits as to invest them, as it were, with life and action. Patfcn stands before us in the enchanting form of a lovely female. appears "gazing on kings' graves, and smiling extremity out of act
\
So
And
Shakspeare says,
The mortal Moon lmth her
eclipse endured.
i
perhaps a
finer instance
of this figurative
dor cannot
in
Gtted than its application to the Idea of
Fonn,
Milton's noble
Hcription of Satan
His
All
/;
bra
i
had yet DOt ImI
original hrieditness, nor appeai'ii

haii'/r]
Le*H than an
I
iiin'd.
>nt
in
lailflliayi
mipposi'd
tli.ii
to
whore the mere terminations of words imply, oral imply, any oi all of these distinctions, it is no wondi
arise* in
much
t
conl'ii.n.ii
>i
the various
modes of explaining
ci
rum
word
it,-
Con
n to the
general laws of thought
"The Qred
Linn, and many oi the modern tonguea," says Mr. Harris, "has tome ma uline, some feminine (and tQOM tOO in great mult
i,
i
"
CHAP. V.]
tudes),
reference to substantives
83
where sex never had is surely neither male nor female yet is vovq, in Greek, masculine and mens in Latin, This learned grammarian could not but perceive that " in feminine." some words these distinctions seemed owing to nothing else than to the mere casual structure of the word itself;" but he was of opinion that in other instances there might be detected " a more subtle kind of reasoning, which discerned even in things without sex a distant which have
existence.
To give one
instance for
many, mind
analogy to that great distinction which, according to Milton, animates

the world
I
!
am far from asserting that in particular instances some such Mr.HwWi 181. i t i c u theory. Indeed it appears to be or the analogy may not have operated. nature of that imagination to which we owe the figurative language above mentioned but it could only have been a rare accident, by no means capable of carrying us far toward the explanation of the princiHarris, it must ples on which language in general was constructed. be owned, expresses himself modestly enough, observing, " that all such speculations are at best but conjectures, and should therefore be " Varro's received with candour rather than scrutinised with rigour." words, on a subject near akin," says he, "are for their aptness and
i
elegance well worth attending

lure
Non mediocres enim tenebrce insilvd,ubi quo pervenire volumus,semitce tritoe; neque non in With this tramitibus qucedam objecta, quce euntem retinere possent." allowance, we may therefore notice the general principle for which Harris contends, namely, that " we may conceive such subjects to have been considered as masculine, which were conspicuous for the or which were, by nature, attributes of imparting or communicating active, strong, and efficacious, and that indiscriminately, whether to >ood or to bad or which had claim to eminence either laudable or otherwise ;" and again, that " the feminine were such as were con:
captanda; neque
eb,
spicuous for the attributes either of receiving, of containing, of proiucing, or of bringing forth, or
which had more of the passive in their which were peculiarly beautiful and imiable, or which had respect to such excesses as were rather femiline than masculine." Hence he thinks it would be reasonable to consider as masculine nouns, the "sun," the "sky," the "ocean," time," "death," "sleep," and "God;" and as feminines, the 'moon," the "earth," a "ship," a "city," a "country," and virtue." But the question, as respects the science of Grammar, is lot whether any or all of these may not occasionally and accidentally >e so considered but whether there be any necessary cause connecting in our minds the conception of sex with any of them. Now, here can be no other such cause than personification, because sex is a )ersonal distinction but even that cause does not universally apply to ny of these conceptions. God, indeed, our creator and preserver, ve usually and properly regard as a person and then the reasoning f Mr. Harris is so far just, that we cannot easily view the Supreme
lature than of the active; or
'
; ; ;
62
84
for
[.CHAP.
<
even in those heathen mythologies whic Being as a female; abound with female divinities, the chief and sovereign Deity is alvva^
But Harris himself admits, what indet represented as masculine. the common experience of every day sufficiently proves, that we ofte
contemplate this ineffable conception without any reference to sex, even to person, calling it " Deity," " Numen," " to Stiov." It mu be remembered, that personification was more common among tl The Greeks actually worshipp( ancients than among the moderns. Sleep and Death in the form of men Virtue was portrayed befo Isor must we forget that mat their eyes by the statue of a female. of these personifications have been handed down to us from them t mere tradition and the language of the poets. Thus it is difficult f us, who have seen Fame and Victory so often delineated as female on ancient medals, and in sculpture, who read of them as such poetry, and know that Fama and Victoria are nouns of feminine te mination ; it is difficult for us, when we do personify these ai: beings, to figure them to ourselves as men, in a different habit ai form, with different accompaniments, and expressed by words ai But there a sentences of a different character and construction. comparatively few things which we personify in our common pros and when we do so, the change of the form of words from neuter masculine or feminine, at once and powerfully marks the transition This, hoi the mind from cold matter of fact to ardent imagination. ever, is again an accidental circumstance appertaining to the particul history of the English language, and not to the philosophy of langua
i
in general.
Gender ef
immî.
182. There is a curious difference of opinion between Sancti and Harris. The former writer asserts " that proper names of me cities, rivers, mountains, and the like do not admit of grammatic gender;" " Nomina propria hominum, urlrium, fluviorum, moiitium, catera hujusmodi, genus grammaticum habere non posse:" whereas latter author says " both number and gender appertain to words.Number, i" strictness, descends no lower than to the last rank
1
individual,
species: gender, on the contrary, stops not here, but descends to eve however diversified." This apparent contradiction betwv
two
emmi'iit
writeis
is
nevertheless easily reconciled.
Harris att
butes gender to words as significant of the conceptions of the tnifl Sanctius, on the other band, following the authority of Varro n
I
>Joi
itlci ;
:i
i:i
ii;i
gi-nder as relating only to the tern
nation or construction of words.

call
" Thus," says Varro, " we do n

1
those words masculine which signify male beings, but those befi which arc propulv plftOtd /'"' and hi, and those leniinine wit \\ hr
1
|f| (.in
.iv
,
/((irand A-'."
" Sic
il <t</io'
ea
virilia
;
dicimus, nonqiuc rim

sic
ssd ijuilms ]<nvjinniiniis hie
et hi
el
midielma,
u
in </ni/>
dicere VOttifMn base et hie."
The
i
reason which this author

(
i
to
.M
it
i.i
i-
as an
art, hut, not,
as
science.
fllUHMMftos pnpotihm non
est
singularum vocum
signijicntici,
CHAP. V.J
explicare, sed usum.
significations
85
is
" The object of Grammar
not to explain the
mere
Now, though the of particular words, but their use." words is not the object of Grammar, the mode of signification is so far from being an immaterial part of that science, There is no doubt but that the expresthat it is its sole foundation. sion or non-expression of the distinction of sex in connection with other conceptions, must affect the relations of language considered as signisignification of
ficant,
and consequently must fall under the science of Grammar, This expression is according to the definition of it above adopted. not essential to all nouns, but it is an accident universally affecting whole classes of nouns, and therefore demanding for its application
rules of Universal G rammar. 183. Now those rules not only do not depend on the termination or other peculiarity in the sound of words, but even in the Latin language, as Wallis has observed, sex is not so distinguished; for though the termination urn is neuter, yet the words scortum, mancipium, amasium, &c, are applied both to the male and female sex and so we find it even in proper names, as Glycerium mea, which Priscian
some
Tenninii-
notes as figurative.
184. Regarding only the science of Grammar, as dependent on the Union of -r i.i r conceptions. nature of thought, it is manifest, that those conceptions which are of a nature to coalesce, in reason or fancy, may be considered either disThus the conception of " number" and tinctly or in absolute union.
/.i...
i.i
that of " soldier" are absolutely united in the conception of

or " regiment," or
" army " " royalty " and that of " man " are absolutely united in that of " king ;" and so the conception of " sex " and that of " child " are absolutely united in the words "boy" and "girl." This sort of union gives occasion to many classes of words in most languages, as " horse " and " mare," "ram" and "ewe;" "bull" and "cow;" but there is a second class in which the same distinction is expressed by the compound form of the word, as "shepherd" and "shepherdess," "milliner" and "manmilliner;" and lastly, the sexual quality is often expressed by its proper adjective, as the " male and female elephant," the " male and " troop
;
" the conception of
female rhinoceros." 185. There are some conceptions in which that of sex is tacitly* included, but may not be absolutely determinable, or may not require to be determined for the purpose of communicating thought. Thus a " child " is either a " boy " or a " girl " but if we are reasoning on
;
ro," mnn
the education of children generally,
many
thoughts
may
occur to us
which indifferently and equally relate to boys and girls, and in expressing which we may therefore use the neuter word " child." And perhaps this consideration alone would afford a sufficient answer to those persons who contend, like Hobbes, that the general word "man" is no more than the representation of some one particular man in my
memory
I
1
or imagination
it
sented a boy,
for if the word child in my thoughts reprecould not represent a girl, and vice versa; whereas
:

86
it
[CHAP.
we
see in practice that
represents the
two opposite
sexes at the
Accidental
associations.
and serves the purposes of reasoning quite as well, and oftentimes better than if we had employee different words for the two sexes. 186. Lastly, there are conceptions, which in reality have nothing to do with sex, but which, from various causes, principally depending on imagination or habit, we are apt to consider in connection witt
same
time, without the least difficulty,
Thus the English sailor, who has contracted a son of affection for the tight vessel in which he has braved the winds am waves, and who sees in her neat trim and gallant tackling the elegance of female apparel, is habitually led to speak of her as a female. Wh( has not been electrified with the feeling expressed in the old sea
notions of sex.
song
She
rights, she rights,
boys
we're
off shore
a similar cause it is to be attributed that we can hardly thinl of Britannia as a mailed warrior, " an arm'd man for the battle," o as a sea-god wielding his trident over the subject waves ; but we se< her, like another Minerva, great in arts and arms, circling her brow at once with the olive and the laurel, covering the nations with he If we speal aegis, and stretching out her spear for their protection. of her domestic greatness, it is as The nurse, the teeming womb of royal kings
To
if
we lament
her errors, and her
failings,
we
Feel for her, as a lover, or a child.
Animated
t>le.
187. This is the language, not of mere plain unadorned reason, bu of reason elevated and sublimed by passion ; yet does not this circurn stance take it entirely out of the domain of Grammar, viewed a leaching the necessary modes of communicating thought; for passioi
is
a Decently part of our nature, and it unavoidably gives a hue am to our conceptions, and forces us to modify accordingly th forms of ezpresaioo in language. Unhappy is the critic who know nothing of this part of Grammar; he will not only miss some of th finest beauties in the poets, but if he attempt to correct what. Ii
tbinkl faulty, be will display, in the most ridiculous light, his <>wi want of I: Harris has finely exemplified this remark, by
i
quotation from Milton

At
his
command
/lis
th'
:
uprooted hill* retired
Kuril to
place
:
ties heard his voire and
went
Oh i'i|iiiuiiN lleuv'n /,/. wonted Tare renew'd, And with fresh llow'ret hill and valley utnil'd.
"all things are personified : the bills hear Suppose, then is renewed. 1>\ the laws of his language (or w .-,. itat. d the poet had Inn add by the correction of the critic) to have said. Each bill retire)
Hairis,
\
.
1.
1
"Here," says
-\
-
the
unile,
and the lace of heaven

i
lens
|.i.e. Heaven renewed U$ wonted fact how prosaic and lift would theft DCOteri bftVfl appeared how detrimental to the pro
,

CHAP.
V.]
!
87
In this, therefore, he sopopeia which he was aiming to establish was happy, that the language in which he wrote imposed no such necessity, and he was too wise a writer to impose it on himself. 'Twere to be wished his correctors had been as wise on their parts." That they were not always so wise we have a striking instance in the celebrated Bentley, who has taken upon himself to make a vast number of alterations of this kind in Milton's text. Thus the great poet, in his picturesque description of creation, had written
The swan, with arched neck, Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
1
Her
state
with oary
feet.
:
" The swan, her Dr. Bentley has the following note I wonder he should make the swan of white wings and her state always the feminine gender, contrary to both Greek and Latin This comes Rather, therefore, his wings, his state." Kvki'oq, cygnus. of having learnt only the Greek and Latin Grammars, and not know-
On which
ing,
even of these, the true foundations 188. I come now to the expression of the relations of nouns to each other, which is effected by declension, or case, if the relation
!
Relation,
and the conception coalesce

different words.
in
one word, and by a preposition,
if in
By
this
short statement
many
disputes of gram-
Declenmarians relative to the cases of nouns will be easily settled. sion is the term commonly used to signify the variation of case; but Varro considers case as only one mode of declension. His expressions are these: " Of words, as man and horse, there are four kinds first nominal, as from equus comes equile ; secondly of declension casual, as from equus comes equum ; thirdly augmentative, as from albus comes albius ; and fourthly diminuent, as from cista comes cistula" I have, however, at present only to do with the second of
;
these modes.
189. It was long disputed what number of cases existed in the Number of Latin language. These are thus enumerated and explained by Priscian: " The first case is called the right, or nominative case; for
by
this case
naming
is
effected
as this
it is
man
is
called
Homer, and
sometimes called the right or straight case is, that it is first formed naturally by merely laying down the word, and then the other cases formed by flexion from this are called oblique. The next is the genitive, which is also called by some the possessive or paternal. The word genitive is either derived from genus, a race, because we signify by it the race to which any one belongs, as he is of Priam's race,' or from genero to generate, because from this case are generated many other words and parts of speech at least it is so in the Greek language. Again it is called possessive, because we signify possession by this case, as * Priam's kingdom,' or the kingdom possessed by Priam whence possessive adjectives may also be construed by this case for what is the Priameian kingdom but the kingdom of Priam,' or Priam's
that
Virgil.
man
The
reason that
'
'
'
'
'
88
?'
[CHAP.
V,
a similar reason, because the father's name is thus expressed, as Priam's son ;' and hence patronymic names may be resolved into this case, as ' Pelidan Achilles is the same as Achilles the son of Peleus. The following case is the dative, which some term the commendatke. I give a thing to a man,' or I recommend a person Fourthly comes the to a man.' accusative or causative : I accuse a man, or I (as a cause) make |
It
is
kingdom
called paternal
for
'
'
'
'
The fifth case is the vocative or salutatory, as O Eneas !' or Hail Eneas !' The ablative is also called the comparative ; as ' 1 take from Hector,' or I am stronger than Hector.' Each of these but they have recases, moreover, has many other different uses ceived their names from their most general and familiar use, as we see
thing.
'
' ' ;
happen
Meaning
the word
ciie.
in
190.
many other things." From this enumeration,
it
is
observable that the
sort
of
not only expressed the relation of nouns to each other, but also that which they bore to verbs, as agent or object; and lastly, their use in the expression of in passion, without reference either to another noun or to a verb order to explain the reasons of which it will be necessary to observe, that the meaning of the word casus, which we render case, is, proThus, if the perly, the falling or declining from a perpendicular line. simple notion of the noun be supposed to be expressed by an upright straight line, as in the letter I, the other cases may be supposed to
:
declension which the ancients called case,
be expressed by
the letter
Nominative.
lines obliquely declining
one
way
or the other, as iu
V. 191. It was long disputed among
the nominative should, or should not, be called a ease.
the ancient grammarians, whether On the one
hand it was urged, that conceptions are only expressed by speech, in some one of the forms called cases, including the nominative and
;
that of these forms, the nominative expressing the agent of the verb active was the simplest, and was, therefore, used whenever there was
occasion simply to
that the
name a
thing or person.
Thus we should
not say,
or
name of
the person slain by
Marcus Urutus was
('irstiris,
Those, on the contrary, who called it. a case, Casari, but Cwsur. contended that everv expression of a conception in speech was a declension, or (ailing away from the simple conception in the mind,
which, taken by itself, does not imply either action, or passion, or relation. Thus, befon ert anvthing whatsoever of Caesar, f but form th'- conception or thought of " Ca'sar " as a person
;
whan
1
pot
otion the wife "of thought to another, when the friends who were faithful "to Caesar," or those who
that
I
revolted
" /nun
i.
<
'a-sar ;"
or assert
;i
that
"t
m.itiMii
killed;" or express
feeling
all
" (Vsar coni|Uered," OT of any OT( by the
that.
such occasions niv conception and consequently iii% expression should he s.ud t<> dec Inn', OT ill auav from the pure noun. They added, moreover, that a was not always the simplest form of the
(Jafiar
itl
"()
"on
these and
declines from
Original simplicity,
I.
; ;
CHAP.
V.]
89
noun, but was sometimes more distant from the radical, and therefore more deserving of the appellation of oblique than some other cases
as, for instance,
the vocative or ablative, which latter
some
writers
have considered as the primary and original case of the noun. 192. Since the notion of action implies the notion of an agent, there Aent Jta must be a form of the noun which denotes the agent to every verb in The action, however, may be represented as proa simple sentence. On the former ceeding from the agent, or as received by the object. supposition, it becomes a verb active, and the nominative case is the On the latter suppoform of the noun which denotes the agent. and the nominative case is the sition, it becomes a verb passive Thus, " Caesar fights," form of the noun which denotes the object.
;
or
"
" Caesar is killed," are two simple sentences, in both of which Ca sar In the former, the word Cesar signifies the the nominative case. signifies the agent that fights in the latter, the same word In both instances the nominative is essential to object that is killed. the completion of the sentence ; for when we speak of fighting, as proceeding from an agent, we must necessarily express that agent
j
is
Cam
and u hen we speak of being killed, as received by an object, we must express the object. Hence the trivial rule, that the nominative
answers to the question who, or what; as " Caesar fights." Who It "Caesar is killed." Who is killed? Ca\sar. fights ? Caesar. is justly observed by Harris, that the character of the nominative may be learnt from its verb. The action implied in the verb " fights," shows The suflerthe nominative "Caesar" to be an active efficient cause. ing implied in the words " is killed," shows the nominative " Caeaw"
to be a passive subjeet.
lights
;
Persons
may be
considered in both these
as Caesar
other.
the one instance, and passive in the But Things cannot, except figuratively, be considered otheris
active in
wise than as passive, and, consequently, can only become nominatives passive verbs; as we may say, "the house is built;" but we cannot say, " the house builds." 193. The nominative is the most essentially necessary of all cases ; Nominative * * arc lifi'cshii rv and it has therefore been described as " that case without which
to
The sentences can be no regular and perfect sentence." which we make the pronoun it serve for a nominative, and which the Latins used without any nominative at all, as pluit, "it rains;" tcedet me, "it wearies me," or " I am wearied; are imperfect sentences, which I shall hereafter consider separately. In
there
in
all
other instances, although
it
may
object to
which an action
is
directed, or the agent
not be necessary to express the from which a suf:
fering proceeds, yet the converse is absolutely necessary
thus,
when
we
" William builds," it is not necessary to add " a house," or " a palace ;" but if we say " builds a house," or " builds a palace,"
say,
it is
necessary to prefix the
name
of the builder.
it
194. In order, however, to extend and enlarge a sentence, **
often
aiut
AmmOm A UtlVP.
>
90
OF N'OUNS SUBSTANTIVE.
[CHAP. V.
becomes necessary to state the object of a verb active, or the agent of a verb passive. Hence arises the necessity for two other cases, which have been called the accusative and the ablative. When I say there is a necessity for such cases, it will be understood, from what I have before observed, that I do not contend for the necessity of any paror inflections, or prepositions, or arrangement of words, to mark these varieties of case ; I only mean, that it is necessary, that by some means or other the noun, which indicates the conception, should be placed in such or such a relation to the
ticular terminations,
verb which constitutes the assertion. It may happen, and, in point of fact, it does happen in some languages, that there are no in lections of case but there are means in all languages of determining when a noun is the object of an active, or the agent of a passive verbs It has, indeed, been disputed, whether the cases of nouns should be reckoned according to the relation in which they stand to other words, or according to the diversity of their inflections nor are there wanting names of high repute on either side of this question. Sanctius contends, that there is a natural partition of cases, according to the relations which they imply, and, consequently, that there must necessarily be the same number of cases, which he estimates to be six, ir all languages. Vossius objects to this reasoning, and alleges, that the cases of nouns were to be reckoned by the relations which the) bear to other words, they must be endless. This contest, like main others, has arisen from confounding Universal Grammar with l'ar The difference of inflection, or position, belongs to the hit or ticular. that of signification to the former. True it is, that the relations ol nouns to other nouns and to verbs are infinite ; but yet they are disI
il
tinguishable into certain great classes; and whether these classes ought or ought not to be allied cases is a mere verbal dispute. 1 shall so designate them, for the sake of convenience at the saim time it must be understood that this arrangement is not intended tc interfere with the (.irammar of any particular language, in which the
;
Oises are arranged according to their insertions.

ind
1
',.">.
In
th'tin-
.i
"lit
my sense of the word ease, then, the nominal i\e, that BM active. Of Objed Ol the passive Verb, ina\ Dfi eallei'
is,
ablative, in eo tar as tliev perform the functions
primary case; and the secondary eases are the accusative and the above noticed. Thesi
c.i ..-.,
it
!Uv,*e.
bserved, are respectively convertible with tin change of the verb from active to passive; f'oi " Jamc loves John " is convertible with " Johfl is loved by .lames ;' the nominative ol' the second, and th' in the accusative of the fu nominative of the lir.st. being tin- ablative of the second. ''. So the matter stands in the simpler combinations of thought { idei but whal is lo be done, if in one and the same sen tonce WO wish to .\piv, not onl\ the a^cnt. and object of any action, the end to which the action is directed the cause on account
i.
two
to
I
BOmioative,
.
i>.
3HAP. V.]
91
af which it happens, or the instrument, mode, and circumstances of For these purposes it is necessary that the concepts performance. tion of such end, or cause, or instrument, &c, should be expressed by and that some means should be adopted to show whether ja noun the noun was meant to stand in the relation of end, cause, or instruIt is, as Vossius justly ment, or in any other relation to the verb. observes, quite impossible that any language should have separate inflections for all these relations, and therefore some of them are, in most languages, represented by separate words, or particles, commonly called prepositions but others are often expressed by inflections, the number and diversity of which vary exceedingly in different languages, as will be shown hereafter.
;
197. Thus have I noticed three classes or degrees of relation in Genitive, which the noun may stand to the verb but it may also be related to another noun, as depending on, or belonging to it. Thus the words " Priam's kingdom," " the son of William," mark a dependence of "son " on " William," and of " kingdom" on " Priam." This relanion is expressed by a separate inflection in Greek, Latin, English, and many other languages and it is commonly called the genitive case. Now the use of the genitive case in nouns substantive differs but little from the use of an adjective. It expresses one conception, as dependent on another, and the expression of the latter serves to individualise and specify the former. The dependent conception is therefore, in fact, a mere attribute of the other, and consequently the genitive is easily convertible into an adjective. Thus the words
; ;
BciffiAtoe Sfcj/Tpoi', regis sceptrum, the king's sceptre, are easily converted into 'ZkytrTpoy BchtiXikov, sceptrum regium, the kingly sceptre. For the same reason, we find that in some languages, the Chinese,
for
example, the adjective
is
in
no manner distinguished from the

for
it
;
genitive or possessive
case of a substantive;
is
said that
but hao gin is a good man, or man of goodness ; and gin hao is human goodness, or the goodness of man. Hence, too, we see why Wallis considers the English genitive case as a possessive adjective ; e.g., " the king's court," aula regia, where he differs from all other English grammarians, in calling the word " king's " an adjective. On the other hand, Lowth reckons the words 7nine and thine, which are usually called adjectives, as the possessive cases of me and thee. It is, perhaps, from a similar cause that Dr. Jonathan Edwards asserts the Muhhekaneew or Mohegan Indians to have no adjectives at all in their language a fact on which Mr. Home Tooke lays great stress, but which, in reality, proves nothing as to the signification of language, whatever it may do as to its forms or inflections. 198. It seems hardly necessary to distinguish the vocative case by any particular inflection. Indeed, we find the terminations of the nominative and accusative equally employed in Latin as exclamatory
signifies
;
the
word hao
goodness, and gin signifies
man
Vocative,

92
[CHAP.
V,
and it is said that the Sanscrit grammarians do not allow the vocativt Yet, when we are speaking of the different relation? to be a case. which a noun may bear to other words in a sentence, it is impossible to overlook its use in those sentences where it stands forth promiThus, in the first ode nently as the object addressed or invoked. Horace, we find two verses almost wholly occupied with vocatives
Maecenas, atavis edite regibus, et presidium, et dulce decus
o;
:
meum
So Plautus uses
it
as an interjection,
"Io! Hymen! Hymenal

it
!"*
From
which, and
many
similar instances,
might be called the inter
jectional case.
* Casinn, a. 4, sc. 3, v. 3.
CHAPTER
VI.
OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE.
199.
I
have
In
said that the
noun
adjective
is
the
name of a concep-
Definition,
tion or thought, considered as a quality or attribute of another con-
ception.
a word added to a it from some other substantive of the same class, as a red house, a lovely lady, the moneyed interest, the fiftieth regiment ; where red, lovely, moneyed, and fiftieth are all adjectives. In order fully to understand this definition, it will be proper to advert once more to the nature of a simple
it
more popular language,
is
substantive to designate a quality, which distinguishes
enunciative sentence or logical proposition.
The
subject, or that con-
cerning which something
always a noun substantive the predicate may be a noun adjective. Thus, in the sentence " John is tall," the subject is " John," which is a noun substantive the predicate is " tall," which is a noun adjective. Complex sentences are resolvable into more simple ones and where adjectives are used, so as to render a sentence complex, they are always resolvable into the predicate of a logical proposition. Thus, if it be said that " a wise
is
asserted, is
man is cautious," this sentence is resolvable into the sentences " a man is cautious," and " that man is wise," of these the adjective is the predicate of the proposition.
200.
two simple
and
in each
Adjective.
drawn from this statement are several. In the first place, whenever the name of a conception is employed as the subject of a proposition, it is not an adjective. Thus, the conception expressed by the words "good" and " goodness" is the same but if we predicate anything of this conception if, for instance, we say " goodness is amiable," the word goodness must
inferences to be
;
The
Not the
proiSsiUou.
be a substantive. And this does not depend on the form for if the idiom of our language allowed us to say "good is amiable," or "the good is amiable," the word "good" would be as much a substantive as " goodness." 201. Hence it follows, that the distinction between a substantive Mode of and an adjective does not necessarily depend on any difference between Viewlng ltthe conceptions which they express, but between the different modes in which those conceptions are contemplated by the mind. If we contemplate goodness as a separate idea, if we assert anything of that idea, if we make it the subject of any proposition, then it is a substantive but if we predicate it of anything else, if we consider it only as a quality of that thing, then it is an adjective. 202. Hence, again, it follows, that an adjective and a substantive Not eoncannot be convertible, without wholly changing the meaning of the verUble proposition in which they are employed. Thus, to say that " envy
necessarily
of the
word
94
is
OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE.
is
[CHAP. VI
criminal," and that " criminality
envious," are
two
propositions
entirely different.
Cannot stan.i
BmmmI
meaning.
203. It is equally a rule of Universal and of Particular Grammar, an adjective cannot stand alone, but must be joined with its sub stantive ; which is, in truth, no more than saying, that a predicate must necessarily refer to some subject. Mr. Tooke, however, controverts this rule, though it is certainly as old as the words adjective and substantive. He objects, that the rule equally applies to the oblique cases of nouns substantive, and that therefore " the inability to stand alone in a sentence is not the distinguishing mark of an adjective ;" but, though it were not a distinguishing mark, it might However, the real intent ol yet l)e a rule common to all adjectives. the rule is to distinguish adjectives from the substantives with which they are used, and that in the most simple sentences and with reference not to their form or inflection, but to their signification. Thus, if we say " a golden is valuable," the sense is incomplete, and the adjective " golden " requires the addition of a substantive, as, for instance, " ring," to render it intelligible. On the contrary, if we say "gold is valuable," the sentence is perfect. 204. Mr. Tooke contends that " the adjectives golden, brazen, silken, uttered by themselves, convey to the hearer's mind, and denote the
t'aat
;
same
that
things as gold,
it is
brass,
and
7/c."
The
short answer to this
is,
contrary to
common
sense and experience to confound these

if
Mftog together; and nobody ever does so, English language in the slightest degree. But
source of Mr. Tooke's error,
expressions.
First,
who we
understands the wish to trace the
we must examine more particularly his what does he mean by "uttered by themselves?"
Words
force
uttered by themselves are like syllables or letters uttered by themselves. They are the mere elements of discourse. Their proper
and effect in rational speech must depend on their connection with each other. Again, \vh;it is meant, by "denoting the same things?" In so far its they are both of the same origin, there is diiilitless a common conception to which they both hear relation; but it does not follow that they both bear the same relation to it.
words derived from, or connected with, this term, Is it tO bfl gold, is to be found in the dillereiit. Kuropcan languages. said that tiny all "coin.y to the hearer's mind and denote the same
tribe of
numerous
from ( 1) Let us see how this can possihlv be made out. gplaodout of the rlafag or setting sun, was denominated (2) ihe yellow colour resembling that, splendour. From the name of thai colour, u.i. d- lived 8 that of the jaundice, which rendered the whol.' bodjj jrtJloW, and I) thai of the gall, which produced the jaundice. From yellow al n came (5) the name given to the volk ot an egg. And uîiin, limn tin. colour came ( li ) the name of gold. <>l Sold, b<aii(.: the most pror.iou metals, gave its name 7 to riches Hence were denominated ami particular!) (H) to money. la antral
things?"
tin'
1
<
all
kinds
ol
pajnMDjftj whether (9) rolontary gifts, or (10)
oflei
CnAP. VI.]
or (11)
tribute, or
OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE.
rent, or
95
as (14) debts
(13) (12) due on any of these accounts. In process of time, certain societies were formed and maintained by regular payments from each member, and these societies received their name (15) from this circumThe name was afterwards extended to societies (16) or stance. and it occasioned the peculiar designation of a fellowships in general Fines in ancient building (17) in London, where they assembled. times were applied, in the nature of punishment, to almost all and hence their name came to signify (18) punishment in crimes general; and particularly a barbarous mutilation (19) often used as a Lastly, the general term for punishment was naturally punishment. applied to the criminality (20) by which the punishment was occaIn a future part of this work I shall trace these progressive sioned. changes of signification, as they are to be found in the Mseso-Gothic; Anglo-Saxon; Alamannic Lombardian Precopian Greek; Latin, Suevian Swedish Icelandic Russian old, middle, and barbarous German Dutch; Welsh; Italian; old and modern French, and old Every change of application is occasioned by a and modem English. new operation of the mind. The sound of the word conveys a new thought, similar indeed to the preceding, and having reference to the same conception, but placing it in a new light. It would be absurd to say that the thought remained the same through all these different uses and it is equally incorrect to say, that it remains the same after There is as real, though not the same difference beany one step. tween "gold" and "golden," as there is between " a guilder " and " Guild-hall." If Mr. Tooke were right, to gild a thing would be to convert it into gold whereas these words, though of the same origin, are so far from denoting the same conceptions, that they are often " Is this gold? No, it is used in direct opposition to each other. only gilt." So gold and golden are not the same. They both, but they refer to it in different yideed, refer to the same conception ways. In the one instance, the conception (namely gold) is the very thing of which we are speaking; it is the logical subject of the pro;
;
fines; as well
position
says,
the
mind looks
at
it,
as
it
were, directly
as
when Bassanio
for
Hard food
Thou gaudy gold, Midas I will none
of thee.
Whereas, in the other case, it is noticed but incidentally, as a thought passing over, and giving a momentary tinge to another thought, but differing from it as the light in which we view a substance differs from the substance itself. So the same Bassanio, in
the
same
scene, speaking of his mistress's portrait, says,

here in her hair,
The painter plays the spider, and hath woven A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men.
205.
From what
has been already said,
it
will easily
be under- How treated

bsUa"
adjectives, SvS.
stood that these secondary thoughts, which are expressed
by
96
OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE.
distinctly before the
[chap.
si
tl
may be brought more

stantives
in
mind, and treated as

It
is
connection with other substantives.
thus
instead of " a virtuous man,"
we may
say ''a
man
of virtue;"
though there appears, in this instance, very little difference of me: ing, vet, on analysing the two expressions, we shall find that a n and distinct operation of the mind is performed, which operation here expressed by the word " of." do not merely, as in the a of the words " virtuous man," contemplate the conception of " ma as a substance, and that of " virtue " as a quality belonging to individual in question but we contemplate " man " as having a si stantial existence, and "virtue" as having an existence capable coalescing with man and further, we contemplate the actual union Slight, the these two thoughts, as expressed by the word " of." fore, as the difference of meaning is between the words " a man virtue" and " a virtuous man," yet the grammatical difference ia DOt
We
be overlooked: and the best proof of this will be to consider Ik totally the style of any author would be altered if we were always change the genitive case of the substantive into an adjective, and v versa. Suppose that, instead of the line,
The quality of mercy
is
not strained,
we were to say, " the merciful quality is not a quality of comp sion," we should certainly not augment the force and beauty of t language and we should as certainly change the flow and current the thought; we should alter the Grammar, and annihilate the poet
;
Newary
to
20'i.
The preceding remarks,
too,
show the absurdity of assert
that "adjectives, though convenient abbreviations, are not invessa
and that "the Mohegans have no adjectives in tin language;" for though this latter fact is vouched by " Dr. Jonath Edwards, D.D., pastor of a church in Newhaven, and communical to the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences, and published) Josiah Meigs," it ami units really to this, that the Mohegans cann distiii'Mii h subject from predicate, or substance from quality and so, they must be utterly destitute of the faculty of reason, win probably neither Dr. Edwards, nor Mr. Bfeigs, nor Mr. Tooke i' assert. lv conceivable ground for the Revere] Tin Doctor's ertioo it, that the Biohegani employ the same word in substantive and adjective sense, OS we say "there is a calm," ft] have " a cold;* "tbedaj iscotot," the weather "is cold" and itively, as " silivr lucks," the " /iow//-moon," " angtl visit.to language,"
;
I
i
"
Mltll Mil*
eerj'
2<7.
'
It
i.
cniiinioii
"tla/tou pador," and h. hke. rule, that the adjective should agree with
i
mtive
t
in
gender, number, and case,

be ini'ii'd,
tii.it
at
in
i'ht
whence perhaps, It mi". gender, Dumber, and case proper

This, liowevi
;
belong
is
Well tO the adjective as to the sul>stantive.

:
not the fuel
the adjective
i
'
inn rt<
:
in
imply expresses a quality init it mu language with its substantive, and th;
I
in
main
iniilarity vl' inllectioii
CHAP.
VI.]
OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE.
inflections of the substantive express gender, or
97
number,
and when the

tion.
or case, those of the adjective often follow a similar rule of construc-
This construction, it is obvious, is a matter belonging only to and not to Universal Grammar. It may exist in one language and not in another and, in fact, there are languages (our own, for example) in which all these variations in adjectives are
Particular,
;
unknown.
208.
On
the other hand,
a variation of degree
belongs,
in
an
to-
Degree.
especial manner, to certain adjectives,
but not at
all
to substantives
and where there are variations of degree, they

gether,
may be compared
whence
arise,
what
are technically called
by grammarians, the
Notappiisubstantive,
degrees of comparison.
Substantives cannot be compared, as such, in point of degree; would >e to suppose that the nature of substantial existence was variable; and that one existing thing was more truly existing " than another, which is absurd. mountain," says Harris, "cannot
2<)9.
for that
be said more to be, or to exist, than a molehill but the more and less must be sought for in their quantities. In like manner, when we refer many individuals to one species, the lion cannot be called more a lion than the lion B but, if more anything, he is more fierce, more speedy, or exceeding in some such attribute. So again, in referring many species to one genus, a crocodile is not more an animal than a lizard is, nor a tiger more than a cat; but, if anything, they are more
;
Mky, more
attributes.
î\olto
i]
the excess, as before, being derived from their ; that saying of the acute Stagyrite, owe av imovaia to fiaWoy ku) to 7\ttov ; substance is not susceptible of
strong, &c.
So
true
is
same passage of Aristotle, hence infer that comparatives cannot be drawn " Therefore," adds he, " they are deceived, from nouns substantive. who reckon the words senex, juvenis, adolescens, infans, &c, as substantives, for they are altogether adjectives. Nor is it to be objected, that Plautus has made from Peenus the comparative Pcenior ; for he does not there mean to express the substantial existence of the Carless."
more and
Sanctius, referring to this
observes, that
we may
thaginian, but his craftiness, as if he had said callidior ; for the Carthaginians were reputed to be a very crafty people. So the writer who used the word Neronior, from Nero, meant only to signify an excess of cruelty."
210.
As
some adjectives which equally exclude either intension or remission. *** Thus Scaliger justly observes, that the word " medius" can neither be heightened nor lowered in degree and that the same may be said of " hodiernus," and of many other adjectives. On this topic Mr. Hams thus expresses himself: "As there are some attributes which admit
;
substantives in general admit not of degree, so there are
Kwtem*
of comparison, so there are others which admit of none. Such, for example, are those which denote that quality of bodies arising from
their figure
;
as
when we
say a circular
table",
is,
a quadrangular court,
a conical piece of metal, &c.

2.
The reason
that a million of things
08
participating the
fore, that
OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE.
[CHAP. V
same
figure, participate it equally.
To
say, ther
and B are both quadrangular, A is more or le quadrangular than B, is absurd. The same holds true in all attrib tives denoting definite qualities, whether contiguous or discrete, wh
while
ther absolute or relative.
Thus
the two-foot rule
A, cannot be mo
a two-foot rule than any other of the same length. Twenty lioi and B be both trip cannot be more twenty than twenty flies. If or quadruple of C, they cannot be more triple or more quadruple 01 The reason of all this is, that there can be no cor than the other. there can be no intensk parison without intension and remission and remission in things always definite and such are the attrihut which we have last mentioned." This reasoning, which, as far as goes, is very just, seems nevertheless to require some further dev What is here meant by " things always definite ?" Plainl; lopment. what we have already called ideas, and those clearly conceived. Tl idea of a circle, when clearly conceived, is a thing always definit By mathematicians it is clearly conceived and consequently the would think it absurd to say, that one table was more circular tlu another but persons who have not a distinct idea of a circle wou To them, circulari not perceive the absurdity of the expression. would appear capable of intension and remission and therefore th< would conclude, that this quality admitted of comparison as much Hence v sweetness or sourness, hardness or softness, heat or cold. find in language such words as round, which expresses the idea of d cularity in a vague and indistinct manner and these words are COB monly used in the comparative and superlative, as well as in the pof tive degree. For the same reason, all words signifying bodily Bens tion are capable of comparison for though we agree generally in tl meaning which we attribute to them, yet there is no definite idea which any one of them can be distinctly referred, Men employ tl terms " hot, cold, white, black, green," &c, so as to convey to ea< other's lnind certain General. notions, but not to communicate precii ainl distinct ideas, like those expressed by the words, " square," " triangle." Again, in moral qualities there is usually the same indi tine tries*. We say, one man is braver or wiser than anothe because we |K)Ssess no absolute standard of bravery or wisdom.
we
WHS
possessed such
ft
standard, that
iv, or
either
of wisdom, brave Of QOl

In
|
oounoa comparison and that whim

pi
is to say, if we had a clear idea should simply say, that each of the t\\ There is no mo brave, wise or unwise. all language than between that which la got yc( the pure idea of goodness presented
we
by the Chri
bllt
on exolodes
1^
<
all
comparison
"Thereto
"run
gOO(l
one, that
io|.."
observed, that where there are variations of dears be compared together. ii;umiiari:ins have lixi
I
<
itnpariaon
tba
positive, the comparative,

to
and
t]
mptflafel Tt
andn
leemi material
observe,
that
the
comparisi
CHAP. VI.]
here referred to
is
OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE.
of two kinds.
99
We
may
it
as existing in any given substance, with the

in other substances, or
we may compare
compare a quality, same quality as existing with some assumed notion

either
:
of the quality in general. and 212. The positive is the simple expression of the quality Harris savs, it is improperly called a degree of comparison ; but in this he seems to be wrong; for it is that form in which the comparison of equal degrees of the same quality is expressed, either affirmaThus we say, in the positive degree, " Scipio tively or negatively. was as brave as Csesar ;" " Cicero was not so eloquent as Demosthenes."
qualitv in
Positive.
expresses the intension or remission of any (.'m^rative. one substance, compared with the same quality in some ;" one other substance, as " Cicero was more eloquent than Brutus " Antony was less virtuous than Cicero." Hence it is manifest, that there are, properly speaking, two kinds of the comparative degree, one expressing the more, and the other the less of the quality compared. Languages in general have employed a peculiar inflection only to but the latter is in its nature no less capable of express the former expression and both belong to those distinctions which constitute It is to be remarked, that the comparative, Universal Grammar. though it excludes the relative positive, does not necessarily include If we say "John is wiser than Jarues," \\>the absolute positive. exclude the assertion, that " James is as wise as John ;" but Ave do not necessarily include the assertion either that " John is wise," or that
213.
The comparative
*'
is wise." All that may really be intended by the affirmative, It may only be meant to assert that a negation of the negative. " John is less unwise than James." 214. The superlative expresses the intension or remission of a quality in one thing or person, compared with all the others that are contemplated at the same time. There must be more than two objects compared, but the number compared mav .be indefinite we may say, Octavius was the most prudent of the triumvirate Homer was the
James
is
superi idt*
most admirable of poets Solomon was the wisest of men. In other respects, what I have 'observed of the comparative, applies equally to the superlative, which may properly be considered as expressing the most or the least of the quality in question, but which does not, any more than the comparative, necessarily include the absolute positive. Of this remark, the common proverb, " Bad is the best," affords a
;
sufficient illustration.
existing in one subject with those existing in another or others
have only spoken of the comparison of qualities Comparison ?em but the comparison may be made with a general conception of the quality and here also may be three similar degrees. Where the quality is supposed to be of the general or average standard, we use the positive ; where we mean to imply simply an excess beyond that standard, we use the comparative, which in English is commonly expressed by the adverb too, as when Hamlet savs, " Why may not imagination trace
215. Hitherto
I
;
:
h2
00
:
OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE.
[CHAP.
'
till he find it stopping a bunghole Horatio answers " Twere to consider too curiously, to consider sc Lastly, where that is, more curiously than is usual or needful. mean to express a high degree of eminence in the quality of which
the noble dust of Alexander,
use the superlative, as vir doctissimus, vir fortissimus, most learned man, a very brave man that is to say, not, perhaps, t bravest or most learned of all men that ever existed, or of any giv number of men ; but a man possessing the quality of learning
speak,
;
we
Names of the
bravery in a degree far beyond the common standard. 216. It is of small consequence to inquire whether all these fori of speech together are properly named degrees of comparison, a equally immaterial whether the particular names, positive, comparati and superlative, are well chosen to designate each degree. Ma eminent grammarians have contended on these points. Voss objects to the name positive, because the two other degrees
i
equally positive, that

tions,
is,
equally lay down their respective
signifi
riSivai, to lay
whence the Greeks called the superlative fiypcrthetic, fn down. Not more appropriate, says he, is the nai
of the comparative degree, since comparison is applied to many wor both nouns and adverbs, which are not of this degree, as the adj
tives, like, tinlike, double ; and among adverbs, equally, similiter, i Moreover, comparison is effected no less by the superlative than the comparative for it would be equally a comparison if I were say, speaking of Varro, Nigidius, and Cicero, " Varro is the nv learned of the three;" as it I wore to say, speaking of Varro a Nigii litis only, Varro is the more learned of the two." Lastly, the wc superlative is not well chosen, since it merely signifies preference, or and in this sense the comparative it.raising one thing above another for in saying, " Varro is more learned than Nigidiu is a superlative I prefer, or raise Varro alxwc Nigidius in regard to learning. I similar reasons, Sealiger proposed new names for the three degre
: 1 ;
The first he called the aorist, or indefinite; the second, tholiyperthei or exceeding; and the third, the acrot/ustic, or highest degree. Qu tilian and others call the poMtive the absolute degree; others
I
iwnpb, and so forth; Imt none of these names having come it ^ciMial use, 1 think it more OOPTBBtant to hold to those which commonly received not considering the choice of a name as \(
it
tin-
impoilant, compared with the accuracy of a distinction; and tl three variations of adjectives in degree are essential to Gra Biar, has been already siillicientlv proved.
ill-
rim
"_'I7.
It
li
o more conwvj uence

conliiied
to
to note,
that
intension and
ten
;
sion
nut
lieing
adjectives, the degrees of
comparison
likewise not confined to them, Imt

idples,
an common
that,
also to certain veil
and |dv<
bort, to
the whole class

in
of attributh
tl
(as tbey are railed
ll.un.1,
provided
signification,
That, Import qualities sfUoh may be increased or diminished, the adjective "amiable" admits of the comparative and superlatl "more amiaUe," and "most amiable ;" 10 Wt niay use the
<
CHAP. VI.]
OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE.
101
pressions " more loving," " most loving ;" " to love well," " to love better," " to love more," " to love most of all." These indications of degree, however, have been rarely expressed by inflection, and this seems to be the true reason why the except in adjectives
;
degrees of comparison have often, but inaccurately, been considered by grammarians as belonging to adjectives alone. It is scarcely worth
while to occupy attention with such words as aurora-roc, used by Some critics, inAristophanes; or ipsissimus, employed by Plautus. deed, have seriously adduced these as examples of comparison in pronouns, as if I could be more I, or he more he in reality ; whereas it is plainly seen, that the comic writer, by a natural boldness in the use of language, employs these pronouns in a secondary sense, as if they exbut not as if a man could be pressed a quality instead of a substance
;
ore
or less himself without losing his personal identity. 218. I come now to consider the two great classes into
jectives
may
be divided
and
these, as I have before observed,
which addepend
gfcdjirf
Thus, if we say " a on their expressing, or not expressing action. four-footed animal," although the quality of being four-footed has reference, in this instance, to action, as its final end ; yet as it does not
express action (for a table or a chair may also be four-footed), this is On the other hand, if we an adjective of the first-mentioned kind. say " an animal moving," we clearly express that action is really taking
place
these
:
this, therefore, is
an adjective of the second kind.
Now,
of
two
I
kinds, the former are exclusively called adjectives
by the
commonly called paradopt these distinctive terms from an unwillingness to alter the received nomenclature of grammatical science ; but at the same time, I wisli it to be clearly understood, that both the adjective and participle of the common grammarians fall under the definition which I have above given of the word adjective in its largest sense. 219. Of the adjective simple, or unmixed with any idea of action, VerUi jectlve*little remains to be observed but before I proceed to the consideration of the participle, it may be proper to notice a large class of adjectives, which, though they do not express action, yet bear reference Such are those words expressive of the capability or habit of to it. action, which Mr. Tooke has classed among the participles. There is great hazard, when a writer chooses to treat all his predecessors with contempt, that he may fall into gross errors himself. Mr. Tooke has confounded, in his new scheme of participles, the verbal adjectives, gerunds, and participles of former writers and, at the same time, has laid down no clear definition of his own to guide us out of the What is more, he has adopted as participles the verbal labyrinth. adjectives in bilis, ivus, and icus, and excluded those in ax, arius,
majority of grammarians, and the latter are as
tickles.
; ;
bundus,
icius,
&c, which seem
quite as
much
entitled to the
same
distinction.
220.
Upon
a full consideration of
all
these different kinds of adjec- aresimpiy

a ' jet
'
tives, there
seems to be no reason for classing them apart from the simple adjective, and as little for confounding them with the participle. They
102
OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE.
[cHAP. VX
ought not to be separated from the simple adjective, because they do. and it is difficult, if not imposin fact, express only a simple quality sible, to draw a line between qualities which are originally derived from action, and qualities not so derived. Let us take, for instance, No doubt this is derived from /alio, which, the word falsus, false. expresses the act of failing or deceiving yet, by a transition of meanIn like manner, ing, it comes to signify simply that which is not true. many of the words which Mr. Tooke treats as participles have beer
;
really introduced into the English language as simple adjectives, without the least reference to the action, which their radicals expressed ii commonly sa) Such is the word " palpable." other languages. "it is palpably false," ''the truth is palpable," &c. ; yet, perhaps i\-w persons, when they use these phrases, entertain any notion o: feeling and handling the truth or falsehood in question, though palpure The sanx to feel or handle, is the undoubted origin of this word. maybe said of "ductile," "frail," "sensible," "noble," and main other English adjectives, which have not the slightest pretence to b<
We
considered as participles.
entitle a
If the
mere derivation from
word
to be
called a participle,
we
a verb is t( should have numerou:

:
both of substantives and adjectives so distinguished for i be a participle, because it is derived from duco, so is uudax because it is derived from audeo ; ridiculus, because it is derived fron Nay, we may add to this lis rideo ; and a thousand other adjectives. the substantives derived from verbs, if the mere derivation is to be Thus, we may say, that pistrinuMf test of the grammatical use. bakehouse, is a participle of pinso, to bake juramentum, an oath, In this juro, to swear judicium, a judgment, of judico, to judge, &c. as in numberless other instances, Mr. Tooke supposed the history q words to l>e the science of language. Because noble is derived lion A to know, therefore he called it A participle of that verb! this rate, all the parts of speech must heroine an inextricable mass o contusion for, historically speaking, each is derived from the other and there can lie do rule which gives any one the precedence. If wi lo,,k to the signification, all is clear. Either a given adjective ex
classes
ductilis
i
\
ea action or
it
doef not.
its
If
it
does not,
it
is
a simple adjective
for actioi
1
and the circumstance of

cannot alter
t,,
referring to the habit or capacity
itf character.
The words "forcible" and "culpable
relate originally to the actions of forcing
ami blaming; but they relau tii. ni only as the ground-work of an existing quality, and not a: really in action, or as having been so, or to be BO, at any (rival
rations will probably sutlice to clear a\va\
all
th< tin
difficulties
ilen
I
which
fif
ii
Mr.
1
Tooke
raised
I
respecting
what be
called
tin
poii -nil. il
tliu
oihi
In
lal
the Bngli
r.ml.
lb
moot active, the potential mood passive .and the future active. The) are all, ai language, simple substantives, 0T simple sdjectivei
participles, would not only be to oppose tin M ho have treated of these subjects, but t(
and to
them among
nf of Write)
,
-.liable
principles relating t0 this part
of Grammar.
103
CHAPTER
VII.
OF PARTICIPLES.
221. Although, in accordance with the generality of the grammarians, I have enumerated the Participle as a distinct part of s]>eech, yet it is in truth (as may be seen by the Table in Chapter III.) a Bill division of the noun agreeing with the adjective in expressing an but differing from the adjective in expressing a attribute or quality quality not simply, but as being, or having been, in action. Inasmuch, therefore, as action implies time, the participle partakes, in this respect, of the nature of the verb; and hence it received the designa;
Definition.
tion Participium,
a parte
capiendo,
for,
as
nomine, partem a verbo.
The
definitions given
was said, partem capit a by many ancient gram-
marians of this part of speech were founded on its characteristics in Thus Vossius says, " Participium est vox the learned languages. But here the variation variabilis per casus, signijicans rem cum tempore." per casus is a mere accident of the Greek and Latin tongues ; and the
word rem must not be taken as expressing a substance, but a quality. The words cum tempore, indeed, apply to a principle of Universal Grammar; and, so far, the definition is correct. Upon the whole, however, Spinoza's definition in his Hebrew Grammar is more worthy of attention. He says, " Participia sunt Adjectiva, qua actionem vel omne quod Verbo signijicari solet tanquam liei ajfectionem vel modum, cum
relatione
,
ad tempus exprimunt." 222. The participle differs essentially from the verb in this, that The Participle does nut .1it simply names a conception, but does not assert anything concerning assert, " loving, moving, reading, tliinking," &c, assert it. The words, nothing respecting these acts ; they merely name the acts, or rather they name the conceptions, as in action. It is said that the participle should be ranked among nouns when it constitutes the subject of a logical proposition, and among verbs when it forms the predicate but this is not accurate a participle, as such, can never form the subject of a proposition. The example given is, Militat omnis amans, Ilctc o spu>v woXefiii ; but in this instance amans has an adjectival force, and it is the same in the Greek. au iveing with homo understood Again, when the participle is a predicate, as Socrates est loquens, it equally fills the office of an adjective, and is not to be treated as a
.11",
which I have attached to the latter term. 223. The adsignification of time is proper to the participle. This point, however, Mr. Tooke contests, upon the ground that the Latin participles, present, past, and future, are not confined to the times from which they respectively receive their designations. Proficiscens is a participle of the present tense ; yet Cicero says, abfui proficiscens,
verb, at least in the sense
Acisifmitii-a-
104
OF PARTICIPLES.
[CHAP. VII.
thus connecting time present with time past. So profecturo tibi dedi literas, connecting the past with the future and again, quos spero societate Victoria tecum copulatos fore ; where spero is present, copulatos past, and fore future. Kone of these examples, however, prove anything against the expression of time by the participles, but merely
:
that time
is
contemplated
in various lights
by the mind
in
one and
Thus, in the phrase abfui projiciscens, the first the same sentence. word relates to the time of speaking, and the second to the time of
The going was present, when the absence (which is now was present. Again, dedi refers to a time past; but when that time was present, the departure (expressed in profecturo) was A thousand such cases as these would lead to no inference future. whatsoever against the expression of time by the participle. It is necessary to observe, however, that words which express time express it in two ways, either as simple existence or as relative to the different Thus, when we say " justice is at all times portions of duration.
acting.
past)
mercy," the present

tinuous.
is
So when we
a mere expression of existence, a present consay, " the sun rises every day," we speak of
It is the nature of the
;
an act habitually present.
human mind
to
be
able thus to contemplate duration
but this
in
no degree
interferes
with, still less contradicts, the view which we take of different portions of time, as past, present, and future, with relation to each other. The assertion, for instance, that the sun rises every day, does not at all clash with the assertion that the sun is rising at this moment. In both cases time is referred to a certain portion of time is designated in the one case which coincides with the general assertion in tin; other; and, iu fact, the diilcrence between the two assertions docs not depend on the verb itself, but on the accompanying words " every day " and "this moment." In these respects the veil) and
:
participle agree.
The
participle
is
the nature of the verb as to signify action, and
an adjective so far participating it cannoi signify action
without the capability of adsignifying time.

JjjjjMj
224
Particular languages
inflection
mayor may
not,
have separate words

portions of time
is
adapted by
to
signify the
dillerent
participial form.
In
truth, the notion of time
jtW element
ception
pl.'Mtv
in
the
compound
conception,
in a such cases a which compound con-
in
all
ma\ be expressed by one word or by

:
several.
The com;
of OOnOtptioO may go s till further it may include the unctions of active and passive', of absolute and conditional and,
short,
it
in
come to when Hence we see, that languages may have as great a of the v.M b. does variety of participles as they may of moods and tenses: and
all
those which
shall
have
to
consider
it
not
ii
..
in o|
]
the nature of language altogether to exclude

;
participles
the
it
mi'U of Speech
i
fbl Ifl,
Harris
Ir
is
perfectly right in saying,
that
we
participle.
II
a verb there will remain a speaking of the signification, and not of the sound
issi-rlion
;
and therefore Mr. TookVs
ridicule
of this
passage
ia
entirely mi..-
; ;
CHAP.
VII.]
It
is
OF PARTICIPLES.
105
placed.
'*'
an observation, as old as Aristotle, that the words
is
:
Socrates speaks" are equal in signification to the words " Socrates speaking ;" but it is evident that the assertive part of this sentence
consists entirely in the word " is," which word being taken away, the word " speaking " still expresses a quality of Socrates, and expresses
that quality in action,
and is therefore a participle. And so it will happen with every verb, as is instanced by Harris in the verbs, yp<tyci, Tooke misrepresents Harris as ypa(f)wy, " writeth," " writing."
saying,
that, by removing and eth, he takes away the whence he concludes, that Harris supposed the assertion
assertion
to be im-
but Harris says nothing about taking away is very true, that the words ypafti and writeth imply assertions, and that in the words ypa^wv and writing, the assertion is taken away ; and yet there remains the same time, and which expressions of time and attribute, without tlic same attribute
plied
et
in
those syllables
and
eth.
He
says
what
assertion, constitute a participle.
225. It has been
laid
down
as a rule
by some
writers, that there where no

'
;
can be no participles but what are derived from verbs and hence they deny that such words as togatus, galeatus, &c, are to be called participles. Augustinus Saturnius, who treats particularly of this point, calls them, by way of distinction, participials. It is manifest,
in^'verb!'
however, that
Universal
this is
Grammar.
When
a distinction altogether nugatory, in regard to Othello says
My
demerits
may
speak untxmncted,
he uses exactly the same form of speech as if he had said uncovered, and the one word is as truly a participle as the -other; for although there may be no authority lor the use of the verb " to bonnet," or " to unbonnet," such verbs would be perfectly consistent with the" principles of Universal Grammar and, indeed, as much so with the English idiom, as the verbs " to veil," and " to unveil," both which
;
Uncovered, unveiled, and unbonneted equally viz., the removing the cover, veil, or bonnet from the head and it is by this signification, and not by their etymology, that the part of speech to which they belong is to be
are used
by Milton.
express an action of past time,

;
determined. 22G. must not be surprised to find, that participles of different classes pass into each other. Many active participles come to have a
We
Pass into .rh other '
passive signification.
is
The word
eridens,
which was
originally active,
found with a passive meaning, from whence our common adjective, evident, is derived. This is a circumstance not peculiar to participles
for
when
which
are the
come to treat more at large of those transitions of meaning, groundwork of sound Etymology, it will be found that
they apply to every part of speech indifferently. Men cannot always find a separate term to express each distinct shade of thought, and they naturally avail themselves of those expressions which come the
nearest to their meaning.
106
A dmit of
OF PARTICIPLES.
fCHAP.
VII,
caw par idem.

it
227.
is
From what
clear that
participles, as well as adjectives,
has before been said on the subject of comparison, when they express
qualities capable of intension and remission, may admit the three degrees of comparison thus we may say amantior as well as durior, amantissimus as well as durissimus. It matters not, that in some languages the idiom will not allow of expressing the degrees of com:
parison
by
inflection
;
that, for
this is
example, in English
we
cannot say
a mere accident of the particular language, depending principally on circumstances connected with its sound ; and it is to be observed, that however barbarous such words as lovinger or lovingest might sound to the ear, yet they would be perfectly intelligible to the mind ; there would be nothing absurd or contradictory in the combination of the thoughts for the same com" bination is effected by the words " more loving," and " most loving
lovinger, or lovingest
; ;
U<e<I subrtaathrHy,
languages there must be means more or less concise, or circuitous, to express such combinations. have seen how the conception of a quality considered 228. alone, and rendered the subject of assertion, becomes a noun sulv
and
in all
We
stantive
and
are expressed
jectives. for this
which which are expressed by adWhether the same or a different word shall be employed
this applies, in principle, as well to those qualities
by
participles as to those
purpose
is,
again, a matter of particular idiom.
In English,
Thus, "sin use the very same word for both purposes. " dancing,'1 &c, may be used in construction as adjectives, or at substantives of the sort commonly called abstract. may say " a Singing man," M I dancing woman ;" or we may say, " singing is
we
We
In Latin, tin an accomplishment," "dancing is a recreation," &c. idiom is different: cantons, sultans, flbc, can only be used in the "former of these two ways; but, nevertheless, a similar principle is observable in the use of what are called gereads and supines.
tin- following account of the Oertmdi ''from our ancestors chose certain tenses, by means ot which they might imitate those (ireek terms Xektiov, nayrjTior, &., ut with a more ample and extensive use. These they called gerunds,
1
L'L! .'.
Bcaliger gives
thete
(participles)
ol assigning to them three cases, pugnunili, jmgnuiidu, /mt/iitiiiduin which the second preserved the power ol' a participle, bill so much
;
as the verbs were cause of action i| more ndneravi,' than by Saying rrridi, oaderem mlneravi,' the whole of
the
more Aptly
excelled by the participles.

plainly
For,
the
shown by saying
still
OCXU*
and
this
in
better
is
expressed
OfXdeml
1
i
VUlseraVi.
Id
>ver,
many
'quia by the gerund things the form and the
by saying
end are the same; but the end is partly out ..I' us, as the ship is a thing out of the ship-builder j and partly within us, in our minds, is called an itieti, by which W6 are impelled to (lie is that which
rial
end.
Now
.
both
a
<{'
these the\
signify
veiv
skill'ullv
expressed;
1
for
Ix.tli
pugnantH and pugnandum

juitnt
,
the end.
Thru
may
say,
-,idi
t
mounted my
hov.se lor the
purpose uj
CHAP. VII.]
fighting
;
OF PARTICIPLES.
107
est ex equo, I must fight (or the fighting must " Hence it appears that these (gerunds) are participles, differing little from other participles, either in nature, or use, or even in form." Again he observes " Some writers have called these gerunds from their use participial iiouns ; for they are neither pure nouns, since they govern a case, nor are they pure participles, since, with a passive voice, they bear an active signi-
or
pugnandum
be) on horseback."
fication."
is
the explanation to be given of the Supines the same meaning more forcibly. Thus, eo
;
230. The same author thus speaks of the Supine : " Nearly similar but these hitter expN
;
supine*,
ad pugnandum
signifies
future action
eo
pugnatum expresses the
future so as to be quite
"Hence it signifies activity with actives, and passiveness with passives: eo factum injuriam, or injuria mihi factum itur ; but indeed it always savours, in some degree, of passiveneas; for it does not so much mean eout faciam, as it means eo ut hoc fat ; as if one were to say, I am going indeed for the purpose of doing so and so, but I hope it is already done; and like Sosia's speech, Dictum puta, " suppose it said." " Since, therefore, the end (or aim) of an action was to be thus signified, the other extreme was not improperly expressed by a different word." Hence Scaliger explains the different use of the supines in um and w, the latter of which he regards as a " There is equally a movement," says he, sort of ablative case. " from and to an object; and therefore we rightly say venatu venio, as we do venatum vado." He goes at length into these considerations, opposing in some measure what other grammarians had said of the supine in u; but these questions are beside my present object: and
absolute."
all
that is necessary here to be shown is the chain of connection which unites the participle, as an adjective, on the one hand with the noun substantive, and on the other with the gerunds and supines.
108
CHAPTER
VIII.
OF PRONOUNS.
Definition.
Pkonoun is a part of speech so called from the Latin Pr 231. nomen, and the Greek 'AvTwvvpla and agreeably to this derivation, is defined by the generality of grammarians, " a sign or rcpivsentath of a noun ;" for things (and persons), as Vossius observes, are coi sidered in grammar as named by nouns. When, therefore, a pronoun such as he or it, is used to signify a person, for instance " Casar," or thing, for instance, " a crown," the pronoun he is a sign or repr sentative of the noun " Civsar ;" and the pronoun it is a sign or repn sentative of the noun "crown;" and so forth. Aristotle, indeed, his treatise 7Tpi 'Eppyveiac comprehends the pronoun under the tit Noun. By subsequent writers, the tern pronoun has ecu applied 1
;
i
1
several classes of words, very distinguishable from each other
and
I
may be
DiUnctions.
doubted, whether it would not originally have been better restrict its signification within narrower limits than those which wei adopted. Upon the whole, however, as the meaning has been so Jon settled, I deem it advisable to follow the established usage. 232. Of the many distinctions which have been made in this pa]
of speech, that which
dilutive
first
demands
attention, as essential,
is
into std
and adjective, answering to the like division of primary noun: which has been already explained. ThusAe is a substantive pronoui which may, standing alone, represent the primary DOun sul>stantiv( Socrates understood, and they is a substantive pronoun, which, standin alone, may represent the primary noun substantive, Mm, or S/h'jk understood; whereas, in the expressions even/ person, any natioi every and any are pronouns adjective, which cannot stand alone, bti agree, as adjectives, with the substantives "person," and "nation,
expressed.
Some
of the adjective pronouns, however,
may
lie
use
substantively, by i sort of ellipsis, which will presently be explained, those which are com I consider as pronouns substantive all I,
monly
p'
I
called personal,
I
and distinguished as of the
first,
Is,
second,
that the
am
lira
third person.
"ii
i
M this distinction the

tin-
common
account
the speaker,
second the person spoken
to,
and the thin

;
lb thing spoken o But this Is cot quite correct though the first person In- in tact the speaker, and the BeOOUd, th per-,., n spoken to, yet, unless they are also spoken of, the] do no
the
person or
into the grammatical eon miction of a sent, nee.
And
again, a
it
to the
in
thud
i
pel
,ii\
hem" poken
of, this is a
character which
.diare
,,,iin
both the other persons, and which oan never, there own. To explain by an In tana beoalled i pscuharitj of
ith

CHAP.
VIII.]
OF PRONOUN'S.
109
or two.
When
iEneas begins the narrative of his adventures, the
lecond person immediately appears; because he at once makes Dido, win an he addresses the subject of his discourse.
Infandum, Regina,
jitbes
renovare dolorem.
From henceforward
for
1500
verses,
(though she
is
all
that time
the person spoken to) we hear nothing further of this second person, In the meantime, a variety of other subjects filling up the narrative. the first person may be seen everywhere; because the speaker is Everywhere himself the subject: the events were, indeed, as he says,
those
Quae ipse miserrima
vidi,
Et quorum pars magna fui.
Not
this narrative
that the second person does not often occur in the course of but then it is always by a figure of speech, when those ;
their absence, constitute, in fact, so many third persons, are converted into second persons, by being introduced as present. On the other hand, when we read Euclid, we find neither first person nor second in any part of the whole work. The reason is, that neither the speaker nor the party addressed (in which light we may always view the writer and his reader) can possibly become the subject of
who, by
pure mathematics. 234. The clearest explanation of the different persons is that given by Priscian, who took it from Apollonius Personce pronominum sunt Prima est cum ipsa, qua; loquitur, de se tres, prima, secunda, tertia. pronuntiat ; secunda, cum de ea pronuntiat ad quam directo sermone
:
^j^^ > n
t
loquitur
tertia,
1.
cum
p.
de ed quo? nee loquitur, nee
ad
se
directum accipit
sennonem,
tinctions:
xii.
Ilpwroi'
ui
Theodore Gaza gives the same dis(irpoouiTOV, SC.) ^ irtp\ kavrov <f>pail 6 Xiytov'
940.
ctvrtpov,
1.
ntpi rod, npug ov o Xoyoe. Tp'iTov, iîrip) iripov. Gaz. Gram. 152: and this explanation is stated more at large by Harris, whose words therefore, I shall, with a slight correction, adopt. 235. " Suppose the parties conversing," says he, "to be wholly First person, unacquainted, neither name nor countenance on either side known and the subject of the conversation to be the speaker himself. Here, to supply the place of pointing, by a word of equal power, the and as I write, I say, I desire,' &c. speaker uses the pronoun I. the speaker is always principal with respect to his own discourse, this is called, for that reason, the pronoun of the first person. 236. " Again, suppose the subject of the conversation to be the *wmd Here, for similar reasons, the pronoun thou is emparty addressed. Thou writest,' thou walkest,' &c. and as the party adployed. dressed is next in dignity to the speaker, or at least comes next to him, with reference to the discourse, this pronoun is therefore called the pronoun of the second person.
iv. p.
'
:
237. " Lastly, suppose the subject of the conversation neither the
speaker, nor the party addressed, but
Thirdperwu.
some
third object, different
from

110
both
;
OF PRONOUNS.
:
[CHAP. VIIL
here another pronoun is provided, viz. he, she, or it, which, in from the two. former, is called the pronoun of the third " And thus it is that pronouns come to be distinguished by person."
distinction
their respective persons."
But plain and intelligible, as this explanaof the grammatical distinction of persons, it must not be understood to imply that the actual conception of a person is subsequent, in the human mind, to that of the noun which the pronoun represents ; for, as has been observed, the notion of our own personal identity,
tion
is,
which
all
is
expressed by the pronoun, "

;
I,"
is
essentially necessary to
consciousness
and by an innate sympathy, we cannot but
believe
other Persons to possess, like ourselves, each his notion of identity we even transfer to Things,
own
if
identity
which
us-
they appear to
How gjfcring
from the two
tormer.
under all circumstances to retain the same qualities. 238. It will not fail, however, to be observed, that there is a marked 1 11 c rr* 1 he hist difference between the third person, and the two former. and second are strictly personal, the speaker must be a person, and th party addressed must be at least personified, as when Satan addresses
i 1
.
r-
the sun,
thou, that with surpassing glory Look'st from thy sole dominion !
crownM,
represent either a person,
different one, according
tc
But
the pronoun of the third person

;
may
or a thing
and that by the same word or a
Hence, some grammarians dis the idiom of the language employed. tinguish pronouns in general into personal and demonstrative, including
in
the former class only those of the

latter class.
first
and second person, and re
ferring those of the third person, together with all other pronouns,
This arrangement, in so far as it confounds sub He or she ma) stantive pronouns with adjective, I cannot approve. stand as much alone in a sentence, as Peter or Jane, and may regu hirlv be made the subject of a proposition, and connected with an ad may say Indifferently " he is wise," o: jective as its predicate. 4l 44 Jane is handsome." No Peter is wise," " she is handsome," or
the
We
does the pronoun of the third person necessarily represent a noun on known, or a person or thing absent, any more than a pronoun of th< The name of the speaker (that is tin fast or second person does. noun represented by the pronoun I) may be as little or Less known b the pSfSOD addressed, as the name of the person or thing spoken of and, in point of fact, lilt speaker, the person spoken to, and the persoi or thing poken of, may be all present, and noaj as little need to t dcmon.-ur.ite.l or pointed out, one || the other. Therefore, though pronoun substantive relating to a thing cannot in strictness be CSJlst under net; yet the grammarian will do right, who includes common head with pronouns >f the first and second persons.
I
it,
2 19.
The
I
ei,
.
i
.if
><
.
the
three
persons are not

restrictions.
-
i
so entirer
dii
SSparatS,
l,,,
iii
tO
preclude a
j
,,iUe coalescence of the
pronouns of
pet
OOSj
first
btrt
thin
is
uhjeet to certain
pt
I
The
pre
of the
or ssdood
|!
'"
ii
Itb
the third

CHAI'. VIlI.j
OF PROXOCXS.
Ill
and second cannot coalesce with each other. For example, we may say (and the difierence of idiom in different languages docs not afiect these expressions), " I am he," or, " thou art he ;" 01,
but the
first
as in the text, "art thou he that should come, or do we look for another ?" But we cannot say, ..' I am thou," nor " thou art I ;" the
reason
is,
that there
is
;
no absurdity
as
in the speaker's
being the subject
also of the discourse
addressed being so,
ame
person, in the
when we say, " I am he;" or in the person as when we say, "thou art he;" but that the same circumstances, should be at once the speaker
and the party addressed would be absurd; and, consequently, so would the coalescence be of the first and second person. Some grammarians seem to have inaccurately supposed, that all but the personal pronouns of the first and second person were to be considered as belonging to the third person. This, however, is inaccurate, at least with respect to the relatives, who, which, that, as may be observed in those lines of the old song What you, that loved
:
And
Shall
I,
that loved!
we
begin to wrangle ?
of the second person in the first line, and of the first person in the second line and if translated into Latin, it must e rendered, not tu qua; amabat, and ego qui amabat, but tu quae amabas, and ego qui amabam. 240. The pronoun adjective is distinguished from the pronoun sub- Pronoun
tliat is
:
1
Where
the relative
same manner as the noun adjective is from the noun by its inability to stand alone because it implies some attribute or quality of a noun or pronoun substantive. It must l>e admitted, that to determine whether a particular word, which
stantive, in the
adjecme
substantive, namely,
occurs in a speech or literary composition, should be considered as a pronoun adjective, or a noun adjective, is not always very easy ; but this is rather a difficulty of idiom than of grammatical principle.
Without dwelling on this point, therefore, I proceed to notice the most obvious distinctions of the pronoun adjective.
positive I
consider that they are either positive or relative. By rS9eBsiv ' those distinctions which regard the word as a member of a single sentence and by relative, those which relate to another sentence preceding or subsequent. The positive either depend on the
I
241. First,
mean
personal pronoun, and are

limit general nouns,
commonly
called possessive, or else serve to

definitive.
and may be called
Some
possessive
pronouns must be necessarily expressed or understood in all languages for if it be necessary to have a pronoun personal, which is a word representing a whole class of nouns substantive, it is equally necessary
to indicate (in
some manner or other), the quality which consists in belonging to that class. If every speakei must indicate himself by the word 1, or me, he must indicate what belongs to himself bv some such expression as mim or of me. Whether this be done by the former of these two modes of expression, or the latter, is immaterial to the sense,
112
OF PROXOUNS.
[chap. VIII,
particular language
and must depend on the construction permitted by the idiom of the but if such a word as mine or my be employed, it must be regarded as a pronoun adjective, and indeed is treated in many languages exactly as any other adjective is, at least in the positive degree. For instance, metis, mea, meum, is declined in Latin exactly Under the head of possessive pronouns may as bonus, bona, bonum, is. be classed those which Vossius calls gentilia, such as nostrates, meaning
;
individuals of our race, family, or party
as military officers in this
Definitive.
country often mention a comrade, as " of ours," meaning, " of oui regiment." 242. The definitive pronouns serve to limit general nouns, with reference either to an individual simply, as when I say " this man," 01 M that man ;" or else with reference to other individuals of the same How far such class, as when I say, " the other man," " every man." distinctions may be carried in practice, depends on the degree of cultivation which particular languages may receive; but some degree oi and definition seems necessary to the formation of every language from pronouns of this class is derived the definite Article, which will The pronouns which limit with reference tc be considered hereafter. an individual simply may be called demonstrative, as they show the
:
individual
intended,
by
reference
situation, or the like.
Thus, the words "this
a person near, or present; the distant, or perhaps absent. The pronouns which limit a conceptioi with reference to several individuate of a like class are distinguish^ by Vossius into partitives, such as "either," " neither," " other;" an<
distributives,
own particular position, man" usually indicate words "that man," a person mon
to
his
such as " any," " some," "every." The distributives agail but these lattei might be distinguished into general and numeral form an important class, which I shall have occasion to considei
;
apart.
Mtfancthr.
j
348.
.r.
Of
the relative pronouns adjective,
those
;
which
those
relate
\\
to
< linj;
sentence are
commonly
called suhjunctiiv
Inch relate
tO
in
I say those which relau to | Inline sentence are called interrogative. because ft Sentence, and not those whirl) relate to a person or thing
;
truth
all
but the pronouns of the

or
'
first
and second person must
refei
In
to soni"
penOO
When we say, " thing previously indicated. lived, W* presume thai the persons intended b)
with the sul
ma the
in
aw
o!
it
previously known.
>ent.'iices
dure or lead
point
These pronouns, however, may intio which do not depend on any previous sentence
Bttft
it
OUttatrUCUOB.
is
not
BO
.jun.t
i\
cs
introduce an original lentence, but only serve to subjoin on< The principal subjunctive pro to some other which has preceded it. arc who and which, and sometimes //k*. It does not seen essential to the Const it ul K .ii o! a language, however convenient, tha lor they may lie resolved int( lln
!
;
another pronoun and n conjunction; and consequently by such othe proiiuiin and conjunction then- place may always be supplied. Lei u

CHAP.
VIII.]
OF PRONOUNS.
is
:
113
desired to
take the example given by Harris. I will suppose that it combine into one sentence the two following propositions
1.
2.
"Light is a body." " Light moves rapidly."

light,
Here
it
is
obvious that the use of the noun

supplied by the pronoun
it,
in the
second pro-
position,
may be
as thus:
It
" Light is a body moves rapidly."
This slight change, however, leaves the two propositions let us then connect them by the conjunction and ; thus
:
still
distinct
" Light
And
it
is a body; moves rapidly."
Here is a connection of the two propositions, yet still not so much dependence of the latter on the former, (not so intimate a union of the parts,) as if, for the words " and it," we substitute the subjunctive pronoun which ; thus " Light is a body, which moves rapidly."
:
Accordingly,
the interval
sents the proper
we see that in the punctuation, which most accurately repremode of reading the passage, we gradually diminish
is
between the two propositions, horn a period to a comma.

the nature of the subjunctive pronoun
244.
Of
the interrogative
interrogative
and therefore we very commonly rind the same word performing these two functions. Thus, in English, the subjunctives who and which, are used as interrogatives, though with a remarkable diflerence in their application. As subjunctives, in modern use at least, who is applied to persons, and which to things. As interrogatives, they are both applied to persons, but wJto indefinitely, and which definitely. Thus, the question, " Who will go up with me to Ramoth-gilead ?" is indefinitely proposed to all who may hear the question but when our Saviour says, " Which of you, with taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit?" the interrogation is individual, as appears from the partitive form of the words " which of you " that is to say, "what one among you all." These applications of particular words are
:
indeed matters of peculiar idiom but the distinctions of signification to which they relate properly belong to the science of which we are
;
Interrogative pronouns are necessarily of a relative nature, and on that account were ranked by the Stoics under the head of the article ; but as they do in fact stand for, and represent nouns, they are properly called pronouns. On interrogatives in general, Vossius has the following just observation " It appears to me, that the matter stands thus there are two principal classes of words, the noun and the verb and, therefore, to one or other of these every interrogation must refer. For, if I ask who, which, what, how many, I inquire concerning some noun but if I ask where, whence, whither, when, how often, I inquire concerning some verb. As, therefore, the
treating.
:
2.
114
OF PitOXOUXS.
[chap. VIII
Transition.
words which are subsidiary to the verbs are called adverbs, so th words which refer to the noun should be called pronouns." 245. The number and variety of classes into which pronouns ma be distributed in any one language must, in a great measure, depem on the classification of conceptions, which had become habitual anion:
early formers of that particular Language. Thus we cannot English express, without periphrasis, the Latin pronouns qualii quantus, &c, any more than we can the adverbs quoties, qualiter, &c Nor must it be forgotten, that many of these pronouns pass infc different classes, according as they are used in particular passages " Sunt ex istis," says Vossius, " quae pro diverso, vel usu vel respectn
the
i:
ad
in NumcraU.
diversas pertineant classes."
246. This remark applies with peculiar force to the Numerals which, according to the different modes in which they are employed may be regarded either as nouns substantive, or else as pronoun substantive or adjective, as the case may be. I have heretofore showi the fundamental importance of the conceptions of number. Thes conceptions must have names, and when the names are used h express the mere ideas of number, as when we say, " one and one ar two" they may be considered as nouns substantive in the sam manner as the words line, point, angle, which are also names of ideas But when these nouns are used with an express o are considered. tacit reference to some other noun, they become pronouns, either sub When we say, "two men are wiser than one, stantive or adjective. or " many men are wiser than one," the numeral " two " is as nnieh pronoun adjective as the word " many " is a noun adjective. But we say, generally, " two are more than one," the word "two" is a pro
;
: i
noun substantive.
ordinal
:
Numerals are commonly divided
into cardinal
am
have hitherto spoken of the former, that is to say, of tin names given to our distinct ideas of number, simply as distinguishinj tin in from each other, as one, two, three, &c. ; but these same con ceptioiis, viewed with rafcWDOC to older, form in the mind a class o qualities of the substance secondary conceptions, which are treated Hence originate such words as first, second to which they belong. Those may be called pronominal adjectives. Th third, fourth, Sec. ordinal uumlxirs are in general derived from the cardinal numbers In but Ml necessarily so for in mam, perhaps in most langUI 0, -I WOBUd ha\e no similarity to the words OM and tin, I'n.fessor Bopp has observed " that whilst in the Indo-European Has,
I
[1
of languages the greatest rarttty obtains unanimous mnnbtf ons, th<*)

.
in
designating the cardial

designation of tin from the corrc
in then-
ordii
n] oiid
ii i.'
Inch innie uf those

cardinal. "
laiij.maês derives
Thusli
the Sancrii
wptbroi
'l.i.i tiii-
'iieek
Ii*
rWoomsj
/mi comes prathama the Saxon fan come, Soft

seriindus, second, &c.
est, first;
mi the Latin si>qw>r

I'.Mj.p,
com -s
1.,
Conpi Oram,
321.

chap, vm.l
247. Almost
all
oF
noxwmut
115
other
pronouns, except tne first and second personals, but they do not continue to be such when they stand by themselves, or as Lowth rather singularly expresses it, " seem to stand by themselves." It is true, that in such cases, they often have " some substantive belonging to them, either referred to or understood ;" but this only proves that they are pronouns. Whether we say " this is good," " it is good," or " he is good," there is always
are adjectives in origin
;
some noun referred to, or understood and the words it and he " seem by themselves," just as much as the word " this " does. So in the phrases " one is apt to think," and " J am apt to think," the words one and / equally " seem to stand alone," that is to say, they They perform the function of naming an equally do stand alone. object, so far as it is necessary to be named and they name it not as
:
to stand
a quality of another object, but as possessing a substantive existence. The words this, that, who, which, all, none, and many of a similar kind, are (in this view of them) substantive pronouns when they stand alone, but adjective pronouns when they are joined to a noun substantive.
When Antony
This
says
this
was the unkindest cut of all,
consider the
indeed, be explained
word this to be a substantive pronoun. It may, by transposition, as if it were, " this cut was the
:
unkindest of all ;" but such is not the order of the thoughts and, in fact, the particular wound inflicted by Brutus had been before described at some length, but the noun cut had not been used and supposing that, for dramatic effect, the line had been broken off* at the word " was," it would have been impossible to say that the pronoun
:
this
had any
specific reference to this particular
noun
cut,
as
we may
>See,
easily perceive
by
so reading the passage
what a rent the envious Casca made Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd
And as he Mark how
pluck'd his cursed steel away, the blood of Caesar followed it, As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no : For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel. Judge, ye gods, how dearly Caesar lov'd him This this was
If the
passage had thus broken
rather
seemed
to refer to the
off, the pronoun this would have whole narrative of the share which Brutus
;
had taken
in the
transaction
that narrative presenting to the

illustrate
mind
one complete and definite conception. passage in Othello will further
my
pretends to caution Othello against suffering his any suspicion against his wife's honour
:
mind
meaning. lago to encourage
It is
0, beware, my lord, of jealousy ! a green-eyed monster which doth make

it
The meat
feeds on.
i2

116
OF PRONOUNS.
[CHAP. VIII
After he has pursued this strain of reasoning for some time, Othello
interrupting him, exclaims with surprise
Why, why
Evidently meaning,
jealousy to me,
this
is this
Why
do you act thus ?

all
Why
do you
?
talk o
who am
not at
disposed to be jealous
The won
cannot here be said to refer to any one noun that precedes, or t< any one noun that follows it and it is therefore most manifestly uset with the force and effect of a substantive. On the contrary, it clearly used as an adjective, in a subsequent passage, where Othello
; i
speaking of Iago, says

Sees and
This honest creature, doubtless,
knows more, much more than he
unfolds.
248. Whether the same or different words shall be employed ti express the substantival and adjectival form of pronouns is mat tor o idiom. Thus, a language may, or may not, have different forms fo Lowth considers the won the personal and possessive pronouns. mine as the possessive case of the personal I ; but the English won mine answers to the Latin metis, which is certainly an adjective. Oi the other hand, the Latin mi, which is commonly called the vocativ singular of meus, seems to be the same word with mihi, the dativ. case of Ego ; for it is used in connection with plurals as well as sin pillars, and with masculines, feminines, and neuters indiscriminately Thus we have in Plautus, mi homines ; and in lVtronius, mi hospites and in Apuleius, mi sidus, mi parens, mi lierilis (sc.Jilia), mi conjit.v &c. ; and in a passage of Tibullus, the different manuscripts have some midulcis anus, and some mihi littlcis amis in all which instances the dative mihi seems to he intended to be used in that manner wliicl grammarians often, though-iaoo ectly, call redundant ; and describe There an as adopted, nulla necessitatis, sed potius festicitatis causa. many other idioms relative to the use of pronouns which it is not hen -sary to consider, such as the combination of the adjective 010) and the substantive self \\\t\\ the pronouns my, thy, &c, in English and the subjoining the syllables ?/!</, citui/ue, &C, to certain pronoun Litui, ai ipsemet, quicunaw', &<., which are usually necompanie< in Im" chan . in the force of he original pronouns with some eon,-] 240t To the e.,eiitial distinction Of pronouns as substantive am adj. Ided the accidental distinctions to which, like tb represent, th,.y are liable, of Dumber, gender, am \ doom ulueh Since the pronoun stand noun, and .sine in the place of a OaSO.
;
i.
number is a conception irhicfa may b bined in general with o ou that the pronoun may have the distinctions of number;
i
nor
indeed,
is
it
e.i
.-,
bo oonoaive
vu.
I, .i
language so constructed as
bo havi
it
i
pronourtH without
thai th.-ie
or,
'..
distinction.
i
As
al hi iv
to
the
first
person,
m.u he man) ipeakci
once of the same sentimenl

deliver the
une thing,
a.
common
sen
tan. it
ol
many, and
their
name;
for
the
same
reason, therefbri

CHA1'. VIII.]
OF PRONOUNS.
117
that the pronoun
/ is necessary, the pronoun we is so too. Again, the singular thou has the plural you, because a speech may be spoken and the singular lie has the plural they, to manv, as well as to one because the subject of discourse often includes many things or persons
:
at once.
250. The pronoun is also susceptible of the distinction of Gender, Gender, difference, however, because the noun which it represents is so. has been said to exist in this respect between the pronouns of different It is certainly true persons and the reasoning thereon is plausible. that the pronouns of the first and second person, both in the dead and living languages, have no distinct inflection expressing their gender and the reason for this is alleged to be that the speaker and hearer being generally present to each other, it would have been superfluous to have marked a distinction by art, which from nature, and even " Demonstratio ipsa," dress, was commonly apparent on both sides.
says Priscian, " secum genus ostendit."

true that the pronouns of the
first
However, it is by no means and second person have no gender.
not, indeed, in any known language, inflections distinguishing them in point of gender, but they always take, in construcThus Dido tion, the gender of the noun which they represent.
They have
cui
me moribundam
deseris, hospes ?
And Mercury
addressing iEneas
Tu nunc Carthaginis altse Fundamenta locas, pulchramque uxorius urbem

Exstruis
?
hands that the pronouns of the third person must almost of necessity receive the distinctions of gender in all languages. These pronouns are called in Arabic the pronoun of the absentee, and, in fact, they usually refer to persons or things which being absent require to be distinguished, as to gender, &c, by some expression in the discourse. It is further to be observed, that the pronouns of the first and second person each apply only to certain known and present individuals; whereas, the pronouns of the third person may, in the course of one and the same speech, refer to a great diversity of objects, requiring to be distinguished by their respective genders. " The utility of this distinction," says Harris, " may be better found in supposing it away." Suppose, for example, we should read in history these words and that we were he caused him to destroy him to be informed that the he, which is here thrice repeated, stood each time for something different, that is to say, for a man, for a woman, and for a city, whose names were Alexander, Thais, and Persepolis. Taking the pronoun in this manner, divested of its gender, how would it appear which was destroyed, which was the destroyer, and which was the cause of the destruction? But there are no such doubts when we hear the genders distinguished when, instead of the ambiguous sentence, " He caused him to destroy him" we are told,
It is agreed
on
all
118
OF PRONOUNS.
(CHAP. VIII.
with the proper distinction, that " SJie caused him to destroy it." Then we know with certainty what before we knew not, viz., that the promoter was a woman; that her instrument was the hero; and
Case.
that the subject of their cruelty was the unfortunate city. 251. Case is another distinction, not essential to the noun, but
accidental.
;
It is therefore to be ranked among the accidents of the pronoun yet, so frequent is the occasion to use pronouns, that many of them, especially those which are particularly denominated personal, have the variations of case, even in languages which vary their nouns
in
When a person speaks oi this respect very little or not at all. himself as the performer of any action, he seems naturally led be adopt a different phraseology from that which he employs in speaking of the action as done toward him and hence the difference betweer / and me, thou and thee, runs throughout far the greater number o: known languages. After all, Universal Grammar only furnishes th( reason for this difference when it exists, but does not prove its oxis
;
There may be languages of which the pro nouns have no cases but where they have cases, the same function h performed by each case in the pronoun as in the noun.
tence to be necessary.
;
119
CHAPTER
OF VERBS.
IX.
252. A Verb is a part of speech, so called from the Latin verbum, which seems to have been intended to correspond to the Greek 'iip.a though the latter word was used by different Grecian writers in verv different senses. Aristotle defines *P/â, " a complex word, significant, with time, of which no part is significant by itself;"* but this definition, which differs from that which he had before given of the noun, only in the words " with time," is manifestly referable to the Greek language, and not to Universal Grammar. Some philologists under;
Aristotle*
stand Aristotle in one instance to apply the designation 'Pjjj/ia to the adjective \ivkoq, white; but this seems to be a misapprehension. It however led Ammonius to maintain that every word which forms the predicate in a logical proposition is a 'Pâ.f Some of the Stoics contended that the only genuine *Pr]/ia was the infinitive mood of a verb. Others, again, disputed whether or not the copula, in a logical proposition, should be deemed a 'Pqaa. Words answering this purpose were called by most Greek writers 'P//uara vwapKTiicu, verbs of
existence;
refuse to
by Latin authors, verba substantiva; and in English grammars, "verbs substantive:" but Aristotle seems, in his Poetics, to
them the title of 'Pi/âra, considering them, perhaps, as mere 'Lvvltaôi, connectives. He defines the SwvStoîoe " a word not significant, which is fitted to make of several significant words one significant word" And further on he says, J (or rather sentence). "not every sentence consists of 'Pijâra and nouns ;" "but it is possible that there may be a sentence without a 'Pfjfin" as an instance of which (it seems) he refers to "the definition of man."^" The passage is rather obscure, but it would seem from the context that he means this If we say " man is an animal," the sentence is perfect, but there is no 'Prjfia in it for the word "is" serves merely as a connective to make of two nouns, "man" and "animal," one significant sentence but in itself it signifies neither substance nor at||
* w>) evthrri
8.
<rnftx*rix*i, ftira
X'otov,
ri;
siJiv pious rnu.ai>n xaff airi.
Poetic,
34. f Tlxrav
<pu*t)
xttrriytgevfuto*
oon
!v
ToiTxru
fticis,
vtncvra.i 'Vr,fia.
xakiTffat.
Ad
Arist.,
J
De
Interp.
u<rnftof, ix
ifaivijv.
4>i/nj
TXticiut
s.
fti
Quyiuv
rnficivrixiur St,
mtil
Ibid.
vrKfuxZiei filat
gftpuvrixriv
Poetic,
34.
Xoyot.
Ibid.
||
Ow yae
ecra; Xoyoi lx pn/tarv* xat avofiaruv trvyxurui.

avii/ fYifjua-Tui jTa<
beio-ftcf.
AAV
Oiov
Uliîrxi
o
^f
rov a.iQou<xov
Ibid.

120
tribute, neither does
it
OF VERBS,
[CHAP. IX.
for these reasons
it is
mark
time,
and
not to be
deemed a
lateme
'PjJ^za.
253. If these explanations of the nature of a verb are not very still less so is the manner in which this part of speech was treated by Mr. Tooke. So early as the year 1778, he published a letter to Mr. Dunning, in which he advanced some propositions concerning language, which were thought at the time rather paradoxical. These were amplified and extended in 1786, in the first volume of his " Diversions of Purley." He there laid it down that " in English, and in all languages, there are only two sorts of words which are necessary for the communication of our thoughts, viz., the noun and tJie verb."* He said, "he was inclined to allow the rank of parts of speech only to these necessary words ;""j" that "a consideration of ideas, n or of the mind, or of things, would lead us no farther than to noms; \ and that "the other part of speech, the verb, must be accounted for from the necessary me of it in communication ; that it is in fact the communication itself, and therefore well denominated 'Vij/ia, dictum; And with this for the verb is quod lapiimur, the noun De quo." mysterious hint the readers of the first volume were obliged, SO far as In that volume, and also in the regarded the verb, to be content. OOIld, which was published in 1805, he asserted many words to be moods, tenses, or participles of certain verbs (remarking, however, incidentally, that mood, tense, number, and person, are no parts of the verb), but still the verb itself he neither defined nor explained, further than by saying that it was "the noun and something inore."H" At the close of the second volume his 'supposed colloquial friend asks What is that pethis very pertinent question, "What u the verb? culiar differential circumstance, which, added to the definition of a noun, constitutes the \. rb?" Is the verb
satisfactory,
||
1.
Dictio variabilis,
qua
significat
actionem \vl passioncm?
2. Or, dictio variabilis per

1
modoS?
''
hr,
4. Or,
.">.
<
quod quod
notu
asu ? ivirignat tempos si agere, pati, vel esse significat

ivi
>r,
sub tempore?
Or, pars orationis predpua sine can ? Or, nn assertion } 8. Or, mini significant, at quasi nexus et copula, at verba alia (piasi unimuivl nn mot declinable Indeterminatif? Or, mi mot. (pu pivs.ni.- a 1'. ,prit un eliv indetermino,
0.
7.
''
1
(leaignd will. -in. -Hi pit I'ldee generate de ['existence sous
DM
To
all
nlation h line modification

T<*.k.'
'.'"
this
Mr.
in
rtpUet
"A
tx p.
v.
truiv
true!
No, no,
1
*i
know sou
mil
'
art not serious

(
laying this troth

p,
;:..
fors
67.
It,
me.
Wk
Mr, of
Iliii|.,|i.
I'.i.l.. v. I.
\
II
li.i.l.,
lbi.l p. 70.
71.
tUt,
p. 478,
ibid, p, :.il.

CHAP.
IX.]
OF VERBS.
the present !
121
;
off here
for
"
And
so he did
but never resumed the

inconciusiTe.
discussion.
254. Surely, if the verb was one of the only two necessary parts of speech if it was one of the two main pillars supporting the whole if Mr. Tooke himself had it constantly in view, edifice of language and referred to it in his three successive publications he might have found time, between 1778 and his death in 1812, to have given the
; ; ;
disciples of his
new
school,
which was to sweep away
all
the old
grammatical doctrines as " trash," a little more distinct information on the nature of the verb, than that it was a noun, " and something more," and that both it and the noun being equally necessary for the communication of thought, the verb was distinguished from the noun "something by the "necessity of its use in communication." more," of which we know nothing, is to common capacities just equal to nothing and to distinguish one of two necessary things from the other, by the common attribute of necessity, is a mode of division no less ungrammatical than illogical. 255. The verb has been differently defined (as we have seen) by Analysis, different grammarians and indeed when we reflect on the variety of conceptions, which it often combines in one word, we must allow, that this circumstance, " throws considerable difficulties in the way of any person who attempts to analyse the verb, and ascertain its nature."* The first step in such an analysis is to distinguish those properties of the verb, which are essential to it, and are therefore necessarily to be found in all verbs, from those which are accidental, and form different combinations in different languages. I consider as essential properties of the verb, its power
2ndly.
To signify an attribute of some substance. To connect such attribute with its proper substance. 3rdly. To assert, directly or indirectly, the existence or non1st.
existence of the connection.

I consider as accidental properties,
those which grammarians have

kind, voice,
commonly
designated by
some such terms as
mood,
tense,
person, number, gender, &c.
256. The definition of a verb, so far as regards Universal Grammar, should be confined to the essential properties of this part of speech. Before I attempt to define it, therefore, I shall examine those proper-
Attribute,
and first, as to signifying an attribute. Here the term " attribute " is to be taken largely, so as to include every conception, which can be predicated of another in a simple proposition. Therefore, the genus is to be deemed an attribute of the species, and the species of
ties
:
the individual.
Existence, too, whether absolute or qualified, is to be deemed an attribute of the existing substance absolute, as when
we we
say, "
say "
God is," or when God says, " I am God is almighty," " man is mortal ;"
* Encycl. Bntan.,
art.
;" qualified, as in
when
both which cases,
Grammar.
122
the
OF VERBS.
[CHAP.
I.N
existence are numberless.
word "is " forms a verb substantive. The attributes of qualific "We may, however, divide them into thos which are qualified by conceptions of action, and those of which th
Conceptions of
;
qualifving conception does not relate to action.

are spiritual, as, to love
;
actioi
mental,
as, to
know
or corporeal, as, t
as, to liv
touch
and they may be of a positive or negative character,
or die, to
move
or stop, to
with action are such as, honest or dishonest, tall or short, beautiful or ugly. Now, the signi fication of an attribute belongs to a verb in one of two ways it i either added to the verb substantive as a necessary adjunct, or it i Propositions, in which tb involved in the form of a different verb. attribute is a necessary adjunct to the verb, are such as, " Socrates wise," " Cicero is speaking." These necessarily contain three words and have therefore been called, by some logicians, propositions terti Propositions, in which the attribute is involved in th< adjacentis. form of the verb itself, require but two words, as " Cicero speaks,' " Victoria reigns," and have been said to be secundi adjacentis. Ii the former class, the attribute is absolutely necessary as an adjunct t( the verb for if we stop at " Socrates is," or " Cicero is," the sen
:
i
Conceptions unconnectei to be wise or foolish, to be hot or cold, to b

or sleep.
wake
In the latter class, so imperfect as to be unintelligible. attribute is involved in the form of the verb, as in "speaks"
tence
is
tlu
oi
" reigns."
From what has been
said,
it
is clear
that the property
of signifying an attribute belongs essentially to the verb. Nevertheless this property is not the peculiar and distinguishing characteristic of t verb, for it equally belongs to adjectives and participles. 257. The next essential property of the verb is that of connecting the conception of an attribute with the substance to which it belongs;
f>r
it
may have been observed

attribute
in
it
the
instances above noticed, thai

signified not alone,
when an
"
is
was
is
signified,
was
it
but
in con-
junction with the subject to whieh
belonged.
If
<>r
we
say,
"is"
oi
"reigns," without showing to whom or to what these attributes belong, we utter no intelligible sentence. Ami this is so obvious, that no one ever denied Nay, some able philologists connection to be a property of the verb. to 111. nut. mi that connection is the characteristic From that opinion, however, I peculiarity of tins part of sjM'ech.* nets, but it does more; it dedissent. Tin' verb not only c
speaking," or "peaks,"
clares that the OOQPtCttd Conceptions Coexist as parts of one assertion.
almighty, " or "
does not predicate one thing of two distinct, terms. Thus, it wo say, "lie is good," the conceptions expressed l>\ the words he and //'-/, ih.it i. to sajr, the conceptions of a particular man and of onl\ connected, but the one is asserted to e e,,...|i Itherwi is it in the thar, and to be a ipmlitv belonging to it.
Tlii-
conjunction also connects,
but
it
BOOther, or
make up one
proposition of
<
;<<
I,
firt.
(irnmiii
ir.
CHAP.
IX.]
OF VERBS.
123
speech of the duke of Buckingham wishing happiness and honour to his sovereign Henry VIII.
May
And when
Time
fill
he live
!
Longer than I have time to tell his years Ever bclov'd, and loving may his rule be
old
shall lead
him
to his end,
Goodness and he
up one monument
viz., those of a particular man and goodness are connected, but the one is not asserted of the other, and they make up no intelligible meaning when taken together, without the further aid of a verb. cannot assert without connecting our thoughts lor to assert is to declare some one thing of some other thing, which cannot be done without connecting those things together
Here the same conceptions,
We
in the
teristic
mind
of the verb
and therefore it is that connection is always one characbut it is a secondary characteristic, being involved
;
the
more important property of asserting,
declaring, or manifesting
real existence.
&
258. This brings me to that property of the verb which is not only Arcemon. essential to it, but is its peculiar and exclusive characteristic, and which I agree with Messieurs de Port Royal and other eminent grammarians' is the power of signifying Assertion. It often happens in
word, the same in orthography, in pronunciation, and in accent, is both noun and verb. How then can we determine when it is the one, and when it is the other? Very simply and very infallibly. When it directly or indirectly involves an assertion it is a verb when it does not it is a noun. The word love, in English' is one of the words which I have just described. It is impossible to tell, a prion, whether it will be a noun or a verb in any particular
identical
;
the very
same
language, that
discourse
will vanish.
We
must wait
it is
Thus,
"
!
to see how it is used, and then a noun in these exquisite lines

:
all
doubt
Love
is
not
love,
Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends, with the remover to remove
Oh no It is an ever-fixed mark. That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
And
again, it is a verb, in the speech of the crafty Richard, alluding to * his unsuspecting brother:
I
do
love thee so,
That
will shortly send
thy soul to heaven.
259.
rect
I say, that assertion is involved in the or indirectly, I mean the
When
verb either di- n
contradiction
to nomination.
verb implicitly or explicitly asserts ;' its existence or non-existent and rmatlVelj negatiVel >'' Psitivel >- or "vpothetknv wav'oLt: l mmand ' request ' desire or fa an;/of the * y indnect modes of implying existence, on which moods of verbs in different languages depend. For instance, when the shepherd Claius, in
word assertion to be taken lately in The noun names a conception ' the
2 "X r
W
'
124
OF VERBS.
[CHAP. I
Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, says of Urania " her breath is more swe than a gentle south-west wind, which comes creeping over flowei fields, and shadowed waters in the extreme heat of summer," the a sertion contained in the verb is (however figurative or poetical) But when, a little afterwards, he asks, "hath n direct and positive.
made us, being silly ignorant shepherds, raise i our thoughts above the ordinary level of the world ?" the questk
the only love of her
negatively expressed in the words "hath not," indirectly asserts th So when the other shepher the love of her has had that effect.
Strephon, exclaims,
"O
Urania! blessed
be
thou Urania
the fain
There is an implied assertion sweetness, and sweetest fairness !" Again, when tl the verb M be," that she ought to be blessed.
"; author thus relates the preservation of Musidorus from drowning drew they up a young man of so goodly shape, and well-pleasii favour, that one would think Death had in him a lovely countenance there is an assertion contained in the verb "had;" but it is clear Other variations of the mode of ass( hypothetical, and not positive. tion will be noticed when I come to speak more particularly of tl moods of verbs. If it should be objected that to some of these mot fications the term "assertion" is, in strictness of speech, inapplicabl I might answer that I contend not for the fitness of the term, but on for the accuracy and importance of the distinction between the non
asking,
on.
which merely navies a conception, and the verb, which by allirmin commanding, or otherwise, gives to that conception life at animation, and so forms a sentence enunciative or passionate. 260. It has been objected that assertion cannot be an ossenti
I
property of verbs ; because we can assert without the express use True, we can do so in certain languages; that part of speech. in such a case the assertion is an act of the mind, not expressed, bu The verb is wanting; but Its pla as grammarians say, understood. is not supplied by any other part of speech, nor is it to be collect! from a change of inflection, or accentuation, or from any other nio< Tims the verbs " is." " were," and " was of express signification.
are
Brtl
intentionally
parents:
omitted,
in
Milton's
beautiful
description of
oi
Ill
tlii'ir
looks
1 i
im
hniji oiiioii' lorioai Ifakit shout, Troth, ui'<i"in, Mootitttdi nmrt and pun', Sovoiv Imt in Irnr filial ti [on |'li' -I'll though I... lh Wli.ii"- tllM authority in nii'ii Not i^Hliil, an their Ml BOl < i-i in'.
Tin:
iit.-inphitnui lir, :m,|

i
valour I'onnM
|
M>ftnoM she,
ntnl dwi'i'l
iittriutivii (rrai'i*.
<
tin.' authority is in men: unr not etpial he in Now, atemplatkw the. mis fbnnM for softness, &<. fona'd all these canes, the inniil ptrfbnni the id oi lo the won o| manifest ...in" uctioti, I'I.iIm, it ami declares that somethir
i'
I
>t
exists;
and
this
mantle
tatioii
or deilatatton
is
not contained
in
tl
CHAP.
IX.J
OF VERBS.
125
nouns themselves, which do nothing more than name the conception thus, when we say " nemo bonus," the assertion is neither included Nemo in nemo, nor in bonus, for these are mere names of conceptions. but neither of them includes is the subject, bonus is the predicate The two terms are not connected by anything which the copula. either of them contains, but their connection is inferred by the mind from their juxtaposition. But the question to be here considered, and does not relate to verbs not expressed, but to verbs expressed universally where the verb is expressed, it imports assertion, either
; ;
simple or modified, direct or implied. 261. From this view of its essential properties, the verb may be defined, a part of speech lehich signifies an attribute of some substance,
connects the attribute
Definition,
and
substance together,
and
asse7~ts the existence
or
in
;
non-existence of the connection. definition is alike applicable ;
To
all
verbs in
all
languages this
but there are properties belonging
various
modes and degrees

which
in so far
I
to different verbs in different languages
and
these,
sider, first
have termed accidental properties, I shall conas they apply to a whole verb, and then as they
apply to
2(32.
its
separate parts.
properties
its
verb, taken as
certain
verbs,
by
a whole, may be distinguished from other which grammarians have generally con-
V*Am*
sidered as marking
by some and simplest distinction of kind (as stated by Messieurs de Port Koyal) is into substantive and adjective.
kind, either simply, or as modified
first
other conception.
I
The
of existence
have already alluded to the nature of the verb substantive, or verb but the following remarks of Harris will place it in a clearer light " Previously to every other possible attribute, whatever a thing may be, whether black or white, square or round, wise
; :
or eloquent, writing or thinking,

it
it must first of necessity exist, before can possibly be anything else ; for existence may be considered as an universal genus, to which all things are at all times to be referred.
The verbs, therefore, which denote it, claim precedence of all others, as being essential to the very being of every proposition in which
they
'
may still be found either exprest or by implication exprest, as when we say the sun is bright ;' by implication, as when we sav the sun rises,' which means when resolved, the sun is rising.' Now, all existence is either absolute or qualified. The verb is can
; '
'
by
itself express absolute existence, but never the qualified without subjoining the particular form ; because the forms of existence being in number infinite, if the particular form be not exprest, we cannot
know which
a mere
is
intended.
'Tis
And
hence
it
it
follows, that
little
when
it
is
only
serves to subjoin
assertion.
some such form,
has
more
force than that of
under the same character that
latent part in every other verb
by expressing that
far
one of their essentials."*

tions the verbs
is,
So
Harris
is
right
groweth,
becometh,
i.
est, fit,
6.
becomes a which is but when he menvTvup^h kh Trt'Xa,

assertion,
;
* Hermes,
126
OF VERBS.
[chap.
i>
tact,
yiyvirai, as equally verbs substantive, he does not advert to th that several of these words combine in their signification othe
;
conceptions than that of mere existence

usually implies something
for to
grow, or to become
\>ris
transuive.
more than merely to be. Still, if th idiom of a particular language allows it, any verb of this kind ma occasionally be employed as a mere verb of existence. 263. All other verbs are comprehended by Messrs. de Port Roys un(j e r the designation of verbs adjective, a term which seems reasor able, as contradistinguishing them from the verb substantive. verbs assert existence the verb substantive asserts nothing more bt the verb adjective includes in one word the assertion and some attr
Now those attributes are either of such a nature that we ea bute. be aware of their passing from one substance to another, and th verb expressing them is then said to be transitive ; or we only pei ceive the existence of the attribute, and the verb is then said to b intransitive. This distinction forms what some grammarians call th As the conception of cause is one of the pi mar voice of a verb. ideas of the human mind, and not a mere inference (as Hume an others absurdly fancied) from an observed similarity in the successio of events a verb transitive implies an agent as the cause of trans Generally the agent an tion, and a patient as receiving its effect. patient are two different beings, and this gives occasion to the ai liv Where the agent is first cor voice, and the passive voice of a verb. sidered, the verb is said to be in the active voice, as " John beat James;" where the patient is first considered, the verb is in th passive voice, as " James is beaten by John." But in some case tJi.- same substance is both agent and patient, which in human being Thus the Jleautont'nnorumnios, C arises from their double nature. Terence, was a man in whom the attribute of suffering was caused h All languages have sum himself, and reflected back on himself. mode, mors or leu direct or circuitous, of expressing this reflects!
i
action:
in
the
(i
reek
language
it
give occasion to
loim usuall;
a step furthei
called the middle voice.*
The Turkish language goes
an attribute in which the agent and patten It expresses in one are reciprocally cause and effect, as sevmek to love, si-rir/unck to lov mutually. J How far these distinction-; are marked by peculiar forffl
wmd
languages will he considered in u future treatise; lui such firms exist, often happens that in practice tin J thus the Cireek middle verb is often used with ai are confounded iilicution; ami in Latin there is a huge class of Verbs callei having a passive t. itnin.it .11, with a sense in genera ! > .!!' al-o ii.'. tin |.a>sivel\ and the re fori active; th"
in
diflerent
ev.ii wlw-iv
it,
i<
..
II.
certain writers
in
rinnmimm
a.
a pa live rerb,
gem-rail)'
11
an
which though In linn used actively, but sometime! passively live sense, ' Deque ita udithitus I'.ntiiiian
itdulari,
11
11
Dt vri.i f David*, <irmn. Timlin-,

||
Vi
Kn'.tiT,
itImii inn iih ilim inn.
p,
34.

CHAP.
IX.]
OF VERBS.
ut
127
sum
al terms,
me
sense, " ne assentatonbus
But elsewhere, in a passive meae poeniteret.* patefaciamus aures, nee adulari nos sinais
mus."t 204.
Where
the existence of the attribute
alone expressed
by
Verbs neuter,
the verb, without reference to its transition from an agent to a patient, the verb involving such expression of existence and attribute, is called intransitive, or (with reference to action and passion)
neuter ; and it may be either personal, as " he sings," " the tree blossoms," &c. ; or impersonal, as " it rains," " it lightens," it Harris, following the authority of Priscian, Sanctius, grieves me." Vossius, and others, rejects the doctrine of impersonal verbs, on the ground that " every energy respects an energizor or a passive subThus he would explain the instances above given by supplyject.'^
a nominative understood, as " the rain rains," the lightning " the event grieves me." These forms of speech are to but I would observe, that in the proper a certain degree idiomatical impersonals there is usually in the mind of the speaker some doubt at least as to the energizor ; and the fact is meant to be asserted or else the cause is to be simply, without reference to its cause otherwise collected from the context. Vossius explains pluit to mean aqua pluvia pluit ; but the Roman peasant, when he said pluit, though he did not perhaps contemplate any distinct cause of the showers, would have been far from disputing the poet's animated description of
ing
lightens,"
; ;
that cause
Turn Pater Omnipotens,

Conjugis in gremium
foecundis imbribus, jEther

descendit.
laetee
And
again,
when
the same great poet says of the
unhappy Dido,
Mortem
orat, tosdet coeli
convexa tueri.
No
the cause of the tedium
nominative understood (such as res or eventus) can serve to imply but the context shows that to behold the The same very sky was the cause of tedium to the forsaken queen. confusion which I noticed between the middle and active voice of a
;
or, its transitive and intransitive character more correctly, the same word is used sometimes as an Thus in Greek we may say, active verb and sometimes as a neuter. e k yrjy <77rp/iara irt7rriv, to fall seed into the earth, i. e. to drop
verb, often occurs between

to speak
it.
!So in Latin,
trally.
And
auxit rempublicam, actively, or auxit morbus, neuso in English, " to beat the air," or " the pulse beats ;"
but these are matters dependent on the idiom of each particular

language. 265. I have spoken of those distinctions of kind in verbs which are other kind* ofTerbi most simple; but there are others which result from modifying the signification of a verb by some additional conception. In all languages,
-
such modifications
may be
ii.
effected
by separate words
+ De
Offic,
i.
but
in
some
* De Divinat.,
2.
26.
J Hermes,
i.
9.
Plato, Politic., c. 16.

128
languages the same end
ticles or letters.
is
OF VERBS.
attained
[CHAP.
I]
by the
it
;
addition of certain pa
The
modifications which
may
suffice to notice ai
either of a positive or negative character
to the former are

;
owin
verbs desiderative, causative, inceptive, and frequentative to th latter, verbs implying either simple negation or impossibility. " Thei is a species of verbs " (says Harris) "called in Greek eferiKa, Latin desiderativa, the desideratives or meditatives; such are TroXsf.ujaeiu bellaturio, I have a desire to make war fipuxreiu), esurio, I long t
i ;
So prensare brachium, according to Turnebus, was not " take by the arm frequently," but " to catch at the arm, to desire take hold of it," as Horace did when he wished Aristius to rid him
eat.
t t c
his troublesome
companion
vellcre ccepi,
Et prensare manu lentissima

Distorquens oculos, ut
brachia, nutans,
me
eriperet.
The Turkish
language, which
is
very rich in modifications of th
verb, has a causative form, as aldatmak, to cause to deceive, froi: aldamak to deceive. In Latin the termination in sco usually marks a
inceptive form, as
Fluctus uti primo ccepit
cum
albesccre vento,
;
where albesco is to begin to be white, from albeo to be white bu some of these verbs are rather thought to express continuation, a where Virgil says of Dido, dwelling on the contemplation of th
beauty of the
fictitious lulus,
Expleri
mentem
ncquit, ardescitque tuendo.
The
frequentative, or, as
in
some
call
it,
the iterative character, ha
though man; of these have ratlin an augmentative, and some a (Imminent loive asin Engliih The simply negative form Is common Inmost "will be nil! lie," i.e., " ne will he ;" so in Latin "noto," i. e., " I n vdb. had also, in Old English, nustc for ne wist, 1 did no
several forms
Latin,
Mftdtto, Qcfiuto, pufoo, facesso;
I .
We
know
In |] tins wnrhlirlic won, a i.m .1.- of bled aad of i>on,
N.
Of Jttl J
ii'is/r
nmi,
LuMtomuri'
in lo&dti
M.S. Earl, 2263,

,li
a.i>.
1200.
in
it:
language has not only a form

nil
i
o!'
simple negation
of ImpottlbUltT.
In English
we have
a fbrn
salve of count to undo, which, in old [zaak Walton': tb nig book oo angling, gives occasion to a dispute am
|
Si
m, ,.:..
_<.'.
..ii
the
diflfTence
Ix'tweon
riffling a .loak
and unripping
I
it
todiA ation
i
in
ti.
.liili-rent
I.
in
ii.i
..',,
thl of the significatii and will l>e noticed in the secom
of thil
Having thai ootunantod
the
accidental
propertiea
wind
OF VERBS.
129
CHAP.
IX.
belong to a verb considered as a whole, I come to those which affect it as consisting of different parts. These I shall examine as tlu-v arise out of the essential properties of the verb ; for from the property of assertion is derived the mood, from that of connection the tense, and from that of attribute the person, number, and (where it
First, then, as assertion is not only an essential, but the peculiar property of this part of speech, there must be certain portions of every verb showing how assertion may be directly or indirectly expressed. These portions we call, in English, the moods of a verb. Grammarians differ widely as to the number, and no less as to the names of the moods. Scaliger says that mood is not necessary to verbs ; and Sanctius contends that it does not relate to the nature of the verb, and therefore is not an attribute of verbs rum abtingit verbi naturam, ideo verborum attributum non est ; on which passage Perizonius very justly observes, that great as the merit of Sanctius was in many parts of his work, yet he had in others, particularly in what regarded the moods of verbs, been misled by an excessive desire of novelty and change. It is very true, as observed by Sanctius, that the great mass of grammatical writers are so extremely discordant in their opinions respecting this part of the science of which they treat, that they have left us scarcely anything on it which can be said to be established by general consent. Some make only three moods, others four, five, six, and even eight. Again,
exists) the gender.
some
moods; others call them diviand as to the various appellations of each mood, we have the personative and impersonative, the indicative, declarative, definitive, modus finiendi, modus fatendi, the
call
these affections of the verb

states,
sions,
qualities,
species,
&c.
rogative, interrogative, requisitive, percontative, assertive, enunciative,
precative, deprecative, responsive, concessive, permissive, promissive, adhortative, optative, dubitative, imperative, mandative, conjunctive, subjunctive, adjunctive, potential, participial, infinitive,
vocative,
and probably many

it
others.
In this confusion of terms and of notions,
is
absolutely necessary to adopt

;
some
distinct principle
which mav
guide us through the labyrinth and that principle, I apprehend, will be easily and intelligibly supplied by adverting to the peculiar function of the verb itself, namely, assertion. 267. It must be remembered that I use the word assertion in its Four 1 largest sense, to express declaring, affirming, or distinctly manifesting, ft^T any perception or volition. In this sense, assertion may be said to take place either in an enunciative or in a passionate sentence. Thus,
in
the admirable scene between Brutus and his wife, Portia says
Make me
Dear, my lord, acquainted with your cause of grief.
And
again, she says
/ charge
you,
by
my
once
Upon my knees commended beauty,
OF VERBS.
30
fCHAP.
By
Which
your vows of love, and that areat vow did incorporate and make us one, That you unfold to me, yourself, your half, Why you are heavy.
all
In both these instances she asserts her earnest demand to be made i quainted with the secret cause of that sick offence which she perceiv In the o to exist, not in her husband's health, but in his mind. instance the demand is directly and enunciatively expressed by t words " I charge you ;" in the other it is indirectly and passionate expressed by the words " make me acquainted." Again, an ent
dative assertion
positively,
may
be expressed categorically (that
is,
positively
or else hypothetical]}-.
Thus
Caesar, in describing Cassius, first assei
by the word " has," what he had observed in his outwa appearance, and then hvpothetieallv, by the words "as if," wr might be supposed to pass in his mind
:
a lean and hungry look Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort As if he mock'd himself, and seorn'd his spirit, That could be mov'd to smile at any thing.
Yond Cassius has
Antony's expression, " fear him not," Ca?$ words " fear not," that he does not fear hi but puts a case hvpothetieallv, by the word " if," in which he mig
And
so,
referring to
asserts positively,
by
the
do so:
I fear him not Vet 1/ my name were liable to fear, I do not klMW the man 1 should avoid So much as that spare Cassius.
;
In like manner, a passionate assertion maybe distinguished accord] as the object of the passion is within the power or inlluence of Thus, in Virgi speaker, or only within his desire or aversion.
t
!i:th
Eclogue,
"
Mopsus
8parg&t
!"
addresses his brother shepherds
command,
the spirit
human
in
foliis
:"
in t!i" w;o d whereas Menalcas address!

ll
of Dtphnia,
the
way
of a prayer, says,
Sis bonus,
These two eiiinidative and two passionate modes expressing assertion, here stated, supply us with four principal moot has been SU It the indicative, conjunctive, indurative, and optative.
felixque tuis
gestfd that thaSS arc O&ly a
of the manv inoililications of signi moods of a verb that there might " ran" a permissive for instaiin' a pot -tit nil mood expressed by has id "may," 1 oompultht bj ** wiwf,* and so forth ;* bul to this well replied, thai "the possibility of providing separate forma for
f.
\v
n which
mighl
be called
it
iv the least, doubtful on introduced by I
and
anj
that,
If
possible,
ti
into
pari
"I'
ipi-ecli
already
>.
>
<
1 1 1
1>
- 1
minute distinctio eomplex, would render tl

to
Import
of the
varb absolutely unintelligible
nine-tenths even
exisl
the Nariod."!
ir.
Where any
soch
po
t
ilble
moods
l.
Inaparticu]
Gregory,
Bnoyi
Brit, art.

CHAP.
IX.]
OF VERBS.
131
language, they must of course be explained in the grammar of that language ; but they do not require notice in this part of the present I shall therefore proceed to examine the four moods abovetreatise
:
mentioned.
268. " If we simply declare or indicate something to be, or not to whether a perception or volition 'tis equally the same," says " this constitutes that mood called the declarative or IndiHarris Thus, " I love," " you walk," " he died," " we shall rejoice," cative."
be,
;
indicative,
all simple, or, as logicians say, categorical assertions of fact, some of which do, and some do not, relate to passions of the mind, but which do not necessarily imply any passion in the enunciation. Some of them too may in reality be contingent, or doubtful, and may be dependent on the truth or falsehood of other assertions but as they are not so enunciated, but on the contrary are declared positively and
are
It is to be observed simply, they belong to the indicative mood. that the indicative, from its very nature, is capable of being united
An assertion does with the conjunctive, as well as of standing alone. not necessarily become the less positive for being coupled with another, although that other may be doubtful or contingent. Thus, When Milton says The conquer'd also, and enslav'd by war,
Shall, with their freedom lost, all virtue lose,
matter of contingency whether any nation ever will be conquered and enslaved but yet the assertion that, supposing a nation to undergo that fete, it will lose all virtue, is properly expressed in the indicative
it is
;
mood by
the
word "
shall."
Conjunctive.
269. "V\*hen a fact is asserted not as actual but merely as possible, or contingent, the form of words by which such assertion is expressed in any particular language, may perhaps be the same as if the assertion were more positive yet the context will show that the verb is no longer in the indicative mood. The mood adapted to such contingent assertion has received various appellations, of which I consider
;
i II
I
I
most appropriate, inasmuch as the continmarked by a conjunction (such as if, though, that, except, until, &c.) which connects the dependent sentence with its principal. There are various methods of thus connecting sentences but they may be distinguished into two great classes. In the one class,
the Conjunctive to be the
is
gency
usually
an uncertain sentence is connected with a certain one ; in the other, both sentences are uncertain in the former case a conjunctive is t dependent on an indicative; in the latter, both sentences are con|
l<
junctive.
a
rf!
this distinction the ground of of moods, calling the contingent assertion, in the first case, subjunctive, because it is subjoined to the indicative ; and in the other case potential, because it states a potential, and not an actual
Some grammarians make
distinction
existence.
It
seems, however, unadvisable thus to multiply

length,
call
moods;
and
if
should
we were to proceed this not go much further, and
there
is
no reason
why we
every possible variation of conk 2
132
OF VERBS.
[CHAP. E
Of these I shall here notice some instanci tingency a separate mood. easily distinguishable in point of principle.
1.
Ut jugulent homines surgunt de nocte latrones.

is in
Here jugulent
the rising.
the conjunctive, as indicating the end and object
<
2. Peter said unto him, though yet will I not deny thee.
should die with thee,
Here " I should

ficient one.
die "
is
mentioned as a motive to denial, but an
inst
3. Si fractus illabatiar orbis,
Impavidum
ferient ruinse.
Here, in like manner, iUabatur is in the conjunctive, as expressing fact which might be the cause of fear to ordinary minds, but which
not so to the just
and stedfast-minded man
and the conjunction
si
the one case
is
equivalent to though in the other, both of

if."
them
havii
the proper force of our expression " even

4.
Except a man be born of water, and of the he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
spirit,
Here the conjunctive be born, is placed in opposition to the indicatf " cannot enter;" so that if the one be in the negative, the other mo be so too, and vice versa ; for the implication is, that if a man be be of water and of the spirit, he can enter into the kingdom of Go Accordingly, the Greek conjunctions in this and the preceding examp would be directly opposed to each other: in No. 3, the word won K fir, that is, Kat Lav but in No. 4 it is Lav iti. ,
;
5.
dementis
licet
occupcs
tuis et
Tyrrlicinmi
^^ nmi
Non
mortis
HUM
mare Apulicum,
caput.
Mniiiiuiu inrtu
U4{MH wptdiw
Here the condition differs from that of No. 2, in being a fad present time and on the other band the indicative non crpcdies diiVe
;
lrom the indicative/lrtc;//

0.
in
No.
it,
b\
being
in
the negative.
001
;i
The
sceptic ihtU Mrf
put from
.ludali,
law-
giver from
II
Initwei'ii Ins I'c.t, until Shiloli
come.
lith the facts arc future, but the conditional
one
is
the term
L-juiuLin) of the other.

7.
l'luji d
tacituf poaci
ti
pouot Corviu, haberet

absolute
but here
it
In all tho preceding instances
one assertion

is
il
food
hasnio both part* of the sentence, therefore, are contingent, and cons
d
in silence,
nor that
rjuentlv, I'oih urn in the conjunctive

8.
mood
.1...,.,
If it u*rt don* when 'U It wan done quid v.

I
ihm
't*tr$ veil
li
a is
also one contingent, namely, 'twere wll, depending on anotfa
we
CHAP. IX.]
contingent, if also depends.
it
OF VERBS.
were done
;
133
see a further contingency
and on each
These eight examples are

contingent
sufficient to
show
that the varieties of
assertions are too various to be considered
and treated as
so
many
distinct
moods of
the verb.
;
called,
called,
by some
writers,
subjunctive
The six first are of the kind the two last are of the kind
;
in contradistinction
from the subjunctive, potential
but as
they are all equally conjunctive, it suffices to give them that name and, indeed, it is a more correct and systematic distribution of the grammatical nomenclature so to do ; for the proper correlative to the term indicative is not subjunctive or potential, but some term which Comprehends them both as, for instance, the term conjunctive. The indicative asserts simply the conjunctive asserts with modification but if the conjunctive is a mood, if the one is a mood, so is the other then its subdivisions cannot be properly so called but they should rather be called sub-moods, if it were necessary to give them any peculiar denomination. 270. The effect of any degree of passion is pro tanto to interrupt and modify the processes of reasoning. Reasoning is conducted by Passion goes at once to its direct assertion, absolute or conditional. Thus, object, assuming it as the consequence of an indirect assertion. if the fact be that I desire that a person should go to any place, it is not necessary for me to state my desire in the indicative mood, and his going in the infinitive or conjunctive, " I desire you to go," or " I desire that you should go ;" but by the natural impulse of my feelings feelings which language conveys as clearly as it does the more gradual processes of thought I say, in a mood different from
;
:
imperative
either the indicative, infinitive, or conjunctive
Go ! Now,
most
this
mood,
from
its
frequent use in giving
commands
to inferiors, has
been called
the Imperative, and that name, adopt.
as being the
general, 1 shall
Some
writers have distinguished from the imperative, the
pvecative, the deprecative,
so far as language
the
same mood
the permissive, the adhortative, &c. ; but, concerned, these are but different applications of the operation is the same in communicating the
is
object of the passion,

exists.
(
and implying the assertion that such passion few examples may serve to explain my meaning:
Let there
Ethereal,
1.
God; and forthwith light of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep, and from her native east To journey through the air}' gloom began.
be light, said
first
1
Milton.
2.
Fear and piety,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,

Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades, Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries And let confusion live
Shakspeare.
134
3.
OF VERBS.
Help me, Lysnnder. help
[CHAP.
me
Do thy
from
besl
To pluck
this crawling serpent

!
Ah
me,
for pity
what a dream was here

!
my
breast
!
Shakspeai
4. Go, but be
A
In the
first
mod'rnte in your food chicken too might do me good.
Gay.
of these examples we have an instance of the highe imperative, that which proceeds from the Almighty power, to who command all things created and uncreated are subject; and who, Milton's fine paraphrase of the first chapter of Genesis, is describe
as calling into existence the hitherto uncreated essence of light.
Tl
second example
calls
is
deprecative, or rather imprvcative, in
which Tim<
down on his worthless fellow-citizens the natural consequentof their profligacy. The third is precative, in which poor desert Hermia, waking from a terrific dream, calls for help from her faithlt lover Lysander. The last is permissive, in which the old dying fc after a long harangue to dissuade the younger members of his coi munity from pursuing their usual trade of rapine, at length penal them to go out on a similar excursion. In all these varieties of tl imperative mood, the grammatical process, both of thought ai expression, is the same. In all of them the assertion of desire aversion on the part of the speaker is clearly implied. The sense " I command that there be light" "I wish that confusion may pi vail" "I pray you to help me "-" I permit you to go ;" but it unnecessary to express those various assertions, because they are implied in the imperative moods, and without those moods they cou The imperative animates the passionate sentonc not be so implied.
as the indicative or conjunctive animates

converts the
the
it
name
tlie enunciative sentence. of an object of passion, or will, into a inanifestntu
tlmt such object exists;
just
as the indicative or conjunctive
comer
name
is
of an object Of perception or thought into an assertion th The original text, " Hod slid let there be ligfc really existing.
and tbere was light," atlbrds a plain example of this operation in DO The conceptions in both are two; namely, existence and tigl Tl Without the verb, would remain a mere noun. word " light" does so remain; but "existence," by becoming a ver exhibits [tattf first in the imperative as nil object of volition, and tin
,
in the indicative its an object of perception. In the one case impli in the other an assertion of the Divine will thai light should exist The authors of the " Po esses an assertion that light did exist, Royal Oltminir " Observe, that as the future tense is often taken an impeiati\e mood (which will be pies, mis noticed), so the it lie,|,|,.|,tl\ ,e.l lor I future; and this they ascribe to imitation of the lb o i\ I'.ut in truth there must in all langoag) be a oinmunit\ o! signification between these two portions of a veil
it
;
tl
ii
..
because, an
the
t
ApoUonhM
seme
remarks, "
nl
we
can
command
shall
only in regard
not
steal," ha\
mix-
tO con,
not,''
and " thou
therefore the
signification.

CHAP.
IX.]
OF VERBS.
135
optative,
271. The Optative mood seems at first sight to imply only a minor degree of the same passion, which is more energetically expressed bv
inclined to agree with unnecessary to make the former a separate mood. But the Greek and some other languages distinguish it by a peculiar form ; and on reflection it appears to me, for the reasons above stated, that the distinction is well grounded. I cannot, indeed, adopt the language of Scaliger (lib. iv., c. 144), differunt,
the imperative
and hence
was formerly
it
those grammarians
who
think
quod imperativus
respicit
personam
inferiorem, optativus potentiorem
" they
differ in this,
that the imperative regards an inferior person,

;"
the optative a superior
for that difference is altogether accidental.
Moreover, it makes no provision for the common case of wishes expressed between equals; and again, how are we to determine whether a request is addressed to a person in one character rather than another ? Or why should we not have moods to designate the different degrees of superiority and inferiority? The fact seems to be, that the more distant and indirect influence of the will on its object, has given rise, in some languages, to a peculiar form of the verb, generally called the optative mood. Yet even this distinction does not appear to be very accurately observed in practice, for we sometimes see the optative used, where the imperative might have been more naturally expected. Thus, in the Electra of Sophocles,
when
Orestes
is
forcing ./Egisthus into the
the apartment where he

reluctant victim
:
palace, to kill him had murdered Agamemnon, he says to
in
his
BXuco7;
Nu
av
Ufa
rvy rax%t'
Xiyan yag i
iripi.
isiC
ay*i
aXXa
vn; ûîj;
Go
without delay, for now the strife Is not for useless words, but for thy life
in,
where the optative x w P' undoubtedly expresses a strong volition that iEgisthus should do what he was unwilling to perform. The common distinction between the optative and the imperative is nearly expressed by the English use of the auxiliaries "may" and "let." Thus, the following passage in the hymn to Sabrina is an example of the optative, expressed by may
Virgin daughter of Locrine, Sprung of old Anchises' line, May thy brimmed waves, for Their full tribute never miss, From a thousand petty rills
this,
That tumble down the snowy
hills
Summer
drouth, or singed air, Never scorch thy tresses fair Nor wet October's torrent flood
!
Thy molten
crystal
fill
with
mud
!
thy billows roll ashore and the golden ore May thy lofty head be crown'd With many a tow'r and terras round ?
May
The
beryl,

136
OF VERBS.
[CHAP. IX.
The tribute from the rills, the bervls rolled ashore, and the crown of towers and terraces were matters not within the power or control of the speaker, and which he, therefore, could only wish for. On the
contrary,
when
the speaker can

let,
command
the execution of his wishes,

:
he uses the word

Let
as the king, in
Hamlet
^
all
the battlements their ord'nanee fire. Give me the cups,

the kettle to the trumpet speak,
And
let
The trumpet to the cannoneer without, The cannon to the heavens.

It
is
observed by Vossius, that the Latin optative
is
no othei than
the conjunctive and, indeed, the form is the same in both; for we sav, utinam amem, or cum amem ; utinam amareni, or cum amarem utinam amaverim, or cum amaverim ; utinam amavissem, or cum ama-
And so, in the passive voice, utinam amarer, or cum amartr utinam amer, or cum amer ; utinam amatus sim, or cum amatus sim, The mood, however, is not to be determined by the form, but &c. by the signification ; for it often happens that particular languages do not possess distinct forms for the different moods; and Where they do, the form of one mood is frequently used with the force of another. This even takes place in the Greek language, which possesses the The Greek indicative is richest abundance of inflections in its verbs. often used for the subjunctive and optative, and that through almost all its tenses, as VlGER has shown at large in his celebrated treatise on Greek idioms: and in return, the optative, especially in the Attic
vissem.
dialect, is
lUtive.
used for the indicative. 272. Besides the four moods which
that there are
have reckoned as principal,

inqKirtance,
1
some grammarians hold
two others of equal

these
nanielv, the Interriyatire and the
Infinitive;
therefore
shall
And first, as to the interrogative: Varro speaks proceed to examine. of the mode of interrogating as different from that of answering. No doubt the state of the mind in these tWO arts [g widely different; but
as both acts must, of course, relate to the same conception, and to the same direct assertion, categorical or hypothetical, it is not surthat the grammatical forms expressive of those acts should and approach each other, or be .sometimes the very same lieiice that some mammalians should deny the necessity of an inter' lii u nil. .,!!'. u a\ | an able rfter), " take Ian la -" I. the mark of Interrogation, mid iii spoken language the peculiar tone of von.., and the brtenogathra and Indicative modes appear preiieiulv
;
i
1
'i
cisely
the sum.-."*
Of
tiii!
A
.m
Cot
>i <M|iiin,
remarkable Instance
falta
in
the
Venus,
Qtriu
in
,
loth fook of the ASneld;

olt, Tiioiii-.|iir
ui hi nil
tumlduiqu* houb4o
M.n'
i',
where,
If
read without tfaeMOtoi of Interrogation, the word "cernis"

,
ut. lii.umimr.
Vir &'-
K "' 10 20
.

CHAP.
is in

;"
IX.]
OF VERBS.
137
but
if
the indicative
mood, " you see
read (as
it
certainly
ought to be) with that accent, it is clearly in the interrogative, and In like manner, the beauty should be translated " do you not see ?" of the following lines of Catullus would be lost, if read without the interrogative accentuation, though the form is simply indicative
:
Jam te nil miseret, dure, Jam me prodere jam non
tui dulcis amiculi
dubitas fallere, perfide ?*
Of a question put in the form of an assertion (savs the same learned person) we have a remarkable instance in the Gospel of St. Matthew. When Christ stood before Pilate, the governor asked him, saying, " lit el 6 fiamXtvc rGv iBtkuW." t Now this is literally " Thou art the king of the Jews ;" but pronounced in an interrogative
it must have signified, " Art thou the king of the Jews ?" And seems to have been understood. Indeed, in colloquial English, nothing is more common than to use the indicative form interrogatively, and with the interrogative intonation, as " you took a ride this morning?" meaning " did you [or rather did you not] take a ride?" On these grounds the writer alluded to concludes, that " the [so
tone,
it
so
mood is a useless distinction," and one which (he says) is " not found in any language." I confess that at one time these reasons appeared to me to have much weight but when I reflect that the mental energy exercised by an interrogator is altogether different from that exercised by a respondent or a narrator and that it is marked in all languages either by a change of the arrangement or accentuation of the words, or by some additional word or particle, or perhaps even by a peculiar inflection, I cannot but agree with those who add an interrogative mood to the four abovementioned. 273. This mood may be said to partake both of the enunciative and of the passionate character. On the one hand, it requires from
called] interrogative
;
its
mixed
natuU!
the party interrogated a direct assertion, affirmative or negative, either
of the existence of some
fact,
the precise nature of which

or else of
is
pre-
sumably unknown to the
interrogator,
some unknown
circumstance of person, place, time, or the like, relating to the fact in question ; and, on the other hand, it implies in the interrogator the
some sort of passion, varying from the simple desire of information, to the height of pleasure, or to that tumult of painful feelings, which renders thought itself a chaos of doubt and confusion. Thus, Ismene, ignorant of the nature of the act, in which Antigone wishes her to take part, asks
indirect assertion of
What
is
the act
What
danger ?
What
intent ? J
So Creon,
ignorant of the person
who had
buried Polynices, asks

this deed ?
Who
was the man, that dared to do
* Catull. 30. lloiiv ti Kivbunvpa

ri( xvipuv
i
vou yiuftni ror

ToXfiwcc; TaSi
s
f Encycl. Brit., lit sup. Soph. Antig., 42. iT; Ibid; 248.

138
OF VERBS.
[chap. IX.
So iEneas,
asks
ignorant of the place

!
whence the ghost of Hector came
Long-wished
Hector, from what coast, for, dost thou come ?*
So Lady Macbeth, when her husband says

here to night," significantly asks, as
his departure
if
to her,
" Duncan comes
ignorant of the intended time of
And when
is
goes hence ?f
expressed on the part of the interroand the verb, though interrogative gator a simple desire of information But when Catullus would express in effect, is in form indicative. perfect delight, he does it in the form of a question
In
all
these instances, there
What
is
more joyful or more happy than
?J
And
again
!
what
is
happier than to live free from cares ?
the other hand, so painful were the feelings of the unhappy queen of Carthage, when abandoned by her lover, that she scarcely
On
knew what own mind.
she said, or where she was, or what was the State of her Yet all this she expresses interrogatively, though the
verbs retain the indicative form
What do
P
say
Where am
I ?
And what
rage
Transforms
d
cora 'i'x"
my mind ?||
two kinds
of
274t.
The
ancients (as Harris observes) distinguished

Ilvoyia, )Mco>itati<i.%
interrogations, the simple, called 'Epwrr/yua, interrogatio,
and the oomr

question,
pfcr, called
The simple
present a
answer to which may be given in the same words by converting them into a sentence affirmative or negative: ex.gr. Qu. "Are these rexief of [Omar f Answer. " Tlicse are verses of Homer," or " These are not verses of Homer," or, still more shortly, by the adverbs Pit The complex interrogations are either definitely or indefinitely or No. A definitely complex Interrogation, such as, " Is this a verse ox such. Horace or of Virgil?" or, " Is this a Texas of Horace, of Virgil, or of >vd ''" admits ox two possible answers to each separate intern whieh it involves, and also of one general negative; as, " li is
the
I
<
H.
i.
ice's"
.
"It
Is
of neither."
The
l>y
tence, or elliptinilly
//
or, Horace's" (and so of Virgil and Ovid) Indefinite may be answered l>v a whole sena single essentia] word in such sentence
;
:
M
.
i.
'
How mam righl TWO right angles

.
angles equal the angles of a triangle,?* equal the angles of a triangle." Uul as
.
this re|M'titionol' the
-i
of
tin-
question would be tedious,
Quihui, Hector, ab oris

:.
./.V,
'.',
BIS.
Jut,
ii
8hkp. MwIkiUi.
beatlmvo
i.i
CataU.,
(
B.
';itull., :;l rUf Qui up hi. in iiisiuii:i
liuitiit. ?
b.
i..
..
8.

CHAP. IX.]
the
OF VERBS.
13^
question may be elliptically answered by the essential word " Two," corresponding to the interrogative " How many?" 275. Of the so-called Infinitive Mood, the following is the account " Through all the above modes (indicative, &c.) given by Harris always verb, being considered as denoting an attribute, has the " But there is a mode or reference to some person or substance."* form, under which verbs sometimes appear, where they have no For example, to eat is reference at all to persons or substances.
:
g**"*
pleasant, but to fast
is
wholesome.'
Here the verbs
to eat
and
to fast
stand alone by themselves, nor is it requisite, or even practicable, to Hence the Latin and modern grammaprefix a person or substance. rians have called verbs under this mode, from this their indefinite they not only lay nature, infinitives."^ " These infinitives go farther aside the character of attributives, but they assume that of substan:
Now, as he had before said that " those far Harris. which have the complex power of denoting both an attribute and an assertion make that species of words which grammarians the call verbs ;" and as he here denies that the infinitives retain character of attributives, and nowhere pretends that they have the power of denoting an assertion, it would seem strange that he should has still consider them as verbs, were it not that this inconsistency
tives."^:
So
attributives
been shared, as Vossius observed, not only by the semidoctum vulgus, but even by some of the scientissimi. For my own part, far from ranking the infinitive among the moods of a verb, I agree entirely, for reasons which will presently appear, with those who call it a
verbal noun substantive.
276.
the
Whether we call infinitives nouns or verbs, the propriety of name infinitive is very evident from the observation of Vossius
:
wj.^so
illo
UtfinitwnestnomenftumiMhsoYihuSttiimplurativusYihilosophi; quippe unus, hoc muJti significantur : at contra infinitum est sui, quia utriusque est numeri; item Grwcum foiva, quo et ille et illi denotantur ; sic
finitum verbum est audio, ac facio, ut quo certus numerus desiguetur ; infinita autem sunt audire, agere, ut qua: deficiant numeris ac personis, " As the noun philosoet undique sint indefinita ac indeterminata. phus is finite, both in the singular and in the plural philosophy since
the former signifies one person, and the other
many
hand the word sui is infinitive, because it is both and in like manner the Greek word htva is
singular
but on the other and plural

because
it
infinitive,
denotes both him and them ; so the verbs audio and facio are finite, as designating a certain number ; but audire and agere, which express no certain number or person, and are in every way indefinite and
indeterminate, are called infinitives."
277. That the class of words in question, however, are not verbs '^{JJ^ but nouns substantive, results from the following considerations
:
1.
There
are, as I
1, c. 8.
have often repeated, only two principal modes

f Ibid
-
* Hermes, b.
X Ibid -
Ibid
: .
140
OF VERBS.
[CHAP. IX.
of enunciating thought by speech, that is to say, naming our conceptions, and asserting, or manifesting their existence. Now the infinitives, " to love," aimer, amare, " to have loved," avoir aime, amavisse, assert nothing by themeither as to the conception of love, or as to the conception of time in which the action of loving took place they express both only in the way of notation, or naming, and not in the way of declaration ; and therefore, in so far
selves,
as either conception
2.
is
concerned, the infinitive must remain
in the class of nouns.
Harris admits that
if you take away the assertion from any of a verb, " there remains nothing more than the mere infinitive, which, as Priscian says, significat ipsam rem
mood
quam
continet verbum."*
that nothing can be here the verb.

3.
And by the word rem it is clear meant but the noun involved in
4.
this noun must be a substantive is manifest, since it may be the subject of a proposition, of which the predicate is one of its attributes. Thus Cicerosays, " Cum vivere ipsum turpe sit nobis,"t which might equally be rendered in English " to live is disgraceful to me," or, " life is disgraceful to me." The infinitives (according to the idiom of most cultivated languages) answer to the distinctions of case in other nouns substantive. Thus fowp trt alive answers to the genitive, "time of departure ;" celer irasci, to the dative, "swift to anger;" and dig mis amari, to the ablative, dignus amove.
That
5.
Hence the
with the
the
trite
latter of
two verba, which, when not connected preceding by a conjunction, must, according to
lie
rule,
in
the
infinitive
mood,
is
in
efied
the
accusative case of a noun governed by the
first
verb : ex. or.
God
will not longdWto'

:
UouU
vindication."'
the glory of his imnic j

is
where "defer to vindicate "
equivalent
to
" defer the
IhmM
t'
nated as
II
.tl<
278. These nouns, however, though not verbs, are properly desigverftal ; for though they do not pos.s...,s the peculiar chamo
-.1
'
\.
I. -.,
Il.llll.
Iv
.1
.erti.'ll,
the\
.,
,|
.|'
1,
].(,.( n '1-
Of Veil,,. consequently
tieS
t
TlleV
Mill,
(.III
e\|,|e.S
existence,
t.-uce
;
act
Mill,
|l!LSsi(lll,
;
lllld
a man', action
indefinite
amari,
J
I,
.1
illlfin-
e\|.|. ,..;
time
or
pn'SCIlt
amavim, time paM.

sibi
dm
..|
.,
future.
" Scripsit Cesar
condom
te
satis esse fiuniltarem,
cerUj fore."
Moreover,
;
like verbs,
they
may
govt ra
ft. i.
nam
0.
ith
oc n IthoQl i preposition
Itic,
m
1.1,
" to excel
H M,
8.
1.
28.
X Milton, Sro. Agon., 17
| CtOSIQ, Bp, Inn.
7, 5.

CHAP.
IX.J
OF VERBS.
141
in wisdom," " to acquire fame ;" and like verbs they admit of modifiAs some cation by adverbs, as," to live well" " to die gloriously" of these incidents depend on the construction of different languages, they will be noticed more particularly hereafter ; but it may here be
proper to observe that there are various classes of nouns, both substantive and adjective, which are connected with verbs, that is to say, which express, with certain modifications, the same conception which These nouns may be thus is expressed as an attribute by the verb.
classed:
II.
Verbal adjectives (commonly so called), which express the conception in the form of an attribute, as the Latin verbals in bilis, &c, of which Mr. Tooke makes a class of participles, and which do not involve the notion of time. 2. Participles (commonly so called), which agree with the former, except that they involve the notion of time,
Abstract nouns (commonly so called), which express the conception in the form of a substantive, as the Latin nouns in io, &c, which do not involve the notion of time. 4. Infinitives (commonly called infinitive moods), which agree with the former, except that they may involve the notion of
3.
time.
It happens,
indeed,
in
most languages, that
distinct forms are
four classes of nouns, or that the forms are Thus, " he learns to sing" or " he reciprocally used for each other. learns singing" are used in English indifferently ; and so " he learns singing," and " he is singing," are equally consistent with our idiom.
wanting
for
some of these
279. I have thought it necessary to dwell the longer on the consideration of the infinitive, because, in excluding it not only from the moods but from the verbs, I certainly deviate, more than I am generally disposed to do, from the path pursued by the great majority of grammatical writers. Yet this deviation is justified by high authority ;
for
ffjjj
many
:
of the ancients (and those, as
Hams
says,
" the best gram-
have called the infinitive ovofia prjfiaTiKov, or ovofia and with these agrees Priscian, in the following passage, pyj/jLctroQ " a constructione quoque vim rei verborum, id est, nominis, quod significant ipsam rem, habere infinitivum possumus dignoscere." " From the construction, too, we may perceive, that the infinitive has the force of the thing of the verb, that is to say of the noun, which signifies the thing itself." What is here called the thing of the verb, is what I have called the conception of an attribute, the mere name of which is a noun. Thus, "I die" expresses the conception of dying, but it not only names that conception, it asserts the thing to exist, with reference to a certain person; whereas "to die" expresses the conception, that is to say, names the thing, and does nothing more it does not manifest the existence of the thing as an object either of it does not assert that any person is dying, or perception or volition
marians")
;
42
OF VERBS.
[CHAP.
it
IX.
has died, or will die, or

conditionally.
may
die
neither does
assertion, the
evince any desire

or what-
that such an event should occur, or the contrary, either positively or
" Take away the
command,
ever else gives a character to any one of the other modes," says So, Harris, " and there remains nothing more than the infinitive." I sav, take away from the other modes whatever gives them the
Whether we call this verbal character, and there remains the noun. noun a verbal noun, or a participial noun, or simply an infinitive, is
immaterial
;
provided
we
clearly understand, that
it
belongs not to
nature does not
to die,
the class of verbs, but to that of nouns, and that
its
depend on
dying,
Tene.
its all
may
form ; since, be used as
in English, the
infinitives
;
words
death,
and
and,
when
so used, are gene-
each other, with little or no change of meaning. 230. As I consider moods to arise out of the most essential property of the verb, namely assertion, so I consider Tenses to arise out of the next essential property of the verb, namely connection. The English word tense is merely a corrupt pronunciation of the old French temps, as that was of the Latin tetnpus, time. Now, if a word be meant expressly to assert the connection of a substance with its attribute, or of a species with its genus, that word must implicitly
rally convertible into
assert the existence of the things connected. In order, therefore, to understand the connection, we must begin, as Harris judiciously does, by considering existence according as it is mutable or immutable. I am well aware that certain self-styled philosophers hold that there is DO such thing as immutable existence. They conceive that nun's
minds are made up, as their bodies are, of a sort of small dust, which is perpetually whirling ulxmt, and taking various forms and arrangements, some Of* which it may please a man to call true, and others false that this distinction, however, is a mere delusion of the
;
individual's mind, mantis gratissimus error

his notions,
that
when
the
man
dies,
and their falsehood, their wisdom and their tolly, !] die with him; and though some truths wear better than others, ;md keep in fashion fbf twenty or thirty centuries, while the part of our notions do not last longer than the small ephemeral Oti of the Nile, y,| that in the end t.he\ all .sink into one common
their truth
Lathe
nnimiu QjaftVl alt.ia

i
(fcfto
'.or|Htm ilcln'iitur.
Tl ppoeite philosophy to this, although stigmatized as " a raeta< physical ju-oii and a false nioralitv, which can only he dissipated by
iuoIo
,"
I'.-.-l
m;.
.If
>nst
rained to adopt, from the utter rcpugi
m.e of
the former to
t-.
inn
I
rt cannol con.. [?i on. of Intellection and science are mutable in any possibl in any Imaginable conjuncture of circumstai
mj
faculty "i
eamol
.
'\dl lx),
'. believe that in a square the diagonal ever was, These msuraUe with f the sides. Or Can be, COI magnitude-, me not iik-< hiiiik-ii .uraUe because Kinlid happened to
CHAP. IX.]
OF VERBS.
143
think so, or because his doctrine on the subject has prevailed for Their incommensurability is a truth as above two thousand years. independent of that lapse of time, as any two things can possibly be The opposite to it cannot be conceived by the human of each other. The existence of this truth, therefore, is justly styled immind.
mutable. 281. Of such immutable existence the Present tense is usually Pre*"', considered the proper exponent, because, in most languages, it is among the simplest forms of the verb, and in particular has no disThere is no reason, a priori, that there tinct mark of time about it. should not be a separate inflection of the verb to distinguish perpetual, absolute, immutable existence, from that which is predicated with reference to some certain time but as no language, that I know of, has adopted any such form, and as absolute existence is naturally contemplated under the form of a time perpetually present, I regard the expression of immutable existence as one of the uses of the present
;
tense.
The
other use of the present tense depends
on the nature of
time.
mutable existence.
therefore,
Now, mutable
them
objects exist in
is,
When,
we
declare
to exist, that
whenever we employ a
verb active, or passive, or neuter, we must declare them to exist in some time. But time is distinguishable as to its periods into present,
past, and future; and as to and though the present, from
its
continuity into perfect or imperfect:
and positive, and with relation From these sources, and from the differences to some different time. of mood already noticed, may be derived all the tenses, which appear
its naftire,
must be
definite
yet the other
two periods may be
stated indefinitely
in use, in different
languages.
And
first,
;
as to the present, considered

it is
as marking a
certain portion
of time
manifest that
we may
consider as present to us a greater or less portion of time.

;
on continuously, and has in itself no stops or periods dwells on certain portions, and gives them a distinct expression in language. The names of these portions are various, as an age, a year, a day, an hour, a moment but it has been wel! shown by Mr. Harris that the present time, strictly speaking, is not cognizable by any
;
Time flows but the mind
human
faculty
for
it is
Like the lightning, which doth cease to be, Ere one can say it lightens.
" Let us suppose," says
he,
for
example, the
lines
AB
BC
."

144
"
I say,
OF VERBS.
that the point B,
[CHAP. IX.
is the end of the line AB, and the beginning BC to repreIn the same manner let us suppose sent certain times, and let B be a now, or instant, which they include the first of them is necessarily past time, as being previous to it ; the
of the
line
BC.
AB
other
is
necessarily
future,
as being subsequent."
cludes, that time present has at best but a
Hence he conshadowy and imaginative
existence
that sensible existence

will, doubtless,
and, of course, as sensation refers only to time present, is itself altogether imperceptible, eluding the
steady grasp of thought, and approaching to absolute nonentity.
appear strange to the

is
modem
;
philosophers,
that sensible existence

consider
fasten
it
the only existence
but
let
This hold them meditate
who
let
on what they mean by the words now, or
instant, or
moment ;
;
them
how difficult it is to arrest the fleeting progress of time, and down to the periods indicated by those terms and they will,
perhaps, perceive that their notions are not quite so clear as they have hitherto fondly imagined.
diagram the perfect present is that moment, I open my eves and I contemplate, at one view, a large theatre crowded with numerous happy faces, with splendour and beauty, with the diversities of age, and sex, and condition, with mirth and gravity, and all the passions, which, though not meant to "be brought into public, could pot entirely be thrown off and left at home, like an unvalued garment. Or, perchance, I am on a proud hill-top, from whence, at one glimpse* I behold mountains and valleys spread in rich perspective before me, with the near cottages, and the distant town, and, beyond all, tbfl remote and buy OC6M1. I see the variegated foliage, and the ripening corn, the clouds of heaven sailing high in air, the rustics at their labour, and the little vagrant boy picking daisies at in\ feet, and Without any time for reflection, wiihout delighting in his idleness.
that in the above
correctly indicated
We will assume,
by the point B.
At
a thought of the successive action of the machinery in this grand landscape, say, " />-" .-ill tins, at the present moment, and I
1
enunciate
it 1
in
the present tense perfect.
wish to express a continuous action, if, for instance, I mean to describe myself as remaining for some time in font cm plat ion of the described, am compelled to change my expression, and say " I am to adopt the preaanl tense impn-fiKt. In thai case,
But
if
contemplating,' "I am beholding:" and the diagram before drawn will not thru so well express the time intended to be described tht following one;
\
c
CHAP.
IX.
OF VERBS.
145
Here, the present time, designated by the letter B, extends indefinitely and C, embracing a segment, the whole of which is viewed by the mind as being at once present to its contemplation, though without any definite boundary on either side. The English language easily distinguishes this sort of present tense from the other, by the use of the verb to be and the participle present ; but in most other languages the present perfect and the present imperfect have one and the same form, and can only be distinguished by the context. have seen that the present imperfect implies something of 282. the past, and something of the future. Modern philosophy is very well satisfied to pass over all the difficulties which occur in regard to the nature of time. are told, " that we have our notion of succession and duration from this original, viz., from reflection on the train of ideas which we find to appear one after another in our own minds," and that " time is duration set out by measures." This is surelv anything but reasoning. First, it is assumed that there is a train of ideas which constantly succeed each other in every man's understanding. Each of these ideas, then, must either occupy an indi visible point of time, or it must have some distinguishable duration. In the former case I cannot at all understand how reflection on many indivisible points should afford me the notion of any continuous quantity. In
toward
We
IV
t,
We
the latter case there
would be no occasion
to reflect
on a
train
for
the reflection on a single idea would present to
me
the notion of
duration in
in train ?
itself. But what are these ideas Are they all of equal duration ?
and how do they march If so, or if not, what is
it that determines the duration of each ? Is it not the voluntary act of the mind ? Again is there no interval in the train ? On the hypothesis above stated, it would seem that before a man could have any notion of duration, and consequently of time, he must have formed
own mind thoughts of a certain duration ; these thoughts must have succeeded each other in a distinguishable order, he must have been fully aware of that succession, and he must afterwards have made it the subject of reflection. But this statement is absurd for on what is he to reflect ? On a succession which would not present
in his
;
any
instance
it involved that notion in the first nor would the succession of any two or more ideas produce a notion of duration if the thoughts themselves, or the interval between them, did not involve it. The truth is, that the idea of duration, or time, is not to be made up out of any other elements, but is an original law, and first element of thought in the human nind. perceive duration of time just as we perceive extension
;
notion of duration unless
We
>f space,
f/e
because it is one of the necessary forms under which alone can contemplate existence. Whilst we are contemplating the ndivisible moment which constitutes the perfect present it has alreadv nelted into the imperfect present; and if we attempt to seize it igain, it has already become the past its distinction is then fully
:
2.

^q
marked
;
OF VERBS.
CEAP. EX.
us for the past is presented to

its
by memory,
as the present
is
^^TpasThas
definite and perfect and its imperfect, its may speak of an action which and its relative. finite i positive minute; at a given hour, and a given v s nerfoLed on a given dav, P of the first shot winch leapinl into the Rubicon, or
its
inde-
We
rof
.
Ss
waffireH
the
commencement of
the thirty years'
war: or we may
an action in ;l k I we refer. Thus the anaentarbste going on at the time to which that hey d d with the vovdfaciebat, to indicate h ribed their works bad finished and perfect, but that they not put them out of hand, as P them and would have earned ?oVsome time engaged in making btn had tame and c.reumstance , their attempts toward perfection, Heautontimorumenos, describing wrmi t,d. Thus, too, Svrus, in the Antiphila and her servants employed, Ihe work o which he found
says
otlondnnus Texentem telam studiose ipsam
,
winch was which a person was occupied and
,.
Anus
:
Subtemen nebat
Erat
:
pnetcrea una ancillula

fixing the
ea texebat una.
Again,
we may speak
happened, as
of the past time
definitely,
epoch
when
it
That day he overcame the Nevvii.

is past, act of which we are speaking indifirMy, declaring that the of its performance was near b| the time 1,. n,.r ascertaining Whether
distant; as
Thou
.-
and the* so,,,, time preceding the present; it, ores peal al distinguished as pos.t n, nu\ rdoti* t..:.s, ,v |., reciprocally ; w
,
i
That ever
man art tho ruins of the noblest livrd in the tide of times.
past time
nay be
mentioned simply as past
at
thepreseu
Tims,
in
the positive,
!
Macbeth says
/,,
Is fallen into the
UN,
'
" ,v **1 "' hl DOOgll the yellow leaf.
''
LUL
HrtV.S
Tlll
.
(1
odant
,
spirit),
in
the
Masque
<
thsntboohto
/
|
\.
//.
,
.
ii.,
,.,.,
ittppn on thi saVrj borb

\s -1..-
.I.
|..,M.t,Hl.|
Were
III
told,
Mite
me down
I"
watch.
In
,l.
past time axis*

is
,,
sS
)
.
the nature
oi
exists! memory, so the man, or be would beûnaUeJ
F^
nl lva,..;,
stolm,
i
fduratron
oi
may be suppo.
the
being which had only the perception
present*
coi
irui, to oder that oonosption operative and u v
CHAP.
IX.]
OF VERBS.
147
ven it into an accurate idea of time, it is necessary that the notion It is a mistake to say that the of futurity should be superadded. present impression is distinguished from the memory of what is past
by
superior vividness and strength.

Pass by us, like Which we regard not
It often
happens that things
present
the idle wind
whilst objects of
Hamlet, we think
memory so fully occupy our attention, that, like we see them " in the mind's eye." Still we see
faculties) not as present,
them (whilst we possess our reasoning

the future, as such,
others.
but
as past, with a specific difference of perception.
The
perception of
is also specifically different from either of the Reason and reflection alone could not explain to us the necessity of such a distinction, because it is an element of reason, so It would be far as that faculty applies to events occurring in time. as correct to say, that by reasoning on the nature of light and colours, we come to discover the sensations of red and green, as to say, that by reasoning on duration, we come to discover that there is a past, a When we treat of these portions of time, we present, and a future. for as time treat of them with reference to some particular moment is perpetually flowing on, that which was future yesterday is to-day The present, and that which was present yesterday is to-day past. particular moment which thus characterises the time, is that in which
;
is addressing himself to his hearers or readers. have seen, however, that that moment is not always referred to as indivisible, but sometimes as capable of extension and indefinite continuance. So it was observed to be in the present and past ; and so it is in the future. person may say, " I shall mount my horse ;" and he may say, " I sliall be an hour riding from London to Richmond." In the former instance the tense may be called the future perfect ; in the latter the future imperfect. Again, the future may be definite as, " I shall mount at six o'clock ;" or, indefinite, as " I shall ride
the speaker or writer
We
some time
that
is, it
in the course
may be
is
of the day." * Lastly, the act may be positive, considered only as future at the moment of speakall
ing (which
the case with
the preceding examples), or

till
it
may be
relative, considering
the act as not to take place
alter
some other
which
my
is also future. Thus, a person may say, " I shall have mounted horse before the clock has struck ;" or " I shall have been riding an
hour when I reach the next milestone." 284. These distinctions refer properly to time.
which
refer to the contingency of the act, or to its frequency

;
There are others and
other di
habitual performance
these
seem
to
draw
their distinctive character
* In our English idiom, the verbs " I shall mount," and " I shall ride," appear, in these instances, to be equally definite, and the indefinite character of the latter is only to be collected from the context but possibly in some other languages tare may be a formal as well as a substantial difference of tense, answering to this
;
distinction.
148
OF VERBS.
[CHAP. IX
from the mood, or kind of verb, and, therefore,

so
may be deemed no
named.
much
tenses as modifications of the tenses already
Some
to thos to begii
what more of doubt may, perhaps, be allowable with respect forms of speech which imply either the immediate intention
an
to
act, or its recent
completion.
class
Of
the
first class
are " I
am abou
write,"
"
was beginning
to write,"
d'ecrire,
and of the second

veneris d'ecrire,
Je viens
" I had just written ;" Yet though these forms of speech serve to marl given periods of time, and therefore may be called tenses, they als seem to go somewhat further, by including other notions not strictl; At all events, there must be a limit to the corn referable to time.
" I shall begin to write " I have just written ;" J "Effo/nat yeypcKp&g, " I shal
have done writing."
binations,
which
it
are distinguished
as tenses.
Time
is
capable
in all
c
it
endless divisions, and language

ramifications, if
would be
infinitely
minute
provided a separate inflection for all those separat It is true, that idioms vary in nothin more than in the varieties of tense for which they provide. Som languages are very meagre in this respect, others luxuriant; some ar strictly confined to differences of time, others mix up, with these, Thus the English language marks variety of other considerations. distinction unknown, I believe, to any other language, between th and what is remarkable future of choice and the future of necessity " that distinction varies with the different persons of the tense. shall go" implies no particular volition, nor indeed anything but th
modifications of thought.
:
certainty of the event.
"
the other hand,
'
you
will
I will go" implies absolute volition. O go" implies no volition of any person, bu
" you
proof
shall
go"
implies the volition of the speaker.

nicety
It
is
a strikin
i
how much
and
difficulty there
is
in the
peculiar use
the tenses of verbs, that scarcely a single Scottish writer, howevt eminent, will be found to have accurately observed the distinctions c
" >haU" and " will" throughout all his compositions. The reason if have from infancy become accustomed the Scottish idiom, and idiom is much Lett a matter of reasoning tha critical examination of the idioms regarded as moi of habit. elegant, will show them to abound with the same pleonasms an nly considered as marks of rusticity in th ellipses, which are com m 'u., <>l the c< minion people. Th* English idiom above- mentions It. refers primarily to the wi h<iw\er, of very simple explication. It, therefore, he says " I will," it is to lie understoo of the speaker. that, to tar 88 hi* power extends, the action is to be perfor d bu it he says " I shall," inasmuch as he indicates no volition of his owl t-> be inferred but the futurit.) <>l the action. nothin further Agnir ity he .u " you shall go," he " shall go," he intiinati it fi; /i./// is that in which is necessary, and must, -iii.il h<limn the iMaso-diitliic shit* Hilt tin tltttft, OOght tO be d in
that the writers in question
t
I,
ifl
.1
8w Juniua ad vonem.
Alo Wachter, tohuld, toktUtg.

CHAP. IX.]
necessity, being declared
OF VERBS.
149
relates to his will alone.
by the speaker,
It is
Thus, in Coriolanus
Sicinius.
mind
it is,
That shall remain a poison where Not poison any farther.

Coriolanus. Shall remain ?
Hear you
this Triton of the
minnows
Mark you
His absolute shall i
On the other hand, when the speaker says " you will go," " he will go," he intimates no will of his own ; and, therefore, nothing is underThe proper force and eflect, stood but the futurity of the action.
therefore, of the
1.
two English
t.
futures
may be
t.
thus expressed
e.,
Future compulsory.
shalt go,"
e., it is
i.
" I will go,"
it
is
my
will to go.
" Thou
go,"
2.
e., it is
my
will to
my will to compel thee to go. compel him to go.

" I shall go,"
t.
"
He
shall
Future not compulsory.
compelling
there
is
me
to go, independently of
my will.
e., there is some cause " Thou wilt go," i. e.,
some cause compelling thee to go, independently of my will. i. e., there is some cause compelling him to go, indeThe same reasoning applies to the plural pendently of my will. number as to the singular; and, consequently, "we will go," "ye and shall go," " they shall go," belong to the first kind of future
"
He
will go,"
we shall go," " ye will go," " they will go," belong to the second. What I have here called the future compulsory has sometimes a
merely permissive force, sometimes a promissive, and sometimes it is used in the manner of an imperative mood, as " Thou shalt not steal," " Thou shalt do no murder," for " steal not," " murder not ;" and this
idiom
"
Ye
found both hi the Greek and Latin "Eo-tcflt ovv vpelg riXaoi, be therefore perfect, i. e., Be ye therefore perfect, St. Matt, ch. v. v. 48. And so Horace Inter cuncta, leges, et percunctabere doctos. Lib. i. Epist. 18. But though various circumstances, of the nature of those which have been already pointed out, do, in fact, enter into the composition of tenses in various languages yet they do not properly belong to the scientific division of tenses in Universal Grammar, which ought to regard only distinctions of time, and not these beyond a certain degree of minuteness and complexity. Where the divisions of time are very minute or complex, their expression rather forms a sentence than a word. It is something more than the mind can easily grasp or communicate in one combined form ; and which, therefore, to be understood, requires to be analysed into different words. In a subject which has undergone such various treatment by grammarians, as the distribution of tenses, I am far from arrogating to my own method any very superior merit still less do I recommend the name which I have given to each tense as the best calculated to express its distinctive character. Instead of the perfect and imperfect, some writers use the terms absolute and continuous ; and those tenses which I
is
:
shall
; ;
150
Lave called positive and
Harris's
OF VERBS.
[CIIAP. IX
scheme.
relative, correspond nearly with the perfectun and the plusquam perfectum, the fulurum, and paulo-post futurum. 285. The arrangement proposed by the learned Mr. Harris, thougl differing considerably from that which I have suggested, is, I mas' acknowledge, entitled to great attention and, therefore, without going into all his reasonings in favour of it (contained in the 7 th chapter o the 1st book of Hermes), I think it right to state its general outline. " Tenses," he observes, " are used to mark present, past, ant future time, either indefinitely, without reference to any beginning middle, or end or else definitely, in reference to such distinctions.
: ;
" If indefinitely, then have
we
three tenses, called aorists (so callec
from the Greek aopiarov, undefined, or unlimited), viz., an aorist of tin present, an aorist of the past, and an aorist of the future. " If definitely, then have we nine other tenses, viz., three to marl the beginnings of the present, past, and future respectively, three U. denote their middles, and three to denote their ends.
" The three
first
of these nine tenses
we
call the inceptive
present
the inceptive past, and the inceptive future: the three next the rniddh present, the middle past, and the middle future ; and the three last tin
completive present, the completive past, and the completive future. " And thus there are in all twelve tenses, of which three denotl time absolutely, and nine denote time under its respective distinc
tions."
1.
Denoting time absolutely and

1
indefinitely
Aorist of the present, ypa<f>u>, scrilx), I write 2. Aorist of the past, typaxpa, scripsi, I wrote shall write. 3. Aorist of the future, ypu^tj, scribam,
I
2.
Denoting time under the respective distinctions of iuceptioa

continuity,
1.
and completion.
Denoting inception:
1.
Inceptive present,
piWut ypaûv,
scripturus sum,
an
about to write
2.
Inceptive
past,
ifiiWoy yputyav, scripturus tram,

to write
;
was beginning
.'i.
Inceptive future, piXM/trui
ypafny,
scrijiturus cro,
shall le In-ginning to write.
2.
Denoting continuance 1. I xi ended present, Tvyyavu yputywv,

:
scribo, or scribeiu
sum,
2.
am
I
writing;
Extended
MOM,
'le<|
past, typu<f><>y, or ua-, wilting;
irvy^nyov ypwpMr,
I
tOfi
future, i/Tn/uti ypaiftm; scrihem fro,
-hall 1m
\\l:t
completion
1.
Coinpleofi
|'ic
a -Hi,
yiyp<i<f>a, scripsi,
have written;
CHAP.
IX.]
OF VERBS.
151
2. Completive past, lyeypafeiv, scripseram, I had done
writing
Completive future, toopai ytypatyuc;, scripsero, I shall have done writing. Whatever arrangement we adopt, we shall certainly not find it for while tome b*V gfldftt fully followed out in many languages
3.
;
varieties of inflection or construction to express the different times,
others have fewer; and yet it may happen that the idiom, which upon the whole is the least rich in tenses, is more minute than all the
others in
some one
particular distinction.
the combination of tense with mood, much judicious Connection oi criticism is to be found in various grammarians, and particularly in *w.*' the work last quoted, the Hermes of Mr. Harris, who has collected
286.
On
not only his
own
observations, but those of the philosophers of suc-
cessive ages: for the pure science of Universal
Grammar rests on a knowledge of the operations of the human mind which (so far at least as regards the intellectual powers) were profoundly investigated, and ably explained, both by Greek and Roman grammarians. Those learned men were not only conversant with the intellectual philosophy of their time, but were themselves philosophers of no mean rank. Such a person was Apollonius of Alexandria, surnamed Ai/irroXof, or " the difficult," whose four books irept ^vvrditwc, * on Syntax," are considered to be the most philosophical of any extant on the Greek language. He himself says he composed them, pera iraarfg aKpifitiag, " with all possible accuracy." Priscian, who professes to make him his chief guide, says of his dissertations, Quid Apolbnii scrupulosis
;
qucestionibus enucleatius possit inveniri?
The
celebrated
Theodore
Gaza confesses that he owes to him almost everything. The learned Thomas Linacer follows him, as it were, step by step. And lastly, Harris, who quotes him liberally throughout the whole of Hermes,
declares
him
to
the subject of
be " one of the acutest authors that ever wrote on Grammar." In thus tracing the literary genealogy of
I at
grammatical authorities,
once prove their present
title
to respect,
and show that it could not have subsisted through so many centuries, if it had not been originally founded on superior talent and ability. When, therefore, I find an author like Apollonius employing much learning on the illustration of the tenses, and their combination with the different moods, I cannot be persuaded that such speculations are wholly trifling or useless to those who would obtain a perfect acquaintance with the science of Grammar. Now Apollonius, observing on the connection above noticed between the future tense and the imperative mood, satisfactorily explains why in most languages there The reason is not a distinct form for the future tense of that mood.
that all imperatives are in their nature futures ; for thus argues Apollonius 'E7ri yap u?j yivoueVoic V /^'i yiyovoaiv j; IIpo <7raic* ra Se pi) yivupeva i) fit] ytyovora, 7rir?/3iorr/ra dz t.ôvra tiQ to " command has respect to those things icrtadai, MiWovtoq tan.
is
:
[CHAP. IX.
lo2
OF VERBS.
either are not doing or
which
things which being not

tain to the future."
now
have not yet been done. But those doing, or having not yet been done, have
a natural aptitude to exist hereafter,
may
be properly said to apper-
And
again, he says, "A7rovra ra irpoaraicTtica
eyKtiîivqv t\ti Ttjv rov fiiWovTog Siadsaty

to, 6
0"%eSdy "yap iv
"iijui
tari
TvpavyoKrovnaaq
ti]
rifiacrdw,
rw
TifiTjOrjaerat,
Kara
tijv
%povov
batXtotl fanWaÔQ, Kcido to /xtv TrpotTTCtKTiKoy, to 2 " All imperatives have a disposition within them which regards the future. With regard to time, therefore, it is the same thing to say, Let him that kills a tyrant be honoured, as to say, He that kills a tyrant shall be honoured; the difference being only in the mood, inasmuch as the one is imperative, the other indicative.'' So Priscian shows the connection of the imperative with the future. "Imperativus verb prcesens etfuturum (tempus) naturali quudam neces-
ivvoiay'
opicrriKoy.
sitate videtur
posse accipere.
fieri,
Ea
enim imperamus, quo?
vel in prceserdi
statim volumus
sine aliqud dilatione, vel in futuro."
" The im-
perative
(mood) seems
to receive the present
ceitain natural necessity; for,
we
and future (tenses) by a command those things which we
wish to be done, either immediately at present, without any delay, or

in future."
the imperative
From this reasoning, it is plain that the present tense of mood is a present inceptive, looking necessarily to a
;
continuance or completion in futurity. It expresses on the part of the speaker a present will but on the part of the person addressed a future act and that futurity may either begin from the moment of speaking, or at a more distant period, Thnt, when Lear cautions Kent not to interfere between him and
:
his anger to Cordelia, the will
and the act are closely conjoined

the dragon and his wrath
!
Come not between
tin-
But when he imprecates curses on his unnatural and cruel daughters, object of hie prayer le one which cannot take effect till long afterwards, and which may continue for a course of years:
i
If she
must teem,
it
her child
t>f
spleen, that
in IJ
liT*
And
In-
a thwart, diMiatur'd
torment to her;
<
Let it stump wrinklei on her hrow ot' youth, With eadcnl kMTt/M channels in h hvelu, ill Ipt uiothor'n p&ini and benefit* To laughter and outempt.
which may be connected with Not is it only the bnjx'rntive m a faturt time. Voestal bat tbearied, that what is commonly called tlii- present conjunctive lias tome instJinces a future import; as, Ifl
1
when Cm
one of nil epi il.-s tu A i.iis, " f.'sl mihi pnr'' (!' tjtui utinam iilii/windo tecum h/iuir." ular r.as.in fur toying bere, concerning w lii.ii bope ime time or other talk to you ;" where utinam loouat, " 1 hope
.to
K i\ h,
in
ui,i
manendi;
may
talk,"
i<
lit.-, entirely
t" i future time.

I
It
ii
needle
bere to
critics
follow the numerous and minute remurl
of
many leaned
on

CHAP. IX.]
OF VERBS.
153
the mixed or variable times which are expressed by all the conSuffice it to say, that the combination of any mood junctive tenses. which implies contingency or futurity, with a tense, referring to present or past time, must necessarily affect the expression of time, and, consequently, that in this respect, the tenses of the indicative
from the analogous tenses in any other mood. As, thereterm gender, originally used to express the mere distinction of sex, has been applied in use to distinguish large cl; of words from each other, with reference only to their terminations so in verbs the word Tense, originally meaning the expression of time alone, has been also used in most grammars to express that concep-
must
differ
fore, in nouns, the
tion in combination with the others
above noticed.
Person,
the remaining essential property of the verb, namely, the expression of Attribute, arises the necessity for a distinction of Person; for every attribute must relate to a subject of the first,
287.
From
may say in Latin M ye arm, amamus, amatis, amant, or in English " I love," " we love," love," " they love ;" but it is manifest that though in the examples cited from the latter language the form remains unchanged, the sigThe difference of person, nification is alike varied in both languages. it pecutherefore, in point of form, is merely accidental to the verb liarly belongs to the pronoun, and has been sufficiently explained in In many languages, the person of the treating of that part of speech. This is uniververb is necessarily expressed by a separate pronoun. sally the case in the Chinese, for the verb being alike in all the persons, it would be impossible to distinguish one from the other without the addition of some other word. The three persons singular of the present tense run thus Ngo Ngai, I love ; Ni Ngai, Thou lovest Ta Ngai, He loves. And the same occurs in the other tenses, and in the plural number.
: :
second, or third person, as above distinguished. may or may not be altered on this account.
The form of the verb
We
In English
we
find
it
partially the case
for
though
in the singular
have three distinctions of person in the present, as " I love," " thou lovest," " he loves," and two in the past, as " I loved," " thou lovedst," yet in all other parts (with the exception of the irregular to be) the verb remains unaltered. Nor does this arise from any peculiarity in the original genius of our language, for the more ancient dialects, from which it is derived, abounded with personal terminations. Now these terminations, as will be shown hereafter, were, in their origin, nothing more than the pronouns themselves, which, in process of time, coalesced with the expression of attribute, connection, assertion, and time, and so formed words, signifying at once all these fifierent circumstances, together with the additional distinction of
we
oerson.
288.
Some
verbs are called impersonal, a
name which
only seems
impersonate.
154
to
OF VERBS.
[CHAP.
mean
that they are not usually conjugated with distinction of ]X
sons, but remain always in the
form of the third person.
If they hi
no other peculiarity than that from which their name is derived, might not be necessary to notice them in a treatise on Univers Grammar but, in truth, they are constructed on a principle differe from that which has been already explained in reference to torso The impersonals are of two kinds, active and neuter. By active mean those which require an object, as " it grieves me," " it becom me," miseret me, decet me, &c. by neuter I mean those verbs of whi<
;
the action terminates in
itself,
as "
it
rains," "
il
it
snows," "
it is
hot
"
it is
cold
;"
the Latin pluit, the French
freddo, the German verb contains a mere assertion of the existence of the conception
fait chaud, the Italian In all these instances tl es donnert, esfriert, &c.
;
These verbs have been sometimes e does not indicate any agent. thus pudet plained as agreeing with a nominative implied in them said to be a verb agreeing with the implied nominative pudor, as the meaning were, " shame shames me;" but this is rather a form than a substantial explanation. Pudet in reality contains, and do not merely imply the noun pudor it expresses the same concept ion the noun, and asserts its existence. It is therefore rather of the natu of a verb substantive, than of a verb active and though, in son idioms, a nominative is expressed, yet in reality that nominative superfluous, or, at most, is only introduced to keep up the genei analog)' of the language. The nominative it in the English langaag and il in French, have no distinct reference to any conception. Tin If any one shun are pronouns, which do not stand for any noun.
:
say,
" It rains,"
is
we
if
cannot, as
in
the
common
case,
where
distill
nominative
only be
left
expressed, ask
"what
rains?" for the answer

is
it;
and
we were
then to ask, " what
won itf we must
Hence, in translation, the nominative it without any answer. often lost. do not say in Latin, Hoc phut nor in (Jreek, TOYT The proper notion of an impersonal verb, therefore, is, that )(pt).
We
assort, the existence of an action
without reference to
am
particul
Igent.
SumLi
289. The expression of XuiiiIht is another accidental property verb; and belong! to it only in so far as the verb may be col It is, therefore, like the san bined with the expression of person. prop rty in the adjective, a men! method of Connecting it in constru ti..n with the noun substantive, Of pronoun, w huh forms its nominativ does Accordingly, it applies to verbs in the same manner as
tinit.
novnea&d proooanst
u,
admit a dual number, as in Sanecri end Ovule, the verb admits the tame; when the] do not,
thej
When
Indeed, the matter could not w< has onh. a lingular and a plural. hM been ahead) stated, the personal tei uiiii.it ioi bfl uthtlWiH, il. le.dlv the pronouns themselve oftl with it. Tl
\eii, j, e.|ualiv said to i.e
m
,
tl,.
in. Mil.
ii
01
plural,
whether
dillerclit
il
his
ha. not ih
in-
termination
appropriated to those
numbed
; ; ;
CHAP.
IX.]
OF VERBS.
I
;
155
love" singular, and " we love" plural but it is manifest, such instances the expression of number exists only in the pronoun. These are questions of Particular Grammar all that can be laid down on the subject, as a rule of Universal Grammar, is, that as on the one hand there is nothing in the peculiar nature of the verb which involves the idea of number, so there is nothing in the idea of number which can prevent it from being combined with the verb, where the genius of the language permits such a union. 290. Since the verb, by means of its connection with the pronoun, Gwlr. admits person and number, there is no reason why it should not also admit Gender ; and, in fact, this distinction obtains in the Arabic, the Ethiopic, and some other languages. It is, however, rare and as gender properly belongs only to nouns, or pronouns substantive, with respect to which it has been already discussed, we need not here pursue the investigation.
we
call
"
that in
all
Some writers contend, that the verb, as expressing an attricapable of Comparison ; nor does it appear that this can be gainsaid, if we regard only the attributive nature of the verb. There are, indeed, certain attributes, as has been already observed, which are
291.
bute,
is
Comparison,
not intensive
neither can the assertive
and these of course cannot admit degrees of comparison power be compared for the verb must assert
:
a thing either to exist, or not to exist. On the other hand, verbs may be compounded with conceptions implying comparison, as " to outdo," " to overtake," subesse, superesse, &c. They may too, in
compared by means of the adverbs of comparison, more, but I am not aware that it has been attempted, &c. in any language, to combine in one and the same word the assertive power with the comparative. It is not easy to conceive any form of verb which in itself would express the degrees of comparison and the reason probably is, that though the mere qualities of substance may be simply intensive, yet actions are intensive in various modes, as well as in various degrees. Of different substances, concerning which whiteness can be predicated, some may be more and some less white but of different beings concerning which the act of walking may be predicated, all equally walk, though one walks more, another less one faster, another slower, &c. and so of mental action, several persons love, but one loves more warmly, another more violently, another more purely so that there is not in actions, as there is in qualities, a simple scale of elevation and depression and, consequently, the mere comparison of more and less would not answer all the purposes of language, as applied to the verb, though it does as applied to the adjective. For this reason participles, when they are compared, lose their participial power; for sapientior and potentior do not express acts, but habits, or fixed qualities, and therefore answer to the English adjectives " wiser," and " more powerful." 292. Thus have we seen, that though the proper force and effect of Conclusion, the verb that on which its peculiar character depends is assertion,
general, be
most,
less, least,
156
yet
it is
OF VERBS.
[CHAP. EC.
capable of combining therewith, and in fact it does so combine, not only the conception of attribute which Priscian calls the res of the verb, but the expression of mood, tense, person, number, and even " Observe," says the President Dks Brosses, " how, in one gender. single word, so loaded with accessory notions, everything is marked,
its member, and the analogical formulas are preserved throughout on the plan first laid down." Elsewhere he adds, " All this composition is the work, not of a deeply-meditated combination, nor of a well-reasoned philosophy, but of the metaphysics of instinct." The Goths, the Saxons, the Greeks, and the Latins, in forming the schemes of conjugation above noticed, were probably impelled by principles in the human mind, the very existence of which they hardly suspected. Similar principles have operated, but with endless diversity of application, in the formation of all the various dialects which have been spoken in ancient and modern times, by nations the most barbarous and the most civilized; and it is the development and explication of these ever-operative principles which forms the proper object of the science of Universal Grammar.
every notion has
; ;
157
CHAPTER
X.
OF ARTICLES.
of the principal parts of speech Auwwqry I come now to the accessories. 5û! The principal parts, as has been folly stated, are those which are necessary lor communicating thought in a simple sentence and the communication of thought requires the naming of some conception, and the assertion of its existence as an object either of perception or of volition. Conceptions are named by the noun : they are asserted to
vises
293.
Having
explained the
employed
in enunciative sentences,
exist by the verb ; but it often becomes desirable to modify either the name, or the assertion, or the union of both. How is this to be done ? Certain modifications may be incorporated with the noun by its cases, and numbers, and genders ; with the verb by its moods, tenses, and persons with the adjective by its degrees of comparison and with the participle, gerund, supine, and infinitive, by their marks
;
of time, relation, &c. The same, or similar effects, may be produced by separate words ; and what must those separate words be ? Nouns, or verbs, which, appearing in subordinate characters, are no longer to
be considered such as they were formerly. 294. wish to modify a conception ; how can we do it but by How modanother conception ? wish to modify an assertion ; how can we wS""'' do it but by another assertion ? It is therefore plain that the acces-
We
We
must have had originally the character of principals that must have been either nouns or verbs. This is a truth extremely obvious in itself, and of which many grammarians have been fully aware but there is another truth, which seems to have
;
sory words
is
to say, they
'been less apprehended, namely, that these subordinate and accessory words act as such a very different part from that which they sustained as principals in a sentence. The mind dwells on them more slightly
dhey express a more transient operation of the intellect. In process of ;time some of them come to lose their original meaning, and to be only significant as modifying other nouns and verbs. It cannot be denied that the words and, the, with, and the like, have no distinct meaning, at present, in our language, except that which depends on
their association and connection with other words. The etymologist imay succeed, or he may not succeed, in his attempts to trace these non-significant words to the significant words from which they are derived but whether he be successful or unsuccessful, the fact will be no less certain, that in their secondary use they lose their primary
;
character and signification

inferior parts
they are no longer nouns or verbs, but ; of speech, commonly termed articles, prepositions, con-
I08
junctions,
OF ARTICLES.
[cHAP. I
and adverbs, each of which
classes I shall
examine
in
it
order.
Howdesigrutted.
295. These inferior parts of speech have been called particles and, as such, are sometimes distinguished from words, and sometime To explain and accoun treated only as separate classes of words.
have given much trouble to many grammatical an< and after all, the subject has been often left a state of great confusion. Mr. Locke, in his second volume, has vague chapter on particles, from which it may be inferred that h considered nouns to be the names of thoughts, or, as he expresses it All other words serve, according to him, to connect ideas of ideas. The principal of these (which I call the verb) he calls the mark c and he says, " the words whereby the mini affirming or denying ies what connection it gives to the several affirmations and nega tions that it unites in one continued reasoning or narration are calta particles." Elsewhere he says of these particles, " they are not trul; by themselves names of any ideas ;" and again, " they arc all mark
for
them seems
to
philosophical writers
ii
of some action or intimation of t/ie mind, and therefore, to understate them rightly, the several views, postures, stands, turns, limitation! and exceptions, and several other t/ioughts of the mind, for which w have either none or very deficient names, are diligently to be studied.
The confusion which occurs in these passages between " ideas, " thoughts,'' and "actions or intimations of the mind," shows tha
Locke attached no distinct meaning to any of these words hut 80 la as they lead to a grammatical doctrine, it would seem that be cor Hoogeyckn speak ceived particles not to be derived from nouns. much more Intelligibly. He says, " /nirticidas in sud infant it) fuis>
;
vel verba, vel nomina, vel

t
ex nominibus formata adverbia."
" The
1
pat
rare, in their infancy, either verbs or nouns, or adverbs forma M Ipsa verb, QUATENUS PAKTICUL.K, per se sola spec from nouns." " They themselves, as particles, consider taUx, nihil significant." lose, Signify nothing." And again, in defining the particle, he sa\>
nl.-s
"The paj particulam esse voctdam, ex nomine vel verbo natam." Had Bli r a verb." word derived from s properly reflected on these passages, which he quotes ii.n Hoog'-wc-n, be WOUld have found them to contain all that was vah able in his own system, without, the errors into which he has lallei
'
1
1<
J.
The term
particle, indeed,
parte of speech;
ficatioi).
well chosen, to include the Inferto is n< nor do grammarians agree as to the extent of it Locks only describes it as including " prepositions IB)
.t
leaving
i
HssSMt of Words
..
fill
nonst,
."
and
II
to his reader's judgment to determin under thee/ OOftetXH bOAUGEB s;;; "/" modi tunt pnrpositiont's, conjundionei aliove, seems to list
it.
<
tn tha adverb) whilst other gramroarians include in the p all indeclinable words, and even the article, which in Greel
<i
nnneosasarj to adopt an) generic term
CHAP.
all
X.J
OF ARTICLES.
;
159
I
the accessorial parts of speech
nor do
deem
it
advisable to dis-
tribute
them
as Harris has done into

I shall,
definitives
and connectives.
which he names however, begin with the article,

classes,
two
which he arranges under the definitives. 296. The Article is a part of speech serving to reduce a noun sub- Vmottim ArtK e I have already stantive from a general to a particular signification.
"
observed, in speaking of nouns, that
by
far the greater pail
of them
must be what Mr. Locke
calls general terms, that is to say,
names
common
cannot give a distinct name to every distinct object that we perceive, nor to every distinct thought which passes through the mind nor are these thoughts, or even these objects, so entirely distinct to human conception as many perIf I see a horse to-day, and another horse sons are apt to imagine. to-morrow, the conceptions which I form of these different objects are The indeed different in some respects; but in others they agree. one horse may be black, and the other white; but they are both The word horse is a noun, exquadrupeds, both have hoofs, &c. pressing the conception which I form of all the points in which I This word, therefore, applies to a class of perceive them to agree. conceptions; but it is necessary that I should possess some means of expressing the individuals of that class. Now those means are af lorded by adding the article to the noun. To illustrate what I mean, let us take a general term for instance, the word man. The conception expressed by this word alone is one which exists in several oilier conceptions, as in that which is formed of "Peter," or of " James," or of "John." Peter, therefore, is a word expressing the general conception, " man," together with something peculiar to a certain individual ; and the same may be said of James and John but it must frequently happen that the proper name Peter, or James, or John, is unknown to us. How, then, are we to express our conception of either of them ? To each the term " man " belongs ; but it belongs to each equally and therefore it does not distinguish the individual from his class, nor one individual from another. If, therefore, we use this term "man," we must also employ some other means of showing that we mean by it this or that man or at least some one man, as distinguished from the conception of " man " in
to
many
conceptions.
We
;
general.
Now,
these
means
are afforded
by the
article
and thev
are afforded in
two
different
ways
we
either
speak of the general
term simply, as applicable to a general notion of individuality, or else with relation to some particular circumstance which we know belongs only to a certain individual. In the former case we may be said to enumerate, in the latter to demonstrate, the person or thing intended. In the one we say positively " a man," in the other we say relativelv
"
the
man."
articles.
297. Hence arise two classes of
They have been
called t
das**,
the indefinite and the definite ; but it has been justly observed by Harris that they both define, only the latter defines more perfectly
160
OF ARTICLES.
[CHAP.
X.
than the former. It would, perhaps, be more appropriate to call the one positive, and the other relative, or the one numeral, and the other demonstrative. I shall adopt the two first of these designations, merely for convenience ; but I consider the names by which it may be thought fit to designate the different classes of words, as comparatively unimportant. The most material object is to establish the
^j^^v
on clear and intelligible principles, 298. Grammarians have disputed whether the article be, or be not, a necessary part of speech. Before this question can be properly answered, it must be clearly stated. Mr. Tooke says, " in all languages there are only two sorts of words which are necessary for the communication of our thoughts and these are, 1. noun, and 2. verb;" and he adds, that he uses the words noun and verb " in their common
classification itself
;
acceptation."
It
would seem from

;
this,
that he
meant
to describe
the article as unnecessary
ibr in
common
acceptation
it is
certainly
not considered to be identical, either with the noun, or with the verb. However, he afterwards describes it as " necessary for the communication of thought," and even " denies its absence from the Latin, or from any other language." Those ancient writers who considered the
noun and the verb as the only,

syncategoremata, that
sitv,
is,
or, at least, as the principal
and more
the
its
distinguished parts of speech, either included the article
among
consignificant words, or else denied
neces-
and even
its
existence, in
some languages,
particularly in the
Noster sermo, says Quinctilian, Articulos non desukrat. Articulos intcgms in Articvlos, says Priscian, quibus nos caremus nostra non invenimus Lingua. And so Scaliger, Articulus nol>is nulla*, ra'cis superfluus. And Vossius, Articulum, quern Fabio teste From tin Latinus sermo non desiderat, imb, mejxulice, plane ignorat. authorities, and indeed from a very slight inspection of the language . is clear that the Latin had no separate words answering to it tin- articles (if the English and other languages; nor is it less clear,
Latin.
that the
Greek had only the
relative article 6,
.Mr.
//,
destitute of our positive article.

Inferring,
Tooke
is
to, and was entirely undoubtedly right '"
from the oeoeMtty of general terms, the necessity of the we thereby understand the necessity of some means to He is, however, Ipplj general terms to their individual instances. (mug in supposing that this purpose is always effected either by a distinct wool, or lv some prefix Of termination added to words: nor fanciful COUK NH <ii.HKi.iN less erroneous in asserting that the article was supplied in Latin by the termination v.r defined whether the in no manner what tin; termination
article;
if
:
word was
r.ite.l thf
to be taken in a
OHM,
else.
nothing
"the man"
\te
taken
in
It indimore or less general acceptation. number, and he grammatical gender; but it did Ilmim signified "Man" in general, or "a man," or en of and the termination aflbrded no help b< in which of these three senses the word was to any particular pa me. Thi| was to be discovered in
tfafl
'
: ;
CHAP.
Latin,
X.J
OF ARTICLES.
161
context.
If,
as in
some other languages, merely by the

question,
whether the article be necessary, mean whether a separate class of words performing the function of the article be necessary, it must be resolved in the negative because no such class is to be found in the Latin and some other languages. If, on the other hand, it mean whether in all languages there must be some mode of performing the function of the article, it must be answered affirmatively and this is a question which, as it relates to the operations of the Mind, properly falls within the scope of pure Grammatical Science. 299. Even though a particular language may have no class of imiinaMm words called articles, the persons speaking that language must cer- mdh'iduai!" tainly distinguish, in their conceptions, the general from the individual. In treating of the noun, I have already spoken of the different gradations of conception but it is necessary to advert again to the grounds
therefore,
the
The inattentive observer of external objects beforms are always impressed distinctly on the eye and that every superficies is bounded by a visible outline. more reflecting and more accurate philosophy teaches us, that even in contemplating the objects which we most admire, imagination does more than mere sensible impression toward supplying us with a knowledge of their forms ; and that, in a sense not merely poetical,
of this distinction.
lieves that their
We
half create the wondrous world
we
see.
In like manner, the inattentive observer of the operations of Mind, as they relate to language, is apt to suppose that all his thoughts or conceptions are definite and distinct; and, consequently, that the words which serve to name these thoughts are so too ; but this is far from being the case. Let us consider each of the three classes of conception before noticed, viz., the conception of a particular object, that of a general notion applicable to many particulars, and that of an
idea or universal truth.
The
perfectly definite.
No man
first and last of these are in themselves can have two distinct ideas of " virtue,"
considered absolutely and in the primary signification of the word and the same may be said of "squareness," "power," "duration," " space," " wisdom," &c., &c. In like manner we cannot have two
distinct conceptions of a particular person or thing, and, therefore,
when we know
its proper name, as " George," " Louis," " London," Paris," "Alexander," " Bucephalus," " Europe," "Guildhall," Skc,
&C, it is unnecessary to prefix thereto any other word for the sake of more clearly showing the individuality of our conception. Hence we see the reason why neither proper names nor universal terms do of
necessity require to be used with an article, either positive or relative. The idiom of a particular language may, indeed, sanction such a construction ; but this depends on separate considerations, to which 1
shall hereafter advert.
Generally speaking, such idioms as the following cannot be necessary to intelligibility in any lancmao-e " the
:
162
George reigns
in
OF ARTICLES.
the
[CHAP. X
i
London
General
terms.
England," or "a Guildhall is situated in produces a happiness ;" or " an Alexande aimed at the glory ;" and the reason is obvious, because it is no necessary to define or distinguish, in such sentences, one George fror another George, one England from another England, one virtue fror another virtue, &c. 300. But the remaining class of conceptions, though general i their nature, serve to communicate the greater part of our knowledg have often no other conception c respecting particular objects. the individual than that he belongs to such or such a species.
:"
or,
"
the virtue
We
only by his profession, the soldier only by his regit neni Hence the great use of general terms i the officer only by his rank. all languages; and hence, too, the necessity for individualizing then
know
the
man
either tacitly in the mind, or expressly in language.
When
this pre
call th;
cess of individualization
;
is
effected
by a separate word, we
Universal*.
word an article and thus we say, that it is necessary, in Englisl to add the article "a" or "the" to the general term "man," order to designate an individual of the human species. 301. It is to be observed, that, in a secondary sense, all words the other two classes may be considered and treated as general terms
i
i
ami, consequently,
may
them.
For,
first,
the idea expressed
require the use of the article to individuali/ by an universal term, such

I
"
virtue," " truth,"
and the
like,
may be
considered as existing sep;
rately in each subordinate conception of quality, action,

it is
&c,
in
whie
<
involved.
If
we speak
of virtue simply, as opposed to vice,
any other manner which regards the pure idea of virtue, withov any modification, it is an universal term which needs not. the aid
in
i
an article; but if we speak of those subordinate ideas, such n justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude, in each of which the hight idea of virtue is involved, as the conception of man is in the concer tion of Peter or John, we may consider the word virtue, in asecondaj sense, as applicable to each of them separately, and therefore ma And not only does this appl call each " a virtue," or " the virtue." to subordinate conceptions of the same kind and nature as the to others, in which that superior is e.|iiall HUjM'rior, but someti The o -eptioii of injustice is of the same kind and natui m\..l\.'d. The) are both ulcus, both universal, bof the corn ption of vice. regard t/wilitics of the mind; but the conception of an unjust actio both these ideas, and then partakes, though in | reinot.i d
or " a vice." ThosHamlat on Horatio's Haying that he is not acquainted with Osric, replies " Thy st.iN- i| BM more gracious, for 'tis a PJM to know him." An
oaflad
"an
injustice, "
...
|'..i
.inn.,
in
in
lli-
Duke
.i
to
wrest
the law
to his authority,
flfj
isTo
.|.i
/n'.it lijlil, ilo
a little vsrtmtj.
,
MTV
in
tin
oiid:ii\
I,
wnrd
1
as virtue
<
1
..'.ii'.
<.ui
be einplo\ei|
111
the
plural
and vici andhellC
CHAP. X.]
OF ARTICLES.
163
which unhappily
arises in all languages a vast class of general terms,
are but too often perverted in use.
The
:
agree with our conceptions of crimes
idea of crime does not always and we often find an opposition
honour and honours. 302. Secondly, a proper name, which, in its primary sense, desig- Proper nates only an individual man, may be made to stand for a conception nam**
rights,
between the notions of right and
common
ever
many other contrary it may be

to
individuals
because
is
to fact, that there
can suppose, howa class of men, each posall
we
sessing those qualities
and powers which make up
that
we know
of a certain individual. Thus the word Shakspkakk primarily means that wonderful poet who wrote Hamlet and the Midsummer Night's Dream, who could portray the characters of Othello and Falstaff, Richard II. and Hichard III., and who as much excelled every writer of his day in the sweetness and facility of his language, as he did in richness of imagination and in profound knowledge of the
another being so endowed to ; and yet we may suppose a whole club of such dramatists, like the " cluster of wits" in Queen Anne's time ; we may imagine one from every countrv under heaven; and therefore we may talk of "a French Shakspeare," or "a German Shakspeare," "the Shakspeare of Tennessee," or "the Shak speare of Timbuctoo." 303. The words which answer the purpose of individualizing Art-cie*
arise before the return of the fancied Platonic year
human
heart.
It is in vain to expect
general terms, in the
two modes above
described,
were
originally derive !,
pronominal adjectives. In some instances they have undergone a change of form, by becoming articles; in others, they remain unchanged. The French le and un, are the Latin ille and unus ; the English the and a are the Anglo-Saxon thcet and am. Hence, it is not surprising, that many grammarians comprehend, under a common
designation, the demonstrative
pronoun ami the article. Such was whom gave to both these kinds of words the common name of article, calling our pronoun the definite article; and our article, the indefinite article; whilst others considered both as pronouns, and only denominated our articles, articular " Articulis autem pronomina connumerantes" says Priscian, pronouns. ''finitos ea articulos appellabant ; ipsos autem articulos, infinitos articulos dicebant ; vel ut alii dicunt, articulos connumerabani pronomimbus, et articularia eos pronomina vocabant" 304. There are, however, some marked differences between the Difference pronominal adjective and the article, which may justify us in consi- a u dering the latter as a separate part of speech. In our own language, the same words which act as pronominal adjectives mav also be used substantively and, in particular, the words that and one, are sometunes to be considered as substantive pronouns, as when we say, " that which I love," " one whom I respect ;" but we cannot, in like manner, say, u the which I love," "a whom I respect." This distinction, however, depends on the idiom of the English language,
the doctrine of the Stoics,
some of
164
OF ARTICLES.
[CHAP. J
and, therefore, will not afford a discriminating characteristic betwee: the separate parts of speech in Universal Grammar. But the case i
when we consider the manner in which the pronomina and the article respectively affect the meaning of a genera They both individualize it but the article performs this func term. it marks som tion simply ; the pronominal adjective does more When we say special opposition between different individuals. "the man is good," there is no opposition implied in the word "the, although there may be in each of the other words. We may say, fo
different,
adjective
instance,
1.
2. 3.
" The man " The man " The man
is is
good good
; ;
is
good ;
but the boy is bad." but he teas bad." but he is not icise."
that
On
"
the contrary,
position to the other

that."
is
We
and
good," we imply no op but only to the won intimate not only that there is a particular individua
is
when we say "

words
man
in the sentence,
who
good, but also that there

is
This distinction
tives hie
strongly
as
ille;
is some other, who is not good marked in Latin by the pronominal adjec when Ovid says,
dissimiles
Hie
vir, et
Ille puer.
Where
article,
the English article the

its
is
used, the Latins,
who have no
adjective,
sue!
us<
do not supply the noun alone, as Blessed is the man

Beatus
vir,
place
by the pronominal
but
that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.
qui non abiit in consilio impiorum ; and not Jieatus ii/lk vir It is manifest, that the act of the Mind is very different in the twt Simply to individualize, is a more tranrim cases here spoken of. operation than to individualize and at the same time to contrast [fence, the word the is less susceptible of accentuation than the won
that.
It res
Called enclitic.
that
embles. In When
this respect, those
Greek pronouns which an

pronouns,
ii
the oblique cases of the personal
language, Were used by way of contradistinction, thev wen ly accented, and were called by Grammarians opQuTovoviitvai, Imt when they weiv merely subjoined to verbs, upfh/ht!// iirraitnl
;
without
any
emphasis
that
It,
I
being
0T
placed
on
them,
they
were
called
ii
'Ky*.\ir(t.<ii,
l<;iiiin i, :
inrlinin;/.
Thus
the Greeks had,
on,
\I,,
jiuv, 'K/ioi,
;
'K/u, for contradistinction, and Jliad
Moe,
th<
for enclitics
whence Apollonius proposes, instead of

tlio
common
u> njsjd
reading,
in
the beginning of
IU/~3
h
V
fi$]
Xurairt
llmiim
lain,
\fi)
XvrMiTt.
distinction Intended by the Poel argoes he, that between the weed 'Y/dy and "Euol and therefore the enclitic fuA in impiop. i. The principle in the human mind, which converts the
;
165
CHAP. X.}
OF ARTICLES.
desire of hastening
contradistinctive pronoun into an enclitic, is no other than the eager toward the object of its wishes
Semper ad eventum festinat
and the same principle it is, which converts the demonstrative pronoun into an article. Instead of " thTs horse," or " that horse," we say " the horse :" shortening the article in pronunciation, because we In the Anglo-Saxon language, dwell but little upon it in thought. the word thcet appears to have been shortened into the ; and we have
retained the longer
for our article.
word
for
our pronoun, whilst
we
use the shorter
305. Since it has appeared that some languages do not employ Notsuperseparate words to perform the office of the article, it may be thought that those words when so employed in any language are superfluous;
but
Articles add much to the clearness, this would be a great error. the strength, and the beauty of a language and to be perfectly furnished with them it is necessary to possess both positive and relative The Latin language had neither the Greek had only the articles.
:
latter of the
two
but most of the modern European languages have

;
It follows, that in this respect the Latin was less perfect than both. and the Greek, and the Greek than either the French or the English Scaliger was, therefore, wrong in denying the use of this part of speech altogether: Articulus, says he, nobis nvllus, et Greeds super-
fluus
and
his sarcasm
on the French nation was somewhat misap-
plied,
when he
called the article otiosum loquacissimce gentis instrur
mention.
306. Yet it must be allowed, that in many European languages, ^^jm" and in none more frequently than in the French, instances occur in which the article is employed superfluously. This circumstance is, for the most part, attributable to an elliptical mode of speech, which
is sufficiently
capricious.
In English,
we
generally prefix the relative
names of our rivers, but seldom to those of our mountains. We say, " the Thames," " the Tweed ;" i. e. the river Thames, the river Tweed but we never say a Thames, a Tweed nor do wo say the Snowdon, the Skiddaw or, a Snowdon, a Skiddaw. In French, the superfluous use of the relative article is very frequent but it is to be explained on the same principle of ellipsis. " llseroit a souhaiter," says Condillac, "qu'on supprimat Tarticle, toutes lesfois que les noms sont suffisamment determines par la nature de la chose, Mais la grande ou par les circonstances ; le discours en seroit plus vif. et ce n'est que habitude, que nous nous en sommesfaite, ne le permet pas
article to the
; ; ;
dans des proverbes plus anciens que cette habitude, que nous nous faissons On dit : Pauvrete nest pas rice, au lieu de dire, un hi de le svpprimer. La pauvrete n'est pas un vice." " It is to be wished that the article
were suppressed whenever the noun is sufficiently determined by the nature of the thing, or by the circumstances the style would thereby be rendered the more lively. But the great habit that we have ac;
166
quired of using
proverbs,
it,
OF ARTICLES.
;
["CHAP. X.
is onlv in old a rule of supinstead of saying. La
it
does not permit this change

this habit, that
and
more ancient than

it.
we make
pressing pauvrete
We say, Pauvrete nest pas vice, pas un vice." It is here to be observed, that the proverbial expression, which Condillac seems to recommend, is as much defective as the common expression which he blames is redundant. The article la before pauvrete' is superfluous, and originates in an ellipsis of some word answering to " state " or " condition " so that "the poverty," means "the condition of poverty:" but, on the other hand, the word "r?'ce," properly demands the article un; for it is not meant to deny that poverty is the idea of vice, which nobody would have asserted but to deny that poverty is one of those states which necessarily include the idea of vice. The most accurate and philosophical mode of expressing this sentence would therefore be, if the
n'est
;
;
idiom of the language permitted
it,
Pauvrete n'est pas un vice
answering exactly to the English idiom
in
such phrases.
employ the article redundantly with an universal term, and with the names of places, so the Italians employ it with the names of persons "II Tasso," "La Catalani," meaning "the famous poet Tasso," " the celebrated singer Catalani." It is obvious
the French often
:
As
Spriai evwrt.
that these expressions are to be accounted for on the same principle of ellipsis already explained. The article in all such cases does not in reality serve to modify the proper name expressed, but the general term understood. 307. Then- is a particular use of the relative article, with a general term, to which I have before alluded, but which, as it tends to individualize a general term in a peculiar manner, I must here mora
particularly notice.
their
Certain individuals, having obtained celebrity for

the poet,
peculiar excellences, have been denominated from this circumTroiT)T))c,

it
stance, as 6
means Homer;
b piiTtop,
the orator,
SeoXoyor, the theologian, St. (iregory Na/.ian/cn; 6 ytuyfHtifMic, the geographer, Stralio; & &UWVOVO<pl<nrjC, Athena us, ; author ot the wotk entitled "The Feast of the Sophists " hut this more than we daily practise, when we speak of "the king," "tin- queen," "the prmot regent," meaning the king of England, the
DemOftheneS;
quoit
in
and the prime regent of Knglaud just, as we hear narrow circles of society, of "the captain,'' " the doctor," " the parson," "the squire," &c., the particular applicawere, ly a common unis settled, as aoi which general
ol
Kn
laud,
private families and
<
it.
i|.
liiioii;>
tin-
pail
i
each
hi
i
ot
i
the
individuals
.
thus
honourahl) distinguished ha
hide sphere of
uliii/itu
i
elebritj
" Plurima
thritt."
PAnWM
liuiv he employed nouns Substantive, as pronouns substantive, or as pronouns ndI. ui the numeral cm:, when used as a pronoun adjective,
1
ha\e
In |.,ie ol,
,i\.i|
thai the A'ltliuTills

CHAP. X.]
OF ARTICLES.
167
approaches in signification so nearly to a positive article, that in languages which have no such article, it supplies the vacant place ; and in other languages the positive article is the numeral itself, only varied, and most commonly abbreviated, in pronunciation. In French, the numeral un, " one," is spelt in the same way as the article un, " a," or " an," but in the latter it is pronounced more slightly. In English the word has been not only abbreviated in point of quantity, but changed in articulation, from "one" to "a." The mental operaThe conception tion, however, is nearly the same in both instances. of one is expressed by the article a, not in opposition to that of two, three, or any other conception of number, but as distinguished from
all
In the Scottish dialect, the other individuals of the same class. ane was retained as an article to a late period thus Nicol Burne, in his "Disputation," A. D. 1581, says, " Tertullian provis, that Christ had ane treu body, and treu blude." And on the other hand, in the old English, the numeral pronoun one was sometimes abbreviated to
;
o,
as
we
read in Chaucer
Sithe thus of
two contraries
is
o lore
and so
in the
more ancient MS. Poem of the

He
Man in
;
the
Moon
hath his o foot his other to foren
but
(as
in
whereas the article a it was still accented as a separate word was before observed of the other article the) is passed over hastily pronunciation, as a mere prefix to the general term, which it serves
to individualize.
Again, the numeral one (like the relative that) is capable of being used alone, which the article a or an is not. may say, "one seeks fame, another riches, and a third, the wisest of ; the three, content " but if we use the article, we must add its sub" a man should seek content, rather than fame, or riches." stantive, as 309. It is unnecessary to enter into those distinctions of the article, other distlm tlons which do not coincide with the definition above given of this part of speech. Such is the distinction often found in the Greek gramma-
We
'
between the prepositive and subjunctive articles. The preposithe sub/, to, is what I have called the relative article junctive, viz. oe, /), u, is what I have called the subjunctive pronoun. The latter, it is manifest, has no effect whatever in individualizing a general term because it is only employed in a dependent sentence, with reference to a term which must have been individualized in the prior or leading sentence. The learned Hickks, in that valuable work the Thesaurus linguarum Septentrionalium, suggests that the AngloSaxon sum, which answers nearly to the Latin quidam, should be considered as an indefinite article. It appears to me rather to belong to the class of pronouns yet in this and some other instances, the two classes of words approach very nearly together,
rians
tive, viz. 6,
:
And
thin partitions do their bounds divide.
168
CHAPTER
Connectives.
XI.
OF PREPOSITIONS.
among
which Harris rank proceed to the Prepositions and Conjunctions which together form his class of Connectives. His reasons for adopt ing such a class are these. As in nature a substantive coalesces a once with its attribute, an action with its agent, a passion with it patient, and even a primary attribute with a secondary, so in gram mar, the substantive may coalesce at once with its adjective, as " wise man," a ''fierce lion " the verb transitive may coalesce at ono with its nominative and accusative, as "Alexander vanquish* Darius;" and the adverb with the verb or adjective which it modi fies, as " he fought bravely" " he was completely victorious." Bu when it is necessary to make any other union of conceptions, it cai only be done either by a combination of words; by a change in tli word which requires to be modified; or by a separate word, which Omit as it serves to connect the others, may be called a connective. ting for the present the two first methods, let us observe how connec
310.
the consideration of the Article,
I
From
the Definitives,
tives may be used. If in addition to the assertion that Alexamle vanquished Darius, I wish to assert that he also vanquished Porus, " Alexander van can effect this purpose by the connective " and," If I wish to state the motive of Alex quished Darius and Torus." The word "and' ander's fighting, I may say "he fought for fame."
the word "for," a preposition is commonly called a conjunction and it is true that they are both employed to connect words whicl would Otharwi&C remain unconnected; tut there is this important dil the con junction connects, and does nothinj feieiice between them more the proposition introduces a further conception, namely that o the particular relation in which the connected conceptions stand t( do not merely connect, in tin In the example given, atoll Other, mind ..: the hearer, the conceptions <<i Alexander, or of fighting, will tor they would lie equally connected if lauu the Conception Of lame had been the unexpected ami unthoiight of consct/w.ncn of his fighting
;
1
but
ho\\
ihai
lam.I
itood
towards the action
in
the particular rela
MOB
of a
mothi.
theroloic consider that the
word which thus show:

justly
relation
lietwecn
two conceptions may be

ha. be.
.
deemed
gap mite part of speech.

P*tpo*t..ti.
;i||.
Thil |ni
..I
pe.-<
1 1
ii
the Gftik and Latin nionly (though with
Ian
na <>
the
called a I're/josifion, because it words so employed were com

/i/-.//*..//.f,
some
exceptions-:
placed immediately
CIIAP. XI.]
before the substantives to
too, the
OF PREPOSITIONS.
109
In those languages,
which they referred. words in question were Bill iject to few variations in point of These circumstances, though merely accidental, were unforform. tunately selected by some grammarians as essential properties of the and hence originated the wellpart of speech undei consideration known definition, Prcepositio est pars oratioitis iurariabilis, quae p'ceponitur aliis dictionibus. The Greek grammarians, whom Harris followed, ranked both the preposition and conjunction under the common head of ^vvliapoQ, or the connective; and the Stoics, adding this circumstance to the ordinary position of the preposition in a sentence,
;
called this
part of speech
'Lvvheapoq UpoOiriKoc, the "-prepositive
Another accidental peculiarity ef most of the words which were used as prepositions in Greek and Latin, as well as in some modern languages, was that their original and peculiar meaning and from hence some persons had, in process of time, become obscure were led to think that these words had no signification of their own. The learned Harris gives the following definition, " Apreposition is a part of speech devoid itself of signification, but so formed as to unite two words that are significant, and that refuse to coalesce or unite of themselves." Campanella also says of the preposition, Per se non signijicat and Hoogeveen says, " Per se posita et solitaria nihil signijicat." Under the same impression, the Port Royal grammarians say, " On a eu recours, dans toutes les langues, a une autre invention, qui a ete oVinventer de petits mots pour etre mis avant lesnoms, ce qui les a fait appeller prepositions" And M. de Brosses says, " Je n'ai pas trouve qu'il fut
connective."
;
possible d'assigner la cause de leur origine
tellement que
fen
crois la
formation purement arbitraire? 312. Now in all this there was much inaccuracy of reasoning, as The position of this sort of words in applied to Universal Grammar. a sentence, had the fact been so in all known languages, must have been owing to accidental causes but the fact is otherwise. Even in Latin the preposition tenus was always placed after the noun which it governed so Plautus uses erga after a pronoun, as in mederga, tor erga me ; and cum is employed in like manner in the common expressions mecum, tecum, rtobiscum, vobiscum. These and other examples of a like kind induced some authors to make a class of postpositive " Dantur etiam," says Caramuei,, " Postpositions, prepositions. quse prapositiones postpositive solent dici " but I shall elsewhere show that there are languages in wdiich all the prepositions, so to speak, are postpositive. Some writers, who for this and similar
; ; ;
Errors
reasons reject the
adnomen, adnoun
preposition, have adopted in its stead that of but as their example has been seldom followed, and as it is my object to change as little as possible received modes of expression, I shall adhere to the ordinary grammatical term, preposition, only reminding the reader that it is not to be taken as expressing an essential property of the part of speech in question. That prepositions are indeclinable may be the case in most languages,
;
word
170
but
is
OF PREPOSITIONS.
[CHAP. XI
That they sig certainly no necessary part of their definition. nothing of themselves, if it were true in any degree, would b< only part of their history, and would throw no light whatever on th< It is not surprising grammatical principles which regulate their use.
nil'y
that Mr.
Tooke should
ridicule these postpositive prepositions,

signification to other
an(
nonsignificant
words but unfortunately he only substitutes worse errors of his own, whei he asserts that prepositions are always names of real objects, and d<
words which communicate
ignition.
not show different operations of the mind. 313. The real character and office of the preposition have beei stated with a nearer approach to accuracy by Bishop Wilkins an< Vossius but neither of them seems to have given a full and satis factory definition of this part of speech. Wilkins says, " Prepoatu >u are such particles whose proper office it is to join integral with integra on the same side of the copula, signifying some respect of cause, place
;
time, or other circumstance, either positively or privatively." Vossiu
vox per quam adjungitur verbo nomen, locum caussam significans, seu positive seu privative." I suited Wilkins's scheme of universal grammar to call the prepositioi a particle ; but however appropriate this maybe to a theoretical viev of language, such as it never did, and probably never will exist, it inconsistent with those philosophical principles on which the actus use of speech among men dejKnids neither is it material on ichicli sia of the copula a preposition may be placed by the idiom of any par ticular language. On the other hand, as Wilkins includes under th term integral both the noun and the verb, he is in this respect mor
says, Prapositio est
tempus,
aut
accurate than Vossius, for the preposition does not merely join a nou: 1 therefore, with tha to a verb, but sometimes to another noun.
diffidence
which becomes
is
clear the ptth
A preposition
substanticc
all persons who endeavour in any degree of science, shall propose the following definition : a part of sjwech employed in a complex sentence, an.
t
serving to e.rj>ress the relation in which the conception

>tiiils to
that
named by
anotfier
named by a tiou noun substantive, or assei'te

inth a garden," "
i:xmpU.
by a verb. ;i I. Thus,
if
say,
" he hired a house
Solomo:
Was
the son of David," the words with and of are prepositions, th former expressing the relation of contiguity between the substantive " boOte" and " garden," and llie latter expressing the relation of Jiliu
i
descent
I
tmtt/m
between the substantives "sun" and "David," Again, h<* spoke concerning the law," " he marched from Capua t ," the wor.ls oonotrning, from, and to are prepositions, the fill wing tho relation of tmbjectivity In which the noun "law "stand puke," ami the two others expressing the different teJfl t<> th of l'-a!ili/ in which theiioiin, "Capua" and "Kuiue" .stand | the verb " marched." '.']:>. In de\. loping the above definition, I first observe that lb sentence in whuh a preposition Is employed nxv bei complex one
,
"
<

HAP.
XI.]
OF PREPOSITIONS.
171
nd this is evident; for, in addition to the assertion of a connection etween a subject and its attribute (which together forms a simple entence, as " John walks," or " John is walking"), the preposition xpresses a conception of relation, which conception, if added to the ttribute and assertion in the verb, forms another simple sentence, f I say, " Jolm walks before Peter," I, in eflect, make two assertions, rst, that John is walking, and, secondly, that the walking is before 'eter. In the language of lawyers, I present two issues for it may e admitted that John walks, and denied that the walking is before 'eter and this latter may chance to become an important question fleeting rights not only of precedence and station in society, but also f property, and not only between individuals or families, but between
;
ations. In the secondary question, the relation of locality is exmessed by the preposition before, which is necessary to connect the ssertion "walks" with the name "Peter;" for if it were omitted, nd I should say, " John walks Peter," the sentence would be uninilligible.
In like manner,
if
the conception of relation be added to

as
ine
of
two connected
)avid," the sentence involves
the relation
>avid
of."
;
" Solomon was the son of Solomon stood of a son, and that that relation connected him with
substantives,
two
assertions, viz., that
and the word expressing the connection
is
the preposition
316. It follows, from the nature of connectives, as stated by Verbneukr. Harris, that where a verb is neuter it may be connected immeiately with a following substantive by means of a preposition. Thus le neuter verb " walks" is immediately connected with the following
Ir.
lbstantive
ie
" Peter" by means of the preposition " before;" but

it
if
cannot be immediately connected with a lbstantive by means of a preposition, but must first be followed by s proper accusative, that is to say, by the substantive expressing the
jcipient of the action, ex. gr.
:
verb be transitive
Now
He
(ere the sense
with strong pray'r, and

valour.
now
icith stern
reproach,
stirs their
would have been wholly lost if the accusative " valour" ad been omitted and the same rule applies where the relation is larked by an inflection of the substantive, as in the original of the assage just quoted
:
Nunc prece, nunc
verbis virtutem accendit amaris,
here the ablatives prece and

strumentality, in
verbis
amaris show the relation of
which the conceptions expressed by them stand to ie verb accendit ; but those ablatives would have been unmeaning id not the verb been followed by its proper accusative, virtutem. 317. In languages which admit of compounding a verb with a precompound jsition, there may be differences of idiom. The verb, if neuter, verb
-
* Virg. Ma. 10, 368.

172
as forcing his
OF PREPOSITION'S.
[CHAP.
Satan,
',
usually assumes a transitive character, as
when
who
is
descrit
way
into Paradise,
at one slight bound, high overleap' d all bound. *
If the verb be transitive, then (according to the idiom of the languaj
the related substantive may be either inflected in accordance with preposition in the verb or else accompanied with a separate p
When inflected, it adopts a case which is said by gra marians to be governed by the preposition in composition, as
position.
Nn
may be
said, as
tibi,
Thymbre .caput Erandrins
abstulit ensis;
where the preposition abs (though governing an
ablative
when
aloi
Relation.
forming part of the verb abstulit, to govern the dat tibi ; and where both the preposition and the dative inflection expr the relation of objectivity, in which the person (Thymbrus) stood the act signified by the verb abstulit and its accusative caput, as if phrase had been " abstulit caput abs te." 318. The next point to be considered in the definition of a p position above given is the nature of the relations which it serves
I
lU founilution.
Now, Relation, which is the fourth of the logical predii ments, supposes three things, the subject, or thing related, the 0$ or correlative, and the relation itself, or circumstance existing in subject by means of which it is related to the object, and wh: When we say, " John is before Pete logicians call the foundation. " John" is the subject, " Peter" is the correlative, and "be the foundation, or, as I have been accustomed to speak, the concc tionof a particular relation, expressed prepositionally. 319. It is manifest, that the circumstance, whatever it be, tl
express.
t
forms the foundation of a

tiling) that constitutes
logical
relation,
in
or (which
is
the sai
to the
to
subject and object)
(when expressed a preposition, may
language together with

l>e
it
either
common
ti
terms (as they are called) of the relation, or
mav belong
one
them
exclusively.
l>v
tlie
ENBSod
If I say, "John is with Peter," the relation < preposition with belongs equally to I'eter and to Jofa
ut if I say John is hfore I'eter, the relation expressed by the p In the first ease it position before belongs exclusively to John.
is
lay "John is with Peter," or " IV perfectly Indifferent whether make the subji with John ;" it is perfectly indifferent which
I 1
:
but which the object of the relation should to ay " Peter is before John,"
anil
I
in
the other ca
ie,
if
w\
i<
not only vary the assert
but
1
hi
should directly contradict it. would be the same; lor, as a
Still
<'ivat
the foundation of the rf

philolojj
ib.serv*
"
at
th''
bottom of every preposition,
in its original sense,
there
exi:
n relation Iwrtweon two opposite conceptions."! Thus before imp] may illustrate this witli t behind, and over implies under.
We
triviul
comparison
Mill..,,,
ol
Lwo children playing at see-saw.

:
If
John
Pj
t
;
vTrg, fin. 10,
|i,,|i|i,
Cniiip.
dram.
I,
'/..
HAP.
XI.]
OF PREPOSITIONS.
173
FjBter lie equally balanced at the opposite ends of a plank, John is evel with Peter, and Peter is level with John, and the plank is the Measure or standard of the level ; but if John be lighter than Peter, John at once rises above Peter, and Peter sinks below John, and the iame plank measures the elevation of one and the depression of the >ther. What the supposed plank is to the boys, the preposition is o the substantives related and hence we may easily explain not By certain diversities in the idioms of different languages, but some
;
parent
contradictions in the
same idiom.
Thus Mr. Tooke makes
" The he following just observation on the Dutch preposition van latch," says he, " are supposed to use van in two meanings, because Notwitht supplies indifferently the places both of our of and from. tanding which, van has always one and the same single meaning. i\nd its use, both for of and from, is to be explained by its different When it supplies the place of from, van is put in apposiipl tost (ion. tion to the same term to which from is put in apposition. But when t supplies the place of OF, it is not put in apposition to the same The ;erm to which of is put in apposition, but to its correlative. same observation may be made on the prepositions at and to, which n correct modern English express different relations of place, though hey both answer to the Latin ad, the French a, and the German zu. " Verres ad Messanam venit," Verres came to Messina; Mini quoque est ad portum negotium," I also have business at the " II reste a la maison ; " "II est alle a la campagne ; " " He port emaiiis at home;" "He is gone to the country:" " Komm zu In Anglo-Saxon, nir," Come to me ;" " zu Windsor," at Windsor. as " animath that pund vt, at, was also used where we employ from In Old English, we find it vt him,"* take the talent from him. employed where we should use to
In
'
The
Sir,
vp onane. he said, if thi will were, Tak thi son to me, at lere.f
sext maister rase
'.
And still in the e., Put thy son to me to learn, " ad discendum." Devonshire dialect, w e hear "he lives to Exmouth" for " at Exr
mouth."
320. Nor is it only the different use of prepositions in the same languages which is thus to be explained, but even apparent fcontradictions. The prepositions for and after are of directly contiarv Drigin and signification, being (as will hereafter be fully shown) the \3ame as the words fore and aft. Nevertheless we say, " to seek for that which is lost," and " to seek after that which is lost." The
jr different
Apparent
1C*
tion.""
thing sought
is
sequently the
seeker
considered as before the mind of the seeker, and conis considered as after, or behind the thing
sought; when, therefore, we use the word before, we specify the relation of which the thing sought is the subject ; but when we use
* Matt.
c.
25, v. 28.
Romance of the Seuyn
Sages.
174
the word after,
seeker
:
OF PREPOSITIONS.
[CHAP.
we specify a relation of which the subject is t use Mr. Tooke's phraseology, we put before in appo tion with the thing sought, and after in apposition with the seek* From this statement it appears that the subject of the relation specify may or may not be the logical subject of the preposition enunciated
or, to
the sentence.
In the sentences, " John seeks for Peter," and " Jo

se
seeks after Peter," John is the logical subject ; but the former tence involves the expression of a relation of which Peter is
subject, the latter of one the subject of
oi'foreness exists in Peter
;
which
is
John.
The
relati
An
act of the
321.
M. Condillac
says,
the relation of afterness exists in John. as we have seen, that the relati
is not a direct sensation; and thence cannot be expressed in our mind, unless by artificial sign.* What he means by " expressed in our mind" I not pretend to understand ; but he is certainly right in saying, that " Eve relation is not a direct sensation, for it is no sensation at all.
between two sensations

infers that a relation
cumiiioition.
kind of relation," as Lord Monboddo justly observes, "is a pure id of intellect, which can never be apprehended by sense :" and win Mr. Horne Tooke denies this proposition, he shows strange ignoran of the human mind. Sense, taking that term in its widest accept tion, can only apprehend an external object; it can apprehend t thing which is before another, or the thing before which another but the relation of place, time, order, causation, or the like, which \ express by the word before, is discerned not by a simple operation sense, but by means of an exercise of our comparing and judgii faculties. It is most extraordinary that Tooke, who asserts ui versally that " prepositions are the names of real objects," should s of the preposition for, " I believe it to be no other than the Got] substantive fairina, cause." What real olject is Cause ? How causation to be apprehended by sense? That we have a concept! of cause is certain; but it is equally certain that we come at it means of our mind, and that it is in truth "a pure idea of intellec Which MOM alone never did and never can give. 322. To mppoM 'hat tlie prepositions necessary to any could lie (numerated a priori would certainly lie absurd. TOOKE h ridiculed the grammarian! who have attempted to enumerate them,
i
It has Keen said, that the Greeks h; matter of fact and history. lighten prepositions, the Latins, forty nine; and the French (| to different authors) thiris two, forty eight, and seventy-mi unly possil.le to ascertain what words /uiiy. hern used as pi
I
uaev
impia. -ticalile to determine
but
in
hs Ing
language
it
is
how many
new
is
should lm so used;
lor
qui eve
mas
pass
:
iihanci- iheir nuiulier, hs

\
coinliinnt ions of thought ai

piece;
pivp-niiioii
in.
not,
like a
of mone) stamped
it
ami
to
svn,. h
cannot change
.
denomination
is
valtlO.
It
is
WCtd
which a transient function

* Supra,
55.
assigned,
ai
CHAP. XI.]
OF PREPOSITIONS.
175
which, as soon as it has discharged that office, becomes available again for its former purposes, as a noun, verb, or other part of speech. But although it be not possible to enumerate prepositions, yet they
may
be subjected to a general
classification,
according to the great
distinctions of relation in
human
conceptions.
has attempted something of this kind, given an arrangement of thirty-six prepositions,
M. Court De Gebelix and Bishop Wilkins has also

" which," he saws,
equivocalness than is found in instituted languages, suffice to express those various respects, which are to be signified by this kind of particle." It may be doubted whether either of these schemes be sufficiently comprehensive, or perfectly
less
" may, with much
philosophical.
fication,
Prepositions must be classed, if at all, by their signiaccording as the relation which they express is of a corporeal
or mental nature.
stance, that of secondary attribute to primary,
has been already seen that the relation of attribute to sub- CouxneHL and that of action to the agent doing and the object suffering the act, are sufficiently
323.
It
shown by the words expressing

:
the related conceptions, without the need of any connecting link and that all other relations require a separate word or words to connect the subject and object of relation. For the sake of distinction, I shall call relations of the former kind primary, and those of the latter secondary. The secondary, again,
In considering
will notice first the nature of the relations in question,
are either corporeal or mental.

different
them grammatically, I and then the
modes of expressing them.

;
The
corporeal
demand our
first
attention
as in the opening of our faculties the earliest conceptions which we form are those of bodily existence, so the earliest relations which we perceive are those of bodily substance. But bodily substances exist only in place and time; relations of place
for
and time therefore are the earliest of which we become conscious and of these (as far as we can speak with certainty on so obscure a
we may not unreasonably believe the relations of place to be perceived by the infant mind ; inasmuch as they originate in mere present Sensation, whereas the very conception of Time necessarily involves also Meinory of the past and Imagination of the future.
subject)
first
324. By the word Place, I mean a portion of that space which to our finite apprehension appears to be infinitely extended in the three several dimensions of Length, Breadth, and Depth ; and in which all
Place.
bodies either move or are at rest. The place of a body may be contemplated by the mind with more or less extent of limits. Thus I may say, that a student is at his desk, or at his rooms, or at his
is going to rooms, or his college, or the university. In short, we may illustrate the conceptions of place as to its limits, by the same diagrams which were applied in paragraph 281 to illustrate those of time; considering the place to
;
college, or at the university

his
that he has just risen from or

to his
desk
or
is
coming from or going
which the
relation applies either as the
mere point
of the angle
17G
OF PREPOSITIONS,
in
[CHAP. X
ABC
ment
the
first
ABC in the second.

The
and
to;
diagram, or as the whole or any part of the sej Relations of place are either positive
positive either
<
comparative.
imply
rest,
as at; or motion,
from and
single
in forming these
conceptions
we
contemplate
issuir
body:
for instance, the sun,
which we may regard as
from
the east, blazing at the meridian, or declining to the west.
Tr
comparative are formed when we contemplate the position or mov' ment of one or more bodies with reference to that of one or moi
Hence prepositions of place have been ingeniously illu by a sort of diagram in which a central human figure is alte nately the subject and object of relation and lines drawn from it different directions indicate the relations of place which it bears various other bodies over and under it, before, behind, and beside i
others.
trated
It is manifest that the relations of place, both positive an &c. &c. comparative, may admit of numerous modifications; as I may be nee a place though not at it; or going toicard though not to it; so or
object,
though not directly over another, may be above it; or thong may be below it. Again, one body may be movir along another, or around it, or about it, or standing or moving m)
not directly under,
it,
or passing through
in or out of
it,
be
side of
it, or between two, or among several it ma a definite space, beyond a certain point, on this or tin Various languages have brought into con or against it.
:
mon
words expressing still more specific rel French chez in " cliez moi" at my house, tl English aboard in " al>oard ship ;" and it is manifestly impossible lay down rules beforehand, either extending or limiting the numbi of words, which may lie so employed. careful obsorvati< 325. Though the relations off place seem, on of the development of our faculties, to be of a more simple nature th; those of Time, yet there is always either a striking analogy, oran e\a .1/ any given Bk coincidence between relations of these two classes. ment of time, a given body must necessarily lie <// some certain point' space: and if it has moved, oi is to move, the motion must be fro
use, as prepositions,
tions of place; as the
;i
some
point of
th<-
some other instant of time, as well as /', other point of space. Indeed, space is our on an of time. Aget, years, days, minutes, seconds are measured iptce, which the earth passes over in its equal and uuivniittii
instant of time U>
H|
le
1/
the
in
lagtanl
it,
oitaj uttering a
;
syllable the earth
\*
at
h
;
point
orbit
tin'
m
//,/i//v
that instant
the
same
point
first,
was
taken
'.!;
after
i
instant of Utterance, the point

will
behind (that is, </./. and thus three instants of time lire found exactly to COincil With three point Of pai e, and are iheivlmv marked b\ the same pr at," * before," and " after." lb i less strict analogy, to be war the appointed tini man is said to be Unjnud his ti
nt
have
fallen
&c.
826. The
no
"ur conceptions I
OF PREPOSITION'S.
CHAP.
XI.
177
It may suffice to mention the relation of cause to effect, of means to end, genus to species, and whole to part and to re. mark that the conceptions, to which these relations apply, mav be corporeal, mental, or spiritual. The slightest knowledge of human nature will convince us that mankind do not become aware of any mental relations till long after the relations of place and time have been familiar to them. Yet between the corporeal and mental relations, there will be found to exist the same sort of coincidence or analogy, as has been already observed between the relations of place
numerous.
and time.
First, let us consider the relation of cause, as applied to a
in the ordinary instance of a billiard ball set in motion, on being struck by a mace. Here the motion begins from a certain point of space, and from a certain instant of time; what more
corporeal eflect,
natural than to say that the motion

stroke,
results,
as
an
eflect, from
the
Again, considering the motion as an end produced by some instrument as the means, we perceive that when the motion began, the body close by the ball was the mace it is natural then to infer that the motion was produced by the mace as an instrument. Let us next apply the relation of cause to a mental eflect for
?
:
as a cause
instance, learning.
As
this eflect
began to be produced from the

infer-
time that the learner applied himself to study, the reasonable

ence
is
that the learning resulted from study, as a cause. Or let us consider the relation of cause as applied to a spiritual eflect. " Every
good gift " (says St. James) " and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." * Hence we may say, that as corporeal motion proceeds from a corporeal cause, and as the
mental acquisition of learning proceeds from a mental cause, so all proceeds from a spiritual cause, namely, God and thus have I traced the analogies between the secondary relations,
spiritual excellence
corporeal and mental, in their several gradations. 827. There are three modes of expressing these secondary relations
;
Expression
h)
first
by a combination of words, secondly by a separate word,

;
^"m*
and thirdly by a variation in the form of a word. The separate words used for this purpose are those called prepositions but to understand them fully we must compare their use with the two other modes. I shall begin with an example of the first mode
:
Mark what
In
circle
.Sitting like
radiant state she spreads
round her shining thione,

a goddess bright
In
the center of her light, f
of
Here the corporeal relation of place is set forth by two combinations words, viz., " in circle round," and in the centre of." Again, in the letter which Hotspur reads" I could be well contented to be there
in
respect
is
cause
set forth
i.
of the love I bear your house," J the mental relation of by a combination of the words " in respect of."
17.
* St. James,
f Milton, Arcades.
J Shaksp.,
Hen. IV. Part
i.
178
OF PREPOSITIOXS.
[CHAP. XI
The love which the writer alleges himself to bear to the hous of Percy is the cause of the contentment which he says he migh
in repairing to the proposed meeting of the insurgents. Now such a combination of words constitutes a phrase, or clause, a complex sentence, introduced solely to express some secondar relation of a substantive to a verb, or to another substantive As these phrases serve the purpose of prepositions, they may b termed prepositional phrases ; and their place may for the most par be supplied by prepositions in the same, or a different language Thus, for the phrases " in circle round" and " in the cente of," we may substitute (though less poetically) the preposition 44 around" and " amidst:" and for the phrase " in respect of," w
feel
ii
may
Substantival
j.
substitute in English the preposition
"
for,"
and
in
Latin
tli
preposition propter.
328. Prepositional phrases

is
may be
further distinguished as sub
stantival or adjectival, according as the

in
word expressing
the relatio
the form of a substantive or adjective.
It is true that thes
combinations are merely idiomatical, and will be noticed more part cularly hereafter; yet it may be proper here to illustrate my lm.-uun by a few short examples. i. Under the head of substantival phrases, we may place the above mentioned combinations, in which the relations are expressed by th substantives " circles," " centre," and " respect." So the Gree^ phrase irpoc (iiav ifiov, answers to the English phrase " in spite
(
me," and to the Italian phrase a mio vial grado ; the words ftiu tpktt and grado, being all substantives. ii. Those prepositional phrases may be called adjectival, in whic the relations are expressed by words elsewhere used as adjectives
such as
Milton,
44
contrary to,"
in his
44 li 44 counter to," Sty in contrar," en contre" Essay on the Jleason of Church Government, says, "
1
tht course of judicature to a political censorship seem either tediou or too contentious, much more may it to the discipline of the churd whose definitive deereos are to be speedy, but the execution ol ri ;oi
slow, contrary
th'-
to
what
in legal
proceedings
is
most usual."
We
fin
adjective contrar otod proportionally in the Scottish acts of pH 44 In old Krenc liaiii'-nt, in the phrase in contnir the command."
tfaen
.ml-.
Was
also toe prepositions

tantive,
in
en
contre,
:
which now
exist
ei
tli
contre at present
veil.
nor is the verb signifying an adventure use, though the substantive rencontre, and
and
from
rriiciHintrr,
both lire so; and thou.di in English we retain ritcountt probalil both us substantives and as verbs. It, is P thai Ifi originally took the expression of ruimin
counter to; as in
II.
Locke
l,i
|
think, n
|
himself
in
runiunl
\\ ':.
ptl/.
In nil the rules of virtue.
untcr
to,
perform the
function of a
propj

CHAP. XI.]
sition,
OF PREPOSITIONS.
179
they
may
justly be described as a
prepositional phrase, of the
adjectival class.
rate
329. The next mode of expressing secondary relations is by a sepaSome prepositional phrases occurring frequently in conword.
naturally lead to abbreviations
Expr. P rep<Mlt10
versation
pression,
and
single
ellipses in
their ex-
word which constiThe words so retained tutes the part of speech called a Preposition. They may are those expressing the particular relation contemplated. be divided into two classes, of which the first continue to be used with little or no difference of meaning in the same languages as nouns
and thus ultimately leave but a
substantive, nouns adjective, verbs, participles, or prepositions
;
but, in
the second class, the original nouns or verbs, from which they are derived, have become obsolete, or can only be traced by analogy and
the skilful comparison of kindred dialects.
words of the first class we have few substantives in that are employed alone and without some small Dryden, indeed, uses the substantive inflection, as prepositions. cross in this manner
330.
Among
Substantival,
modern English
Betwixt the midst and these, the gods assign'd
Two And
habitable seats to
human
kind
cross their limits cut a sloping way.''
But with the prefix, a, we have across, aboard, and some others. In German, statt, which is our substantive stead, is used prepositionally statt meiner, " instead of me :" and in a manner not very dissimilar
we
ments to
moted."
volonte,
gre,
use the Latin substantive vice, in the office as " X. Y. to be captain

;
official
notices of appoint-
;" as, " il y est alle de son de son plein^re;" 4< ils ont contracte ensemble de gre a gre ;" " il le fera bon gre, malgre. Savoir gre is " to be satisfied with " a person's conduct, to be obliged to him for it lui savoir un gre infini, " to be infinitely obliged to him." Thus, in a letter written by order of the king of France, in 1814, to the author of certain political works, it is said, " Sa majeste vous sachant un gre infini de la maniere dont vous avez pris, dans des temps difficiles, la defense de ses justes droits," &c, and this same substantive, with the adjective mal prefixed to it, forms the preposition malgre, as in the old French song
r
:
In French the substantive are qu on a de faire quelque chose
by purchase vice T. B. prois explained " bonne, franche
Malgre"
la bataille,
Qu'on donne demain,

Ca, faisons
ripaille,
'.
Charmante Catin
331.
We
use
many
adjectives prepositionally, either without, or
Adjectival.
* Has inter mediamque, duae mortalibus segris Munere concessae Divom et via secta per ambas, Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo."
;
Yirg. Georg.
i.
237.
N 2

180
with the prefix
a phrase well

OF PREPOSITIONS.
a, ex. gr.
[CHAP. X
round, as in "
all friends
round the Wrekin
known
to Shropshire
merely to
men.
So
officiate light
Round
this opacous earth, this punctual spot.* is
But
song
in
modern usage around
the
more prevalent form, as
in
tl
Ere around the huge oak which o'ershadows yon mill The fond ivy had dared to entwine, f
The adjective near comparative degree

No He
Verbal.
is
is
:
used prepositionally both

come
so near thy heart. J
in
its
positive ar
grief did ever
not one jot nearer the end.
332. "We have many verbs, which the generality of grammariai admit to be occasionally used as prepositions e. g., " save" an " except" Dr. Johnson (by oversight, I presume) calls the woi Mr. Tooke, in his chapter on Prepositions, moi save an adverb. correctly mentions it thus " Save. The imperative of the verb. This prepositive mann<
: :
of using the imperative of the verb to save afforded Chaucer's Somj nour no bad equivoque against his adversary the Friar
:
God
save you
all,
Save
this cursed Frere."
Here the construction is " Save (set aside or except) this Friar and then I hope that God will save (deliver from evil) all the rest c
you."
So
in the Squire's Tale,
This strange Knight that came thus sodenly All armed, sctue his hedde.
That is, the Knight was entirely armed, but when you say onthvh you must save (or except) his bead, The words "save an- except" are often used synonymously
1
i:
many of our
legal instruments
we
shall not
anion;';
therefore be surprise-
to find except reckoned
by Dr. Johnson
propositions
" Except,
preposit. [from the verb.)
a preposition or conjunction, is veil), which, like BOst others, liad

except or excepted.
Of
This word, long taken a originally the participle passive of tfo

for its participle
is all,
two
termination?-
AS except
Jrittonir.
one,
one excepted.
Kx-vpt ma<
all,
according to the
idiom, the
imperative
mood:
ex
cept one; that is, all but one, which you imtst except." " i. K\. lu .ivelv ->! with- nit inclusion of.
;
Ml Imrd except, those, whom we fight against, Had rather hare n win than him tiny follow.
rihfiktipcim
/
,
Rich.
III.
merely adjectives, with the additional ex

Tiii
Milton, P. L.
;
| l>"'
'
"'
l'l'
'
,i
"
"-
Mmkapeare.
Locke.

CHAP.
XI.]
OF PREPOSITIONS.
181
cannot be surprised to find them used, as the pure adjectives have been shown to be, in performing the function of a preposition. Such is the case with our participles saving, barring, during, &c. In old Scottish statutes " saving " is written saufande. Thus, in the act of 1455, we find " saufande the poynts quhilks ar neidful for the conservacion of the treaty." So we say in colloquial language " barring accidents." In the Scottish Act of 1456, the participle belangande occurs with the same prepositional " As to the thirde artikill, belangande the sending to construction. In the Act of 1524 we meet with the expression " enFrance." during the time of his office ;" where, in modern English, we should In legal phraseology, the ablative absolute durante vita, use during. is rendered "for and during the term of his natural life ;" where, as the word during and the word for are used with exactly the same force in the sentence, it is plain, that iffor be a preposition, during is one also. It happens that our lexicographers have only acknowledged
pression of action superadded,
we
those participles to be prepositions which are most frequently so
em-
ployed
Dr.
such as touching and concerning, which are thus noticed by

:
Johnson
" Touching, prep.
[This word
is
originally a participle of touch.']
With
respect, regard, or relation to."

Touching things which belong to discipline, the church hath aumake canons and decrees, even as we read in the apostles' times it did. Hooker, book iii.
thority to
" Concerning,
ticiple,
prep, [from concern : this word, originally a parhas before a noun the force of a preposition.] Relating to, with
relation to."
There is not anything more subject to errour, than the true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate. Bacon.
Many other participles, however, might be pointed out in various languages, which are plainly used as prepositions, and some of them so recognised by grammarians. Thus Court de Gebelin ranks
among prepositions the present participles pendant, durant, touchant, moyennant, nonobstant, suivant, and the past participles, attendu, vu, and hormis. So we use pending, during, hanging, living, failing, considering, omitting, regarding, respecting,
At whose
instigacion and stirring, I have

it.
and anciently moiening. me applied, moiening

B. Copland.
the helpe of God, to reduce and translate
one of our earliest English statutes, as we now use pending, and the French pendant ; and cor" The said accompt responding to the ablative absolute pendente lite. to be ij or iij yere hanging," Stat. 1. Rich. III. c. 14. 334. Hitherto I have spoken of those single words used as prepositions, and also as other parts of speech, in which the identity of meaning is more or less obvious. There is no absolute line to be drawn in matters of this kind between that which is discoverable at first sight, or on a short reflection, and that which it requires some
is
The
participle hanging
used,
in
Less obvious,

182
study to make out
;
OF PREPOSITIONS.
[CHAP. X
experience, of different men,
with.
because the different capacities, and the differei must influence the degrees in this seal But we may proceed by almost imperceptible degrees from thj which almost all men think clear and self evident, to that whic almost all will admit to be involved in obscurity, and yet the am logical principle, discreetly used, will give us scarcely less confidenc in the latter than in the earlier stages of this progress, 335. Following this clue, I come to the preposition icith, whic will probably be deemed more obscure in its derivation than any There are no less than throe et the words hitherto examined. mologies, to which it has been thought necessary to resort, in ord< to account for the different uses of this one preposition 1. The Gothic verb withan, to bind, or join together. 2. The Gothic proposition icithra, toward, or against. 3. The Anglo-Saxon verb xcyrthan (or rather the Goth
< 1
vcisan), to be.
am
inclined to regard the

first
first
and second of these etymologie

i
any two visible objects are nearly connected, must appear to be placed in apposition to eac but if one be viewn other, if both be viewed from a distant point from the other, it will appear to be placed in opposition. Now, tl pre]H)sitiun with, both in Anglo-Saxon and in English, expresses the: dillorcnt relations of apposition and opposition it is therefore probabl that the original radix of the word, (so far as theso two signilu atioi are concerned,) expressed the idea common to both, namely, the id( of connection. To exemplify this observation, let us suppose tli; John and Andrew are seen at the distance of half a mile In Petal they appear to be close together, to be joined with, or bound to eac other; but on approaching them lie finds that there is a constiderabl Interval between them, and the one either stands opposite to the "the or comes toward him, or stands aijainst him resisting, or draws Inn from him. Now all these conceptions of being joined with, Btandifl opposite to, coming toward, resisting, and drawing back from, wit
local situation, they
;
though at the same.
sight so widely different in signification, as original!
When
otheri of i like kind, will
lie
found to be expressed
in
different Tei
\\iii.n.
tome dialects by words obviously related to our proposition m'tl This will appear more at ptmbely examine thonbov< fated etvmoloM],. 880. The idea of connection, or joining together, was expresatl | the Mn*o-Gothio veib, vitli.iit. ot which the past tense, gatcatl
l
,.
OCCIirs in thi follow in'
|ii
...i
of the ('mtr.r Aiyrnteiis.
T/iata (lot
gmOOtft,
M
(St.
What
Mark,
x.
<.\.d
..)
it
hath
ji >iii,-d
to: /et/ier, lot n<
oi
man piil weed is

i
called
Wndweo
to
I
twists round
Hence, as a particnlar kin tin and binds 1

willow
|
plants; so a particular
to
.-,
kmd of tree (the

<
'<<
i
was
called
villi
Of
"il/,i/
in
..Id
man, iividrAnunn, or urtte-btMtm

is,
its
tender twigs wi
d ed bo isfta, (that
to
land together^

CHAP.
XI.]
;;
OF PREPOSITION'S.
183
many
also called withs, or
The twigs so used for binding were wythes and a with or wytlie was a term given to anything that bound either the body or the mind. Mortimer, in his Husbandry, speaks of the tree
objects in rustic economy.
;
:
Birch
is
of use for ox-yoaks, hoops, screws
wythes for faggots.

:
Lord Bacon uses this word to An Irish rebel put up a petition,

and not a halter
;
signify the
that
lie
twig
because
it
might be hanged in a with, had been so used with former rebels.
The two words vcith and

it
halter are
simply Under and holder
but use,
appears, had appropriated the former, to a binder

:
made of willow
:
twigs
and the latter, to a holder made of hemp. King Charles employs the same word metaphorically
These cords and wythes will hold men's consciences, when force attends and twists them.
In different Anglo-Saxon glossaries,

withthe, a hoop, or
we
find withig, the
willow
band
cynewiththe, the diadem, the king's band, or
" golden round," as Shakspeare calls it. In an Alamannic glossary, " Ubi recensentur res pistrini atque horrei," says Junius, '* with exponitur torta." ** Danis quoque," says the same author, " widde est copula viminea ; potissimum tamen, ut videtur, copula ex salignis viminibus contexta,
contortave."
In Dutch, the willow
is
called wiede, wiide, weyde, wiie.
conveyed the same notion of bindbeing derived from the Anglo-Saxon wilig, which came from the verb wilan, as withig did from the verb withan ; and both withan and wilan signified to bind. Wachter derives the German weide, and Frankish wida, a willow, from the old verb wetten, to bind " Ab usu, quern arbor ofhciosa prabet colonis et hortulanis in jungendis et alligandis rebus ;" and he suggests, that the Latin wtis, a vine, is so
willow itself originally
Our word
;
ing
it
named from
to bind, binds
its
binding round other trees.
and
weid, wied, wette, a bond.
The Frankish
wet-boek
;
Weiden also he explains, languuid, is a

is
waggon-rope.
;
Wette also signifies, metaphorically, the law, which
and
this in
Dutch
;
is
wet,
whence
steller,
wetmaaker, wet-geever, a legislator
wethouders,
;
a law-book ; wetmagistrates
;
wetgeleerde,
an outlaw wettig, legitimate, &c. The verb wetten is not only to bind, but to bind in wedlock. " Oritur," says Wachter, " a wette, vinculum, copula, ligamen, unde reliqua, tarn verba, quam substantia, tanquam ex matrice prodierunt." From all these authorities we may safely conclude, that we have ascertained the proper origin of our common preposition with, in the
a lawyer
wetbreker, a lawbreaker
wetloos,
sense of association,
e.
gr.
In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasing fellow ; Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
Tatter.

184
ii.
[CHAP. XI.
of the other uses of this preposition,
OV PREFOSITIONS.
It is
obvious that
in several
which Dr. Johxson points out, it really expresses no more than the same conception of joining or binding together, modified by the nature " in company," Such are the following of the objects spoken of. " in partnership," " in appendage," "in mutual dealing," for I I am bound to am joined with those with whom I am in company
one with
whom lam
in partnership;
;
thing
is
joined to that
ol
which it is an appendage two persons, who mutually deal together, and so of similar are bound by the laws of honesty to each other It is remarkable that Johnson himself gives the two following cases. senses of this preposition, in immediate succession.
;
4.
On
the side
of;' for
That cause
5.
sets
up
;
with,
madness of discourse ! and against thyself.
Shakspcare.
In opposition to
in competition, or contest
I
do contest
love,
As hotly and as nobly with thy As ever against thy valour.
Shakspearc.
mun,
mentioned, from irithar says, " n ith Instances of this in composition, signifies opposition or privation." use of the word in modern English are, withdraw, withhold, and with
337. This
i.e.
illustrates the transition before
to withra,
apposition to opposition;
and hence Johnson
stand.
Barbour
uses withsay With
wnag
lyfe,
it
richt or
have would thay;

tine
And if anie would thame withtay, Thay would n do, that thay suld
Kyther land or
Tliis
il
or live in pine.
:
is
in
German
widersagen
urn/
all
as in the old baptismal formula
\\'ii/,rsii(/csta
dem Tcufcl
oBm
MIMfl icerfon?"
renounce the devil and

also used.
It is
his
works?"
And
In this
sense
" Dosl then absa^n

i
observable that the modern German, which docs not use with similar preposition ill the sense of association, has iridcr U lignify Opposition, both in the simple f..n n, ami in a invat. number o Compounds, as Wedrrhaltcn, to resist; widerhyen, to refute; wider
OT
my
.,
to reply
wider8chdUt an echo, &c i n Bected Ugnt; iMderiNM, an absurdity with and irithrr are both used ill the sense o In the Anglo-Sai
;
W&Mprechcn,
to contradict, &c.
and so
iciderschein
opp
,
reflecting
intlirr oorwn,
with Lid.in,
tu
back from; at withitandum, to resist; with cursed; with * '.'/'", xcithersecyian, to contradict in the laws o lead back) with <nji<ni, to repel,
In the old English laws of that day, uit/wnttiniiitm,
Ota
find tdtersaam, apoatatea. Wtthtmmn, in the barbarous Latin

Tin.-, last
wa
w
i
o-
I/in.-.
wuid
Iiah
,
i.
in
at
aid to have ghran an aasy victor] tu i-: an ipuch when it was tin
i
ai
I"
CHAP.
XI.
OK PREPOSITION'S.
185
on any given subject. accepted the challenge had the choice of a subject, our lawyer proposed, as his question, An averia capta in withernamio replegiari possint ; to which his antagonist, as he did not understand what withernamium meant, was unable to give any reply. In the Icelandic, we find both vid and vidur signifying against. In the Frankish, wid and with are " against," as with thenne Divvel,
scholars to offer public challenges for disputation
As
the party
who
against the Devil."
But
in
most of the other Teutonic

is
dialects,
when
the sense
In the Gothic
alia so baurgs
Jesus."
;
Saei
:"
us, is for us
In the Alamannic, In the old Salic laws, widredo is a repeater of his oath, from eid, an oath. In the Lombard laws, widerboran is a manumitted slave. This last word is also written guiderbora, as in the laws of Luitprand (circ. A.D. 720), " Si quis aldiam alienam aut suam ad uxorem tollere voluerit, faciat earn guiderboram."
is
over against In the Frankish, uuidrunpiotan,

uuidartragan,
is
found in the word. of Ulfilas withra signifies both toward and against, as usiddya withra Jaisu, " all the city went out toward nist withra izwis, faur izwis ist ; "He that is not against and so in the compounds withrawairthan, " opposite," ;" withraidya, " he met ;" withragamotyan, M to meet."
is
contra, or retro, the letter r
to write in reply.
to carry back.
Another remarkable instance of the use of wider in composition, widrigildum, which some writers confound with wergeldum ;
is
in
but
accurately distinguishes these words, observing that the properly signifies the price, ransom, or value of a man ; the former, any composition by which a loss is paid back, or compensated. Weregelt is well known to the old English and Scottish law (see
latter
;
Eccardus
Fleta,
is
and the Iiegiam Majestatem).
Weregeltthef, according to Fleta,
wer, a
" Latro, qui redimi potest." man, and gelt, price.

;
Hence Sojoer
derives wer-geld from
On
the other hand,
preface to the Gothic writers) defines wedrigeldium "
Grotius (in the quod pro talione
" and this word is properly derived by Wendelinus from the Teutonic weder contra, vicissim, and gelt, sestimatio. It is differently
datur
written, widrigilth, widrigildum, guidrigild, wedrigildum,
widrigild.
Widrigilth secundum quod appretiatus fuerit.
wedrigeldum,
Deer. CMldeb. II. (a.d. 711.)
Suum
widrigildum omnind componat.
Deer. Ludov. II. (a.d. 879.)

Si stupri crimine detecta; fuerint
componant
guidrigild,
suum.
Capitul. Arech. Princ. Benevent.
Juxta quod widrigild
illius est.
Capit. Lotharii,
Imp. (a.d. 824.)

Guerdon,
338. Perhaps the most remarkable derivation from the word wither, or wider, now remaining in our language, is guerdon ; and the more so, as the English etymologists in general have entirely mistaken its
origin.
The English word gwrdon
is
a mere adoption of the French

I8fi
OF PREPOSITIONS.
[CHAP.
X:
thus speaks "Je croy qu'il vient d werdung qui signifie pretii cesthnatio, et dont les escrivains de la bass Latinittf ont fait aussi werdunia pour dire la mesme chose. D guerdon les Espagnols ont fait galardon, et les Italiens guiderdone. Skinner cites this; but prefers the derivation of guerdon by Myliu
guerdon, of which
:
Menage
from the Dutch
iceerderen, waerderen, a?stimare, censere
weerd, icaerd dignus, et weerde, valor, pretium.
French guerdon, Italin guiderdone, " qua? omnia," says he, " valde alHnia sunt Teutonic ; What is meant by galardon being "valde affine voeerde, weerdiie." any more than I can tell how the Italian to weerde, I cannot guess formed guiderdone out of guei-don and as to the base Latin voerdwm I never happened to meet with that word. The real history of th word guerdon, however, may, I apprehend, be very satisiactoril
wherth
; :
and this fror Junius cites th Spanish galardon, and Wels

;
traced, as follows
i.
Widerdonum. This word is correctly explained by Du Cangi " Vox ibrida, a mdar Teutonico, contra, et donum Latino, munus. This mixture of Teutonic participles with Latin substantives or verb* is a fact, which, properly considered, may cast some light on the tm Thus we find our word miscreant to b principles of etymology. compounded of the Teutonic mis (our verb, to miss,) and the hati credere : and the French have many such compounds, e. gr. mirumpfr
meconnoitre, mecontent, mesaventure, mesoft'rir, mesestimer, m'edirc, /aire, &c.
m
I
Widerdonum occurs
dedisti mihi,
in the
Tabidarium Casauriense, (a.
aw).
Quia tu
caballum unuiii
ii.
et indent urn solidos
pro memorntft convenientifi, icidcrdoitum, centum.
Guiderdone, or guidardone.
noticed,
for widergild
This
tci,
is
merely the word widerdonw
witli the Italian articulation
gut for
as in guidrigild and guiderbor
bove
um was
modem
universally changed into o
writing
it is
and widerbora. The Latin terminatio by the elder Italians and softened still more into e ; whence we find in th
;
YimlxAario delta (h'usca, guiderdone

tives, guiderdonare,
;\\\A
guidardone, with their derive
guidardonare,guiderdonato, guiderdonatrice,guidat
donatrice, guiderdonamento, guidardonamento, &c.
E come
fulli
merit.m puoirionftj OOti
Im-iioIh-i
mcritiin guuicrdoM.
(.
Boccaccio,
ire, A.I'.
1350.)
E
in.
per ffuilardone del vincitnre n|>pnnrrliio
(Jliirlniule.
Idem.
(,'uizardonum.
mm.
latiun
This is evidently a mere provincial comiptioi from guidardonum.

r.-. ij.i.-t
.
Item quod nullum mmiui, guitardonwn, vel xeniu nliqun

Statut.
iv.
UD. 1220.
Ouiardonum.
Rn
This word
tirmnt aliqua pane,
uum, guiardona,
in
vel expense.
is
thus explained
an old glossary:
" Outonhnvm,
Statu!,
>
onx>
re
CHAP.
XI.]
OF PREPOSITIONS.
187
vine.
(Vide Glossar. Pro muneratio; Ital. guidardone, nostris guerredon. Lat. ex cod. Reg. Paris, No. 7657.) v. Guiardon, in the Provencal dialect, pnemium. The old French word above alluded to, which is vi. Guerredon.
also found in the verbal form, guerredonner.
Se Dieu sauve le baron, en auront bon guerredon.
lis
Roman
D'Athis.
Voulons, pour
ce,
yceulx guerredonner, et poursuir de faveur especial. Clutrt. Phil. VI. (A.D. 1330.)
vii.
Guerdon.
In the old French translation of the passage above-
cited from the Statutes of Marseilles, the words " Guizardonum vel w lenia, an; rendered " guerdon, ou estrenne." In English, guerdon is used to signify a just recompense either for
good or bad deeds.

He
of
shall
all his
by thy revenging hand at once receive the just guerdon Knolles, Hist. Turk. former villainies.
Fame To
(That
the spur that the clear spirit doth raise, last infirmity of noble mind) scorn delights, and live laborious days
is
But Comes
the fair guerdon when we hope to find, the blind Fury, with th' abhorred sheers, And slits the thin-spun life.
Milton.
Wyrthan.
339. Having examined two derivations of our modern preposition with, I come to the third, which is thus stated by Mr. Horne Tooke.
" With is also sometimes the imperative of wyrthan, to be. Mr. Tyrwhitt, in his glossary, (art. But,) has observed truly, that ' BY and with are often synonymous.' They are always so, when with is the imperative of wyrthan : for BY is the imperative of beon, to be. He has also in his glossary (art. With) said truly, that ' with
meschance,
with misadventure, with sorwe : 5316, 7797, 6916, 4410, 5890, 5922, are to be considered as parenthetical curses.' For the literal meaning of those phrases is (not God yeve, but) BE mischance, be misadventure, be sorrow, to him or them, concerning whom these words are spoken. But Mr. Tyrwhitt is mistaken when he supposes with evil prefe, 5829 ; with horde grace, 7810 with sory grace, 12810;' to have the same meaning; for in those three instances, with is the imperative of withan ; nor is any parenthetical curse or wish contained in either of those instances." There is something ingenious in connecting with and wyrthan ; and it was probably suggested to Mr. Tooke by the analogy which without and with-in bear to the Scottish " but and ben ;" i. e. be-out and The Anglo-Saxons also used with-y eondan, for fe-yond ; and be-in.
'
indeed they employed the separate preposition with so loosely, as to aftbrd room for supposing that it was only equivalent to the general expression of existence, be : for Hickes, in his Grammatica AngloSaxonica, explains with by the Latin words, juxta, cum, contra, adversus, pro, circa, circiter, erga,
a,
ab
and one of
his
examples
is
188
OF PREPOSITIONS.
to.
[CHAP.
XI.
remarkable, as using with for by in the sense of near see Adriaticum, juxta mare Adriaticum."
Still it
" With tha
be doubted whether the Anglo-Saxon wyrthan affords since we do not find the r ever introduced before the th into either the Anglo-Saxon or English prein other words, we do not find wyrth used as a preposition position and though icorth is certainly used for in Saxon, or worth in English
the proper solution of this question
; :
may
be in the parenthetical curse
wo worth
and
in the parenthetical bless-
not quite so clear that with is thus used in the expressions " with meschance, with misaventure, or icith sorwe." In In the vision of Piers Plowman we have the verb worth, to be. Chaucer we have wo worth, and in Piers Plowman, well icorth, and
ing well icorth
!
it is
much wo
worth.
And
said,
Mercy, madam, your
man
shall I worth.
Piers Plowman.
Wo worth the faire gemme vertulesse Wo worth that hearbe also that doth no bote Wo worth the beauty that is routhlesse Wo worth that might that trede ech under fote
!
Chaucer.
Much wo worth And well worth
man that misruleth his inwitte Piers Plowman that pursueth God in
the
!
his goinfl
Piers Plowman.
worth, are from the Gothic icairthan
MMatMBIi
and the English but perhaps the Anglo-Saxon and English with, used synonymously with be, are rather from the other Gothic verb substantive, wisan : for the different Teutonic tribes used three verbs substantive, (as they are called,) viz. beon, wisan, and wurthan; of which we retain traces in the different tenses of our verb, namely, be, was, and rcere. to be 840. TheM etymological disquisitions on the word with belong
tourthan, or weorthan,
;
;
The Anglo-Saxon wyrthan,
use them l properly to the History of Language, nnT.lv to illustrate the principles before stated, viz.,
in Ifae lets
Vri
in
first,
tins
place
that even
Obvious instances, words used as prepositions are significant relations between out conceptions corporeal, mental, or spiritual; and MOOndly, that though signifying the same relations as vrfaeu oaed Is the form of nouns or verbs, their force and effect in the
of certain
:on
of a lentence ire so
toe
diflferoiit
as justl\
it
to entitle;
them
to
the character of s eparatsptrt of speech,

purl
will
be seen
in
another
of tin, work, that

ligation
./'"',
'ii.
inference is to
te drawn from the

:
Biological Invi
out, in,
<>i\
tt>,
of our other ordinan prepositions, by, fur, throwjh, !></<<, Miiiul, it/'ter, &c. from the
!n<in
obnol't..
;
and
Core
in short,
..II
and,
emh, anent, ohno, im/en, run, prepositions in all languages, so far

mill,
OH they ran with anv confident
-11.
b|
-'I,
thai
tin'
third
mode of
live,
the history of lp 61 b. expn>ssing the secondary or of substantive to verb, is by

I,
in
HAP.
XI.]
OF PREPOSITIONS.
189
is varied from see, and from Co?sar. Here are obviously two kinds of variation, The term /hich may be distinguished as composition and inflection. omposition may be applied to those instances in which a preposition that is, a word capable of being used separately as a connective xpressing relation), or, at least, a particle (or portion of a word), .aving a like signification, is added to a simple noun substantive or erb, as the particle fore is added to the simple verb see ; and these ariations in most known languages are usually made by way of The term inflection may be applied to those instances in <refix.
variation in the form of a word, as foresee
loesaris
ised
vhich a particle, incapable (at least in the same language) of being as a preposition, is added to a simple or complex noun, constiutinp;
a case thereof,
as the particle
is is
added to Casar.
or termination.
These
Pos-
ariations are generally

iblv,
>e
made by way of
suffix,
however, by future etymological researches,
all inflections
may
resolved into compositions.
342. With those compound words which signify primary relation Prep<Hitioni mp" Those which signify secondary re- Sion have at present no concern. nouns or verbs, are for the most part compounded ations, whether M overseer," as I have said) with prepositions; for instance, the noun tnd the verb " overtake," are compounded with the preposition over, he noun superstitio, and the verb supervenio, with the preposition In some cases, however, they are compounded uper, and the like. vith a particle, the separate use of which, though it may perhaps be liscoverable in some kindred dialect, is either wholly wanting in the anguage in which the compound is used, or at least is wanting in the signification which it bears in the compound. Pre is not used at all is a preposition in French, but enters into many compound verbs, as )revoir, predire, &c. Ver does not seem to be used in modern jierman as a preposition, but is frequent in compounds, as verstehen, lerl&ren, &c. and we have seen that with is not used in the sense of opposition as a modern English preposition, though it is in the verbs cithstand, withhold, &c. These are indeed matters of idiom, but a riistaken view of them might tend to mislead the grammarian, in x>int of principle and the same may be said of an erroneous view of ;he effect of " a preposition in composition," which, when united .vith a verb, is commonly said to " govern " the same case which it loes alone whereas, in truth, this notion of government is equally erroneous in both instances. The rule of the Latin grammar on this xiint, as laid down by Messrs. de Port Royal is, that " the preposition preserves its force even in composition so that the verbs with Arhich it is compounded take the case which belongs to the preposi;ion ;"* but, before I examine this rule, it will be necessary to say something more of cases. 34:5, are told, that " the Indian grammarians take up the Case.
; ; ; ;
We
* P. Royal L. G., b. v.
r.
22.
190
declinable
OF PREPOSITIONS.
[CHAP. XI
primary form, i. e., in the state when it is des titute of all case termination;" and that " this bare form of the wor< is given also in their dictionaries."* In other words, they fix thei first attention on the root, or simple radical sound, and consider al inflections, whether of verb or noun, to be so many off-shoots o This method of investigating Ian branches from the parent stock. guages and forming dictionaries is certainly more philosophical thai anv method pursued by either Greek or Latin grammarians. Applying it to the inflections of nouns, it will at once be seen that, as well Greek and Latin as in the Sanscrit, Zend, Lithuanian, and othe languages of a like construction and origin, there are case termination expressing both the primary and secondary relations. Thus, if wi suppose the root man in Latin to signify " hand," it may be combine* with its and urn, signifying the primary relations of agent and object and the inflections manus and mamim will respectively form th nominative and accusative case singular and again, it maybe com bined with u or ibus, signifying (inter alia) the secondary relation o instrumentality, and will form the ablatives singular and plural. So in Sanscrit, the root sunu, son, gives primary relations in the QOXDJ native and accusative, sunus and swmm and secondary relations ii the instrumental singular sunund, dual sttnubhydm, and plura
word
in its
ii
combined
tthuAkuA ;S44. But though a

sition
preposition alone, or a preposition in compel with a verb, or the case inflection of a noun, may each sepa rately express a secondary relation, we find sometimes two, am sometimes all three of these modes employed together to signify oik
and the same
relation.
We
may
say, for instance,
in
Latin, witl
;
only a case inflection (vie), damiiari crimine, to be convicted of crime; or, with a case inflection (ate), and a separate pivpositioi (de), damnatus de majestate, convicted of treason; or, with I ofjj
inflection (ibus), and a preposition in composition (ad), aoowerij criminibw, to be accused ox crimes; <>r, with a case inflection (e), separate preposition (ex), and a preposition in composition (cr) url\ he went out of the city. perhaps be asked It. may
i
in
all
but the Bllt
flf
these examples,
why such
various expression:
To this, different answer: are employed to szpreM I single relation. may 1m- given. In the first place, the OEM inflection does not alwav:
-
II
definite
relation.
The termination
Urns, for instance, in th*
word
iTimiitil'H-,
it
both CMOS,
inav be that of the dative or ablative plural, and, ii may Kignify several relations. The particular ivlatioi
Intended may in t ion of the vi

the v.ili
the part
ii
shown by the signifies made it with niv hands,' manibiu meis, " wlwie the relation intended by the case termination ihus is shown b\
some
instances be sufficiently
i
/.,,
to
ulai
be that of instru mentality, But, in other instances nlation intended ma) not be quite clear without th<
Boj)|.,
,,,.
Bam,
i,
112.
im.,
1,
i>54.

CHAP.
XI.]
OF PREPOSITIONS.
191
aid of a preposition, as effugit e manibus meis, " he escaped out of hands," where, without the preposition e, it would not be clear that
my
the relation intended

different reason
was
not that of instrumentality.
Secondly, a
dancy of
may sometimes be assigned for the apparent redunprepositions; for they may be employed to add greater
It is manifest, that to repeat
intensity of feeling to the expression.
and dwell upon expressions, often gives energy and weight to disThus course, whatever may be the part of speech reiterated. Shakspeare reiterates the adverb too in those exquisite lines of
Hamlet
that this too too solid flesh

resolve itself into a
would melt,
Thaw, and
dew
And
tion
frigid
is
indeed
!
is
harsh
Increase
;
the criticism of Dr. Johnson, that this reduplicaof feeling naturally prompts additional
emphasis of expression and this is true not only of vehement passion, but of the finer shades of emotion. Thus may we understand why a preposition in composition is followed by the same preposition " Quid tibi videtur ? separate. In the Andria of Terence, we find adeon' ad eum ?" So Cicero says " Nihil non consideratum exibat ex ore ;" in both which instances it is impossible not to see that the Nor is this observarepetition of the preposition is a great beauty. tion to be confined to the repetition of the same preposition ; for it applies substantially to all prepositions, and even adverbs, of similar meaning as in Terence " Nonne oportuit prascisse me ante ?" " Multa concurrunt simul." So in Virgil " Metro sublapsa referrir Grammarians of repute, it must be allowed, have censured these redundancies of expression, which may perhaps be regarded as exceptions from a general rule, and ought not to enter into the ordinary construction of a sentence. But the censure, when directed against such passages as I have cited, rather shows an acquaintance with technicalities than a nice feeling of the higher powers of language. Whether a particular language will or will not admit of such combinations is a matter of idiom and accordingly, we often find that they cannot be transferred from one language to another by a strictly literal translation. cannot, for instance, render into English the
We
lines
Jam
cadit,
quum frigidus olim extremoque inrorat Aquarius anno,*

;
by
translating inrorat ondeics, or overdews
verbs,
because we have no such any more than we can translate anno by the word year with
of a
preposition
any case termination. 345. The omission
defective construction;
arises sometimes from a omiafaa has been often supposed by grammarians to exist where there was no necessity for such an hypothesis.
but
it
* Virgil, Georg.
3,
303.

193
[chap, it
in th<
of PREPOsmosH.
of the preposition of
:
The omission
is
undoubtedly awkward
have lawefull c. vi. M.S.
following instances
That every person comvng remed of all maner contractes.
to suche feires siiulde
Stat. 1 Hie. III.
But God that
is of maist pouste Reserued to his majestie
For to know in his prescience, Of all kind time the first movence. The kyng Robert wist he was there
Barbour.
And what
kind chiftains with him were.

full enforcedly
Idem.
Then should they
Right in tnids the kirk The Englishmen.
assail
Idem.
:
So, in old French, the preposition de is often awkwardly omitted Wrepoch ab Edenauct, &c. oveke tot le orgoyl de Gales descendi-
rent a la terrenostre seigneurs
le rei.
Let. P.
De
Mounfort, a.d. 1256.
Qui
Faut noter
maison son voisin ardoir De la sienne douter se doit.

la
voit,
la
au
lieu de dire
"
la
maison soii voisin estre diet a maison de son voisin."
la facon
ancienne
H.
i'.tticwu-.
So, also,
in
Italian,
the
:
authors
of the Vocabolario delta

il
Crusa
observe, on the
word casa
"Nome, dopo
di cui vien lasciato talvolt;
dagli autori, per propriety di linguaggio, l'articolo, o
segnacaso."
Boccaccio.
si
sen* andaron di concordia a casa i prcstatori.
Cominciano a chiedere il Gonfalone che stava in casa Germanica. " Vexillum in domo Gcnnanici situm flagitare occipiunt." Davanzati, Tacit. Aim.
Ou the other hand, though in the construction of the Latin Ian guage, some grammarians contend, that where a noun is commonh said to be governed by another noun, or by a verb, it is proper t< ler that a prejMisit ion has been suppressed; as, "Cicero fuii
eloquentior (prn) fratre;" yet this seems an unnecessary refinemeni in rammar; for the particle or in elo<iucntior, and the termination
<
in
Iratn-, sufficiently
is all
show
the relation between eloquence and /niter
which
the cllcct that a preposition could produce.
The same observation may be made on the expression ire riis tlomum, BomOM, //icr<>soli/m<iiii, where Vossius supposes, unnecessarily
an omission of ml or in; hut he adds, "Latinis (am usitata est Iuh ellipsis, in exemplis allatis, ut vulgo naturalis sermo existinietur." Ii may, however. In- doubted whether such constructions as alia>. ?'> not to he ranked amotu, frnproP MI, OCetcrtt lutus, and the like, are the aggllgenoea Of OOmpOtitton, (bough sanctioned hy names of higl
lepntc in
Roman
literature:
Illc earn
rem
ndeft lobrii ot frngauter
ut .diai ret est imperii!
improbus.
J'/nul. I '.piil. iv. 1.
ijrtn ijuiVl
non imul
e*ie,
cattra Imtui.
BoreU
//.
I,
10.
OF PREPOSITIONS.
CHAP. xr.J
Similar observations
193
writers,
may be made on
the Greek
;
who
are
is
often censured for the omission
of prepositions
and the remark
sometimes
just,
though
in general the relation is sufficiently expressed,
and the preposition would therefore be superfluous. The learned Lambkutus Bos says, " Pra>positionum ellipsin tantopere amant
scriptores Gra>ci ut interdum duae praepositiones in
omittantur.
(in) hoc (a)
Aristoph. Nub. v. 1083.
*liv tovto nojfljje tfiov:

rjv tig
una orationis parte Si

j'tojGi/e vtt'
me
victus fueris.
it
Plene
tovto
ipoi."
would perhaps have been better, had the rhythm allowed it, to express the first of the two prepositions but the relation of Ipov to vucTjtiijs is sufficiently denoted by their respective
In this instance
;
terminations.
sometimes find prepositions accumulated together, either Aecumui* words or as compounds, and, of course, modifying each other. In the earlier, and less cultivated periods of a language, such cumulations of words may be expected to be more common but as grammatical accuracy and elegance of style prevail, the prepositions (considered as distinct words), are confined more strictly to their separate use. We find, even in Milton, the combination at under, as " some trifles composed at under twenty ;" but, in the present day, such a construction would hardly be tolerated by the critics. In more ancient times this sort of construction was still more prevalent and we find numberless such expressions as " of beyond," " for igainst," and the like
as separate
;
:
34G.
We
Artifycers and other straungiers, from the parties of beyonde the see. Stat. 1 Mic. III. c.
ix.
The
est
shiref of the seid countie of Northumbreland, or
and middell marchees for ayenst Scotlond.
wardeyn of the Stat. 1 1 Hen, VII. c.
ix.
the combination has been such as to present to the mind he ready conception of a new relation, it has generally been received n language as a new preposition, as throughout, into, overthwart ; and
io
Where
Custom, too, has sometimes compounds, which appear originally to have lad no signification different from that of the simple preposition vhich formed their basis. Thus we have in English distinguished vit Inn from in, without from out; and more slightly unto from to, mtil from till, &c. So in French we find en and dans, avant and 'evant, vers and devers, pres and aupfes, with more or less of disinction in their modern use and application and, in like manner, the talians, from the Latin ante, have formed innanzi, formerly inanti, nd dianzi ; as, from pressus, they have formed appresso and d'ap*iven a distinct force to
;
perhaps the Latin intra, extra, &c.
resso
L'alma Ciprignia inanti i primi albori Eidendo empia d'amor la terra e'l mare.
Torna amore a
l'aratro, e
il
i
Annibal Caro.
sette colli,
Ou
2.
'era dianzi
seggio tuo maggiore.
F.
M. Molza.

194
Seguir col
OF PRLTOSITIONS.
Io pur doueua
[CHAP.
X]
mio bel sole, io stesso pie, come segu'hor col core

il
E
when
used
le
Mai sempre
fredde Alpi, e'l Rhen, ch'aspro rigore, agghiaccia rimir d'appresso.
F. JT.
Moha.
of prepositions, whiel 347. There is one circumstance though really dependent on usage in every language, must not her since it seems, at first sight, contradictory to th be overlooked notion that this part of speech can correctly express the actus
in the use
;
relations
which
it
is
supposed to
signify.
We
is
see,
in
fact,
the
various prepositions are sometimes used indifferently in a sentence
and
at other times a particular preposition
absolutely essential
This circumstance depends on the nature of the relatio In general, the external and physic* intended to be expressed. relations of objects must be expressed by their own proper and peci liar words. Thus we cannot substitute in for out, or after for be/on but the case in speaking of visible objects and bodily actions different when we come to speak of the mind ; for, as the analogy c its states and operations to those of the material world are very loos and general, so we may adopt almost any external relation of thiol Thus we may sa as a symbol whereby to explain mental relations. that a person did a certain act in envy, or out of envy, or throug envy, or from envy, or for envy, or with envy ; but we cannot say < the same man, under the same circumstances, that he was in hi house, and out of his house, passing through the town, anil distai from the town, walking with another person, or a mile before hm Still there are limits, fixed by custom, to the use of each preposition but these limits vary much in different languages; and hence translation, correct in substance, often appears literally inaccuratt Thus the French " sous peine," answers to our " on pain," and to th old English " up peine."
the sense.
:
i
No more up
peine of lesing of your hed.
Cluiucer.
a particular preposition may be employed, in this respect, mere matter of idiom, and depends solely on custom:
Quern
jwiieH arbitrium cut, et jus, et
How
norma loquendi.
But
it
will generally
be found that the prepositions of most frequer
use are employed with the greatest latitude,
in the earlier stages Of UagOfjge, and so continue, until their equivocal signification give> to inconveoiaootl which are only to be remedied by confining tlrei
U) certain forms of construction.
Custom also vaii<s in the course of time; as may be seen in man HOUn pies which have now Income obsolete, as " to learn at" "
10
flf
D ''./'"'," ^'
I'Ut
is
\
il
urn.
I
not always be supposed that the

is
fori
til
a prapCfitioti
dillerence
r'e-iirh
ma\
;,
t
irifl
aned, on li
.<
-can e tin- application
dilleivnt.
lor
th,'
Other Wolds
are
ill
the sentence:
thus
til
u!n-
and
iomm
ft,
oin"
take //vwi," and "-ive
/<;,
CHAP.
but
in
XI.]
OF PREPOSITIONS.
195
sition
both cases a retains its primary force, and the apparent oppodepends on the contrariety between oter and donner. 348. From all that has here been said of prepositions, the neces- Conclusion, sity, and even beauty, of such a part of speech in all cultivated " Though the original use of languages is sufficiently manifest. prepositions," says Harris, " was to denote the relations of place, they
could not be confined to this office only. They, by degrees, extended themselves to subjects incorporeal, and came to denote relations, as " But how," says Court DE Gebelix, well intellectual as local." 'can such words introduce into the pictures of speech so much harmony and clearness, and become so necessary, that without them,
How can language would present but an imperfect delineation ? these words produce such powerful effects, and diffuse throughout The reason, he adds, is discourse so much warmth and delicacy?" simple " There is no object which does not suppose the existence of
:
some other object to which it is bound, with which it is connected, A valley supposes y> which it in some way or other bears relation. Hie existence of a mountain, a mountain that of less elevated lands smoke implies fire, and there is ' no rose without a thorn.' It is of necessity, then, that different objects should be bound together in speech as they are in nature and that we should have words to express the relations which exist among things." After this, it may be unnecessary to remark on Mr. Tooke'a sweeping censure of the philosophers, that " though they have pre:ended to teach others, they have none of them known themselves
:
chat the nature of a preposition is."
02
196
CHAPTER
so called.
XII.
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
Why
Objection to the name.
A simple sentence, as we have seen, may be formed by e noun and a verb alone, as " John walks." The sentence may bi complicated by the introduction of an adverb, which modifies th< verb, as " John walks foremost ;" and it may be rendered still mor< complex, by substituting for the adverb a preposition, which sliowi the relation of the noun or verb to another noun, as " John walk: But in the communication of thought, sentences before Peter." whether simple or complex, must be connected together. When thi connexion is effected by a single word, such word belongs to the pal of speech, which is usually denominated a conjunction. Thus, if say " John walks and Peter rides," the word and is a conjunction o if I say John walks but Peter rides, the word but is a conjunction. 350. Mr. Tooke objected, but most illogically, to this designation "Conjunctions" (said he), "it seems, are to have their denomination and definition from the use to which they are applied, per acct'den What he meant by the essence of a part of speedl essentiam!" apart from its use, it is not easy to conjecture. To conjoin is tli Accidcn.t cssentic essence of a conjunction and not an accident of it. junctum contingenter. Take away the accident, and the essence sti] remains but if we take away from a conjunction its use in conjoining
349.
|
Besides, this objection ii the essence of the conjunction is gone. He admits that a nou volves Mr. Tooke in a gross inconsistency.
differs
from a verb; but how dues
it
differ, if
love,
not
in
use?
How
doe
tli
the noun fow differ from the

vi-rli
verb
if
or the noun whip from

differs
whip, but in use?
And
a noun
alone,
why
should not a conjunction
dilli'r
from a verb in its us from both, in the sain
manner? Parts of speech arc distinguished essentially by their CM alone; any other distinctions which they may happen to haw, ai accidents, which vary in different languages and at different times an places, without altering their uraiiunatical character. The Knglis conjunction, and, is essentially toe same as the Greek Kit), ami tli iii et, though it differs from I. them in the accidents of sound la there is n<> mre reason for calling the sound of a wind its essence
it
;
1 1
than
Aro apart of
!*.
Ii.
that appellation to the colour of the ink with which
Bttd.
1.
than to then meres name.

liold,
Mr. Tooke's objections to conjunctions, however, lay deep " deny them" (said he) "to be a separiri oi part of .p. nil iy lheiiiselv.-s."' Such were tl hut almurd or unuieanine propositions which obtained lor th
I
I

CHAP.
XII. j
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
197
etymologist the reputation not merely of a grammarian, but of an He himself told us, absolute inventor of the science of grammar Why, what greater mystery that " he meant to discard all mystery." can there possibly be, what greater confusion in the mind of a student
!
of grammar, than to be told that there is no order, no classification, among words, that if is derived from give, and therefore if and give are words of the same sort, nay identically the same in all then" turns, that they do not indicate by their use, any different uses &c, of the mind?" The mystery here discarded is stands, postures, The student is stopped on the very threshold the mystery of learning. of his studies, by being assured that there is nothing for him to learn.
the sage who gives the great illuminator of
And
him this precious information, sets up for mankind in this very branch of learning! " I believe I differ from all the accounts which have hitherto been Very true and every patient given of language," said Mr. Tooke.
:
in
Bedlam
differs
from
is
state of mind.
It
other persons who give any account of his somewhat strange, that in support of his title to
all
absolute originality and exclusive knowledge of grammar, this writer should quote the following (among other) expressions of Lord Bacon " Quce in natura fundata sunt, crescunt et augentur ; quce autem in
:
opinione
is
variantur, non augentur." The science of grammar, which " founded m nature," was taught, as has been shown above, by Plato and Aristotle. Since their time it has " grown and been increased" by the labours of grammarians in a great variety of languages
application to languages dead the Sanskrit, Hebrew, Latin,
day and now we see it illustrated by and living, polished and barbarous, to and Gothic, as well as to the English and French, the Soosoo, and the Chinese and we find certain great Why ? Because language leading principles operating on them all. and there are is the expression of human thoughts and feelings certain main channels in which human thoughts and feelings have
down
to the present
When, therefore, at the close throughout all ages necessarily flowed. of the eighteenth century of the Christian era, an individual professed to set aside every trace and vestige of the knowledge which preceded him, his doctrine was not an augmentation, but a variation, and we may be well assured that it was " founded" not in nature, but in the
mere
opinion of its pretended inventor. 352. It was Mr. Tooke's opinion, and nothing more, that a conNow, what is opinion ? junction is not a separate part of speech. Mr. Tooke presumed to ridicule Lord Monboddo's account of it, derived from the Platonic philosophy, simply because Mr. Tooke Plato says that could not or would not understand that philosophy. the subject of opinion is neither to ov nor to f.n) ov, but a medium between both.* Now this, however paradoxical it may appear to any person who will not take the trouble to reflect upon it, will be found extremely clear, with the help of a slight degree of attention.
* Bepub.
1.
Opinion
om
i!mce'
to
5.
198
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
[CHAP. XII
By to ov Plato meant that which is, in the absolute sense of th( word that which is, always, and certainly, and without any variation By ro pi) ov he meant that which is not at any time, or in am; manner, and cannot be conceived to be. Thus it is always and cer tainly true that in our idea of a circle all the radii are equal ; and it h
not at any time or in any manner true that we can form an idea of i with unequal radii. But there is a third case which is continually occurring to us, namely, that an object is presented to oui
circle
observation which may correspond more or less accurately with a may see, for instance, a coach-wheel, or the dome ol given idea. St. Paul's church, but we can only form an opinion how nearly eithe of these approaches to our idea of a perfect circle ; for the life of mar would not suffice to prove such coincidence beyond the possibility o: a doubt. Now, Plato distinguished this class of objects by th<
We
expression to ytyvofisvov^ which he opposed to ro ov, as in tlu following celebrated passage of the Timceus -Eariv ovv h) war e/ji)i
hoav Tcp&rov diatperiov raoV
rt
ro
ON
fiev
aet,
yivtatv he
fiEv
ov
S]
e\ov Kai ri to riTNO'MENON /iev, ov NOH'2EI, fiera \6yov ntpiXtfTTTOV, 'ail
ovcettote; to
kcito.
raiira
ov.
ical
to
3'ai
AO 5PH,
rendered et quid
:
[1ST
aladifCTtuie aXo'you,
fievovyovrtjg 2e
" Quid
ovIettote ov
est,
which passage ClCEHO has thus

sit,
ôâaTov, ytyvofievov
airoXkvfreely
quod semper
neque ullum habeat ortum:
Quorum alteram nee unquam sit? comprehenditur, quod unum semper atque idem est : alteram quod affert opinionem per sensus ratioms expertes, quod totum opinabile est; id gignitur et interit, nee unquam esse vere potest." And the general sense of both these great writers is, that science is founded on that which is ; opinion on that which seems : science relates to that which is distinctly apprehended, because it is permanent, immutable, and consonant to the necessary laws of human existence; opinion to that which is vague ami indistinct, arising from sensible impressions, and the casual accidents of time and place. What Mr. Tooke called his "general doctrine," was of this latter kind it was an opinion derived from comparing the sound of words,
est,
quod
gignatur,
intelligentid et ratione
not only without regarding, but often in duvet, opposition to their am speaking nt conceive that. sense. Should any one for a nu without due respect to the literary reputation of Mr. Tooke, 1 beg remind him that I speak of a passage in which Mr. Tooke himself kttted the profound wisdom of a Pi. A id and a Ciciiko with the most
1
ontempt, and even represented Lord Monboddo as an idiot, Elsewhere he said that the learned quoting their very words. Lord was " incapable of writing a sentence of common English ;" but in mi AM, nothing to his abuse of one of oil cntics, the late Mr.
for
I
an accomplished scholar, and as honourable a man as ever existed, M who: in his chapter on conjunctions, a CannibalJ
,
1 . c
and
lMrt*.
"a
:;.>:.
cowardly assassin." Mi. lid hit opinion
g conjunctions on their
:hap. XII.]
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
199
he) " as a conjunction
is not such rivation. n any language, which may not, by a skilful herald, be traced home to This may, or may not, be the case but its own family and origin." 1 is part of the history of language, and has nothing to do with the
;
" There
a tiling" (said
of grammar. Mr. Tooke has accurately " traced home" some but whether in regard to others, he has been mistaken right or wrong in the particular instances, his " general doctrine" can To prove that a word performs one derive no benefit from them. function at one time, does not disprove its performing another funcMany of Mr. Tooke's etymologies in this part tion at another time.
science
conjunctions
of his work are borrowed from former writers ; but those writers never conceived anything so absurd, as that derivation was the whole of
grammar. 354. Having disposed of these preliminary objections, I come to the Defiuitwe. definitions which have been given by different authors of this part of speech. It has been seen that the early Greek grammarians included what we call prepositions and conjunctions in the class of "Lvvltaôi Subsequent writers observed, that while the preposi(connectives). tion expressed a relation of word to word, the conjunction expressed a connection of sentence with sentence. Hence Aldus Manutius, a very able grammarian of the fifteenth century, defines a conjunction, u Pars Scaligee, orationis indeclinabilis adnectens ordinansque sententiam." in the sixteenth century, says, " Conjunctio est quae conjungit orationes
plures."
Sanctius, towards the end of that century, more briefly, " Conjunctio orationes inter se conjungit." VossiUS, in the seventeenth century, " Conjunctio est qua? sententiam sentential conjungit :" Harris,
eighteenth, " The conjunction connects not words but sentences ;" and some years after him, CourtdeGebelin, in his figurative manner, says, " Une conjonction est un mot, qui de plusieurs tableaux de la parole fait im tout," meaning by the word tableau not a single object, or word, but such a combination as is properly called a sentence. Agreeing with all these authorities in their common principle, I would suggest, as the definition of a conjunction, a part of speech serving to show the particular mode in which one sentence is connected with another sentence. I designedly omit to notice, as characteristics of the conjunction, its being " indeclinable," as stated by Manutius; or " void of signification," as stated by Harris. Nor do I think it proper to say with Frischlin and others, quoted by Vossius, " that it conjoins verbs and sentences, actually or potentially ." According to the definition of a sentence above given, it is clear that the conjoining of verbs must be the conjoining of sentences. And as to the words " actually or potentially," they seem merely to have relation to those constructions of speech, which are explainable by the figure commonly called Ellipsis. On the other hand the expression " adin the
nectens ordinansque sententias," which was adopted by Manutius from the old grammarians, Comminianus and Palaemon, appears very material, and suggests the propriety of noticing that sentences are
200
of conjunctions,
in
[chap, xi
an uniform manner, bi
connected by conjunctions not simply and

diversely according to their particular
Do not connect
modes of connection.
mere
words.
355. Here again Mr. Tooke objected that there were cases in whic J .. ... , commonly called conjunctions, did not connect sentence: " You, and I, and Peter, roc or show any relation between them. Well !" (said he) " S to London, is one sentence made up of three.
,,
.
the words,
It is, You rode, I rod matters seem to go on very smoothly. Peter rode. But let us now change the instance, and try some other which are full as common, though not altogether so convenient. Tu
far,
triangle ; John an form a triangle, BC form Is John a couple? Are t\v( triangle? &c. Is Jane a couple? four?" This objection of Mr. Tooke's seems to have induced Mi Lindley Murray, after defining a conjunction as " a part of speec chiefly used to connect sentences," to add, " it sometimes connect only words." Now, if it could be shown that the word and, or e> other word generally used as a conjunction, was occasionally use with a different force and effect, that circumstance would not make In the instances cite* lesa a conjunction, when used conjunctionally. however, by Tooke, the word and serves merely to distribute the wh(H and it is ohservahh into its parts, all which bear relation to the verb that though the verb be not twice expressed, yet it is express*) dillc-rently from what it would have been, had there been only single nominative. say, " John is handsome," " Jane & hand some ;" but we say John and Jane are a handsome couple. In thi particular, the use of the conjunction differs from that of the pic position; it varies the assertion, and thus docs in effect combio different sentences j for though Al> does not form a triangle, \>i Al forms one part of a triangle, and HC forms another part, and t'A \\\ So, who: remaining part; and these three parts are the whole.
AND
Jam
and BC and two make four ; are a handsome couple. Does
AB
C A form a
AB
We
I'l.u/.osirs says, " ESmJ

Inti/iii'i
Libra
was DOt wholly
effected
x drarhinisiV iv. obolis," although lli by the ten drachmas, nor by the ton
oboli
yet the purchaser did
employ
ten
drachmas
in
buying, and h
if full
did also employ four oboli
in buyintj.
The meaning,
therefore,
developed, would exhibit two sentences connected by the conjunctioi Since the first publication of the passages immediately pre and. haw lire!) glad to See the view here taken confirmed bv th OSding,
I
authoritn of Dr. Latham,

lbi
in
one of his valuable grammatical works.*

that
that
Is
"Although
..i
'
thi statement
Ls
but propositions,
and
U
1
exclusively,
\et
conjunctions connect bq is nearly coeval witl

either believed o asked, 'are we to d<
th>-
studs
acted upon. with

three .-md
tli
grammar* What,'
'ssiona
not
sufficiently
pu'iit ly
have;
been
ti <<
make
John and Thomas carry a suck to market Surely thi dues not mean that Johl fc& ? and Thomas another that one three makes one sun
as
iX,
t
;
l.
nth. '.iii, First
OntUBNj
y.
-l.
CHAP.
of
six,
XII.J
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
six, &c.'
201
and another three makes another sum of
The answer
It
is
to this lies in giving the proper limitation to the predicates.
not
John and Thomas each carry a sack ; but it is true that they It is not true that each three makes six ; but each of them carry.
true that
it is
true that each three makes
(i. e.
contributes to the making).
As
far then as the essential parts of the predicate are concerned, there are
and it is upon the essential parts only that a grammarian rests his definition of a conjunction." It mav perhaps be asked what is here meant by the essential part of a predicate for
; ;
two propositions
what is the essential part of the predicate in the proposition AB, and BC, and CA form a triangle ? I apprehend that the learned author last quoted would consider the essential part of the predicate to lie expressed by the word form; for it is meant to assert first that the line AB essentially forms some part of a figure, say the base and that BC essentially forms another part, say the perpendicular and that CA essentially forms a third part, say the hypothenuse and the
instance,
;
:
result of these three propositions
is, that the three lines form a triangle but this is a result which cannot be obtained, but by expressly or tacitly assuming the three first propositions to be true. So, when I
John and Jane are a handsome couple, I mean to assert that John is handsome and also that Jane is handsome, which two assertions are both implied by the conjunction and. 356. The view which I have here taken of conjunctions leads me
say
to
Sentences
conne<;U!<l
consider
first
different
thirdly,
modes
the nature of connected sentences ; secondly, the of connecting them in point of signification; and
the expression of such connection
by phrases or separate
These
it
:
has been former the verb, in the latter the interjection which stands in the place of a verb, is to be taken as the hinge on which all the rest of the sentence turns. By means of this we form an unity of thought, a distinct perception of some fact, or a feeling of some sentiment, connected with a distinct object. But thoughts and sentiments do not always succeed each other in the mind as detached and perfectly separate things, but more commonly with associations of similarity or contrast, with relations of cause and effect, and with a thousand other modifications and mutual dependencies. Hence these first and elementary unities become parts of larger unities the simple sentence forms only a phrase or paragraph in a more comprehensive sentence; and the longest sentence is more or less closely connected with what precedes or follows it, in a long discourse or poem. Nor are the enunciative capable of being connected with enunciative only, or the passionate with the passionate but we pass naturally from a strong feeling to contemplate its consequence, as in the beautiful anthem, " O that I had wings like a dove Then would I flee away, and be at rest ;" *
words.
And
first
as to the sentences connected.
shown must be
either enunciative or passionate
in the
From Psalm
Iv. 6.
202
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
[CHAP. XI
where then, though adverbial in form, acts as a conjunction, b showing the dependence of the second sentence on the first.
I<mirth of
passage-.
357.
How
far these connections
may
go, that
is
to say,
how man
is
conjunctions
may be admitted
into one comprehensive sentence,
matter not to be determined by any grammatical rule, but mui depend on the taste and judgment of the writer ; and great writer;
more particularly great poets and orators, often seem to indulge more than common degree of continuity. Thus Milton
in
Now Morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl, When Adam wak'd, so custom'd ; for his sleep Was aery-light, from pure digestion bred, And temp'rate vapours bland, which th' only sound Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, Lightly dispers'd, and the shrill matin-song Of birds on ev'ry bough.
Thus,
scias,
too,
Cicero
cum
;
Potestne
hujus vita lux, Catilina, aut hujus cwli spiritus esse jucundtis, at horum esse neminem qui ncsciat, te pridie Kalendas Januarias, Lepido
tibi
Tullo Consulibus,
stetisse in comitio
telo
manum
Civitatis interticiendorum causS paravisse
sceleri
consilium et principal ac furori tuo non meat) 111 al

?
quam
aut timorem tuum, sed fortunam Populi Romani obstitisse

it is
And
to be observed that, after each of these instances, the ne:
following sentence begins with a distinct expression of relation to thi which preceded it. Milton, having described Adam's sloop as ligh
goes on to say, " so much the more his wonder was" to find that tl and Cicero,having briefly alluded to tl rest of Eve had been unquiet Indec former atrocities of Catiline, proceeds, " ac jam ilia omitto." there are some writers whose sentences, for whole pages together, ai connected, and it is difficult to detach a short passage so as to show whole force and effect, without referring to the previous and sube quent parts of the discourse. For instances of this continuous styli I may particularly refer to the Sermons on the Creed by the <-ol who, it must ho confessed, carried th biat.d Dr. Isaac Haukow method to an excess; for even in a continued argument the mic
:
seems
enal.lc
to require
it
some short pauses, and
resting places, as
it
were,
4 Nwnii
m 4m
and firmness. roe of reflection must teach any one, that tl 358. A modes of connecting sentences, in point of signification, must be vei various, and consequently that conjunctions may in this view 1
to pursue its steps with regularity
I
under several
dilleron! heads.
It is clear, too, that
thegroutx
cart
froi
of distinction between the classes ought to be adopted with Bad explained with perspicuity so as to prevent the student
E|
the
<
8 Sttid
one conjunction, when a very different one may be require. Accordingly, the beft grammarians have philoii <ti1.\l. the dill, nut model in Which one sentence ea V) depend OH, or he related to another; and the result'
; :
CHAP.
XII.J
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
203
their labours has
junctions.
been to throw great light on the proper use of conMr. Tooke, unable to estimate, or unwilling to acknow-
ledge the value of these researches, thus endeavoured to depreciate " them. shall get rid of that farrago of useless distinctions into
We
conjunctive, adjunctive,
copulative,
collective,
disjunctive,
subdisjunctive, copulative, negativepositive,
continuative,
effective,
subcontinuative,
suppositive,
causal,
approbative,
discretive, ablative,
presumptive, abneextensive,
gative,
completive,
augmentative,
alternative,
hypothetical,
periodical, motival, conclusive, explicative, transitive, interrogative,
com-
parative, diminutive, preventive, adequate-preventive, adversative, conditional, suspensive, illative, conductive, declarative,
nothing
&c. &c, which explain and (as most other technical terms are abused) serve only As to throw a veil over the ignorance of those who employ them." this mode of treating a scientific subject is extremely flattering to the indolence of mankind in general, the above passage may not improbably have produced an injurious effect, in deterring the grammatical student from investigations which it falsely describes as unprofitable and I therefore think it proper to examine a declamation, which in In the first any other point of view would be totally beneath notice. place, there is a manifest want of good faith in heaping together a qiomber of words, " conjunctive, adjunctive" &c. &c. &c, which are not to be found in any one grammatical writer, and presenting the whole This is a mere trick, and a as a " farrago " common to such writers. trick extremely unworthy of any man with the least pretension to literary reputation. The thirty-nine terms above cited are indeed a " farrago ;" they have no meaning as they stand, they are placed in no order, and they have no relation to each other but whose fault is that ? Undoubtedly Mi Tooke's, for he was the sole author and " Most inventor of the "farrago" which he pretended to ridicule. other technical terms," says he, " serve only to throw a veil over the ignorance of those who employ them." profound remark So,
;
the geometrician
us of a parallelogram, or of a rhomboid x surgeon must not speak of the metacarpal bone, or of the arterial cube ; nor an engineer of a counterscarp, or a ravelin, because these ire all technical terms ; and technical terms are a mere veil for gnorance Mr. Tooke, however, was not original, in applying this sort of reasoning to grammar. That philosophic statesman, Jack 3adk, thus reproaches his prisoner Lord Say, " It will be proved to :hy face, that thou hast men about thee, that usually talk of a noun uid a verb, and such abominable icords, as no Christian ear can endure o hear." Admitting, however, that some technical terms may be
tell
!
must not
properly employed,
;lassify
Mr. Tooke asserted that the terms applied to conjunctions form only a " farrago of useless distinctions."
ôw, this it would have been better for him to prove than to assert mly assertion was the easier process of the two, and presented the ihorter road to celebrity as a grammatical reformer If Mr. Tooke lad submitted to the labour of attempting this proof, he would have
!

204
found that some, at
to
least,
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
[chap.
of the terms which he has specified, se: and that that utility had been in ms points well marked out by Mr. Harris, an author whom Mr. To< affected to hold in so much, but such undeserved, contempt; whatever may have been the errors of Harris, they were nol thousandth part so gross, or so injurious to the science of grain m as those into which Tooke himself had fallen.
mark
useful distinctions
Harris's
heme.
for an
359. The following is a comprehensive view of Mr. Harris's sche arrangement of the species of conjunctions, according to tr
:
signification
(1. copulative
1.
Connexive
2. contirtuativc 1;
suppositive
causal
positive
collective.
simple
Disjunctive < adversative
absolute, or comparative
adequate, or inadequate.
Connexives.
be observed, is confined to enunciat sentences. The first distinction (though not clearly so stated Harris) is substantially into connexive and disjunctive conjunctio *' Conjunctions" (says he)," while they connect sentences, either conn And so says Scaliger, " Aut sens also their meanings, or not." conjungunt ac verba, aut verba tantum conjungunt, sensum vein
it
360. This scheme,
will
jungunt."
Vossius, recognising the same distinction in princi] " Alia'" (s; applies to the first class the designation of copulatives. bej " sunt copulativoe, ut, et, que, ac ; alia- sunt disjuiich'iw, ut, r<7, at, The former of these trnns, he adds, is used in a strict sense,
"N
ononis <|iiideni conjunctio copulat;
Bed has simpliciter
id
preest
citra disjunctionein sententia', aut caussalitateni, vel ratiocinationoi
On the otln r hand be defends the expression of disjunctive conjunctk because by them " conjungunt ur voces materialiter, disjungun
(bnnaliter.
And BOXTHIUS
gives the
en
whore he
in tertio."
says,
I ns most happily chosen

that
" Conjunct ionem do not cite tht

to
less
is
same reason qua conjungit

1
in different
wor
inter se, di
ions of vossius
and Boeth
<
illustrate the distinction in
distinction
I
no
i
obvious
than
question; Kvery fundamental.
nasi pen
passages
:
*ight, the
marked
.,
difference
between these
1.
Coar was ambition

Cflotsor
2.
was
mul Home was enslaved. < i; was enslaved.
In each pi.ir, there me two propositions joined together b Word, whicn U'i.ill a onjuiiction, and which does not, enter into
<
i
Construction of either proposition.
In
iii
;
the
it
first
passage, the join

ic
word
(-/////)
i.i
<
.ii
juii.t
merely adds th
In
p
tl
position to
tiie
other, in the lloW of discourse, without Intimating

in
the facts asserted
them P
latfl at
all
to
each other.
the
CIIAI'. XII.]
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
:
205
joins the
the joining word (or) rs a disjunctive conjunction whilst it one proposition to the other, as successive parts of the same argument, it disjoins the facts asserted in them, as standing on different though indefinite grounds of belief; for the meaning is, I do not
,
assert positively that Caesar

;
was ambitious, nor do I assert that Rome was enslaved but I assert that if Caesar was not ambitious, then Dme was enslaved, and vice versa. Gellius uses the word cunnexiva for that sort of conjunction, which Vossius calls copulatim ; and the former term seems better suited than the latter to the scheme adopted by Harris, who divides " the conjunctions, which conjoin both sentences and their meanings," (i. e. those which I call connexives,) into The copulative conjunction " does no copulatives and continuatives.
therefore applicable to all subjects
barely couple sentences; and is whose natures are not incompatible. Continuatives, on the contrary, by a more intimate connection, consolidate sentences into one continuous whole and are therefore applicable To explain by only to subjects which have an essential coincidence. 'Tis no way improper to say Lysippus icas a statuary, examples, and Priscian was a grammarian Tlie sun shineth, and the slty is clear. But 'twould be absurd to say Lysippus was a statuary because though not to say the sun shineth Priscian was a grammarian because the sky is clear. The reason is, that, with respect to the
more," according to him,
"than
first,
'tis
the coincidence
is
merely accidental
in
with respect to the
last,
essential
and founded
nature."
The Greek name

;
for the copula-
tive (in this sense)
was ^.vvltapoQ
avpTrXticTiKvc
for the continuative
fyvva-KTiKOQ, or TtapavvvairTiKoQ.
301. The continuatives are subdivided by Harris into stippositive Contbu* The suj (positives are such as if; the positives, such as and positive. because, tlierefore, as, &c. The former denote (necessary) connection, but do not assert existence the latter imply both the one and the other. The Creek term owcnrri/coe and the Latin continuativa was applied to the suppositive conjunctions, which extend not only to possible but even to impossible suppositions, as, li if the sky fall, we .shall catch larks the positives were called Kapaavva-miKoi or subymfinuativcv, and assumed the actual existence of the primary fact
; ;
where the connection is strictly and logically necessary, mere matter of analogy, the former case being expressed by because, &c, the latter by as, &c. Of the suppositives, liAZA says, {/7rapiv fikv ov, UKoXovOiav Si nva, cat raîr hr}\ovffiv: Priscian says they signify to us " qualis est ordinatio et natura
an
I
this either
pr where
it is
rerum,
cum dubitatione aliqua essentia rerum." And Scaliger says, they conjoin " sine subsistentia necessarid ; potest enim subsistere, et non subsistere; utrumque enim admittunt" The positives are either
:ausal or collective.
The
;
causals are such as because, since,

e. gr. the
&c, which
sun is in eclipse, because the moon mtervenes. The collectives are such as subjoin effects to causes; ''i. gr. the moon intervenes, therefore the sun is in eclipse. The causals
subjoin causes to effects
206
were
called in
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
[CHAP.
Greek 'AtrtoXoyicot, and
in
Latin causales or causativo

cc
the collectives were called in Greek SvXkoyurriKot, and in Latin

lectivce
Disjunctives,
or
illativce.
362. The
disjunctive-
conjunctions are in like

first
manner
divisible in
various classes.
Their
distinction
is
into simple
simple disjunctive conjunction, disjoins

it is
and adversatk and opposes indefinitely

1
either
day,
or
it is
night.
An
adversative disjoins with a positi
KulxliijunctlTO.
one alternative and denying tl Again, the adversative other; as it is not day, but it is night. according to Harris, admit of two distinctions, first as they are eith absolute or comparative, and secondly as they are either adequate or % adequate. The absolute adversative is where there is a simple opp sition of the same attribute in different subjects, or of differei attributes in the same subject, or of different attributes in diftere: subjects; as 1. Achilles teas brave, but Thersites teas not ; 2. Gorgi was a sophist, but not a philosoplier ; 3. Plato was a philosoplier, bi Hippias was a sophist. The comparative adversative marks the equali or excess of the same attribute in different subjects, as Nireus w more beautiful than Achilles Virgil was as great a poet as Cicero wt an orator. These relate to substances and their qualities, but tl other sort of adversatives relate to events, and their causes or cons quences. Mr. Harris applies to these latter the terms adequate ar inadequate ; he however confesses that this is a distinction referring on to common opinion, and the form of language consonant thereto ; in strict metaphysical truth no cause that is not adequate is any caui Thus we may say, Troy will be taken unless the Palladium at all. preserved; where the word unless implies as matter of opinion, tb the preservation of the Palladium will be an adequate preventive of tl capture of Troy. On the other hand, when we say, Troy mil taken although Hector defend it, we intimate an opinion that Hectoi defending it, though employed to prevent the capture, will be t inadequate preventive. :{'>.'!. I'imsc] introduces a distinction which lie calls suhlisjunctivi Acconlii and in which he is followed by S<\\i.ti;i and VossiUS. to these authorities, the Latin *m', answering nearly to the (.irei disjoins in ii.T ovv, is I subdisjunctivo conjunction, inasmuch as the meaning of auv mtaDOt, but merely different names given to Thus "Alexander sire Paris Conception invoK <d in a lentence. signifies the Bams person who is sometimes called Alexander, an Dome times Paris. ' A glol>e or sphere" means the same figure, whir
definite opposition, asserting the
and
fi
i:
it,
some call a globe, and some i phere. John Brown alius Thorn Webl)" means the same individual who has gone at, dilleivnt linn
by these different
hen- to be
iiuineM.
Put
i,
if
it
the
words
sivc,
or,
and
alias
ai
from
th.it
junctively
would
I..
deemed conjunction must be by a very different ellipa When we say di: employed in the case of u disjunctive. "ever) number is even or odd," the ellipsis if tilled u uiMiilar number ft either an c\eii number,
<.
:hap. xii.J
lse it is
of conjunctions,
207
But when we say " Alexander or Paris an odd number." led from the field of battle," the ellipsis if filled up would be a >erson fled from the field of battle, who was called Alexander, or else Unfortunately we employ our English word or le was called Paris. n both characters, disjunctive and subdisjunctive, which sometimes It were to be Kicasions no small obscurity, especially in narratives. vished that we had two different words lor these two different pur>oses but since that is not the case, it becomes the more necessary o distinguish the different functions of the same word by appropriate
;
lesignations.
364.
:lassify
It
must be observed that many old grammarians not only names

to the different species than those here
it is
other
*cheme8 -
conjunctions differently from the scheme above adopted, and
five
other
employed
when they use the same terms, brce and effect. Thus Apollonius
nit
sometimes with a
different
divided causal conjunctions into
proper causals, adhe was followed by Manutius. It vould be endless, however, to note all these diversities of arrangenent and as Mr. Harris's scheme is one of the simplest, I have :hosen to follow it, with some small correction. 365. Having thus seen how sentences may be connected together n point of signification, I come now to consider how they may be :onnected in expression. Now it is manifest, that one sentence may, ind generally speaking, in a long discourse, the majority of sentences nust, serve to lead the mind from what precedes to what follows. It vould, however, be endless to attempt to point out all the means by vhich this is effected ; nor would such an explanation, if practicable, properly fall within the scope of grammar. The remark nevertheless s important ; for a sentence is in this respect only the development )f an operation of the mind more briefly effected by a word or a ihrase. In treating of prepositions, I first considered prepositional )hrases, and then showed how those phrases were gradually comive species, viz., continuatives, subcontinuatives,
unctives,
and
effectives,
and
in this
Conjun.
ph^Les.
class to which the name of preIn like manner, I here think it advisable o examine first the Conjunctional phrases, and then the separate words :alled Conjunctions. It seems probable that in the early attempts to 'orm a connected discourse, the junction of sentences, which is now >erformed by a single word, could not easily be effected by unpracised speakers, except by the more circuitous mode of whole senences, or phrases. In process of time these were contracted by neans of ellipses, that is, by dropping out those portions of the senence or phrase which were easily supplied by the intelligence of the
position is usually assigned.
learer,
pressed into
words constituting that
and retaining only the word which most distinctly marked in he one sentence the sort of dependence on or relation which it bore o the other. Hence it is, that even at this day there are certain
onjunctional forms, concerning which it is not always easy to determine whether they should be regarded as words or phrases. Thus

208
R. Stephaxus
of coxjun-ctioxs.
says of quamobrem, that
it
[chap.
is
" unica dictio, quit
etiam tros:" and Vossius says " quamobrem, quasobres, profit e> quare, et similia, non videntur hujus esse classis (sc. conjunctionu quia non tarn vox unica sunt, eaque composita, quam plures." A again, " Vix caussa apparet ciur quamobrem magis sit vox unica, qu
dam
earn ob
rem
vel quare
quam
ea re
ut
:
illo
Tulliano,
Ea
re aa
statim Aristocritum misi."* Quas ob

res,
So Lucretius
ubi viderimus nil posse creari
De
In our
nihilo.f
language several of the conjunctions now considered ; such are because, therefore, ir/u fore; and such too are the following in Old English, Scottish, i French, Howe be it for als moche at least waye not forcing whet contrariwise insafer aspur ceo que cest asavoir and over thai how often, so often no the less neuertMas not for tk coment que nought gaynstandandforfered that set in cais put the caisforse that, &c. &c.
single words,
own
were formerly phrases
Hoxce be
it,
the kynge held styll his siege.
Berners' Froissart
Bot for als moche as sum micht think or seyne Quhat nedis me apoun so lytill evyn
To
writt
all this
ansuere thus ageyne.

it is
The King's Quair
This geare lacketh wethering
at least tcaye
not for
me
to plough.
Bishop Latimer
These words goe generally the reuersion by dyscent.
to all the king's tenants
not forcing whether he h
Sir
W. Stamford,
A..D.
1590
acci
Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans and
lukewnnn persons think tiny may
modnte points of
religion
by middle ways.
saidis actis ar repugnant
Bacon. SUttj/t
c.xti
And
decernis the saidis actis and euery ane of tlinme to be abolisbil and
for euer, insafer as
ony of the
sioun and word of
God
rbbttddia.
and contrarie Scot. Act. Pari.
t.i
the con
1
a.i>.
.'(!?
Hoiaume se doutenl qe lei aide*. &c. puss avoms graunte pur nun-, el pur nos hcires tamer Stat. 25 Edtc. I. o. 1, a.i>. L9tf nies tides aides &c. ne treroms a custume.
ceo qe nucunes gent/, dl Dra en temge a eus e a leurs heirs
s les chart res
E pur
(aicnt
liartre
ali.\'.
en tout/ leur ]>olnti en pics devaunl cus e enjugementl chart re des franchisee come ley commune,
I
de
la forest
solom
l'ttssisc
de
la forest.
Tli.it the same fynq be ojwuh and .-nlcmply rad and proolaymed in the sa court And in the same tyim- that il is mi redd and proclaymed all pl and over that n transcript of tin' mune fyne be sent by tin' seid justice! unto Stat. 1 Hie.' 1 1 r. c. 7, MS, .ISOZ.
II
dc
common
,|
(icincr pur
Le
rent adcn-ie,
e,,,.
.lone
fait Mill
il
Lit!:
ttractine
In-,
adamant, to often did an vnspeakee

Sir
I'.
borrour strike
noble
v. liat
in-art.
Sidney's Aroadta,
ansuere thei bani.

i
tin-
sothe
ou
ii
not say
II.
||| (ft
l.-L-
tin
Kiwc
Iter.
l>e
llntnne.
BpUt. ad Km,.
I).-
Nat.
!,
155.
;hap. XII.]
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
209
Youe knowe, Lordes Syracusans, that we haue hytherto done in thys warre, as nen of honestie neuerthelas, leste there be anny that vnderstandeth not fullye the iffayre, I wolle well declare yt vnto hym. Nicolls's Thucydides, fo. 191.
:
Was mad another statute, that non erle no baroun No other lorde stoute ne fraunkeleyn of toun
Tille holy kirke salle
gyue tenement rent no lond.
Not for thi he wille that alie religioun Haf and hold in skille that gyuen is at resonn. . De Brunne.
Item
egis or
ordanyt that all craftis &c. be distroyit nought gaynstandand ony priuifredome geifyn in the contrare. Scot. Act. Pari. A.D. 1424.
it is
He slogh him sone that ilk day Forfered that he sold oght say.
With
stout curage agane
The Seuyn
I
Sages.
him wend
will
Thocht he in proues pas the grete Achill, set in cats sic armour he weris as he, Wrocht be the handis of God Vulcanus sle.
Or
Gawin Douglas.
And put the cais that I may not optene From Latyne land thaim to expell all clene, Tit at leist thare may fall stop or delay. Idem.
It
may
be ordered that
ii
or
iii
oldiers waited to the coast of
,auen there.
of our owne shippes do see the sayde Frenche France ; forseing that our sayd shippes entre no Q. Elizabeth to Sir W. Cecil.
It is plain, that
these phrases operate, with relation to the sen-
show a relation, exactly in the same nanner as the words do, which we call conjunctions. phrase is irst abbreviated into its principal words, and these are again conences between which they
Thus the French c'est asavoir above was probably first translated into English, " it is to know," r " it is to wit," whence we now have in our legal documents the bbreviated phrase, " to wit ;" as from the Latin videre licet comes idelicet, which we have adopted into the English language. These bbreviations and contractions are very arbitrary in their use and he longer sometimes supersedes the shorter. Our ancestors in the fteenth century used to say where, for that conjunction which we ow express by whereas, i. e. where that.
racted into one short word.
|uoted
;
Wher
it
in a statute made was ordeigned, &c. &c.
in the xvij yere of the reign of
King Edward the

c. 6,
iiijth
Please
it
therefore youre highnesse &c. to ordeign.
Stat. 1 Sic. III.
MS.
conjunction*
366. I have before observed on the erroneous notion entertained by jme grammarians, that men at any period of history set to work
to invent
little
Merely as prepositions
mctions.
le
It is
words " {oVinventer des petits mots), to be employed and the same remark is applicable to contrue, that of some few conjunctions we cannot trace
:
with perfect certainty ; but even these are manifestly conless closely with significant words in different lanuages or dialects and the far greater number are distinctly seen to ave been used as nouns or verbs, somewhat differing perhaps in >rm, but showing a clear analogy in signification. This will be
origin
ected
more or
2.
210
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
[CHAP.
tl
tl
rendered sufficiently clear, by tracing the etymology of two or of the principal conjunctions ; the others being reserved for appropriate place in a future part of this treatise.
And.
367. " The principal copulative," says Harris, m is and," wr answers to the Greek ml and the Latin et, and is found subst Vossius considers the Latin et tially in all cultivated languages. be derived per apocopen from the Greek hi, prceterea, insuperj more properly speaking, to be the very word in, only pronoun more briefly by the Latins. It is remarkable that in the rr ancient remains that we have of the Latin language, the fragment* the laws of the Twelve Tables, et rarely if ever occurs, but its pi is supplied by the enclitic que, which is probably of the same ori The force and effect of all these words, as sim as the Greek ical. coupling together sentences, will be fully understood from what been already said of the copulative conjunctions. Mr. Tooke deri our common word and from anan-ad, which he says in Anglo-Sa: This etymology is altogether obscure, signifies dare congeriem. has even been doubted whether Anan, which he expounds dare, give or grant, had any such meaning and as to the syllable ad\ \vh he translates congeriem, it signified a funeral pile. However, w his usual confidence in his own judgment, he elsewhere says, " I fa
;
already given the derivation which I believe will alone stand exai Skinner, more modestly, but with at least as much phu nescio an a Lat. addere, q. d. add, interject! bility, says, "And word of this very ami epenthesin n, ut in render, a reddendo."
nation."
use can only be guessed at with much doubt, and may possibly find terms of so itself one of the original roots of language. In the Frankish ami ,\ analogy to it in the early Gothic dialects.
We
;
niaunic
it is
written indi, inti,enti, unte, unde

in
in the
modern
Gem
und;
it is
in Icelandic end,
Lower Saxon
n
is
un.
Adelung,
et,
consider
(like Skinner) that the letter
often inserted in one dialect, wl
omitted
in another, is
of opinion that the Latin
and Greek
with the Teutonic enti, unte, &c. It is possi too, that our word and may have a connection with the Mseso-Got a, ut, which is used as a prejxwition answering to the Greek tV, t or with the wmd andar, which in the same langm tV<, k-nru un HUM " Other.* Upon the Whole, Skinner's suggestion is probe]
identical in origin
;
re
for the meaning of and is clearly an remote Prom the truth separate entefiCei we may always substitute the nt| rat fix the conjunction and, with little if an\ difference in the force Tims, "John rode, add IVter walk* Intelligibility of the MBMPOt. add Junes sailed," will not only convey the same notions, but V
not
\'-rv
in
><
MM
ir.
had been un tin-in nearly in the same ih.uuj.i-, If H mtlv written, " John rode, end Peter walked, and James sails 868. 1 come bow to the contimatk* conjunction!, that is to sr
Md
which
not on!
them
together.
md their meaning bj coups pendence of one on the other; and ih

:hap. XII.]
irst
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
211
if is called by Mr. Harris a suppositive conjuncsome other grammarians term it a conditional, ; but however it nay be designated, the general force and effect of such a conjunction s obvious in most languages. It serves to mark the certain de>endence of one event on another, without asserting the absolute
as suppositives
ion
existence
ither
of either.
We
therefore intimate, that
if
the one
be,
the
must
necessarily result
from
it
that when
;
we
are sure of the
me, then
we may
reckon upon the other also
or that the former
jeing given as a datum, the latter follows
by the power of reasoning, ience the Greek t], and the Latin si merely expressed being ; for tl s part of the verb ito or tlut, and si is part of siet or sit. The power )f the conjunction el is thus elegantly illustrated by Plutarch, acrding to the free translation of the old English folio " In logike, his conjunction EI (that is to say if, which is so apt to continue a peech and proposition) hath a great force, as being that which giveth brme unto that proposition, which is most agreeable to discourse of eason and argumentation. And who can deny it ? considering that he very brute beasts themselves have in some sort a certeine knowedge and true intelligence of the subsistence of things but nature 'iath given to man alone the notice of consequence, and the judgement or to know how to discerne that which followeth upon every thing. r or that it is day, and that it is light, the very woolves, dogs, and ;ocks perceive but that if it be day, of necessitie it must make the aire ight, there is no creature, save onely man that knoweth." The Greek ir Latin construction, therefore, is " be it that there is day, there must
: ;
Again, the German conjunction answering to our if is signifies when. Hence the expression, " Wenn man lich fragt, so antworte," which signifies " i/any one asks you, answer hus," may be rendered with little difference of meaning, " when any >ne asks you, answer thus." The etymology of our English conjuncion if has of late been matter of dispute. Skinner first traced a jonnection between it and the Anglo-Saxon verb gifan, to give. Gif he Anglo-Saxon conjunction, he says, was used in his time in Lin>e light."
cenn,
which also
colnshire for
Tooke, it seems, was struck with this suggestion of if. dinner's; insomuch that (as has been well observed) "this word vas probably the foundation of his whole system."* Believing that f was the imperative of give, " he naturally enough concluded that
-ther particles
might be accounted
for
by the same
process.
Accord-
ingly he expended a profusion of labour and perverse ingenuitv in dejecting imperatives where none ever existed, or possibly could."f
Jamieson conceives that neither the Gothic jabai (as he writes it), Alamannic ibu, ob, oba, nor the Icelandic if or ef can be :>rmed from the verbs denoting to give, in those languages.! Else_ Vhere it has been remarked, " that the great variety of ancient forms
)r.
or the
lakes
it difficult
to determine the precise etymon.

X Scottish Diet.,
Some
f
Ibid.
are not
* Quart. Rev., No. 108, p. 316.

art. Gif.
p2
212
unlike the Sanscrit iva
OF CON JUNCTIONS.
[CHAP. XII
(sicut)
others have the form of nouns.
Th(
old
German
ibu, ipu,
may be
:
resolved into the ablative or instrn
mental of ipa, iba, (dubium) and the Icelandic ef, (if,) appears to b connected with the substantive efi, a doubt, and efa, to doubt, in tha With all due deference to the learned authors of thesi language."* arguments, it appears to me that they are not quite conclusive. I surely does not follow that because a suppositive conjunction in orn language is not connected with a verb of a particular signification it that language, a similar conjunction cannot possibly be connected witl a verb of like signification in another language. It does not follow that because il is not connected with lilufii in Greek, nor si witl dare in Latin, there can be no connection in Ma?so-Gothic betweei the conjunction jabai or yabai, and the verbs and nouns gibai, giba, at giban, gaft, atgaft ; nor in Anglo-Saxon, between the conjunction gi or gyf, and the imperative gif or gyf, the infinitive gifan or gyfan, th
geqf, or the substantives gifa or gyfa, gift o nor again in English between the conjunction if (writtoi or pronounced in old or provincial English and Scotch, yf yiff, yiffe yef yive, geve, gef gyff, giff, gif, gin), and the verbs, nouns, am
preterite
gqf or
gyft, &c.
yevours, yevers, given, geven, yeven, yeoven.
participles geve, yeve, gyff, gaff, giftys, yave, yevyth, yeftys,yeft, ytftii It is to be remarked tha
whatever
may be
the origin of the various Teutonic words signifying
to give, they have manifestly undergone

tion both in the consonants
in the
many changes
and vowels
and the same
Scandinavian dialects.
Of
the
German
of pronuncia is observabl verb geben, the tw
fink persons present are ich gebe, du gibst, the past indicative is id gab, the conjunctive ich gdbe, and the Imperative gib; and the nou;
In the Prankish and Alainannic, we find as nouns o In the Icelandic verba gaba, geba, keba, fab, ghehin, ghibu, gibu. Swedish, and Danish, gqfwa, gifwa, gifva, gofwa, gaf, gave, give. I is also to be remarked that this variety has been increased by th different force and effect given to the (Jothic letter (J and the Angle MO 3, of which tin- Bret was taken from one form of the Romai
(gift) is gale.
I
the lower empire, and the other from another form of the Ban]
letters have o expressed 8 and /. Hence the Anglo-Saxon fftbott fbom) answers to the modern German yelx>ren, and old Knglisl ///<//( tlie Anglo Saxon tlag to the modern English day, the Frisia jern to th.- An. do Saxon i/enrn and Kurdish yearn, and the Angle Saxon gear |0 tin- English year, and the old Scottish word written (i not pronounced) teir. A third remark is also material, namely, tha not onlv th'- iuij>eraUve of tin- Verb to <;mv, which has been ilsoi
l'-tt.-r.
I
The different powera of theae

by
g,
j,
dill'-rent dialects
y,
With a Oonjnnottooal
lorce,
in
hut also the past

I
participle given
of th
view these remarks, proceed to the following exampl''-. ot the connection between the nouns, verbs, and participial led to, With the different forms of the conjunction in question*
verli.
MWe
Keeping
(JllWt. Ki-V.
lit.
Klip.

CHAP.
i.
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
XII.]
213
Moeso-Gothic.
Here
the conjunction which Dr. Jamieson reads
jabai (if) being spelt with Q, would more agreeably to our pronunciation be read yabai, and is connected with gibai, giba, gaft, &c.,
just as
our provincial word yate

afletith
is
with the ordinary word gate.

If you pardon men their misdeeds. Matt. vi. 14.
bill
Yahai
Gibai
mannam
missadedins
ize.
izai afstassis boros.
Atbair tho giba theina.
Wato mis ana

not.
Let him give her a Present thy fotuns meinans Water

gift.
of divorce.
Matt.
v. 31.
Matt. v. 24.
to
ni gaft.
me
for
my
feet thou gavest Luke, vii. 44.
Atgaf siponyam seinaim.
He gave
to his disciples.
Mark,
Matt.
viii. 6.
Hlaif unsaruna thena sinteinan gif uns himmadaga. this day.
Our constant bread give u

vi.
11.
Anglo-Saxon. Here the z answer to our g and y

ii.
:
is
equally used for words which

will seek that.
Zif ze that secan willeth.

Se cyning his zife sealde.
If (prov. gif) ye
Alfred's Bede,
1.
1. c. 1.
The king presented He forgeaf thone anweald his apostolon. He gave the power to his
his gifts.
Ibid.
1.
2, c. 3.
apostles.
3, c. 7.
iii.
Old English and Scotch
to sende.
Ibid.
1.
Hartely myght thei warry me, That of ther gud had ben so fre,
To
Sir
gyffe
me and
Sir Amadas.
Amis answerd tho
Sir, therof yive
Do
al that
Y nought a thou may.
slo
Amis and Amiloun.
Not Avarice
the foule caytyfe

is
Was
halfe to grype so ententyfe,

to yeue
As Largesse
&
spende.
Chaucer.
And with hys hevy mase

And
to all
of stele
dele.
There he gaff the kyng hys
Richard Coer de Lion.
truely in the blustring of her looke, shee yaue gladnes & comforte sodainly my wittes. Chaucer, Test. Loo.
seid
The remedy by the

hasty remedy.
estatutes is not verray perfite nor yevyth certeyn ne
Stat. 11 Hen. VII.
c.
22,
MS.
He 9 afgyftys
Gold
largelyche
&
syluer
&
clodes ryche.
Launfal Miles.
lede.
For gret yeftys that she gan bede, To londe the schypmen gonne her
Octouian Imperator.
Every
Sandys.
astate,
feoffement,
yeft,
relesse,
graunte,
lesis
and confirmacions
c. 1.
ot
Stat. 1 Rich. III.
MS.
Provided that this acte

bad or
made by
extend not to any graunte or grauntes, yeft or yiftis, the kinges letres patentes to the same Anthony.
Stat. 11 Hen. YII. c. 31.
MS.
Ayenst the
sellers, feffours,
yevours or grauntours, and his or their heires. Stat. 1 Rich. III. c. 1. MS.
214
That no
yever.
artificer
is
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
[CHAP. X]
this estatute
ne laborer herafter named take no more ne gretter wagis then lvmvtted, upon the payne assessed as well unto the taker as to t Stat. 11 Hen. VII. c. 22. MS.
slet
Which lawe bv negligence ys disused, and therbv srrete boldnes ys goven to Stat'. 8 Hen. VII. c. 2. MS. and murdrers. "
Teoven under our signet.
If the seid lessee or lesses within the seid justices of the peas.
viii daies
Q. Elizabeth, Let. to Sir
W.
Cecil.
warnyng
theym yeven by any Stat. 11 Hen. VII. c. 9, MS.

to
Or
yit
gewe Virgil stude well before.
Gattin Douglas.
Eorthliche knyght, or eorthliche kyng Nis so swete in no thyng Kyng Alisaunder. Oef he is God, he is mylde.
He askyd
at all the route,
Gyff ony durste com and prove A cours for hys lemannes love.
Richard Coer dc Lion.
For giff he be of so grete excellence, That he of every wight hath cure & charge, Quhat have I gilt to him, or doon offense ? A". James I.
The King's Quair.

then,
The domes and law pronouncis sche The feis of thare laubouris equalye
Gart distribute.
to
thaym
Be
Ich
Gif dout fallis thareby cut or cavill that plede sone partid was.
Gawin Douglas.
hider to day, For to sauen hem, yiue Y may.

says,
am comen
Amis and Amiloun.
Tef thou me louest ase mon Lemmon as y wene Ant yef hit thi wille be
Thou
loke that hit be sene.
MS.
Wurthe we never
for
Harl. No. 2253,
fol.
80.
men
telde,
Sith he hath don us thys despyte, Richard Coer de Lion. Tiffe he agayn passe quyte.
He thought
M..
.:
The The lawe of
yif ich com hir to, than i> 1i.uk- ydo, abbetse wil souchy gile.
Lay Le
Freine.
i
the land ys that yf eny taken, the township)' w!rr the detli or
man
be slaync in the day, and the felon murder is done shal be amerced. Stat. 3 Hen. VII. c. 2, MS.
living
worth cou'd win
my
heart,
You wou'd na
It can hardly
]
<
sjxiak in vain.
Scott Song.
l<.ul.t--<
lmi
tliat
gif, y. yf> !/if, yff, yi/\ .'//'i ii' -noiw, the same in origin
those words geve, gef, gyff, g\ which in the last eleven examples a
y*. $#
i:i'-t<l\-
with the preceding ram gm we "' boom giftys, yftys, y./K yjfh orf* ya. ynyHi, "" seem, -,111] plainer that the conjunction ///*'/< it jj.mui., 7.1.7 .in.
;
1
I -hti.ivni implication
is
..I
the partieiple
this
govm, yemvit, or
in
i/rre
uh'li
if,
tin-
uuxlera îwn.
Hut
change
the
u.se
of the
won
gif, g'in,
&c
causes
them
to express a
new "
posture, stand, tur

chap, xn.]
or thought of
OF COXJUXCTIOXS.
215
Mr. Locke speaks), and thus to perform a become a different " part of .speech," Mr. Tooke, therefore, is right so far as lie namely, a conjunction. follows SKIJOrEB, who first showed the connection between if and give but he is wrong, when, trusting to his own theory, he says, " our corrupted if has always the signification of the English impeIn short he is right where he is not rative give, and no other." Nor is his " addioriginal, and original only where he is not right. " As an additional proof," says tional proof" of much relevancy. he, " we may observe, that whenever the datum upon which any
(as
different function in language, or
:
mind "
conclusion depends,
is
a sentence, the article that
if
not expressed
in
is
always understood, and

Hath
may
be inserted after if: as
the instance
My
lotted her to be
largesse
your brother's mistresse,

;
Gif shee can be
reclani'd
gif not, his prey.
Sad Shepherd,
act 2, sc. 1.
The poet might have

But
the article that
is
said,
Gif that she can be reclam'd, &c.
not understood, and cannot be inserted after if not a sentence but some noun governed by the verb if or give. Exam. 'How will the weather dispose of you tomorrow ?' ' If fair, it will send me abroad, &c.' " So far Tooke. Now the whole of this observation turns on the peculiar idiom of the English language, which admits one form of ellipsis and not another
where the datum
is
for all these constructions are elliptical
and the word
that,
which
is
a conjunction as well as if, has not the least pretension in such sentences to be called an article. I shall have occasion hereafter to notice some other uses of this conjunction, when I speak of the phrases 0! si 01 gin, an if as if, &c. 369. Of the disjunctive conjunctions, I will here only instance Though, a word of the class which Harris calls inadequate adversatives that is to say, conjunctions uniting two sentences, one of which states an event or circumstance, and the other states another event or circumstance as inadequate to prevent the former ex. gr. " Troy uritt be taken although Hector defend it," where the conjunction although serves to show that Hector defends Troy with a view to prevent its being taken but that this preventive is inadequate to produce the intended effect. may, however, observe that the same conjunction is used, and by a just analogy to mark an apparent incongruity of qualities, where the possession of the one does not, in fact, preclude the existence of the other, as, " though brave, yet pious ;" though
Though. AltUou * lu
We
yet polite." But a more forcible illustration of the true nature of our adversative conjunction, though, cannot be given than in the daring speech of Macbeth
learned,
Though Birnam wood be come
to Dunsinane,
And
thou oppos'd being of no

I
woman
born,
Yet will
try the
last.
216
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
[CHAP. XII.
If we examine the real force of the word though in these and similar passages (and although is merely an intensive form of the same conjunction), we shall find that it does not imply an absolute inadequacy to produce a given effect, but such an inadequacy as may be thought It might have been thought, for instance, that Troy could to exist. It might have been thought, not fall, if it was defended by Hector.
that a particular individual distinguished for bravery was therefore unlikely to be very pious ; or that one absorbed in the pursuit of
learning
would pay
little
attention to
the
minutiae
of politeness.
might have been tJiought, that when events apparently miraculous, and on whose impossibility a man of strong feelings like Macbeth had staked his rank, his honour, and his life, did really come to pass, he would have been utterly prostrated with terror, and unaHe to strike a blow in his own defence. Judging from the ordinary course of human affairs, such thoughts would not have been unreasonable. The conjunction though, therefore, merely indicated an and being unexpected difference between truth and probability directly connected with the probable, it required another conjunction, such as yet, or nevertheless, to denote the true. Mr. Tooke says, " Tho' or though is the imperative thaf or thafig, from the verb thatian, This is one of the few instances in which he or thafigan to allow." ventured on an original etymology it appears indeed at first sight The proper plausible, but I fear it will scarcely bear examination. meaning of the verb thafigan, thafian, or gethafian is to permit, as by a superior to an inferior. In a charter of William the Conqueror we find, " Ic nelle gethafian thoet a>nig man this abrecan ;" which in the
Above
all it
ancient Latin version

istud frangat
:"
is
thus rendered,
"Ego
in
and the same clause occurs
nolo consentire utaliquis two other charters, one
of Henry
is
I.,
the other of
i.
Henry
II., in
the latter of which the verb
spelt gethauian,
e.,
gethavian.
If this had been (ho origin of our
conjunction,
thaf; but there
should find an Anglo-Saxon conjunction thafig, or no such conjunction in that language; the correspondent Anglo-Saxon conjunction is ttwah, a word plainly connected witli the Anglo-Saxon substantive theaht, as our conjunction though Neither do we find i, with our rorrrs|>onding substantive thought. tin-/, or v, of thafian or thavian, in tho analogous conjunctions of any Scandinavian. c.l tli.- other Gorman dialects, Teutonic or DNO, under the Gorman word doch, says, " In bow Saxon this particle is
is
we
Am
dnli, in
.
sounded doch and dog, by Ulphilas, than, by Xtfriod thoh, by Willorarn Anglo Saxon thmh, in hutch <li>ch, in English though, in Danish in Swedish dock." In old English and Scottish wo find it written very varioii.dy, thah, Ihiiuijl,, tlinij,-, thof, t/iix-ht, ami thought: i,
<
inl Ih'ih tli.m
u.i
ii.
tiiihanl
In"
Imii lhalt
Hum
fay
,,
Battk '/ loom.

CHAP.
XII.]
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
Ant
217
for ir feimesse, thau ho be comen of threlle, Hire wedlac ne seal ho nout lesen all. Vita Sanctce Margareta.
Though me slowe feole of heom, They slowe mo of the kyngis men.

Thoffe
Kyng Alisamder.
Sir Amadas.
Y owe
syche too.
Thof men wolde

Bot thocht
Forgif
alle the londc seche.
MS.
I failyeit
Earl. 1333, fol. 125.
me
for
my
of rhyming, will was gude.

Scottish Horn, of Alexander.
Thocht be na reson persaue I mycht but fale Quhat than the force of armis coud auale. Gawin Douglas.
Thocht he remission Haif for prodission,
Schame
:ynl
suspission
Ay
The king
with him dwells.

possession
Dunbar.
veste
in the
woll that suche and beholy other persone wise thought he had never be
in like
as
enfeoffed.
c.
Stat. 1 Bic. III.

It is to
5,
MS.
spell
be observed that Gawin Douglas and other Scottish writers thocht, the past tense of the verb, to think, exactly as they do this
:
conjunction
So that
To de
But
we thocht maist semelye, in ane fechtand ennarmed vnder schield.

sound thair
retreit,
field,
Gawin Douglas.
said they sould
Because they thocht them nae ways meit Conducters unto me.
Alex. Montgomery.
Anglo-Saxon athoht, or gethoht, the Dutch gedocht, and the German gedacht, all answer to our substantive thought; and upon the whole it may be reasonably concluded that our present conjunction though is not derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb thafigan, or thafian ; but comes to us, through various modifications, from the Anglo-Saxon conjunction theah, connected with the AngloSaxon substantive theaht, which we have in like manner modified
to this that the
Add
into thought.
word
In confirmation of this etymology, it may be observed, that the suppose is often used in the Scotch dialect for though
Yone
slae,
suppose thou think

satisfie to
it
sour,
May
Thy
slokkin
drouth now.
Alex. Montgomery.
Stories to rede ar delectabil Suppois that they be nocht but fabil.
Barbour.
370. The instances here given of and, if, and though, may suffice ordinate., to show how the part of speech called a conjunction, has arisen, in the development of the powers of language, out of more circuitous modes of expression, by whole sentences or phrases. In another part of this work, the same principle will be illustrated by tracing histo-
[chap. XII
218
ricallv
OF COXJUXCTIOXS.
There is a class o the growth of our other conjunctions. words, however, which demands notice here, and which Mr. Harris says " may be properly called adverbial conjunctions, because the} of conjuncparticipate the nature both of adverbs and conjunctions tions as they join sentences ; of adverbs as they denote the attributes Such are when, where, whence, whither, whenever. of time and place." Upon the principle which I have adopted, these are wherever, &c. but the nam< to be called conjunctions when they conjoin sentences adverbial is not at all distinctive, because many other conjunctions have occasionally an adverbial use ; and many prepositions wher The scheme o: used conjunctionally serve to mark time or place. arrangement which Harris has followed, is principally directed to the logical connection of sentences; but the connections of time and plaa Th< are merely physical, and should therefore form a class apart.
term ordinative, which Vossius applies to deinde, postea, &c, may 1101 improperly designate the whole of this class. Thus, among ordinatives of time we should reckon whiles, till, o that
or, be
His Lord nold he neuer forsake Whiles he ware oliue.

Full ofte drinkes shce,
Till
Amis and Amiloun.
ye
may
see
The
teares
run down her cheeke.
Gammer
Al the day and
Sathanas
the nyht that sprong the day lyht.
al
Gurton's Needle
Geste of
Kyng Horn.
to Hell.
bvnde the, her shalt thou lay, Christ's Descent that come Domesday.
dedly foo schal abeyen it or he goo.
it is
He He
Put
my
Richard Coer de Lion.
Your madynis than

in glide
sail
haue your geir

cU'eir
ordour and
Ilk
morning or yow
ryse.
Philotits.
The supper done than vp ye ryse, To gang ane quhyle as is the gvse
Be ye haue
It is
row-mit
run- iilh-v
thrysc
/'/./.
ane inyle almaist.

in tin-
So, where
is
an ordinative of place
liv.-u
following passage:
rails
I
Ho
HiM|
"
'"
"
Hi-
1. Ii.int
in..
.1
;,'IV;.;;itr.
S/i.i/.Sj.r.nr.
The
;i.l|.
|
ordinals,
.-.ii'li
1
wlii<h
haw
ttfM,
1 1
:iW//-7, ,,,,/,
u.lvi il..
the class of pronominal \.., n.r, -.sank imply mniii-rtimi, am

in
Included
HBieqii'
ill.-
I..HH..1 Irniii tin-in, arc easily
employed
a1
..I'
will:
thj lh,
conjunctional
|
force, as primb, eecundo, tertib,

'
when pkctd
Iii,
I,
.ymnili:.
,i\,,l,,
Ol
Ok
i.
I.'
'I'll.'
..i
In
i,t
.,
..I.
.IV.
.1
BMdai
-laiiv
tM
lli.--..-
ant.T,.,!,
as delude,
Item,
v.vlc
puiu, next, syne, lastly, 6tc.
" Delude," says Vossius, " aim

CHAP.
XII.]
219
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
jungitur,
conjunctio autem,
ad circumstantiam tempons indicandum, adverbium est: cum tantiim ad orationis juncturam pertinet."
;
Accepit conditionem
dein
;
quantum
occipit.
Terentius.
Cicero.
Pergratum mihi
feceris
spero item Scseroke, &c.
lis font estat d'aller a
Orleans, a Blois, puis a Tours.
Diet, de I'Academie.
First ae caper, syne anither.
Burns.
some conjunctions are used Thus we may singly, and others in a succession of two or more. " both John and William came," say, " John and William came," or " It is ordained or both John and William, and also James came. that proclamation be made, and that the judgment be recorded, and furthermore that the record be transmitted." Where two or more succeed each other with a mutual relation, there is sometimes that:" so" "so a fixed order in the succession; ex.gr. "as
371.
It remains to be observed, that
p ""
Vossros thus speaks " Conjunction etiam accidit ordo secundum quern aliae sunt prapositivw, aliae communes, ut et, nam ; aliae postpositive, ut quoque, autem
&c.
this subject
;
;
" when
then"
On
ut equidem, itaque.
Igitur saepius postpomtur.
ticula prsspositiva, Terent. Phor. act. v. sc. viii.
Enim etiam est parEnim nequeo solus.

his,
Ad
postpositivas etiam pertinent encliticae.
Ex
alteri
verbo jungitur
lib.
ii.
quam
:
nativus verborum ordo exigebat
que interdum ut apud :
Horat.
od. 19
Ore pedes
tetigitque crura.
These however are matters depending on the particular idiom of each language, and not governed by the philosophy of general grammar. 372. The case is different with the pleonasms and cumulations of conjunctions. These occur in all languages, and they therefore clearly
Pro cruraque
tetigit.^
Cnmuiatiom.
arise
out of principles
common
to the
human mind
in
countries.
Hence Vossius speaks of
expletive conjunctions
" Extantum
different
pletive sunt, quae nulla necessitate sententiae, sed explendi

gratia
metri vel ornatus caussa inseruntur. Sallust. in Catil. Verum enimverb is demum mihi vivere, etfrui animd Virgil, in xii: videtur; ubi veriim redundat."
usurpantur.
Ut
quae
Equidem merui.nec
deprecor, inquit.
equidem tollas." referred such expressions as " an if:"

fuerit sententia, licet
Plena
To
this
head are to be
The
clerk will ne'er
Well I know wear hair on's face that had
it.
He
will an' if he live to be a

;
man
where either an or if is redundant for they both signify the same, and Johnson is wrong in supposing that an' in this instance is a conVossius refers these redundancies to the custom of traction of and.
ancient writers, "
rent voces
Nempe
is
veterum
mos
fuit,
idem
significantes."
But they
are not peculiar to
ut interdum conjungeany age

220
or nation
:
OF CONJUNCTIONS.
[CEAP. XJI
they are the result of hasty and inconsiderate habits of speech, which, it is true, are more common in the first formation of a language, than in more cultivated and civilized periods of history. Cumulation, however, is not always redundancy . When we find a " but nevertheless if" the conjunction but sentence beginning thus connects it with what goes before, and if with some subsequent sentence, and the word nevertheless alone may be called redundant, and
adds a great force and emphasis to the In the Greek language, this cumulation of conjunctions is frequent; and it is sometimes explained by an ellipsis. The Hoogeveen " Hoc modo aXAa vvvyt redditur nunc maxime, suppressa per says
yet not
strictly so, since it
word
but.
ellipsin vocula e'inoTe.
Ita Sophocl. in Electr. v.
413
*0
Diipatrii, aJest c nunc maxime, vel nunc saltern!
Plenior structura est
vvvyt avyyiveadel !" nunc adeste saltern
"ft,
Qeol
7rarp<j3ot, tiiroTt
ovyyivtoOi
alias
[tot,
dXXa
Dii
patrii, si
unquam
mihi adfuistis, at
And so much for the conjunction, which receives its grammatical character neither from the form nor position of the word, but from its office in connecting sentences with each other, enunciative or passionate, according to their different
modes of relation.
221
CHAPTER
XIII.
OF ADVERBS.
373. Different grammarians have arranged the Adverb in different Order of Apollonius, followed by Priscian, treats of them"8 parts of their systems.
after the preposition and before the conjunction and interjection. Scaliger also places it after the preposition. Manutius places it between the verb and the participle Harris after the participle and
it
;
before the article.

it
Most of
the ancient grammarians, however, rank
as next preceding the preposition, conjunction,

:
tins order
may
and interjection. In they are followed by Vossius and I am not sure that it not be the best arrangement but in our own language, and per;
haps in others, there are many words used as adverbs, the explanation of which may appear more obvious and intelligible, when they are employed as prepositions or conjunctions. In this view, therefore, it may not be amiss that the consideration of the adverb should be postponed to that of the other two classes; but as there is no absolute dependence of any one of these classes on either of the two others, the order of their arrangement is comparatively unimportant. 374. Mr. Tooke advanced a far more serious objection against the Tooke> obj*ctlon prevalent doctrines concerning this part of speech, when he asserted, " that neither Harris, nor any other grammarian, seemed to have any clear notion of the nature and character of the adverb." After this he proceeded to give his own notions, not of the adverb in general, but of a number of adverbs in particular, from which, and from what he had before said of the conjunctions and prepositions, he left his readers to collect that knowledge which, in his opinion, no grammarian beside himself had ever acquired. As this does not appear to be a very fair way of treating the grammatical student, I shall endeavour to pursue a more satisfactory method, even at the hazard of adopting, from the ancient grammarians, some of those notions which appeared to Mr. Tooke so obscure,
375. The adverb was originally so called, because it was added to its force and meaning ; hence the Greek writers denned it thus YLiripprifia tori fxipog Xoyov ukXitov, Itti to piifia ttjv avatpopap i\ov. " The adverb is an indeclinable part of speech, having relation to the verb." The question of its being indeclinable or not, is unimportant in the present investigation, since this circumstance depends on the idiom of a particular language ; but the relation which the adverb bears to the verb depends on the Science of Universal Grammar: and this relation is stated by most of the ancient grammarians as the peculiar property of the adverb. Doxatus makes it
the verb, to modify
:
Definition,

222
OF ADVERBS.
:
[CHAP.
XIII.
the only characteristic of this part of speech

orationis, qicce adjecta verbo signijicationem ejus
Adverbium
est
pars
aut minuit.
" The adverb is a verb, either completes, or diminishes, or alters its signification." Vossius, however, observes, that the adverb is added not only to and, consequently, that its name verbs, but to nouns and participles must be understood to have been given to it, not from the use to
;
aid complet, aid mutat, a part of speech, which being added to
which
serves.
it is
always applied, but from that for which

solis adjicitur
it
most generally
et participiis
:
Non
verbis, sed
etiam nominibus
nomen
non ex eo quod semper, sed quod plurimum fit. By the word nouns, Vossius, as he afterwards explains it, means adjec" tives, both nominal, pronominal, and participial. say," adds he,
igitur accepit
We
" bene
disserens, as well as
bene dicere, and bene doctus."
And
so
we
propemodum suus, et magis nostras, as well as, prorsus amicus, propemodum liber, magis Eomanus, &c. For want of a clear and intelligible definition of the adverb, some writers have unsay, prorsus meus,
may
doubtedly exposed themselves to the sarcasm of Tooke, who thus Omnis pars orationis, " every word," translates a sentence of Servius quando desinit esse quod est, " when a grammarian knows not what to make of it," migrat in adverbium, " he calls an adverb." It is impossible to avoid these errors, unless we first establish a definition of the adverb, to which, as a test, the various classes of words properly comprehended by different grammarians under this common designation may be applied. I venture therefore, with all becoming diffidence, to An adverb is a part of sjyeech added to a propose the following perfect sentence, for the purpose of modifying primarily the conception expressed by a verb, an adjective nominal or pronominal, or a participle ; or secondarily, tliat expressed by another adverb. In explicating this definition, I sliall consider, first, the sort of sentence to whieh an adverb may Ihj added; secondly, the modifications which may eliii and, thirdly, the modes by which such modifications may
:
:
it.
expn
'<7('k
adverb is added t.. a perfect sentence, con:i pure into a modal one: and by a sentence 1 heiv mean one which either enunciates some truth, or llie passion with its object. Therefore, even to n simple iijijM-r.it i\ the adverb may be added, since a perfect sense is expressed without it, and its addition only serves to modify the verb. Thus the
I.
First,
say, the
verting
i
it,
If
Categorical,
fan
word "
an
act,
llv I"
is,
iii
ofii c.t,
ii
p' rfec*t
sentence, for
act
il
implies an agent and
and
it
couples the conception of the

it'
of (King with the con-
ception 0# thl p'-rson address, d,

least in In. Volit
not in the perception of the spi
To
with
,,f
this sentence, therefore, an
added consistent
nr definition,
the |u
i,
,
and
\
1
we may
it
j . i
say,
,
adverb ma\ bl " fly quickly !"

necessary
r
aliou
H. ite
.eiiteiice,
.
s s -lively
.
plain the eniineiative.
When
thus
I
the
i.
j
;\<\\
passion,
there
csui
be no diihcnhv
when Macbeth
lys:
Afterlife'*

CHAP.
XIJI.J
"
223
OF ADVERBS.
difficulty in
understanding that the adverb well modifies there can be no question, however, may arise, where the verb the verb sleeps. merely expresses existence ; as, in the line just quoted, if the expression had been " he is well," it might be questioned whether icell was an
similar remark may be made on such adverb or an adjective. It is true that in expressions as " he is asleep," " he is awake," &c. the English language these and many other such words have an adverbial form, and cannot be employed in immediate connection with substantives, as " a well man," an " asleep man," or an " awake man ;" yet where they thus form the predicates of verbs, they are, in eriect, " He is well " corresjxtnds exactly with " he is healthy " adjectives. " he is asleep" with " he is sleeping " " he is awake " with, " he is waking :" and in a question of Universal Grammar, the idiomatic form When I say the senof the words cannot at all decide the question. tence must be perfect, I mean it must be perfect in the mind ; in part expression, a part or even the whole of it may be understood. is understood when the mind evidently supplies what is necessary to complete the sentence, as in the animated lines of Sir Walter
Scott
Were
On Stanley !On ! the last words of Maraion.
Here the adverb on manifestly
refers to some verb understood in the mind, such as " march," " drive," " rush," or the like. The verb is suppressed, because it is indifferent to the speaker; the adverb is expressed, because it is of the utmost importance; because to the thoughts and feelings of the dying hero the mode of getting at the enemy was immaterial ; but to get at them by some means or other was his most eager wish. The whole of the sentence is understood, when the adverb is responsive as, " Will you come ? Yes." " When
:
you come? Presently." "How often did he come? Once." For these answers mean, " I will come certainly " I will come presently " " He came once" And consequently the adverbs, yes, " presently, and once, are to be taken as modifying the verbs " will come and " did come," respectively. 377. II. The adverb, I say, is used to modify primarily a verb, an
will
ModiUcation.
adjective nominal or pronominal, or a participle
or secondarily, another
adverb.
As Harris calls
order," he,
the verb, adjective, and participle, " attributives
parity of reason, denominates the adverb " an attributive of a secondary order," or " an attributive of an attributive."'
of the
first
by
word 'Enipprifia is of the same and meaning as these phrases for I have already shown that the word 'Pij/ia is used by many writers to signify not only what is commonly called a verb, but also what are called adjectives and participles.
Harris, indeed, justly argues that the
force
;
Thus AllMOXlTJS
Kai
says, caret tovto to ar]fLair6p.ivov, to fitv

teat
KAAOS,
XeyeaSai, ra) ovk 'ONOMATA. "According to this signification" (that is, of denoting the attributes of substance and the predicates in propositions), " the
AIKAIOS,
ocra
Totavra
'PHMATA
224
OF ADVERBS.
[CHAP.
XIII.
Of the
verb.
words, fair, just, and the like, are called verbs and not nouns." And so Priscian, speaking of the Stoics, says, " Participium connumerantes "Reckoning the participle verbis, participiale verbum vocant." among verbs, they call it a participial verb." Whatever may be thought of this reasoning, it at least agrees with the proposition, that the adverb is employed to modify the participle, the adjective, and the verb. On the other hand, the adverb is not employed to modify the substantive ; because that is the function of the adjective, or of the article. Let us then consider the parts of speech which are primarily modified by the adverb, viz. the verb and the adjective, taking the latter term in its widest sense. 378. The verb, it must be remembered, asserts or manifests existence, either simply or together with some attribute of action or passion. The adverb, therefore, may either modify the attribute involved in the When it verb, or it may modify the mere assertion of existence.
:
modifies the attribute,
its
operation
is
exactly similar to
what will
pie-
conception of running is modified by the adverb swiftly, in the proposition " he runs swiftly," precisely as it is by the adjective swift in the proposition " he
sently be described in regard to the adjective.
The
The case is somewhat different when the adverb is is a swift runner." If this be done considered as modifying the assertion of existence.
with reference to the corporeal conceptions of place and time,
as to place, such positive conceptions as those
we
have,
marked by the adverbs here and there ; and such relative conceptions as those marked by the adverbs where and whence. If I say that a given event happened here, my assertion is positive and is limited to a certain point of space, and by necessary implication contradicts the assertion not only that it did not happen at all, but tliat it happened at any other place than the one indicated. So with regard to time: if I say that a
happening now, my assertion is positive and is limited time; if I say it happened yesterday, it is equally posiU\e ,unl limited to a certain time past. Again, if I say the event in question happened where some other event had occurred, the local :ih>rhwhere is relative and if I say it happened when some other did, the t'lnporal ailverli when is also relative. It is scarcely necessary to add tliat local and temporal conceptions maj he adverbially expressed The event in question may under an endless variety of circumstances. cciir a/xxird, or iLshurr, ah ft, or Inlaw, abroad, or at home; the ship may be cut at/rift ; the army may U marching lunar wards the battle may
certain event
is
bO the present
cease awhile,
it
may be begun am
w,
il
may
terminate suddenly, &c. &c.
&c.
So, the asv rtion of exi tence contained in a verb may be modified DMntd OOnOtptkPS, and these also may be expressed
.
proiMwitiou, the assertion if not simply affir needs no modification may be modified bj I negative as not, ne, nee; or it inn \ ! modified as to certainty, if clear, by the adverbs indeed, certain/'/, and If doobtrol by the adverbs psrtapt,
adverbially.
Thus,
i
in a
..
DMtive
(\\ In'
h "!
"Mi
Ik,; or, as to mode, by the adverbs mum,
id, as, fee.
or the
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF ADVERBS.
225
assertion
may be put
when
or responsively
interrogatively by the adverbs how, ichy, where, by the adverbs yes or no. The connection of
propositions in an argument, and particularly of the premises with the conclusion, may be marked by such words as ergo, consequently, therefore, which
some grammarians treat as adverbs, though others (and perhaps more accurately) hold to l>e conjunctions; a remark which applies generally to the adverbs called relative. 379. The term adjective, as I have said, is here to be taken in its orthe Adjec,lve widest sense, as including not only the adjective simple, or proper, but
and the pronominal adjective. It is manifest that all the attributes which these various classes of words express are capable of modification. Thus, a house which is " lofty," may be " surprisingly lofty," or " very lofty," or " moderately lofty." And in like manner we may speak of " a remarkably intellialso the participle, or participial adjective,
gent youth," an " over indulgent parent," " a truly affectionate friend." So, when we use a participle, or a pronominal adjective, we mav modify it by the aid of an adverb, as " much obliged," "greatly indebted," " wholly yours," " absolutely mine," " nobly born," " well bred," " highly gifted," " universally respected," " little moved," " less affected," " not so energetic," " equally judicious," " how admirable !" " thus far," " no further." In all these instances, it is obvious, that the attribute
expressed by the
adverb.
In truth,
adjective
undergoes some
modification from the
a double conception, as, first, a conception of loftiness with reference to the house, and, secondly, a conception of surprise with reference to the loftiness ; so that the sentence " the
we form
house
is
tences, " the
surprisingly lofty " resolves itself into these other two senhouse is lofty," and " the loftiness is surprising." Mr.
Harris, therefore,
attributive
;
had great reason to
call
for, in
the latter of these
two
the adverb an attributive of an sentences, we find the word

loftiness,
" surprising" represents an attribute of that

prior sentence,
which, in the
was considered as an attribute of the house. It is not the house altogether which excites surprise, but only its quality of loftiness.
house
prisingly lofty.
its
may be both lofty and surprising, without being surThese modifications of an attribute may regard either
quality.
Its quantity
is,
quantity or
is,
its
may be
that
simply
or relatively, that
comparatively.
in
modified positively, The adverbs thus

as,
used positively in regard to quantity continuous, are such

little, sufficiently,
much,
parum,
satis,
&c.
regard to quantity discrete, such
as
ticice, thrice,
semel, decies, &c.
Those used
intension, are such as more, nimis, valde,
such as
less,
positively
vix, &c. The by such adverbs
quality of
as well,
ill,
by way of way of remission, an attribute may be modified

relatively, if
&c
if
hv
nobly, bene, male,fortiter, &c.

excessively,
or relatively, in regard to degree,
&e.
and in regard to similitude, 380. Such being the primary uses of the adverb,
;
by such as rather, potius, by as, so, adeb, &c.
ceive that the secondary use
is
similar.
As
it is easy to con- Secondary uso the adjective modifies the

'
substantive,
2.
and the adverb modifies the
adjective, so
may
Q
a second
226
OF ADVERBS.
'
[CITAP. XI
adverb be applied to the former with the same power of modificatk the word admirably may be prefixed to good, so may very be pi and we may say " a very admirably go fixed to them both together discourse ;" in which, and the like instances, the analysis is similar what I have before stated. The discourse is good, the goodness
As
impnwr
admirable, the admiration is extreme. 381. To the classes of words which have been properly compi hended under the title of adverbs, some grammarians have add
others which have no legitimate
title
to that appellation.
Hen
twenty-eight classes enumerated by Hickes, the twent seven by Manutius, the twenty- one by Charisius, and those of oth writers, we find enough to justify the sarcasm of Tooke, and explain, if not to justify, the grave designation of the Stoics, who call< this part of speech Wavliicrriv ; because, as Charisius says, " Omnia
the
se capit, quasi col lata per saturam concessa sibi rerum
v.iria
among
potestatt
Thus some reckon as adverbs, the nouns substantive Roma', domi,cas and the like; some the nouns adjective vili, caro ; some the pronoti mecum, tecum, yiobiscum, vobiscum ; some the verbs used interjections!] age, amabo, quocso, and some the mere interjections heus! utinttv
These aberrations from grammatical principle may perbfl ecce! &c. be accounted for, in part from the want of a clear and intelligil definition of the part of speech called an adverb, and in pari fro a mistaken impression of some writers, that adverbs and interjectio are words of too insignificant a character to deserve serious attentio " Interjectio" (says Caramuel) " posset ad adverbinm reduci, aed <|n majoribus nostris placuit illam distinguere, non est cur in ru tern ten " The interjection might be reckoned among adverb ha^reamus." but since our predecessors have been pleased to distinguish it fro them, we need not hesitate about so trifling a matter" However the errors may have arisen, it must be confessed that they have be< Vossius says, " Interje shared by writers of no mean reputation.
ttooea
Gneda
Boethius."
Ben Jonson
ad adverbia rereruntur, atque eos sequitur etis says, " Prepositions are a peculiar kind
adrerba, and ought to be referred thither;" and Bishop Wilklna sav is is so nice, til; that " the dilierelice between pi v| losit Hi 9 and .u l\
[(
<
it is
hard
in
some
<'iin
preposition
cases to distinguish them." Yet it is manifest that no more lie considered as a peculiar kind of adver!
I
! r< .1 n a peculiar kind of adjective than i mbstant verb for the proper function of the preposition is to niodib a eonce] ami the proper function of the adverl) is to modii tioii
:
scoiiccptii.n of attribute, either alone, or

but the part of speech winch
combined with an
assertioi
namea
a conception of substance is tr
peeeh which names a conceptions the pari "i noun adjective; ami the part of speech which to interjections, the) do not serve to modify eitb tin- veil but are interjected, as it were, between different Q0o DOWl Of Verb iussays, "CHre rerbl opem, wntentiam complenti \
Boon
huI
attribute
ii
1.
; ;
CHAP, xni.]
OF ADVERBS.
227
may, both
in signification
for though, in certain instances, the interjection
and construction, supply the place of a verb, yet
this, in
no respect,
modifies the signification of the following verb, but merely affects its construction in the sentence. Those authors, too, who do not differ in
regard to the characteristics of whole classes, often seem to err strangely word to its proper class. Dr. Johnson, a scholar certainly of great acquirements, designates as nouns substantive
in allotting a particular
ding-dong, handy-dandy, pit-a-pat, and see-saw, examples which he quotes they are used as adverbs and this is the more remarkable because he designates other words, of the very same formation and use, adverbs ; ex. gr. helter-skelter, which certainly approaches as nearly to pell-mell, in its grammatical use, as it does in the mode of its formation, and in its general import. The acute and ingenious De Brosses calls the French chez an adverb. which is most manifestly a preposition, for chez moi, and apud me, are phrases exactly similar in construction. Even the learned Vossius calls the Latin mecastor an adverb, and R. Stephanus terms it " jurandi adverbium." Now mecastor is either from the Greek pa, and Castor, the name of a deity, and then it is literally, "No, by Castor!" or else it is " Me Castor adjuvet .'" So help me Castor and in either case it is an inter jectional oath, used as a common expletive in conversation. Thus
the woi-ds pell-mell,

in the very
when
we find in Terence, " Salve, mecastor, Parmeno;" where mecastor cannot by any ingenuity be made to modify the verb salve, or indeed anjf Other word but is truly and properly an interjection, which all words of the same kind must be, such as Gadso ! which though Mr. Tooke distinctly calls an oath, yet he preposterously reckons among the adverbs. Gadso ! and Odso ! were abbreviations of " by God it is so !" or " is
;
'
it
so,
by God ?"
for
men
happily shrink from their

to
own
profaneness,
and rather reduce

to
their
words
unmeaning exclamations, than advert
seriously to their original import.
As
to the obscene Italian expression
which Tooke alludes, it had probably nothing to do with the interjection Gadso, however it may have furnished a hint to the unpolished satire of Ben Jonson, in the passage quoted from one of his plays. 382. III. Having thus considered the various modifications of an j^wrWd attributive, which adverbs are calculated to effect, I come to examine pWos the different modes by which such modifications may be expressed and as I have spoken of prepositional and conjunctional phrases, so I think it advisable here to notice certain adverbial phrases, which in process of time have become, or may become adverbs. By an adverbial phrase, I mean any combination of words, which in a complex sentence may stand in the place of an adverb. Thus we nuiv say " this happened afterwards," or " this happened long afterwards," or " this happened many days afterwards," or " this happened not many
'
days afterwards." In the first case the adverb aftencards modifies the verb " happened ;" in all the other cases the same adverb afterwards is modified, first by the adjective long used adverbially, then by the adjective and substantive many days forming an adverbial phrase, or
Q2

223
OF ADVERBS.
;
[CHAP. XII
and lastly by the adverb, adjectiv standing in the place of an adverb and substantive, not many days, which in liko manner may be said form an adverbial phrase, or to stand in the place of an adverb. So Lord Berners' translation of Froissart, executed by command King Henry VIII., and printed in his reign, the following passac
1
i i
occurs,
fol.
;
cxcix. b.
"
contrary
for he chargeth
Nowe the Duke of Berrey commaundeth me tl me incontynent his letters sene, that I shuk
is
reyse the syege."

the verb reyse
;
In this passage incontynent

it
an adverb modifyir
visis epistolis,)
and
the letters sene is a phrase, (similar in constructk

is
to the Latin ablative absolute, as
termed,
at that
whk
modifies the adverb incontynent, a
word
time used where w
should say immediately. Thus, in the romance of The Foure Sonnes of Aimon, printed
1554,
we
find
light
Now
up Ogyer, and you Duke Naymes,
on horseback incontinent.
Adverbial phrases are in another point of view material to the co: By comparing dilleroi sideration of adverbs properly so called. languages, we not only find that a certain phrase in one language CO responds to a different phrase in another language; but that phrases Thus in comparing tl the one correspond to words in the other. French with the Italian we not only find such expressions as a chaud larmes, answering to a dirotte lagrime ; or & gorge deployee, to al smascellata ; but we also find a tatons rendered by tentone, a pU pf by quasi, &c, &c. The variety of phrases which may be found in d ferent languages corresponding to one and the same adverb, is tin remarkable; of which those answering to our adverb suddenly afford The striking expressions of St. Paul, 'E' ArtS/jj pregnant example. iv ptnij 6(j)0n\iiov' "in monieuto," " in ictu oculi,"* have, of COtOT bean imitated in most European languages; as the English "tVi moment" "in the twinkling of an eye;' the French "en tin din <l'<ri tba Italian " in un batter d\x'chio ;" and to these ma\ bo added mai analogous expressions, as the Spanish " de in>cutr ;" the Italian" jiriino lancio," and " tuth ad un truth ;" the French " tout d'ltn coup "en un tourne main," >l sur le chump ;" the Latin " c vestigio" the <> English " i'm a trier" "us who suit/i tin's" "at a thought" "in I
space of
luke," "all anotie," "all at once," &c.

pies.
&c, of winch
slu
ban
ind :jk:i.
of an attributive,
more briefly the modificatii obaerved in certain compound words, whii Of such o unite the principa] conceptions expressed in a plnuse. \ani]iles wliicli have now bocoi old English ui /"' fat, :<>l![hi I and nth. -is .till in 016, a Jnfl'.'urit 'i' h I Ofa Ol ''.
Tinin
.i
step inwards expressing
m*J
l"'
peradventure, &c.
The
iri.ii.t. r
Imiitc
.hi. .11,
ill
fotrhote,
nn.tr.
i'/'i,
Willi hit
ii.iin.-
btowa
I
turn's
Dream.
Corinth,
-.v.

CHAP.
XIII.]
OF ADVERBS.
229
and so
is,
" Foothot," says Mr. Tooke, " means immediately, instantaneously," far he is undoubtedly right; but whether hot, mama, as lie
supposes, heated, or as
Warton
suggests, hit against the ground, that
" In the twinkling of an eye," space of a look," are expressions used to express the shortest and " a stamp of the foot " may well be suppossible lapse of time posed to convey a similar idea of brief duration. Dunbar, in his Goldin Terge, has the following lines
stamped,
may be
matter of doubt.
"
in the
And
suddenlie, in the space of a luke,

;
All was hyne went, ther was but wilderness Ther was nae mair but bird, and bank, and bruke.
In twinckling of an
Sothfast
is
ee,
to schip they went.
the substantive sooth,
compounded
(as in the
word
stl-
fasi) with fast, i. e. firm, and so means truthful, or as sure as truth. In a sort of dramatic poem, probably of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, on Christ's Descent into Hell (Harl. MSS. 2253, f. 55. b.), are these lines, in which it is used adverbially
:
And
In the Pricke
wes seyde to Habraham, That wes sothfast holy man.

so
v.
i.
of Conscience (see Warton,
p. 258),
it
is
used
adjectivally
Thou mercyfull and gracious God Thou rightwis, and thou sothfast.
classibus," says Vossius, " ita
fiunt e
is,
Adverbs may be compounded of two or more words. " Ut in quoque in adverbiis, compositorum
duobus, utperdiu, abhinc;
sit,
aliis
alia
alia e pluribus, ut forsitan.
Nam,
ut
in
forsit
exfors et
;
quasi forte
sit ;
acforsan exfors et an, quod et
fortassean English.
ex tribus istis fors, sit, an." And thus it is in have together formed of to and gather; and we have So in French tout a fait, altogetJwr formed of all, to, and gather. " altogether," from tout, d, and fait ; in Italian nondimeno, " nevertheless," from non, di, and meno, &c. ; in German vielleicht, " perhaps," from viel, much, and leicht, easily nimmermehr, ** nevermore," from nie, immer, and mehr, &c. In forming compounds of this nature, all parts of speech (except " Nulla est vocum classis," says Vossius, interjections) are employed. " ex qua non adverbium componatur." Thus a composite adverb may be formed in any of the following ways i. From a pronoun and substantive, as quare, from qua and re. ii. From an adjective and substantive, as postridie, from postero and
ita forsitan
We
die.
iii.
From
dies,
an adverb, substantive, and adjective, as nudiustertius, from

tertius
nunc,
iv.
and
v.
die.
From From
a substantive and verb, as pedetentim, from pede and tentare.
a participle and substantive, as perendie, from peremptd and

230
vi.
OF ADVERBS.
|_
CIIAP ' XI
From an adverb and adjective, as nimirum, from ne and mintn From a preposition and substantive, asobciam, from obaad via, viii. From a pronoun and adverb, as alibi, from alio and \bi. ix. From a pronoun and preposition, as adhue, from ad and hoc. x. From two verbs, as scilicet, from scire and licet. xi. From two adverbs, as etiamnum, from etiam and nunc. xii. From an adverb and a verb, as deinceps, from dein and capio. xiii. From a preposition and adverb, as abhinc, from ab and hinc. xiv. From a conjunction and adverb, as etiam, from et and jam. Vossius ranks among compound adverbs those which might oth<
vii.
wise be said to be
inflected, that
is,
formed from other words, by
addition of an adverbial particle, like our prefix a, or termination h

as tantisper, from tantus and per
;
&c.
Z/ae,
So we
find
not
only scienter, from sciens and
quandoque, from quando and qv ter, but ev
Word* em-
Actives,
from Catilina ; not only jucunde, from jucundus, but 7i from Tullius. 384. Thus by degrees we arrive at those single words wine whether compound or simple, are called adverbs, and constitute, such, a distinct part of speech. If it be asked what sorts of wor may be employed, as adverbs, to modify other attributives, the prop answer is all sorts. For the expression of Servius, though ridiculi by Tooko, is literally tine: " Omnis pars orationis migrat in adirrbitui " Every part of speech is capable of being converted into an adverb." From what has already been said, it is manifest that an adjerti may be used adverbially. Let us suppose that it is necessary to cnu
Catiliniter,
ciate these three propositions successively

i.
ii.
certain quantity exists,
hi.
The The
quantity
largeness
is large,
is
sufficient.
viz.,
We
have
here three
conceptions,
quantity,
;
largeness^
ai
sufficiency.
tderod
the second only considered as a substance as an attribute in one instance, ami as a substance in tl
first is
is
The
other; and the third

,"
ill.
only considered as an attribute.

in
Now,
if
unite these three lentences
one, and say there
is
"a
siitlicienfcly larj
we,
In
in
fact,
OOBWl
the
adjective
in
"sufficient"
into
some
instances tins dilliTeiue
the
employment of
tl
iled with a correspondent inflection or change in tl form as in Erij lis!) the adjective sujjiciriit is inflected or changed In tin- adverb tvffiamfy but this ue,ther prevails in all languages nor mid is, indeed, a circumstance ol't< nil adverbs of the same lanûa^c
sparing
to be perfecth accidental or capricious.
Again, the adje

in
thus empl practice then adjecthv]

.
thai remain unchanged

use,
either
partially
form, but lose The! or altogether.

the:
de|H'iid
but
it
i-t
not the less important to notice

i
on the idioms of particular lai some of them, because

i".
;
lllore
oinmOfl
\\
SOttTi
<
'
raiiuuai ians
is
Hi.
ill
the col
tl
founding of
hat
is
univeis.il
in
language with what
particular,

CHAP.
XIII.]
OF ADVKRDS.
231
scientific rule with the accidental exception.
This will appear from many instances in the class of words now under consideration, namely, the adjectives proper, when used as adverbs and in order to consider them the more distinctly, I shall notice first the simple uninflected adjectives, then those which have been inflected or changed in form, and lastlv those adverbs formerly employed as adjectives, but which at In the first class present have wholly or partially lost that character.
;
mav be reckoned such words as much, full, right, scarce, &c. ; in the second such as aloud, around, along, wisely, prudenter, male, &c. ; and in Many of these will hereafter receive the last such as very, well, &c. at present it may suffice to consider one of each particular notice
:
class.
885. Much, which in old and provincial English and Scotch appears Kadi under the forms of moch, muche, moche, mochell, mochil, muchele, mychel,
mei/nll, mickle,
muckle, received, in those dialects, a larger adjectival

in
construction than
is the modern authorised usage, as may be seen 3ome of the following examples Whan the Abbot soeth ham flee,
:
That he holt
for
moch
is
glee.
Descript. of Cokaygne.
With muche Ost he

live and
comyng.
Rom.
of
Kyng
Alisaunder.
low louyd
to
Moche honoure
hym alle, hym was falle.
Lyfe of Ipomydon.
Ther nas nother old neyynge

So mochell of strength.
Rom. of Octovian Imperator.

Descript. of Cokaygne.
Undir heuen
nis loud iwisse

ioi
Of so
mochil
ant blisse.
And
yeld here servise ofte,
mid
mitchele
wowe.
Life of St. Margaret
Dieu mercy, to mychel harme ilany knighth there gan hym wime.
Rom. of Kyng
Alisaunder.
And
The
gif ye will gif

meikill devill
me
richt nocht,
gang wi' you.

mickle.
Peblis to the Play.
Mony
little
maks a
North Country Proverb.

Burns.
The muckle
devil
blaw ye south, If ye dissemble.
Earnest Cry.
In the present use of the word much, it has considerable analogy to tne Latin multus and multum, the Italian molto and molti, the old
French moult, the Portuguese rfiuito and muita ; but though they may all flow from one common source, yet, if so, the channels have manifestly been divided at an early period the ch, which distinguishes our much and the Spanish mucho, marking one branch, as distinctly as the It, which characterises the other. Hence it happens that our idiomatic use of much differs in many points from the use of multus or multum. Though we use much as an adjective, in connection with an ideal con:
ception, such as "
much honour," " much

it
glee," "
much
joy,"
" much
money,"
we
cannot so employ
with a collective term, such as " a

232
OF ADVERBS.
[CHAP.
XII]
much army," " a much sum ;" r.or with a word designating an indi vidual object, as " the much Devil ;" neither can we translate th Latin " multo mane,"* " much morning," or " multa nocte',"| " muc night;" nor can we employ it adjectivally with a plural substantia The adverbial use in English seem as " multi ignes,"| "much fires."
somewhat
adjectives in the comparative or superlative degree, as
Though much may be always combined wit "much wiser, "much the bravest," and also with some in the positive, as " muc like," "much unlike," we cannot say "much brave" or " much wise. In regard to position, too, there are some differences. The adver much is placed before a present or past participle, but genera] (though with some few exceptions) after a verb Sad, from my na.tal hour, my days have ran,
capricious.
1
much
(Jjflicto/,
nwck enduring man.

Ruth,
Popt,
i.
It grieveth
me
much, for your sakes.
13.
He
doth much keep the statutes of
Omn.
Micali, vi. 16, marg.
this word much has "exceedingly gn our etymologists," derives it from the Anglo-axon ver mawan, "to mow," of which, he says, the regular pneterperfect mow, and the past participle mowen. " Omit the participial termini
Mr. Tooke, who says that

all
veiled
tion en," continues he,
"and there will remain mow, which meal simply that which is mown; and, as the hay, &c, which was mowi was put together in a heap, hence, figuratively, mowe was used Anglo-Saxon to denote any heap; and this participle, or substantiv
call
it
which you please
for
;
however
was pronounced, and thereto) word, and has the same signification written ma, mo,kc, whicli, being regularly compared, gave ma, man maest, mo, more, most, &c. and much is merely the diminutive of m
pissing through the gradual changes of mokel, mykel, mochill, muchel Such is the substance of an etymological disquisitioi moche, much"
in
classed, it is
still
the BSD
the coins.' of which .Mr.
conn-nipt of Junius,
re
Tooke takes upon him to speak with grei Wormius, Skinner, ami Johnson, and pretends
I
move
all
tho.se
drfflcoltiet
which have so " exceedingly gravelled

is
Other etymologists! ordinary one.
It
The leading principle in this disquisition Mfomei that, in the formation of langu
conceptions of distinct action mori necessarily have obtained a nan [ndeed, it is not ver\ clear that Mr. Tool those Of quality,
ad ever
t.>
hare acqttfnd conceptions of quality
al
al
the basis of bis argument in the present b I M amen arbitrary assumption, neither confirmed by histor plnlosopliv. The reasonii nor wip|H>rt"-d b] UIJ rational ^>lr pe*and*most" would beat least equally sati relative to the premises made tl i^.'.l, ami the
thai
I'
However
maybe,
Al ( multo mano mihl dedit. Oiett, Quint, '2, 8. f Mnii,', soctt ftnl :i'i l'"iii|"'iiiin. ih Ciar. ,v. lanqM (to, ildtra), I
|
'<
'''
Att<
l<
mdH
/>.
-,
no.
; ;
CHAP.
XIII.] It is
OF ADVERBS.
233
probably true that more is the comparative and most word ma or mo, which we may admit to have might argue, therefore, been used as an adjective signifying much. that when much of anything was heaped together it was adjectivally said to be mo ; and thence a heap was substantively called a mom but as hay, when it is cut down, is, in the very act of cutting, heaped
conclusion.
the superlative of an old
We
together, "to cut hay said to be mowed.
that
all
was called to mow, and the hay that was cut was These opposite trains of reasoning agree in this, names must necessarily be supposed to have been given to the
that is to conceptions of the hitman mind, in some one certain order say, either proceeding from the more general to the more particular, or the contrary. I do not know that this can be positively asserted ; but,
if it may be so, still I should incline against Mr. Tooke's etymology. According to him, our rude ancestors could not have informed each other whether a thing was much or little, until after they had invented the art of making hay, had regularly conjugated their verbs, added the participial termination en, taken it away again, and compounded the word (thus unnecessarily prolonged and curtailed) with a syllable implying diminution, which was subsequently dropt and after all, they could never alter the signification of the word but if they talked of much money, or much wisdom, much acuteness, or much absurdity, Such is his the word much would only signify the cutting of hay! theory: as to his facts, it would be difficult to discover where or when ma was used for a hay-mows or a barley-mow and when we come to derive mokel, muchel, or michil, from mo, we shall be "exceedingly gravelled" to account for the unlucky k and ch which happen to be inserted before the syllable said to be expressive of diminution. That there may be some affinity between mo and much is probable but it is not probable that much is an abbreviation of muchel. On the At contrary muchil has the appearance of being derived from much. least, it is certain, that we find much, or mich, as early as we do Wachter, speaking of these words, says, Simplicissimum est muchil. " The MiCH,(/iwcZ in antiquissimis dialectis ponitur pro magno et multo. most simple is mich, which, in the most ancient dialects, signifies Thus, in the old Persian, mih was great, mihter great and much." whence the sun was called Mithras. The greater, mihtras greatest aspirate h was easily converted into the guttural ch, and the palatine k and the Latin mag, in magnus, or g. Hence the Greek pty, in fxiyag and as that which is great is usually powerful, we have magister, &c. fin infinite number of words from this radical, signifying power, as the Ma?so-Gothic and Anglo-Saxon magan, to be able, which supplies our auxiliaries may and might, the old German machen, and Anglo-Saxon makan, to make, &c, &c. Again Wachter, speaking of the ancient word mich, says, postea invaluit michel, eodem sensu. "Afterwards Hence the Gothic mikils, micliel came into use, in the same sense." the Anglo-Saxon micel, the Alamannic mihhil, the Icelandic mihill, and, There is no ground for supposing that possibly, the Greek ptya\r).
; ; ; ;

234:
OF ADVERBS.
[CJHAP. XIII
the final syllable el or le is meant, in any of these words, to express diminution miichel is no more the dimininutive of " much," in signifi cation, than handle of " hand," or spindle of " spin ;" but much an(
;
inflected.
muchel are used eodem sensu, and so were anciently lite and litel. have at least shown, that much is to be found in English as early a muchel, and that these two words were used indifferently by our mos And upon the whole, it is clear, from these authori ancient writers. ties, that much is the name of a conception of greatness in quantity and that when this conception is viewed as th quality, or power attribute of any substance, the word much is an adjective ; when a the modification of an act or quality, it is an adverb, 386. Certain adjectives are found in our own and other languages which when combined with or varied by a particle, as our prefix a our termination ly, the Latin termination ter, or e, or the Italian mente lose their adjectival, and receive an exclusive adverbial charactei Vossius ranks these among compounds, and perhaps (as I have befor observed of inflections in general) further research into the origin of th particles so employed may show that all such adverbs ava true com pounds: for the present, however, I shall consider them as inflected and of these the class formed by our termination in ly may afford The particle ly is an abbreviation of the adje( sufficient illustration. tive like; and the words wisely, gratefully, judiciously, &c, wer
;
originally the
compound
adjectives wiselike, gratefullike, judiciouslik<
&c.
The
termination lyk or Itch
Kyng
Alisaunder,
(strange,
we
ferliche
is common in old English. Thus, 1 have the adjectives eorthliche (earthly, mortal' wonderful), and the adverbs gentiUche (gently
sikerlyk (securely, certainly), theofiiche (like a thief), quyldirh-:

lv), stilliche (quietly), skarscldiclte (scarcely), apertelic/ic
(quid
(openly).
So, in Syr Launful,
He
gaf gyftys largehjche, Gold, and siluer, and dodos rydic.
And
again, in the
same poem
Tin'
l;i'lv
VU
bryjrt as
blosmo on brere,
1,,11,-li/c/i
Willi
c-yi'ii
gnjf with
rh.iv.
This wort! louelych

Of the BMMl ancient
1mI.1v
altout.
I," b
is
the
year
the identical word Irjlich which occurs in 01 now existing in English, composed pn The sen 1200. "l.low, Northen
and the lover describes his mistress

Witii lokktt
irjiir/,,-
an. I longt.
Chaucer writes our word, "early,"

And
In th
|)
I.
vrlich-
;i
in
the h'uiyht's Tale,
Hiii
li.i' rrlir/it'
and
Into.
lion
of ('"kaygno 0000X1 the adverh mtkHoh (meel.lv

//
..
In the (;
a
:
lind evndiche (evenly, Btralghtly)
oat
a* an adverb
Tli'.u
St
art fair
eih'llii'
St
eke ttre&f,
okc
hr
lolij^.

CHAP. XIII.]
Ot ADVERBS.
235
"
This termination, therefore, is not Jes.s distinguishable in the old English than it is, as Mr. Tooke observes, in the ;.ister languages German, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish. The connection of meanings seems to be this: first a substantive conception of the body, then an adjectival or attributive conception of likeness to the body, and lastly an adverbial use of the conception of likeness applied adverbially to another attributive.
The body
(particularly the corpse) is in Ma?so-
Gothic leik ; ex. gr. " usnemun leik is " " they took away his body." * In the Anglo-Saxon version of the same text it is lie, " hys lie namon." In Frankish and Alamannic a dead body is lidie, and lih ; in Icelandic lijk; in German leiche ; in Dutch lyk; in Swedish lik; and in old Scotch lylm, whence lykewake, now corrupted to late wake, the watching of a
corpse.
the
old
;
The German adjective gleich (like) is, as Wachter observes, compound ge-leich, abbreviated; in old German it is lick,
Anglo-Saxon
lie,
gelich
in
gelic; in
Swedish lik; in Danish lig ;

lyk, as liefyk ; in
in Icelandic
likr,glikr; in
Dutch
lifiig ;
lyk.
The
adjectival or adverbial termination is in
Swedish and Danish and ligt, as lieuflegr, frithsamlegt. That the name of the conception which we have of " body " should be
ftc/i,
German
as lieblich; in
Dutch
lig,
as Uujiig,
in Icelandic legr
transferred to the conception of " likeness,"
is
not at
all
surprising; for
thing, or
what
is
so like any person or thing as the very
body of that
Hence, Shakspeare, meaning to intimate that the use of the drama is to represent the exact likeness of living manners, says, it is " to show the very age and body of the time, its form, and pressure ;" as if he had said, " the drama holds up a mirror to the present time, exhibits its age of manhood or decrepitude, represents its Very body, the shape which it bears, and the impression which it produces on the mind of the observer, as a seal does on wax, or a statue on the plaster from which a cast is to be taken." Keither is it surprising that the adjective " like " should enter into composition with a Beat number of other adjectives; for if any attribute could not be exactly predicated of a particular substance, something like that attribute might be so; if a person or thing could not be said to possess exactly a certain quality, it might be said to possess a quality similar, or nearly the same ; if it was not great it might be greatlike ; if not good, godlike, &c. In the Anglo-Saxon we find the termination lie used both adjectively and adverbially, as in the translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (book iii. c. 3;, " tha lifigendan stanas thaere
of that person?
cyricean, of eorthlicum setlum, to
tham heqfonlieum timbre, gebaT

from earthly
seats, to
| the
living stones of the church,
the heavenly
building,
it bore." And again (loc. cit.), " tha cyricean wundorlice heold & rihte " " the church he wondrously held and ruled. The use of this termination extends indeed much further ; for it contributes to the formation of our pronominal adjectives such, each, and which; the original signification of these being so-like, one-like, and what-like ; as
:
I shall briefly
show
* Mark,
vi.
29.

236
i.
OF ADVERBS.
is
[CHAP. XIL
sica leik is
In the Maeso-Gothic swa

it is
"so," and
sioylc, in
" such."
the Anglo-Saxon
contracted to
the old English to
sicytt
And the same is found in th swiche, and thence to sich and such. cognate languages in the old English and Alamannic, it is sdich sulich ; in the Dutch zulk ; in the Swedish slyk ; and in the moder
and
:
German
solche.
In the romance of Richard Coer de Lion,
we
have
Kyng Alysaundre ne Charlemayn Had de neuer swylke a route.
And
Chaucer says
In swiche a gise as
ii.
you
tellen shal.
The words
exist in the
ilk
and
ilka are
to
be found
Ilk
in our old writers, an
was sometimes written ilich and has been abbreviated to each. The following lines occur in satirical poem entitled Syr Peni; or, Narracio de Domino Denar (MSS. Cotton. Galb. E. 9) :
still
Scottish dialect.
Dukes,
erles,
and
ilk
To
serue
him
er thai ful
barowne boune
Both biday and nyght.

In another part of the
same poem
are these lines
He may by both heuyn and hell And ilka thing that es to sell
In erth has he swilk grace
wlierevve see swilk used for "such," and ilka for "every," as
it
is
Bukns,
in his
"Twa
Dogs:"
friends in ilka place.
in
leilis,
;
His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face
Aye gat him

iii.
Whkh
it
is,
in
ftmWb, from
Alamannic
in
funis,
is
the Anglo-Saxon, facile; or lur\ "whom," and

:
the
Mavo-Goth
In
t!
"like."
the
huuielich
in
the
Danish huilk
iu
Dutch
Mfib
the (icrman welcfie.

in
The word
whilk, anciently written
</u/iil/;,
w:
common
ind perhaps still exists in son It is uniformly used in the" Disputation lemote parts of tin- country. as, " I niieht. pn>duce monio siclyk place Of Nil "I BUBNB, A. i. 681 ijuliill: never hard /it cited he zou ;" that is, "I might produce raai Scripture), which never heard yet cited by you." such
Scotland to a
late period,
1 :
It.
Agreeing with those is tl :, and pTODOODOed

:
Id
tin'/;,
English thilke, for "that."
still
retained
in
tl
Tims
Sri [NSKB,
liitf
" May," says
lilmikrl
I-
II
xi
il,
\i
li. <
name neiuon,
whn
til
wl
id
In pluuiuico.
Cliaucer, in
in flood
|
In*
translation
of lloHhius, says, "Certea yet
live*
it
(Mi
DCtOkMII honour of mankind."

CHAP.
XIII.]
in the
OF ADVERBS.
237
:
And
poem on
Christ's Descent into Hell are these lines
The smale fendes that broth nout stronge He shulen among men yonge
Ichulle he hahben
Thilke that nulleth ageyne hem stonde hem in honde.
That is, " the small fiends that are not strong shall go among mankind, and those persons who will not stand against them, I am willing they should have in hand." Thus have I traced a substantive (signifying body) through its transitions, first into an adjective proper (like), thence as part of the compound adjectives proper and pronominal (lovelike and solike), and, lastly, into the termination (ly), which is still used both in adjectives and adverbs, though with idiomatic differences in respect to particular words, some being only considered as belonging to the one class, and some to the other. Goodly, for instance, though not much used in the present day, and rather as an adverb than an adjective, is employed by Bhakspeare in the latter character, through all its degrees of comparison
i.
:
In Hamlet:
saw him
once, he
I
ii.
was a goodly
king.
In AIVs Well that
Ends Well:
much
goodlier.
:
If he were honester he were

iii.
In King Henry VIII.

She
is
woman
that ever lay by man.
the goodliest
So the word
uses
it
kindly
is
commonly considered
to be an adverb,
:
but Burns
as an adjective in
Poor Maine's Elegy
Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him ; A lang half-mile she cou'd descry him ; Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, She ran wi' speed.
On
the other hand, the

;
word
lonely is treated in the
English dialect as
it
an adjective
but Burns,
Our
in the
same poem, employs
adverbially
bardie, lanely, keeps the spence

Sin' Mailie's dead.
and some other such words, are for the most part employed in modern times, as adjectives but it is observable that godly has obtained by custom a different meaning from the identical adjective godlike. We have, too, some of these words in one form of composition, and not in its correspondent compound. Thus we say ungainly for awkward though the word gainly, formerly in use, has become obsolete. Dr. Henry More, a very learned writer of the seventeenth century, says, " She laid her child as gainly as she could, in some fresh leaves and grass." (Conj. Cabal.) 387. Of the words formerly in common use as adjectives, but now Vfi employed almost exclusively as adverbs, the word very is an obvious instance. Very is correctly stated by Mr. Tooke to be the Latin
Godly,
lovely, portly,
; ;

233
adjective verus,
OF ADVERBS.
[CHAP. XIII
old English,
" true," changed, in old French an< which, in modern French, is vrai. Th adjectival use of this word still remains in the Nicene Creed as renderec in the Liturgy of the Church of England, "very God of very God. Chaucer uses it as an adjective both in the positive and comparativ In his translation of Boethius, On the Consolation of Philc degree. sophy (b. iv.), " It is clere and open that thilke sentence of Plato very and sothe." And again (b. hi.), " which that is a more veri thinge." In these instances it retains the signification of mere truth but in a secondary sense it expresses eminence in degree, and is even this respect employed as an adjective positively, comparatively am
and
Italian vero,
into veray,
ii
sujxnlatively.
My
faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens.
Psalm
Ixxxix. 2.
Was
The verier wag o' Were he the veriest
not my love the two?

antick in the world.
Shakspeare,
Ibid.
The secondary
sense alone of the adjective survives in the moder:
use of the adverb ; nor is it surprising, that an adjective primaril; signifying "true," should, in a secondary sense, form an advert expressing eminence of degree, as applied to all other qualities for thing that is very good or bad, t. e., good or bad in an eminent degret may be said, kt Qo\i\v, to be truly good or bad. The Italian express the same modification of qualities by molto, " much," th Fnnch by fort, "strong," the Latins by mtdtum, " much," and val<i<
;
from validus, "strong:" and our ancestors by a variety of attributive*

as swyt/ie, sothfast, right, full, strong, well, &c.
From
the old adjectiv

obsoli
I
veray
'
we have
(the
also our inflected adverb verily,
and the
modern French vraiment),
Kyuy Alisaunder:
as in the above-quoted
romance C
By
He him
the steorres and by the firmament taughte verrainmt.
And
again
Ther ros sothe cry verrement,
No
Partiriptoi.
acholde
mon
ylniv
lie
thoBfUf dent.
not only the adjective proper which serves to modif The participle performs the .same offloi Other idjective8, or verbs. and in the same manner; and this (in English) either by a partupl nt' pies,. tit <n- of past time. Of the former class we have "*<<//<// hot," "staring mad," "roaring drunk," and, in Shakspeare, mOl
It
is
388.
elegant
" loving jealot
Warm
tiirncmr.
cutaphuoM may dUcuu, but

utarlc,
I
scaMiii
1ml m:i\ rnnlinii
tin-
\hnot,
In came Squire South,
flaring mil.
Id
Hi. in
iiiii,.
III
1.
i
Rid,
1
i
li.'ivi'
:i
th
And
win.
\.i
I.-I-.
no
ii
luiili.
ini|i
)l|
I
wanton'* Mid,
)
;i
Im
i
ii.ind,
|l.lil|
:i
IHH'I
III'.
And \s illi -.ilk tin. So (winy jealoiiii of hie
pull
1 1
1
|
t
il
I,. i,
I.
.i
.mi,
--i
S/ta/tsjHunt.
'
239
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF ADVEKBS.
Of
prefix a, answering to the
the past participles some are used without, but more with th Anglo-Saxon and German ge. Bums thus
brent,
employs
from the Scotch bren

Nae
to
burn
cotillons brent-new frae France.
Milton has adrift from drive ; Ben Jonson, agone (now written ago) from go ; Chaucer, a/ret, either from the verb freight, or, more probably, from the verb fret
:
Then
With
all his
shall this
Mount
Of Paradise, by might
of waves, be mov'd,
Down
the great river.
verdure spoil'd, and trees, adrift Milton.
Is he such a princely one
As you speak him
long agone f
B. Jonson.
Chaucer.
For round environ her crounet
Was
In
all
tulle of rich stonys afret.
specifically characterises the participle
however, the notion of time which does not attach to the same word when it becomes an adverb ; because it either modifies a verb, and then the time is expressed by the verb itself; or else it modifies an adjective, and then no expression of time is necessary. 389. The pronouns adjective supply, either with or without some slight change of form, many adverbs of frequent use ; especially those pronouns which I have called demonstratives, partitives, distributives, general and numeral, subjunctives, and interrogatives but as the words constituting these several classes are in all languages among the simplest and most ancient that exist, we must not be surprised to find some difficulty in tracing the pronominal adverbs to their proper origin. In this respect, very great praise is due to several recent German philologists, particularly to Professors Bopp, Pott, and Jacob Grimm who have thrown important light on a part of the science of language previously quite dark, and still involved in conthese
and the
like cases,
p>nonn
rtnlwe. &r,
siderable obscurity.
tion, the
I shall consider together the classes just specified,
reserving only the numerals for a separate notice.
With
this excep-
most languages, a number of adverbs connected together by various relations, and for the most part of an elliptical construction. The words here and there, lience and thence, hie and illic, hinc and illinc, for instance, are manifestly in their origin demonstrative pronouns, equivalent to the words this and that ;" but, by use, they have come to signify " at this place," " at that place
words
in question furnish, in
" from
" from that place ;" the substantive " place " being understood by the mind. Neither can it be doubted that the Latin adverbs quum and quo are the subjunctive proiioun qui, with the terminations of the accusative and ablative case; which wr ord qui is probably the same in origin with the Gothic hioo, the Saxon hwa, the Scottish quha, and the English who. It happens, that the English language is not perfectly systematic in
this place,"
clearly

240
OF ADVERBS.
[CHAP. XIII
Kgard to the pronouns which it has adopted for adverbial purposes and the same may be said of most other languages. We have th< simple adverbs just mentioned, which form three distinct classes, witl reference to place, distinguishing the place where we are, from anodic definite place, and supplying an interrogative for the place which w< know not, which interrogative is also a subjunctive. The first of these is here, the second there, and the third ichere. I happens too, with regard to place, that each of these three forms hai three varieties to express " at a place," " from a place," and " to place ;" and all these are variously compounded with several othe: words or particles, fore, ever, soever, &c. Some of the words wlucl form adverbs of place, also become adverbs of time, manner, cause, .ê. but these latter ideas have a few adverbs which are peculiar to them selves, agreeing nevertheless, in principle and derivation, with tlu adverbs of place. Hence may be formed the following table of th<
i
simple adverbs of this kind
Ihere
hence
hither
. .
.
there
. . .
.
.
thence
thither
.
.
where? whence?
whither?
Time
.Manner
then thus
when?
Cause
how? why?
The
three classes into which I have distributed these adverbs, have
not always been thus accurately distinguished. In our old language, w< shall find the prepositive forms here, and there often interchanged witl
the subjunctive or interrogative
that these distinctions
tion,
form where; yet must have always existed
it
is clearly
evident
in
point of significa-
however inaccurately or imperfectly expressed.
890. The word here is not only used in its simple form, but in f variety of compounds, as, hereafter, herealtout, Itereat, hereby, Aera'n,
liereinto, hereof, hereon,
heirfrir, heirintill,
&c
hereupon, hereto, hereunto, heretofore, herewith^ In the simple form It is principally confined t<
the
signification
of "this
hier, in
rally signifies " this
place;" whereas, in the compounds, it time," " this thing," " this event," or the like
[loth
Tin- cognate
word
variations of meaning,
(ierman, docs not follow cxactlv in its simple and compound
tin-
sam. firms il
hierin-
piiiiripallv refers to place, a. hiernn, hieraux, hierdurch, hie rein,

r,
/n.fuiiter,
Sim
compound,
&c.
and
:
so, herau, herein-//, herein,

in
&c; though
as,
Bloi'e
n. r.il
their
application,
il.
hieruni.
that,
I
hiervon, hia.tt.
In
1... ih
languages, however,
is
manifest,
''
In
\\"id h$r$t A"/', or her, intrinsically
10
soch supplied by the mind, acoidiii"; tl the Northern u linages, as sieap r on or these [* rsons, thfl
that
nd
the
othtr
significations,
the won! " place," M thaeJ
than
"i'.i "ii," or the like, are

(
I.
or
thtn
things
so tint
tlie
radical conoeptioo
li
what we ozprai

CHAP.
XIII.J
this.
2-t
I
OF ADVERBS.
by the word
cases.
The element
he occurs, in
English, in the words signifying he, she,
Anglo-Saxon and old they, and their respective

;
The Anglo-Saxon pronoun personal is lie, heo, hi, he, she, they and the very word here occurs for the genitive plural, as heam does for them. The same or similar words are frequent in old English writers. In the Vision of Piers Plouhman
Hermets on a heape with hoked staues Wenten to Walsingham, and her wenches
******
in hour,
:
after.
Cokes and her knaues cryden, hote pyes, hote

is, " their wenches," and " their knaves," or " boys." In Chaucer's Parsotts Tale, " Certes this vertue makith folk vndertake hard and greuous things by her own will ;" that is, " their own." In an ancient ballad, probably of the thirteenth century, beginning " In May, hit muryeth," (Harl. MSS. 2253. fol. 71)
that
Ynot non so freoh flour Ase ledies that beth bryht
With
loue
who mihte hem bynde
That
is,
"
to those
know no flower so fresh as ladies who are bright in bowers, who may bind them with love." In a dialogue between a
I
spirit,
body and a
satirical
for " they will."
of the same date (ibid. fol. 57), " he wolleth " occurs This word was sometimes written heo, as, in a
fol.
poem
against the ecclesiastical lawyers, (ibid.
71)
Heo shulen in helle on an hok Honge there fore.
And sometimes
(No. 2277,
fol.
hi,
as in another manuscript in the Harleian collection
195)
laste
:
Tho hi dude here pelrynage in holie stedes faste, So that among the Sarazyns ynome hi were atte
that
is
" they did their pilgrimage, so that they were taken at last." In the Lai le frain, which is a translation from the Norman-French of the celebrated poetess Marie, we have he and hye for " she ;" and him for " her :"
The maiden abode no lengore, Bot yede hir to the chirche dore
*
Lord, he seyd, Jesu Crist, &c. * * * *
Hye
An
asche,
loked vp, and by hir seighe by hir, fair and heighe. * * * *
litel
maiden childe
ich founde,
In the holwe assche therout,
And
in
a pel him about.

er, is
is,
found in the modern German er, he, and and who as in the Edda of Snorro, " Feyma " Feyma is heiter su kona er ofram er svo sem ungar meyar eru." called the woman who modest is, as the young maidens are." In the
the Icelandic er, am,
;
The other element,
2.
r.

242
OF ADVERBS.
[CHAP. XII
<
Frankish and Alamannic, the demonstrative and relative pronouns Thus, in the Frankish of Otiri the third person are er, her, and ir. the Monk, " Er gibot then uuinton," " He commanded the winds ;"
that of Tatian,
4i
Er quam
in sin eigan,"
"He came
to his own."
Dhaz IR Jhesus uuardh chvtennt" " Thf These two elements, then, viz., lie and er, ai identical in signification; and are only redoubled for the sake c emphasis, winch is a habit common to barbarous nations, and to th Hence it is, that the French have their ce-< illiterate in all countries. and ce-Ia, and even ce-lui-ci and ce-lui-la ; and that our own rustic commonly say this here, that there, thick there, &c. From this soun undoubtedly come the Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Danish, and Icelandic he, the Frankish and Alamannic hier, hiar, Jiiera, the modern German an Dutch hier, and the English here, all used to signify, "at this place, although the simple and radical meaning of them all is simply " this, The various explanations which are given of the adverb here h Dr. Johnson only serve to show that the conception of a distinct an particular place is no necessary constituent in the meaning of the won Thus here is opposed to a future time, as well as to a different plaa Bacon, in his advice to Villiers: " You shall be happy here an more happy hereafter:" which might be paraphrased " in this life an in a life after this" " in this world, and in a world after this" " r/u's state of existence, and in a state of existence alter this" alwa\ retaining, however, the conception expressed by the word this, a when the words -M\d there are explained by Johnson " dispersed!] M in OIM place and another;" as in another extract from Bacon: would have in the heath some thickets made only of sweet-briar, an honeysuckle, and some wild vine amongst and the ground set wit violets; for these are sweet, ami prosper in the shade; and these The words h the heath here and there, not in order."
he Jesus
the Alamannic of Isidore, "
was named."
km
are
still
to
xplaincd this and that
for
the imagination form

itulete:
conceptions
ol'
places separate from each other, although quite
i.iinatelv as to
it
any specilic external situation, and even as to numbel that the place signified hy the word here is in imnginatio The indistincl proces ite tVoiii tli. |u-es-,ed >\ the u old there.
1 1
,
of the Imagination, therefore, in the passage above cited, may explained by supposing un individual carelessly wandering over
.
tli
will
v. I, h is to In- ornamented, and occasionally stopping to say, Tli have a thicket planted in this place and another ill Hint plaa H-.itit it'ti) sonnet of Shakspean si-s in a
. 1
Afi
baft gone htr
nn.l
Mi
in
which com
VOTHcH
-ih the expression "ranged,"

A*
encic
the precedifl
nu-M
irblch
iii
tii\
ll
I
brat doth
ll
une.

CHAP.
XIII.]
tliere
OF ADVERBS.
243
;
Here and
more
are doubtless used indefinitely in such phrases I ait not indefinitely than the pronouns this and that might themselves be
used, as in the song

This way, or that way, or which way you will
and
in
Drayton's pleasing description of a winter evening's chat with
his friend
Now
talk'd of this, and then discours'd of that, Spoke our own verses, 'twixt ourselves, &c.
is sometimes used with the same as in Chaucer's spirited description of a tournament, in the Knyght's Tale
Nay, even the pronoun personal

;
uncertainty of application
under foote, as dothe a ball, foyneth on his feet with a tronchoun, And he hurleth with his horse adoun, He through the body is hvrt and sith ytake.
rolleth
He He
lie ;
In none of which instances is there any certain antecedent to the word and yet it stands first for one man, then for another, then for a third, and lastly for a fourth.
may be considered as cases of the word here ; but would be more accurate to treat these three words as aifierent compounds of the element he, with er, an, and der. Hence is the Anglo-Saxon heonan, and the Frankish hina. It seems to be connected with the Icelandic han, he, and km, it; and with the syllable hin, which, in various German compounds, signifies " from this place," " from this time," " at this time," " to that place," &c. and which is
Hence and hither
it
Perhaps
used alone to signify anything that is " gone hence;" " hilated ;" as in the Leonore of Burger
Verlohren
lost," or
" anni-
mutter, mutter, hin ist hin ist verlohren !
say er ist hin for " he is dead :" hinrichten is to execute justice any one, to put him to death hindag is " this day ;" hinfort, " henceforth," " from this time forth ;" which is also expressed forthin. Jmmerhin is an exclamation answering to our " let it go," and meaning " be it ever thus, I care not ;" as, er mag imnierhin schreyen, " he may bawl as long as he likes." So hinauf and hinab, " above and below ;" hinein and hinaus, " witlun and without," mean ^respectively above this place, below this place, witlun this place, out of this place. Hinfahren is to go away, to go from this place and, in ithe Frankish, hinafahrt is " death." "Our English word hence, in old
0:1
; ;
So they
writings,
is
hen, han, hin, hennes.
In the romance of The Setajn Sages,
we
find
A fend he is, in kinde of man Binde him, sire, and lede han.
Chaucer, in the Knyghfs Tale, says The fires whiche on min rater brenne
Shal declaren er that tin This auenture of lone.
r2

244
OF ADVERBS.
[CHAP.
XIII.
So
in Christ's Descent into
Hell
Bring vs of this lothe lond Louerd henne into thyn hond.
liegis
In the Scottish Act of Parliament, A. D. 1438, " that all the kinge'f be vnharmyt & vnscaithit of the said house & of thaim thai
inhabits theirin fra hyn furth."
Hither
too
it
is
the Anglo-Saxon
and Gothic
hidre.
In the old English
was
often written with
ad;
in
as in Chaucer's Monk's
Tah
And
if
you
list
to herken hidencard.
two manuscript poems 2253, fol. 64 and fol. 124)
So
in
the British
Museum
(Harl.
MSS,
Herketh hidcward, and beoth

*
* *
stille.
Herkneth hidetrard horsmen
A
And,
in the
tidyng ichou
telle.
poem on
Then
Christ's Descent into Hell, Satan says

do,
Ne may non me worse

ich
haue had hiderto.

1
Tn.re.
thence, thither, are manifestly constructed on tin same and applied in the same manner as here, hence, anc hither and as we suppose the first element of here to be fie, so w< suppose the first element of there to l>e the, which, in the Anglo-Saxon was prefixed as an article to substantives in all cases, and in l>otl numbers; and which appears in various dialects under the forms o Tim is the Gothk thei, thy, tlio, tha, all relating to the pronoun that. conjunction " that." Tliy, in the old English compound forthy, signifies " for that," viz. cause. Tho is explained by Junius, qui, ////, and tutu;
391, There,
;
principles,
viz.
" that
Ik;
jM-rson," in the
plan!
and "
that place" used adverbially

tlia
and
adds,
that
the Anglo-Saxon
admits
all
these
signili-
cations.
Tho
for
" then" (see Warton, vol.
i.
p.
161)
The messengers
tho
home went
fol.
Tho
for
when" (Harl. MSS. 2253,

Tho Jhesu was
37)
to hell ygan.
Tha
for
" those" (T/te Seuyn Sages,

Al tht wui.lr.
II.'
I'nl
v.
3901)
.
wll
wm
so ferd liim
tl"'
knew, changed In u
lir
Tlute for
*.l
" those."
See
second volume of Tlie
A/i</it<tn/, (on.
tli"
iiov.U whi'li so accuratt'lv d.'lincaU' tho maimers and liuiguagi
ad,) p. '-"7
vour landward and linrrowatown notions.
/
lor-tl,
*(HL MSS.
h
2258,
no
i,,i.
;,:,,
;,.;)_
bold
'!'
M
\uiic.
All (4c
'!' 'i
bn
i"'i

CHAP.
XIII.]
J; ;
OF ADVERBS.
24.
There seems to be compounded of the and er ; as here of he and er but however this may be, there manifestly agrees with the German der, which is a demonstrative and relative pronoun, as well as an article, and consequently answers to our the, this, and who. In like manner, the Anglo-Saxon thorre or thcer formed the genitive of the article, and also the demonstrative and relative adverb ; as in the 4th chapter of Joshua, " Nyman twelf stanas on middan thcsre ea, thcer tha sacerdas stodon, & habban forth mid eow, to eowre wicstowe, & wurpan hig " Take twelve stones from [the] midst [of] the water, where thcer" the priests stood ; and have [them] forth with you, to your abidingplace, and cast them [down] there ;" in which passage we see thcere and thcer, answering to the, where, and there, successively. So in the old English, there is often used in two connected sentences, for there and where; as in Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale
There as wont to walken was an elfe, There walketh now the limitour himself.
It might not unreasonably be surmised, that where the operations of the mind are so distinct, as those indicated by a demonstrative and a subjunctive pronoun or adverb are, they would necessarily require expressions equally different; but a careful attention to the history of language will show us that it differs very widely in this respect from
its philosophy. It is for want of having sufficiently considered this circumstance that we find grammarians so often at a loss to account for different idioms, and giving reasons for them which are purely
It is, no doubt, a great excellence in a by distinct expressions, the distinct operations of the mind, and the more nicely this is done, the more accurate and expressive does a language become but this is generally the result of time and of an undefinable sense of inconvenience, which induces men to inflect and vary words, as it were, insensibly, and to assign to the various inflections, though of similar origin, different effects. In no
imaginary, not to say absurd.
hmguage
to mark,
language, however, has this principle been carried into
full
operation
and hence
and the different parts of speech which it constitutes, passing into each other by gradations, which, at first sight, it is not always easy to explain. Thus, in Greek, the subjunctive pronoun, or, as some call it, the subjunctive article, oe, is sometimes said to be used for the prepositive 6 sometimes for rig interrogatively and sometimes for awroc. Again, *Oari(, sometimes answers to the Latin relative quis, and sometimes to qxrisquis. The adverb "Oirov, besides the common signification " where," answers to " whither ;" and, in argument, to " since ;" and in description, to " in this place," or " in that place." So, ore, " when," signifies also " since," like the Latin cum and the examples of this kind
see the different meanings of a word,
;
;
we
are infinite.
instances
We shall
not, therefore,
be surprised to find considerable
diversity from the

:
modern idiom
in the following,
and many
similar

246
OF ADVERBS. them;
that
therwhile
[CHAP. XIJI.
Tlicr is used for the, that, or

for the while
:
as, in
The Seuyn Sages,
Therwhile,
sire,
tolde this tale,
Thi sone mighte
tholie dethes bale.
Gawin Douglas
for
has " thare aboue" for "above that;" and "tharon"
" on them."
In the old Scottish dialect thir was used for these or them ; as in the act of 1424, " thir ar taxis ordaynt throu the counsaile of Parliament."
So
in
Dunbar's Gddin Terge, written about a century afterward

Full lustiely thir ladyis all in feir Enterit into this park of maist pleseir. * * * * *
And every ane of thir in grene arrayt And harp and lute full mirreyly they
In the same dialect
playt.
we
find
thairto
and
thairfra, thairfoir
and
thairefter, tharapone, thaimntill, &c.
Chaucer uses therto in the sense of " moreover," or " in addition to that" as in the Rime of Sir Thopas
He couthe hunt at the wilde' dere And ride an hauking forby the riuere
With grey goshauke on honde Therto he was a good archere.
llierefore,
which,
in
modern times,
is
commonly used
conjunctively,
occurs in a rude old English poem before quoted (Had. ful. 71), as signifying/or that
MSS.
2253,
Heo shulcn in belle on an hok Honge therefore.

In short, comparing the different authorities, ancient and modem, find that the word tliere, how ever variously spelt, did not originally
WQ
relate to place exclusively, lmt
was equally applied
to time, to persons,
and to events: and the .same may be said of thence and thither. Thenceforth, which we use with reference to time, agrees with the old
li
Of 1608, which
phrase fru thin I'urth, as in the following passage is, on many accounts, worthy of notice:
l/iin
in
the
Act
It in stntuto nnd onlanit that fru quhilkn ar within am- liiindnili iikj
firth na hnroun, frehaldar, DOT tent thai now i*, be oompeUH to cum pcmoiialy to tin- parliament, bot jifil bo that our oturane Lord write specials mil bl mil.iuit I'm- than I'l'i'MHi ;, ami thai .nl (hair And faal) for tlliUllr. procurntour* to an*o for thaim-, with the baroni* of the schire, or the maist |mtoiiIh. And all that nr ibotM tin- OStOBt of nne liundivlh morkl to cum tli<< nidd \ nlaw. to the parllanx nt, \ mb-r the |.a
i
ihc
oit.-n (juoti'd
Anglo-Saxon and old English,

r>">)
im.<
thi\/,r,
as in the
poem
(Hail. .Mss. 2268, fbL

for
||
1.
i
<i.,.|
looo,
-nir.
Ll't
And
ns they
hud hideuard
I'm
" hitheiward," or " toward
this
place,"

CHAT.
XIII.]
OF ADVEIU)-.
247
" toward that place so they had thederwart for " thitherward," or
in
&e
ludicrous
poem
called "
The Hantyng of the Hare:"

t/n-<lrr>nirt.
:"
as
Thci toke no hede
But euery dogge on oder
start.
Where, whence, and whither. These words have also a similar Where analogy, together with this further peculiarity, that they serve inThus in the interrodifferently for interrogatives and subjunctives.
392.
gative
:
They continually say unto me, where
is
thy God
Fsa.
;
xlii. 3.
And
he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence earnest thou
and whither
cri. 8.
wilt thou
go?
And
again in the subjunctive

Let no
I
man know
out, not
where ye be.
Jer. xxxvi. 19.
wist not whence they were.
Josh.
ii.
4.
He went
knowing whither he went.
Heb.
xi. 8.
We have already seen that the subjunctive force of the word where was not peculiar to it, but was sometimes expressed by the word We do not find this to be the case in English with the interthere. but in Greek the relative pronoun We rogative force of the same word
;
is also
an interrogative; as in St. Mark's gospel,
c.
ii.
v. G, 7
"Hirav
?e
TINES
Twv ypa^nre'wv
el
em
KaOi'ifievoi Ktil
EiaXoyt^cfievoi iv rale
;
Kupciuic
avroV
TI' ovtoc, ovTb)
\a\u
;
afiirat auapriae,
p)
els 6
Qeos
" But
fiXaafTi/jiag
TIS
cvvarai
there were certain of the
scribes sitting there,
thus speak blasphemies
and reasoning in their hearts, why doth this man Who can forgive sins, but God only ?" ?
Hence
it
is
clear,
that the interrogative effect of a
require a peculiar form, any
more than the subjunctive.
quidam, which means " a certain person," " some one," are reciprocally connected with the interrogative qvis, and the subjunctive qui. Scaliger was of opinion that the Latin quis and qui were the Greek ical 6g and mi o and Tooke, probably thinking He to improve on this etymology, has only gone further in error. says, "As ut (originally written uti) is nothing but on; so is quod
;
word does not So the Latin and " aliquis," wliich means
(anciently written quodde) merely

Quodde,
ical 6tI
tuas laudes culpas nil proficis hilutn.
Lucilins.
" Qu in Latin being sounded not as the English, but as the French cat, by a change of the cha; pronounce qu, that is, as the Greek racter, not of the sound, became the Latin que, used only enclitically Hence ical uti became in Latin quotti, indeed in modern Latin.
quoddi, quodde, quod."

.
The only foundation

;
for all these conjectures
seems to be, that
in the very nature of a subjunctive
pronoun some-
and as to the assertions thing equivalent to a conjunction is implied It respecting the Roman pronunciation they are perfectly gratuitous.
is
same as of
not very probable that the ancient pronunciation of qu was the on the contrary, it more probably resembled that of

248
X,
OF ADVERBS.
[CHAP.
XIII.
or rather of the Gothic O, which our Anglo-Saxon ancestors expressed by hw, the old Scottish writers by qiJi, and we by ich. Scaliger and Tooke forgot, that if their explanation might be thought to account for the subjunctive pronoun, or conjunction, it left the inter-
seems and other northern languages in employing the articulation marked by the JEoWc digamma, where the softer Greek dialects omitted that articulation thus the Greek otvoe. was the Latin vinum and Gothic wein the Greek ol was the Latin vce and Gothic icai ; and lastly, the Greek aspirated pronouns ij, o, were the Latin quae, quo, and the Gothic hwa, hwo. It is manifest that where did not originally refer to place alone, any more than here or there did; but, like those words, was originally a pronoun signifying this or that ; for in its composite forms it often signifies no more than those pronouns, the substantive to which it refers Thus we have being usually expressed, but sometimes understood. " wliereabout, for " about which business Let no man know any thing of the business whereabout I send
;
rogative pronouns and adverbs quite unexplained
and the
fact
to be, that the Latin language originally agreed with the Gothic
thee.
Sum.
xxi. 2.
Whereto, for " to which thing"

It shall
prosper in the thing whereto
sent
it.
IsaiaJi lv. 11.
Whereby, for
There
is
"by
which
name"
Wl must be
none other name under heaven given among men whereby saved. Acts iv. 12.
Wherefore, for " for which cause" What is the cause wherefore ye are come ?
Acts
x. 21
All these compounds may be employed interrogatively, (ami indeed the subjunctive use of some of them has at present become rather >>'>solete,)
11
bat
place."
Thus
he
in this
wherebi/
form also they are not necessarily significant is osed (or "by what mean?
ot
Eeflherku Mid unto the nngel, whereby shall
know
this?
Luke
i.
18.
Wherefore, for " for what reason?"
Now
to
is
dead wherefore should
fast?
2 Aim.
xii.
28.
be observed, however, that there are certain adverbs oon> It is jxMinded with where, which cannot be used interrogatively, such as
whereas, wherever, wheresoever
a,
in
1
but the reason is, that in these, as well ; whensoever, whithersoever, &c., the pronoun as and so, and the
i
M 00
ever, necessarily give tin u
a relative force
and
eilect
ye not spoken a lying divination, whereat ye sav,
Ths Lord
xiii. 7.
Mithil?
tfi
Exek.
th poet with
you always: and whensoever ft
will ye
Jo
I
tliinn
good.
Murk
'_'
xiv. 7.
Lord I'rworvtd David whithersoever ho went.
Sum.
viii. 0.
Ii
would be impossible to OX]
passages interrogatively,

CHAP.
XIII.]
OF ADVERBS.
249
" whereas say ye?" " whensoever will ye?" " whithersoever did be go?" not on account of the meaning of the words "where," "when," or " whither," but of the others with which they are compounded. From what has been said, it is abundantly clear that the adverbs
here,
there, where,
lience,
thence,
whence,
hitfier,
thither,
and whither,
although in their modern and uncompounded use they principally express a conception of "place," yet did not really include the name ot any such conception in their original signification, but were the mere pronouns he, this, and what, diversely compounded, and assigned
by use
393.
to separate
and
distinct significations.
is to be observed of the adverbs Then and ^Wn. When, which have been above noted, as principally signifying time. We have not, indeed, the word Hen for "at this time," though it Thus, in the occurs in old English for hence, i. e., from this place. scoffing ballad made on the defeat of Henry III. at Lewes, in 1264, and which, from its tenor, must have been composed very soon after
The very same
the event,
we
find the following lines
He
The gold ant the
hath robbed Engeloud the mores ant the fenne selver ant yboren henne.
" he," and hun is " she ;" and StierxUlph. Goth., p. 85), speaking of the Gothic word hand, as in hana hrukida, "the cock crew," (Matth. xxvi. 74,) says, Omnia avis rnascida dicitur hana, ab han, Me, et famina hoxa, ab hox, ilia ; " every male bird is called hana, from han, he ; and every female Hence we may infer, that the element en bird hbna, from lion, she." was compounded in some of the northern dialects, as we have already seen that er was, viz., with he, the, and who, producing /ten, then, and when, as well as here, there, and wliere, all of them originally pronouns, and all used in a restricted sense by an ellipsis of the words
Hann,
in the Icelandic, is
iiei.m (Gloss.
time, place,
&c,
as adverbs.
In the Gothic, used for " now."

manifestly
Than is both "then" and "when," and yuthan is Than is also used for autem, tit, " but ;" and it is nothing more than the article or pronoun thana, or thami,
answering to the Greek rbv, or bv, as Seimon

~Lip.u)va
thana
haitanan Zeloten,
called
TO N
v
KaXovfxevov
vi.
ZtjXwtj/j',
"Simon, who (was)
15); thaxei wildedun, "ON ifiikov, "whom they would," (Matth. xxvii. 15). Than, for "those," is still used in manv parts of Scotland thynfurth we have seen in the old dialect of that country, for "thenceforth," which, in the parliamentary articles of 1461 above quoted, is written " thensforth :" and as henne was used, in old English, for " hence," so thenne was used for thence, i. e., from
Zelotes,"
(Luke
that place; as in Christ's Descent into Hell
Nas non
so holy prophete,
Seththe Adam & Eue the appel ete, Ant he were at this worldes syne, That he ne moste to helle pyne Ne shulde he neuer thenne come, Nere Jesu Crist Godes sone.
:

250
OF ADVERBS.

[CHAl.
XIII.
is the Gothic hican, which is used for the Latin quando, quo quantum, quam, and is manifestly the same as JucaiHi, quern, "whom;" as hwaxa soh'ith, " ichom seek ye?" (John xviii. 4.) As the Gothic than and hican, and the old English there and where were often used convertibly, so were then and when ; and in the Harleian MSS. (No. 2253, fol. 55, b.) we find the for when
When
niain,
The he com
''>>
there, tho seide he.
394.
identity
It will
not be necessary to use
of origin between
;
Why
much argument in proof of the and the words before mentioned,
where, when, &c.
it is
who.
In modern usage
manifestly only another form of the pronoun we do not oppose thy (in the sense of this
cause) to
why ; but
iciththy.
this
mode
forthy and
the
Forthy occurs
of expression occurs in the old words in the Scottish Act of 1424, in
two
Bruce
senses of
"because" and "therefore."
So
in
Barbour's
But God
that most is of all might Preserved thame in his forsight To ven<re the hfirm and the oofitrair That those fell folk and pnntener Did to simple folk and worthy, That couth not help theniselven forthy They were like to the Maccabeis.
;
The same author seems to use nought for thy " nevertheless," as
And nought for th;i, thoeht they ba feil, God may rirht weil our werdiv. deil.
* *
not for
th>/
in
the sense of
And
thair faes then w. re
Ay twa
for ane that they
had that.
So he
uses with thy for " provided," or

AihI
\\'it/i
I
"on
this condition"
n]
thy
I'e
iii
your helping
'_i\e
DM
all
the lolld
That ye have
in all
neii into
is
your bond.
reason, or con-
which instances
/////
.simply this, viz., cause,

1
dition,
those substantives lxing underst
h\
the sort
of
ellipsfi
already explained.
805.
How
is
simplv the pronoun
ir/io,
or hwa, sometimes written

L"J77,
fol,
ii
old English ho; as In the HarhaUffi

!
MS.
.-nte,
among
All''
other dnyo* goda fbrto bold* heghe

iiini
iio so
radsntod*.
And
as
we have
we
vcrtiblv, ho
aeon the pronoun that, and the adverb as, used confind hem In the old Scottish dialect used where if
.should i-m|.l.iy toôv
as; e.g.housone, for ''so soon as"

RJVhte,
Thnt houMorw ony
001 ckms, Of 0MSH) happyiiiiis
to bl
!tum,
itc.
BoottiiA ioff,
A.i'.
156**
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF AUVERBS.
251
'
have thus traced, at some length, the English adverbs of GNaml mterfcnte place, time, &c, have shown them to be no other than the demonstrative and subjunctive pronouns, appropriated by custom to certain distinct significations but though the particular applications are matter of mere idiom, and vary, as has been seen, considerably in the same
396.
I
;
country at different periods
yet in most,
if
not
all
languages, the
same general principle is to be traced. In most, if not all, the words which are employed as adverbs of time, place, manner, and cause, are
pronouns with little or no variation of form. In Latin, from the pronoun is, ea, id, come the adverbs
ibi, alibi,
ibidem, inch, proinde, ita, itaque, ideo, iccirco, eo, adeo, eorsum, uspiam,
nusquam, &c. From hie, hcec, hoc, come hinc, hue, adhuc, huccine, horsum, hodie, antehac, posthac, hacpropter, &c. From ilk, ilia, illud, come illic, illico, illuc, Mine, olim, &c. From qui, qua?, quod, come quo, quoque, quam, quando, quia, quamvis, quare, quin, quidem, cum, cur, and probably ubi, ubivis, alicubi, &c. It is needless to trace the pronominal adverbs in Greek but it
;
curious to observe the same principle in the Persian language, in which the pronouns are een, this ; aun, that ; he, who
che,
may be somewhat
which.
een,
From From
then."
"
this," are
aun,
he,
"that;"
derived eenjd, " here," eensii, " hither." dnjd, "there;" dnsu, "thither;" anqdh,
"which;" chun, "how, or when?" chend, "how "wherefore?" hemchun, "so as," &c. (See Sir William Jones's Persian Grammar and compare pages 32 and 33, with 93, 94, 95, and 96.) 397. The numeral pronouns supply a class of adverbs, which are not very numerous in any language. Verbs of action represent conceptions which may be often repeated. If it be meant to limit the action to a single instance, the conception of the number one must be expressed, and so of any other number, and to this is added, either expressly, or, at least, in the mind, the conception of time. Thus we 8By " he marched six times through Spain ;" he conquered more than twenty times in pitched battles ;" " he was twelve times crowned with laurel." In most languages it is unnecessary to express the conception
che,
From From many?"
"who;" cu
or cujd, " where," "whither."
chera,
Numeral*.
of time in connection with the lower numbers, the numerals themselves supplying an inflection, by which that conception is perfectly
understood.
.are
Thus are produced our adverbs once, twice, thrice, which no other than the old genitives onis, twyis, threyis. The Latin
language is more felicitous in this respect ; it has decks, vicies, centies, and millies, to express ten times, twenty times, a hundred times, and a thousand times. In a poem of the time of Henry VI., entitled, " How the wyse man taght hys son" (Harl. MSS. 1596), is the line
For and thy wyfe
may
owjs aspye.

252
In
OF ADVERBS.
Alisaunder
T"->ics is
[CHAP. XIII.
Kyng
somer
*
in that londe.
Ye haveth him
twyes overcome.
With
one
is
respect to the adverb once, however, it is to be noted, that as not always opposed to two or three, or any specific number, but
sometimes merely to many ; so once does not always signify " at one time," as opposed to two, three, or any other number of times, but merely " at some time " different from the present. Thus, when the
poet Wordsworth says of Venice,
Once did she hold the gorgeous East
in fee,
he means to contrast the greatness of a former time with the degradation of the present. As if he had said, although at this present time she lies so low, there was one other period, at least, in her history,
which presented a far different and great, famous and powerful
picture.
At
that time she
was
rich
And none
Koto
lies
she there,
so poor to do her reverence.
Nor is this signification confined to the time past. means some uncertain time as applied to the future. Merry Wives of Windsor
Once Thus,
e<[uallv
in the
pray thee, once to night, give
my
sweet
Nan
this ring.
Nearly the same
effect is given in Latin to the
adverb
olim,
which
means someone point of time, cither pastor future; and seems tfl have the same connection with the relative article, as our word once
has with the positive; for olim appears to be derived from die, which
Qged fbf JBf, and which, in the plural, was written Boyal Law Si jiirrntis puer vcrlterit, ast olok phrastint. The numerals here spoken of are those called cardinal: but the ordinals also supply a certain class of adverbs, as thirdly, fourthly, JiJ'hly, ^c, which are tunned from the adjectives third, fourth, Jifth, &c, by adding the termination ly, before explained. In the Latin language, the correspondent words tcrtio, quartb, &C., are manifestly the adjectives lectins, ,/imrtus, ke., with the termination of the ablathe early
doe, as
,n
tli-:
Komans
In English, too, we use the adjective first, adverbially any alteration. It has been observed above that the first of the ordinal DUinbei ...eiierallv appeal' not to be taken from the names of the cardinal numbers; thus we do not say in English the i<nith the tiKH-th, nor in Latin unitus, iluitus, nor in (ireek l roror, tive case.
without
but in these languages respectively, first, second, primus, secun-
dux, mpAlVtt CivrifHn;: and wlnn we look to the etymology ef these shall be inclined to suspect that the) are in their origin
.inipler, and then fore, the ordinal inimlicrs.
_//<, lh.
In
p'
ihap
earlier than tin- adjective, taken

first is
from
all
The word
manifestly the superlative of

"I
tlial
t.l.iii',..!
...in.', to!
//</.
111'
A.y.Vc
CHAP.
others.
XIII.]
OF ADVERBS.
is in like
253
The Latin primus
word
est
pri.
Scaliger, speaking of the
manner the superlative of the old word primus, says, Superlativum

:
; nam pri vetus vox fuit, sicut ni postea latiore vocali fusa? sunt nk, vrje, wide Adverbium, pridem ; comparativum, prius superlativum, primum. So the Greek ttpwtog is the superlative of the prepo;
formed thus, 7rporaroe, TtphaToq, and (the 6a shown to be contracted into w) irpdroc As to the preposition irpo, it answers exactly to the Latin pro?, before, primarily with regard to time or place, and secondarily to order, or what we call preference. The word irpui, indeed, is used for the first dawn of day but this appears to be merely a contraction from irpwi, which, however, is undoubtedly connected with icpd nor can there be much doubt that the three radicals to which I have alluded, viz., pri, pro, and for, have all one common origin. 398. If there be a doubt whether any one particular class of words Vert*, can be used adverbially, that doubt must apply to the Verbs. In English, the words to which this doubt applies are either of uncertain etymology or else their use is rather conjunctional or interjectional than adverbial. The adverb Yet has been considered to be the imperative mood of the Anglo-Saxon verb gytan, or getan, to get ; but it is not very evident how this imperative can be applied to the different senses in which the word get is used. The adverbs ado and together have an obvious affinity with the verbs do and gather ; but it is not easy to trace them directly to any particular part of those verbs. Ado is well known in English from the name of the popular drama, Much Ado
sition 7rpo, being
by the circumflex accent
about Nothing.
preface to
pression "
Gawin
it
In the Scottish dialect too it is very ancient. In the Douglas's translation of the .<Eneid we find the exhas nathing ado therewith." The adverb Together has a
manifest relation to the verb gather, which, however, we now use with some diversity of meaning. The adverb and the verb rather seem to
refer to
pears in a
een
,
some common origin, which does not exist in English, but apmore simple form in Dutch, in which gade is a consort, as dug/ en haare gade, " a dove and her mate ;" gadeloos, matchless
;
gadelyk, sortable, &c.
399. Yes and No may be referred to the class of verbal adverbs, if Affirmative they properly belong to this part of speech, which I am inclined to Native, think they do ; though a very able philologist considers them as " referable to none of the current parts of speech," but requiring by accurate grammar to be placed " in a class by themselves." * Doubtless they stand alone in construction, and are equivalent, each of them, to a whole sentence ; but that sentence is elliptical, and, I apprehend, that the verb understood in it is modified by the adverb expressed. In the language of gesture nothing can be more*simple, more universal, or more frequent than the expressions of assent or dissent, the former by a nod of the head, the latter by a shake of the head. In the words
* Latham, Eng. Lang. 259.
254
OF ADVERBS.
[CHAP. XIII.
of our Saviour, too, the verbal expressions are as short and distinct as possible "Erw Be b Xoyoe vfiiLv Nat, vat, Ov, ou. " Sit autem " Let your communication be Yea, sernio tester, Est, est, Ndn, non. In the Gothic, " Siyai than icaurda izwar Ya, ya, yea, Nay, nay."
:
Ne, ne." Yet it is remarkable, that in classical literature generally such simple expressions of assent or dissent seldom or never occur, at
least in
the plain
and
direct
mode
in
them.
One would expect
to find frequent use of them, if
which we constantly employ anywhere,
where the reasoning of Socrates is so generally canned on by interrogation. But, on the contrary, the answers are tor the most part given in such terms as"Eort ravra, " These things arc so;" Ovk iotiv, "it is not;" IIwc oov, "how not?" tL ^n)v, "what ;" else?" Ilavv fiiv ovv, "wholly so;" Ev Xe'yetc, "you say well oiJrwe, "just so ;" oi/ca/iwc, " by no means;" "Eoike ye 7rw<;, " at least 'tis rather probable ;" ovk toiicev, " 'tis not probable ;" (paai yovv, " so Someôyov, " why, 'tis reasonable." at least they say ;" tL
in Plato's Dialogues,
"&x
"Y^P
is
times, indeed, the answer
by the short word Nat

implying,
but
this,
though
respon-
translated "yea," in the text above quoted, conveys to a classical car,
somewhat of a
sively, rather
less positive assertion;
when used
a submission to the person addressed than a confident assertion of the party using it: ex. gr. Qvkovv 6pCos,l<pr)v, w .\ctl(tavrt; Nai, $ 3' oc, * Certainly,' said he."*
I not right,' said I, 'O Adimantus? understand the nature of the responsive words yes and no, we must advert to what has before been said of The interrogative sentences, and the interrogative mood of verbs. interrogator states a fact as unknown to or doubted by himself, in its pinral existence, or in some of its circumstances and he requires from pmident an assertion affirming or denying that which he has
"'Was
To
<ir unknown. The question proposed is simple oar Simple, the answer may be in the same words, mutatis The Greeks and mutandis, as the question: if complex it. cannot. Romans called the simple question 'Epwrrma, iiiterm/atio, and the
stated as doubtful
complex.
It'
complex, UitwuOfPtroontatioi which distinction maj be illustrated by Comparing the proceedings on a criminal trial by jury with those on a The simple question put to the jury in the former coroner's inquest. Case is an TipArsJiW. " ft 'he prisoner guilty?" and the answer mas-
be given in the very same words transposed, "The prisoner is guilty. The complex question in the other case is a II ixrfia. HoV) aid the Which ,d\ von an- to examine, come by his death? petSOn, who..* h :IS *'"' '"' dto by the act ox ran< h into II bj bin bj the bands of another? Qod? "i i.\ biaown
I..
i
own
hi
i|
he
at
the time sine, or insane?
If
by the hand,; q|
if
another.
that psflMO
known
h of
in
01
?
unknown
I.
If
known, was
i
A.,
I'.,
them
lii
And whatever
pi
the state of the lads

lie
an iweivd by
.iiiv
other
i.
simple
response,
With
IMmI.., Stp,
i.

CHAP.
XIII.
j
; ;
255
;
OF ADYEBB8.
complex questions, the words yes and no have nothing to do but supposing a simple question to be put, and answered affirmatively, by transposing its terms, as " Is there peace at present between France and England ?" " There is peace at present between France and England," it must immediately occur to any one that the answer would be perfectly intelligible, if all the words after " there is " were dropt an superfluous and equally so if the answer were " there is not." So, if it were asked, " Is it true that A. B. is guilty of the felony of which he stands indicted?" the full answer would be, " It is tme that A. B. is guilty of the felony of which he stands indicted," but it would be
The superequally intelligible to say briefly "it is," or "it is not." fluous words then would not long be retained in use and the brief
;
answers given would be exactly equivalent to yes or no : hence it is probable that these two words may have had some connection, historically, with the assertions " there is" and " there is not," or "it is" and " it is not." have in modern English three forms of the affirmative Tm 400. word in question, viz., Yes, Yea, and Ay; which last, from its imme- a>\" mortally exclusive use in Parliamentary voting, may probably have been at an early period of our history the most prevalent form. Be this as it may, I shall first examine certain explanations which have been given of yes, the word at present used on all ordinary Mr. Tooke labours to derive yes from the occasions, for affirmation. French ayez, " have it," " enjoy it." This is not the happiest of his etymologies, at least it is not one of the best supported for he quotes Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose very much at random, in support of his
We
conjecture
And
after,
on the daunce went
Largesse, that set al her entent For to ben honorable and fre Of Alexander's kynne was she Her most joye was ywis, Whan tiiat she yafe, and sayd haue this.
Where Mr. Tooke

been translated
:
says, "
Which
might, with equal propriety, have
When
she gave, and said yes."
could not well have missed the spirit of his author more completely. Largesse, or liberality, is personified, like Timon, scattering her gifts on all sides, and not waiting for anv demand, to which she might answer, " yes." So we find, from the admirable scenes with Lucullus and Lucius, that Timon had been in the habit of surprising them with unexpected presents
frigid critic
:
The most
LUCULLUS. One of Lord Timon's men ? A gift, I warrant. Why, this hits right I dreamt of a silver bason and ewer to-night. Flaminius, honest Flaminius, vou are very respectively welcome, sir. (Fill me some wine.) And how does that
:
honorable, complete, and free-hearted gentleman of Athens, thy very bountiful
good lord and master?

256
OF ADVERBS.
[OTAP.
XIII.
Flam. His health is well, sir. Luccl. I am right glad his health
thy cloak, pretty Flaminius
?
******
is
well,
sii
and what hast thou

much
there, under
Serv. May
Lucius.
it
!
please your honor,
my
?
lord hath sent

I
Ha
What hath he
sent
am
so
endeared to that lord

?
ever a sending.
How
shall
thank him, thinkst thou
And what
he i* hath he sent
:
now?
In like manner, Largesse set
all
her pleasure in free, spontaneous,
and unexpected acts of bounty, with the munificence of a mighty monarch, another Alexander, surprising those whom she benefited by If our yes were derived from the sudden exclamation, " Have this !" ayez, we should find the latter word used in that sense in some of the French dialects but this circumstance nowhere occurs. Nor is it very clear, that the word ayez was used in French before yes was used since it appears to be a corruption of avez ; which was in English
; ;
taken from havez, or habez, part of the very ancient verb haben, of which the radical hab, in the sense of our word have, was common to for the Latin verb was the Latin with all the Gothic languages habere, the Majso-Gothic haban, the Anglo-Saxon habban and furhban, the Frankish, Alamannic, and modem German haben, the Icelandic
;
hafa, the Danish haffne, the Swedish hafwa, the Dutch hebben ; and it even seems to have been used in one dialect of the Greek language lot
:
Hesychius and Phavorinus prove that fi/3ctc was used for c^ctc, pe* ticularly by the Pamphylians, and from this root an infinity of nouns
are derived in the northern languages, as well as in the Semitic from It would therefore require some diligence of the Hebrew nin havah.
investigation, to discover at
what period
it
in the history of the
Frankish
or French language, the distinctive b or v of the radical
word was
dropped
in
the imperative ayez; and

all,
that ]>eriod, if at
use, inU) an
that the imperative

;
could not have been long after was converted, by common
adverb among the l-rench
and again, at a much
later
period, that this adverb was adopted from the Norman-French into the Norman-Saxon, from whence it must have descended to the
modern Knglish not one of the steps in which supposed progress has nor is it probable that the attempt, Mr. Tooke attempted to verify if made, would have led to any confirmation of his conjectural I>r. Johnson derives yes from the Angloetrmologj of the word yrs. ptf, and indeed the word is found in that language written Supposing then that our yes may yite, yeac, yyse, with the Saxon 3. remains to lx> seen whether the 01 num. di.itels defiV*d fifOfl) (MM, >uree should lie and here latter word can be traced
;
it
dlepceed to avail myself
ol the
1,
JAContraet
,'ii,
\ plains yej suggestion of Junius (wl ,,i.u .it least as to derive the Saxon yese
uhieh seems to have lieen a ven ancient afiirmative in that Mr. Tooke indeed language, and is Identical with our present ,'/'''/. -ei, that //' and yen a very dillcreni origin, the one being -eil, avoir, the other from Borne northern verb (he from ti
;i
t
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF ADVERBS.
257
Now, does not exactly determine which) that signifies " to own." Verbs of this signification are also very numerous, as well as the adjecThus the Gothic verb is tives and substantives derived from them. the aigan, the Anglo-Saxon agan, whence our verb to owe is derived Icelandic eiga, the Swedish a>ga, the Alamannic eigan, and with these Nor is the adjective less probably the Greek i\tiv has some affinity. In Gothic it is aigin, in general, with the sense of own, proprius. Anglo-Saxon agen, whence the old Scottish awin, and old English owen, the Alamannic eigan, the Danish eget, the Icelandic eyga, and the Dutch eygen. It does not, however, happen in these languages generally, that the affirmative adverb, or interjection, has the form of any Our yea is part of the verb, or indeed much resemblance to it. undoubtedly the Ma>so-Gothic ya, yai, old German ya, yo, AngloSaxon ya, yea, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, German, and Dutch, ya ; from which various words are derived in several of those languages, as the Gothic yaithan, to approve, and frayethan, to disapprove ; the
;
Icelandic yaord, consent,
leyahen, to affirm
the Swedish beyaka, to

It
affirm; the
German
yaher, a comply er; yawort, a consent, &c.
seems also to be connected with the Sanscrit affirmative particle (as it has been called) ya, yai* Some grammarians derive it from the Hebrew jah (or yah) Jehovah; but this can hardly be taken in its plain and literal sense. The Hebrews surely would not have profaned the name of the Almighty by introducing it into common and trivial discourse and the heathens, who could learn the sacred appellation only through the Hebrews, can less probably be supposed to have adopted it. The only way in which it seems that this etymology can be at all supported is by reference to the verb rpfl hayah, to be, with which the name of the great " I Am" has no doubt a connection, as the Being of Beings, He who alone is of himself, and the cause of being to all things that exist. In the Moeso-Gothic there is an evident connection between ya and the pronouns and adverbs of pronominal origin, so, it, this, and that
;
Ya-ins Ya-ind Ya-thau
(iHe)
(illuc)
(forsan)
(si)
Ya-u
Yu
(jam)
" this man," " to that place," " it may be so" " be it, that," " at this time."
In point of signification ya or yea agrees with the Greek ovruQ, and the Latin sic ; both which are connected with pronouns, and both
employed as words of responsive affirmation. Thus Socrates, arguing with Alcibiades that the soul, and not the body, is the true self, says, Oarig apa t&v tov o-w/mroe ri yivwaKei, ra avroii, a\X' ov% avrov tyv(x)Kv " Whosoever then knows his body, knows what belongs to himself; but does not know himself f\ to which Alcibiades replies, OtJrwe as if he had said, " it is so ;" " it is as you say." The Latin
* Bopp, Comp. Gram. 371, 385.
t plato
*'
irst Aloib. c
26.

258
sic,
S
[CHAP. XIII
OF ADVERBS.
like the
modern Italian si, was used as we employ yes. The gra by which it reached this power of expression, may be collected from the following passages in Terence, to be sic est factum sic e&
dations
sic.
i.
ii.
iii.
" Quid narras ? Sic est factum!'' What (tale) do yo The fact is so.* tell ? M Daturen ilia Pamphilo hodie nuptum ? Sic est." Is sh It is so."j" given to Pamphilus to be married ? " Itane ais Phanium relictam solam ? Sic." What d
you say
(t. e.
that
Phanium was
so)4
left
by
herself?
yes, I say
The Greek ovtwq

"
this
person
se,
pronoun
is a mere adverbial form of the pronominal ovrot and the Latin sic is in like manner connected with th which in the dative is siJri, and with the verb sit, whic
:"
was
anciently written
si-et.
Besides the mere expression of acquiescence in a question or d( mand, yea has, in its modem use, a particular force which answers t the Latin imo ; and irrio, it is to be observed, is really the pronou im, which occurs constantly for eum in the remaining fragments of th Laws of the Twelve Tables ; as, " si im aliquips occisit, pure ccesu
esto," sativo, sed
where Macrobius says ab eo quod est is, non eum, casu acci im dixerunt. In this sense of the word yea, Milton says
:
They durst abide Jehovah thund 'ring out of Sion, thron'd Between the cherubim yea, often plae'd
Within his sanctuary
It
is
itself their shrines.
somewhat remarkable, in the English idiom, that the word na would think, of yea) is used in the \< try sam Thus Dry den say: sense as that which we have just described.
(the antipodes, as one " This allay of Ovid's writings
excellences;
is
sufficiently
is
recompensed by
his otlu
not without its beauties." Wht more singular, lien .lonson uses both yea and nay with th is still goo same augmentative force in one and the same sentence: " man always profits by his endeavour; yea, when he is absent; nat
my,
this very fault
when dead, by his example and memory." In all these passages, |fV seems still to l>car its relation to the pronoun thu for the meaning " they dmt abide JeboVlh thundering out of Sion this they did an " A good man prolits by his endeavours this he dot often more." when present, and even when absent:" and the word nay only scrv< still further to complete the same sense for, in the iustuiic.es ubo\ quoted, the meaning is, " the alhn "i Ovid's writings is recompense this is the ea.-.e, and nut only this, but ihever DJ '.tli'i excelled* <^ fault has its beauties." "A good man profits ns by his endetVQH when ibfttJ '/" b* does, and w>t only this, but even when he dead, we profit by his example aud his memory."
; ii
;
A<le!|>hi,
a. 3, c. 4.
f And., . 2,
c. 1.
J IVV.nn.,
so. 2.

CHAP.
XIII.]
is still
OF ADVERBS.
259
one more use of yea, which confirms the view here taken of its import as in the third chapter of Genesis " Yea ? Hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden ?"* Here the word yea has an interrogative force and means " is this so Do vou say this namely, that God hath forbidden you to eat of every tree ? In fine, the conception always expressed by yea is that of true and affirmative existence. Hence Dr. Hammond, explaining the passage I all the promises of God in him are yea and amen" (2 Cor. i. 20), says, " that is, they are verified, which is the importance of yea ; and confirmed, which is meant by amen." Now, the conception of positive
There
existence, as applied to a particular thing or event, is expressed by the words " it is," or " this is ;" and if there be an ellipsis of either word, the same conception may be expressed by the other word. In this view of the subject, it seems not unreasonable to conclude that the word ya may have been originally used either as a pronoun, or as a part of the verb of existence and it is to be remembered, that in many, perhaps in all languages, the verb of existence is merely expressed by a pronoun.
;
m and nay, are derived from some more ancient common

fias
Ay appears to be merely yea, a little varied in pronunciation, Dr. Johnson, indeed, suggests that it may be derived from the Latin aio but it is more probable that the Latin aio and nego, and the English
origin.
Ay
from yea, as yea has from \ies ; but this is no more remarkable than the different force and effect which, as we have already seen, is given in different cases to the same word, yea. In the following passage from Shakspeare's Henry VI. ay expresses somewhat more of passionate and proud reproof, than if the word yea were employed Remember it and let it make thee crest-fall'n
slight differences of application
: ;
some
Ay, and abate

A.s
this thy abortive pride.
T;
yea appears to have been a variation of ay, so was ay varied into but without any change of meaning
:
Hath Romeo
slain
himself?
And that bare voivel, I, shall Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
Say thou but I; poison more

Borneo and Juliet.
it is
With
respect to the other adverb aye, "always" (for
a totally
have occasion to consider it hereafter. 401. Our No and Nay belong to a very large class of negatives, n vhich are found in almost all the languages which have been called "** ndo-European, ex. gr. the Sanskrit and Zend na, Persian ne, Latin
lifferent
word),
we
shall
10,
Id
non, Russian, Polish, and Bohemian ne, nie, neni, Gothic and German ne, Anglo-Saxon na, ne, no, Low Saxon neh, Icelandic, push, and Swedish, ney, Dutch neen, German nein, nie, Italian no, on, French non, nenni, Spanish ne, &c, with all their compounds and .erivatives. The conception which enters into the signification cf all
to,
* Genes,
iii.
1.
32

260
these words
being, as
it
OF ADVERBS.
is
[CHAP. XII
in
an universal and primary one

all
the
human mind
Tl
1
were, the bound and limit of
other conceptions.
Brasses on this subject " Man, in order to communicate his perceptions, has occasion express, not only existing objects, and the manner of their existeno but also in what manner they do not exist. And so with regard
1
following are the remarks of the President
De
feelings,
he has occasion to make known whether they are agreeab

it.
to his will, or not agreeable to

classes of objects,
It is necessary then, that besid<

differs!
1
the different radicals serving to express positive ideas, and
he should have another radical, which may serve express a negative idea ; appropriated merely to indicate that what 1 describes is not in what he wishes to describe. One single radic will always suffice for that effect, to whatever object it may be applie< Negation being an absolute and privative sensation, a mere counte assertion, it is quite enough that we have one vocal, sign, one organ articulation, to advertise the hearer, that what we say is not iu tl subject of which we speak." Having already adverted to the concej
tion of negation generally,
child, in the first
it is
sufficient here to observe, that ever
glimmering of reason, must necessarily form such conception, and that it does in fact acquire, among its first articulal sounds, the sound which expresses that conception. The child has i
distinct a conception that its nurse
is
not present, or that
its
food
]
not agreeable to
its
palate, as
it
has of the opposite circumstances.

is
may
]ierhaps
lie
urged, that this negative conception

;
in
its
ver
nature adjectival
attribute to
that
it
some other conception which
can only be applied in the manner of a is of a substantive natim

Brasses, " de former un Norn absolumei
" JI
est
impossible" says
e'est
De
privatif;
positive."
dire,
is
une
locution,
qui ne contienne pas une idee vraimei
"
;
privative
impossible to form a noun (substantive) absolute! that is to say, an expression which does not contain a
It
least the adjectival conceptio other conceptions of the sain class, to modify substantives, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs: thus w may apply the negative words or particles no, not, and un, to modii the substantive man, the verb fe, the adjective wise, or the adver
idea really positive."
Be
it
so
but at
all
may
be applied,
in
the
manner of
always, in the following phrases
No man
Man
.Man
is
is
always wise.
wise always.
uiiwi'm.
is tint
always
never wi
Man
Tindill,
is
Lei at HO
time wise).
in
nut forms of negation are confounded
most languages*
dkdecta.
Tha
Latin ne, non, and ncc woro in early tunes used indi
tin-
v,
th"
find
'"'
and so weiv
f'r
Law* of Numa
ne
:
I'oiiipilm:;,
Knglish ne, no, not, nor. In a fragments preserved by I'ulvius Ursinus, W
fw\ It
..
<
'
,.,
,;-|
t.infn

CHAP.
XIII.]
26
Tribunitian
OF ADVERBS.
first
Again,
in
a fragment of the
Law,
nee
is
used for ne
:
Sci quis aliuta faxsit aim pequnia familiaq sacer estod im oxcisit paricida NEC estod.
sei quis
Again,
in the
Laws
of the Twelve Tables
Patris familias quei en do testato moritor quoique sows heres

escit.
NEC
In old English ne was used for not and for nor. i. For not in the Harleian MS. 2253, fol. 70,
b.
same
Ne mai
ii.
no lewed lued libben in londe.
For nor
fol.
in the
Prophecy of Thomas
shal this be ?
in thine
De
Essedoune, in the
volume,
127
Whenne
Nouther
tyme, ne in myn.
No was
i.
used
in the
For not
in
same two senses. the romance of Alisaunder
and nor
for than
Alisaunder and his folk alle No had noght passed theo halvendall.
ii.
For
nor, in the Description
of Cokaygne
no bench.
is
Ther
nis halle, bure,
In the Scottish dialect nae or no
used for
not,
They're nae sae wretched's ane wad think. Tica Dogs. Burns. Compleitly, mair sweitly Scho fridound flat and schairp, Nor muses, that uses Alex. Montgomery, circ. 1597. To pin Apollo's harp.
The particle ne, which forms part of our modern words none, never, &c. was anciently incorporated with many verbs, as, / not, for " I ne wot," or " know not ;" / nabbe, for " I ne have ;" / nvlle, for " I ne will ;" / nolde, for " I ne would;" it nis, it nas, it nere, for " it ne is," " it ne was," " it ne were :" The hors vanisheth I not in what manere.
Chaucer.
I
Sq. Tale.
fol.
nul soffre that no more.
Ibid.
55, b.
Uch a srewe wol hire shrude Tha he nabbe nout a smok, &c. Whil God wes on erthe And wandrede wyde, What was the reson
Ibid. fol. 61, b.
Why
he nolde ryde
For he nolde no grome To go by ys syde.
Harl.
MS. 2253,
fol.
124, b.
Ther
nis londe vnder heuenriche.
Harl.
MS.
913.
that he nas
wenemyd anon.
Lyf of Seint
Patrik.
Wymmen
were the best thing That shup our heye heune kyng Yef feolc false nere.
Harl.
MS. 2253,
fol.
71.
402.
It
is
sufficient for
the general purposes of communicating
262
Double
Negative.
OF ADVERBS.
[CHAP. XIII.
thought, that the negative conception should be once expressed in a simple sentence but we generally find it redoubled in old English, a circumstance derived from the Anglo-Saxon idiom, as, Ne om ic na The same idiom prevails Crist, " I am not the Christ" (John i. 20). in the modem French, although it was not always observed in that
;
In the sixteenth century they said, language at an earlier period. " Vhdbit ~sy:faict le moyne :" at present the same proverb is expressed It is difficult to account for the thus, " T habit NE/a# pas le moine." reduplication of the negative upon any other principle than that of the eager desire, which we commonly see in barbarous and ignorant people, to give utterance to their strong feelings and imperfect conceptions, and which usually leads to much tautology in their discourse. Tint genuine result of barbarism, however, has been sometimes mistaken and critics have dignified it with for a proof of extraordinary learning the title of an Archaism, a Hellenism, or some such pompous appella" The editor of Chaucer," says Hickes, " knowing nothing oi tion. antiquity, asserts that the poet imitated the Greeks in using tut negatives to express negation more vehemently whereas Chaucei was entirely ignorant of the Greek language, and only used the fcwc negatives according to the prevailing custom of his own times, when the language had not yet lost its Saxonisms, as, " I ne said none ill.'
;
In the Saxon writers, indeed, three and even your successive negatives NE yeseah i\\v.i m: nan man (iod :" And again, " Ne nan nk i. 18). dorste of tham dxvge hyne nan thing mare axiyean, ;" " and no man
are sometimes to be found, as, " "710 man ever saw God" (John
durst from that day forth ask him any more questions" (Matth. xxii, It is to be observed, however, that some of the besl of these 46). writers, and particularly the royal translator of liede's Keclesiastieal and such also is the History, generally employ but a single negative
;
uniform style of that venerable

Cdde.v
SuIhUiUiy*.
Art/niitfiis.
last
monument of Gothic
literature
tin
adverbially, are
class of separate words, which I shall notice as used nouns substantive. It is manifest that substantive! may be used in the formation of compound words to express the attributes of attribute!. Thai stone, in its primary sense, is a substantive, and blind is an adjective; but in the compound stone-blind, the former pari of the word modifies the latter, as much as if we were to say, "a
408. The
al'"a y,
or stonelike blindness."
In
[Ike
manner, substantives standing

modifying either a verb or an
alone
maybe
00
ui
1
taken
latter
adveri/ially,
ai
adjective.
init
it
The
11.
mode
is
the
less
common
in
:
modern English,
is
common
in
tmfreqoeodv in the older dialects the former mode most languages. The adverbial use of the substantive
i
I
I
verb, so
wh.it
It
..
1-
>
the
ulilidive
absolute,
of the
11
eramiiianiuis.
it
aaatrtin^
elliptical,
to
ad
th.
I
and
.11.
conception simply, without The construction is consequently i of ooi t" exist. ense mil) always be mON I'ullv expressed l>v adding
expresses
ii. ill
illustrate this
by a
tingle example,

CHAP.
XIII.]

OF ADVKlIliS.
263
While.
is the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon hwila, and Alaniannic a certain space of time, which seems to be of the same origin as our wheel, in the Anglo-Saxon hxceol, Danish and Swedish hiul, Icelandic hiool, and Dutch wiel, which are derived, by J. Davies, from the Welsh chicyl, turning, and seem to have some affinity with nor is there any more the Latin volvo, and Gothic walwyan, to roll apt or more common symbol of time than the continual rolling of a Be this as it may, the word while in English and weile in wheel. German is used substantively for a space of time, as in German es ist So in the eine gute weile, " it is a good while," or " a long time." relation of the meeting of Joseph with his father Jacob (Gen. xlvi. 29), " he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while" find the English adverb while used to modify verbs with reference to various
404.
While
uuila, time, or
We
portions of time, ex. gr.

i.
ii.
During the whole continuance of a given time. During a certain time to be terminated in future.
iii.
At
different intervals of time.
iv.
For a short space of time,
"I will sing praises unto my God, while I have any being," (i. e. during the whole time that I exist), Psalm cxlvi. v. 2. In the Scottish Act of Parliament, 1587, the enactment is ordained So in Alexander to last " Ay, and quhil His Hienes nixt parliament."
Montgomery
:
Cum
The
se
now,
in
me now
fyrt.
butterllie
And
and oudli) as scho flies quhyl scho be
In this sense, which at present exists only in provincial usage, while .states a time with a definite future termination, ex. gr. until the meeting of the Parliament, or until the insect be burnt.
The
third use
is
also provincial,
times," as in the well-known anecdote of an English traveller,
been confined at a village

rain,
in
and answers to our word " somewho had Scotland several days together by the
rain here replied with a smile, " Hoot, na it

!
and who, at length, tishly, " What does it
losing his patience, asked the landlord pet-
always?" To which the other snaws whyles." The fourth use occurs often in our translation of the Scriptures, as when Samuel said to Saul, " Stand thou still awhile that I may show thee the word of God" (1 Sam. ix. 27). The same idiom occurs in the Goldin Terge of Dunbar
! :
Acquentance new embrasit me a quhyle, And favourt me till men micht gae a myle, Syne tuk bir lief, I saw hir nevir mair.
In a very ancient English love-song, whyle is used in this sense without (Haii. MSS. 2253, fol. 63, b.) the article.
Betere
is
tholien whyle sore
Then mournen euermore.

204
It is
OF ADVERBS.
[CHAP. XIII
in the German language the not used adverbially in the same senses as ichile h in English, yet it has the same adverbial, or rather conjunctional sense, Thus the German wei< that we give in matters of reasoning to since. implies the consequence or dependence of one fact on another, at Weil ers verlanget, so soil ershaben: "since he desires it he shal have it." The word since has the primary signification of time, from the Anglo-Saxon sith, and old English sitlie, as in Chaucer
somewhat remarkable that though

iceile is
substantive
And such he was
iproved ofte sithes.
The word
the obsolete
season
is
also used
by old authors
to signify time, as
\i
word
stound.
we
In the Morale Proverbes of Crystyne, printed by Caxton, A.D. 1478, find the expressien long saison for "a long while," or "a long
time
:"
A temperat man
May
cold from hast asseured not lightly lonj saison be miseured.
So in the Dictes and Sayings of PhilosopJiers, printed 1477, " Then was that season in my company a worshipful gentleman called Lewis
de Bretaylles." Stound occurs adverbially
in
Octouian Imperator
re-
Men hlamede
the bochere oft stoxuvlys For his sone.
The compounds of
quire no explanation.
while
still in
use such as meanwhile, erewhile,
They
plainly express the conception of time,
and signify "in the meantime," "sometime before," &c. Kivwhik was anciently written whilere, and so we find in the different old dialects whilom and umquhill, which both agree with the old word
sometime for M formerly."
KwapitoU-
405. Thus are the considerations exhausted, which aviso out of the above proposed. I have shown that an adverb is properly to ho reckoned among the parts of speech that it is a word added to a sentence perfect, in the expression or mind of the speaker; lad that, it serves to modify an attributive that is to sav, primarily a verb or an adjective (taking the latter term in its widest I have endeavoured to reduce sense), and secondarily another adverb.
definition of an adverb, as
;
modifications systematically to certain classes (a task hitherte

cor|M>rcal
thoughl of) referring the modifications of verbs first to the relations of place and tune, positive and relative, and then to the mental relations PrOpoaitional OT argumentative the lormei
1/ut
little
applying either to affirmation or

;
doubtful, or else to intei rogation and n iponso and the latter to the connection of pro. The particularly of the premises with the conclusion. Modifications Of the adjective I have considered as allocting either
their
ds| ation, clear or
quantity
or their quality.
The
positive
quantity
relative,
is
either eon-
tiniioii.,
or discrete]
tot
rektin admit, of intension or remission:

and the
latter
modificatiOM of quality are also positive or
CHAP.
regard
(viz.,
XIII.]
OF ADVERBS.
or
degree.
265
modifications
either similitude
The secondary
those of adverbs
by adverbs) follow the course of the primary
and I have here noticed certain classes of words, which, as effecting no modification of an attribute, are in my opinion improperly admitted I have next considered the methods by into the class of adverbs. which the expression of the modification of attributives is effected in language, viz., by an adverbial phrase, a compound word, or a single word, which constitutes the part of speech we call an adverb. And lastly, I have shown by examples, that the words which may be employed to perform the function of adverbs, with or without inflection, are such as have been or may be employed to perform the function of any of the necessary parts of speech, viz., adjectives proper, participial and pronominal, verbs (particularly as to the responsives Yes andiVb), and even nouns substantive. And so much for the adverb, which, with the parts of speech before examined, completes the list of those
necessary or accessorial to the formation of enunciative sentences.
2GG
CHAPTER
The
XIV.
OF INTERJECTIONS.
inter-
{rt ot
u*
406. Certain words or sounds are generally known by the name Interjections but in proposing to examine them with reference to tl science of language, we are met with an objection in limine, that the are not parts of speech, and therefore do not deserve the attention The learned Sanctius says " Interjectionem nc a grammarian. quod naturale est, idem est apu esse partem oration is sic ostendo omnes sed gemitus et signa la?titiae idem sunt apud omnes sui igitur naturales. Nat Si vero naturales, non sunt partes orationis. eae partes, secundum Aristotelem, ex instituto, non nature debei constare." The error here arises from giving too great a latitude to
i
proposition
significant
which within
ex
instituto
;
certain limits
is
true
viz.,
that
words
ai
1
for in truth this proposition applies only
nouns (i. e., names of distinct conceptions) and to words derived froi them. But in the nature of the human mind, intellect is mixed u with feeling, the will is often confounded with the reason ; and oi desires, or fears, unconsciously modify our conceptions or assertion express in speech the transitions and mixed states of the mind, and hence tr well as its clear, fixed, and determinate distinctions interjection rises, as will presently be seen, from a scarcely articulat sound to a passionate, and almost to an enunciative sentence. Whj we learn from Mr. Tooke on this part of our subject is as inconsisten "The brutish, inarticulate Intel as it is vague and declamatory. jection" (says he), " which has nothing to do with speech, and is onl the miserable refuge of the speechless, has been permitted, becauf beautiful and gaudy, to usurp a place among words." How can an modes of utterance be at once beautiful, gaudy, brutish, and inm And what, is meant by saying that the interjection, whir ticulate? somehow or other has been enabled to orrupy a place anion; has nothing to do with sjxech, and is only the miserable refuge of th
We
speechless?
Uunlxwmlly
""
:
407. Mr. Tooke himself uses such expressions as

'
"Oh!" "01
M
1
'
W'.dl your humble servant Whv! COOM IW., which assert nothing, and have no coiinectio either with the ])receding 01 following sentences; but are mere Intel ms, or Interjectioiial pln.i-.es, 7rnpiô\al,asthe Greeks calls then Yet, he say.thrown in Ix'tween the main parts of tin' discourse. "where speech can be employed, they are totally useless and ar
"Oh, my den
I
Sir!"
M Oh,
Sir,
in iiII'k 'lent fot tfat pUrpOM of cominiinicatinjr OUT boughtfc nlwa\ " And indeed," adds he, " where will yOU look for the interjection Will you find it anion:;,! laws, Off in books of civil institutions, il
t

CHAP. XIV.]
history, or in
it
OF INTERJECTIONS. any
treatise
267
of useful arts or sciences? No: you must and poetry, in novels, plays, and romances." ]\Ir. Tooke has forgotten one book, in which interjections abound, and fill the mind with impressions of the highest sublimity and pathos But if the interjection had only to do with that book is the BlBLE. " rhetoric and poetry," surely its sphere would not be narrow. If a knowledge of it only led us properly to appreciate the lofty mind of Demosthenes or Cicero, to read with true relish the immortal wi of Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Milton if it were only to be met with in the "plays" of Sophocles, Plautus, Moliere, Shakspeare or in the "romances and novels" of Sidney, Cervantes, Le Sage, Fielding, or Scott, how lamentable must be the taste, how blind the philosophy, which would decline the examination of this interesting And is the interjection confined to books ? No, it part of speech is heard in private and in public, from each sex and every age, in tones of the tenderest love or the most malignant hate, in shouts of joy, in ecstacies of pious rapture, in deep anguish, remorse, despair; in short, from the impulse of every human feeling. Nay, we are taught to believe, that it exists in the Hallelujahs of angels, and in the continual Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! of the cherubim and seraphim. Now, as a botanist would but imperfectly teach his science, if he were to tell his scholars that certain large portions of the vegetable world were beneath their notice, as xceeds ; or as he would be a poor mineralogist who should disdain to cast an eye on pebbles ; so he is a miserable grammarian who affects to disregard the numerous interjections and interjectional phrases which give such force, tenderness, variety, and truth to the works of the rhetorician and poet, and contribute so much toward rendering language an exact picture of the human mind. 408. Assuming, then, that there are many sounds or words, more Definition, or less perfectly articulated, which occur in human speech, evincing actual feeling, but not reducible to any of the parts of speech above discussed, I say, they form the part of speech called an Interjection. Its definition, indeed, is differently given by different grammarians. According to Charisius, Comminianus briefly defines the interjection thus, " Pars orationis significans adfectum animi." Caius Julius
geek for
in rhetoric
Romanus Palamon
ficant
thus,
" Pars
orationis
motum
animi
significans ;"
and
defi-
thus, " Interjectiones sunt, quae nihil docibile habent, signi-
adfectum mentis adsignificans voce incondita." Vossius, however, observes that apage ! euge ! and many others, are not voces incondita;; nor is the signifying an affection of the mind
peculiar to the interjection, for even" adverbs
irridenter, timide,
nition
tamen adfectum " Pars
animi."
Diomedes gives the following
orationis
do
this, as iracunde,
&c.
He
also censures the following definition, Dictio
ad declarandum animi affectum; " interjections are not always thrown in between the parts of a sentence ; since we may properly begin a sentence with an interjection." His own definition is, " Vox affectum mentis significans, ac
for,
invariabilis quo? interjicitur orationi
says he,
2(38
citra verbi
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[CHAP. X1Y
tli
opem
main with that which
This definition agrees in sententiam complens." of is to be gathered from the words
thi
passion excellent oldcrrammarian,Priscian;viz.,"Voxquecujuscnnque
"*and on a full considerate animi pulsu per exclamationem interjicitur following definition^ these authorities, I would propose the of all any human feeling, mtho; interjection is a part of speech showing forth
:
asserting
Feeling.
any thing concerning it. necessary to expla 409. To illustrate this definition, it may be term " human feeling," and to state tl the import here given to the may be shown forth in langua different modes in which such a feeling First, then, it is to be observe,!, th its existence. without asserting " human feeling," as comprehending all those n I use the term our bodi or painful, which we receive through
S
pressions, pleasurable
spiritual constitution: ai frame, our intellectual faculties, or our In this view, so i modifications. these in their several degrees and a "brutish" thing, that the nice ai is the interjection from being practised in the difieW philosophical examination of it, as it has been furnish matter lor a be* languages and ages of the world, would on the sensibilities and sympatn treatise than was ever vet written Mr. Tooke declares that " the dominion o. spee of human nature. If so, the dominion of interjections." is erected upon the downfal minds of ail never was erected, nor ever will be, till the speech acti incapable of being moved or incited to are "a standing pool," exclusive, hateful selfisnne even by the naked calculations of a cold, infinite variety of hum 410. I do not pretend to reduce the Their arrangement. The only attempt of the ki arrangement. to a systematic feelin attention, is thai oJ the v. relation to grammar, which deserves
in
but it is a mere outline, and is meant ingenious liishop Wilkins sounds," the "natural signs 0, include only "rude, incondite " several of which are common w mental notions 0C passions," and It is as follows : creatures." us to brute surprised I. Solitary, the result of a
;
i
I.
judgment, denoting
i.
tutiiiinitioii,
I..
ii.
iii.
douht OI n.nsid. ration, html amtrmpt, pish! shy! tysh!
hm
hy!
evil,
ii.
or amotion morel by qnwheoiitan of good mirth, ha! ha! be! )nst ' l oh! oh! ah! 1 sorrow, hoi
)
ii.
present
f^
j
low and
;inl
pity, ah!
,,,,.
!
alack
\
alas!
\
v;lllll!
!
im
ilui
\
'"./"'" r<5
[aversion, V h }
us,*/*,
I.
yv
I.
nliiuj
exdaimii"j,
'
,
difOOBTM, oh loho!
I
/,
In.
'
,!i
hnt. (irmn. L. 15,
c. 7.
. .
CHAP. XIV.]
II.
OF INTERJECTIONS.
269
beginning discourse,
i.
to dispose the senses of the hearer,

1
bespeaking attention, ho
oh
2. expressing attention,
ii.
ha
! !
to dispose the affections of the hearer,

1
2.
Though
this
by way of insinuation, eja now by way of threatening, vae wo scheme in its primary distinctions
!
refers to the different
uses of interjections, its ramifications are determined
by the sound of
These considerations should the words employed for this purpose. Therebe kept apart, as their intermixture leads only to confusion. fore, before I examine the different methods which men have followed
otherwise than in enunciative proper to say something of the feelings themthough, for the reason already intimated, my notice of them selves must be brief. I have already observed, that in the opening of our faculties, the earliest conceptions which we form are those of bodily existence but even our conceptions are preceded by bodily feelings,
in giving utterance
to their feelings,
sentences, I
;
deem
it
each sense is pleasurably or painfully affected by external impressions, and these are soon distinguished from each other, and their existence When signified to other persons by different modes of expression.
the mental faculties begin to expand, they connect feelings with con-
and so with external objects, at first by present sensation making us joyful or sad afterwards by memory causing regret or pleasing recollection and lastly, by foresight, creating in us hope or fear, desire or aversion. As we advance in the exercises of reason, we feel doubt or confidence, we are surprised at anything new or strange. Again, the social nature of man opens to him new trains of feeling, affectionate fondness, rivalry, enmity we approve or disapprove the conduct of others, we applaud or censure, admire or despise them. Every such state of mind is evinced by a peculiar interjection, distinguished not so much by articulation as by tone, by length or shortness of utterance, or by the look or gesture with which it is accompanied by the abruptness of violent and sudden passion, or the prolonged and gentle murmur of tender affection. Such feelings belong to mankind by their general constitution others are of a local or temporary nature, and connected with particular objects or events, with religious doctrines and practices, with military ardour, with political party, or personal attachment and these add to the boundless variety of interjectional cries, and words, and phrases. 411. It remains to be seen what modes of expression, independently Mo(les f of sentences clearly and fully enunciative, language affords for those ^prvsston. different feelings and these will be found to rise by imperceptible gradation from sounds scarcely articulate to clearer articulations, thence to words formed from these incondite sounds, so to broken
ceptions,
;
;
phrases,
and,
lastly,
to
short sentences interjected without direct
relation to those
by which they are preceded or followed.

270
Incondite Consonants.
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[CHAP. XIV
may observe among the interjections noticed by Bisho] some which not only are not words, but not even syllables being designated by consonants alone, such as km ! which he state as expressive of doubt or consideration, and 'st ! which he calls ai For my part, I own I should scarcely rani interjection of silencing. such half-uttered sounds among parts of speech; but when they come t< be more clearly pronounced so as to be audibly distinguishable, an< when we find the one written in Latin hem! and the other in Frencl
412.
\Vilkins
We
chut
are
or in Italian zitto
think they
may be
fairly called (as the;
by most
philologists) interjections.
The mere orthography, how

i;
ever, will help us
these, or indeed
true,
may
but little as to the feeling meant to be expressed bj any other, truly incondite interjections. Hem ! it be sometimes taken as expressing doubt or consideration
Occepi
sine ilia ?
mecum
cogitare,
hem! biduum
4, 2, 8.
hie
manendum
est soli
Tcrcntiits,
Etm.
But
it
is
as often taken to express surprise, or exhortation,
or
com
of mind, or joy, or anger, or othe: feelings which can only be collected from the context if in writing or from the look, tone, gesture, or manner, if delivered viva voce Of the imperfect articulation 'st, R. Stephanus says " ST [or] voj
mist ration,
or perturbation
est silentium
indicentis.
Ter. Pliorm. v.
1.
16.
Quit C. 'st S. quern semper te esse dictitasti ? has metuis fores?" The Italians use the word zitto! ami tlu French say chut ! Varchi, in his Ercolano, or Dialogo sopra le lingue, printed at Florence in 1570, says of this word, " II quale zitto, credl che sia tolto da' Latini, i quali, quando volevano, che alcuno stesst
obsecro,
es,
Quid?
Non
is
queste due consonant! V. used substantively for tin Thus Boccaccio says, " Senza far motto, C slightest sound possible. zitto alcuno;" "without ottering a word, or sound, the slighted kIc." It is also used selectively, with the variation of gendei
cheto,
usavano profierire verso quel

noi zitto!"
talc,
is
quasi
come diciamo
It
and Dumber,
ex. gr.
E
Si
buon
mildati, in
QHOpo,
in ritadolla,
Manno
zitti in Cur In .sciitiiiflla.
Allojri,
the Frencl) chid! the " Chut, particulc donl 00

II.;.
is
Of
Dictiomiaiiv
</<
VAvademie merely
silence."
says,
N
;
nrtpoiU ImpOMf
When the incondite sound is that of a vowel, the articulation but, on the Other hand, it may lie the somewhat, more distinct mors easily adapted by the Bexible organs of the voice to express a slight degree of elevation or depression, diiTerenl states of tin- mind ol length or shortness, of weakness or force, serves to mark a very Hence hie diHerence iii the emotion meant, to be expressed. \arjatleiii cui lio thus BjM'uks of the Italian ah ami <////:-" ijiie t.i in H v/ione nli ed ahi sono [>iu di venti ma v'abbisogna
: 1
1.
d'nii
a\ vertmiiiito
Uono
'|uei
lanto obe,
obs Dill ssprimeriJ seni|iie diversificano il suono, prmo i.auni, /< pnhl oh I vet! htil
.'
I

CHAP. XIV.]
OF INTERJECTIONS.
271
Ma questa e parte spettante a chi pronunzia, che sappia papce ! &c. dar loro l'accento di quell' affettto cui servono e sonod'esclamadi svillaveggiare di pregare di gridare minacdi dolersi zione
ciando
di
d'incitare
dsegno
minacciare
di
di sospirare
di raccomandazione
di desiderare
di
BglMTO
di maravigliarsi
di reprendere
di
commovimento per
allegrezza
di vendicarsi di lamentarsi
Vossius observes of the Latin ah, that in ancient books it is often written a without the aspiration as pro is also written for proh ; and indeed the Greeks write d without the
di beflare ed altri varj."
;
breathing.
Thus the 739th and the 746th
lines
of the Philoctetes are
T both written A, a, a, d. So in the Plutus of Aristophanes, the old woman, alarmed lest her face should be burnt, cries
ft*i
!
T
ir(>oatyip
A, a,
Tiv
SiSa
!
fid
Oh and
oh
Don't put the torch near

is
me
Priscian, too, says that a

also an interjection.
I
and a preposition, need scarcely observe that both ah! and

the
letter,
name of a
oh! are used by English writers as interjections of pain and sorrow.

In youth alone unhappy mortals live, But ah ! the mighty bliss is fugitive.
Dryden.
Shakspeare.
Oh I
this will
make my mother
die with grief.
Dr. Johnson says " Ah, interjection a word noting sometimes dislike and censure sometimes contempt and exultation sometimes, and most frequently, compassion and complaint." He also says " Oh y interjection an exclamation denoting pain, sorrow, or surprise." The Greek 'lib and Latin Jo, varying but little in sound from O, were also sometimes used to denote pain or sorrow. Thus Philoctetes, in the agony of his bodily torture, cries tw, tw ; and Polvmestor, in the
Hecuba of Euripides, uses the same exclamation.
Thus Tibullus
ii.
says
Uror, to! remove, sa:va Puella,faces
!
Lib.
Eleg. 4.
:
And
in Claudian, Jo
seems to express the agony of grief
Mater to! seu te Phrygiis in vallibus Idse Mygdonio buxus circumsonat horrida cantu , Seu tu sanguiueis ululantia Dindyma Gallis Incolis. De Rapt. Proserp.
2. 267.
tender and affecting force of the interjection oh ! as an expression of deep-seated grief, was nevermore strikingly shown than in those lines of my old and ever-honoured friend, Wordsworth :
She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be ; But she is in her grave and oh ! The difference to me.
The
as
ah, and oh, aspirated and unaspirated, are constantly occurring marks of slight and transient feeling sometimes of contemptuous irony, as in the interjectional phrases of Mr. Tooke, above quoted
;
Yet

272
OF INTERJECTIONS.
in
[CHAP. XIV.
Sidrophel's indignant
as and sometimes of grave remonstrance, reply to Hudibras r * sir,

:
Oh!
Agrippa was no conjuror, Nor Paracelsus ; no, nor Behmen Nor was the dog a Cacodsomon.
words
,orm
anc from these mere incondite consonants be ac formed from them is simple and easily to vowels' to words to name the cause from the eflect counted for, since it is natural Latin *, used only as have an obvious example in the Of this we in many other, in that language, but found mere vocal interjection tram c also as the root of a numerous as an interjection and both find as intei and adjective, verbs, &c. Thus we nouns substantive the Welsh gwae Mons, the Greek Oval the Maoso-Gothic^j; in most of the, And Anglo-Saxon wa ; the German weh! {he becomes an interject.onal noun, as languages the same sound Frank* " den gotten!" woe to the ungodly
414 The
transition
wehe GermaTi, ue themo man!"
man! in English, woe is me! Hick< intorj.rt.o, warn me ! among the Anglo-Saxon reckons wa is me! and wo the be !"-<' woe worth In old English we find grief. of " wae's me " and wae s my heart in Scottish
woe
to the
fa.
and
Wales wo the
be
the fende the confound
R. Do Ih-unm:
Where ar those they were about any kyng
worldlyngs now?
!
Wo
wo-th them, that
.r
\Tmt^Zy7o^l
my
is
BalMofLor*
Gregory.
Wte's
heart tint we shou'd sunder
Scottish Song.
<
welhulay. came waileway, welaway, and comity .,,,,,,, walawa! heu! proh dote Hickes expounds the An^Stton " hlM tatwjectio frequenter tropica point in a note, and he adds,
From wae
it
from WOtU probable came the verb wail, and
pro dolore, pnedptM

W.4,'
' xsriptia
Satyrograph.,
is
ut:
....
wyght what war

Is
tlicr tli.it |'rtce
rrinoth
Ne what
witcrly wealc
till
Wfwwyi
him UflhV
\
We
awaie
find
it
waih-w,,y, written variously, weylaway, wayhway,
:
1',,-tr,,.
hrll.
utronde, Thao torw moIm ntnunynh i>y tlu m liuv lu.n.le, Whororoutli inoiii hmish wyf wiyng.'th Ant niiigeth IPWKHMy.
WW
I""""
i"
,,, "'
1V l0B
Battle of
Bmget
Sche eyd vxiyleway,
WhnhyelirdltwMio: To her matatniM <* gan say,

Thai
.
l.>.
o.
StrTmtrcm
|,|
'
linn in hi
K1
'"an.,
A..
i)1m ho gn
mini.
I set
CHAP. XIV.]
OF INTERJECTIONS.
hem so a worke, by my faie, That many a night they songen url uwaie.
is
273
Chaucer.
Connected with woe and wail

uses for lament
:
the verb waiment, which Chaucer
The swalow Proigne with a sorrowful lay Whan morow come gan make her waimenting.
Troilus,
book
ii.
Lastly, the
Anglo-Saxon wala
waly
!
(in wala
:
in the Scottish interjection
wa) seems to be
still
retained
waly
waly up the bank, And waly waly down the brae

!
! !
Scottish Song.
Of
the numerous other nouns and verbs flowing from the ancient
interjection vae,
and simple
signification they
with their derivatives, and the changes of have undergone, there will be a fitter opportunity
to speak hereafter.
415.
different class of interjections is
sentences.
" rude incondite sounds, the natural signs of our origin, mental notions or passions," will aflbrd an illustration. This word was manifestly adopted into the English language from the French Mas ! which is only a corruption of the Italian ahi lasso, " ah weary ! " It does not appear to have been known in England much before the time of Chaucer, who frequently uses it
:
Of this ranks among
kind, alas
formed from fragments of Fmmf-nfsoi sentt; " lt s which Wilkins, ignorant of its true
'
How
1
shall I
!
doen
whan
shall she
come againe
note alas
why
:
let I
her go.
Troilus,
book
v.
So
in
the early romances
Tliurch the bodi
him pight, With gile

'
To deth he him dight

Alias that ich while
Alias that he no hadde ywite, Er the forward were ysmite,
Sir Tristrem.
That hye ond his leman also Sostren were and tvinnes to.
Lay Le
?
Fraine.
Quhat
Sail I
sail 1
think
Allace quhat reverence
mester to your excellence
The King's Quair.

Peblis to the Play.
is
:
Evir allace ! than said scho, Am 1 nocht cleirlie tynt ?
sensation of weariness, expressed in ahi lasso, in the Scottish interjectional phrase " weary fa' you
The
also to be found
"
Weary fa' you Duncan G ray
Old Scottish Song.

Sentences condensed -
from the abbreviation of whole sentences, by condensing them into a single word. Thus the perfect sentence, " I pray thee to do this or that," or " not to do it," or 1 1 pray thee to tell me," is condensed into the single interjection,
pritJiee
416.
Some
interjections result
274
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[CHAP. XI\
Tooke ranks prithee! among adverbs. Johnson does not decid what part of speech it is, but merely calls it "a familiar corruption c pray thee." This corruption, however, becomes in use a real intei
jection.
In
:
the
following
instance
the
request
is
merely cor
temptuous
Poh But
prithee ! ne'er trouble thy head with such fancies ! rely on the aid thou shalt have from St. Francis.
Old Sang.
In the next, the request is more serious, but the phrase marks a degree of familiarity
: !
still
the abbreviation
why comest thou, at this dreadful moment, Alas To shock the peace of my departing soul ?
Away !
I
prithee leave
me
Howe.
it
Again, in these well-known sarcasm of a friendly adviser

:
lines,
marks the good-humoure
Why
where
an
inJjectional
it is
so pale
and wan, fond lover ?

so pale
?
Prithee,
why
Suckling.
tell
manifest, that the full sentence " I pray thee to
me
hit
entirely loses its grave

interjection.
and formal character by being converted
417. Lastly, a short sentence, or clause of a sentence, is ofte thrown into discourse in the manner which the Greeks call irapinfioXi and Quintilian and others interjectio, and which may be called a interjectional phrase, and often answers to a real interjection in anothc Thus, in old English, the Bentence afterward language or dialect.
furnishing the interjection forsooth was inserted at full length (In :" parenthetically) " for aothe ywis," /. g, " I know it for a truth
Tin-
pauyloun was wrouth, for sothc ywis,
All of Wcrk of sarsynys.
Syr Luunfal.
;
the Latin amain, the future tense of the verb amo, I love, often introduced interjectionally as an exclamation of fondness:
Vide, amabo,
Vidipliius,
i.\
So
si
non,cum adspichw,<>s hnpttdwu

Termt., Ban.
5.
I.
22.
an old ion
blandii'ittis
ntator on this passage, says that,
amabo
joeti
th*>jpoati
without, any
|tt,
meaning; but on
otiosum
<>-,.
this
Voaaius
Ifkl,
" Si
in-quit,
cum
tnultui
hlanditia- ft
pttOM
tin.
Valcunt."
No
i.iui4
k.
Prom
fei
review of
tin-
different
u age,
modi's of expression
which
!
wo
at once perceive that, n
ilit.-
line can >e drawn lK>tween interjections consisting of " im-m ns" of mental emotion, and exi-lamatidi Hounds," the " n
I
l
the
from a partial mis enumerated

I'll
the
reasoning faculty
foramen
ahi lasso
!
|
hy VVilkius we find
i
alas!(i.e,
I.
Latin
adjective
is.
us
alarl;
from
t,|
to
hawyan
and
Uwh, and
/
>i
1 1
1 1
lurr/cni
txc
identical with
the English
hush! from the Gothic noun woi. Thai
vet
tl

CHAP. XIV.]
OF INTERJECTIONS.
5
;
27
noun and the mere incondite sound are used as equivalents, and with the same sort of grammatical construction, we see in the following
lines of Butler
:
Intrust
it
Of mum ! and
under solemn vows silence, and the
rose.
Hudibras.
And
these are necessary consequences of the fact, on which I have
often dwelt, that in the constitution of our
human
nature the active
and perceptions, are closely intertwined, and pass into each other by gradations too fine to be perceptible. The expressions of mere sensible pleasure or pain, or of passion or emotion, as such, are either effected with some degree of volition, or they are extorted by a physical necessity but on the one hand it may be doubted whether pure physical necessity can
principles,
and passive
the
feelings
operate so as to produce speech properly so called, that is, with anv the slightest degree of articulation. To take a striking instance, that
of the Philoctetes of Sophocles we find him at one time exclaiming T A, a, a, a, at another AT, al, al, al, and again TLaira, iraira, nanai but it is manifest that some power, beyond that of mere mechanical
:
intervene to give even the slightest of these articulations from the rest. On the other hand, if we admit that some degree of thought enters into all those " voices," which express the emotions of the human mind, then it becomes difficult, if not impossible, lor us to arrange them grammatically in classes each marked by distinctness of conception to distinguish, for instance, in this respect, between O lw euge evax papa? fie harrow pax hush hurrah alas bravo &c. &c. for such words may form an ascending gradation from that which is but just above mechanical impulse to that which is but just below the assertion of a proposition. Where, indeed, such an assertion takes place, that is (speaking as a grammarian) where a verb is connected with a noun, there is formed a sentence, which may be resolved grammatically into its separate parts of speech. But this is not all the same difficulty which is found in the ascending scale of expression, occurs in the descending scale. whole sentence is sometimes suddenly interposed in a discourse, by the mere effect of passion or strong feeling, without any direct connection with what goes before, or with what follows. Some such sentences become popular and common, they constitute interjectiorial phrases, expletive parts of the daily conversation of particular sects, parties, or classes of men they become habitual ; and then again they are abbreviated, contracted, corrupted and so remain in language as words, sometimes with little more articulation or distinct meaning than those other sounds which are ascribed to the effect of mere natural impulse. Here then is a wide field for interjectional forms in speech, comprehending the almost involuntary exclamation, the word more or less significant, and the phrase more or less imperfect and obscure. 419. Hence, too, the grounds of that relation, to which I have Relation to before adverted, between the interjection, the imperative mood, and^cland
impulse,
must
its
difference
t2

276
the vocative case,
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[CHAP. XIV.
be easily perceived. The interjection, indeed, as such, neither asserts, like the verb, nor names a conception, like the noun. It manifests the existence of a feeling to the sympathies of mankind, but it does not declare that existence as a fact addressed to judgment. In this respect, therefore, it differs generally from the verb. Again, it shows actual feeling it does not merely name the conception of a feeling, but gives to that conception a vital energy as it were it shows the speaker to be affected by its impulse, and is thus distinguished from a noun. The limits between an interjection and a noun or verb, however, are not always very easy to be observed in practice. The imperative mood, and the interrogative form of a verb have so much of animation about them, that they easily pass into mere interjections, and the same may be said of the vocative case of nouns. In practice, I should be inclined to say, that so long as a noun or verb (distinguishable as such) enters into construction with other parts of a sentence, or admits of grammatical inflection, according to its particular application, it is to be considered as not having assumed the whilst, on the other hand, the simply character of a mere interjection articulated exclamation, or the noun or verb which has lost somewhat of its original form and signification, is entitled, so long as it shows Wilkins's scheme, forth an actual feeling, to be called an interjection. short as it is, helps to illustrate the connection between these parts of Wo ! which he properly ranks among interjections, is also speech. used as the vocative case of a noun. Hush! (like hark! lo oyez
their
: ;
may
The interrogative is in imperative mood of a verb. some degree implied by hem ! or km! which he considers as interjeoIt is more distinctly marked in French by the word tions of doubt. " On dit, par puis, as explained in the Dictionnaire de VAcademie.
&c.)
is
also the
ellipse,
et
par interrogation,
et ?
puis!
pour
dire,
eh
bien!
quen
qu'en
arrivera-t-il ?
arriva-t-il ?
irhh
que sVnsuivra-t-il que s'ensuivit-il ?"
que
fera-t-on apros ?
Ou bien,
420.
Though
-,
MMMilim
wt
j
jJ
fln as8( r tj 0nj
the Interjection itself does not assert, it may be coupled aa one mbordinate sentence is coupled with another
I
have already exemplified in the passages dove !" "Oh! that this too solid in both which, the verbs (had, and would melt) llesh would melt!" the inteijection O! lire put in the subjunctive mood, us dependent on ju t that wotiM lu\e been had die place of 01 been supplied bj In a union of this a verb, such a-;, " wish," " desire,* or the like.
"O!
is
in a laflnr
sentence.
I
that
This had wings
I
i
like a
kind the Interjection

lor
it
-c.
<!,
the
seii ei ice
i
.ins,
that
with which it Is connected though the name interjection

;
given on account of
i
its
being tlinnrn
in hettevcu
the parts of
this It
not essential
btOSSJSS
i
to the character
'"it
no named,
placed.
DOl
it
It Is of an Interjection. because h is generally so
" lnt'if in non quod id pi-ipHuuui

-|U!.i ;ib
.
dictii'
sunt, quia ssaps Intsmertntur orationi,

Intel y ctio ihui
-
sit."
"
semper
tarn, n
inlerjicil
.|iio<|ii.
'uiir."
" Nee
de ovaln ejus

CHAP. XIV.]
est,
OF IXTERJKcriONS.
;
1^77
eft
ut intorjiciatur
cum
per se compleat sententiam. nee raro ab
incipiat oratio."
421. The learned Wall is was in error, when lie said there were Intawewai True it is, that with but few interjections in the English language. various contexts and accompaniments, the same interjection may expi. find Wilkins describing oh ! as an very different emotions. expression of sorrow, as an exclamation preceding discourse, and as These variations depend not on bespeaking attention in discourse. that is, not on the letters the articulation, but on the intonation which go to form the word, but on the elevation or depression of voice but this is not peculiar to the interjection oh ! or to in pronouncing it the " incondite" interjections generally for the same may be observed Thus we say, impatiently, of any nouns or verbs used intorjectionally. "well! and what of that?" or, with patient acquiescence, " well!
We
never mind
it
can't
be helped."
So there
is
great difference between

!
the affected gravity of Falstaff's imprecation, plague
and the same
imprecation seriously uttered against

Falst.
a bladder.
Apemantus
It
Aplagw
of sighing and grief!
First
blows a man up, like Part JItnry IV.
Caph. Stay, stay, here comes the fool, with Apemantus. Serv. Hang him He'll abuse us. Ism. A plague upon him Dog
! !
Timon.
422. Thus have I shown the propriety of ranking the interjection as a separate part of speech, not " brutish and inarticulate," but employed by all mankind in all ages to express feelings, from the most slight and evanescent to the deepest and most overpowering. I have proposed a definition of this part of speech, and in developing it have proved that it shows forth and expresses feelings, without asserting their existence. I have given a short view of those nice shades and gradations, by which our various feelings pass into distinct conceptions and assertions, and of a corresponding gradation in the modes of their expression, from incondite sounds, consonantal or vocal, to words either growing out of those sounds, or adopted from mere fragments of sentences, and finally to interjectional phrases, approximating in part, or whole, to sentences purely enunciative ; whence we may easily
comprehend how the interjection rises to a noun, a verb, or a phrase, and the phrase, verb, or noun sinks into an interjection. And with this
discussion I conclude the survey of words, as distributed into those, which are named by grammarians, from their respective uses in the
communication of thought and
feeling, the Parts
of Speech.
278
CHAPTER
Parts of
XV.
OF PARTICLES.
words.
Why called
423. Having treated of sentences ami words, it remains to be seen whether the grammatical analysis cannot be carried still further, by examining the constituent parts of words. It has been stated above, that words, as to their sound, may, for the most part, be divided into syllables, and syllables into articulations but these divisions having no necessary relation to their signification are not here to be considered. The question is, whether, and to what extent, words, taken as significant integers, may not, in certain instances, admit of fractions (so to speak) which go to make up those integers, and are also themselves significant ? and this question is to be resolved, as I shall presently show, in the affirmative. 424. The science of grammar, as hitherto cultivated, has, like most other sciences, obtained as yet but an imperfect nomenclature. have seen that even the appellations "noun" and " verb," which are on all hands admitted to be applicable to the most necessary parts of It is not speech, are differently understood by grammarians of note. surprising, therefore, that the term Particle should be misapplied, as I think it is, when intended to signify those words which aiv at the same time recognized as accessorial parts of speech. To say, " there are eight parts of speech, but four of them are particles" is much like laying, there are eight planets, but four of them arc satellites, or eight The commissioned officers, but four of them arc wmroommissioned. word particle, according to all analogies of derivation, ought to mean
;
We
OmetniSg
less
than the word part, a subdivision of a division,
part
of a part: and as words have been called parts of speech, particles should be deemed parts of words, in which sense, with reference to signification, I shall here u. the term }<article. s|K>ak ! a divisible word as an integer, in point of 425. When speak of it with reference to its possible effect in the signification, speak of a portion of that WOld net inn of a sentence; but when
1 I
|
difying the signification or as a particle, I allude to its effect In and some such Character of thi integral word in laii-ii.ee generally iiec,-,,.uilv have, whether or not it has any known ellect it inn
; t
when used separately. Thus each of the sentences, " Fneiid hip is delightful," contain I," "JohntOfl Was lear MPttiKt, throe, and only three significant Integers, via., a subject, a but if we copula, and a predicate, each of winch inu-gers is a word take anv OM Of the four dm iible words in these sentences, and inquire Into iti .ciiilicition in the Kn-hsh language generally, we shall find primary portion is modified tiiat this depends on the wa) in which
.
il
OF PARTICLES.
portion.
CHAP. XV.
279
by the other
portion John
tion,
is
In " Johnson," for instance, the primary modified by son each portion has a known significa:
and the union of both produces a third

in the
signification relating to
two former. Again, friend and ship, and the

the
word friendshij) there are two portions, relation of the word friend to friendship is
but the relation of ship to friendship is not equally so at though it may be discovered by study and reflection, as will hereafter be shown. The word learned may, in like manner, be divided into two portions, learn and ed, of which the former has a clear meaning of its own but the latter, if it ever had a distinct and separate meaning, has long since lost it, and serves only to mark that
very obvious
first
;
sight,
learned
The word delightful mav is a participle of the verb to learn. be divided into delight and fid, both which are intelligible enough in English, or into de, light, and ful, of which the two former cannot be The words separately understood without reference to the Latin.
Johnson, delightful, friendship, and learned, therefore, are in efiect com-
pounds, each consisting of a primary part, which is modified by a serondary part. John is modified by son, friend by ship, learn by ed, and delight by ful. The primary parts in such compounds are words, that is, when used separately, they have a plain and distinct signification of their own. The secondary parts may or may not have such separate signification in present usage ; and their signification, if any, may be more or less obvious. These secondary parts I call particles, when so used in composition. Thus, I say that, in the word Johnson, son is a particle ; in the word friendship, ship is a particle ; in the word delightful, ful is a particle ; and in the word learned, erf is a
particle.
426. Particles modify words in three different ways, and with

three different effects
i.
:
Three kinds.
In the ordinary compounds, such as Johnson, overtake, forewarn,
erewhile, elsewhere, there is
no alteration of the principal word, either class to which it belongs, or by varying the grammatical construction of the sentence in which it is used. ii. In such compounds as friendship, bisyhed, avette, masterless, blaunchard, sweetly, &c, the grammatical class of the word is more or less altered thus, from the personal substantive, friend, we form the ideal substantive, friendship ; from the Latin appellative apis, was formed the French diminutive avette; from the common adjective blanche, was formed the diminutive adjective blaunchard; fiom the adjective busy, was formed the old English substantive bisyhed; from the substantive master, we form the adjective masterless ; from the adjective sweet, we form the adverb sweetly, and so forth. iii. In such compounds as growen, beon, mahede, walked, monethes,
by changing the grammatical
children,
&c, the
principal
word
;
is
varied in
its
construction
by the
and thus are formed those inflections which grammarians call declensions and conjugations. Of each of these kinds I shall give one or more examples.
particles en, on, ede, ed, es, &c.

280
nasand.
nmlterad.
OF PARTICLES.
[_CHAI\
XV
in Johnson,
427. The class and construction of the word John remain unaltered which was manifestly in its origin nothing more than Thus in all languages have been formed patronymics, the John's son. most ancient of all family names. The Greeks did this in several but instances, whence such names as JEacides, Pelides, Atrides, &c. the Romans adopted it generally at aver)- early period of their history. " Remarquons sur les noms propres des families Romaines," (says M. de Brosses), " qu'il n'y en a pas un seul chez eux, qui ne soit termine en ins, desinence fort semblable a V vIvq des Grecs, c'est-a-dire
;
filius
par oil on pourrait conjecturer que les noms des families, dti moins ceux des anciennes maisons, seraient du genre patronimique."
Thus
Caecilius
was
Cceculce v'we, Julius,

says,
Juli vide, JEmilius,
iEmili
not unworthy of remark that, whilst the old patronymical termination of our northern ancestors was Thus whom the son, the Sclavonic and Russian patronymic was of.
vioq, &c.
Mr. Tooke
" 1 think
it
English and Swedes
named
Peterson,
the Russians called Peterhqf.
and foreign affectation afterwards induced some of our ancestors to assume Fitz (i. e. fils or filius) instead of son, so the Russian affectation, in more modem times, changed of to vitch (i. e. J fitz, fils, or filius), and Peterhqf became I etrovitch, or J'dwwitz." The Irish patronymic 0' may possibly be of the same origin as the The Welsh 'P is well known to be ap, an abbreviation Russian of. The of mab, a son, as Price for Ap Rhys, Powell for Ap Hoel, &c.
And
as a polite
use the cognate word mac, a son, for their jmtronvmical prefix, as in Mac JJonald (i. e. the son of Donald), Mac Kenzie (i.e. the son of Kenneth), &c. while the Lowland Scotch used still a different mode of expressing the same thing, by prefixing to the son's name the genitive case of the lather's, as Wall's Uvliu, I'mRobert the son of Walter; Sim's Will, for William the son of
Scottish Highlanders
;
Simon, whence arose such family names as Watts, Sims, and the like: and so much for the particles son, ius, fitz, of, vkh, mac, (>\ '/', The proper name, /album, is no less obviously a compound tnd '8, tlian tra/r/tmaii, sj/eannan, boat-Iiook, and thousands of similar words in common use. There are also many that have fallen into disuse,
Ihoogfa still perfectly intelligible; ex.gr. nonnnetr, a meal formerly eaten i'\ artificer! al noon, mH which seems to be distinguished from
1
dinner:
iiboreri reteyned to wcrko and torve, waste mod) par) of the dny, and deserve not their waght, nummc tym.' in late <mmivn;; unto their it thtr brakfat, at we* dyntr, tad wtrke, erly depart iter none. twnmnete, and VII. 0. ndl. M.S. ft. 9 Em.
I
tirmrtt:,
i.
e.
noonnwat
so
we have
the
forenoon, aftmiimii, ODO., for as noon modifies .miliar principles nouns c<ni|>c miih ! ill and thus noon, ,/', i./'./A/, and .i h>rr modities vowi mid modili' hive in:. lances <>n\ are equally to lie considered in these mill, and
\\oid-i
//."(.//</.,
MOMty,
I
-
viii/i/ai/,
initiiiiif/it,
<
.i

2HAP. XV.]
respectively as particles.
OF PARTICLES.
So, in the
;
281
overtalte, over is
compound verb
and in the compound noun overseer, over is a particle modifying seer ; and this particle, over, is sometimes corrupted mtojyr, as in the word orlop, which is a platform of planks laid over the beams in the hold of a ship-of-war, so named from the Dutch overloopen, to run over, and anciently written in English overlopps
a particle modifying take
:
Somuche
telles
as they shall put greater
and ouerlopps of their
nomber of people in the casshypps they shalbe the more oppressed.

Nicolk's Thucydides,
fol.
191, a.
In Danish also this same preposition over, written ober, is used as a particle in compound nouns, as oberdommer, the chief justice.
428. The grammatical class to which the word friend belongs is cu*. that of a general appellative, and it expresses a person possessing a certain moral quality ; but the grammatical class to which the word
friendship belongs
is
altered,
ception of that quality.

effected.
that of an universal, and expresses the ideal conIn compounding the primary word friend,
is
then, with the particle ship, an alteration of the grammatical class
In some such
analogous to that
compounds the particle retains a signification which it has when used separately but in this
;
particular instance, the particle ship signifies
something very
different
from the ordinary English substantive ship. To understand its modifying power, therefore, we must have recourse to those cognate
languages in which a particle of similar origin occurs. The Germans use the termination schaft, the Dutch schap, and the Swedes skap and these are manifestly from the Gothic skapan, Anglo-Saxon scapan y or scyppan, Frankish and Alamannic scaffen, Dutch scheppen, Icelandic skapa and skipa, Danish skaber, and old English to shup, i. e. to shape,
make, or do
The shuppare that huem shupte To shome he huem shadde.

were the beste thing That shup our heye heuene kyng.
Satire on Horsemen.
Wymmen
MS.
Friendship, therefore,
Earl. 2253,
fol.
:
71, b.
uses gladshipe
is
the action, the work, of a friend

al forsake.
;
Chaucer
That gladshipe he hath
In Danish
cynescipe,
we
find selkskab, a fellowship
in
Anglo-Saxon
ealdorscipe,
sib-scipe,
&c.
In
German
herrschaft,
eigenschaft, gesell-
schaft, &c. &c.
The
schajft.
particle scape, in landscape, is the

landscipe,
in
Anglo-Saxon
same as ship ; for we find in Dutch landschup, and in German land-
our
particles altering the class of words are to be found in other languages, which will be more appropriately noticed in a future part of this work.
Many other own and
429. The third mode
in
which
particles
ing their effect in the construction of a sentence.
modify words is, bv alterThis use of particles,
Construction
altered -
232
which seems
to
OF TARTICLES.
[CHAP. XV.
have been little thought of, and scarcely suspected till has recently opened an immense field for the study of of late years, connection of languages. that important branch of ethnography, the says, Mr. Tooke, in the second volume of his Diversions of Purley, M AH those common terminations, in any language, of which all
nouns or verbs
notion of in that language equally partake, under the words with distinct declension or conjugation, are themselves separate On the strength of this assertion, credit has been given meanings." incontrovertible principle in to him as the discmerer of a great and of language ; but his real and only merit (if merit it be) the science was in boldly stating as a general truth what more cautious gramhad shown, with great probability, to be true in a few par-
marians
ticular
instances.
As
in
his first
volume he had
built
his
whole
conjunction if theory of conjunctions on Skinner's derivation of the several from 'the imperative^?/, so in his second volume, published asserted all years after, he, in the above brief and oracular manner, but still to be, separate terminations not merely to have originally been, " that words because Dr. Gregory Sharpe and others had suggested,
;
and Latin terrninathe personal pronouns are contained in the Greek " These terms are all explicable, tions of their verbs." Mr. Tooke adds, and -ought to be explained;" but he made not the slightest attempt as universally time. himself to prove in detail what he had asserted
The productions of the illustrious German philologists, and especially result of long wars of labour, of Grimm, Pott, and Bopp, show the
particles in general* comparing not merely the terminations, but the families of languages, whether prefixed, subjoined, or inserted, of whole now clearly perceive the especially those called Indo-European. principle in languages so widely ration of one and the same great time and place, as the /end, the Sanscrit, distant from each other
in
We
Meao-Gothic, the Sclavonian, the Frankish, German, We find In theae and other dialects, nol only Saxon, and English. particles bj which nouns arc that the personal pronouns supply verbs conjugated, but that certain particles distinguish declined and they convert pronouns personal, relative, and demonstrative; that
the
adjectives
Anglo-
give to verbs a negative, intensitive, mcharacter j and. In short, enable the Bam/ ceptive, or frequentative every separati radical word to pass through all the modifications of And, moreover, we perceive that the same particle, ,i peach. sans ,.,,,! ,,, srtictuation aocording to definite laws, performs the
into
adverbs;
function In
I
wia#
i.
many dtfaeant languages, showing a connection betweea hi itorj eflbrds noother trace. in man method by which Mr. Tooke arrived at his su] The
w hich,
,
Consisted
and most
s,,|,.
Induction ;" fbt (vilainly not " the Pacinian very " leap or Might from particulars to the reniott general axioms,"* which Bacon so much and < -n n repxo
I
in thai
iisimlttMlltnni
'
'
li>1. 11.
<
in
..
1.
1.
.,1
il.o
ml nxiMiniitu rwnoti
rotot
Org. Nix.
t,
104.
CHAP. XV
OF PARTICLES.
283
bates, as " a rash and premature anticipation,"* and in that " induction M a puerile thing leading l>v simple enumeration," which he describes as and exposed to hazard from contradictory to precarious conclusions, proofs :"f whilst, on the other hand, the zealous and persevering philologists above mentioned, and their fellow-labourers of perhaps equal ability, have pursued that which Bacon calls " the true way,"} and " from which we may augur well for science ;" viz., " when by a just scale, and by continuous, uninterrupted, and unbroken degrees, we ascend from particulars to the minor axioms, thence to the intermediate, each successively superior to that which it precedes, and so at bat to They have shown, that what is done in some tire most general." languages by particles, is done in other languages by separate wards and as it is abundantly clear that all separate words may have been wholly or partially employed to signify either conceptions or emotions, it is reasonable to infer that the particles which stand in their place Accordingly, these eminent men have explained are significant also. the signification of almost all the particles employed in the abovementioned languages to modify nouns substantive or adjective, participle, pronouns, verbs, or prepositions; and the result may be illusex. gr. " The shepherdess trated by the analysis of a trivial sentence
:
savs that she plainly

horses,
saw those soldiers mounted on able and handsome I will, driving the farmer's two largest oxen over the height."
;
nerefore, briefly notice the effect of the particles here employed, in edifying the different parts of speech reserving a fuller examination
of them to a future period.

.
4."> 1 the particles er and ess, in " soldier," JJgjj*"^ First, as to substantives " farmer," and " shepherdess," mark gender en, es, and s in " oxen," ' and 's in " farmer's," marks horses," and " soldiers " mark number case. In some languages, the gender of a noun substantive is shown by a separate word; in others, by a termination. The English masculine termination er manifestly corresponds with the German personal (or as Dr. Latham calls it demonstrative) pronoun, er, " he:" with the Latin masculine termination or, and substantive vir, " man," and various words and particles in other languages, as will be shown hereThe Latins expressed children of the two sexes by the words after. puer and puella. Piter signifies what we mean by a man-child. have therefore reason to believe, that as man is a word significant of a male of the human kind, so er when standing alone had a similar
; ;
We
* Anticipationes naturae
Org. Nov. aph. 26. res temeraria et prematura. f Inductio quae procedit per enumerationem simplieem, res puerilis est, et precario concludit, et periculo expositor ab instantia contradictoria.
lb. aph. 105.
continenter, J Altera (via) a sensu et partiuularibus excitat axiomata, ascendendo et gradatim, ut ultimo loco perveniatur ad maxime generalia, quae Via vera est.
Aph. 19.
De scientiis turn denrum bene sperandum est, quando per sealam veram, et per gradus continuos, et non intermissos, aut hiulcos, a particularibus ascendetur ad axiomata minora, et deinde ad media, alia aliis superiora, et postremd demum ad Aph. 104. generalissima.
284
signification.
OF PARTICLES.
Puella signifies a
a she-child
:
[CHAP. XV.
call
girl
if
we
pu-er a
he-child,
we
may
noun
call pu-ella
and
in fact, ilia is the Latin feminine proess,
she.
In like manner our feminine particle

is
as in shepherdess,
ic.
agrees with the Latin termination ix, and the Greek
as
irpoipfiTic,
prophetess, and
found
in the Italian
termination en, which

plural termination in
we
retain in
pronoun essa, she. Our plural a few words only, is the ordinary
in old English.
German,
as
it
was
Its connection
fully inves-
with any existing noun, however, requires to be more

tigated.
the other hand, our plural termination es, of which s, (as in the above word soldiers) is a mere abbreviation, is found in the Latin and French plural termination es, the old Scotch is, as in cryii and clappis,* the Greek plural termination ec, as Iitclviq, the Doric
plural
On
pronoun uppec, " we," &c, and

is.
is
perhaps connected with the
Latin pronoun singular,

is
(as in the above word, fanner's) an abbreviation of the Anglo-Saxon genitive termination es, or is, as
's
Our
Adjectives.
Godes, "of God," skipis, "of a ship;" which long prevailed in old English and Scotch, and has been erroneously supposed to be a contraction of his. 432. As to adjectives, the particles ble and some, in "able" and " handsome," are connected with adjectival terminations in other languages ; the former being derived from the Latin Wis, as in (iinaliilis (which is doubtless connected with the pronouns ille ami is), and tlw latter with the German sam, as in langsam, the Frankish le'ulscnne " loathsome," the Icelandic sam, as in samborgari, " fellow-citizen," anc
Participle.
with our own pronoun same. 4.M. Our participle of present time is formed by the particle imj as in "driving," and that of post time by the particle ed, as ii "mounted." Jug is the Scottish and, as in glowand (glowirj the Prankish enti, as in scinenti (shining), both which seem to be eon neet<tl with the Latin ens, cutis, as in the genitive place litis, and wit! endi, as in the MNmd placendi : and as ens is a participle of the verl
eS8$,
"to
v
ing,
however,
probably a similar origin. Of this tenninatioi rved, thai in Knglish it does not e\ehi confined to a time inomen signify time present, much less is
be,"
in;/
il
lias
inn
it.
tarily
present.
;
We
for
h
use
the
Infinitive
noun
singing, as
we do
tin
infinitive tn sing
we may
;/
plishmeiit,
:
is
equally say " singing is a genteel accom So, while tin a mark of a mind at ease."
n,
I
building a
we
say
" this house

In like
is building,'
more properl) than "thislioufle

say of the
Dtlilde r,
manner, w<
1
" he
ha
be,.
And again, a partieiple with tin udjective proptr, as " tins i-; a pel
flame occurs
in
time building this bouse. into at rmination often of a pleasing address;" and th<
the Latin
Uxor,
Id
i
Liaqtundfl toUtn,
doBtit, etplaoent Eorat. Car.
'2,
14, 21.
ui.-.i
I.

CHAP. XV. J
OF PARTICLES.
285
Nor
we
is this usage of a participle confined to the participle present ; for speak of " an aged man," as we do of an old man, without reference And so does the poet to any particular time.
neque harum, quas
colis,
arborum
Horat. ut sup.
Pronouns
Te, prater invito* eaproMoi, Ulla brevem dominura sequetur.
434. The particle which modifies the pronoun itvose in the sentence above given,* is simply a broad vowel exchanged for one of weaker This The singular this, becomes the plural those. pronunciation.
sort of modification is
common
in all
languages.
It
was
carried
much
;
further in the
for
Anglo-Saxon pronouns, than it is in the modern English the pronoun answering to our this, was in the singular masculine
thisum, thisne, thise thisum, thise,
;
thes, thises,
this, thises,
feminine, theos, thisse, thas
neuter,
and
in the plural thas, thissa, thissam.

Verbs.
435. The modifications of the verb by particles are in most Ianguages of the Indo-European branch, except our own, very numerous. A short specimen of them may here suffice
:
English.
286
OF PARTICLES.
[CHAP. XI
Anomalies.
leih, and many other Teuton words signifying a body. In the preposition over, the particle eragai appears with a different power but in all probability derived, as in tr The same may be said of the te former instances, from a pronoun. minations est in " largest," and ht in height, the former serving to mar the superlative degree, and the other the idea of high applied by natural transition of meaning to a high land. 437. There are numerous causes of anomaly in language, whic render it more particularly difficult to systematise and explain tl minor portions of speech, such as the prepositions, auxiliary verbs, an
abbreviated, and agrees with the Gothic
particles.
One
of these causes
is
a mistaken notion of analogi(
between particular words, where no such analogy exists. Thus 01 word further, which was the comparative of forth, has been suppose by many persons to be the comparative of far, and has therefore bee A still more striking instance is that erroneously written farther. the word coud, which we always pronounce properly, but spell couk inserting the /, without any reason whatever, but that there is an / would and should. The two latter words are from the Anglo-Sara wille and sceal, the former is from the Anglo-Saxon cwethau and Wl always written in old English coutlie, cowtlie, or coude
( i
He
That though lie had me bete on every bone, couthe winne agen my love anone.
Chauetn
Sir
He thowght to taste if he coict/u; And on he put in his mouth.

Sir,
quod
this
I
Wuld
(iod
knyght myld of speehe, cowthe yoursonne teehe
Lyfe of
Ipoihi/don.
Ac he no
Whiche was
couthe neuer
mo
to.
CShtM the better of
hem
Amis and Amilotm,
right displcsant to the kyng, but he comic nal
amende
it.
lierncrs' Froisstirt,
I'ol.
4:1.
Another and a re effective cause of anomaly is the love < euphony, or easy pronunciation, which leads the ignorant especially t corrupt words by abbreviations and changes, as Godildl for God \< I<1<
i.
Ohm Is sob.
Gossip for god-sib, &&, reward him. Allowing lor the obecuritiee which these and other canst IpTOad over the minor DOltionS Of speech, it may fairly be said, tin
e.
t
.
.,
ard to particles, as well
as to words,
the great, principle
<.
ton,
by
which
significant
sounds
,
pass
from
one
class
an
The nou description of signs into another, ha been here established. or verb Incoming a particle, and the particle coalescing with anothl
to modify their signification, and determine thel grammatical use. And finally, we may conclude, thai language throughoul i combination ot significant sounds, fitted t<> exprei thoughts an emotions, Interchangeably in the hum!
l
; ,
|
287
CHAPTER
XVI.
OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH.

439. An observation of the late M. Frederick Cuvier, on the actions of animals generally, is in an especial manner applicable to the exercise of the faculty of speech " The actions of animals," says he, " are composed of physical acts and intellectual acts, which imply the existence of corresponding faculties. Kow since the physical faculties
:
subject of
are essentially passive,
and depend immediately on the intellectual, and since the former would not manifest themselves to us unless the latter communicated to them their activity, we may conclude that, in
order to study animal nature,
ties,
we
should begin with the active facul-
and should endeavour, from a knowledge of these, to appreciate the physical actions."* Such is the course of proceeding which I have adopted. I have hitherto considered the science of language with reference to the faculties of intellect and will, which direct mankind in communicating to each other their thoughts and feelings: it remains to be inquired what are the bodily organs or instruments with which they are furnished by an all-wise Creator for the purpose of such communication, and how these may be used. I intend not here to discuss the effect of looks or gestures, for though they are often more expressive than words, yet as the present treatise has hitherto been confined to the consideration of spoken language, I shall now inquire onlv into the forms and uses of the organs of speech. 440. As the subject of inquiry in this part is different from that Mode of lmuur>previously considered, so the mode of conducting that inquiry must be different. I have not now to proceed by deduction from ideas (that is, universal conceptions) to general conceptions, and so to particulars; but I must now proceed by induction from particulars to the less general, and so to the more general, in the manner commonly called Baconian, to which I before alluded. The reader, therefore, is not to
expect that he will find in the following pages any conclusions so absolutely certain as those which constitute spiritual or intellectual truths such, for instance, as the spiritual truth resulting from the beautiful and striking parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, or as the intellectual truth resulting from the 47th proposition of the first book of
individual mind, can they admit of no confusion or doubt ; they impress on the human mind the same conviction now that they did when the one ffll from the lips of Christ, and the other was committed to writing by Euclid. It is otherwise with our conceptions of bodily existence; they are at best what Bacon calls
neither be obliterated nor altered
:
Euclid.
These,
when once embraced by an
* Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1839. vol. 12,
p.
145.

288
[CHAP. XVI.
" axiomata quasi generalissima,"* and all that they can promise is the a cautious consideration of those particulars which our age, What doccountrv, and other circumstances, enable us to observe. trines of Aratus or Hipparchus do the astronomers of the present day recognise as adequate explanations of the movements of the heavenly Ixxiies ? Strabo was the most eminent geographer of his time ; but he did not so much as guess the existence of America, Australasia, or Polynesia. What notion had Dioscorides of the generation of plants or the acute and perspicacious Hippocrates of the different action of
result of
the sensitive and motor nerves ?

Inmiirv
difficult.
441. Not only was a knowledge of the mechanism of speech almost unknown to the ancients, but even in our own day its acquisition is The particulars from which its inductions are beset with difficulties. All nations to be drawn occupy a sphere of vast but uncertain extent.
(>U.-r\.!t|..i,
men speak articulately, all are juepo7rec avOputrot but they are capable of uttering the same articulations it is not The yet within the compass of probable conjecture to determine. Hottentots and other African tribes are said by Lichtenstein and Salt to produce certain smacking sounds in the mouth, which Europeans cannot imitate and the Chinese are unable to pronounce our letters 6, g, d,j, z, or r; but whether these facts result from a peculiarity in the formation either of the vocal or auditory organs, or whether it be the mere result of a habit acquired in early infancy, our present state of knowledge does not enable us to ascertain. 442. The range of observations actually made on articulation has been comparatively narrow. Various governments, ancient and modern, have reclamed among their Subjects trills and nations speaking great diversities of language: yet neither Egypt, Assyria, nor Rome, in the height of their power; nor Spain, when she ruled over numerous American tribes; nor Russia, with her long list of Selavoniau, Tartar, ad Finnish provinces; nor even England, on whose colonial empire the sun never sets, has attempted to ascertain the diversities of articulation which have been or could be practised within the limits ot' their
and
tribes of
far
;
how
nd
S o a singular opportunity presented it sell ti\e dominions. In OOmparinfi the articulate sounds used in all parts of Kurope, and in portion of Asia for then were assembled in Paris, Cossacks ol the vVoiga and the Don, Russians and Poles, the Scandinavian Swedes Danes, Celt, .1 Inland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany, Teutons
1 1
l'ir
of Northern
l'a, qui,
and Southern
a dialect
(lennany,
Cat-aloiiians, Castilians
and
I.u .ilainans.
Bohemians and llungurians, Creeks from Corfu,
Main
..,
of Arabic,
i
Jews
:i
'
retaining their ancient
Italians,
French* and English

fon '
Mi'
I
tli'l
mi wiili.ill
i
i
imp,
wit.
I'..
I.
\.-,i...n uitii
'I
in-,
ii.'itii.iii
pow*n
.i.
A
I
ll.i
a. In,
"iii.ii. .
tell,
Tin otj
QaUpbron
I.I.
i|.li.
KM.
CHAP. XVI.]
239
In -fore could so many different articulations be compared in sound, and traced to the operation of the organs by which they were respectively produced; and that in the centre of Europe, by the But the opportunity was lost, greatest physiologists then existing.
Never
and may never again occur' in the history of the world 443. Attempts have no doubt been frequently made to reduce the knowledge which men possessed on this subject to system, but At some period of unknown hitherto with very partial success. antiquity alphabetic writing was invented, and it might be suj>posed that its first inventors had carefully studied the organic } lowers of human utterance; but their ignorance on this subject is demonstrable. Not only was no alphabet ever invented which expressed all the powers of articulation common to mankind in general As to our but there never yet was a perfect alphabet of any language.
!
Framersof
a
l
"d
own
thai
is the very worst, in practical application, can be more absurd than to allot to the combination of the four letters, o, u, g, h, the different sounds which we give it in through, dough, plough, rough, and cough, in no one of
it
alphabetic system,
ever existed.
What
which are the proper powers of the single letters retained? 444. If we appeal to the authority of philologists, we obtain but " This subject," says Bishop Wilslight and indistinct information. kins, " has been largely debated by several authors of great name and reputation for learning. Besides those famous Emperors, Caius Casar and Octavius Augustus, who both writ on this subject, Varro likewise, and Apion, and Quintilian, and Priscian did bestow much
just number of letters. times it hath been treated of with great variety of opinions, by Erasmus, both the Scaligers, Lipsius, Salmasius, Vossius, J. Matthias, A. Metkerchus, B. Malinchot, &c. besides several of our own countrymen, Sir T. Smith, Bullokar, Alexander Gill, and Dr. Wallis."* Since Wilkins's time many learned men, both here and on the Conti-
i'hiioiogwu.
pains
upon the same inquiry concerning the
And
in later
nent, have pursued the like investigation
Digamma,
subjects.
the
but their disputes on the Greek accents, the Masoretic points, and many other
;
such topics, sufficiently show the obscurity
still
involving all these
445. Mechanists of great ingenuity have devoted the labour of Mechanwu. years to the production of machines which might imitate the sounds of the human voice ; and so far as they have succeeded, they have
thrown considerable light on the operations of the natural organs of speech. They have indeed been but little sustained in their exertions either by pecuniary rewards, or by what perhaps they would have estimated more highly, the well-deserved applause of their fellowmen. A machine of this kind, which I much regret to have been prevented by illness and other causes from seeing, but which (as I have heard) evinced in its fabricator great talent, was not long ago
* Real Char. P.
2.
3, c.
10.
rr
d
OF THE MECHANISM OF SFEECH,
290
[CHAP.
XV
exhibited in London, in the same building with a deception calle " the Mysterious Lady ;" but whilst one person attended the forme " Experiment exhibition, at least twenty flocked to the latter.
relative to the artificial production of the articulate Miiller,
sounds,"
sa\
" have been made by Kratzenstein,* Kempelen,+ and Mr. I They have succeeded in imitating a great part of tli "Willis. J sounds used in speech ; but these speaking machines are always to certain extent imperfect, since every simple and independent soun requires a special apparatus and the combination of the difterer kinds of apparatus with a common tube for the supply of air, so as t " Kratzenstein," says Mi form words, is exceedingly difficult."^ Mayo, " found that by using little tubes of different shapes adapts to an instrument that could produce sound, he could determine di De Kempelen produced vowel sounds by meat ferent vowel tones. ot an Indian rubber bell similarly adapted, the shape and size of whic But Mr. Willis's recent investigations ai he altered by the hand. He attached to a free reed a tube which wc the most satisfactory. capable, if immediately excited, of producing a determinate note. B altering the length of this tube, the original sound was made t assume the character of different vowels. "|| " De Kempelen sue
;
,i
ceeded in constructing a speaking machine, which was capable uttering entire phrases, some of which were, Vous etes man ami -J wus aime de tout mon coeur Leopoldus Secundus Romanortan hnpi rotor, &c. Mr. Wheatstone has reconstructed this instrument hot De Kempelen's description: and I have heard it articulate the WOW mamma, papa, thiuith, rum, summer, with great precision. "^ 446. Though a knowledge of the physical faculty of speech hi been in no small degree advanced by the labours of the ingeniou persons just mentioned, the most accurate information on this subjec can only lie attained l>v examination of the vocal organs themselves Accordingly we find that such examination lias been carefully mad as well li\ those who have treated of voice or sound as a branch
<
<
natural philosophy, oc with particular relation to music, as by thoa
who have
tin-
considered
it
cultivators of natural philosophy
part of the science of physiology. who have directed their parti
Amon
cular attention to the focal organs ma} be reckoned Biot, Caignard Tour, MOneke, Savart, &c. aumng the writers on music Chladni
1. 1
:
and
o|
Gottfir,
Weber; and among
physiologists
Bailer,
Cm
\
jandie,
When we come to examine the writing Mayo, Olid Miiller. oca theSS and other eminent persons who have treated of the
i!
shall perceive not oul\

bread!
i$\
1 1
1
that,
they diller
in
arrangement, am
*
*
TcntMMB M. nn
i
probkBU
1
-^'
ii
Load. Boi. PttropoL

'
I,
it.
Me
In
Sjirarlii'.
1 780. Vidian, 171)1.
nob. rol.
<j
Mail.T (i
Wi.
n.ii. |.
i
:.
bj
W,
Bely, L887,
oii.
p.
106 '
jj
ol
Hum.
I'le.
iiol.,
Itli
<i
CHAP. XVI.]
291
but that there are many important points of fact, on which they are by no means unanimous, and others which they
in the use of terms,
confess require further examination.
447. There is another difficulty which must not be overlooked. Organs of is spoken to be heard. The state of the organs of hearing is hearmg therefore to be taken into account, as well as that of the organs of speech. It is possible, though perhaps not very probable, that one race of men may be so constituted by nature, as to distinguish by the ear nice shades of articulate sound, which to others are imperceptible. But whether it be owing to this or other causes, certain it is that the
Speech
inhabitants of whole districts

tion,
fail
to perceive differences of pronuncia-
which those of other countries readily observe. In some parts of England individuals confound the aspirated vowels with the unaspirated. In some parts of Germany b is confounded with p, and v withy. In Tuscany, the lower classes, and some of superior rank, pronounce ca gutturally, as if written â. These and many like defects of utterance may perhaps be caused either by a malcon formation of the ear, or by an habitual inattention to certain minute distinctions of sound, which inattention at length incapacitates the individual for exercising in a correspondent manner his organs of speech. Even the ingenious, and generally accurate Court de Gebelin describes the English th as identical in sound with the French z. This must certainly have arisen in him from a natural or habitual inability to perceive a difference, which to English ears, is most obvious. 448. In civilised life another circumstance occurs, which tends to Written charactCTfc disturb our views of the mechanism of sj>eech. All persons who learn to read, otherwise than as the Chinese or Mantchous do, get the
habit of arranging their notions of articulation according to the alphabetic system of their own country. It is only on this ground that I can account for so admirable a physiologist as Professor Miiller reckoning the vowel articulations at only five. This was indeed the number
oi the Latin
alphabet in the English language six are recognised ; in the Greek seven ; but no one of these divisions rests on any rational foundation. Again, the English differ from all other nations in
;
giving to the vowel character i a sound which is really that of a diphthong and they call y a vowel, though it is a mere repetition of i, and therefore an entirely superfluous letter. This latter circumstance may indeed be accounted for by events in the history of our written
;
language language
vowel.
even well-educated persons in England seldom think of the long sound of i ory, but as of that of a single
;
but and
it
nevertheless causes great confusion in the science of
yet, perhaps,
449. Trusting that the reader will make due allowance for the Form of which render it difficult to obtain an accurate knowledge of rBans the mechanism of speech, I proceed shortly to state the result of such Investigations as I have been able to make on that subject. Speech is the human voice rendered more or less articulate ; and voice is a
obstacles
*
u2
[CHAP,
292
species of
sound produced and modified by certain organs of the hum frame, usually designated the vocal organs. It will be necessai therefore, to consider the form and uses of the organs in question, t general laws of sound in relation to them, and those modifications In describing the organs the voice which we call articulations. pretend not to any practical knowledge of anatomy but I have c lected the little information which I possess on that subject fix a careful perusal of the accounts given by the authors above m( tioned, and especially by Majendie, Mayo, and Midler, assisted, a. have most kindly been, by the suggestions of my old and dear valued friend Sir Benjamin Brodie, of whose opinion on a auni subject it lias been recently and most truly said, that " from
;
]
natural acuteness, his philosophical habits,
opinion can be more entitled to

instances in
to trace the
and his vast experience, weight." * Among the numberli

1
which our weak and imperfect intellect is enabled fain marks of infinite wisdom in the works of creation,
cannot but be struck with the remark, that whilst contrivances wonderful art are shown in the formation of organs for the ins pi rati and expiration of that air which is continually necessary to our vi existence, and for the swallowing of that food which from time time is no less necessary for our bodily support, several of the v(
organs which serve both these purposes, contribute also to the facu of speech, by which man becomes a social being, and is fitted to be
heir of immortality.
Orgiin*
-ii
-m-ji
il.
450. The general arrangement of the principal organs understood from the following view of their relative positions
may
:
Nose
Mouth,
viz.
Lips
'lVoth
Tongue
Palate
Throat
Epiglottin
Glottis
Lin n\
i
I.iiii
..
451.
It
may
!><
(nivcnienl
i"
distinguish
two portions; the lower, from
tht
these organs lungs to the opening of
inl
il

CHAT. XVI.] OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH.
293
larynx serve principally to produce those modifications of the voice which are independent of articulation, such as time, loudness, and
what has been called low notes in music

distinguished partly
the pitch of the voice, answering to the high and besides which there are some other variations,
by the French word timbre, and partly by the The higher organs, including the English words, tone, accent, &c. pharynx, with the nasal and oral passages, contribute to articulation. The lungs receive, by drawing I shall begin with the lower organs. in the breath, a quantity of air, which they return by expiration through the trachea and larynx to the opening of the latter, and The breath is thence, by the nose and mouth, to the atmosphere. inspired and expired without sound, unless it be rendered audible by
causing certain fine ligaments at the upper opening of the larynx to human voice is compared by Miiller to "a * musical reed instrument with a double membranous tongue."
vibrate; and then the
452. The laiynx is bounded upper part by the glottis, which hits a moveable cover " The called the epiglottis.
at the
Larynx.
sound of the voice

at the glottis,
is
generated
and neither above " By nor below this point." f far the most valuable account of the mechanism of the human larynx which has been published," says Mayo, " is that
given
his
by Mr. Willis." \ From Essay the accompanying figure has been taken, representing the cartilages and muscles of
the larynx (omitting the
dissection,
from above.
comua and the epiglottis) as seen after The muscles are here designated by numbers,
the cartilages
1. 2.
by
letters, viz.
3.
4.
5.
The The The The
crico-thyroideus (at the rima of the glottis).

thyreo-aryta?noideus.
crico-arytaenoideus posticus.
crico-arytff'noideus lateralis.
oblicpii.
Half of the aryta^noideus transversus and of the

cartilage.
A. The thyreoid
B.
C.
The cricoid. The arytenoids. F. The vocal or inferior laryngeal ligaments. H. The ligaments which tie the arytainoids to
Elum. Physiol,
vol.
i,
the cricoid.
p.
1023.
f Ibid. p. 1003.
\ Cambridge Philos. Trans. 1832.
294
TCHAr. XV
tl
Tabular
view
453. Mr. Willis's tabular view of the action of the muscles of

larynx
is
as follows
Crico-thyreoidei, stretch the vocal ligaments (1). Thyreo-aryta?roidei, relax the vocal ligaments, and put in vocalising position (2).
Govern
the
them
pitch of the
notes.
Crico-aryta noidei postici, open the glottis (3). Crico-arytonoidei laterales, compress the front part of the arytamoids (4). Aiyta-noidei transversales and ohliqui, compress the back part of ditto (5).
>
Close the
glottis.
Govern the âperture of fj

glottis.
Mr. Mayo
a
thinks, " that for vocalization, the ligaments
may
acqui:
;
with contact for their whole length ar that to allow the air to pass without producing a laryngeal sound, tl same tension being at the same time maintained, the ligaments mi require to be drawn apart, and the rima ghttidis to be opened at i posterior part." *
definite tension, joined
454. The reed instrument (as Miillcr calls it), which is formed b produces sound, according to those lav of acoustic science which have been so fully and clearly explained In using the woi Sir John Herschel's able work on that subject. "sound," however, I must observe a difference between certain won F< in other languages with which it is sometimes confounded. instance, the French word MM has, according to Chladni, three di
this curious adaptation of parts,
i
ferent significations
i. ii.
it
expresses
All that
iii.
we perceive by the sense of hearing. What we perceive by appreciable vibrations of the air. What we perceive by the recurrence of vibrations of
definite qoickneas.
These three significations, says he, answer respectively to the tlm German words schall, klang, and ton.* The English word sown
however, includes
at most,
only the
two
first
of these meanings.
It
derived from the Latin tonus, which is defined to lie " quicquid aunln Now this perception is occasioned, as I)ionied< perdpl potest."
by I "COrpondil CoHisio,
vili rations ul
(
and every such

or
else
collision causes ccrtai

t
the
that
air,
is,
distinguishable according to their duration, or

luu. hie
in
|,
to a certain
proportion of
portion:;
tl:
OOndl
>,
to each
other,
a scale of
which the
relative
ai
French grave or aigu, \\ here thii relation la nol perceptible to the ear (though tl londncm and duration of the eonnda maj be bo in a t. .it deu-ree), u cull the hound mrim, answering to the l'Yench word bruit i bill uIhi
in
called in English high or low,
and
the relation
la
perceptible,
11
maybe
.
beel
Illustrated bj
theezamp
chord, stretched
SMI
"I
between two points

-j
and
5.
Hoi,,. Pqj
|..|.
i
Ti
li.uu-, p.
CHAP. XVI.
205
B
thus:
its
A-
C.
Now
if
the chord
AC
be drawn at
D
then
and if middle point to B, it will form an arc or curve line let looa'i, the motion which it has acquired will carry it to D, so as to form an arc ADC, and thence it will be forced back again toward B. Each of these motions is called a vibration, and evenThe sucvibration giving an impulse to the air produces a sound.
cessive vibrations
position.
ABC;
a given time determines the pitch of the sound: and the frequency of the vibrations depends on the length of the arc; if short they are frequent, if long When the arc is long, the sound is what we call low ; they are few. when the arc is short, the sound is what we call high. It is obvious that the length of the arc may be increased or diminished either by a
in
become less and less, till the line The number of vibrations which occur
rests in its first
minute and imperceptible gradation in the nature of a slide, or else by adding or deducting certain definite and proportional parts; and that the sounds caused by the vibration of those arcs will vary in like The former of these circumstances takes place in ordinary manner. For the sliding speaking, the latter in singing and in music generally. elevations and depressions we have no strictly accurate name, but the The late Mr. Steele, in an definite intervals we call, in music, notes. ingenious essay on the measure and melody of speech, endeavoured to reduce the spoken rise and fall of sounds to a sort of musical notation,
but with very partial success. 456. The power of the human ear in distinguishing sounds by the Power of Mi* '"In the gravest (i.e. lowest) sounds tm" ul,hlnt vibrations has certain limits. perceptible to the human ear, says Chladni, the sonorous body makes and we are able to appreciate at least thirty vibrations in a second sharp (i. e. high) sounds in which the vibrations are from 8,000 to 12,000 in a second."* Musical notes, it is known, rise by octaves, each of which is produced by double the vibrations of the preceding. " The lowest note of the violoncello has 128 vibrations, the octave next above it 256, the third 512," &c.y The range of the voice seldom exceeds two octaves and a half; Dr. Bennati says his own voice extended to three octaves so did Zelter's and Catalani's reached to three and a half. J The action of the small muscles which
; ;
;
cause these vibrations,
ment above quoted

;
is clearly shown in Mr. Willis's tabular stateand thus the quality of voice called its pitch, has been fully explained. The time of a vocal sound is also susceptible of measure and the general perception of measure, or, as it is sometimes called, of rhythm, is a source of great part of the pleasure of poetry, and furnishes the rules of prosody, which are commonly deemed a part of grammar. long or short sound, too, in most languages, serves to distinguish one part of speech from another, and
;
* Traite d'Acoustique, p.
6.
Ibid. p. 7.
J Miiller, p. 1031.
296
[CHAP. XVI
;
Epiglottis.
one noun from another noun, or one verb from another verb and ii all these respects the quantity of a word (as grammarians call it) material to the understanding of language. Independently of thesi latter considerations we may observe, that by the combined effect o the pitch of a vocal sound, though wholly inarticulate, with it duration and loudness, human feelings are expressed, in infancy, or ii a state of barbarism, or of great excitement. Under such circum stances, the sound forms what Mr. Majendie calls a cry, and consider To connect feeling witl as common to man with brute animals. conception, recourse must be had to the power of articulation. 457. I have stated that the glottis has a moveable cover called tin In the act of carrying food from the mouth through tin epiglottis.
i
pharynx into the oesophagus for digestion, the larynx is raised, am down on it, so as to prevent the food fron If any extraneous matter which is large passe into the glottis, there is danger of immediate suffocation if small
the epiglottis brought passing into the glottis.
it
;
pass into and lodge in some of the bronchial passages, causinj If eventual inflammation of the lungs, and in course of time death. person imprudently laugh, or attempt to speak, while he is swallowing or holding any loose substance in his mouth, the escape of air Iron the lungs lifts up the epiglottis, and one or other of these pernicio* To a similar cause was owing the remark consequences may ensue.
al>le
may
in a manner still more remarkable by the skill of Sir Benjamin Brodie. A halt' BOVereigJ had remained for some weeks in a part of Mr. Brunei's bronchia] tube when Sir B. Brodie, causing him to be fastened on a hoard whirl moved on its centre, reversed the position of his body; and the coin
accident of Mr. Brunei, which

relieved
was
How
niacin
itievlau.
its own weight forcing ojien the glottis, passed into the mouth. 458. In uttering a vocal sound, the epiglottis being raised, the ai passes into the pharynx, which is a large cavity with an opening int< tne mouth, and another into the nose, anil both of those contribute b
by
reader
die
found
articulate.
The
oral
passage;
is
the
principal
ThlOUgh that, the air is capable of passing directly and in an undi d treem, producing those sounds which the ancients called vocales
a-id
we
call
what aiv and then

Vowel*.
'.
called COBBOnants.
in
vowels, 01 else interrupting the stream, so as to piodim .shall consider these first in their simple
1
their
eombi
dilli
olleet.
i
In the production
a
a c|
ofvowel sounds, the cavity of the mouth nut forms according as it is varied by tin the throat, palate, tongue, teeth, or lips; and hence folloWl
uining
variety
in
mepoodanl
different
the
vocal
sounds, the
It
is
number of wind
theoreticalh
writers estimate
dilleivntly.
i
true (hut,
Ipcaking, thore can bo no prei

certain
ml.- for fixing the possible distinction

I
number,
<
..up
the
:i.-ti
I'
the
mgans maj
be Indefinitely varied, according t<. the Datura] constitution "i evecj human living, at every tagc of Ins existence, All that .an well b< ee, lone in tlw | to adopt, such di\
i

CHAP. XVI.]
are, or
297
vowel sound as
have been,
in
use
among
those nations whose
practice in this respect
we
found no statement more Wilkins, who savs, " There are, I conceive, eight simple different species of vowels easily distinguishable whose powers are commonly used. I cannot deny but that some other intermediate sounds might be found, but they would, by reason of their proximity to those others, prove of so
difficult distinction as
In this view I have are able to ascertain. reasonable and practical than that of Bishop
would render them
useless."*
The
eight distinctions of the learned bishop appear to be suitable to the Greek and Latin languages, and the different branches of the Teutonic,
far
Scandinavian, and Celtic, with which I have any acquaintance how they may serve to express the vowel sounds of other nations, I The Bishop expresses them by the following pretend not to say.
;
marks
y, , a,
e, i, o,
w, u.
take them in this order, because the
operation of the different organs will thus be best seen, beginning with the sound as it enters from the larynx, and proceeding gradually
to the lips; and I shall explain them (as well as the consonants hereinafter noticed) according to the Bishop's statement, corrected in
some important
particulars
by the suggestions of Sir B. Brodie.
It is
to be observed that every one of these vowels may be long or short that is, its pronunciation may occupy a greater or less portion of time,
The oral cavity continues does not depend on articulation. same form during the whole utterance, and the time, as has already been shown, is a circumstance depending on the action of the lower organs. sound, for which we have no mark in English, i. y is a guttural but which is expressed in Welsh by this character. It is produced immediately at the emission of air from the throat ; the teeth are a little separated, the muscles of the tongue are relaxed, the tip of the tongue is a little below, and the posterior part of the tongue is a little above the level of the teeth ; the lips in this (as in all the vowels) are The long sound is frequent in French, as in beurre, of course open.
but
this
to retain the
meurtre
vowels,
it is
less
but, nut.
Being so very simple
long in English, as in bird, burthen, and short, as in in its formation, many of our other
;
when short, degenerate into it and indeed this circumstance be almost considered as a characteristic of English pronunciation, especially in rapid speaking, for in such a case the words honour, of, father, sir, are pronounced as if they were written honyr, yv, fatbyr,
may
sy>; &c.
ii.
"
A"
(says Wilkins) "
is
the most apert amongst the Linyiia-
palatal vowels.
'Tis expressed
it
is
by
this character,
because being one of
more commonly known. It is framed by an emission of the breath betwixt the tongue and the palate, the tongue being put into a more concave posture, and removed further off from the palate." Hence the oral aperture is larger than in the preceding
the Greek letters
vowel y
the teeth are separated to a greater distance, the tongue * Real Char. P. 3, c. 11.
is
293
OF
THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH.

surface of
it
[CHAP. XVI
more depressed, and the

is
is
more
flattened.
The
sounc
long as in
iii.
all, baicl ;
or short, as in poll, folly.
a.
The
teeth are separated to the
same distance
as in a,
th<
tongue is rendered broader, the tip of the tongue is immediately behind the incisor teeth of the lower jaw ; but the rest of the tongui is raised above the level of the grinding teeth, so that the spaa between the tongue and the bony palate is narrower than in a. Th< sound is long in the French male and English half ; it is short in th< French mal and English hat. iv. e. " This vowel" (says Wilkins) " is framed by an emission o the breath between the tongue and the concave of the palate, th< upper superficies of the tongue being brought to some small degree o convexity." Add, that the teeth are less separated than in a, th< tongue is still broader, and the whole is elevated so that it fills th< space between the teeth of the upper and lower jaw, leaving only t The oral aperture ii small space between it and the bony palate. consequently smaller than in any of the former instances. The BOOM is long in the French pretre, and English fate, and short in the Frend trompette and English met. Many persons erroneously give the long sound of this vowel to the first letter in our alphabet, whereas thai letter lias only such a sound when weakened by e alter an intervening
consonant.
is expressed by this character, amongst many other nations is already used and pronounced according to the sound which is here intended. It is framed by an emission of the breath betwixt the tongas and the runcave of the palate, the upper superficies of the tongue being put intc a more convex posture, and thrust up near the palate." Consequently
v.
i.
" The vowel" (says Wilkins) "

letter
because this
the oral aperture
ia
diminished to
its least
vocal extent, and the
\ipi
and teeth are more nearly closed than in any other vowel. is long in the English bleed and French git*, and short in bit, but seldom so short in any French word. vi. a. This and the two following vowels receive their In o the tongue and cipally from tht! position of the lips.
the
The sound
the English
power
prin-
teeth are in
same
state as in the pronunciation of
hit the lips are contracted

in
into a circle, or nearly so.
The sound
in
is
long
the English font, and
French
vii.
//':
ir.
the French nolle and Fnglish nobility. " Tin-." (sass Wilkins) " is the second of the labial vowels
it
il
short
raqtriring i greater contraction 01 the lips."

r.it liii
aDiptu
are
al
than circular.
at
and brought
pasta
a little
i...nl\
Their opening is, in facty tongue is more elevated more forward than in the preceding rowel; the the same .iii. mce a. in o and or. The sound w .-Hi and French pouln; and short in the English
The
tip of the
fiuii
and iv. im li voulex. The character to Is adopted by me because BOO In our own havl DO English character lor a sound so c and most. Other languages our letter u hcine. properh a diphthong.
RTI
;
I,
ivlial
Wilkins
calls
" the u
(t'allivum or whistling
u"
CHAP. XVI.]
290
it cannot be denied to be a distinct simple vowel, but of a laborious and difficult pronunciation to the English and The sound in French is other nations amongst whom it is not used. It is quite unknown in English, but long in buse, and short in but.
He
says that
it is
that
the difficulty of acquiring
The
lips
must be brought
very small aperture in in the preceding vowel w.
seems to be exaggerated by Wilkins. on each side, leaving onlv a the centre, the tongue and teeth remaining as
it
into contact
In pronouncing any of the vowels, the soft palate is elevated so as and diminish the posterior nasal aperThe vowels therefore are always oral sounds but the na<al ture. sound may be added to any of them by depressing the soft palate,
to increase the posterior oral,
;
and
is
raising the root of the
tongue either before or after the vowel
itself
uttered.
460. The consonants are properly to be considered as expressing consonant* not different vocal sounds, but merely modifications of vocal sound.
Several of the distinctions applied to them by recent writers of eminence appear to me to rest on erroneous principles in this respect ; for instance, that of the strepitus cequalis, and strepitus expbsivus of
Amman, which
1,
is
recognised as valid
or continuous sound, ascribed to h,

is
by Miiller. The strepitus m, n, ng, f, ch, gh, sh, s,
cequalis
r,
and
merely a continuance of the vowel sound with which these letters happen to be connected ; for instance, in " Rule Britannia " the continuous sound in rule is not that of but of u. In " God save the King," the continuous sound in save is not that of s but of a. Other distinctions appear to me liable to other objections ; and upon the whole I think the best arrangement of consonants is to take them in the order of the organs by which they are formed, beginning, as I did in the case of the vowels, with those which are formed nearest to the larynx, and uttered through the oral cavity. In this point of view, the first which presents itself is H, which Miiller describes as " a continuous oral sound, with the whole oral canal open." It has been disputed indeed whether it should be called a consonant, or a breathing; but as it really modifies all the vowels, I think it belongs to the class of consonants. Midler's account of it, however, is not satisfactory or at least it should be added that h receives an impulse from the pharynx. In the Italian language it formerly prevailed much more than at present. In English it acts an important part, though in some dialects it is often misapplied. The next is x-* " Gh and its correspondent c/i," says Wilkins, " are both of them framed by a vibration of the root or middle of the tongue against the palate, the former being vocal and the other mute. They are each of them of difficult pronunciation ; the first is now used by the Irish, and was perhaps heretofore intended by the spelling of those English words right, daughter, &c. Though this kind of sound be
now by disuse lost amongst us, the latter of them (ch) is now used among the Welsh, and was perhaps heretofore intended by the Greek
* Real Char. P.
3, c. 12.

300
letter ^." *
diffuse.
[CHAP. XVI
it by Professor Muller is mon sound which this consonant (ch, the Greek % has in the German language does not exist in the French, nor in the English, but some of its modifications are met with in the Scotch anc Irish dialects. For its production the tongue is applied closely to th< palate, and the air is pressed through the small space left betweer There are three modifications of the sound, according to tl them. part of the palate to which the tongue is applied
The account given of

says, the
He
i.
In the
first
modification, the forepart of the tongue
is
ap
plied to the forepart of the palate, as in pronouncing the
German words
ii.
lieblich
and
:
selig.
iii.
In the second the dorsum of the tongue is approximated tc the middle of the palate this sound is very diQerenl from the preceding, it is heard in the German words lag, suchen, ach, &c. The third modification of this sound is used by the Swiss, Tyrolese, and Dutch to produce it the dorsum of th tongue approaches the back part of the palate, or the soft palate. The sound exists as diet (Hebr.), chc (Arab.), and, according to Purkinje, in the Bohemian language.
:
It
would
ill
become me
to dispute the learned Professor's accounl
of these throe modifications of a sound, with which he must be so well and I am so little acquainted practically; otherwise I should bti inclined to suppose that they might be reduced to two, expressed by gh and oh, and differing in the manner that I shall consider under G
andK.
u K
The consonantal powers expressed by G and in our language are produced, as Wilkins says, " more inwardly by an interception of the breath towards the throat by the middle or root of the tongue." J In fact, the tongue is rendered convex and narrow, and the middle of the convex suri.tr.' is placed in contact with the palate, so as completely to interrupt the passage of the air. This position of the organs is the Same in both Oases, hut the former is sounded as g in gold, the
'
latter as
Writers
in odd, which difference is BOOM Calling g the hard, and
<
variously described by various the soft sound, whilst, others
rse these designations. Be this as it may, the fact is that there a certain impulse given by a movement of the pharynx to several mantel positions of the oral organs, which produces averydiatingnishable difference in their sound. Hence are produced tin
is
and cold.
In.
T, 00 and
P,
bail
Jt.nl
and
t
pall.
Bltra, Mrj
..I.
Char.
i.
3,
12.
1
rol,
I,
p.
1048.
leal 01
CHAP. XVI.]
301
V
S
F, vile and
file.
Z, seal and zeal.
and
ft,
thing and
this.
C and
This
effect
J, nation
and confusion.
and T is being allowed for, the common position of an appulse or collision of the top of the tongue against the teeth or upper gums, the lips and teeth are a little separated, the voice passing through the mouth is completely interrupted by the margin of the tongue being applied to the inside of the teeth of
as follows,
viz.
:
,,
the upper jaw and margin of the bony palate. In B and P, the breath is intercepted by the complete closure of the
lips.
BP
v p
" These letters," says Wilkins, " are fonned by a and F. kind of straining or percolation of the breath through a chink between The the lower lip and upper teeth with some kind of murmur." breath is driven with considerable force through the mouth, and the
soft palate is elevated.
by an appulse of the tongue toward the upper and then forcing out the breath with a vocal sound the tongue, however, is not in actual contact with the incisor teeth. and the is here used for the common th in thing The Greek Saxon $ lor the common th in this. The sounds are produced by applying the tip of the tongue at once to the upper and lower incisor teeth, and then expelling the voice. C J. These characters are adopted, the former C as answering to our sh and the German sch; and the latter to the French J in Jean. also give these two different sounds to ti, as in nation, and si, as in conThe sound is produced, as Wilkins says, " by a fusion above cited. percolation of the breath betwixt the tongue rendered concave and the It must be added that the surface of teeth both upper and lower." the tongue is raised so as to be everywhere nearly in contact with the bony palate, there being only a very small space left between them. In L the tip of the tongue is loosely applied to the bony palate immediately behind the upper incisor teeth, so as not entirely to interrupt the passage, and the air is allowed to escape on both sides between the edges of the tongue and the bony palate.
S and Z
are framed
s z
teeth or gums,
We
li differs from the preceding in two circumstances the tongue is applied to the bony palate more posteriorly, and the tip of the tongue being loose, a vibratory motion is given to it. All the preceding consonants are oral, I come now to those in which
the air passes through the nasal passages. In the lips are closed nearly as in B ; the air passes entirely through the nostrils, but the sound is partly produced by the vibration of the air in the mouth.
is also nasal. In producing it the lips are open, applied to the bony palate ; the greater part of the air passes through the nose, but a very small portion passes through the
In
the sound
is
the tongue
mouth.

[CHAP. XVI.
for expressing
392

peculiar character (ex. gr.
??;)
A
first
seems
to
be wanted
the last nasal consonant, of which there are
two
modifications, the
son.
as in the English song, the other as in the
French
is
In both
the posterior part of the surface of the tongue

posterior part of the
applied to the
entering the
mouth
the nose.
And
bony palate, so as to prevent the air entirely from the whole of the sound, therefore, passes through so much for the simple powers both of vowels and
;
:
consonants, forming together the following arrangement
Vowels. Y
Consonants,
i.
AaEIOWU.
Oral,
HXGKDTBPVFSZeSCJLR.
M N llj.
now
to the combinations,
ii.
Nasal,
Combinations of
vowels.
first of vowels, and then of vowel sounds immediately succeed each other, they are either pronounced distinctly and form separate syllables, or else they are melted as it were together, and are then called diphthongs, producing a mixed sound in which each vowel may, by a In slow pronunciation and an attentive ear be easily distinguished, particularising these, I must use the alphabetic characters above given,
461. I come
consonants.
When two
for
our
own
alphabetic system
is
so extremely absurd that the diphthong
the diphthong yi
by the
single letter ;
we express wa by to, as
a consonant, and a, as a vowel; and the single vowel w by two vowels oo. Diphthongs are most frequently (though not always) composed of such vowels as lie at a distance from each other in the organic arrangement above stated; and the stronger sounded vowel may he either prefixed or suffixed, thus we have as strong prefixes
P
at
ai
I, try,
buy.
boy. ay (pnwinciallv).
in
in
aw. yw.
German, Man.
English, owl.
:-
As
strong sulliws
'y
iu
ia
young vawn
yiirow.
.voy
work,
wall,
.wa
wa
,tri
i
wax.
Uell.
\\e.
in
ii
yellow
to
ye yoke
.
.too
.ir,r
iw
gsjjdi
woe. wood,
the combination
i
.
ome
ingenious remarks are
several couples of consonants by the terms Inn: and aspirate, ami each of these clsJOOi \iU)Hharj)nu<\ flat, he ol iserves that certain combinations of them
hi. Latham.
Having distinguished the
,ne incapalile of
,ii!l,
icing
pronounced.
harpness and
syllable.
Two
or
mors
b,
t>,
be
i\
he) of
p-nt
i
d.
llatness are incapalile of

d, g, *,
coming
being
in
the
tame
'a toetaoce,
&c,
CHAP. XVI.]
flat,

t,
303
abt, art,
and/),/,
k, s,
apd, afd, agt, akd, Again " Certain sounds, in combination with others, have a tendency to
&c, being sharp, such combinations as atz, ads, &c, are unpronounceable."*
:
undergo changes."! Once more letters are often inserted lor euphony. " In English the form which the Latin word Humerus takes is number, in French nombre. The b makes no part of the original word, but has been inserted for the sake of euphony." J I would add that different nations seem to have a taste for different combinations. In most cases where the English use st, the Germans, though they use it
in spelling, alter
stehen,
it
in pronunciation.
but pronounced shtehen.
Our stand is written by them These and similar remarks will be

of language.
Quantity
found very useful

4(33.
in the historical investigation
by grammarians, not only according to articulation, but also according to quantity and accent. Quantity regards the time employed in utterance, and the term is generally applied to the relative time employed in uttering the different portions of words, the rules for which constitute prosody, and are more especially referal >le to poetry in the classical languages. These rules are well known it is known, for instance, that a vowel followed by two consonants must form a long syllable, because the action of the muscles necessary to produce so complicated a vocal sound must require a longer time than if the movement were more simple. But the actual effect on the ear produced to a Greek or Roman hearer, as part of the pleasure of poetry, cannot be clearly perceived by a modern
are distinguished
:
Words
reader.
464. Something of the same uncertainty hangs over the doctrine of Accent as applied to a comparison between the living and dead
languages. The subject has been learnedly investigated, but without leading to a very satisfactory result. The rules for the use oi accents in the Greek language are well known but the real effect of those accents on the pronunciation of vocal sounds in the classical ages is very uncertain. English poetry is said to be regulated by accent but accent, in this sense, applies rather to the force with which a syllable is pronounced, than to that elevation or depression of voice
; ;
Accent.
my
on which the ancient accents are supposed to depend. This part of subject, however, will be more conveniently discussed hereafter. For the present, enough has been said on the mechanism of speech.
* English Language, t U*&. s. 77.
s.
76.
J Ibid.
s.
83.
Foster on Accent and Quantity.
London
Wt
Clowii and
SoNi.
Hlaii,!.
CONTENTS.
GLOSSOLOGY
PAGE
Introduction
Chap.
Chap.
I.
1
II.
Of Languages Of
Dialects
M
45
70
7G
Chap. Chap. Chap. Chap.

Chap.
III. Of Idioms
IV. Of the
V.
Voice
Of
Articulation
VI.Of Vowel
Sounds
93 125
.
.
VII.Of Consonantal Sounds

VIII.
Chap.
Chap.
Chap.
Chap.
Of Accent, Quantity, and Emphasis Of X. Of Onomatopoeias, Words XI. Of

IX.
Interjections
.150
180
.
or Imitative
231
Roots
275
297 308 376
Chap. XII.Of
Particles
Chap. XIII.Of Words
Chap. XIV.Of Parts
of Speech
GLOSSOLOGY.
INTRODUCTION.
term Glossology, though in some measure new to English Glossology be employed in the following pages to signify that ""j,!^ led applied Science which investigates the various languages spoken or written by mankind, with reference, on the one hand, to the pure science of Universal Grammar, as the source of principles in which they necessarily agree, and, on the other hand, to the historical facts which constitute or cause their differences. Every pure science emanates from an Idea in the human mind, which is peimanently and universally true ; and every applied science combines with that idea jthe effect of circumstances, which, being partial and subject to change, (necessarily fall within the domain of history. The applied science of Language, if confined to the speech of a single country or district, forms the particular Grammar of the language there spoken; but if it embrace many languages, testing their formation, construction, and powers, by the common standard of Universal Grammar, it is termed by different authors Comparative Grammar, Comparative Philology, 'SpracMehre, Linguistique, Glottology, or Glossology. I have adopted the last of these terms, because it is analogous to many English words derived from the Greek, such as Glossography, Geology, &c. ; and because its derivation from yXuxraa, a tongue or language, and Xoyoc, reason, sufficiently indicates that its office is to open forth the reasons *nd causes of diversity in the numberless modes by which men, in liferent parts of the world, give utterance to their thoughts and
1.
literature, will
1
Thk
reelings in speech.
2.
I
have elsewhere
fully explained
It
what
mean by
the
word
Idea,
idea.
here to say, that I do lot use it in the vague and popular sense of " whatsoever is the object )f the understanding when a man thinks ;"* but I restrict it to its
sufficient
>roper, original,
a basis of pure science. 1
may be
and
strictly-definite
guage, from which

1
it is
signification in the Greek lantaken, of a law, or form of the mind, enabling
Univ. Grammar, s. 142. In no instance has the false use of a word become current without some pracical ill consequence, of far greater moment than would primo aspectu have been
8
hcught possible. A strong instance of this is the misuse of the word idea, whjeh eeame current from its use, in sheer ignorance, by Locke. Coleridqe, Church and
tate,
22.
INTRODUCTION".
us to contemplate a Truth as universal, and to employ that truth as standard-measure in testing the accuracy of subordinate conception The idea of a Circle, for instance, is the mathematical standard-measm
of our subordinate conceptions of external
circles and so, the idea Language as " a signifying or showing forth of the mind," or, M. Eichhoff's terse and elegant definition, " l'expression de l'an
;
<
humaine,"*
History
test of
science.
is the grammatical standard-measure of our subordina conceptions of written or spoken language. 3. Glossology, on the other hand, presents to us the History Languages as a touchstone of the Science of Language. If retiVctk
me a grammatical principle, as involved in the idea language, and I afterwards find that the same principle has been act*
suggest to
i
upon by men
in all countries,
and that
it
forms an essential part of
tl
Grammar of every tongue, I may be assured that it is a law impose on human nature by the All-wise Creator, and bears the stamp
on the other hand, though a graninuitic me plausible, and may even be bon out by several examples in the history of nations, yet if, on extends
infallible
science.
And
rule
may
at first sight appear to
my
researches, I find
it
occasionally contradicted
by
experience,
character of universality will be at an end, and I shall be forced confess that, in assuming it to be universally correct, I had not ful
comprehended the Idea of which
had supposed
it
to be a develo
ment
Induction.
4. In the treatise on Universal Grammar, I proceeded by deduct h from a universal law: in the present treatise on Glossology, I nui proceed by induction from particular facts. It may easily 1"' conceive therefore, that the course of investigation will now be different fro I then begmi with the fort that pursued on the previous occasion. which Language necessarily receives from the active energy of tl human mind, and which, in their development, determine the chara teristic properties of the Noun, the Verb, and the other constitue reserved to the last the consideration of tl perch; and motor of langamge; that is, of the sounds which serve to expre those parts of rtjieech, and which result from the peculiar mechanifl must now reverse this order, first analv/.it I of the VOCal "i ami, the matter, and then showing how thai is and has Im'oii adapted to tl fonna bj ni'ii in various stages of civilization. Previously, howevi it will he necessary' to notice another main distinction, which depea Men spoke Ix'fore they wrote; ai on ih. histoiv of language. majority of the human mot now speak, the though all up mt of writing. Hi ace there are fcwo arts, the wool and tl in he treated differently. The early chapte t/rn/i/tic, which reijuin ol this treatise Will be Confined to the examination of sjhiIu'.ii I;mi- mm; wards, I shall notice the different systems of written uches will lie directed to matters of/act ; ml a mat
ii
-.
* I
I.
I'llll
ll.'lllllll .11,
!
M.
i
it.
Ah
Laagoai di fltnopi
di I'ladY
INTRODUCTION.
on the probable origin of language in times past, and on the possible adoption of an universal language at some future period, I propose, lastly, to offer on these what seem to me the results of reasonable conjecture.
It must be remembered that Glossology is necessarily an imper- Glossology an u erf* t study, in reference to the number of languages which have J? P y "' hitherto been brought within its sphere, or to the degree of accuracy with which they can as yet be understood. Prior to the last age, few persons knew, or considered, whether the different modes of speech
5.
interesting questions have arisen
feet
'
employed throughout the world could be reduced to any certain much less, whether they could be arranged and classed in any rational order. But in the early part of the present century, the
number
elder
Adelung
many
estimated their
Asiatic,
587 European, 937

very
either
inaccessible tribes.
number at above three thousand, viz., 276 African, and 1264 American, besides
or extant only among barbarous and deservedly-eminent Glossologist great
wholly
lost,
To
this
praise
Mithridates; comprehending notices of all the then known languages in the world, arranged according to their localities. It is true that, in a more advanced stage of knowledge, a much better arrangement may be devised ; still it opens to our view a striking prospect of the wide extent of' Glossology, mid casts into shade the acquisitions of Mithridates in ancient, or Mezzofanti in modern times ; though the former is recorded to have spoken with facility twenty-two languages, and the latter, whom I heard with admiration, six-and-twenty years since, among his scholars at Bologna, was then said to have acquired thirty-five. To collect together and compare all the modifications of the art of speech must be the work of many Glossologists in successive ages; nor can it ever be performed without a perfect knowledge of those faculties of the human intellect and will, on which the science of language depends Deprived of such guidance, all attempts to compare and classify" toguages, with reference to their excellences or defects, would be little better than groping in the dark.
present state, opens a wide field for General of Adelung, 1 Balbi * and outline MCHARD, present general outlines of the whole subject; and the laborious and useful compilation of Vater, Litteratur der Grammatdxn, Lexiha, und Wortersammlungen alter Sprachen der Erde' with the additions of Julg (1847), points out the sources whence information is to be obtained of above two thousand two hundred Lan8 C0ncerni n g which Grammars, Dictionaries, partial Vocabularies or Treatises, have been formed. These indeed are merely placed by Vater in alphabetical
its
is due, not only for his Grammatisch-kritisches Worterbuch der hochdeutschen Mundart,' one of the most complete Dictionaries ever published in any language, but for his
6.
Yet Glossology,
research.
in
interesting
The
collections
<
RK? T
1
't
'
order,
*
and
cûe^tX
'
Mithridates
Atlas Ethnographique. Researches into the Natural History of Man.
b2
INTRODUCTION.
but no pretension to philosophical arrangement;
in combination with the best general view ol Adelung's great undertaking, they afford the I have therefore thrown into glossological works now extant.
subjoining to Appendix (A) a Synopsis of the Mithridates,' the number of the corresponding article (where the works coincide)
'
eacl
< Litteratur.* To suppose that anj pacre in July's edition of Vater's peruse all the productions there spec.fiec one person could so much as more than a sligh absurd; nor is it necessary here to ofler
would be
Nomencu-
been collected in the pnncipa sketch of the materials which have departments of glossological study. sketch may be it will be scared; 7. Slight, however, as such a state o due allowance be made for the defective intelligible unless Glossology, at the present day. 1, Classification in
Nomenclature and
said, "it is my object t regard to Nomenclature, I have elsewhere 1 he DIM possible received modes of expression change as little as however, has varied , this pa: tice of very eminent Glossologists, abstained foa iustly-celebrated Grimm says, "I have
ticular.
all
whenever intelligible ezpM changes in 'grammatical terminology, throughout Europe, even thong sions have been generally received from their original sigmfici some of them may have been perverted never to hand, though Rask's is a nan.,, On the other tion"* admitted that the writings mentioned without honour, it must be rendered obscure by then himself and his followers are often known as derived from languages so little pi. .vine novel terms Thus, for the we abbreviated. Islandic and Danish, and even these use "Fhf, meaning tl known grammatical word "Case," they (form of relation) for "Accusative Danish word "forhoUhfom* (form of tl " ajenstandsfonn they put "G," meaning tlie Danish similar al.lmn lation from the Islandic tl.ey adopt many and obj,ot) treatise On the Cn-nla, So Kl.K.NS, HM1DT, in Ins i,,vt very able and w.ll-underetood W l.l tongue employs, instead of th, (pointing word " Deutewort " the uncommon Herman of Philadelphia, has founded his wbj Dr. Rush, indicating word). hv ..fth.- Human Voire on two terms, whk ,,,, ',!.. n,il..
I
The
<
M
t
|,
:IVI
1,.,-n
m.aU-.
after
much
consideration, fully
I
too*
,,.,,,.,,,1
<
Tl,,
...
.uv ih- H.idiail

<>N.
which
tu
Movement and the amsfumj Mm m.i.K be Heems to think, belong to Bv

p-rson
far
artirnlat- Hound. ,.., ,,,,.,,,.
This learned
Mw.so
B
as
my
has also introduced sew reading goes, to the science

the " Median to.
GfosaolouN
!.,,:;.
...
I.
"tli.
Il'</r,
v&ijh
>/,,,-" the Urifl
,/.,,,../ ronish,"
wtf* w; **>&** Hw
of the voice,
<>J
btrm
rnniMng
la,
stress,
apolo,
for th.*c novelties in nomenclature ..m and d.i.nl .,,.. ,!, ,,,,!,.,.
,
1I1 ,I,
1U I,,,,II V
"that when unnamed additio be invent* ..f an art, terms niiisl true; bul then tworequtait
be Indisputably accurt
rol l.p.8.
.,i,i.. <;.......
ih.u
tl,.-
additions should
UmIv. Onsa,
INTRODUCTION.
5
far as
and necessary and secondly, that the new terms should, as possible, be analogous to those previously applied to the
;
art
question.
Languages, Dialects, or Idioms, with a Classifies arrangement in Glossology, may be said to be Dr. Latham, in his very able and popular as yet in its infancy. work on the English Language,' divides all the actua. modifications of Speech into Tribes, each tribe into Stocks, each stock into Branches, each branch into Divisions, each division into languages, and certain Thus, according to him, the natives of languages into Dialects. Somersetshire speak a dialect of the English language; which language is a Low-German division of the Teutonic branch of the Gothic
8.
The
Classification of
view
to their scientific
'
stock of the
abilities
Indo-European Tribe.
With
I
sincere respect
for the
of this eminent entirely acquiesce in this
G lossologist,
must confess
that I cannot
classification, at least as a definitive scheme. Languages, dialects, &c, are here to be taken as matters of fact, which may be classed according as they fall under more or less general
definitions or descriptions, in like
manner
as Linnaeus distributed all
the objects of natural history into Kingdoms, Classes, Orders, Genera, But to each of these gradations he gave its Species, and Varieties.
appropriate definition, or description, so framed that the higher desigand also, that " the nation should include the whole of the lower
;
genus should lie found whole and entire in the species, and the species It would therefore be necessary, whole and entire in the individual." were the above-mentioned classification adopted, that some clear and precise definition should be given of a Tribe of languages, a Stock, a Branch, &c, and that each definition should be framed in the manner just sbited which, perhaps, in the present imperfect state of Glossology, would be scarcely possible. J. I confess, too, that the terms chosen by Dr. Latham to express Tribe, fcuull ythe various gradations in his scheme do not appear to me to be altoThe word " Tribe " is from the Latin gether suited to that purpose. Tribus, which is derived by some from tres, three, and supposed to relate to a threefold division of the Roman People in early times into Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres.* But both the etymology and the fact are disputed for some authors derive the word from a Celtic root, answering to the Latin terra, land ; and the Tribus was certainly Others, again, contend that, in the at first a geographical division. earliest ages, the Roman Tribes were only two; and, in fact, we know nothing of them distinctly before A. u. C. 259, when Livy says they 3 were twenty-one, immediately prior to which time Niebuhr conThe name " Tribe " may perhaps jectures that they had been thirty.'' have been adopted by Dr. Latham in reference to Noah's three sons, but that the languages of their descendants Japhet, Shem, and Ham were divided by any characteristics, which can now be traced, it
1
;
**
Univ. Gram.
ii.
s.
177.
* Lit. Hist. x. 6.
*
Ibid.
21.
Niebuhr,
vol.
i.
c.
xxni.
INTRODUCTION.
would be premature to assert in the present state or gTOasologkiil In modern times, the word " Tribe " has generally been given either to a certain division of a known nation, as the Twelve Tribes of the Jewish People, or else to some smaller bodies of men, such as the North American Tribes, vaguely supposed to be derived from one or more original sources. Upon the whole, therefore, the word Tribe seems unfit to stand at the head of a classification of Some authors employ the word " Family " in nearly a languages. similar manner but neither the one nor the other of these expressions Much the same may be said of has ever received a clear definition. All these words are merely figurative, the terms Stock and Branch. and, if used at all, can only be taken in loose and popular senses.
science.
;
Indeed, whatever classification may be adopted at present, the different gradations will be found to be intermixed and connected with each other by such various analogies, that any positive arrangement of them would l>e liable to perpetual disturbance. For these reasons, although,
an advanced stage of glossological science, a more philosophical arrangement than by localities may reasonably lie expected, yet, in the following sketch, I shall keep in view the divisions of Adelung into the Asiatic, European, African, and American tongues, with occasional reference to Vater and other sources.
in
CHAPTER
I.
OF LANGUAGES.
10. In drawing up a sketch, which must necessarily be slight, of European lan 8u*Be the various languages which it is the province of Glossology to invesonly as the best known and tigate, I begin with the European ; not most likely to interest the generality of my readers, but because the general connection of those tongues
may be
at
once seen
in
the inge-
nious ma]) prefixed to Dr. Bosworth's interesting work on 'The Origin of the English, German, and Scandinavian Languages' (1848). He distinguishes them into, 1st, the Basque, Iberian, or Euskarian;
2nd, the Finnish, Jotune, or Ugrian; 3rd, the Celtic, comprehending the Welsh, Gaelic, Erse, and Breton; 4th, the Latin and Greek, with their offspring, the Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and modern Greek 5th, the Western branch of the Germanic, Teutonic, or Gothic,
;
including
High and Low German,

;
Frisic,
Anglo-Saxon, and English
6th, the Northern branch, or Scandinavian, comprising the Islandic,
Illyrian, Polish,
Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish 7th, the Sclavonic, viz., Russian, Wendish, &c. and 8th, the Turkish. 11. In reviewing these, the classical Latin and Greek seem to Latin and Qreelc claim the first notice; but it will be unnecessary to dwell much on them, as the literary discussions to which they have for several cenIt is equally known that each of turies given rise are well known. their derivative tongues has been separately treated with great ability by numberless Glossologists but it is only of late years that the comparative Grammar of them all, including the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Provencal, Daco-Romanic (or Wallachian), and Rhoetish, has been brought into one general view by Raynouard and
; ;
DlEZ.*
the
The two great blanches specially treated of by Dr. Bosworth, German and Scandinavian, were first brought under comparative examination in the last century by Hickes,3 Wachter, 4 and Ihre, 5
12.
German ami
Scand ""u
m"
with much industrious research into the older European dialects, but without that knowledge of the Asiatic tongues which has contributed to the more accurate views of recent Glossologists, particularly of Grimm,6 Graff,7 Kaltschmidt, 8 and Dieffenbach. 9 13. The Celtic branch has been illustrated by many writers, both of Celtic, Among the former, we may particuthe last and present century.
1
Gram. comp. des Lang, de l'Europe Latine. Grammatik der Roman. Sprachen. 1836.
1705.
5
1821.
Ling. Vet. Septentr. Thesaurus. * Glossar. Germanic. 1737.

6
Diction. Sueo-Gothic.
1769.
1819. Deutsch. Grammat. 8 Sprachvergt. Worterb. 1838.
7
9
Althochd. Sprachschatz. Vergt. Wort. Goth. Sp.
1838 1851
8
larly notice
1
OF LANGUAGES.
[CHAP.
X.
Sclavonic.
[Uv|iir,
Kmtiisli, an<l
'J'urkibli.
BrJLLET and Court de Gebelin, 8 and, among the latter, Prichard,3 Pictet,* and Edwards,* who have placed this study on much firmer grounds than their predecessors had done. 14. The numerous Sclavonic languages are commonly divided into the Eastern, of which the Russian stands at the head, and the Western, of which the chief is the Polish. The Polish was the earlier cultivated ; but political events have within a century widely extended the sphere of the Russian ; and its literature is daily receiving fresh accessions, especially in Glossology. So early as the year 1284, Adam Bohorizus published his ' Arcticae-Hone,' in which "he treated of the grammatical properties of the Sclavonic idiom, and the affinity of the Muscovite, Ruthenian, Polish, Bohemian, and Lusatian tongues 8 to those of Carniola, Dalmatia, and Croatia." But these have been far better illustrated in recent times by Dobrowsky, 7 Sen AFFAJUE," Eichhoff,* &c. a short introduction to the Russian, Illyrian, Polish, and Bohemian, has been recently published by Frolich. 10 15. The Basque, Finnish, and Turkish languages are found chiefly in the extreme points of Europe, on the south-west, north-east, ami MSt The Basque is descended from the Iberian, spoken by tribes, whirh, in times antecedent to European history, are believed to have spread from Sicily to the Garonne; but of which the remains are nowconfined to Biscay, the Asturias, and part of Galicia, in Spain, and Its to the Western Pyrenees, and their neighbourhood in France,
:
earliest
Grammar was by Larramendi,

*
11
its
latest
by Yrizar y
to
Moya.
lamilv
the Semitic hut the structure rather indicates a connection with certain American dialects. Some writers, however, endeavour to connect the The Basque with the Finnish, and others with the Celtic tongues.
radical
affinity
;
The
words evince some
Uralian, are
<;.-miaiis
Finnish tribes, sometimes considered as a branch of the Tchudish, or distinguished into northern and southern. They are
from the coasts of the Kiltie by the and Scandinavians. The Northern Finns occupy Lapland; a Qriinimr Of their language was published by <> VNANDKK in 17 13, The language of the Southern Finns is said by Kask to he the most original, regular, well-formed, and well sounding language in the wild, and >ai u ailarlv rich in forms of declension, derivatives, and
Iwlieved to have been driven
|
With Ixith bunches the Hungarian (or mors Mttpotmd \\"i'ls >\ rjfoptTif Magyar) language is connected, as has been shown
I
'
Mttni. do Ia
Langm
'
<
<
'
Ifondt
I'ri.nitif.
1788,
(Vltes.
l.mi|{R.
1
| ,
1831. Colten. 1844.

11..111..
Alliiiilc.lci* I.migH.
1837.
,i.l.
/..
II,
I. .|i.
.sin, In
In p|
lie,
.
(,,
in,
,1,
j,
-.,,
p.
|
t . .
.
1(',7.
.
KtilwurC
Allgttn. Etymolog. lr Sluwi

til
.
L.
[818
i.i.l.i.-
,|.r
is.:.;.
Butm,
ch,
in:w.
Aiilriiutic, !*
Am
.ii<i.lo.
Haupt praobtfU
1841.
1847.
"
Kl
P.
ii
17
"
i.
luqumtt
! crtdei.
CHAP.
I.J
'
OF LANGUAGES.
Gyarmath
the the
The language which we call Turkish is Osmanli; and, according to the late lamented M. Davids, it is most perfect of all those commonly called Tartarian, but by him
and
others.
denominated " idiomes Turks.'" " It is " (says he) " rich, elevated, and Perhaps it has never been surpassed by any language in melodious. " Mirificam habet the delicacy and exactness of its expressions." * Turcica dignitatem," says Sir W. Jones. 8 Some of these excellences are no doubt owing to the admixture of Arabic, as a necessary consequence of the adoption of the Mohammedan religion ; and others to
its
connection, from political causes, with the Persian.
To
the other
Relation to
lliaia "-
Tartarian dialects I shall advert hereafter.

16. Of the preceding classes of languages, all but the last are supposed to be connected more or less closely with the Sanskrit, the sacred language of the Brahmins. The relation of any European tongues to those of India does not seem to have been suspected until the latter part of the sixteenth century, when Goropius Becanus (Johan Becan of Gorp) pointed out many resemblances between Teutonic and Indian words 4 but unfortunately the inference that he drew from these, was, that the conversation between Adam and Eve in Paradise was carried on in Flemish Little information of real value in Glossology was to be obtained from the more ambitious undertaking of Conrad Gesner, in his * Mithridates, de differentiis Linguarum, turn veterum, turn quae hodie apttd diversas nationes in tutu orbe terrarum in usu sunt' (1555), though he treated briefly of many different languages in alphabetical order, " Abasinorum, Abgazari,
!
jEgyptiaca, Êolica, JEthiopica? &c. The true relations and affinities of these tongues remained long unknown and unsuspected; but in
William Jones delivered his inaugural Discourse President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, it began to be perceived that the Sanskrit, the sacred language of India, would open to the Glossologist "an immense mine" of information. 4 And in exploring this, it was soon found, that it led to a better knowledge,
1784, when Sir
first
as
had ever before been attained, of most of the languages of Europe. Hence arose a classification of many languages, as well European as Asiatic, under one common head, called by different writers, Caucasian, Indo- Caucasian, Indo-European, Indo- Teutonic, Sarmatic, Japhetic, and, of late, Aryan. That this classification' under whatsoever title it may be ranged, has thrown vast light on the languages both of Europe and Asia, there can be no manner of doubt. Out of the large number of works which have been written on this family of languages, there is none more remarkable than Professor Bopp's Comparative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, German, and Sclavonic Languages,' which has been translated into English, and has formed the subject
than
'
Affinitas Linguae Hungarica;
cum
Linguis Fennica:
3 I
oriîni.s,
i7.
2 *
Grammaire Turke,
p. xlvii.
Works,
vol.
p.
&c. 360.
i.
1799.
p. xiv.
Ongines Antwerpianae.
1569.
Asiat. Researches, vol.
,;
10
of an able
this
article
OK LANGUAGES.
in the
'
CHAP.
title
J.
Edinburgh Review.'
'
The very
of
the relations of the Sanskrit This was long ago have spread, as well in Europe as in Asia. contemplated by Sir William Jones as probable. He said, " that the old sacred language of India was more perfect than the Greek, more
serves to
work
show how widely
copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to each of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of the verbs, and in the forms of the Grammar, than could possibly have
been produced by accident" He added, " there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit," and " tliat the old Persian might be added to the same family ;"* all which has since been amply verified.
Asiatic
17.
The
to
;
Asiatic languages considered as a distinct class
guagea"
reduced
the
following main
;
stems:
1.
may be The before-mentioned

Turk
; 4, the CfttfMM these the three first
Aryan
and
2, the Semitic
3, the Tatarian, or
its
derivatives; and 5, the Malayan.
Of
alone seem to have been
known
to the
Greek and Roman authors

cir-
the fourth differs from every other family of languages, in the
Aiy.m.
cumstance that all its words are monosyllabic; and the fifth is widely connected with the island tongues, which may be regarded as belonging to another division of the globe. 18. At the head of the Aryan languages stands the Sanskrit whether originally a spoken dialect, or one systematized by the priests for sacred puq>oses, has been made matter of doubt; but
that
4
it
a fullv-dewlopi-d language
It appears as has gone through several gradations is certain. in those very ancient compositions, the
It had undergone considerable change when it was subVedas.' sequently eml>odied in the laws of Menu, and in those mystical
oka, the
nrm,
al>out
It assumed a different Mahabharata' and 'Ramavana.' 500 years Ix'fore our em, in the lately discovered in-
scriptions on
the rocks of
Kitpurdigiri,
so ably deciphered
by
my
Mr. EnwiN Nouuis;* and it is manifestly the origin of most of the dialects still spoken over the hither peninsula of India. though they are more or less vitiated by an admixture of foreign The Sanskrit was little known in Europe before the pub idioms, heat ion of Ha Minn's 'Code of (icntoo Laws' ( I77(i), in the Preface description <>!' it was given, with plates of the u, win. Alphabet, .ind m| various extracts from compositions In verse and
learned
liiend
1
prose.
pui
a
Khorth uhvrwards, the study of

d w
ill
i i
this
language began
(
to
be
.1
"
i
.
land as on the
'out incut,
at
Professorship
i
oi
i
has
sine
lablished
and Oxford,
f
<>l
which
Olid
ii
I,.
\\
DJ
thai
\\
highly distinguished < ilossolo mile ram mars have been limned,
I
<
<<
the parent language and of

J<
nl
" iv,
it-
derivatives,
<.
,</..
of the
htM.
XII.
i.v
I,
M'l.
i.
i'.
419.
N'i.
164.
CHA1\
I.J
Or LANGUAGES.
by Coeejjrooke (1805), Carey (1806), Wilkins (1808), Wilson (1841), and several continental writers; of the Prakrit, by Lassen (1836), of the Bengali, by Halhed (1778), of the Urdu or Hindustani, by Schultz (1741), of the Hindi, by Adam (1833), of the Guzerat and Mahratta, by Drummond (1808), &c. In several
Sanskrit,
parts of India there are dialects apparently different in origin from the Sanscrit, as the Tamul (improperly called Malabar), of which there
was a Grammar by Zieuenhalg (1716), and the Telinga or Tehogoo, by Carey (1814). With these as well as with the older Indian
and Malay, the Singhalese, of which diilerent dialects are spoken in Ceylon, seems to have connection. Grammar of this mixed language was published by Mr. LAMBMCK (1834). The Pali language, in which the sacred books of the Buddhists of Ceylon, Ava, and Siam, are written, is supposed to have been once the spoken language of Magadha (now Bahar), and consequently related to the Sanskrit. See Burnouf and Lassen's Essai sur le Pali' (1826). The 'Zend' and Pehlevi,' containing the sacred doctrines of Zerdusht (Zoroaster), and comments thereon, have been treated as authentic by Anquetie du Perron (1771), Rask (1826), Burnouf (1832), ItuLLER (1839), and other continental Glossologists but their authenticity was disputed by Sir W. Jones, Mr. Richardson, and
'
Colonel
Vans Kennedy; "so
that
the
subject" (says Professor
may
ascribed to those of Shem ; it is therefore styled Semitic. The propriety of the denomination has been questioned ; but the greater or less affinity of the tongues to each other is beyond a
" requires further and more deliberate investigation." The subsequent labours, however, of Colonel Rawlinson, in deciphering the Persian cuneiform inscriptions, and showing their connection with the Parsi and modern Persian, may be thought to turn the scale in favour of the continental Glossologists, at least as to the Zend. The Armenian language is, in part at least, of an Aryan character, although it contains some traces of connection with "the Finnish and other languages of Northern Asia. The oldest Grammar is that of Rivola (1024), the latest that of Petermann (1837). Of the ancient and now almost extinct languages of Asia Minor, the' Phrygian, Mysian, Lydian, Lycian, &c, the little that is known seems to rank them in general with the Indo-European. 1!). As the Aryan family of languages has been assigned to the Semitic descendants of Japhet, so the next which I have to notice has been
'
Hayman Wilson)
doubt
be classed as the Hebrew, the Aramean, the Phoenician, the Arabic, and the Ethiopic of which the first is commonly regarded
;
Thev
as nearest to the original stock, purity.
and the
last as
most distant from
it
in
20. The pure Hebrew exists only in the books of the Old Testa- Hebrew , ment. * rom the tune of the Babylonish captivitv, the Jewish people Arameau who spoke it, were successively oppressed by mightier
-
nations, until
'
Journal Royal Asiatic Society, No. VIII. p. 347.
12
their political annihilation
OF LANGUAGES,
[CHAP.
in
I.
by the Romans,
the
first
century of the
Christian era
since
which period, the Hebrew
lias
lost the character
of a living language; but has been anxiously cultivated both by Jews and Christians on religious grounds, and in works too well known to need being here specified. Learned men, in general, for a long while, regarded it as a language of divine origin, which might reflect light on other dialects, but could receive none from them. This prejudice was first effectually shaken by Schultens, who, in his inaugural discourse in 1713, as Professor of Oriental languages, maintained that the primitive tongue taught to man by the Almighty no longer exists; but that the scriptural Hebrew, the Syrian, Chaldaic, and Arabic, were derived from it, and served mutually to illustrate each other; and in his ' Origiiies Hebrew ; sive Hebrece linguce antiquissima natura
et indoles
ex Arabia penetralibus
is
revocatce' (1724), he
explained
many
roots.
jiassages in the Bible, previously obscure,
The term Aramean
by reference to Arabic derived from Aram, the scriptural name
of Syria, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, and Assyria, countries believed to have been originallv occupied by the descendants of Aram, the tilth son of Shem. Hence the Chaldaic is denominated the Eastern
1
Aramean language, and the Syriac the Western. The study of the Hebrew tongue has naturally been much connected with both branches of the Aramean not only from their similarity of origin, but because die -lews, while they "sat down and wept by the waters of Bahvlon,"
;
gradnally acquired both the speech and the letters of their conquerors';
and subsequently learned from

M Ita
baa
((Madam
rt
their neighbours to converse in Syriac BIabtinius), "non tain re qnam ratione dillemnt: ('haldira lingua purior est, <pia Daniel et Kzras
lingtue"
(says
paerunt
i
Byriaca impnrior, et
ab
analogia
Chaldaica'
interdum
diacedena, ant Paraphraatai et Talmttdicl, ac demum Christi wecalum < >n ..it tlie relation Of all these dialects t< each other, addiii-.***
1 1 1
-1
tional light will
Rawlinaon and Mr. Nonii, tin(uniform inscriptions.

<
no doubt be thrown by the energetic labours of Colonel in deciphering the Babylonian portion of
langnage the few extant remains have given
in.
21.
Of
the
Phamokn
occasion to mocfa learned controversy; bu1 the result of the whole |g Ito ! gathered from the recent work of Dr. GKSBNIU8, * Scrip!
Una' linguaîue IMioiinia' monumental quotqnol snpersunt, edits et lila' ( IH.'JT), in which the inscnpli.in, found at Malta, at Cieti in
1
Athens,
a
I
in Siinlinia, in
Sicily, at
Carthage, and
I
nndia, If well
I
In-
seals, writings,
and cuius of
in
'Iniiiician
II.
in Numake, are
presented
engra\
23.
iin
The
nid
i"
have
In
l>een
anciently distinguished
parts of Arabia,
into
the
tl
hmaelitic,
ulheiii,
the northern
l\i<rrish, in
the
// iiin/iiiilir, in
and the
the centre.
bill
Of these
the
1$
two
Ibllllei
were
i
.'ene|all\ believed to
.
be
lust,;
the
1 1
mid
I
to Imve Ihimi
<
ni
i
recovered h)
...
.
mean
*
ol
...me
<
remarkable
i.
i
Ha/liM,
"l.i
it
<
i/.
1.
r.im.
Child
hi
unit
IV. if.
CHAP.
I.]
OF LANGUAGES.
13
The Koreish, having been of the Koran, has made its way, with the spread of Islam, to the Indian Archipelago on the cast, and the Steppes of Tatary on the north it had once prevailed in Spain on the west, and is still taught and used in Central Africa on
Aden.
1
rock-inscriptions on the coast of
(Klopted
by Mahomet
in the composition
the south.
well
Its Dictionaries and Grammars are too numerous, and too known to need recapitulation here. 23. The name of Tatars or Tartars has been loosely given to many
Tauuian.
Middle and Northern Asia, nearlv in the f*"ff way in which the classical writers employed the term 'Scythian.' At present, most writers include under the designation of Tatars, the Tungusians, Mongols, and Turks, whose languages have manv points of resemblance. A comprehensive view of these various dialects was taken by the late M. Abel-Remusat, in his liecherches sur les Ungues Tartares, ou memoires sur diferens points de la grammaire,
'
nations, or tribes, in
et de
la litterature des
(1820).
there
To
the Tungusian
Mandchous, des Mongols, des Ouigours,' &c. race belong the conquerors of China,
called Mantchus, who possess a literature much studied in France, especially since the publication of M. Langles' ' Alphabet Tartare Mantchou' (1787), and his ' Dictionnaire Tartan Mantchou
Francois' (1789), compiled from a MS. of Amyot. Of the Mongol those of the eastern or proper Mongols, the western or Calrmwks, and the Buryaets. The Mongol Dictionary of Kovalevsky (1835) and his Grammar (1844) are among the latest compilations on that dialect. The several Turk dialects are ably explained in the Turkish Grammar (1832) of the late Mr. Lumley >\vii)s, of whose premature death I have before spoken. He classes them, as at present existing, under ten heads the Ouighour, Jagataian, Kabojak, Kirghiz, Turcoman, Caucaso-Danubian, Austro- Siberian, Yakout, Tchouvach, and Osmanli. Of these the first was the earliest cultivated, but as those who speak it have had little intercourse with
there are three dialects
foreigners,
it retains its ancient simplicity whilst the Osmanli, the ; court and learned language of the Turkish empire, having been enriched by a large infusion of the Arabic and Persian, and by number-
less literary compositions in modern times, has become far the most copious and refined. Of the Ouighour writings the remains are very ftm and scarce; the oldest appears to bear date a.d. 1434. It is in the Bodleian Library, but was entirely mistaken both by Dr. Hyde and Sir W. Jones. The Jagataian dialect was formerly very like the Ouighour; but in recent times it has approximated to the Osmanli. The Kirghis are also said to have been once a literary people, but they have retrograded to comparative barbarism. Of the remaining dialects some have a mixture of the Finnish ; and the tribes which speak them are generally uncivilized. Some or other of the Turk dialects are now used by nearly all the nations dwelling between the Mediterranean, Siberia, and the frontier of China, and between the extreme boundary
1
Forster, Historical
Geography of Arabia.
1844.
'
14
OF LANGUAGES.
[OHAP.
I.
Chinese
"
Oifnese
of Siberia and India. dominant language in several provinces of Persia. 24. The languages of China and of some neighbouring nations constitute a family widely different from any of the preceding. In the vast empire of China the written language must be distinguished from Of the former, which has for many centuries been highly the spoken. cultivated, I shall treat hereafter. The spoken language is entirely monosyllabic; the syllables end either in a vowel or a nasal consoThe nant, and several of our consonants are unknown to the Chinese. number of words distinguished by articulation is very small, being
Moreover, the Turkish (Osmanli) is the preEgypt and the Barbary States, and even in
reckoned by Fourmont at 383, and by Bayer at 352, whilst Remusat says, " in the Dictionary which I have compiled for my own use, I Most of have reduced the number, without inconvenience, to 272. the articulate words, however, admit of variation by the tones in which The effect of these tones in pronunciation is scarcely they are uttered. perceptible to a European ear; but even taking them into account, Many words, the whole number of words does not exceed 1600.* however, in all languages, have different and unconnected significaAs in English the word pound signifies " a certain mone\ of tions. account," an " enclosure for the confinement of straying cattle," and " to bruise in a mortal ;" so in Chinese the word pe signifies " cloth," " a hundred," " a cypress," and " a prince." Such are the imperii <and the grammatical tions of the language in respect to its vocabulary relations of the words, as will hereafter be shown, are equally inartifnial. There are, at least, five languages which fill nearly all the countries from China to the borders of liengal, and which agree with the Chim 106 in three obvious characteristics, those of being originally monosyllabic, nearly all intonated, and without inflection.' These The designation AiminiUc. languages have been termed Indo-Chinese.* is given to the language which prevails, with slight ditlerences, in Here the words are mostly of Cochin-Cliina, Toni|uin, and Camlioya. Chinese origin, and the written characters of the Chinese are in use,as In Laos those characters are disused, as they arc is the case in Corea. in all other countries approximating to Bengal and alphabetical systems B* employed, more or less similar to the Sanskrit. 1 In Tibet the words n China; but the writing approaches to the liengal (re into The Illinium language is radically monosyllabic, and the alphabet." in its formation, loo, [t ins to > u me latioii leans to the Chinese flit in it; idiom 1111(1 const met HI it l'esel nlif S Illl'le the Chinese the in 'ill-. ,i.| llimlostaii, and mas consequently be said to partake items. 7 Dr. LKYDKM Ixjth Hi the monosyllabic and |.l\
1 -
.i
li
I.
Ibid. p. 56.
Mm
i.
n. .in,
'
<
'i.
in.
Qnm
'
Mrtatfoa mi tin' linl'>-Oiinc*e Lnngunge*. Mnmlimnti, 149. ;iu.i Alpli;il Carey, llurmnu Oram. p. 7.
i
Til. etui.
CHAP.
I.]
OF LANGUAGES.
15
calls
nearly the
same of the Arracan language, which he
the Rukheng. 1
The Siamese use the Chinese with small variation. Of

little is
intonations, but adopt the Sanskrit alphabet
the Peguan, otherwise called Moan, but There was, probably, a time, as Mr. Marsham thinks, " when all the countries west and south of China, up to the very borders of Bengal, comprising an extent of country nearly a thousand miles in length, used the Chinese colloquial medium."* How far this opinion may be found correct, whether the present languages of those countries may not be, in part at least, of Tatarian origin, and whether even Chinese itself may not be a Tatarian dialect, must be left to be decided by the researches of future glossologists. Together with the Indo-Chinese are to be ranked the different dialects of the Japanese language, as spoken in Niphon, Jeso, and some smaller islands, among which is Loo-Choo. An English and Japanese vocabulary was published in 1830 by W. H. Medhurst, and a vocabulary of the Loo-Choo language is to be found in Capt. B. Hall's voyage to that island. These languages differ radically from the Chinese, though thev have adopted many Chinese words. The Chinese characters also are occasionally intermixed with those of Japan, though the latter differ from them in great part. 25. The term Malayan, pronounced by the natives Malay u, is given to many dialects prevailing on the southern part of the further peninsula of India, and in the islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, &., as far to the eastward as the Moluccas, to the southward as Timor, and to the northward as the Philippines. In the greater part of these
known.
Malay,
countries
confined to the sea-coasts, while other tongues are spoken in the inland parts, and in these cases it is much mixed with Hindoo
it is
and Arabic
but in Sumatra it appears to have been from a period of obscure antiquity the language of the dominant people in the interior. Whether it came from any and what other country to Sumatra is beyond the reach even of tradition but that it was brought from that island to the Peninsula, now called Malayan, is sufficiently proved, and that it was widely diffused in many other directions by the commercial activity of the Malayan race is incontrovertible. To Maijsdkn's
; ;
of the Malayan Language' (1812), is prefixed a very clear introduction, describing the circumstances of the language in reference to the countries where it prevails, and to the
*
Grammar
full
and
other tongues
from which it has received accessions, and enumerating the attempts of Dutch and other writers to render it accessible to the European student. Subsequent treatises have entered more deeply into these
of the most remarkable is that of Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin for the year 1832'), on the Kavi language, a dialect employed in the island of Java, but only, as it should seem, in the dramatic representation of certain mythological legends. To this is added, by the same author, a comparative view of the languages
researches.
Among
these one
'
W.
V. Humboldt
(in the
winch
Leyden, Dissert.
Chinese Gram. 151,
16
OF LANGUAGES.
[CHAP.
I.
he regards as derived from or cognate with the Malay, viz., those of Java, Bugi, Madagascar, Tonga, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii
Iiido-i'aciik.
(Otaheite and Owhyhee), the Tagala, &c. 26. Of these last-mentioned languages, several have been classed with others under the title of I>ido- Pacific languages by Mr. LOGAN, He divides the able editor of the Journal of the Indian Archipelago.'
'
2nd, Micronesian 1st, Polynesian the whole into seven groups 3rd, Papuanesian ; 4th, Australian; 5th, Eastern Indonesian; 6th,
:
; ;
and 7th, North-Eastern Indonesian each group being Darned from the regions where a peculiar form of speech chiclK (but not always exclusively) prevails, so far, at least, as has hitherto been ascertained for in several instances the knowledge acquired of the different dialects is but sujxjrficial. The term Polynesian, which has been employed by several writers with a very various latitude of signification, is applied by this writer to the dialects of the Samoan, Tongan, New Zealand, Tahitian, Karo-
Western Indonesian
tongan,
Mungarwan, Paumotuan, Waihuan, Nukuhivan, and Hawaiian

j
languages; and also to those of Fakaafo, Vaitupu, Kotama, Figi, and Of these many are well known the Trikopian and Vanikoran tribes. as the Tonga, from Mariner's' Voyage' (1S17): New Zealand, from
Kendall's
'
New
Zealand
Grammar and
Vocabulary'
(1820);
the
Tahitian (Otalieitan), and Nukuhivan (Marquesan), from Busehmann's 4 Apercuik la Langiu- </rs /sirs Man/uiscs ami de la hingue Taitienne' (1843); the Hawaiian (of Owhyhee), which seems little more than a
dialed of the
New
Zealand, from Andrews's
'
Hawaiian Vocabulary'
(1886),
(
&C
the Micronesian group, only short vocabularies arc known of >i Tobi, I'elcw, Carol inia, Mille, Radak, and Ulea. The I'a/iuaiwsian includes the languages of Tanna, IWallicolo, and
/.
Caledonia.
Of
these
islands,
the
southern,
which are
least
In a Polynesian element Marsden's miscellaneous works, notice is taken of the language of Tanna and Mai lie. .In, in the New lei | ides, and also of that of Neu Caledonia. The Australian includes Australia, properly so called, ami Tasmania,
1
known, are Welieved to retain in its purest which in the northern are more mixed with
state their ancient tongue,
of which
many
vocabularies have been collected from

W'.llin-t.
-ii.
the neighbour-
hood of Bothunt,
. ;
Peel River, Murray,] Iverpool, Sidney,
Mucqiiiuie, Morelon Hay, Mount Morris, Cobnrg, (-'roker's Island, Poii nbscrved thai some liuin the most, and il ha .ii, \< I.
1
oil
I.M.ilitu
are
in.,
like
each
nllier,
whilst
others from
near
these
.it are most wideh
different.
.
The
natives
who
speak
h.ilects
are blacks, Homiim.

,
ill.
the African nee

civilization.
V,,
il,. iii
whom
j
.. 1 1 1
1 . 1
.1 Afyrtfot, to distinguish them from he .scaled in \v lhe\ are niiicli

I i I
Some
rud
h.
nts of griuninar, and pretty

d,
1 1 .
full
vocakai
n |ibh
1 1 1
by Teichelmann and Schurmaa

p,
1840), and
M
1
(Ihi-J).
ti
lad.
\i. in|.ri. v.pI. v.
jHii.
CHAP.
I.j
OF LANGUAGES.
17
those from Aroo, on the Papuan Islands
The Eastern Indonesian languages comprise the south-west of New Guinea, to Sumbawa,
between New Guinea and the Moluccas, the Moluccas, Celebes, Pujg Nias, and Zilanjang. The speech of the New Guinea island! is radically of Negrito origin, but mixed by means of connmne with Malay words. The speech of Sumbawa is of a still more mixed character, and is reckoned by Marsden as a branch of the Malay as are those of the Moluccas and Celebes.
;
The Western Indonesian comprise the dialects of Lombok, Bali, Borneo, the Malayan Peninsula, and Sumatra, which last-mentioned island, as I have before observed, is considered to be the earliest known seat of the Malayan language. The North-eastern Indonesian embrace the Philippine and Formosan.
Of
is
the Philippine dialects the
several vocabularies and
otherwise called
4
roth has written,
most important is the Tagala, of which grammars have been compiled. The Formosan the Sideian, and is divided into several dialects. K lapSur la Langw des Indigenes de VIsle de Formose.'
l
In most of the seven groups above mentioned there are manv languages or dialects as yet undescribed. The prevailing character of those, here called Polynesian, is vocalic, harmonious, and flowing, but With a small number of articulations, whence it often degenerates into excessive weakness. In most of the Eastern Indonesian the proportion of consonantal terminations is small. In the Western and North-
Eastern Indonesian there are more consonants, and a tendency to nasal terminations; indeed in the ruder dialects of these, strong nasal and guttural articulations abound, and the pronunciation is smothered and
intonated.
as highly vocalic
The Papuanesian and Australian are represented in general some of the latter are exclusively vocalic in their
:
but the information hitherto obtained of the various dialects of the former is but slight. Such are a few of the principal remarks made by Mr. Logan on the Indo-Pacific languages.
27. The vast continent of Africa being above 4,000 geographical miles in extreme length, and nearly as much in extreme breadth, and having been in very great part unexplored either in ancient or modern times, is consequently occupied by a vast variety of races, nations,
tribes,
African,
terminations;
and have attained any high degree of civilization, whilst many are sunk in barbarism, and others are wholly unknown to Europeans. Hence it may be easily inferred that their modes of speech are very various, differing widely amongst themselves, and from the more cultivated tongues of Europe and Asia, as well in formation as in
few of
whom
The number of languages and dialects, in this quarter of was calculated by Adelung, as I have mentioned, at 276; and of about 100 he gave short specimens. Subsequent additions to our knowledge have been made in the vocabularies, grammars, and
construction.
the globe,
treatises of missionaries, travellers, and others. To classify and arrange such a heterogeneous mass of materials, on any sound "glossologies
1
Journal Asiatique, 1822,
i.
193.
13
principles, is
OF LANGUAGES.
[CHAP.
I.
beyond our present powers, not only from their number but from the changes which most of them have undergone from foreign influence, particularly from ancient Phoenician colonization, and from
more penetrating effect of Mahometan proselytism, which has That traces continued for centuries, and is still in active operation. may exist here, as well as in other parts of the globe, of the great tripartite division of Japhetic, Semitic, and Hamitic tongues, or that
tiro far
nearlv
all
Africa, south of the Equator,
may be
glossologically con-
sidered as forming but a single family, it would perhaps be us wrong These are positively to deny, as premature dogmatically to assert.
in a position to well as in other inductive sciences, preconceived theories (such as Bacon, in his pedantic Style, calls " idols of the theatre") are especially to be guarded against! It may therefore, for the present, suffice to begin with certain local
possible results of an induction

certain
which we are not yet

in glossology, as
establish on
grounds; and
divisions of the continent, as the North, the North-East, the Interior,
the West, the East, and the South.

North
African.
Erom Morocco to the bounds of Egypt, the languages now Turkish is the ken in the North of Africa are of three kinds. dominant tongue at the few points where the Government officers are Turks. Arabic is the language of the cultivators of the plains; hut the mountain parts arc occupied by an ancient people, supposed to be' descended from the Libyans, Nnmidians, or Mauritanians of classical In Algiers they are known asKabyles (literally tribes), in the history. northern parti of .Morocco they are termed Berbers, and in the southern and western valleys of the Atlas they are called S/ielhxi/i or Amazirgh.
28.
Sp
1
The language
siderably
at
Of these
luit
three
it
portions
(.t'
the
natives
diilcrs
is
conthe
present,
clearly the
same
in Origin;
and so
Jkrguah, or dialect of the TtancAt, the great nomadic tribes of the of Sahara,' With the preceding is sometimes reckoned the The language of the >ut, as it seems, incorrectly. '/'/A/.-. (TmMcAm, the former natives of the Canary Islands, is supposed to
!
.
cognate with the Berber, Rgypt, 00 the north-eastern border of Africa, occurs the Cnjitir laiivu.e.'e, \\ Inch is sup|M>sed to bear to the ancient Egyptian It is divided nearly the same relation as the Italian docs to the Latin. into the Stihitir of Upper Egypt, and the Bahim of Lower Egypt ti,.. to resemble the ancient lai though! ni"
ha\e
i>een
29.
In
brunch, called
<
tl i
e liashmwric.
The
recent
and 'n \mioi.i,io\ have given a new interest to Coptic language, the grammar of which has beenabfl
.
treated
'
\m
in,
Rosski.ini/uimI I'i.vuon.*
I .
iMd
i
80. Tracing
npw.i.-'
B
the
\,
oooiwof
k<:
the Nile,
we come
.!'
\
first
to
the
iii
-|.i.
N.
\fo.
844.
-.
IH.'.n.
I.cviicin
pi
i.
h,.
alumni.
,|.ii.i..i.
1837.
I.lng.
Copt.
ISM.
Qmnmet
Ungi Copt
CHAP.
I.]
OF LANGUAGES.
19
tongues of Nubia and Dongola (which agree together in the main, but differ from those of the neighbouring countries), and then to the Ethiopic. The term Ethiopic has at different times been employed with great latitude. The most ancient Greek writers confounded under it many nations as well Indian as African ; and what seems more remarkable, some modem glossologists have confounded Ethiopic widi Chaldean !' At present, however, it is confined to Abyssinia and the neighbouring countries, and is well distinguished into the Axumite or old G'heez,the Tigre or modem Gheez, and the Amhariv, the present popular and court language of Abyssinia besides some inferior dialects. The Ethiopic Lexicon and Grammar' of LrjDOLF (1661, 1702) aflbrd tlic amplest information as to the radical formation and structure of the
;
'
show that it has some affinity (though distant) Arabic and other Semitic tongues. Dependent on the Abyssinian Government are some tribes, speaking different languages, such as the Agows, about the sources of the Tacazze, or Blue Nile, 31. In crossing this vast continent, from the sources of the Kile to interior, the Western Ocean, the inland territories, so far as they are yet known to us, appear to be occupied by nations, which raj >idly arise and decay in consequence of their frequent wars. Of late years we learn that Bornou, which lies between the central Lake Tchad, and the great mart of Timbuctoo,has become dominant over a large extent of country, including Ifoussa, Begharma, and Nandara. It is said that with the languages of Bornou, Houssa, and Yoruba, which difier from each other, any one might travel from the Western coast to the very heart of Africa. The Bornou, Begharma, and Mandara tongues have been illustrated by Klaproth*, the Bornou by Mr. Norris. 3 Of the Hous:,a language, a very full vocabulary has recently been forwarded to tins country by the enterprising traveller, Dr. Barth, and it has been thought to contain some remains of the old Punic. Of the Yoruba, a short vocabulary is given by Claiterton, and a much larger by 4 Growth kr, with 'remarks by Vjdal. 32. On the Western coast, from Senegal to Congo, are numerous west Coast, tribes or nations, diflering more or less in language; but how far their separate dialects can be traced to a common origin, it is at present
Ethiopic language, and
to the
impossible to say. The principal tribes, proceeding southward, are the Foulahs, Jaloffs, Feloops, Mandwgos, Bulloms, Soosoos, Timmanees, Ashantees, &c. The speech of the Foulahs is soft and pleasant ; the
Fdlatah
quests
is
a dialect of
into
it
spoken by a tribe which has spread
far
the interior.
Dictionary and
Roger (1829).
1
Grammar The Mandingo tongue
its conOf* the Jaloff, called also Wolofe, a have been published by Darp (1828) and
is
widely spread,
in different
Victorius Chaldere sen /Ethiopicae Lingua Institutiones. lo4S. Ess;ii sur la I.angue du Bornou, suivi des Vocabulaires du Bcgharmi, du
Man-
dara, et
3
du Timbuctu. 1826. of the Bornu or Kanuri language. 1853. Vocabulary of the Yoruba language. 1852.
Grammar
c2
20
dialects, including those of
OF LANGUAGES.
[CHAP.
East Coast.
South Africa.
Bambouk and Bambara; but has receivec See MacbBIAB'i from the Mahometan teachers many Arabic words. ' Mandingo Grammar' (1837). Of the Bullom language, a Grammar ant Vocabulary were compiled by Nylander (1814); a Grammar anc Vocabulary of the Soosoo language was published in 1802, and is sak to be the first instance of writing (except, perhaps, in Arabic cha racters) ever practised in any of the languages of Western Africa The Timmanee, of which the Logo and Krango are dialects, has ai affinity to the Bullom, and both are said to have a pleasing sound The Soosoo, too, is as soft and vocal as Italian but proceeding south ward the languages are found to be much harsher. The Ashantm Fantee, and Beveral other dialects, are closely connected together; bu the first is described as the best sounding and best constructed. 83. Proceeding southward from Abyssinia to Mozambique, we firs meet with the Gallas, a savage people, of whose language K. Tut schkk has compiled a Lexicon (1844) and a Grammar (1 845). Dr Kiiai'F has published a Vocabulary of six East African language! (1850). The Somaulis are thought to be a more civilised oflshoo! o The Soicaulis, or Suathe Gallas, whom they resemble in language. limits, though so similar in name, appear to be totally differenl in origb and language. Many other tril>es, of whose languages little is known occupy the inland parts and the coast as far as Mozambique. Th( great island of Madagascar, lying oft' this coast, is occupied by tribe speaking a .Malayan dialect, of which several Vocabularies and Grammar have lieen published. 34. I consider South Africa as extending to the Cape of Goot Elope, from Mozambique on the Kast Coast, and from Congo on tin It seems probable that the earliest inhabitants of all thisregioi were of a race called Namaquas, Koranas, or Hottentots, whose language A differenl was radically the same but distinguishable in dialect. race, of which the two branches are the Kafir and Sechuana, or fiechappears to have advanced from the northward, driving the weaker Inhabitanti before them. The languages of the two races an essentiallv different; bed those of tike Kafir and Sechuana tribes evidently dlaleCti of a common mother-tongue, which seems to havt once prevailed* and perhaps partiall) does so still, from the norther) In Congo, Angola, and bounder) ol the Cape Colon) to the Kquator. on ill.- W< Coast, the languages spoken are evidentl) of tin I. and on the East Coast the natives of Delagoa Bay, thi and the Sowauli, speak languages but slightl) difterent
;
|
.
.,
tin- Sechuana, guages of the II

I
Ll<
IITKNSTKIN publishe<l some rem. irks on the lannd Kafirs in 1808, and Akchukm/n '.eel man;
I
Bbuscioi n drew up a slight grammatical De CannkKAITIM on the ('niign language in "...*. compiled sDictionar) and Grammar of the Angola language (otheB Whether the inn; many ot' If w retchel celled Bunda) m 1804-5.
mar smeared
i
in
1887.
i-.a""
c.iii.d
/;.. ;//i, ./,
be s
oornrjri
dialed or the Hottentot, or
; ,
CHAP.
I.]
OF LANGUAGES.
21
been matter of dispute. Those who maintain the former, assert that the Bosjemen purposely changed their words, that their persecutors might not understand what they were saying. 35. It may be well supposed that the vast continent of America, above 10,000 miles in length, embracing every variety of climate and of terrestrial formation, inhabited by numbers of tribes, many of them unknown to the other members of the same continent, and all, till a late period in history, cut oft' from intercourse with the other quarters of the globe, should exhibit modes of speech widely different from any of those to which I have hitherto adverted. Such, in fact, is the case. The modifications of expression may appear to us new and strange ; but on examination we shall find them emanating from the primary " Here" (says principles which belong to our common human nature. M. Du ponceau) " we find no monosyllabic language like the Chines. and its cognate idioms; no analytical languages like those of the North of Europe, with their numerous expletive and auxiliary monosyllables no such contrast is exhibited as that, which is so striking to the most
entirely distinct tongue, has
America,
between the complication of the forms of the Basque language, and the comparative simplicity of those of its neighbours the
superficial observer,
French and Spanish;" but yet "the American languages are rich in words and regular in their forms, and do not yield in those respects to any other idiom." These remarks, indeed, were meant by their talented author to apply chiefly to the languages of North America but with some exceptions they may be considered applicable to the known languages of the whole continent, which are divided by Adelung into those of the Southern, Middle, and Northern parts of the Continent. 36'. Conformably to the plan of the great Glossologist, I begin with the Southern extremity of the American Continent. Here we find different tribes of the Moluches and Puelches. Of the language of the Moluches, or Araucans (the original inhabitants of Chili), a Grammar and short Vocabulary were published by Falkner (1774). Advancing Northward to the borders of Brazil, we meet with the Guarani, of whose language, which spreads to Peru, Paraguay, and the Rio de la Plata, a Vocabulary and Grammar were compiled by Ruiz de Moxtoya (1640). The Mbaya, or Guaykura, spoken on
1
;
South
America
the
left
border of Paraguay,
is
said to bear a resemblance in its struc-
The Abipones, in Paraguav, have a and well-sounding language. The Quiche, or Quichua, the ancient language of Peru, has been illustrated by many writers, Spaniards, from De St. Thomas, in 1 560, to Rubio and chiefly FlGUEREDO, in 1754. It is a well-sounding language, suited both to Rhetoric and Poetry. The Ayniara, which bears a great resemblance to it, is spoken by Indians in the Northern districts of the Argentine Republic and in the Southern of Pern. Of this language, a Grammar and Vocabulary were compiled by Bertonio (1(303-1612). Of the Yunga, which is spoken in part of Peru, but is wholly different from
peculiar
1
ture to the
Basque language.
Preface to Zeisberger, p. 77.
22
OF LANGUAGES.
[CHAP.
I.
the Quichua, a Grammar was drawn up by De la CarreIia (1G44). Among the languages East of Peru is the Moxa, of which a Grammar was written by P. Marban (1701), and which has an affinity to the
Maipuran, one of the most widely-diffused throughout the
district
of
the Oronoko; whereas the neighbouring Sapiboconi bears a striking
resemblance to the Quichua. The Aguan, Ornaguan, J'Jnagttan, and Yurimaguan, are branches of the languages spoken by a once-powerful people on both banks of the Maranhon and Oronoko. The Achaguan, which has been mistaken for a dialect of the Maipuran, is a soft and The well-articulated language; whilst the Salivan abounds in nasals. Tarvra, Betoi, and Situ/a, in New Granada, are cognate dialects: of the first-mentioned, a manuscript Grammar, from the collection of W. v. Humboldt, is preserved in the Royal Library at Berlin. On the North coast of South America are found the Arawaks, Tamanaku, and Caraibs. Of the Arawak language an account is given by C. The Tamanaks, once a numerous, but now a diminished Quanot. people, speak a language resembling that of the Caraibs, or (nil this, which is represented to be the most harmonious and best constructed that the of all the American languages, and to have this peculiarity Caraib Grammar and Diction" two sexes speak different dialects. ary by Raymoxd were published (1065-1667), and a Galibi and French Dictionary and Grammar (1763). In the Western Highlands of this coast was the Muysca nation, now extinct, of whose language a Grammar was written by B. De Lugo (1619). 87; Under the head of Middle America, Adelung includes the
1
West Indies, and the mainland Northward from the Isthmus of Daricn to the Rio Colorado on the Gulf of The ancient Ian California, and the Rio P>ravo on that of Mexico.
Islands called the Antilles, or
c-s of the Islands are almost wholly extinct. The original name Haiti has hecn restored to the island named Ivy the Spaniards Hisliola, or St. Domingo; bat every other trace of the language has
The Qaraib language, remains of which are found (as ippnarftd have oh served) on the neighbouring mainland, was formerly spoken in all the smaller Antilles, and is said to lie partially extant in Trinidad and Ifargaritai lt affinity to some Polynesian tongues is maintained
1 i
h\
If,
'i
in
mi
oi
Proceeding
to
the mainland,
we
find
native
language, the dflMW, of which a Professorship was established in the ". I' of Guatemala, and a Grammar and Dictionary compiled Of the I'im*>iicIh\ also in the state of Guatemala, a teaching it.
Oeighl
ring
tbfl
maya
n
by Gage 1665), and in this, as well as in tongue, Bonie words seem to he derived from the Table land of Mexico the raosl remarkable
I
of the Aztrrs, or proper
Mr.rii-aiis, a
people
odious
for
then
-aii'.'iutMii v
human
ii
Ii
sacrifices as
tonal
they
were remarkable
their political
power, to
liiii
tn hit*
works. Picture writing, Poetryi

|H(I7.
fOfl Siniiiiiliw, Sir.
Miiii'iirwi
do In Soolctu
Ktliiioloî<|ii<', II.
"
i.
CHAP.
Music,
I.]
OF
LANGUAGE,
23
very
and
Astronomy.
Their language was consequently
copious, and
many Grammars and Dictionaries of it have been composed, from the Vocabulary and Grammar of De Molina (1571) to Grammars have also been the Grammar of Sandoval (1810).
formed of the Potonaka, Huaxteca, Otomi, and Tarasca tongues, spoken in the adjoining countries. In California are found the Waikur, and its sister tongue, the Cora. The larahumara, in New Biscay, is cognate with the Mexican, and has received a Dictionary from Steffel (1791), and a Grammar from Telechea (1826). 38. The remaining Languages of America occupy that continent North 6" Exclusive of A from the North of New Mexico to the Frozen Ocean. the English tongue, now dominant throughout nearly the whole of this vast extent, numerous native languages and dialects are still spoken, and several have become extinct, leaving few memorials of In classifying, or even enumerating, these different their existence. modes of speech, one great difficulty arises from the various names given to the Tribes by themselves and by foreigners, and from the Thus the Upsarokas confusion of generic with specific distinctions. are called by the English Crows, by the French, Soldiers noirs, and by the Mandans, Wattasun; and are divided into the Ahnahaicays, Kihatsas, and Allakaweahs, the latter of whom are named by the So, those English Paunch Indians, and by the French, Ventrus. who call themselves Nadowessis and Dahkotahs, are by others termed Asseeiiaboiites, Assinipoils, Asseeneepoytuks, Sioux, JEscabs, and Stone Indians; and similar varieties occur in the designation of almost all Many collections of vocabularies the native tribes of North America. have been made, particularly by scientific bodies in the United States, and by individuals, especially Missionaries. President Jefferson is said to have collected fifty vocabularies of the aboriginal tribes within his reach. The American Philosophical Society possesses many Grammars of various Dictionaries and Grammars of a like nature. native Dialects have also been compiled, and Translations of the Scriptures and religious tracts composed, in those dialects. In 1666, the Missionary Eliot published his 'Indian Grammar begun;' a work, as the title implies, merely elementary. After a long lapse of time, Dr. Jonathan Edwards wrote his paper on the Mohegan
dialect.
*-
some importance
In the then state of Glossology this was a contribution of but its value was much lessened by the imperfect views which the reverend Author had taken of grammatical principle. He was succeeded by other Missionaries, Zeisderger, Hecke;
WELDER, and Howse, who will be hereafter noticed. Among the writings of a more general nature, on these languages, may be remarked 3 those of Messrs. Smith Barton, Dutonceau,* Pickering, and
1
1
New
2 3
Views of the Tribes of America. 1797. Memoire sur le Systeme Grammatical, &c. 1838. Remarks on Indian Languages of N. America. 1831.
24
OF LANGUAGES.
1
[CHAP.
I.
adopted by these and other writers nor is any one of them perfectly satisfactory; which, indeed, in the imperfect state of information on this subject, could not reasonably be expected. may, however, in a loose and general way, distinguish several languages or dialects, some in the southern part of the United States, as Floridian ; some advancing
classifications
;
GALLATIN.
The
are as yet far from concordant
We
in
a north-eastern direction, as Delaware ; others inclining rather to the north-west, as Iroquois ; and the most northerly of all, as Esquimaux.
I Jut
besides these great branches, there are

in
little is
some on the west
coast,
and some
too
iiorijian.
the interior and central parts of North America, of which
known to place them in any distinct Class. The Floridian tongues may be divided, according to Ikrtram, into three classes, of which he names the principal dialects, the Creek, the Uche, anil the Stincard. The Creeks, otherwise called Muskogidcie,
39.
CSine (as he thinks) from the south-west, beyond the Mississippi to the northern part of the Floridian Peninsula and their tongue was pleasing in sound, with a gentle and musical pronunciation altogether avoiding the letter 11. The Cherokees, on the contrary, sound that letter fully,
;
and their speech is loud and somewhat rough. The Chickasaw and Clwctaw dialects are reckoned among the Floridian but they seem to differ considerably from the Creek. Besides the tribes hen? mentioned others of the Floridian class were the Shawanese, Natchez, Kikkapoos, Otakapas, &c, some of whom have now become extinct. 40. The term J^lmoare, by which I have distinguished a whole class of languages, is strictly applicable only to a portion of them otherwise called the Loan Ltnap$, The former name, however, has
;
otne
known
in
Burope, as having been illustrated by the
grammar
Of ZkISBKRGKB, and by the speculations of Dui'ONtjKAU, PICKERING, \V. HUMBOLDT, and VAIL, The country once occupied by numerous
speaking cognate languages called Algonkin, Chippeway MoLermi uenape, Cree; etc*, lies between the fortieth and sixtieth of North latitude, and extends westward from the upper part of the Mississippi to tin' Atlantic The earliest attempt to reduce these languages to rule was in G&avikbs 'Illinois Grammar' (1690), of tli'- Alijimkin a DictiontJ) was contained in the 'Voyages of La Ilo\i\s (17Tr>). Of the ('hip/meat/ a vocabulary was given by :<;, with 'M table showing tin between the Algonkin 1 The otohigan, or language of the and Chippeway languages' T ),
tribes
rn.
1
I
M
i.
tern
people),
was
treated
at
large, as before
Zkkbebxeb?s Grammar (1788). oi / p$ was translated from the German Ms. by Mr. Duponoun (i*'J7). E&rarjtwxLncB (note on the same language; ii.iniiii.illlent of the Crce liineaiaê by Mr. HOWSK, Sod .in analysis of the Chippeway dialect, from the notes of Mr.
i\
;
Dr. .lo\\iuv\
Bowarm
,.
).
I.
,
!'
hirlinn Tribes,
1830.
CHAP.
I.]
OF LANGUAGES.
25
Iroquois.
41. The Mohawks, who dwelt far to the west, near the falls of Niagara, claimed pre-eminence in the celebrated confederacy of the
and afterwards six nations, called by the French Iroquois, and by the Dutch Maquas, Mengwe, or Mingos. The members of this confederacy were the Mohawks, Senecas, Onondagos, Oneidas, Kayugas,
five,
the Tuskaroras. Connected with them were minor tribes, tiie Hurons, Hochelagas, Canawavs, Nanticokes, &c. Heckewelder considers the Sioux to belong to this class but his opinion seems incorrect. Primers have been framed in the languages of the Mohawks and Senecas. vocabulary of the Huron dialect was given by LaHontan in his 'Memoires de l'Amerkjue' (1704), and a complete Grammar of the Onondago was compiled by the zealous
several
;
and,
subsequently,
missionary
42.
is said to be borrowed from the Algonkin Esquimaux, applied to tribes dwelling along the northern coast of America from Behring's Straits to Labrador and Greenland, who call themselves Innuit. Their language has been distinguished into the
Hkckkwelder. The term Esquimaux

is
language, and
Karalite or Greenland; the Eastern Esquimaux, on the coasts of Labrador, and sometimes reaching to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the 1 Vestern Esquimaux from the mouth of the river Mackenzie to Norton Sound. Of these latter, or related to them, many various tribes are
;
nut with, as the Kinnai and Ugualyashmutzi, in Russian North America, the AhwhaeknanMett, the Ootkooseckkalingmceoot, the Kangorrmceoott, &c.
Captain Washington compiled for the use of the Arctic expeditions (1850), a vocabulary, in three parallel columns, of the dialects spoken inKotzebue Sound on the west, Melville Peninsula in the centre, and the coast of Labrador on the east. Of the Greenland tongue several Grammars have been formed, from that of Egede (1750),* to that of Kleinschmidt (1851). 3 Besides the North American languages which may safely 43.
be
Uncertain,
referred to one or other of the classes above mentioned, there are some of which it is doubted whether they can enter into this classification, or are of a totally different origin, thus Heckewelder reckons the Sioux or Nadowassie as an Iroquois dialect ; but L. Cass
showed
of the Killamucks on the West Coast, south of the Columbia, the origin does not seem clear. And, finally, there are, in the interior, tribes of whose speech too little is known to give them any place in classification.
1
to be a separate and independent language. The last-mentioned Glossologist, too, considered the Pawnee to be a language belonging to no one of the classes above enumerated. Of the language
it
Gabelentz, Dakota Sprache.
1852.
a 8
Grammatica Giwnlandica Danico Latina. Grammatik der GronlUndischen Sjuachc.
1750. 1851.
26
CHAPTER
II.
OF DIALECTS.
ban in
and Oiaiict
confounded.
44.
The
terms " Language," and " Dialect," which occur, in the very
outset of Glossology, as distinctive, have nevertheless been hit, by the generality of writers, without any strict definition. The word
"Language" when used which man possesses, in

intelligible
;
as an
uitictjrsal
term, signifying a power

brutes, is
sufficiently
contradistinction to
is
but the case
different,
as a particular term, signifying the exercised by certain bodies of men, as "the English language," "the Algonkin language," &c. In this latter sense, taking a language as an
when the same word is used mode in which that power is
we may consider a Dialect as a fractional part of it. and an Idiom as another fraction; but if we inquire minutely what it is that, constitutes " a Language," as distinct from "a Dialect;" we shall often find great diversities of opinion among eminent glossologisrs. Many
integer,
persons regard the Scottish tongue, for instance, as a dialfct of the but Dr. JaMXBBON, a very able, though somewhat prejudiced English
;
writer, strenuously contends Idr its antiquity, as a separate
Language.
Similar diversities of opinion occur, as to the relation of tin So |0 the Spanish, of the Provencal to the Northern French, &c. Vater Bays of the Indo-Chinese tongues, "whether they are to he
Called
that
I/IW(
descendants of the Chinese language, or mere compounds oi and Others, must, on account of our imperfect knowledge of them, remain lor the present, undecided." '. By the term Dialect, the Italian Dialetto, or the German
'
I
Ml
only I provincial, or, at least, a local think, judiciously ranked, with Vater has, these, other peculiarities, which ma\ be called ptraonol, consisting either (or aJ lent! low colloquialisms) or of technical terms All these beat to and phrases Or of iJwilete words ami expressions. the Standard language of thl OOUntry, where they are spoken, a relation
if,
Mm,
irl,
mo
writers intend
;
peculiarity of speeeh
i,m
similar
t.>
that
winch
tin- local
dialects hear;
and, like the
latter,
they
often help to elucidate identity of origin
in different
languages, and to
show gradual
all.
tnuwitioiiH, as well of signification at of sound, in
them
in
\msgm
ll/ll.-"
40. In
I'
tin
ipt'-r.
"I
l.:iii"iu:n's
H|
and
cli
>ialect
-;,
contained
MKt
these systems of
are imi
I
attempted to
'I
i"
eparate and ]M'rmaneiit cln

1
les;
iccause the distinction
I.
in
mtw
s p. 178.
CHAP.
II.
OF DIALECTS.
27
between a Language and a Dialect is not positive lint relative. If a certain system of speech be taken as a Language, then it may serve as a standard to which some subordinate systems, agreeing with it in the main but differing in minor points, may be referred as Dialects. Thus if we assume an Hellenic language as having existed in ancient times, it may be regarded as the standard to which the Ionic, Doric, iEolian, and Attic Dialects may be referred. But the system which has been taken as a standard on one assumption, may be deemed a Dialect with reference to some more comprehensive standard, and vice versa. For instance, it may be supposed that there was, at a period beyond the reach of history, an Indo-Grecian language, of which the Hellenic and Pelasgic were but Dialects. And, on the other hand, if we assume the Doric to be a language cognate to the Ionic, as the Danish is to the Swedish, or the Portuguese to the Spanish, then we may regard
it the Laconic, the Cretan, and the Sicilian. In my remarks on particular systems of speech, which stand to each other in relations that I have described as integral and fractional, I shall call those belonging to the former category, Standard Languages, and those belonging to the latter, Dialects. 47. Dialects may differ from each other, and from their common How dialects standard, in sound, signification, construction, or general effect. They differ may differ in sound, as to articulation of vowels, or consonants (including in the latter what the Greeks call breathings), or as to length of sound, or pitch, or emphasis. They differ in signification, when they employ different words for the same meaning, or give different
-
as subordinate Dialects of
meanings to the same word. They differ in construction, when they omit or insert words differently in a sentence, or employ the parts
of speech differently, or in a different order; and, lastly, they may differ as to general effect, in point of expressiveness, gravity, vehemence, harmony, or the like. The comparisons which may be
instituted between them, in these particulars, must be conducted in the same manner, and be governed by the same principles, as the comparison of Languages, which will form the subject of a future chapter.
48. It has been sometimes objected to the study of Dialects, that it Use tends to perpetuate the corruptions of a standard Language, and employs, on a comparatively worthless object, that time and those
abilities,
of
I,g
^f
speech, already raised energy, and beauty.
which should rather be directed toward refining the modes of by cultivation to a high degree of regularity, But though this objection is not altogether without weight, yet there are other considerations which recommend
the study, within proper limits, to serious attention. To the Glossologist it often opens interesting views, not only of the connection of one language with another, but of the formation, utterance, and
arrangement of words,
literature,
in language generally. In respect to general observe, that in some languages certain authors devote themselves to the dialect of their age or province ; and consequently their works can neither be relished nor indeed understood
we may

28
OF DIALECTS.
[CHAP.
II.
without some knowledge of the dialect in which they are written. for instance, can fully enjoy the native humour of Burns or Scott without a knowledge of the Scottish tongue; or the charming simplicity of Theocritus, if not conversant with the Doric? Even in matters of much higher import a knowledge of dialectic peculiarities may help to resolve important questions, such as that raised on the text, a<j)iu)i'T(d aoi at afiapriai ch :' " Thy sins be forgiven thee" where some learned men have contended that utpiuvrai was to be understood as of the optative mood; whilst others more reasonably state aqtiiorrai, in the Attic dialect, to be used for hipeh-rai the perfect of the indicative mood. 49. Dismissing, for the present, the question how many of the known systems of speech, ancient or modern, ought to be regarded as standard Languages, in the sense above explained, I shall proceed bo notice some of those which are commonly so esteemed, together with And first as to the local dialects depending on them respectively. This is regarded by most Glossologists as a standard the Greek. and its chief Dialects are said to be four, the Jonic, Language Doric, Attic, and JEhlic of which, however, the two first form the leading distinction; for the Attic and Ionic agree in origin and in
Who,
their
main
characteristics, as
do the iEolic and Doric.
Some Gram*
:
marians contend for a fifth Dialect, which they call the Common and we find occasional mention of several which are denominated from various localities, as die Batdtian, the Cyprian, Pamphylian, < 'halcidian t Nay, Sicilian, Cretan, Tarentine, Laconian, Argive, Thessalian, Sac* Homer seems to intimate that in Crete alone there were ninety cities aeh speaking its own dialect:
i
i|jtre
*
TAmr,
fiipsyftitt).
AAJ.fi
3' a'A.X<w
<
yXirra
Odyss. 10, 174.
When
I
crown Um (knout shore, Mixt with ftlMaagoagadl nun.

niiii-ty
itic-.
Chapman,
inferior
local
|
Dialects
may be ranked
as
subdivisions of the
iour principal OIMS
found, except ina
but DO written memorials of them me now to lie few instances, where comic writers have brought th< in on the Stage, much as Shakspeare does the Welsh dialect of Captain Klucilcii ami Sir Hugh Kvans. Some of the irammarians, who maintain tin* doctrine of a Common Dialed of the Greek, suppose live IxM-n the tongue of the original //clinics, who inhabited h of Thessaly, and were among the followers of Achilles
(
10 the
Trojan war:
---
M\
the tri".].. Palugiu Argot htkL Thai in data Uoaj Atope*, tad toft Trechlaa awtUMf, In Pnthja, and la Hellaae, whan lira taa tovtl* daaaaii
'I'll-
um
thai
ind
Vchivet,
ChapmaHf
lli.nl, '2.
But there
h
'
no proof
.so i-a'i'-d
my
nob language
is
wh there spoken
Ung. Oroc.
and
ill.-
oommofl Dialed
only a modern result obtained

tl
Mi.n.
Ik. 2.
Slmonl*' tntrodtu
Boot. 0, 5.
CHAP.
II.]
OF DIALECTS.
29
by
selecting from the various dialects used

particulars, in
by
authors, from
Homer
agree.
to
Menander, those
which the majority of them
50. In addition to those ancient forms, the Modem Greek may not Romaic. unreasonably be regarded as a Dialect of the ancient, though of course
much corrupted by long intercourse with foreign nations. This is usually called Romaic, in contradistinction to the ancient, which, in that view, is termed by the natives Hellenic. " perfect knowledge of the Romaic," says Colonel Leake, " cannot be acquired without the
previous study of Hellenic but it would be a very suitable appendage to our customary academical pursuits; and by leading to a better
;
understanding of the physical and national peculiarities of Greece and its inhabitants, as well as to a variety of analogies in the customs and opinions of the ancients and moderns, it would introduce us to a more correct acquaintance with the most important branch of ancient history,
and to a more intimate familiarity with the favourite language of Taste and Science." The accomplished author of the Researches in Greece' has given not only an admirable analysis of the Romaic dialect, but of of one less known, which is called Tzaconic. The written Romaic has
1
'
as writers, taken partly from the vulgar disfrom a slight tincture of Hellenic education, or from Italian, or Turkish. With these latter tongues the spoken Romaic is more or less mixed, according to the geographical position or political state of the district where it is spoken. The Attic dialect of the present day (unlike that of ancient times, which was the most admired
course, partly
almost as
many idioms
of all) is most of all corrupted by the intermixture of French, Italian, and Albanian but the other dialects, which have been estimated at no less than seventy, have not so marked a difference from each other
;
as those of distant provinces in France or England. The Tzaconic was noticed by Gerlach in 1573, as spoken in a district
between
Nauplia and Monemvasia, and as materially different (which it still is) from the ordinary Romaic. The name of the district, Tsakonia, is probably corrupted from the ancient I^conia, of which province it formed the northern extremity. The dialect contains some vestiges of the ancient Doric, as rav i//ov av for the Romaic
also
it
some old Greek words not found
ti)v
\pvxw; and
in
Romaic
but upon the whole
resembles the ancient language less than the common Romaic does. 2 51. Reverting to the ancient Dialects, it is to be observed that Greek though an author may have generally written in some one of them it ">** Wnte ' seldom happened that he did not occasionally adopt an expression from some other. " Frustra sunt," says Dammius, " qui Poetis Graecis peculiarem aliquem linguam adsignant." 3 " They err, who assign to the Greek Poets any one peculiar dialect." The most striking example of such intermixture is in the productions of the greatest Greek Poet. Homer indeed (as Plutarch says) employed chiefly the Attic dialect, but borrowed largely from all the others. Thus he used
1
Researches in Greece,
3
2 Researches in p. iii. Greece, Lexicon Homer, voc. xdfypai.
p.
198.

30
OF DIALECTS.
[CHAP.
li-
the Doric ellipsis 2w for Salvia, and the Doric transposition edprurrot So he terminated the third person of the Imperfect for Kpano-oi.
With the Êolic

vocrov, "llpr] for
jj
instead of
et,
fir}
as
for
e<f>i\rj
for ifiXet;
and frequently
employed the Ionic forms, as

"Hpa, &c.
vovaov for This circumstance (as my learned and experienced friend Mr. Boyes suggested to me), however much it may have added to the beauty of the poem, renders the Iliad very unfit to be emploved in our schools as the pupil's first introduction to Greek verse; since the variety of dialects tends greatly to confuse him, in the outset of a task sufficiently difficult to the youthful mind. knowledge of the Attic dialect is perfectly necessary to the readers of Thucydides, Plato, Demosthenes, Xenophon, Aristophanes, Sophothat of the Ionic to the student of Herodotus or Hippocrates, cles, &c. &c. and of the Doric to understand Theocritus and Pindar, of whom, however, the latter seems to style his verse sometimes Doric, and sometimes JEolic ; for in the first Olympian he uses both expressions aAAa Suolav a.
?/3jj,
i\dr)ot for t\dr),
To (foouiyya Ta.aaa.Kov
But take down from the wall the Boric
lyre.
Again
tui Si ariip, * it artmataiaat
Kl.V'/V
ITTIKOU voum
'AitXtitii
/uiXtu
Me
it
bthovM, by the equestrian law.

the victor with sh'olian lays.
To crown
Of
Wrn.T-
some fragments of Alceem and Stppho. "'- the notice of Gram* 'I'h'' Greek Dialects veryearlyattr.tct.il
the mere jEolic, the chief remains are
matiana,
hmallaci nc4
Ar.u.i.ONius, called
Dyscdus (or the
difficult),
wrote
now ntenf on tin- bar dialects. Extant treatises bear the names of JOANNES (ii:.\MM Miens and of Cokin riirs; Inn on these two II. KsTIKNNK wrote long animadversions. ZUINQER, of l'asle,
ga\e
t
minute analvsis of the four ilialects; ami I'rnr.u; treated of Maittaikk, H km \ n n. and others. Basidea which, each Dialect ha^ been treated separately; the Attic by H. Bstiennk and li i:m \ n n the Doric by Muhlmann; the iEolic by Some ami the [ooic by I'lN/.oKi: ami LUCAS, AllHI-.NS ami (in e\en .,t' the stil (ordinate Dialects have lui'i) ably illustrated, as the 108; the Macedonian bj Sturz; and the Sicilian
ii
h< in
generally, as did
by Torbj mi
utin
li
/./a.
Although the / a standard Language, A eminence 111 the Ciceronian ami AugUStBO
ere of provincial extraction;
attained
iti
\>\w\ of
Cficero
,
himself
64
being I uettta of A qui nun, VîrgU of the .Mam nan territory Horace man 00 tM DOtdtni of Apulia, 0?id of Siilmo, ami law
lar,01,
i,
of
v.
26.
r,
162.
"
CHAP.
II.
OF DIALECTS.
;
31
Padua. No doubt, each of these districts had its provincial dialect of which probably the writers, whom it produced, may have retained, even in their most polished compositions, some traces, though too slight to be easily detected at this distance of time. Some modern critics, however, have investigated generally the rustic, plebeian, and
Roman Empire, as Pagendakm, Heumaxx, Schoxemanx, YVacksmuth, and Schweitzer. Laxzi says of the Latin " It was extinguished in Italy, not by foreign languages, but by a dialect of the vulgar, which from the earliest times had existed
provincial language of the
country parts, and even in Rome itself; but which, having remained in obscurity during the best ages, reappeared in the worst, and gradually spreading, and obtaining greater strength, settled at last in what may be called the vulgar language of Italy."' Hence we find certain plebeian words brought into common use, as Caballus for Equus ; we find certain letters changed for their cognates, the final consonant, or final vowel dropped, or the initial syllable omitted, as lubra for Ulubra, Spania for Hispania, &c. This theory was adopted by Mallei and by Muratori but the chief objection to it is that it assumes an identity of dialect in very distant districts, contrarv to all probability. That every province may have load its own dialect is far more probable and we may well believe that some modes of expresin the
; ;
sion,
which existed
in Italy,
in early
Roman
Spain.
times
among
the
provincial
peasantry, have reappeared in
modern times
as portions of polished
language
54.
F ranee, and
in the neighbouring provinces or happens, that accidental circumstances, political, literary, or others, give one dialect the pre-eminence it then becomes a standard Language, is cultivated and refined by the best writers in all parts of the country, and is adopted at the Court, the Universities, and the seats of Law, whilst the other dialects are thrown aside to the
districts, it frequently
:
Of
several Dialects
spoken
Italian,
vulgar,
retain certain
haw
fast to them for centuries and these often marks of antiquity, which in the more polished tongue been wholly obliterated. This has been peculiarly the case with
;
who nevertheless hold
the Italian.
Among
its
dialects
may be reckoned
the Milanese, Pied-
Paduan, Genoese, Tuscan, Roman, Neapolitan, Apulian, and Sicilian. Of these the written, but not the spoken Tuscan has obtained the supremacy. The Lingua Toscana in bocca Romcma is the proverbial description of " choice Italian;" but when I was told at Pisa, that my friend, Professor " Xarmignani lived near the " Xiesa" (for Carmignani and Chiesa), I confess that my
ear
taontese, Bergamascan, Venetian,
was rather
painfully aflected
by the sound. Several circumstances,
however, contributed to elevate the written dialect of Tuscany above those of other parts of Italy. From its proximity to Rome, it may easily be believed to have preserved much of the old Roman type. For
a like reason,
it was less disfigured 1 >y Gothicisms, than those parts the long-bearded Goths impressed their name on Lombardy ; and
1
wheie it was
Saggio di Ling. Etrusc.
i.
422.

32
OF DIALECTS.
[CHAP.
II.
which the Arabs have left to this day But the seal was finally set on its supremacy by the noble writers who adopted it at the revival of literature and it would now be vain to dispute a pre-eminence secured to it by the works of Boccaccio, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and their distinquite free from the oriental taint,
Sicilian tongue.
on the
Not that its rights have been always undisputed. guished successors. The Milanese, though not asserting their own exclusive superiority, have denied that of the Tuscans; contending that the modern Italian was first formed from all the dialects of the Peninsula, and that all were entitled to contribute to its improvement. At the other extremity of Italy, the Neapolitan dialect (certainly not for the delicacy of its sound) claims to be at least of high antiquity. The ingenious and erudite Gamani has shown it to have been formed from the Latin and Greek dialects, spoken in times when the Roman epicure could exclaim
Nullus
in
orbe sinus Baiis pnclucet amanis. 1
The
lovely Baite ev'ry coast outshines.
At
subsequent periods, indeed, it was mixed with many words and phrases introduced by successive foreign invaders, Norman, Provencal,
and Spanish; but
it still serves to keep a whole theatre of native Neapolitans in a roar, at the witticisms of Pulicinello, though to any The authors who have foreigner they are utterly unintelligible. composed in the different dialects of Italv are numerous. The Vene-
The was used by Calmo, and is still in some popular plays. Of Milanese was employed by Maggi, the Paduan by Kt /./ami:. the Neapolitan dialectic writers there is a long list, from Coimksi: in the latter part of the sixteenth century to <i.\i.i\\l in the eighteenth; and of the Sicilian several, from Puu.oxiO in the beginning of the
tian
in the latter part of the eighteenth. eentary to Original oom|>ositions in these dialects may he tolerated for the sake Of the energy, sweetness, Of drollery of their expression-., and the lesson which they consequently aflbra bo the native reader; hut it is
srontoontn
Mm
to
1m-
dialectic translations
regretted that the talent of the authors has l>een often wasted on of Homer! Tasso, Ariosto, Dante, and Petrarch."
Dialects in general have Ixvn treated l>y FerN'OW, and grammars, and dictionaries have been composed of the ii.-se by Sim. 101.1:0 and MoMAl.iiAN, l>r\!\l.M and l'l 1:1; \i:i of the Bresdan bj Qaouaim and Kklohiori; of the Perrarese by (lithe Lombard, Mantuan, INI; d| the (ielicese hy ('\SA(VIA I'. .M veil MUNI, 'ni.ia UNI. and V \i;oN of the Nix/an and .Milan. of the Paduan bj Burn koa of the Parman and Plaoanssa
Italian
.,
;
;
The
\i
d'CJHKU, and l\)NZ

i
1.
I'\
,:i
\i..
ill,
of the Piemontese bj Piraro, c\ri;u,o, of the Itoveredai), Venetian, and Veronese Bd i:i", and A n;i:i.i of the Sieiinesc by
;
v;u and
<i|..i.i;
t. I.
Of the
Oonkn
and Sardinian by
ROBB&IB,
1089.
83. Tiwuo Napolotano, xoo la Qlorojalenniw Libbtrtta.

1,

CHAP.
II.]
OF DIALECTS.
33
Madau, Horschklmaxx, and Porru; of the Neapolitan by Castelli and Galiani and of the Sicilian by Seebar, Delboxo, Vinci, Pasqualixo, Meli, and Mortillaro. 55. The French, which has long attained the rank of a standard
;
Frew*.
Language, arose from at least three distinct sources, the Celtic, the Latin, and the Teutonic, each of which prevailed more in some provinces than in others. The two former had already been melted down
into the Provencal,
Romance, or
rustic
Roman
in the south,
when
the
by the Scandinavian Normans), in the north. Under the former M. De. St. Pala ye includes the Gascon, Limousin, Auvergnac, and Viennois, and he even considers it as having stretched into Catalonia and Arragon under the
third gave origin to the Frankish
(still
further varied
he reckons the countries subjected at an early period to the kings of France and England. The Provencal was for a long time the language of the Troubadours or Poets and it can hardly be said that the modern French Language had established its uniformity, and fixed a standard for the guidance of all its writers, before the institution of the Academie Framboise, under the auspices of the Cardinal de Richelieu. From the earliest period, however, to the present time, local Dialects have subsisted bearing traces partly of their northern and partly of their southern origin. " These," says M. Court De GeBELix, " are nearly as numerous as the provinces of the kingdom."* M. Champolliox-Figeac reckons the most distinguishable at fourteen :* M. Court De Gebelin enlarges this number to twenty. " complete
latter
1 :
of all these Dialects," says the last-mentioned author, *' would be an excellent preliminary to the study of Languages in general, and would present the most exact picture of all the revolutions of language in the Gauls which have occurred since Latin was 4 first introduced there." Such a collection, and one even more comprehensive might now be made from the researches of the following authors De Soilly on the Picard dialect Fallot on the Alsatian
collection
:
and Bourges; Bar6zaj on the Burgundian; Brux and Petit-Benoist on that of Franche Comte Gaudy Lefort on that of Fribourg and Geneva Oberlin 011 that of Lorrain Cordier on that of the Meuse Kelham on the Norman Dubois on that of the Ome Foxtenelle de Vaudore and Larevelliere Lepaux on the Poitevin Bertrand and Develay on the Vaudois D'Essigxy on the Picard Hecart, Remacle, and Hexaux on the Wallon besides several others in the Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires, and some anonymous. 56. Of the formation of the English Language and its Dialects a very full and luminous account is given by Dr. Bosworth in his valuable Origin of the English, German, and Scandinavian Languages.' The result may be briefly stated thus the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles, three Germanic tribes, differing perhaps but little in 2 Monde Mem. Inscr. et Belles Let. t. 24. Primitif, torn. v. p. lxviii.
that of Berry
;
Jaubert and Gembloux on
Enr-Usb.
'
Nouvelles Eecherches. [G.l
1809.
Monde Prim,
ut sup. p. lxix.-lxsiii.
34
OF DIALECTS.
[CHAP.
language, separately invaded Britain between a. d. 449 and A. D. 5' and established themselves, the Jutes in Kent and the Isle of Wig] the Saxons in many parts of the west and south of England, and t Angles in the east and north of England, and south of Scotlar They eventually drove the Britons into Wales; and for some tii after this, the language of each tribe prevailed in the districts which t conquerors occupied. But in the ninth century, the Saxons luui obtained a predominance, and their king, Alfred, having sedulous promoted the cultivation of his native tongue, a standard Langoa arose, which obtained the name, first of Anglian, then of Saxon, a
finally of Anglo-Saxon. Still, considerable differences are obsea able in the extant writings of that time, between the northern a
1
southern dialects ; the former being marked with the broad and har sounds of the Angles, and the latter with the softer utterance of t Saxons: and this variety was augmented by the Scandinavian dial* of the Danes, who, at a subsequent period, obtained settlements, chie on the east coast. The Norman invasion did not at once externum the Anglo-Saxon, but served greatly to modify it by the intermixh; of Norman-French so that about the middle of the thirteenth centu
;
new standard Language arose, bearing such a resemblance now spoken, as to be properly designated by the appellation of
a
to
tr
Wngtk
t
In the then state of civilization, however, a wider chasm separated local and vulgar dialects from the language of the Court, the Metr Whilst in these resorts of wealth ai polis, and the Universities.
learning, the standard language
was
cultivated and
refined
in
by
higher classes, the rural population and the lower classes retained, together with their old habits of life, their old expression; and as tin- diflerenl parts of the country had
genei
modes
little
cot
munication with each other, their speech naturally fell into dillere Dialects, each marked with many of the same peculiarities, by whii had heen characterised in the Saxon times. With the rapid chant;'; it whieh the prOSOnl lg has experienced in its modes of thoughl ai action, these Dialects are fast dying OUt; '"it they still retain mai
expulsions which the standard Language has lost, and which lie evidence to then- i. rmanic, or Scandinavian origin. We can st distinguish, by his tongue, die rustic descendant of an Anglii ancestor, from him who is of Saxon Mood. " It is not. asserted," sa; Dr. BoBWorth, " that Way proi inei.il dialed has issued in a lull and u
<
contaminated stream frotn the pure Anglo-Saxon source; jrei In avrt ptoyinos sosm stnamlei ilow down from the fountain-head, retainh can Um.i that they possess tl N Original purity of Itavoiir. > lather, nmmpaired ln'tall may prove th IgBgUagQ Of toafa atrl\
i
The local origin of the [XXHwaa strong trees oi it." n and old Knglisli writers may generally he ascertained
1
'
Angl
l>\
th(
1
dialed
btri
in
modern time
hut
i.
with the exception of the Scottish

tri\ lal
coin] H)sition.s,
and those chid
Oniniii, roL
|>|'.
if B, note.
* Origin, &<. p. '11.
CHAP.
II.
OF DIALECTS.
35
meant
to exemplify the dialectic peculiarities of different parts of the
Dr. Bosworth has given some specimens of provincial beginning with those of the district where the West Saxon or pure Anglo-Saxon was once spoken, and then proceeding to East Anglia, and terminating with the broad dialect of Craven in Yorkshire ; and he has shown that as, on the one hand, the pure West Saxon did not ever prevail over the whole of England, so, on the other hand, the language in process of time approached more or less to the present English, according to its relative proximity to the West Saxons. The critical remarks on the peculiarities of each dialect will be noticed hereafter. The English dialects in general have been illustrated by
country.
dialects,
Bosworth, Boucher, Garnett, Grose, Guest, Halliwell and those of the North country in general by Brockett of Bedfordshire by Batchelor of Cheshire by Wilbraham of Cumberland by Anderson and Relph; of Derbyshire by Ma we; of Devonshire by Palmer and Phillips; of Durham by Raine of Essex by Clark of Gloucestershire by Fosbrooke of Hampshire by Warner of Hereford by Lewis of Kent by Lewis of Lancashire by Collier of Leicestershire by Macaulay and Nichols of Middlesex by Pegge of Norfolk by Forby of Northumberland by Ray; of Somerset by Jennings ; of Suffolk by Cullum, Forby, and Moor; of Sussex by Cooper; of Westmoreland by Gough and Wheeler of Wiltshire by Ackerman ; and of Yorkshire by Bywater, Carr, Hunter, Meriton, Piper, Prokesby, Watson, and Willan. And to these may be added the Scottish Dialect or Language by Jamieson and Sinclair; and the Americanisms (being mostly provincial English) by Pickering and Bartlett. 57. The term German, which we usually apply to the standard German,
Holloway
on the
language and dialects of the countries extending to Poland and Hungary east, France and Switzerland on the west, the Baltic on the
north, and the Adriatic on the south, does not well answer to the designation Deutsch given to them by the inhabitants themselves ; nor is the term " Allemand," which is usually employed by the French,
suitable to them than our own. " choice," says Grimm, between two designations almost equally applicable" (Germanisch and Deutsch). " The term Germanisch, however, sounds rather like a foreign word, of which, indeed, I should not hesitate to make use in such compounds as Indo-Germanic, or Slavo-Germanic but the term Deutsch has come down to us from antiquity, and is applicable to our
more
"
lies
present language, both comprehensively and in its details." As the term German was used by the Romans, and as they applied it equally to the people whom we call Scandinavians, and to those whom
1
we
call
Germans,
dividing
it it
Teutonic as
might be convenient to adopt German as the generic term, into two branches, Teutonic and Scandinavian. I adopt answering to Deutsch, and reserve Scandinavian for the
1
languages north of the Baltic, the Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Deut. Gram. Einl. p. 1.
D2
36
Islandic.
OF DIALECTS.
[CHAP.
divided by the native write into High Teutonic (Hochdeutsch), and Low Teutonic (Niederdeuts or Plattdeutsch) ; and to the former of these (at least since the E formation) the standard language (which we call German) belong
is
The Teutonic {Deutsch)
dialects of both branches are numberless, and very many of the Among the High Teutonic dialects \ have been treated separately. mav notice the Bayerisch, which has been treated by Delliu Schmeller, and Zaupser the Henneberg, by Reinwald the Ob( the Oesterreichisch, by Castkli lausitz, by Anton and Schulze Hofer, and Tschischka; the Schwabisch, by Schmid and Grate
The
the
Schweitzerisch,
by Stalder
the
Slesich,
by Berndt
Westerwaldisch, by Schmidt, &c. &c. Among the Low Teuton the Bremisch treated by Oelrich; the Hamburgisch, by Riche
the Holsteinisch, by Schutze; the Livlandisch, by Bergmann Hupel; the Mecklenburgisch, by RlTTER; the Osnaburgisch,
ai
1
Strodtmann;
Preussich,
the
Pommersch and
Riigisch,
;
by Dahnert;
;
deutsch,
phalisch,
by Bock, Hennig, and Pisanskt tlie Sachsisch-Niedi the We by Scheller; the Schleswig, by Geerz by Muller besides many other dialects of both branchi
;
Some
by
Teutonic dialects, too,

or
literary
it
may be
observed, have been mis
The Hollandish
of standard languag restrict the tei The Flemish has of k Dutch) has displayed a powerful literature. been much cultivated as a separate language; and our own Englii
political
causes
to the rank
(to
which we singularly enough
winch has attained so high a rank among the standard languajj of the world, had its first root in the Teutonic soil as a Mundurt,
local dialect
ScarollnavUui.
observed of the Teutonic is equally applical According to Rusk, "All the North* tribes of Gothic origin formed in ancient times one great people, whi spoke one tongue.' This tongue he calls the Old Norse, and sa that it was first termed Donsk Tumja (Danish language); but that decayed in Denmark, and was then called Norrcena (Norwegiai Swedes carried it to Iceland, win r wards the Norwegians and A dial. n ninains least changed, and is called Ish'nha (Icelandic).
68.
I
What
have
last
to the Scan<liti:ivian tongues.
,,,,,,
uku*v-
Fronj these statements of it, too, is spoken in die Ferro [alee. would appear ihat the Daniah and Swedish, which are now Btandi epurate literature, were once mere d language. Hid havi whilst the Norwegian, once predominant, has declined to Iteti; Among writers di\.r.it\ of minor dialects in various districts. the Danish dialects mat be reckoned Molbbch (1888); on 8wsli.h, Iiii:i. ( lTf'-C), Au'.mti.i.i! s ( IH1K), and LkNBTEOm (1841 Wiiii 1780). and mm tl,.- N. 59. In all parte of the world we find principal, or standard h gnagee, iccom|nuii<sl with their various dialect! m separate localitil The Span h, Of which the t'atilian is the standard language, has t liui'lic Grammar, 227, 228.
1
t
i
.
'
1'
<

CHAP.
II.]
OF DIALECTS.
37
Catalonian, Valencian, &c., as dialects. prize essays were published in 1821, by

dialects the
On
the Hungarian dialects,
most
distinctly
marked
are
Gati and HoitVAT. Of these those of Raab and Bihar. If

Arabic spoken very
we
pass to the Eastern nations,
we
shall find
differently
Persians, the Bedouins, the Syrians, Egyptians, Tunisians, Tripolines, Algerines, and Moroccans. Maltese, which is
by the
writers regarded as a dialect of Arabic, retains some peculiar marks of a Phoenician origin. My lamented son Henry, who was intimately versed in most of these dialects, found among the mountains of Lebanon certain tribes whose language agreed with the Maltese, in several particulars, in which it differed from all other Arabian dialects. " In China" (says M. Eemusat) " many towns, and even villages, have a particular dialect, in which are sometimes found words wholly foreign to the common language. Several of these dialects have sounds and intonations which are wanting in the pronunciation generally used. The best known are those of Tchdng-tclieou and of Canton. At Pekin they often change fa to dzi, si to chi, and hi to khi. In the South the pronunciation is more softened, eul is changed into ni, and pott into m and k, or r, is often added to the vowel terminations, b, t.m Indeed,
this author thinks, " that
by most
we may consider as dialects the corrupt pronunciation of the Japanese, Tonkinese, Cochin-Chinese, and Coreans, when they make use of the Chinese characters."* 60. Hitherto I have spoken only of local dialects. I now come to
those dialectic peculiarities which I have called personal, as depending not on the place where they are spoken, but on the class of persons by whom they are most frequently employed namely, the vulgar, professional persons, or antiquaries". These form three classes of dialects, or quasi-dialects, the first called in English cant, or slang, in
Personal
iiaiecla -
flash,
French argot, and in Italian zerga ; the second consisting (as I have said) of technical terms and the third of obsolete words and phrases. In each class whole dictionaries have been formed. Of the first we
;
in English, 'The New Canting Dictionary' (1725); 'The Scoundrels' Dictionary,' an explanation of the Cant and Flash words, &c. (1754); Grose's 'Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue*
have,
(1785); 'Memoirs of Vaux, with a Vocabulary of the Flash Language'^ (1819). In French, there are Artaud's ' Dictionnaire des Halles' (1676); Leclair's, Vidocq's, &c. Dictionnaires du Langage Argotique;' Leroux's 'Dictionnaire Comique, Burlesque, &c.' (1786). In Italian, the 'Modo Nuovo da Intendere la Lingua Zerga'
'
(1549);
&c, col modo d'imparar la Lingua Fur&c, &c. Of technical terms we have many dictionaries and glossaries, as the Termes de la Ley' (1645); the 'Law Dictionary/ by Jacob and Tomltns (1809); Falconer's 'Marine Dictionary (1 769) A Glossary of Terms used in Architecture (1840) ; Marshall's 'Glossary of Agricultural Provincialisms' (1796); Mander's 'Derbyshire Miner's Glossary (1821), &c. Lastly, of
besca' (1828),
'
the
'Trattato dei Bianti,
'
'
'
'
Grammaire Chinoise,
s.
59.
* Ibid.

38
obsolete
OF DIALECTS.
[CHAI\
Glossary of
words we may notice Brady's
'
Words
in o
How
K^
Ancient Records' (1684); Toone's 'Glossary of Obsolete andUncoi rnon Words' (1832); Tyrwhitt's 'Glossary to Chaucer's Canterbu Tales' (1778), &c. 61. I have said, that a knowledge of dialectic or quasi-dialect peculiarities must tend to illustrate not only the language to whi they belong, but also its cognate languages. In civilised and Ion established communities, the standard language is gradually cleared those forms which are regarded as provincial or vulgar ; whilst tec nical terms are left to the professors of the respective arts or science and obsolete words and phrases to the mere antiquarian. But tl process of purification does not take place in all countries at the sac time, or in the same order: and hence it may happen that, what one of two cognate languages is cast aside to the vulgar, or confini to a narrow circle of artists or scholars, is retained in the other as pa of the ordinary discourse, or heard with pleasure as an elegant few examples will sufficiently explain n poetical expression. meaning.
.
The word Aries, Earles, or Ah 62. First, as to Provincialisms. penny, is unknown to our standard language, and not to be found Johnson but in the north and west of England, and also in Scotlan it signifies " money given in confirmation of a bargain, or by way
;
("ii'insi
far
service to
be performed."
"The
finning a bargain" (says Mr.
Buockktt) "
is still
giving of arles for co very common in all tl
It is recognised in old Scottish laws, cited I The word, as well as the practice, is found in varioi Dr. Jamieson.* It is the French Arr/ies, tl forms throughout Western Euroj>e. Italian -1/vv and Citpurm (from aipeve Arrhum), and the Spanii
northern counties."'
" (ield welches auf die hand
Arrha, explained b\ Gajr gcgeben wild, urn einen geschloSSeiM 3 " Money in hand give vertrag dadurch noch biindiger /.it inachcn."
Caparra
and
is
adopted
in
German
in order therein- to make a closed bargain still more binding." It of vitv ancient Origin, being derived (as some think) from the lehre\ It appear, at least, iii the Greek nfifutfiun', fro: araf), pledged.
1
whnh
the l.aliu umilx)
KjtiH
was early employed

|>i
in
;i
a similar sens<!: *
hunc arralxmmn lunoris
milii iiiiiinlum ml tt
iuiiini
niu lu-dpc
MUM
MoUlt DOTTO
ut
I.t.
<m
.l.-.lit.
rictus,
Mil.
<;i.).
4, l, 11.
bortencd to Arm, and a Ring was fp " urnv nomine," " by way >.ii, mii iii onlnian bargains, I." Thus I'l.i'iAN Hays "Item si iustitor, emu oleum M'lid !, u m limn hi r,r nomine, in epei it." 4 " So, if the manager, win di be liau Hold a jinntiiv of oil, has rerriM d a Ring, bj ua\ of earnefl And h> -ip iii '<tii inn, ceremony, we have tl cpreasiou, " Wit
Arraito
wan Hfterwards
i ,
p.
it.
*
'
Ktyiu. Diet. Boot,

Digtut. 14, 3, 5.
i.
-in',
roc Ark
WbrUrb.
t.
Erklarungt bo. rod Arrka,
CHAP.
II.]
OF DIALECTS.
39
this ring I thee
wed," that
is,
" I give thee this ring as a pledge and
proof, that the contract of marriage is
made
in earnest."
Gaily. 63. In Wiltshire, a rustic, who is terrified, will say that he is gallied; and a scarecrow dressed up as a human figure is called a These words are unknown to the standard literature of gally-beggar.
the present day, though Shakspeare uses the verb gallow
The wrathful
skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark.
Lear,
;
3, 2.
Now,
of
terror leads to stupefaction
the gallows, as
terror.
modes of
capital
and madness and the cross and punishment, were naturally objects
is
The
;
radical gal, as signifying stupified, in the
found in the
gal,
Islandic galit
galea,
and as signifying mad,

gall.
Danish
Swedish
and Islandic
the river
To
this origin,
too, Verelius attributes the
name of
Galius
in Phrygia,
mentioned by
:
Ovid:
Inter, ait, viridem Cybelen, altasque Celenas,
Amnis it, insana, nomine Galius, aqua Qui bibit inde furit. 1
Betwixt green Cybele and high Celene, Galius, a stream of pow'r insane, is seen Who drinks thereof is madden'd.
" Propter furorem
igitur
fluvius iste dicitur Galius (ait Verelius).
Unde
recte concluditur gal
fluvio propriam, propter
furorem
vocem Phrygiam esse, ut pote Phrygio ethane vocem ex Phrygia in Sep;
temtrionem usque migrasse, ubi pristino viget significatu."* "It is on account of madness then (says Verelius) that this river is called Galius; whence he reasonably concludes that Gal is a Phrygian word, being given to a Phrygian river in reference to madness, and that this word has travelled from Phrygia to the far North, where it still retains The same radical, #aZ, appears in the Mcesoits pristine signification." Gothic of Ulfilas, " atsteigadau nu af thamma galgin."* " Let him now come down from the Cross" And our word gallows is found in the
old high
German and old Saxon galgo, the old Frisian galga, the Dutch galg, Islandic galgi, Danish and Swedish galge, and many similar words of the same meaning, both Teutonic and Scandinavian. 64. Among Milgar and colloquial expressions derived from a high It was the remark of a antiquity, we may notice the English mm.
very sagacious and experienced magistrate, that of the persons brought him for theft, many confessed that they took the article in In the slang or cant lanquestion, but none said that they stole it. guage of thieves, to ram is to steal (whence Shakspeare's character of Corporal Nym). Now this is the Anglo-Saxon niman, to take, German, nehmen, Swedish nama, Lettish nemu, &c. " All the ancients" It is used, in the widest sense, as ap(says Wachter) " have niman.
before
plicable to all things
Nim.
the mind, and of

fraud
;
which may be taken, either by the hand, or by what is either given freely, or taken by force or
it
and, with this latitude of meaning,

1.
appears in the particles

3
Ovid, Fast.
4.
Wachter, voc. Gall.
Ma't
xxvii. 42.

40
OF DIALECTS.
1
[CHAP.
la
II.
nunft." a writ which lay to the sheriff,

cattle
nam and
Hence,
in our
'
Termes de
when
Ley," Withernam was had tortiously distrained B's
F*ta.
and driven them out of the county, authorising that officer to Hence, too, in take in compensation an equal amount of A's goods. German, vernunft (reason) is the power of taking into the mind; And this is still (as conception is from con and capere, to take). more directly derived from nim, in the Frank ishfernumest.* meaning 65. A recent English vulgarism, " He has cut his stick" " he has gone ofF," " he has left his situation" reminds us strongly of the French colloquial phrase, "rompre le fetu avec quelquun';* signifying " to give up all intercourse with any one ;" and, figuratively, to
renounce the world.

Qui
Au
Here the word fetu, and
jadi rompi monde. 4
le
Festu
Roman
is
de la Charite.
in old French festu,
the
Roman festuca,
a twig, or straw, the breaking of which was a formality used at the manumission of a slave by the vindicta ; and it symbolically intimated that this was the last act of dominion exercised over him as a slave by the master or praetor. Hence Pyrgopolinices asks
Quid ea? Ingenua, an festuca fractd
1
Sevva, an libera est ? Plautus, Mil. Glo. 4, 1, 15.

?
What
is
she
Well-born, or of broken twig
slave, or free ?
The Franks adopted a like symbol on various occasions. Where one renounced a right to prosecute another for the murder of a relation
5 So, of the former, part of the proceeding was to break a festuca. where one renounced his right to certain lands " Cum festucd semet
exuit pradio.
tn*jue.
1*1
<!<;. Of the tecJmical terms in modern use among the nations of Europe, many have been borrowed by one people from another, though having no similitude to other expressions of the language into which Such is the case with the word r't raq ii<-, tfkfjj have ben introduced. whii iii the Fniich marine signifies "the limited breadth of a s/re<rk Now this word has no affinity to or plank used in ship building."7 any other in the French language; but it is manifestly taken from the
li
Dutch streek, and English strcn/;, which form the verlis ttrekktn in Dutch, strrtch in Knglish, stixwka in Swedish, and Strecan in AngloThen the Saviour Saxon; <?.</., M thaoafrAti hcelend hys hand
stnl.hr.l forth his hand."

it
since the beginning of the mention of a himu<t<\\\ word prel\ Of Its unknown to our lexicographers and standard wTitei Hilpert's definition origin and meaning dUE rani account are given,
report-., especially
07. In our military

<:
i
r i.
oentary,
W% and
frtquenl
w.i. iit.T, voc.

I.-
Neman.
/' t'i.
'
Notktr. ftal. Bl,
'..
* '
Duotngt,
M.-.u
oc,
Fttrnos.
ill,
mul. 121.
Iftr,
i
Chart Ottoa.
rill 8.
a. d.
907.
>i.i.
ret. Btraqoa.
CHAP.
is
II.]
OF DIALECTS.
41
encampment without tents." The following, by Campe, but somewhat doubtful " A night-watch, held under " To bivouac, to watch through the night under arms in the arms." The word is derived from the North German biwakuo open air. The first syllable of this word, bi or bet (to, with, (beiwakuo).
simply " an
is
much
fuller,
beside), perhaps related to the usual camp-sentries,

:
who
are invariably
posted every time the army lies in the field so that by bivouac might be expressed the whole host keeping watch together, a watching of all, along with, and in addition to, the usual sentries; and therefore army watch, or the above word might be translated by the expression
general watch. " The emperor himself took part (shared) in the army" The whole army were obliged to pass the night under watch."
arms in the open air ;" they were obliged to watch beside (beiwachuo) were obliged to hold a general watch. This may, however, have also some relation to the soldiers' weapons, so that the idea of watching beside their weapons under arms may be intended to be thus expressed. In this case, which appears to me the most probable view, the last expression to remain or to watch (under arms), or the High Ger" manized word, beiwachen, watch beside, &c, is to be preferred. Whether or not M. Campe's derivation and explanation of this word be correct, it is certainly not a word of English origin yet we find it adopted by eminent writers of the present age, and particularly by one so scrupulously accurate as Sou they.* 68. Lastly, the variations, wrought in the sound or signification of Eboeler. words by lapse of time, cause certain expressions to become obsolete in one language, which are easily explicable in another. Thus I find in French eboeler, "vieux mot, qui signifioit eventrer, arracher les en" An old word which signified to eviscerate, to tear out the trailles." 3 " This word (says Leroux) is at present wholly unknown entrails." in our language." It is, however, the English word embowel, several times used by Shakspeare and is derived from the old French bbeles, in English bowels, so named from their numerous bows, that is, curvatures; as in the German steig-bugel, and Swedish steg-bogl, a stirrup, originally a ring, in which the rider placed his foot to mount his horse. " Bugel diminutivum, a bug, quatenus curvaturam et circulum significat. Inde steig-biigel circuli ferret quibus equus adscenditur." 4 Hence also come our English word buckle, and the French boucle ; for buckles were anciently of a circular shape and " to put the hair in buckle," was to put it in curl. Alberti defines boucle " espece d'anneau a
;
"a kind of ring for various purposes." The old Scotch broaches were circular buckles used for holding together the garments on the breast. The Latin buccula is explained to signify part of the
divers usages;"
bucca, the cheek,
helmet covering the cheek, and to be derived, as a diminutive, from which last word may be connected with the abovementioned radical bug (quatenus curvaturam significat), and may tend
1
Worterb.
z. Erklarung, &c. voc. Bivouac. Leroux, voc. eboeler.
2 Hist.
4
Peninsular War, passim. Wachter, voc. bugel.
42
OF DIALECTS.
[CHAP.
II.
WaUiug.
to confirm Jakel's theory of a Teutonic element in the Latin language. 69. find in an old romance the word walling, used in describing the modes in which the people of a besieged town defended themselves
We
against the besiegers
With hot water and walling metal They defendid heore wal.
Kynj
Alisaunder, v. 1622.
they poured on the assailants hot water and boiling metal. The only remnant that we have in English of the word wall, as signifying to boil, is the franchise, now extinct, of certain small boroughs in the west of England, where every person who could boil a pot (that is, who occupied an apartment with a fireplace), had a vote for the parliamentary representation of the borough. These voters were called
is,
That
pot-wallers,
and corruptly pot-walliners, pot-wabblers, and pot-wallopers

For,
my
Lord,
am
The votes of
three Tailors,
promis'd by old Humphry Potwabbler two Smiths, and a Cobbler. Anstcfs Election BaU.
1
" Tanodunii
(to boil)
find
it
in
agro Somersetensi vocantur pot-walliners"
But
loall
is
largely connected with other languages
and
dialects.
We
" to wall up" (to boil up), wall (a wave), and wally (billowy).* Wallen in German, astuare, fervere, in Anglo-Saxon weallan, in Prankish xcallan, in Dutch wellen, in Icelandic valla. It is applied to the waves when they boil up, to water when it springs up out of the earth, or when it springs up in tailing. " Das wasser wallet, das nieer wallet, wenn es sieh in einei in den topfe, wenn es kocht
in the Scottish
;
Das blut wallet, wenn es starker als befindet gewohnlich uinliiuft."3 " The water boils in the pot, \vhen it reaches
starken
bewegung
the lioiling-point; the sea boils,
when
it
is
in
violent motion; usual."
the
blood
that
boils,
when
it
circulates
more rapidly than

is
Some
think
|fae
Latin radical
Iml in Imllire, to boil,
of the same origin as
the TflBtoak aiul Scandinavian wal.
70.
DOticc
I
it
shall
the rather, on account of

lil
mention one more word of the obsolete class, and 1 its imjHMlance in the earliest charter
.ii
of onr
luiiild
><it is,
id'
the mistakes hitherto

h;is
made
in
its
exposition,
T*M WOrd which

lie
been general |\ written nnitenrnientiitn, but written coiitinrmeiitum. In the must authentic copy of the
'
<
mean,
\.ii.
ua
liai la
I21.r>),
we
lind the following

nisi
1
passage
"Liber
delicti,
homo nun
et
pi
aiiieivietui
pro parvo delicto,

in'
secundum lnodnin
1
IgDO
cod.
'
delict., anier, let
seii nidi ii
ia
n'lu delicti,
salvo
fit
citittrnniii'iitn
no, et
ineicator eudein
niodo, salva niercandiaa sua,

4 wagnugio suo."
villains
('hail. a
m modo
aim
ii
tnr,
salvo
;
Of
this
|iiilihshec|
tian.lalioii
luit
in
Kiili*head's Statutes
III., A. I).
n Hiinilar article,
l.atm, of the
llnlliu.
II,
Magna Churta
v...-.
of Henry
122ft
id by
JwiiIcim.ii,
r..l-w:ilil.|iT.
* Adi'lmn,'.
vnc. Wallen.
pi. 8.
l:.|..,it
Cum. Public
Itvcordi, 1819, vol.
ii.

CHAP.
is II.]
OF DIALECTS.
:
43
freeman shall not be amerced for a small fault, thus translated " but after the manner of the fault, and for a great fault after the greatness thereof, saving to
him
his contenement,
;
and a merchant likewise
saving to hjm his merchandise and any other's villain than ours shall be likewise amerced, saving his wainage." The correspondent article in the charter of Edward I., A. D. 1275, is in French; and the words But it is sauve son contenement are translated " saving his freehold."
evident that this cannot be right for a man might have a very large freehold, and no other property ; and then, if his freehold were excepted from amercement he would not be amerced at all, however great his
;
might be. It is to be observed, also, that in this French we have gainage, as corresponding to wagnagio. Selden, in his Table Talk, is reported to have said that the word contenementum signifies the same with countenance, as used by the country people, when meaning to receive a person with hospitality, they say, " I will show you the best countenance," &c. and in this exposition the Hon. Daines Barringtox agrees. But the reporters of the Table Talk of It is much more probable that celebrated men are seldom accurate. Selden said contenementum signified the same as continentia ; for in his own edition of Fleta, the latter word is actually used in immediate
offence
Charter,
quotation of the rule of the Charter
" Qualiter
fieri
debent amercianisi
menta declarant
haec statuta et
liber
sibi
homo non amercietur

continentia"
secundum
modum
Furthermore, on a minute inspection of the Articuli Magne Carte, from which the Great Charter, after much debate, was drawn up, it may be seen that the
delicti,
hoc
salvfi,
word
which removes it further in question is spelt continementum, from the notion of a tenement, or freehold, and approximates it to continentia, which, as Fleta was written less than a century after the event, and by an author of very great ability and accuracy, was pro1
bably the word really intended.
We
have, therefore, to inquire the
meaning attached
to the
word
continentia.
And
here
it is
to be ob-
served, that, in the barbarous Latin of that period, the terminating

particles entia or antia,
and without any regard
and mentum, were employed quite arbitrarily, to classical authority and the same may be said of the corresponding Italian, French, and English particles. We find in Italian, penitenza and pentimento, continenza and contentamento, sostenenza and sostentimento. In old French, parlance and parlement, both signified " talking." So in English, we find Milton using cumbrance, and the old romancers cumberment in the same sense
;
:
Extol not riches then, the toil of fools, The wise man's cumbrance. Farad. Reg. 2, 453.
He bad hire make hardy chere, He saido that Ammon was of powere
To kepe In
fact,
hire fro comburement.
Kyng
the
1
Alisaunder, v. 470.
word
continentia,
answered
to our
modem word sustenance,

pi. 2.
Report Com. Public Records, 1819, ut sup.
44
OF DIALECTS.
[CHAP.
II.
being derived from continere, in the sense of "alere, sumptus suppeditari " ut in continentia paupemm reditus administretur ;"' " that tlie rents
should be applied to the sustenance of the poor." This exposition makes the sense of the article in Magna Charta clear, and shows it to be consistent and reasonable. Amercements (fines to the king) had before been imposed arbitrarily they were now to be proportioned to the offence they had, perhaps, in some instances, deprived a freeman of his whole sustenance, a merchant of all his wares, and a husbandman of his means of living ; they were now to leave each of them at least sufficient for his support. This humane principle is known to many systems of foreign law, under the title of dedncto ne egeat ; and it was recognised many years before Magna Charta, in an analogous case, by our oldest common-law writer Glanvill. Speaking of the aids which the heir of a barony might in certain events require of those who held under him, he says they must be " ita moderate, secundum facilitates eorum, ne nimis gravari inde videantur, vel suum contentment um amit" So moderately, according to their means, that they may not tere."* be too much aggrieved, or lose their whole sustenance." 71. From the preceding remarks it will be manifest, that in order to comprehend any language thoroughly, both in itself and in its relation to other tongues, it is not sufficient to confine our attention to the works of the most esteemed authors, or the discourses of the polite and learned; but we must carefully examine the local dialects, the obsolete and technical terms, and even the expressions of the vulgar, among which may often be found words and phrases connecting the particular language under examination witli others, by affinities, which, but for
;
:
;"
occluding remark
M0D
research,
1
might
ban
remained unknown.
*
Ducange, voc. Continentia.
Glanvill,
I.
i),
c. 8.
45
CHAPTER
OF IDIOMS.
III.
The word Idiom, as employed by different writers, is involved Meaning of no less uncertainty than the words Language and Dialect are. tlie torm Johnson, as usual with him in all cases of doubt, heaps together " Idiom," he says, is " a mode of several inconsistent explanations.
72.
in
speaking peculiar to a language or dialect ;" or it is " the peculiar cast The various modes of a tongue ;" or " a phrase ;" or " phraseology." of speech in use among the Tatarian tribes are called, by StuahlkxBEBG and others, "Languages;" but they we designated by Mr. Lumley Davis, whose premature death was so great a loss to Again, Zeunius has justly observed, Glossology, " Jdiomes Turks."* that the very learned Treatise which Viger. entitled De pracipuis Gracse dictionis Idiotismis,' should have been entitled ' De Idiomatibus ;' for ldiotismus is properly defined to be locutio seu forma orationis sordida et plebeia ; " a sordid and plebeian talk or form of
1
belongs to the class of vulgarisms which I ; whereas Jdioma, an Idiom, is iriefly defined proprietas lingua ; that is, a peculiarity of a language, a^ Hebraisms are idioms peculiar to the Hebrew language, Hellenisms to the Greek, Anglicisms to the English, and the like. 4 To this
gpeech;" that have reckoned

1
is
to say,
it
among
the personal dialects
description, however,
at least to the
two observations
are to be added, with reference

;
more
cultivated languages
first,
that the proper idiom
must be determined by the agreement of the best writers and speakers ; " Of and, secondly, that it must refer to a definite period of time.
all living tongues," says Dr. Johnson, " there is a double pronunciation one cursory and colloquial, the other regular and solemn:" the former "always vague and uncertain;" the latter " less liable to capricious innovation."* And what the learned critic
English, as of
Bays of pronunciation may be applied to all the peculiarities of the language. Neither the cursory nor the solemn modes of speech, how-
and hence we have a different idiom of the age of Chaucer from that of the age of Shakspeare, of Addison, &c. 73. The Idiom of a language consists in some peculiar form, signification, or effect given to its words, or in the construction of its senever, are permanent,
1
Modes, form of word6
a Johnson's Diet, ad vocem. Grammaire Turke, p. slvii. Viger de Idiot, not. Zeun, p. 1. * North American Review, No. 52, p. 123. Grammar prefixed to the Dictionary.
OF IDIOMS.
tences.
[CHAP.
III.
Kc
Cheryl
sS more
of a language inay be monosjlIn regard to form, the words monosy llabic and the as the Chinese is said to be or polysvdlabic, On this distinction I shall hereafter be polysyllabic. the present it may suffice to observe of
at
word monosyllabic it may given language consists of a single sSfy either that every word in a M. Remusat complete word stable or that every syllable is a in the first Chinese language is not monosyllabic contend that the 1 polysyllables (according to him) are Snse but is in the second. Its so fer, monosyllabic words by the junction of two or more English; idiom is assimilated to what occurs tSbre, the Chinese In the Cheand numberless others
lank
For the
cSsrSat thefe are two
senses of the
toed
aTmW words wel-come,other

ocS
vnl-fvl,
syllables hand, words of nine and ten rokee knguage, on the lU-m-Mtmentioned of seventeen viz. a^d one is even often probably, when anahyzed, ^ZlZi-ko-lv-ta-w.^-li-ti^-sti- but this comprehend many words and.particles combed w^ldbe found to phrase instead of an might employ, in English, a long mr4^-su^cientUj my as adfedto ageing with a substantive,
:
Cwe
employs as a word of one But what he idioL of one language &c separate words in that of anoth,, Stable may require two or more h-n, word cftet, for instance, cannot be n fh F enTmoLyllabic we translate cUz mo, by the phrase by any single English word; but word hcr,m hand, we use the monosyllabic
at
2 h2e
aa^rbX
t:
in.
to the
fl ,ml,ur from an evening irom ui n a German nobleman returning p coachman to drive " to the house ordering his conveyed to one of the surprised to find htatfelf
Uoum" is understood, among the Commons Hence of Lords, or the Hoose of .in going to the House m coing visit in London, and
...
^ ,
as in the phrase moh where the Germans say nocA hause, Now, in 1-ulon o go to go to
On
the other
tkeW
higher classes
Least,
...
*^ Hou
i
arlia
mCn
pilaltan
7 4 Astosignification.itoftenhMr-nstlK.t
wl.erea
word of a
certain
,,,,,.
"
feo
^MM>U
,
I
\!r
llAillWI
hoolboy's tenn), and the
Italian
MiTam.
a
I-
"iginah/a^J, ing porter. T d-fmed " ad ta-todlnan. deduce*
u.arv
..ut ;"
Veloc*>culo
cervo. ounu.,..,/^,,/^.
n<l
^
I
^
"
He
\,
,1
the fleet deer, with fart

lias
hoond,
/.</.'./<'.
in this
Hnnan only
the fford
./;,/<,
^
to the
CHAI'. III.J
OF IDIOMS.
47
English idiom. But in the lower Latin, fatigare appears to have been Used for annoying a person by raillery; for when Thraso, the boaster,
says to the Parasite,
Quo pacto Rhodium Numquid tibi dixi ?

Did
I
tetigerim in convivio,
Terent. Eun.
I
iii.
1,
30.
ne'er tell
you how
touch'd the Rhodian
Once
at a feast ?
Donatus, in the language of the fourth century, explains Terence's

luserim, fatigaverim. Fatigare in this sense, was corrupted tufascher, and thence to facher ; but, in the course of time, it was applied to various kinds of vexation. The amusing comedy of Les Faclwux, by Moliere, is foimded on the annoyance caused by persons forcing themselves upon one's time and company in the manner so well described by Horace, in his " Ibam forte via sacra," and so
word tetigerim, by
by Donne, in his fourth satire. Moliere, however, has expanded the original conception into a lively sketch of no less than ten characters, by whom, in different ways, his hero, Eraste, is annoyed. In the mediawal Latin /a%are is explained " vexare, prcesertim de litigatorum vexationibus," to annoy, spoken particularly
coarsely imitated
tlic
of
annoyances of
litigators.
The word fash, though unknown
to
idiomatic English, has been borrowed in the Scottish dialect, from the French, and is used as an active verb, signifying to trouble the body or mind, or to molest generally ; or, as a neuter, to take trouble, to
be
or to intermeddle so as to subject one's self to trouble ; and a fashous person is, like the fdcheux of Moliere, one who causes trouble and annoyance to others. Take again a word which in the French idiom is not merely different from the English in signification, but directly opposite to it, although of the same form and origin. The word concurrent comes in both cases from the Latin con and currere
of,
weary
"
to run together."
But persons may run together

used
in
bello Italiam concurrere Teucris.
in opposition, or
side
by
side.
So
1.
in Latin, concurrere is
both senses
Virgil, JEn. x. 8.
Abnueram
I
would forbid
Italia to
oppose
In
2.
war the
setas,
Trojans.
Concurrunt multre opiniones qua) mihi

Locus, occasio,
&c.
animum exangeant, Terent. Heaut. act ii. so. 2, v. 3.
Many
The
circumstances concur to strengthen place, the occasion, her age, &c.

is
my
opinion,
Now
a concurrent,
in the
English the adjective concurrent

conjoined, associate."
French idiom, a competitor ;" whilst in is explained " acting in conjunction

Effect,
75. With respect to the effect of words in marking idiomatic accuracy, great stress has always been laid on the proper use of the words called Synonyms. Words of this class accordingly attracted the attention of the early Glossologists. Ammonius, a Greek Grammarian, of the fourth century, wrote a treatise, still extant, entitled " flfpi ofiouov
4g
coi Sta^'p^v kinds he gives
OF IDIOMS.
[CHAP. HI.
differing
\&v-"
Oa
similar
*
and
words."
Of both
many examples.
Ayv and
9l pet>> (he says) differ
to animals, the latter to lifeless things. this respect, the former relates sometimes translate both, to bring, ex. gr.
We
however may
*0/
3'
riyoy
They brought
It is true, as has
? ph fi*\*, wine.* the sheep, and brought th' enliv'ning

<pi
iw5g
"-
synonyms, or been observed, that there are no exact 8 synonym, strictly taken, implies that one word few. at least very and effect, with another word but agrees exactly in signification, force, in the formation of mental conceptions, this can rarely happen, because, the test of sens.ble expewhich cannot be immediately brought to the that a word seldom presents exactly rience, men differ so much, Where there is an exact corsame conception to different minds. all persons who have given respondence of mental conception among square the case of a mathematical hue, as in it due consideration, Idea (or ideal conception), and or the like, the conception is an circle, for its expression in the same cannot well have two svnonyms merely called synonyms are such as The words usually language. the correct idiom oi a lanapproximate to a common meaning, but in prepo* marked difference. For instance the French
guage have a tions dans and

in
we translate in," approximate to M* sy,..myn.s and are therefore enumerated among other appbed to he points out their diversity, whether Giiuud. But bv Dan,, iCCOfdtaj quality of thing^ or place, to time, or to the state definite meantog and when applied to place, has a precise and a marks 1 contains or incloses another and topS that one thing and that which , without It is within, i, 1() between that which la mile, when a French to say dans la chambre or dans
en,
both which
signification,
Km
te
ITS
vague and
idiomatic
not
left
less d,-r.it.
the place or has return,,! to rneanina Indicating only

is,
it.
...
En has
mo,
pmlteriM
when
,u
;:!
;
l7,. r
, sll M.rs,,<.r
thing
anl
is
marking a
or
relat. on
and o
,l
other.
Thus
.,.
I 1
man
lus
said to he en
bo
ville if
between that plac h, k- somewhert
,,v,b..t
| 1
a,
boose;
be *n
prow*
I
Ik
si,
..ki..M.., ,,b
.tn...:,UW
.inn.
When applied^ time, thereJM

mortamvetolenj,,
wh,.n
\ve are least
ShaTS/di.
;.
n,,U
tt
r nus/
,h,
momrnt
unking
bWtontJTfWioftoii
..
l.i--.-..-:"
I'v.vr..,,,!,!,,...-:" . iH vl
,
lliriHl .
v movespe<M(.mly, i) iJgJ to lire* entire uberty;' and, more general width. Somet, to live * liberty ."< rr*M with i single word, as the Latin
Tarn 7to.-1,0
..,.!.
angry), hu.
Iwithan^.isH.iidtoansjvortotraac. tha * former obrWy bnpUei mnch more
CHAP.
III.]
OF IDIOMS.
its
49
synonym.
1
the latter and therefore cannot be taken as
Languages
copious in words are
commonly said to abound in synonyms. Thus Golius says of an Arabic word for a lion, " Nomen illud est ex sunt autem alia nomina quingentis plura, quibus usitatiorum numero Leonem Arabes designant."* " This is among the more usual names of the animal but there are above five hundred other words, by which
;
;
These, however, and all such if examined, would probably be found to express only different shades or modifications of the same thought, as in our verbs to love, like, esteem, prefer, respect, adore, &c. ; all of which should be carefully distinguished in a correct use of the English idiom. 76. Of the idioms which depend on the construction of sentences, some result from the relative position of the words in the sentence some are produced by substituting one word for several, or vice versa ; and some by ellipsis, that is, the omission of a word, necessary in one idiom and not in another, to render the grammatical construction intelligible. First, as to the relative position of words in a sentence this must differ greatly according as the particular language in question excludes, or admits sparingly or abundantly, the composition or inflection of words. The English language being much more limited in these respects than the German, we cannot (generally speaking) effect so complicated an intertexture of words in a sentence as German authors can. But even in the English idiom a difference is made in this respect, not only between poetical and prosaic compositions, but
the Arabians designate a Lion."
:
construction.
between ordinary colloquial prose, and that which is applied to high and solemn subjects. The grand opening of Milton's mightv Epic affords a striking instance of a closely interwoven sentence occupying sixteen lines of heroic metre, where the verb " sing," which in the colloquial idiom would stand as the first word, does not occur till the sixth verse and, by that position, serves to connect the announcement of the subject of the poem, with the poet's pious appeal to the divine source of inspiration. So Hooker, the great master of that sound, idiomatic English prose, which is best suited to weighty argument, often employs inversions, which on light and trivial topics might be deemed harsh and pedantic. For instance, in explaining the " That " (says he) " which doth signification of the term " Law." assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term a Law." Now this is idiomatic English, indeed ; but it is a grave and serious idiom and in ordinary discourse, the sentence would begin, " We term that a Law, which assigns," &c.
;
77. I observe, in the next place, that the idiom of one language from another by merely resolving a given part of speech into its elementary conceptions, or vice versa. In this way, indeed, all the diversities of case, tense, &c, which, in the principal parts of speech, are produced by inflection on the one hand, and by prepositions
often differs
1
Substitution,
Scheller, p.
i.
c. ii. s.
3.
J. Golii Lei icon
Arabico-Lttinum,
p.
105.
[G.]

50
and
OF IDIOMS.
[CHAP.
Ill
auxiliary verbs on the other, may be accounted for ; but, without entering at present into that detail, I will merely notice a few examples Cceterum, in the Latin idiom, is in the accessorial parts of speech.
<
single word, usually
deemed an adverb
but
in the
French idiom,
:
the
same notion
is
resolved into the preposition and substantive au
reste.
So
in English, moreover is called
by Johnson an adverb
Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, His private arbours, and new-planted orchards, SUaksp. Jul. Ca>s. On this side Tiber.
a. iii. s. 2.
But
in French,
the preposition and substantive
au surplus
are used
together with the same or Deadly the same effect.

1
" -Au surplus, nous
'
n'avons ahandonne les idees des Romains, que parcequ'elles secartoieaj de l'essence des choses." " Moreover we did not abandon the ideas ol the Romans, except when they deviated from the essence of things.'' On the other hand, where the Latin idiom resolves a notion into it> elements, we sometimes combine them in one word, as when we translate singulis iliebus, " daily," singulis horis " hourly," or th(
like.*
BBpris.
construction of a sentence are
78. Elliptical omissions of words necessary to the full grammatical common in all languages, our own
well as others.
Among
the native speakers, this circumstance give;
bul quickneas and vivacity to discourse, without rendering it obscure to those who have to acquire the knowledge of a foreign or dead language, it often creates much difficulty, and sometimes causes seriow Tims, says B08, iv <f>i\ta, has been translated " ii misinterpretation.
should have been " in a friendly land," the wore So rov iTTiTHibtov, rendered omitted. M the funeral oration," should have been " the funeral games," aywra, " game," being understood.* In English, after the verb " befall " 1
friendship,"
yij,
when
it
M land," being
ellipticallv
full
construction would require the preposition " to," as
in
Milton
O
tha
teacher,
tliat
To
sumo groat, mischief has BNth man.'

1
hofall'n
more prevalent idiom omits the

Many
preposition,
as
in
Shall
ire
years of happy days befall
'
My
.
TtU
lOO
101
is
Icbratcd |M--:ige of Ariosto, there

I'riiniji.
an
ellipsis, after
the article
mi. of
jamont,
in
the
same
Nun
line,
e
i//i
tome other niaseiiline substantive, the word befog feminine:

si
belli),
ill
t.mte nit IT persone,
Nntnia
il
li.i, I pal
rOppt
la
Manilla."
A |nim mora
bonut.'. er. no'or nhnll

liini,
.hi.
I
you behold; then broke tho mould.
I.
* S< heller, * l\i,
892.
Lfl
1' I.
;.,|.
I,
di
II.
0.
160.
10,
st.
1.
Orhuel
64.
CHAP.
III.]
OF IDIOMS.
51
In the Scottish dialect the following ellipsis, which is foreign to the English idiom, is easily supplied. " The interval between
and
is,
Monday was occupied
in
preparations for their journey;" 1
tliat
between the day before named and the following Monday. words in various languages are formed by omitting letters or
in
Certain
syllables
andes (if you dare), sis for si vis (if you will), and capsis, which Cicero says stands for three words,* probably cape si vis (take it, if you wish). 79. Having thus spoken of Idioms generally, it may be expected French that I should illustrate these remarks by examples from different idioms languages ; but to do this fully would be in fact to form a complete course of Glossology ; which neither my limits nor my means permit, and which all the living Glossologists, if associated in the attempt, would fail to accomplish. I may, however, present a few specimens of particular idioms, serving to show the different genius of languages in various parts of the world, and at different periods. I will begin with the French. In that language, avoir un tort (literally, to have a wrong), means " to commit an offence." Marshal Tuhenne
-
a phrase, as
in Latin sodes for si
General La Ferte, who had beaten a sen-ant, " II faut que ce valet ait eu en vers vous un tort bien grave pour que vous vous sovez i>orte a ; une telle violence." " It cannot be but that this valet must have cornmated a very serious offence against you ; otherwise you would not have acted with such violence." The same Marshal,
writes to
meaning
to
advise that a large extent of country should be devastated, says, " Je regarde comme fort utile, que le pays entre Heidelberg
et
mange " (literally eaten). Montesquieu, intending to express tliat Augustus granted very sparingly the right of Roman citizenship, savs, " Auguste fut fort retenu a accorder (was very withheld to grant) le
soit
Mannheim
droit
de bourgeoisie Romaine." 8
Monarchy the Ministers were more

Despotism (more broken
se
Elsewhere, meaning that in a practised in business, than under a he says, " Les Ministres v sont plus rompus aux affaires
:
to affairs), que dans l'Etat despotique." 4 India matters go on well under a female Sovereign "
on
Dans
Again, that in les Indes
du Gouvemement des Femmes " literally " one finds one's self very well of the government of women " In a comedy of Mouse's, the proud Baroness addresses her plebeian sonin-law, Apprenez que tout notre gendre que vous soyez, il v
tres bien
trouve
in-law (literally, the
:"_ Learn that although you are our sonour son-in-law that vou be), there is a great difference between you and us."Again, the injured husband says to
difference de vous a nous
all
a o-rande
intriguing chambermaid,
"Vous
enchere de tons les autres" (literally, bidding of all the others") meaning in
:
pourriez bien porter
"you might
the colloquial
all
la folk carry tl* foolish

others". 7
perhaps have to pay the penalty for the faults of En tan 42 8 * 0rat 45
1
idiom,_vou may
the
13.
c>
? d. Lou T E,p.
,
'
\' 1.
I 3, c.
>.
'
n 10
,
G d.
E
d.
5
i
George Dandm,
a.
s.
4.
q^
, d . Loi
Rom. c. L ? Dan j ilu a

'_
e2
"
52
German.
OF IDIOMS.
80.
[CHAP.
collected
:
Ill
From
the
German language Mr. James has
idioms, of which the following
may
serve as specimens
aufrichtig, als dass er euch betrugen sottte."
He
" Er main
ist xi
t<
" Fragt man ihn, so schweigt er." If you questioi " Er tanzt gem." He likes to dance. M Es sine him, he is silent. eine- menge Hasen geschossen vx>rden."A number of hares were shot " Die Raupe wird zu einem schmetterling." The caterpillar becomes " Es kommen truppen an." Troops are arriving. " h a butterfly.
deceive you.
is
too upright
Italian.
less idiomatical than most othei European languages, its construction being very simple, insomud that whole pages of T&sso or Ariosto may be rendered almost literalh A few peculiarities into English, with trifling variation of idiom. however, I will notice. " Pare die trema la foresta d' ogn' intomo.' The forest seems to shake on every side. 8 " Rispondero come dc me si suole." I will answer, as I am accustomed to do. 8 " Question
Polen spricht rnan die sprache der language is spoken.' 81. The Italian, may be said to be
Homer." In Poland
the
Romai
troppo interessanti son queste per non essere trascurate in quest' opera? These are questions too interesting to be overlooked in this work.
Ci danno I'albo
de'
Giudici per la quintessenza di quanto di piii provetti
e rispcttabile era in
as the quintessence of the

in liome.*
potutu."
could.'
Groek.
They represent the List of the Judge! most distinguished and respectable person; " Un lawro compito meno imperfettamente che per me si't
Roma."
work completed with
the
least
imperfection
that
82.
The
Treatise of Viqer, de Grtvcce dictionis Idiotisnu's. with the

;
on the Civil, and HoouEVEHW's Doft trina Particvlarum Grcvcarum, afford together ample materials for s knowledge of the Greek idioms. I will select a few from their very numerous examples, l>oth of the peculiar force and meaning given tc
notes of
that of Bos,
;
HOOQBVBS and Zeunius
Ellipses, with the
comments of Sen vekkek
ceii. un
Ao'y'-'
'
An
words, and also of jwculiarities of construction in a sentence. which we commonly render " a Word," has many idiomatic l'lato gives three: 1. ZmvoUiQ i.v epwtij, unirip iiZwikov image as it were, of thought, in the voice." 2. Sia <rroi\tiov
ococ cVi rvSkot whole" (by which,
ii
(<>r
medium) from
a
theelemetrl to the
apprehend, he means
m
t!,.
.in
Ix-tween the mere articulations

01
word considered as a of which it is composed, and

'>.
SntSDCe
'c
proposition
Which
Ittupipii r iptorifiiv
" A
it
contributes to form).
sign,
atjfiiiov
by which
we distinguish
tinel,.
finals
thing spoken of from all others" (that is to say, a logical Term, nguishahle as such, from other terms, in reasoning). In OOnrtrOCtfon with other words, \uyov rece.ve.; I'mm them dif1
r.]'in<Mt<
ofOnomr,
:,.
p.
M5,
&c
An.I,
i
i .
mi.
moottoi,
latr,
pruor,
''
Vi-.-iT, nili) liuti::,
niugitrl, Miodi, Italia. Prat. ji|. 101-5.
i.
3C.

CHAP.
III.]
OF IDIOMS.
53
Aoyov uite'iv, is " to ask leave to speak ;" \6ynv ;" \6yov Xa&eiv, " to accept it." Again, lilovai, " to give such leave ;" Xoyoy tilovai, may mean " to give a reasonable account of anything
ferent meanings.
or, in a different construction,
" to give reasons to one's
self,"
i.
e.
to
weigh a question well
in one's
own mind
Xoyoy
-n-upiêty,
" to sug-
;" Xoyot, in the plural, may mean gest to others, a reasonable plea " some particular kinds of discourse ;" or again, " mere words,"
'Eie Xoyovg iXQe'iv, " to talk over a subject." Xoyoig hrat, " to be talked of by men," to have your name " familiar in their mouths as household words." Aoyog tori, " there liar Ipovyt Xoyoy, " according to is a talk," " there is a report." my opinion however," " as I at least think." Aoyog irt^'oc is differ-
" mere pretexts."

'i'
some think it means simply ; of writing." As general idioms participle with the 1. of construction, we may notice these prefixed, descriptive of an individual, as 6 iroirjaag ru article 2. genitive case after AiowaiuKa, the author of the Dionysiaca.'
ently explained
by the Commentators
inferior style
" prose," others, " any
'
a verb, instead of an accusative, where two objects are compared, " it is juster ta CiKCLuntpov tviroitiy rove oiKEiovQ tuiv odvtiutv, "* (where the regular construction benefit domestics than strangers
would be
for an
J)
rove oOvtiovg).
:
3.
An
infinitive
seeing the ; But the most numerous of we tlltv? " when he saw." idioms are cases of Ellipses, that is, where one or more words are Thus Plato says, 'Ov omitted, as being understood from the context.
indicative
we
ifoly rbv f'xflpoV
" on mood, used (with wc) enemy
instead
f.iu>
To tto~wv ; 'Ev^taQr/e ?/ cW/iath'/e oi/de ToCt irapaXdÊig. Neither will you omit this also. What? Docile or indocile" (that So Achilles says in the Iliad is, wliether he he docile or indocile).*
:
'Et
i.
S',
iiyi f*i Tiignfiti
'.
of these tilings you shall take and carry away nothing against my will but if (that is, if you wish to do so) come and try.* In common discourse, the word ijfiipa (day) was often omitted after an
e.,
;
ordinal
number, as
in the
yap
tzov ivtpt ttjq
eôpng
Acts of the Apostles (ch. " For he spake, ovrw.
iv. v.
4), "Etprjice
in a certain place,
of the seventh (day) on this wise." 9 So the word Ttfiijpu (price) was commonly omitted. IIo<rov vvv 6 rcvpog tcrriv uvioq ewi tijq 'E\\c>oe " How much is wheat sold for now, in Greece ?" (t. e., at
what
83.
price ?) 7
the following,
adjective
The Latin Idioms have been explained by very many writers among a number of others, are noticed in Scheller's
:
:
Latin.
Fnccepta Styli bene Latini.

Victor Exercitus
ous army.
A
1
Maris so3vitia the rage of the sea," for the raging sea. whole phrase for a single adverb, summa cum dili'jentia, " with
"A "
substantive is frequently used as an the conqueror army," for the victori-
c.
Vijrer, p. 18.
ibid. p. 65.
3 Ibid. p.
6 Bo:;,
201.
* 7
Hno<r eV een,
20,
s.
1.
* Ibid. C. 10, s. 2.
r, ripioa..
Ibid. v. ripr,u.u.
54
OF IDIOMS.
[CHAP.
Ill
the greatest diligence" (for diligentissime). The repetition of the conjunction et answers to our connection 01 both with and. Thus Cicerc says, Mens in te animus quam singulari officio fuerit, et Seuatus et greatly my mind was attached to Popvlus Romanus testis est. "
How
you, both the Senate and the Roman people are witnesses." So the repetition of the disjunctive aut, answers to our disjunctives either and Cras aut scribam aut ipse veniam. " To-morrow, I will either or. neuter adjective is used for a transcendwrite, or come myself." substantive; as Si verum scire vis (not ental (or abstract) veritatem) " If you wish to know the truth." An adjective for an adverb, nidlics dubito, for non dubito " I doubt not." pronoun for an adjective, Qua; tua est humanitas, qui tuus est erga me amor (for tanta humanitas, tantus amor) " Such (or so great) is your kindness, such your love towards me." An infinitive mood for an indicative, as Caisar proficisci (for prof ect us est) " Ca>sar went." Among Latin idioms, too, many are elliptical, as ad Castnris JV0/1 /uibeo quo con(omitting osdem) " to the Temple of Castor." " I have no place to fugiam " (for non habeo locum quo coiifugiam) Jioni pastoris est tondere ]>ecus (omitting officium) " It is fly to." it a Erat the duty of a good shepherd to shear the sheep.'' cogitabam (omitting tempus) " There was a time when I thought 80." Ut paucis dicam (omitting verbis) u To say it in few words.*' " They slew him Victum et fugientem occiderunt (omitting earn)
dm
conquered and
Hebrew.
flying, &c.
&c."
84. Of the Oriental idioms, 1 do not pretend to speak on my own knowledge. I will, however, advert to some passages in the writers who have noticed them. From the Hebrew, we have adopted some shall hereafter more striking expressions, such as J/osanna, to which particularly allude. At present it may be sufficient to say, that the learned Scill.KUSNKK explains Hosanna, as an exclamation, formed of two words contracted into one, and signifying " We pray for salvah Thee to grant prosperity ;" 80 that when the tion," " We bes
I
Jewish multitude shouted "Hosanna to the son of David!" they

ant
idiomatically expressed n prayer to <!<m! to prosper Jesus, as a descendol their great King David: and the Pharisees themselves, had
declared, that Christ (the Messiah)

(
must be a " son of David."
Matth.
xxii.
T_\)
\i:iisoN,
iii
Arabic (Irammar, explains the follow" There is a singular manner of nmetimes, wherein the adjective aj lion, whirl with tin- following Hulwtantiv (a verb In'ing understood) only in gendei and numi * -r, and, at the same time, concords in case with in which situation (by an idiom another wbitnntivc placed before it similar to that whn h puts a verb when preceding a nominative with
ing
86. Mi. idioms
I.'iiii
his
of that
language.
more
eh,'.
iii
the .ucmlar, th'Hidi that nominative should be either

is
dual or plural), the ndjectivc

the nuud..
I
placed
ill
lllar
whatever may he
"I
it
..id
-t.in-
CHAP.
86.
III.]
OF IDIOMS.
55
Persian.
An
idiomatic discordance of number, between different parts
of speech, somewhat similar to that just noticed in Arabic, occurs also Thus, Mr. MoiSES' Persian Interpreter states, that in Persian. " Numerals, joined with a noun, require both the noun and the verb For " a hundred thousand tulips to be in the singular number." spring up," the Persian idiom gives "a hundred thousand tulip Again, " Two or more nouns have frequently a sinsprings up." gular verb after them, as Virtue and Excellence is lost" (for are lost). So, " the demonstrative pronouns are always placed before the noun, " as but continue in the singular number even with a plural noun, " this lips," for " these lips." 87. The excellent Grammar of the lamented Glossologist, A. L. Davids, notices some Turkish idioms, which occur in no other
Tmttrih
European language.
There
is
not only a comparative of diminution,
as buyuk, " great," buyudjik, " less great," or great in a small degree but a sort of superlative in diminution, as buyucljidjek, " much less
great."
On the other hand, there are some idioms corresponding to those of the English, though the two languages have in other respects Thus they say, demir kapou, " an iron gate," the so little connexion. substantive demir, " iron," being employed as with us in the manner
As with us, too, the adjective precedes the substituof an adjective. tive, as eyu ddem, " a good man" (eyu, signifying good), and not (idem eyu, as in Latin, vir bonus. 88. In the Malayan language, as in the English, Mr. Marsden ob- Malay, serves, that a contraction of the numeral of unity becomes the indefinite article. Sa, is " one," orang, is " man," and s'orang is " a man."
This is the case in many languages, and particularly in English fee our indefinite article a, or an, appears as ane in the Scottish dialect, where it is (or at least was) used equally for our a, and for our one
; :
And put ane *

All,
Hell
my
Paradyee appeir. 1
*
is
*
ane*
quod Experience,
Iu the Cherokee language, the numeral saquo, one, is used for the As there are no inflexions in the Malayan language indefinite article. to denote the case, gender, or number of nouns, the idiomatic diflerences in these particulars must generally depend either on the position of the words, or on the context. Hence, as in English, the nominative, or case of the agent, usually precedes, and the accusative, or case of
the object, usually follows the verb
these cases
;
but, under certain circumstances,
may be
transposed, as they
may
also
be
in English,
under
circumstances which are to be gathered from the context; and which, in die Malayan language, are further marked by the indefinite particle de.
3
89.
The
1
the Malayan
Sanskrit language abounds in inflexions as remarkably as is deficient in them. Its nouns, for instance, have three
3 2 Montgomery's Cherrie and Malayan Grammar, p. 102.
Sanskrit,
Dunbar's Goldin Terra,
Slae.
"
; :
56
OF IDIOMS.
[chap.
III.
genders, three numbers, and seven or (including the vocative) eight
Chinese.
Hence, it necessarily follows, that the Sanskrit idioms must widely diner from those of languages, which, though of the same origin, either never adopted those inflexions, or suffered them in whole or part to fall out of use. The Sanskrit has a dual number unknown to the Meeso-Gothic, Islandic, and other ancient Northern tongues it follows, therefore, that what the former expresses by inflexion, as res] acting two objects, cannot be idiomatically rendered by the others, but must either be left to be collected from the context, or must be expressed by a separate word. similar remark applies to the cases. " The Islandic, as well as the Mceso-Gothic," saysM. Westergaai:i>, " has only four casual terminations in each of the two numbers, viz. nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. The three remaining Sanskrit cases, the instrumental, ablative, and locative, have disappeared; and the notions marked by them are, in Islandic as well as Mceso-Gothic, expressed by prepositions, which generally govern the dative, but more rarely the genitive." l 90. In speaking of Chinese idioms, I must confine myself, for the pnscnt, to the colloquial medium, or spoken language to the written language I shall have occasion to refer hereafter. The former, as Dr. Marshman conjectures, existed " probably" in substance prior to the The structure of this invention of the (written) characters."* language is so different from that of any one hitherto mentioned, that, to transfer I passage of any length from the one to the other verbally, would render it totally unintelligible. The words are few in number, and consist almost wholly of a single consonantal followed by a single vocal articulation, ami these varied only by four or at most five distinctions of tone. Generally speaking, a word may be used as any part of speech, that is to say, a word which in one passage has the force and effect of a noun, may in the next be employed as a verb, an adverl), proposition, conjunction, &c; but to this there are some ex"Chinese words, however (as M. KYmusat briefly expresses ceptions. himself ), taken separately, are all invariable in their form: they admit Of no inllexion, and of DO change, either in pronunciation or in writing."* From the e facts it may easily be inferred, that the idiomatic structure of the Chinese language is of that peculiar character to which have verted. Thus, to answer to the Knglish adverb "silently,^ lbs Chinese employ two vrorda mah and yeni the former meaning silence, and the latter to consume ;* but how the union of these tWO The notions came to have such to effect, it is not easy to conceive. word (o/U original]} ilgnifled, us a noun substantive, "the sprout of a s hut. it is often employed as a sort of ut of the earth, .no, as Thi&n tchi ming, Heaven's command;' sign of the ii. m, ;md tchy answers to our \ (anciently whi'iv /,,
cases.
14, p. 56.
* Kl'-ui.
:
'EUm.ofChli
4
ir,p.
6E
.
I
tiiaolM,
i,
<iu.
Mm
him in,
lUmuiat 78
Ibid. 40.

CHAP.
III.]
;:
OF IDIOMS.
cites a short phrase, in
57
which tchy is repeated three times, and taken successively as a verb, a pronoun of the third person in the accusative case, and a mark of the relation between the verb and the substantive which follows it. Dr. Marshman has observed some curious coincidences between Chinese and English idioms. The veib ta, " to beat, or strike," is often prefixed to a substantive, and forms in ordinary discourse a compound in which it loses its proper meaning
1
And M. Remusat
thus td-tsyeu (literally, to strike wine) is " to pour out wine." In one instance, it corresponds exactly with the English ta-ho, " to produce fire by striking a flint," answers to our phrase of " striking a light." have also some analogous expressions, at least in colloquial discourse, as " to strike a bargain." 2
;
We
Old World, I pass (says Mr. Howse) "as exhibited in the American idioms, compared with European tongues, is of a very peculiar structure cast, as it appears, in a different mould from ours, and offering to the Grammarian a novel and singularly organized system, and to the Metaphysician a new view of the operations of the human mind." 8 "Yet it is a system complete in the mechanism of its parts, and adequate to the end desired."* This is strikingly exemplified in the long, ingenious, and curious analysis, which Mr. Howse has made of the verb in the Cree language, and of which it may at present suffice to give the following examples. In
to those of the
91.
Erom
the endless diversity of Idioms in the
American,
New. "The whole fabric of language"

;
treating of the matter of which the Cree verb consists, he (among Other distinctions) separates primitive verbs from derivatives ; and of derivations he notices three classes, of which the first augments the
modes and degrees ex. gr. Nippow, he sleeps Nippasku, he sleeps very frequently ; Nenippbw, he sleeps with iteration (indefinitely) Ndnippow, he sleeps at times (distributive^) Nippa.su, he sleeps a little Ndnippdsu, he sleeps a little now and 8 then. Again, from a different root (Nippa, water), there are several distinctions, some applying to tilings animate, and some to things inanimate, as Nippeewoo, he is water (. e. possesses the nature of water) ; Nippeemm, it is water; Nippeewissu, he is like water ; Nippeewow, it is like water Nippeewissoo, he is watered (wetted) Nippewetayoo, it is watered Nippeehdyoo, he changes him into water ; JSfippeetoic, he turns it into water; Nippeewchayoo, he waters (4 e. wets) him; Nippeewetoiche waters it; Nippeekayoo, he makes water ; Nippeekatayoo, he makes it water Nippeekatum, he adds water to it Nippeekanyoo, he makes water of it; Nippeeskow, there is abundance of water; Oonippeemu, he possesses water. 6 M. DurONCEAU ascribes
action in different
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
still more discrepant from the ordinary European or Asiatic idioms. He says, " the manner in which the Indians compound their words was first observed by Egede in his account of Greenland and Mr. Heckewelder explains it at large in
;
1
to these languages a peculiarity
Remusat, 78, note. I,,id P- 12

-
Marshman, 402.
Ibid. p. 69.
Cree Grammar, p. 11. Ibid. pp. 17-21.

58
the eighteenth
are
letter
OF IDIOMS.
of his correspondence.
[CHAP.
III.
multitude of ideas
combined together by I process which may be called agglutination. I shall select a word from the Delaware language, which will convey a clear idea of the mode of formation of all others of the same When a Delaware Avoman is playing with a little dog or kind. Git, she will often say to it Kuligatschis ! which I would translate into English, What a pretty little pawyou have ! This word is compounded in the following manner is the inseparable pronoun of the second person, and may be rendered by thou or thy,' according to the context uli, pronounced (oolee) is part of the word wulit, which signifies handsome, or pretty; gat is part of the word wichgat, which signifies a leg or paw schis is a diminutive termination, and conveys the idea of littleness." "In the same manner Pilape, a youth, is formed from Pint, chaste, innocent, and Lenajx, a man."* Instances
'
'
'
like these
peculiarities of this class of languages.
have led to rather an exaggerated notion of the characteristic " If we search for the distin-
guishing
shall
of our American languages," says Mr. Bancroft, "we pervading them all, and establishing their rules. The American does not separate the component (tarts Of the proposition which he utters: he never analyzes his expressions: his thoughts rush forth in a troop. The picture is presented at once Synthesis governs every form: it pervades all the and altogether." dialects Of" the Iroquois and the Algonquin, and equally stamps the character <it' the language of the Cherokee. This synthetic character
traits
find the synthetic character
apparent In the attempt to express In the simplest manner the name The Algonquin, the Iroquois, could not say Father: of anything. Their nouns implying rethey must use a more definite expression. lation, alwavs inelude the Signification of one of the three persons of the They cannot say Father, Son, Master, septrately p. .^-.essive pronoun. tin- noun must lie limited, by including within itself the pronoun of
is
tin-
person to
the
whom
it
relates.
The
Missionaries, therefore, could not
Doxology literally; but chanted among the Hurons, "(Jlorv DO tO OUt Father, Hid to his Son, and to their Holy Ghost."' Mr. Bancroft was perhaps in some degree misled by Dr. EDWARDS, The | miter 00 whom TOOKI and others have too impliedly relied. following passages frOOl Mr. Howse's very able work may serve to is views: erron M! "Dr. Edwards, speaking of the ins, on,- of the Algonquin tribes, observes, that they cannot say M thou mm-.!,' &c. The examples (aliove given) of similar I love,' lattcal import, in DOtfe the animate and Inanimate tonus, will, I Ke Hiidirieiit show that he is completely ill error." 4 AgalOi m.i that the writers on the Algonquin language, "it would H4HM11 l.mvV. ., all deny the existence of the velli sill Kliot, Edward
translate
'
>,
tive,
in
the diahtcte
on which thev have

ii
severally
written.
This
en partly from the

mi.
|,.
idiomatic omission of the

)>.
h_\
Ibid.
*
88.
Hi
I.
Am.
i.
k. tt.
Cue
fu.iiniii.u, p.
105.

CHAP.
III.J
OF IDIOMS.
r
.
>9
verb-substantive in a certain kind of expressions, and partly from an

entire misconception of the subject, as is evident from the tenor of their examples, which prove only that those dialects have no auxiliary
fact, the verb-substantive in the Cree language being the root, and ow the affix or characteristic termination ; which two parts belong essentially to every verb in that When Mr. Bancroft says that the synthetic character language. pervades these languages, he says no more than might be predicated of the Sanskrit, the Greek, and, in different degrees, of all polysyllabic And when he says that the tongues; for they are all synthetic.
verb-substantive."
In
is i-ow,
" he, or
it is," i
American never analyzes his expressions, he might have added that no When a child says to its unlearned person does so in any language.
American does, from mere and certainly does not analyze that phrase into a verb, a pronoun, an article, and a noun-sifl> The same constantive, all of which nevertheless exist in the phrase. sideration may even be applied to the instances cited by M. Duponceau. Tin; Delaware woman does not analyze her expression hiligatschis, as M. Duponceau has very ingeniously, and no doubt accurately, done. It is true, that in this case there is a process, which may not improperly lie called agglutination, by which a phrase may be made out of parts of words melted down, as it were, together. But do we not find a similar proceeding among our own unlettered and unreflecting classes? It was formerly usual for return post-chaises to stop at the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, in the hope of picking up passengers; and I well remember the rapid utterance, by the men waiting there, of certain sounds which can hardly be expressed in writing otherwise than by such a combination of letters as "Dthrodsa?" by which they meant to ask " Are you going down the road, Sir?" In this question, stood for " down," th for " the," rod for " road," and sa for " Sir." The same sort of abbreviations may be observed in many London cries, at the present day. A poor old man daily passes my window, crying something that sounds like faicathes, by which, I believe, he means, " fresh water-cresses." And there is a well-known story of
nurse, " Give
me
a kiss,"
it
speaks, as the
it
imitation of a phrase
which
has heard:
when a boy, asking an old clothesman why he cried o'clo, and not old clothes ; to which the man aptly replied, " I could pronounce old clothes, Sir, as well as you ; but if you had to repeat it as often in a day as I have, you would be glad to shorten it too." 92. Hitherto I have only spoken of Idioms as they vary locally ; Words but, in all languages, they are also subject to constant, though scarcely ^^f in sensible changes, in the lapse of time ; and this in various ways the force and effect attached to particular words, in their grammatical use as different parts of speech at different times, and in their position and arrangement in a sentence. Whether or not a word used in old writers may be received with the same signification in the modern idiom, depends wholly on custom, according to the Horatian rule
Coleridge,
Cree Grammar, p. lo".
60
OF IDIOMS.
Malta renascentur qua; jam cecidere, cadentque Qua; nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet Usus, Quem penes arbitriuin est, et jus, et norma loquendi.
[chap.
Ill
Horat. Art. Poet. 70.
Some
shall revive that
now
forgotten
lie,
Others, in present credit, soon shall die, If Custom will, whose arbitrary sway
Words and the forms of language must obey.

Francis.
have a remarkable instance in th( word Handbook : it was the Anglo-Saxon handboc, which, until 01 late years, was entirely superseded by the word " manual ;" but now we have handbooks in various branches of literature and art, as the handlxx)ks of painting, of antiquities, of France, Italy, &c. Nor dc words merely die out, or revive, according to the fashion of the day. Tne same word, continuing in use for along course of time, is employed at one period in a primary, and at another in a secondary sense. Thus the word contrition derived from contero, "to wear down with bruising," had in its primary sense that mechanical meaning only. At the present day, it is confined to the secondary sense of " being worn down with sorrow from a sense of guilt." Bishop Ji i:i:mv Taylor, however, the most eloquent preacher of his age, used it in " Serpents are curious to preserve tin' primary, or mechanical sense. their heads from contrition, or a braise." 1 So, our verb to prevent (from the Latin prcevenwi) is in its primary sense simply "to come before." In the form of Common Prayer drawn up in the sixteenth century, it is used forgoing lx'fore, as a guide and assistant " Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings, with thy most gracious favour." But in the present day it is used to signify exclusively the going before for of hindrance as in our common proved), " Prevention is the purpo -r than cure." Again, the verb to rest is used at present only to Signify remaining quiet in body or mind alter exertion, or heing supmentally or l>odily by something on which we place reliance; l.iit frequently uses the expression "it resteth" to signify that part of an argument, which remains to be proved, after certain point! have lieen demonstrated or conceded e. <j. "By reason man uttaineth unto thi knowledge of things thai are, and are not sensible; it resteth, therefore, thai we Marco bow man attained unto the knowledge of nown that they may he done." 1 Hitch things insenaibU, as ai And in tin- .aim- mmii'T it was employed by BaOOQ and Milton. A flie idi'. man.- use of single words varies in signification and
this, in
Of
the present day,
we
-t
'
BOOm
MMinttta. eflWt at different time*, so does the idiomatic construction of sentence A short pasaage in tha prayer, common to all Christians, from the time tn the of itn injunction, will sufficiently Ifluitmta this statement
1
rjiiH'ixi,-.'
In
pm
,,;,,> li/idiv T(tv twwiirrttir in ///or tin was rendered, French of the thirteenth century In the i',,n Royal de chtsoon jor nos donne hni."
land
<
tin'
it
8on.i-.nu, vol.
ii.
p,
130.
'
Lr.
k:..
l'ui. b.
I.
*.
7.
Matt.
vi.
11.

CHAP.
III.]
OF IDIOMS.
61
" Donne nous aujourd'hui notre pain de chaque jour." By Wiclif, in the fourteenth century, it was rendered " Give to us this day oure breid ovir othir substaunce." And in our present form of prayer it is, " Give us this day our daily bread." It will be observed that the order of the words in all the five passages is different The singular variation, however, which occurs in Wiclif 's translation (viz. ovir othir substaunce) depends on the various significations given to the Greek adjective Ltnoixnoq, which some translate " substantial," others " supersubstantial," others " sufficient for one's support," others again " suited to our daily needs ;" and this last version is supposed to be corroborated by the parallel passage in St. Luke's gospel, to Ka& ii/dipav, translated in our present text, " day by day," and in the margin, " for the day."
version,
it is,
1
have stated that the proper idiom of a language is to be deindividual termined by the agreement in practice of the best writers and speakers P^lHiftrio at a given period. But care must be taken to distinguish between such agreement, and the peculiarities of any individual writer or speaker,
94.
1
however deservedly eminent he may be. Thucydides, for instance, is first of Greek historians, and his great work has justly attained the distinction to which it laid claim as a cHUtd te ati, " an
the very
everlasting possession ;" yet in regard to his style, the very learned H. Stephanus says, " Minime contentus iis quae ex veteri sermone habebat, multa innovavit, phrasimque magna ex parte sibi peculiarem
USurpavit,"* " Not content with what he found in ancient writers, he innovated much, and employed a phraseology which was in
peculiarly his
great part
Miitoo.
own." 95. So our own Milton's
parably powerful and majestic; but

striking peculiarities.
He
both in verse and prose is incomit owes much of its effect to some often omits the article, in order to bring
style
out the substantive with greater force, as in describing the infernal

regions
:
dire hail,
Thaws not, but Of ancient pile.
which on firm land gathers heap, and ruin seems
par
Lost. b. 2, v. 589.
Many
trary,
eminent writers of that and the preceding period, on the conintroduce the article superfluously. Thus Spenser savs
:
e So Shakspeare
, ,
Old Genius the porter of them was, Old Genius, the which a double nature has. Faerie Queen,
:
3, 6, 31.
In his brain
he hath strange places cramm'd With observation, t/ie uhich he vents In mangled forms. As You Like
It, a.
ii.
7.
This, however,
and
Italian
1
il
probably copied from the French idiom le quel, quale and locche. Milton's most obvious peculiarity is
is
si. 3. *
Luke,
Append, de Dial. Attic, p. 201,

G2
OF IDIOMS.
[CHAP.
III.
the frequent introduction of Latin words, " Romanizing our tongue" (as Dryden says) "but not complying with its idiom." This, which often gives his style a pedantic stiffness, is sometimes, however, productive
real beauty. It is harsh and formal when he describes the Angel partaking of Adam's viands With keen dispatch
of a
Of real hunger, and concoctive heate To transubstantiate ; what redounds,

Through
spirits
with ease.
transpires 1'ar. Lost, 5, 4136.
On
flower
the other hand, the Latin

:
the well-known simile, comparing the growth of
word consummate adds great beauty to mind to that of a
So from the root Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves 51 ore aerie, last the bright, consummate Houre.
J'ar. Lost, 5,
479.
adopts too from the Latin, not only single words, but constructions, such as the imitation of the ablative case absolute. " The summer following, Titus then Emperor, Agrinola continually with inroads disquieted the enemy;" like imperante Tito (History of England, b, 2). And, by a similar analogy, he employs the accusative with the infini-
He
" For what order of an English sentence. though Brutus and the whole Trojan pretence were yielded up yet those old and inborn names of successive kings, never any to have bin real persons, or don in their lives at least som part of what so long hath bin rememhred, cannot be thought without too strict an incredulitv."
tive, inverting the usual
(I
I.
id. b.
1.)
Donne.
earlier than Milton, has still more remarkable peculiarities, due indeed partly to the false taste of the Of these, the following time, but more to his own eccentricity. examples may Mitlire: 1. In the lines addressed to Lady Bedford on the death of her friend:
'.u;.
Donnk, an author somewhat
You
2.
In br
that nre she, and you that's double she, halfo of yourself shall see. tad
Am
In his letter to his friend

1
how
grievo
M.
J. \V.
That
inrii
may
not tlu-mselvcii their
own good
parte
Extoll, without Hiwpoct of
aurr/iitt/rirt
(That
is,
,|.
witnout being pnepejcted of overweening pride or self-conceit.) of ji tormatsea: TiLing the dark in
,
All thing* arc one, and li Mace nil luim.:.

1
that,
1 1
our none can be,
i i
daftunhk
l>nili
cover.
It is cany to see that peculiarities of this kind differ greatly from the and while the latter should bo carefully proper idiorna of i
:,,(,.,,, I,.,
I
I,,
hi
oompoaittai, the former should for the mewl part be

II
97. In
tllO
gen
he I'mmd that the peculiarities

CHAP.
III.]
63
OF IDIOMS.
ancient or modern.
which distinguish individual writers aiv imitations of foreign idioms Andral Those of Milton were generally taken from the J!^^ classical or scriptural models, with which he was so conversant. Thus
he describes our first parents: Adam, the goodliest man
His sons
:
of men since bom, the fairest of her daughters, Eve.
Par. Lost, 4, 323.
correspondent to the Greek idiom in St. John's Gospel 'O oiricrw fiov ipxojitvoQ ifiTrpootitv pov yiyoviv, on YlpQrot fiov yv. " He that cometh after me is preferred before me ; for he was before
This
is
me."
Spenser equally deviates Literally, "for he was first to me." from the English idiom when he uses " from to die" for "from
dying:"
For not to hnve been dipt in Lethe's lake Could keep the son of Thetis from to die.
This also is analogous to a Greek idiom; for, as Simonis observes, "Carent Graeci gerundiis, quorum loco infinitivis utuntur, vel cum, vel sine praepositione." "The Greeks have no gerunds, but employ Thus in their stead infinitives either with or without a preposition." we have without a preposition, Swict fiptiv, dedit ferendum (literally, gave to carry), and with a preposition, Ik tov opyv, a videndo (literally, from to see). The foreign idioms chiefly imitated, from the reign of James I. to the Commonwealth, were those of the learned languages; and this practice being carried to an excess by the Puritans, gave oc1
casion to Butler's ridicule of his hero
his speech In loftiness of sound was rich, A Babylonish dialect, Which learned pedants much affect 'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin, Like fustian heretofore on satin.
Il'clibras, p. 1, c. 1,
For when he pleas'd to show't,
91
98.
The
Restoration brought in a different fashion, which
from that time on the increase. It is that \ve find an English author betraying by his style too intimate an acquaintance with Greek or Latin writers: the more prominent imitations are those of the French idioms; recently of the German; and sum. times, but more rarely, of the Italian. In French idioms our public Journals abound, which in translations is the more excusable on account of the extreme haste with which the manuscript is obliged to be sent to the press. Still the effect is sometimes ridiculous, as when the Journalist informs us that the conspirators meet in "caves" in Paris, meaning "cellars." They, however, often adopt Gallicisms without this excuse as when they announce a Political He-union, as having been held at a minister's house in London, which in the English idiom implies that parties, which had previously separated, had on this occasion been re-united; whereas the writer merely meant to say that,
said to have been
; 1
may l>e seldom now
Modtni
^"l
Introd.
Gram.
Crit. in Ling. Grasc. p. 149.

64
there
OF IDIOMS.
[CHAP.
III.
was a meeting of the minister and his adherents. Mrs. Haxnaii More has drawn a ridiculous picture of the imitation of Gallicisms,
supposed
letter
:
in the
" Alamode Castle

I visited
Dear Madam,
my new
of an English lady of quality to her friend I no soonerfound myself here, than apartments, which are composed of five pieces : the
:
room which gives upon the garden is practised through the great one and there is no other issue. As I was exceeded with fatigue, I no sooner made my toilette, than I let myself fall on a bed of repose, where sleep came to surprise me. My Lord and I are in tlie intention to make good cheer, and a great expence and this country is in 2)ossession All that England has of to furnish wherewithal to amuse oneself.
small
:
Vulgarisms
ailupu.il.
youth has- of amiable, or beauty of ra risking, sees Bender yourself here then, my friend, &c. && 99. But the most disgraceful degradation of the modern English idiom is the adoption of rank vulgarisms into the discourse of the educated classes, and the standard literature of the country. It would perhaps be invidious to mention the writers, who have Indulged <>f more especially as in some inlate in this low and unworthy habit
illustrious, all that
itself in this quarter.
"
names "honour this corruption." But it may be allowable to say that Addison would have stood aghast to hear in polite company such barbarous terms as "snobbishness" and " jiunkeyxsm,"
stances
their
an would have been disgusted with the coarse familiarity of a young I presume gentleman addressing his venerable father as " Governor." that by "snobbishness" is intended vulgarity, the quality of a ,sW>, which in the Suffolk dialect means "a journeyman shoemaker." 1 In the Somerset dialect it is said to mean "mucus nasi:"* and may pen haps be connected with the German schnauben, " per nares spirare, ti> breathe thick, or snore, and so with schnautze, the snout. Flunkey ism is of course taken from Flunkie, an equally vulgar Scotch word for a In old French, Flanchier was one who waited at his livery servant. master's side, or flank from the Vr. flanc, and German Flan/;-, which As to the word Wachter derives from lank, the loin or side. Governor," ItWM adopted within living memory from the slang of Certainly none of tin- thieves, who called the gaoler their governor. id., us connected with these words are so pleasiii!
t
:
1
as to add to the English idiom either dignity or grace. 100. The importance of studying tlie idiomatic peculiarities of a The idiom gives to language is manliest from many considerations. ii:"' it; identity and character; it is indeed its very spirit,
which we possess as it were only the deadixxly of speech, and might almost apply to it the Apostolic (peeking with dn,- ie\,.r,.|ir. Hence, ta whatthe letter Irffleth, bat the spirit giveth life. ever wav we have |o do with a language, unless we understand its
ll
>
proper idiom,
fluck B9
wo
I
'
are liable to
fall
into errors,
sometimes ludicrousj
The English do sooner began po tblj laial. '"' Peace of 1814, than their mistakes in the French
ii.ii.wll, tee. Beeh,
iWt
Corinth.
II,
8, 6.

CHAP.
III.]
65
OF IDIOMS.
pour
language formed the subject of a very popular farce, ' Les Anglaises rire ' (the Laughable Englishwomen), in which a lady, meaning to ask for tea (le the) desires to have Vathde (the Atheist), and introduces her niece as ma niaise (my silly one). Similar mistakes, however, occurred at the same period to the French who affected to speak English. young French gentleman entering a coffee-room, called
by the term Boy I which his dictionary had informed him was the English for Garcon. And when an English lady paid a
for the waiter
visit at the house of a French lady, who happened not to be at home, the daughter of the latter said " Mamma will be very angry that you came in her absence," meaning " sorry ;" for these two very different
significations are expressed alike in
French by the word fachee above

intransUtlun
-
alluded
to.
101.
The
is
case
is still
worse,
quence
to
be translated.
if a work or document of any conseWithout an adequate knowledge of idiom,

its
wholly perverted. Mr. Hazlitt has pointed out some ludicrous instances of this in Cotton's translation of Montaigne's Essays. Thus, a passage which begins En la plus espesse barbarie, lesfemmes Scythes, &c. (in an age of the darkest barbarism, the Scythian women, &c.) is rendered by Mr. Cotton, "The Scythian women, in the wildest parts of Barbary" &c. Again, Laissons cette autre secte, faisant expresse profession de la fierti (not to mention that other sect, the Stoics, who expressly professed haughtiness), which Mr. Cotton thus curiously perverts " Let us leave that other sect, and make a downright profession of Finally, he represents poor Montaigne as most whimsifierceness''' cally ungallant to his wife. Montaigne, who had been rendered nearly senseless by an accident, says, " Je m'advisai, de commander qu'on donnat un cheval a ma femme, que je voyois s'empestrer et se tracasser dans le chemin qui est montueuxet malayse." (I had so much sense about me, as to order them to give a horse to my wife, who I saw was toiling and labouring along the steep and uneasy road.) This, Cotton renders, " I had so much sense as to order that a horse, which I saw trip and falter on the way, should be given to my wife" 1 102. One laments to seethe natural ease, and unaffected good sense Homer, of a writer like Montaigne so distorted; but it is worse when the great Epic Poets are so mangled. Virgil introduces the powerful and wonder-working Ethiopian Priestess thus
sense
is
:
the spirit of the original evaporates, or
Hinc mihi Massyla? gentis monstrata sacerdos Hesperidum templi custos.*
Which
Stanyhurst translates
in soil
Massyla begotten, Sexton of Hesperides sinagog. 3
The simple and

1
natural moonlight scene, given
by Homer as a simile
*
Hazlitt's Montaigne, Prefatory Address.

3
iEneid, iv. 483.
Stanyhurst, ibid.
[G.]

66
OF IDIOMS.
[chap.
Iliad,
J1I.
at the close of the eighth
book of the
stands thus in the
original
'CI;,
or
(y
aueatS
ILiTroa. tyxinrsi af&tp) fikri'tt
&a'ivir iotTîTix,
on
<r'
jtXt
tr,v>p.o; altibg,
'E* t a*j, KaJ vaTxi, lutaviht o a^' inrtppoiyri 'oitrirvTOi 'Aj/'wj, Havre Si T ttitreu iLffTgoi- y'lynh 3s <ri <pf sua lloiftr,*.
i$ct*ov -ratrai cxeiri*i xcti trgtuotts
(Literally
As when
in
heaven the stars arotind the resplendent moon
appear most beautiful ; when too the ether is wind-less, and all the watch-heights, and steep summits, and wooded lawns are fully seen, and heavenward the immeasurable ether is thrown open, and all the stars are seen, and the shepherd is rejoiced in mind.) This is given by Cowper, if not with the same animation, yet with a near approach, at least, to the simplicity and truth of the great
poet:
As when around
Shine in
full
the clear bright moon the stars splendour, and the winds are hushed, mountain tops, the headland heights, The groves, the Stand all apparent ; not a vapour streaks
The boundless
blue, but ether, opened wide, All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheered.
But by Pope the sketch

altogether unnatural
:
is
not merely exaggerated
it is
rendered
As, when the moon, refulgent lamp of night t O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene ; Arounil her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars uimumbered gild Vie glowing pole ; O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's heal
Then
s/iinr
the rales, the rocks
in
prospect
rise,
A flood of glory
The
bursts from all the skies:
conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,

the blue vault
Eye
Five
with a
Correspond,
tips tin'
and
bless the useful light.

:
linos arc here

tit.
spun
expression
twelve the words whatever in the Greek.

<
nit to
in italics
haw
no
The dark
trees
i/rllmc
ii
verdure, are strangely inconsistent with the silver which it.ims and the ll of glory bursting out at once, is
;
as unsuitable to the calm ol' the UHHcinbli

,.!
i.
|...
.,l
Homer's
utility
<
scene,
is
the calculato the
nt
|.l'"i
,
im
on the of hi* tingle shepherd.

not to see
that
of moonlight are
l.ition
ii
is iiiipiKsilile
comparing these two transthe one is the work of a sound

>n
scholar,
ties o!
lO.'l. ""'
1m.'
tin- otln
on who||\ unacquainted with the peculiariI'le,
the (irecian langiia
Itinl'\ lion
literal.
i,
however,
that a translation
should
thai
I
HtrirtW
In
fact,
it
is
mere delusion
11
to
suppose
one language, can be rendered, word old. in another. How is pea thai i language abounding Inflectioni should be exactly rtpi on bo wind. Inflection
of any length,
in
it.

chap.
OF IDIOMS.

67
a monosyllabic ?
peculiarity, as
m.
I
is unknown or a polysyllabic tongue by word Idiom, which necessarily implies

;
The very
necessarily
excludes an entire community of expression.
The spirit and true meaning of one language can only be transfused into the other on the principle of Compensation. What in one idiom is done by a single word may be compensated in another by a phrase an inflection may be supplied by a preposition a compound by a periphrasis, developing, as it were, the thought of the author, and investing an intellectual
;
conception with the forms of imagination.
104. Of this latter art I know no more complete master than Chap- chapman. man, a poet of the Elizabethan age, especially in his translations of the (so-called) Homeric hymns, addressed to various deities. These furnish ample proof that his translations were not only, as his titlepage declares, " done acccording to the Greek," but done with a full sense of the poet's meaning in the compound words which in that language are so graceful, but in bare naked English would often lose all their beauty. Thus in the hymn to Apollo, we find Ttvpcoaov \e\itt6it]v (literally, Teumessus bed-making, but which is explained by the commentators, producing grass for the making of beds).
This Chapman happily renders

Teumessus apt
to
make green couches
on,
And
In the same
trained),
flow'ry field-beds.
hymn,
which the
translator expresses in a
that flowe
the Ionians are described \icex"t,' c (sweepingwhole verse

/
:
With ample gownes
down
to their feet.
And
in the
hymn
to Ceres, he
(literally,
words aep.vi)v Qtav two lines

:
still more paraphrastically expands the the venerable, or majestic goddess) into
A goddess,
Of
in
whose grace, the

is
nat'ral spring
serious majesty itself
seen.
So, where the poet ascribes to Mercury,

alav\o^r]TT\v (literally, counsel-false),
among
it is
other epithets, that of thus expressed

:
A fair-tongued
man had
version
but false-hearted counsellor.
In these, and many other such passages, we plainly see that Chapwell studied the words of the original ; that he fully com-
prehended their idiomatic force in Greek ; and that, where a literal would have failed to impress that force on the mind of an English reader, he compensated it by an analogous phrase better suited to the genius of our language. Unfortunately he did not possess that entire command of his native tongue, in all its strength and sweetness, which his contemporary Shakspeare so powerfully exercised. His translation of the Iliad, with all its fidelity, was at times harsh and rugged and hence it fell into neglect ; whilst Pope's became popular by the smoothness of its versification, though utterly destitute of Homer's characteristic simplicity and grandeur. 105. I need not remind the students of divinity, how great and
:
f2
68
Scriptural idioms.
OF IDIOMS.
[CHAP.
III.
serious an importance has been attached to a careful study of the
idioms, in which the different portions of the Old and
New
Testa-
Testament (with perhaps the exception of St. Matthew's gospel) were all origiIt is sufficiently obvious, however, that the nally written in Greek. Apostolic writers did not employ the purest Greek idiom of the classic ages and this is easily to be accounted for. Their native tongue was Aramean or Syro-Chaldean. Those among them who had studied the Mosaic law must have been versed in the pure Hebrew. But there was a numerous class of Jews, who are described as Hellenists, that
the
;
ment were composed.
The books of
New
The word 'EMrjyeo-Tae, indeed, is renimitators of the Greeks. dered in our translation "Grecians," and in the Vulgate Gratis; but being regularly formed from the verb \\r/vt'w, must mean persons who imitated the Grecians in opinions, language, or otherwise. 1 The Hellenistic Jews were spread, in great numbers, through many provinces, where the Gospel was eventually preached and where various Some critics even think that in local dialects and idioms prevailed. the writings of St. Paul, the idiom of his native city Tarsus, or at The idioms least of his native province Cilicia, is to be detected. derived from the Hebrew and Aramean are indiscriminately termed by most critics Hebraisms. They have been distinguished, however, into perfect and imperfect. The former consists of siu'h words, phrases, and constructions, as belong exclusively to the Hebrew or Aramean language; the latter of such as exist, but are rarely found in Greek writings, or which the Apostles at least did not derive from that
is,
;
source.
1't.ychoiogy.
106. Lastly, I would observe that the comparative study of the idioms of different languages closely connects Glossology with the Philosophy of the Human Mind. It opens wide and various views of the modfll in which men in different stages of civilization, and under different influences, habitually group together their thoughts and feolings, and connect, them in certain modes of arrangement. As the same Daman organization is the basis of all our vocal sounds, so the same mind and spirit, is the basis of all our grammatical forms; but the articulations in the one case, and the grammatical forms in the Other, The wider msoeptiblc of great modification from external causes. (hi tii-ld nf our observation o idioms extends, the more correct and clear will be our |MTceptiin uf the connection between the faculties of the mind lad thfl possible modes of their expression in speech. Within tug memory the sphere of this observation has been immeusel] It was tlOdedt tad Mifeenon have in consequence lieen corrected.
m
I
.
IDpp'
anv
d In
I.". id
MoMiiiniMi, Ik, m (he ace

the
its
given
l>\
Lfl
Ilontan
scarce]}
thai
art.ii
Huron
//",
tribes
in
North
America had
ulation,
but,
conversed
chiefly
sanitation, for e\;mip!i', h>,
foj and
the
by vocal cries aspirated, as in that their language was little of diiierent tones, divided
better thro animal
mic
1
liom
throat,
p,
Simonii, liiUml.
Ml,
chap, ni.]
OF IDIOMS.
09
then by a guttural consonant, and without composition or These errors have come down to the present day. " Very strange notions" (says Mr. Howse), " and as erroneous as strange, have been entertained with respect to the American Indians and their lan-
now and
derivation."
guages.
It has
and
that their languages are consequently poor
not only been said that these tribes have few ideas, but a writer in a re;
spectable American periodical, of a recent date (' North American Review,' Jan. 1826), has even gone so far as to assert that this strange
poverty in their language is supplied by gesticulation : that the head, the hands, and the body, are all put in requisition to aid the tongue in An assertion so extravagant, so diamethe performance of its duty. trically opposed to the truth, is only here noticed as evidence of the ignorance that still prevails on this very interesting subject."* Again, " The grammatical character of the Cree, as an inflected language on an extended plan, leads to the inference of a higher origin than the mere casual, irregular, invention of man and an attentive analysis of When I observe in the verb, the its structure confirms this view. method and consistency of its various derivative modes (deriv. adject, imitat. augment, frequent and abund. iterat. dimin. distrib. transit. general, special, and particular ; causat. making, possess, instrum. and their various combinations), the regularity and exactness of their respective subdivisions (conjug. voice, mood, tense, gender, number, person). Again, the manner, extent, and accuracy of the pronominal inflexions (defin. and indefin.) in their manifold, double, triple, quadruple, combinations; the clearness of the correlative modifications
:
(princip.
and subord.
absol.
and
relat. act.
and
pass, defin.
and
indefin.
of person, time, and action, pos. and neg. &c), and the distinctness in form and signification through all the details ; when I contemplate this complicate, but accurate mechanism, in connection with a concord and government, blending and connecting the several parts of the system together, and a peculiar idiom or genius presiding over all, I cannot but recognise in such a system a regular organization of vocal utterance, affording to my own mind a circumstantially conclusive proof that the whole is the emanation of One, and that a Divine
mind." 3
1
Monboddo, Orig. and Prog, of Language.
Grammar
of the Cree Language, Introd. p. 9.

pp.
xii. xiii.
Ibid. Pref.
70
CHAPTER
IV.
OF THE VOICE.
Speech a
fivcuUy"
107.
Although,
in a treatise like the present,

all
it
is
impossible to
enter into a minute examination of

different bodies
feelings,
the
modes of speech which
and
of men employ in the communication of their thoughts yet the brief outlines above given suffice to show that there is no association of rational beings on this globe, to whom tinAlmighty has not granted the faculty of Voice. Those legendary
races of
men, who hissed
like serpents, or
sang
like birds, or
were
t
mute
voice,
ties,
as fishes, existed only in the imagination of narrators, ami
In-
credulity of auditors or readers.
True
it is,
that besides the
power of
mankind, in all ages and countries, have enjoyed other liuulwhich are figuratively called the Language of Look, and the Language of Gesture; but these, though occasionally coming in aid of words, or even supplying their place, as in the pintomimcs and ballets It is of action, have never superseded their use in any community. needless to allude further to them at present; bat occasions mav occur hereafter, in which their inlluence on speech itself mav be noticed. Reverting to the consideration of the numerous languages, dialects, and
idii puis,
noticed
in
the preceding chapters,

they
are
may
observe, that different

at
is
as they an- from each other, and consequently unintelligible
fust to
always found jiossible to acquire a knowledge of them by study, ami even to M|qC4 tln-ni to certain ralet. To trace up those rules to common grammatical principles, and to notice analogies in their development m mankind under different circumstances and influences, is the proper
familiar, still
it
persons to
whom
not habitually
pio\
mi-.-
of
(ill
[OH.
voice, if
S|'ech
lieing
we would
l.tn- 'ii.i; ;.
called a
lidei
it
the expression of the mind Ivy means of the analyze any particular system of speech, whether ontongue, dialect, idiom, or the like, we must
(
both jilmurii
i
</////,
,
that
to
I
is,
as to
its
properties of sound, and
tjnirniiititiriilli/, thai
a
t
it.
MMCte, we mu
-x
-m
our
in
tin
development of the fun lit)

most, brilliant display,
\>\
In both from the most obscure children, savaevs, and peasants, to its |kc1 orators, and philosophers of civi
properties of signification.
investigation
Hud
lift,
109.
To
bt
'ii
with the phonetic quality,

the
former
to.iti.i-, thai
human
voice
is
it was shown in mj produced by certain 01
CHAP.
IV.]
OF THE VOICE.
71
a minute so framed by the great Author of Nature, as to constitute produces and delicate mechanism, every different movement of which 1 But human beings are endowed corresponding variation of sound. a
with voice, to enable them to

that of
live together in a society different from mere gregarious animals a society more or less closely united Now, it duties.* in the bonds of a common interest, and common has been well observed, " that as all instruction on our duties to each communicated other, and to our Creator, has been from the beginning by the voice, and is still augmented by that admirable faculty, so from
organ the beginning it was necessary that we should have a peculiar 3 speak to be heard; and the ear for receiving that instruction." but, above all, the is given to us to discriminate sounds in general, sounds of the human voice. Lastly, we must remember that, in the
We
progress of society, most civilized nations have expressed the sounds of Hence their language by letters well or ill contrived for that purpose. have resulted three different modes of judging of the distinguishable
sounds of any language.

110. The first mode assumes that the letters of a given language Distin have been formed on a correct system ; but when that is not the case, gmshed e Thus Dr. Lowth reckons this mode is of course productive of error. 4 vowel, and y as a vowel similar to i in sound the English t as a 5 whereas i is often a diphthong, as in the pronoun i; and the English Again, an Italian considers the sound is simply a superfluous letter. y expressed by c in cento to be tliat of a simple consonantal articulation whereas it is really complex, and is expressed (though inaccurately)
;
\>?
in English
tsch, as in
by Ch, as in Charles, or tch as in itch ; and in German by Deutsch and Tschako. 111. In the second mode, men rely principally, if not solely, on the By discriminating power of the Ear, disregarding alphabetical arrangement, and but slightly adverting to the form or action of the vocal But the ear, like every other part of our frame, requires organs. great care and attention to bring its powers to perfection ; and indeed can seldom be reckoned a sure criterion of sound. " Au cujuslibet auris
the ear.
Non hercule magis " Can every man's ear judge accurately of the sound of letters ? No indeed, any more than of musical notes." frequently meet with persons, who are said to have no ear for music. They may perhaps distinguish the ' Stabat Mater ' of Kossini from a jig, but they don't know a third from a fifth, or a flat from a sharp. In like manner, we find ears so obtuse, as to make " Morn" rhyme to " Dawn," and to call Her Majesty and the Prince-Consort " Wictoria" Differences of this kind being transmitted from and " Halbcrt."
est" (says Quintilian) " exigere literarum sonos ?
quam nervorum." 6
We
parent to child, often serve to

1
mark
certain
local
dialects.
Besides
* Aristot. Polit. iii. 4. Univ. Gram. c. xvi. 8 Caswall, Physiology of the Organ of Hearing, p. 57. 4 Lowth. Eng. Gram. p. 4. * Univ. Gram. s. 461.
6 Instit.
Orat.
lib. i. c. iv.

72
OF THE VOICE.
[CHAP. IV.
which, the attention of the lower classes of the community is seldom directed to nice distinctions of vocal sound, as we may observe in the imperfect rhymes of many local proverbs, e. g.
Skiddaw, Helvellyn, and Catchedecam Are the three highest hills in all England.
And
may
in this
way many of the rhymes of so

:
exquisite a poet as
Burns
be accounted for
!
such as
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, what a panic's in thy breastic! Thou need na start awa' sae hastie,
I
wad
be laith to rin an' chase thee.
Again
gat your letter, winsome Willie, Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you brawlie.
I
So
At kirk or market, mill or smiddie, Nae tawted tyke, tho' e'er sae duddie.
If this defect of ear leads to variations in our
own
language,
it
must
operate
much more
Uy
th* vocal
hearer, and in This consideration is of great importance to the Glossologist lirst, because many of the languages which he has to examine are only known to him by the report of travellers, whose vocabularies often differ, and, secondly, because the well in point of sound as of signification alphabets, in which those vocabularies are written have been formed on no uniform principle, and by persons whose auditorial faculties wire far from acute. Hence few individuals would at first sight ncognize Ovchyhee, the scene of our admiral >le circumnavigator's death, in the island of Hawaiia ; or suspect the C/ierokee language to v meant by Tschirokurian. Our ancestors knew the Arabian Prophet by the name of Mahound: about a century ago he was uniformly called Malwmet ; and we now find him designated Mahomms'il, Mohammed, Mulmmmed, Muhamrned, Mtdimoud, &<. In estimating the phonetic qualities of a language, therefore, the ear must not be taken as | mi stand. ml of sound and if defective, its incorrectness is seldom A foreigner does not easily acquire the lluent pronunrbolly cured. ciation "t a native; ami the s/iihliolrtli of his provincial birthplace often Hticks t.. tin' orator in the senate, and the cinder in the palace. We come t" the third mode of judging, namely, by a consider1 12. Here it must lie owned, that the ation of the organs employed.
:
on a tongue which is wholly new to the respect to words which he hears but seldom repeated.
forcibly
anutomv ni the vocal organs was but little known to the ancients, nor until of lute yean wan it much attended t<> h) the modems; ami even iii the present dav, the best anatomists confess that is far mtel) understood, Dr. Rush, of Philadelfrom licing full) and on the 1'hilosophy of the Human Voice,' phia, iii
'
I
1,1,
..
\e
li
:
"lll.lt
thele
.
;ire
llo
<
'
o|, III
HUT
ill II,,
IV
III
ll
|
.lol( >"
1 1
S V
OH the
,f
I
the voiee."
I'h.i.
'
,M
,
Bom, v
id,
\MK, 1846, p, M,
\
II
ill
'
K lelilel
CHAP. IV.]
OF THE VOICE.
73
Summary
of Physiology,' says, "the sounds which the larynx is capable of producing are extremely numerous many celebrated authors have attempted to explain their formation ; but their explanations have been
:
little more than comparisons." And what the latter author asserts of one vocal organ, the larynx, is true of all the others. Yet he elsewhere observes, that " an exact knowledge of the anatomy of this organ is indispensable to a complete comprehension of the mechanism of the
'
voice."*
It follows, therefore,
that in the present state of science, a

is
complete comprehension of the powers of the voice

tained.
not to be at-
But yet
it is
clear that the observations
and experiments,
which have already been made on the vocal organs, have brought us nearer and nearer to the desired knowledge of their powers ; and hence
we may
reasonably expect that a continued prosecution of those researches will eventually place this portion of glossological science on a firm basis.
113. Admitting that the study is still beset with difficulties, I have Lower and nevertheless elsewhere briefly treated of " the Mechanism of Speech." a vv* T And therein I stated a distinction which is most important to be kept
-
but of which too many authors have unfortunately lost sight the distinction between the lower and the upper organs of the 3 voice. The former, which reach from the lungs to the opening of the windpipe, called the glottis, supply the air necessary for the proin view,
mean
duction of sound, and render it audible : the latter, which extend from the glottis to the apertures of the mouth and nose, render the sound
articulate.
The lower organs
give to the voice those properties which
have described by the terms quantity, quality, pitch, elevation, depression, force, emphasis, accent, tone, &c., and which chiefly serve to express our feelings ; the upper organs divide the voice into articulations, that is, those modifications of sound which we call words, syllables, and letters, and which enable us to communicate to each other the thoughts that elevate man above the irrational animals. The vocal organs, both upper and lower, among all the races and families of mankind, approximate, as nearly as any other portions of the human frame do, to a normal construction and a common purpose. There are some considerable differences, no doubt, among individuals, and perhaps among races but they are principally in the upper organs] and more particularly in the oral and nasal apertures. Of the sounds produced by the lower organs, Dr. Rush justly says, " those vocal signs of expression have a universality consistent with the prevalence of human feelings."*
different authors
;
114. The principal modifications of the voice are thus enumerated by M. Majendie: 1. The Cry; 2. The acquired Voice, or the voice
properly so called 3. Speech, or the articulate voice and 4. Singing, or the appreciable voice. I shall notice the three first of these divisions in their order the last lies out of the sphere of the present inquiry.
; ; ; 1
Modifications of voice
-
Elem. Sum. Phys. p. 144. Univ. Gram. s. 451.
Ibid. p. 136.
< Phi].
Hum.
Voice, p. BCllr.

74
Cry.
OF THE VOICE.
[CHAP. IV.
115. " Whatever may be the condition or age of man" (says the The new-born last-mentioned author) " he is able to produce Cry. infant, the idiot, the savage, the person deaf from his birth, the civi-
man, the decrepit old man, can all utter cries. M. Majendie, but from the context we can easily understand that he means those emissions of sound from the vocal organs, which are produced as it were mechanically, and without reflection, by
lized
1
indeed, has not defined Cry
the uncontrollable sense of pleasure or pain, bodily or mental. may distinguish in Cry all the varieties of sound, which Dr.
We
Rush
enumerates as noticeable in the human voice, namely, quality, force, time, abruptness, and pitch.* These are chiefly produced by the action of the lower organs ; occasionally, indeed, slight modifications of the sounds produced by the upper organs may be observed in Cry, but Infinitely varied ;is are Ikthese seem to be merely involuntary. feelings of mankind, the cries which they extort may be of the most opposite kind, from the light burst of merry laughter to the deep groan of racking agony, and from the feeble wail of a sick infant to the horrid roar of the blinded Cyclops, at which
i
all his cavern brake In claps like thunder.
Chapman, Odyss.
b. 9.
;
These, it may be thought, are foreign to the province of Glossology but they are not entirely so, for they present the first dawning of the they indicate those feelings which jkiss by nice light of language into distinct conceptions and assertions, causinga correspondent gradation in the modes of their expression, whence the grammatical form which we call an Interjection may arise from an incondile sound,
hh
and may ]miss into a Noun, a Verb, or a Phrase; as the phrase, verb, This is or noun may fall back into an Interjection, or a mere Cry.
1
'
ul.v-rvaMi- in
all
languages,
those Individuals
inseiiMKilitv.
who
most frequently, no doubt, among have not lieen compelled, liv the usages of their
hut
their feelings
in
race or station, to clonk the seouige

tortur.-.
:ililo
,,t
stubl>orn
silence or affected
The Spartan youths endured without a cry the pain of the North Am. in .in savage utters no en amidsl the
ami the wily diplomatist hears with iinperturbBui where calmness the failure of his most deep-laid schemes. Such motives of restraint aiv wanting, or overpowered by a stm ,.., nature, lioth sexes md all ages give vent to their feelings ,,i dies. The Ctml.rians and Teutons (says I'linj mshed to battle The mournful shrieks or women re-echoed with terrifie howling*.* throiii/h the peJaofl ol Priam, when it was stormed lij the Creeks:
the -take-:
|"-!iitn-..|i
ixvtr ]ilnn){oribiii it'doi
iiliil.uit. 4
And when
gniit
(
1
the
liiî
ion,
in
tli.'
laud of
Egypl died, there
w.<
V// thioii;/hoiit all the

I.I..,,.
land."'
In short,
'
we
consider Cry
p
''.
Bom,
n.w
487.
p,
151.
r, Vi,/.
Ham. v Mi Mm. BtL

Phil
So,
ii.
'
Baodaa,
rf. o.
CHAP.
IV.]
OF THE VOICE.
75
as the first step in
what Dr. Rush
calls
Exclamation. " Exclamations"
(says he) " are but forcible expressions, and there may be as many Thus every mental kinds as there are modes of feeling and thought. energy and passion may be found in discourse, under the exclamatory
form." do we Acquired pass from the Cry to the acquired Voice. 116. voke call it acquired ? Because the power of exercising it is in fact acquired by observation and repeated attempts at imitation. Let an infant be bom in the most savage or most highly-civilised state, nay, even let it be born deaf, or blind, or both, yet it will utter cries ; and the same sense of pain will occasion the same cry in the child of an Esquimaux as in that of a Parisian ; but if the infant possess the sense of hearing, it soon begins to observe, or, in the nursery phrase, " to take notice."
We
Why
about it utter sounds, which are not mere cries, but articulations. As its intellect develops itself, and its sympathies expand, the desire of imitating leads to the power and the practice of imitation, at first partial and imperfect, until at length the child possesses an acquired voice. What is true of the infant, in this respect, is proportionably true both of the savage, whose opportunities of observation are almost equally limited, and of the civilised man, to whom a far wider sphere is opened. The sounds, which those about the individual utter, those sounds, and those alone, he will imitate. But a variety of circumstances, in different parts of the world, have tended to affect either the power or the inclination to utter certain sounds. The hardy Teuton, in a cold northern climate, and the luxurious Ionian, under the mild influence of the south, spoke as they lived the one articulated with a rough energy, the other with a vocalised softness. Every successive generation imitated the tone and manner of its progenitors ; and thus in time the acquired voice of the one people differed widely, in quality and practical power, from that of
It discovers that those
the other.
117. Whilst the acquired Voice thus becomes articulated, the Cry Speech, down to Accent and Emphasis, and varied in the time of its production. These gradual changes accompany and mark a gradua* development of the mental powers, and the result is entitled to be called Speech. The elements of speech, then, are Articulation, Time, Accent, and Emphasis, all which must be considered separately.
is
softened
Phil.
Hum.
Voice, p. 291.
76
CHAPTER
V.
OF ARTICULATION.
Meaning of
s
term.
term, Articulation, is used to signify primarily a certain modifying the sounds of the human voice ; and secondarily, any articulate sound so produced. In the first sense it signifies the faculty of modifying the voice by the upper organs, independently Every change of the modifications effected by the lower organs. of position or movement in the upper organs causes a different modification of sound, whether or not the sound may also be modified by the lower organs. Thus a certain position or movement of the throat and lips combined produces the sound o, another position or movement of the tongue and lips produces the sound t : each of ami these sounds is here called an articulation, or articulate sound it retains its peculiar character as such, whether it be uttered (by means of the lower organs) in a high or low key, continued for a longer or shorter period of time, or pronounced with more or less emphatic force. The word is of Latin origin, being derived from articulus, a diminutive of artus, any juncture of the bodih organs; which latter word is only a dialectic, variation of the lireek iipOpov (with the same meaning), the latter (p) being dropped, as in kctits from
118.
The
faculty of
Xik-rpov. Its earliest known application to the divisions of the voice was by Lucretius, whose notion of it, however, seems to have l>een somewhat vague
:
Hasce
ipitur penitus voces, cum corporo nostro Kxprimiinus, rectoque foraa emittimus ore, Mobilis artiiuiit verhorutn cIumIiiIii lingua,
:
Formaturnquf Inhmrum
unit. 1
These voice* thus by our corporenl
Am
Tin-
fashlouM
t-iii.:
for tin-
fruM moau poan forth

wcml with
fulfil.
the snme,
irtU'ulutcs 'i'li
skill,
Am. I lips their portion of the tank
And ogam:
non longum spntium est, undo Qk pro! que, neoesse est vorlm quoquo Plane examliri, iliscernlque artisultdim.*
Hence,
ipsa.
when
tin- -quit,
from which the voice proceeds,

.i.l
I- tirnr In linn
v)i"
.In
I.
il
IiiP|m>ii, tlnil
I
mil syllnhle imil

'
won!
pluinh
7i/ lii-iinl.
ret. Ir.
548.
tbM.
It.
5M.
CHAP. V.J
119.
OF ARTICULATIOX.
divide the voice into articulate sounds
77
To
was very
:
early
How
fl
noticed as a faculty peculiar to mankind. Eustathius .saws " Men f are described by Homer as fiipoTrzc, (from pupu>, to divide), because they, by nature, divide the sounds of the voice into words, syllables,
far c " lll>r t0
and letters, which no other animal does." Several other animals have vocal organs, which, though differing in some degree from the human, enable them, nevertheless, to pronounce words or sentences with considerable accuracy but they do not exert this faculty " by nature," or at least from any mental association of the sounds with their signification. Ccelius Rhodiginus, a learned author of the fifteenth century, asserts, " that in his time a parrot was to be seen at Rome, which Cardinal Asconio had bought for a hundred crowns of gold, and which could repeat articulately, and in regular order, all the articles of the Christian faith, as accurately as any learnt d man." In this, perhaps, there may be some exaggeration; but that paiTots may be trained to utter whole sentences as distinctly a.s they could be pronounced by a human voice, is matter of ordinary experience. It is even recorded in Scripture that an ass once spoke." This, indeed, is stated as a miracle; but that the miracle consisted in any change wrought in the beast's organs of sound does not appear to confer the power of reason for a momentary purpose on an animal, however organized, if otherwise irrational, would in itself be sulliciently miraculous. But the normal state of man's organization is clearly adapted by an All-wise Creator to that faculty of articulate and intelligent speech, without which society could never have attuned its present moral and intellectual elevation. 120. It may seem at first sight extraordinary, that a faculty, Distinctions common to all the races of mankind from the earliest known period various of their existence, and in every stage of their progress from the rudest barbarism to the most refined civilization, should not have been, long since, minutely analyzed, and its exercise reduced to
; 1
:
-
systematic rules
countries;
commanding
is
but the fact
far
the acquiescence of the learned in all different. Men are not even yet
agreed on the best mode of analyzing articulate sounds; and the consequence is that different authors apply to that analysis methods and nomenclatures so different as to involve this part of Glossology
in
much
confusion.
Elements,
first place, the articulate sound and the mark of that sound have often been confounded together under the term " Elements " (<rrot X a), which was applied both by Plato and
121. In the
Aristotle
to letters, as the constituents or
elements of syllables. Hence, teaching the first elements was an expression used by Horace to signify teaching to read. 3 And the same usage was followed on the revival of literature as we find from Aldus Manutius, who, how" ever, accurately distinguishes the proper significations. "
first
;
Elementum
xxii
Lectionum Antiquarum,
s
1.
iii. c.
32.
I. i.
1, 26.
Numbers
23
Horat. Sat.
73
OF ARTICULATION.
[CHAP. V.
Vowels and
co.iMoi)imt.
(says he) " est ipsa pronunciatio, litera autem elementi nota ; sed 1 "The Element is the uttered abusive alteram pro altero ponitur." sound itself; the letter is the mark of an element; but by an abuse of language the same term is used both for the one and the other." 122. Secondly, and what is still more annoying to the student in Glossology, eminent writers differ as to the very fundamental disThe earliest and most generallytinction between articulate sounds. This received distinction of them is into vowels and consonants. doctrine may, with great probability, be ascribed to Aristoxenus, who was a pupil of Aristotle, and wrote a treatise on the Elements of Harmony,' still extant.* Priscian, who wrote in the fourth century, Aldus Manutius in the fifteenth, and all subsequent grammarians, till very recent times, adopted this distinction ; but in our day there have not been wanting individuals who have called it in "Grammarians," says M. Majendie, "distinguish letters question. into vowels and consonants; but this distinction cannot suit physi"Whatever motive," says Dr. Rush, "connected with ologists." 8 the vocal habits of another nation, or the etymologies of another tongue, may have justified the division into vowels and consonants, Accordingly, the fonner author divide! it does not exist with us."* letters into " those which are truly modifications of the voice, and those which (as he thinks) may be formed independently of the 8 And the latter arranges the elements of articulation under voice." three heads, which he designates as tonics, sulfonics, and atonies* Other grammarians introduce a peculiar element which tiny call a breathing ; and in Greek a distinction is even made by some between a rough and smooth breathing; whereas others contend that the mark of the smooth was only meant to imply that the rough was not to l>e
used.
Now,
is
as all articulations are modifications of the

in
breath,
the
so-called breathing does not differ
this respect
from a consonant,
and
halle, the (ieiiuan fiand,
consonant / in the Knglish word hat, the French hund, &c. "It is beyond nil doubt" (say the ['nit Kuval (irannnarians) "that the h'omans sounded the A with a breathing;" and they pro\e tins b\ the indisputable authority the former ridicnlii m who nt' '.itiillus and St. Augustine pronounced insidtOS OS if it RP8M written hinsidias ; 7 and the latter remarking on the error of pronouncing homiwm as if it were written
in
fact the
<
orninem.*
I'.ut
it
.Still
the Port Ivoval writ, is sa\ that h

li\
//,
is
only a breathing."
is
jimIv oIi.iim d artu illation, and the letter

is
BKAUZiE, that "the breathing

whii h n pre entM
it,
a real
is
true consonant."
"
When we
tin-
lor
say, for instance, la halle, the second a is d r as perceptibly by the breathing A, as it

"
is
by the
p,
1
bit. 'irmii. p. 18.

..I.
I'iniiVH.
II
ilir.u. <>]..
p,
vol.
,
ii.
I.
vol.
,.
..
|..
K.J.
PhiL Horn, \oi,,,

I'ImI.
I.
p.
154.
Hi
'
'Cntull.
Oam.
7H.
"An
Lai
L in.
Oram,
b,
CHAP. V.J
OF ARTICULATION.
79
consonant (b) when we say la balk. 1 The primary and simple distinction of letters, and consequently of articulate sounds, into vowels and consonants, is not peculiar to the Greek and Latin languages and their derivations but is recognized in many tongues of very different origin. In the spoken language of the Chinese, consonants are called Tsee-Moo (mother sounds), and vowels Nyih (auxiliaries),* answering to the German Hauptlaute and Hulfslaute. It is also the main distinction in the Sanskrit letters depicted by Halhed." And it is substantially that of the Hebrew alphabet; for the Jewish grammarians call vowels " the souls of letters," and consonants " the bodies of letters." 4 Substantially, too, it is admitted by Girard and Beauzi<:; only they confine the term "articulations" to the consonants, and designate the vowels by that of " sons " (sounds.) 5 And
;
lastly,
the
great Teutonic Glossologist,
Grimm, founds
his
whole
" All the sounds of speech" (says he) " divide themselves into vowels and consonants. The former are more flowing, the latter more solid we may call consonants the bones and muscles of speech the vowels are that which penetrates and animates the firmer portions; they are the blood and breath. Again, consonants seem to represent the body ; vowels the soul. On consonants depends the form, on vowels the colouring: without vowels speech would be destitute of light and shade without consonants it would want the substance on which light and shadows
this basis.
; ; ;
scheme of phonetics (lautenlehre) on
rest."
123. Even those Grammarians, who divide all letters into vowels and consonants, are not always agreed, as to the class in which a particular articulation should be placed. In the Sanskrit arrangement, Halhed observes that the mark to which he ascribes the sound wig, '^though it be not a vowel is always reckoned in the vowel
series." 7
Confounded
u>ielheT -
So in Hebrew, Dr. Andrew savs that the Jews of Tiberias in the tenth century "boldly disavowed the old vowels, Alef, He, Vau, Jod, and Aign, sinking them under the
ungrammatical and absurd title of quiescent consonants." On the other hand, Spinosa says of the letter Vau, " Nee tamen vocalis est, sed litem
indicans soni principium in labiis audiri."
letter indicating that a
"
It is not a
vowel, but a
commencement of sound is to be heard in the 8 lips. Now Vau and Jod answer to our to and y, which Dr. Rush ranks among subtonics 9 and Dr. Latham treats among consonants,
:
Muskeln der Sprache nennen: die Vocale s.nd was die festen Theile durchstromt und belebt, blut und them: Consonanten sehe.nen gleichsam den Le.b Vocale die Seele herzugeben auf den Consonanten beruht die Gestalt, auf den Vocalen die Farbung: ohne sie wurde die Sprache des Lichts und Schattens, ohne consonanten des Stoffes ermangeln, an den Licht und Schatten sich setzt. Deut Gram i 30 7 Gent0 Laws 8 PL * Compend. Gram. Hebr. p. 2.
; >
Gram . Ge n . voL L Alle Laute der Sprache zerfallen in Vocale nnd Consonanten, jene sind siger, diese fester Man darf die Consonanten Knochen und
-
Gram. Gener. vol. i. p. 67. SP'uos. Gram. Hebr. p. 1
Marshman, Chin. Gram. 88.
Gentoo Laws,
pi.
i.
fliis-
9 Phil.
Hum.
Voice, p. 74.
80
OF ARTICULATION.
1
[dlAP. V,
Specific
Adelung reckons the German j (answering to our y) as a palatal consonant (Gaumenlaut.y Lowth says that y " is always a vowel ;" and that " w is either a vowel or a diphthong. 8 Lindley Murray takes a different view of these letters he says " w and y are consonants when they begin a syllable or word, and vowels when they end one ;"* whilst Tucker (under the name of Search) says " w is always esteemed a consonant, though sounding as much like a vowel in the old perswade as (w) in the modern persuade" But he adds, " y is rejected, for being an amphibious animal, onewhile a liquid vowel, then again ranking with the solid In the Sanskrit system there are several sounds consonants."* reckoned among simple vowels, which should rather perhaps be considered as combinations of one or more liquid consonants with a vowel. Thus Sir W. Jones describes ri, the seventh letter of the vowel series, as " a sound peculiar to the Sanskrit language, formed by a gentle vibration of the tongue preceding our third vowel t, pronounced very short," as "in the second syllable of merrily." The next to this is " the same complex sound considerably lengthened 9 (ree)," and then follow two others, Wand Iri, which he describes as " short and long triphthongs, peculiar to the Sanskrit language."' 124. The specific terms employed to characterize the respective articulations, both vowel and consonantal, afford nothing like a The vowels are distinguished uniform systematic nomenclature. sometimes by the organs supposed to conduce to their production, 9 sometimes as guttural, palatal, labial;* pharyngal, lingua-palatal; by their duration, as long, short, doubtful; 10 sometimes by their effect 13 on the ear, as broad or slender ; u full or small, * crassus or exilis, u ivnxoc, or fSvffjjxec fat, &c. ;'* and sometimes by their relation to
as a separate class of semivowels.
1 ;
other sounds, as independent or dependent ;' perfect or imperfect.* Tlie terms used as descriptive of the specific consonantal articulations are no less numerous and equally destitute of systematic uniformity.
Thov
al><)
are
named
(like the
vowels) sometimes from the organs;

x
19 XB as labial, palatine, guttural ; pulmonary, lingual, dental ; nasal, oral** lingua-dental, lingua-palatal, lingua palato-nasal, pharyngal ;* cere-
bral?1 sometimes from the time occupied in uous or explosive j* sometimes from their
toft, lene
.;.
their utterance, as coneffect
on the
<>r
ear,
as
sweet, harsh, noble, unpleasant, smooth, rough,** sharji
flat,
hard or
or aspirate, mute or liquid,*" muetto or

l.nnjj. p.
11'-'. *
sijjtante,
forte or
Gnun. A 11cm.
'
p. 7.
p. 18. r [bid.
Bag, (iram.
p. 4.
p,
19.
xll.
Mun.iv, Bag, <inun. A i.,i. I.v.. i. 17.
\viii. fie Loquoia, . 2.

10
\....iti,
A.
<J. lib,
I.
ft.
Bl bop'i Artie. Sound*, p. is. [bid. " Ullmin, 110. 1ST.
v..
.,.,
,
"
104.
.
i..,..
'
"
Ibid.
i.
Dion, Balk. ii".

1, 8.
A n
rb
ool.
18.
Ibid.
in.
w
Bl
8.
Adtlnng,
IVicc,
"
"
..19.
ill.-r,
|o.V_\
1-
Latham, 103-108.
CHAP. V.]
foible,
1
OF ARTICULATION.
8
81
sibilant or buzzed ; and sometimes, from their relation to other sounds, as semi-vowels or semi-mutes? It is not to be understood that all these expressions are incorrect. Many of them are properly
applied in certain instances, though not in others ; and relation at all to the power of articulation.
some have no
125. Grammarians difler widely, number of distinct articulations, both sounds the former are stated by
:
too,
in
in the
their estimate of the Number of vowel and consonantal *rticulations
Grimm
Vossius
as
-
Aldus Manutius
3 organic and 2 medial. 5 6

7
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Adelung
Wallis Chladni Lindley Murray
....
-
8 9
10 12 Bell - 13 The Sanskrit Grammarians 14 or 16.

-
And
agree.
with each of these authorities some others may be found to Nor does less diversity occur in the enumeration of consonantal articulations ; in so far, at least, as we may judge from the various alphabetic systems which have existed in the world. Thus
we
find the consonants reckoned, in
Ancient Greek, at 17
Arabic
at
-
German
English Russian
18 20 26
Malav Armenian
Sanskrit
-
28 30
31
34
But
it
must be remembered,
:
very different principles
that these distinctions are formed on that in some cases double articulations are
marked by a single character, and vice versa ; that some letters are deemed at one time vowels, and at another consonants; and that the consonants in most Asiatic systems include (unless otherwise marked) an inherent short vowel, which they do not in any European
system.
126. Most persons, on first turning their thoughts to this subject, No fixed are apt to suppose that the articulate sounds of the voice are reducible number to that particular number which the usage of their country has deter-
mined
still
and
if their
experience
is
extended to foreign languages, they

;
number is definite that every articulation is an integer naturally divided by a fixed limit from every other. But this is a delusion. We articulate by certain vibrations of the muscular fibres in the vocal organs, and we hear by correspondent vibrations of similar fibres in the auditory organs. The fibres of the tongue, fauces,
think that the
palate,
1
and
lips, are
i.
put in motion on the one hand, and those of the

s
Beauzee,
54, 58.
Bishop, p. 39.
Wallis, p. 16.
[0.]
g2
OF ARTICULATION.
ossicula (the
[CttAP. V.
the ear and its small bones) on indeed takes place besimilar correspondence of effect the other the those of the ear; but the vibrations of the glottis and tween depend simply vibrations are measurable, because they latter case the whereas articulation single organ on the greater or less tension of a same time. Hence it is, puts in motion several organs at the always singly is famished by the glottis that a natural scale of musical notes can furnish no scale ot prowhile the combined organs of articulation it reHence too, as Mr. Bishop has observed, portionate sounds. able to detect practised in articulate sounds to be quires an ear well rat.onal precision. differences with any degree of
tympanum and
drum of
their acoustic glossologist, therefore, will not
assume any fixed number o articulate w.ll by a law of nature for all mankind; but founds, as established ascertain in any given anguage with endeavouring to
content himself
how many
the nati\
practical distinctions are to
be found
in the articulations oi
uctureof
, nm apparent, as well in the terms em opinions concerning as in the ployed to describe articulate soimds, that imperfect know edge h,m, chiefly arises, I am persuaded, from winch has hitherto prevaded organs, of the structure of the vocal No doubt, it could not but be perceived in the
,,
127.
The
confusion which
is
among
organs were employed on clam artivery Lfiest times, that some others; that t, for instance, was properlj culate sounds and not on No doubt, too verv able in,. letter, and b a labial Cental
glossologists.
Sed
bad
obviously accurately by certain organs
articulate sounds more or-, framed systems distinguishing employed in the,,- produ *oo
I1.V..I.KK,
l>,
1
Ammvn:
other. sno .\V LK.Ns.WA...,.s, Holder,,and

I
H,,t if W "tiflH.,,,nsulte.l with authors d.flered on *, shall Bnd no, only that the
n,tun, 'tf^ eighteen*. advantage.

that there were la, on whirl. .1
their
SntTbut
I,,,,-
Wpedive tieatlSeS, which mo -mm,,, them mmu U y many importen moment to the accucy H
1
themselves in want c as In many other science, techno this, too, farther uifcarnation, vagueness, and even to tM a employed with much terms have conception often applied to very differenl ,,,, rendered ptoirynx la. -> Thus, in tht indent Greek wennfyipvS, "u r ;>' Again, in German, <">" '? llM .i ,,,-..,.
research,*,
wdtaK
'
rfcucea,
ndMvourasmtich
populat to use words in their times! be absolutel) , to avoid confusion in modern anatomical works. tilflcation
It
^VSroiof
ptkKn?
.....I
l.v
a person*
will
lIMp-rt. "!..- .,:.s. ,./ o, In pursuing this subject
be*
Bm them to
J,.,
RSairff
human
frame.
HomS,
tod
to
* **<
DUliop, Artlo.
Sou!
CHAP. V.]
OF ARTICULATIOX.
83
Hector, mentions the aafapayog as the proper passage of the voice ;' and the term aatyapayoQ is by some commentators rendered Larynx,
aspera arteria, or fistula $piritaiis, which last is Yet, some centuries later, Plato seems to liave expressed himself as if he considered one and the same organ to serve as a conduit both for the breath and also for liquid 2 food. So, at least, he was understood, and his opinion to that ellect defended by Plutarch, in the Symposials (b. vii. qu. 1). Yet nothing
Tracliea,
by some
the origin of our
word Windpipe.
can be more certain than that there are two distinct passages, the Larynx for conveying air to and from the lungs, and the Pharynx for conveying food, both solid and liquid, to the stomach. Of these two passages, the former is called, in English, "the Windpipe," and in German, der Kehlkopf ; the latter, in English, "the Gullet," and in German, der Sc/dund. 129. In examining this part of my subject, I must repeat, that I lay Author, claim to no other knowledge of anatomy, than what any one may citM
-
from a perusal of the passages in eminent authors relating to the vocal powers. Some, whose works I have consulted, are mentioned in my former treatise and to them I would now add, among early anatomists, Bartholinus and Haller, and among the recent^ Quaix and Cruveilhier nor should I omit to notice Mr. Bishop's ingenious treatise 'On Articulate Sounds, and on the Causes and Cure of Impediments of Speech.' The celebrated Haller, who had devoted much attention to this subject, thus states the theory of articulate Speech " In order that the air breathed from the lungs by expiration should produce Voice, it must necessarily issue from the narrow aperture of the larynx; and in order that the voice should be articulated into words, it is necessary that the tongue should be pressed, in various ways, against the walls of the mouth." 8 This statement, however, must be understood with some latitude. The air of the breath (as I have shown) is not rendered audible by merely issuing from the aperture of the larynx, but by issuing from it when its muscular fibres are in a state of vibration. And again, a vocal sound may be rendered articulate not only by a pressure of the tongue against
collect
: ;
:
the walls (that
is, the inner sides or roof) of the mouth, but by any the tongue and other organs, which alters the form of the vocal tube, that is to say, of the passage through which the breath flows from the throat to the lips.
movement of
Here
must again advert

Old' <L(
to that part of
my
former
"
treatise,
which
An** at
organs.
a*
aripiifxyoii fiiXiti rufti aX*o/Sa!flt/a,
Ofta
t', ftiv
naoriuirot d/iti/iiftsvei kriiraw.
Iliad, 22, 328.
did the brazen lance the windpipe wound, Through which his dying words a passage found.
8 8
Nor
To
rt <rvivp.cc, kcu to aer, ex
-ro'ftct
hx'ftivri.
Timaeus,
p.
1075.
pulmone per exspirationem eipuhus, vocem producat, necesse est exire per Laryngis rimulam ut ea vox in vocabula articuletur, Linguam oportet vane ad oris parietes adlidi. Elementa Physiologia?, vol. iii. p. 366.
:
Ut
G2
gj.
is
OF ARTICULATION.
[CHAP. V.
" Mechanism of Speech ;" and mentioned above, as relating to the lower vocal organs and the I distinguished between the in which with its that is, the Larynx or Windpipe
nper.
From
the lower,
muscular aperture the
Glottis,
and occasional cover
tire
Epiglottis
the breath which we have no English representative), but as a mere fibres of the glottis vibrate freely, flows audibly, if the impeded and altomurmur or whisper, if the vibration be partially In no case do these organs if there be no vibration.
Cwords
for
gether inaudiblv,
being only to render the voice produce articulation; their function it elevation or depression more or less loud in whole or part, to give any part of it in point ot scale, or to prolong or shorten in musical Emphasis, Pitch, and Quant.ty, or time; in other words, to give it Articuhereafter be noticed some modifications of these, which will the function of the upper the other hand, is exclusively lation, on
organs- and
it
is
reasoning that essential to accuracy in glossologies
; should be kept steadily in this distinction of functions formed in the larynx or neither suppose articulations to be
view
that
we
should
glottis,
communicated by any nor emphasis, pitch, or quantity, to be At the same time it must never be forgotten of the upper organs. of the all-wise Creator, the human mind that, bv a wonderful provision bodily frame, that the muscular movements its is enabled so to act on each other, in producing one combined are instantaneously adjusted to visible impression ot the singer combines at once the Thus effect. audible impression of the accompanying the written score, and the glottis in electing or instrument, with the action of the giving it articulation. of the tongue, palate, or lips, in the voice, and account of the lower organs is thai given I have said that the best Philosophical rrwujactions foi bv Mr Willis in the 'Cambridge '' author a minute and M> this I adopted the learned
dep^ng
Sate
cartilages ot the larynx, wind description of the muscles and rhe uppj f utterance, em,,lv,Hl in this portion of our ,>ow,,-s fed generally, and gave a short account orausTdsacrfced mow the articulations of most of the Europ^
i
18:52
and fiom
orSation
in
producing
Sû'-s
OB
thifl
'
Atpn^t,asl
the sound shall have occasion to advert to more part.cularl; igetllso.llinst, of necessity, dwell
ol sjM-ech. portion of the mechanism Pharynx, rouga in general have considered the (i cntuv organs, without referenc l'.il:if. Teeth, and Lips, as Throat of each organ separately; an. i ,, peculiar substance and stroctare son of articulation have been formed,
",'.,,
oi one, sufficiently account for the sounds of which may. |*tIP, views to th if we are to extend our II..I ,,. I,,,.,,,,...:.
tothiawaydiftwBl
date sounds
l
that
nay
ban*
iii.
...
n.- ..r,
further
analysis wffl
be
found
1
necessary, towards whkfa
bard
Inau^np.
3 has yta been made, vehictel .,,! Philosophy baa ihown the afcr to pi>ihe more ,-,,,, ,,,,| to the ear; and much ,. ,
-"""
^ f7 ?\
CHAP. V.]
OF ARTICULATION.
85
experiments have determined the very minute distinctions of sound which the human ear can appreciate. In this, as in many other
respects, individuals possess, in different degrees, their faculties natural
or acquired
but
it
is
said that a practised
ear,
commonly
well
organized, can distinguish a sound which lasts only the l-24000th
part of a second. 1
Now
the sounds of the
human
voice are produced
by undulations or vibrations of the air striking either on the fibres or more solid parts of the vocal organs. The analysis, therefore, to which I just now alluded, should determine first the form and substance of each particular organ
;
then
its
moveability or immoveability
and if moveable, the possible direction and extent of its motions, which must chiefly depend on the muscular fibres that enter into its composition. These points being ascertained by anatomical research, it will follow that the air, whether rendered audible or not, by the vibrations of the glottis, must be modified in articulation by every subsequent change, however minute, in the relative position of the upper vocal organs and it will be for the Glossologist (enlightened by the Anatomist) to determine how far these modifications can be properly taken as the foundation of a comprehensive system of articu:
sounds. 131. By reference to Plate L, it will be seen that the Larynx and Larynx and Pharynx form two tubes in the neck, the former in front, the, latter P barynx immediately behind it. From the brief description of these organs given in my former treatise, it may, perhaps, have been thought that the larynx opens into the pharynx but this is not the case both organs commence at the same level below, and both open above into
late
;
:
mouth connected with the but the pharynx continues upwards until it terminates in a sac, with openings into the inner part of the nares, or nostrils. The breath, therefore, may be emitted either wholly through the mouth or partly through the nose and as the two passages modify the articulate sounds differently, the respective articulations may be distinguished as oral and nasal. The oral articulations admit of much variety because, in that portion of the vocal tube where they are found, the air may be propelled in very various directions, between the Tongue, and the Fauces, Palate, Teeth, and Lips ; and therefore, on the general principles of acoustics, the sounds may be almost infinitely diversified ; whilst in the course of the air through the pharynx, fewer organs are encountered, and the nasal articulations must consequently be fewer in number. 132. First, as to the form and structure of the organs employed in producing the oral articulations. The authors, whose works I have consulted on these points, differ in many particulars. Without pretending to judge between them, I have' endeavoured to collect from the respective sources, if not the most comprehensive view, at least an intelligible one, of these organs, so far as they are concerned
the posterior fauces, or back part of the
throat.
The larynx ends
there
Tongue.
Anatomie Descript.
ii.
408.
86
in
OV ARTICULATION.
[dlAP. V.
articulation. The most efficient organ for this purpose is the Tongue, a fleshy substance, occupying, in man, great part of the cavity of the mouth, yet so as to leave sufficient room for its own elevation, depression, or other movements. In form it is nearly The oval, but broader at the inner extremity than at the tip. It is direction of its sides follows the curves of the lower jaw. moveable throughout the whole of the upper surface, but only for about a third part of the lower. 8 At the inner extremity it rests on
a l>one (or rather combination of small bones), called from its resemblance to the Greek letter v, Os-hyoides, or hypsiloides, which, as Haller says, " is a kind of foundation, as it were, both to the tongue and the larynx." " It consists" (he says) " of a basis and two greater " The basis is somewhat curved, convex in front towards horns." 8 " Since it is the tongue, and concave behind towards the larynx." not immediately joined to any other bone, and is only suspended by the styloeidean ligaments, it is easily moved, and obeys the
motion either of the tongue, the larynx, or the pharynx." 4 The muscles which contribute to move not only the Os-hyoides itself, but the tongue, larynx, and pharynx, in connexion with it, are described
at considerable length,
and
their uses specified,
by
Haller,
who names
Mylo-
them the
hyotdeus,
Sternohyoides, Coracohyoidei, Stylohyoidei, Bivenfirs,
and Geniohyoidei.
The tongue
itself is still
more moveable,
abounding, as it does, with muscular fibres, in different directions. " The tongue," to use the forcible expression of Cnrveilhier, M is an organ essentially muscular; so that I know of none" (says he) " to
4 "The substance Compare with it in this respect, except the heart." the tongue" (says Mr. Quain) " is chiefly composed of muscular of
fibres
running
in
different
but
determinate
directions;
hence the
Variety and regularity of its movements, and its numerous changes of " I; ii moveable throoghont" (aaya Bailer) "and fitted to form.
applying itself bo the it is capihle of take every position and sha|>o upper or lower teeth, to the foremost, middle, or hinder palate, or to the gums; it is able to draw I uuk its tip. or to protrude it through
;
the
opening of the
mill
teeth,
to
throat
Itself
Into
the hollow
of the
put of that cavity; to stretch itself .\.ii beyond the lips, and to draw hack from them; to elevate oneave to spread out its sides, 0T t6 it., ,uii;i. ,, -in. a./.iin Leeiii The iiu.lii.al form, and all with wonderful agility."' which enable it thus variously to act are parti) intrinsic, and
nliout in every
I ; i
move
An..'
0-iiyi>lile
i-t
Ml.i.l.
Lingua quoddano quaal fundatsantam,

lltnjnrfbu
..n.
(iiti.tnt rt roniul.ui. iluoldin
uln, :int
.
.
407. Baal Ltryngii atfc rorsiuii mi lingUMB 00D*

ii.
.t
m
4
<
I- 1
Li. vtr.-. in
.
.n
t.
t
i.i.
in.
'.mii
mi
1 1 1
...
.nun
..minim cmmiitt
iiiiin
nl ur, at
Phi i.. i. ..I. iii. da I0UI UgaOMDtia

\
|..
-i
1.
Htyloi'idoli sua*
.in..\i.iiir, at
Miit
liii.^H.r,
nut.
larjngia, nut
l()iiK#
-i
im. tui ol.-..|.iiti.
Kl.iii. Pliyi"l.
<>
vol.
iii.
p.
Il'l.
..I
Elcin.nl
\ini..iMv, p.
PhyaioL roL
Iii,
p.
122.
CHAP.
partly
V\]
OF ARTICULATION.
87
first,
extrinsic.
The former
consist of,
longitudinal
fibres,
extending from the base of the tongue to the tip; secondly, vertical directed from the upper to the lower .surface and thirdly, " These intrinsic transverse fibres directed from side to side. 1 muscles of the tongue serve principally to alter its form, retracting The superficial longitudinal or elongating it in various directions. fibres can also curve the tip of the tongue upwards, and the lower The extrinsic muscles form at least set can curve it downwards.
fibres,
three pair, called styloglossus, hyo-glossus, and genio-glossus, and

writers add to this number." 8
**
some
The
styloglossus (says Bartliolinus)
from the external surface of the styloid process, and terminates on each side of the tongue near the middle. Its use is to draw the tongue inwards, but by reason of the intertexture of its fibres, if both muscles act together, they lift the tongue straight upwards if only one acts, it lifts the tongue on that side only."' The hyo-glossus (which is distinguished by some writers into the basio-glossus and the cerato-glossus) is considered by others as a single pair originating at the os-hyoides, partly from the basis of that bone, and partly from its horns.* It serves to depress the corresponding border of the tongue, and to draw it nearer to the os-hyoides. When the tongue has been projected out of the mouth, it co-operates in drawing it back and when the two muscles are contracted, the tongue is depressed, and confined within its transverse diameter.*
arises
in transverse fibres
is allowed, as well by the later as earlier anatomists, most important of the extrinsic muscles of the tongue. According to Haller, by whom it is minutely described, it is of a complex nature, being common to the tongue, the os-hyoides, and
The
genio-glossus
to be the
the pharynx.
chin, that
is
"
The common
origin of its fibres" (says he) "
is in
the
to say, in the hollow inner surface of the lower jaw, from " Thence it spreads backwards, dilating either side to the middle."
fibres, and separating them into three parcels. The first and lowest tends to the os-hyoides, and terminates at the anterior and superior surface of the basis (being the last of the muscles there terminated), and in the lesser horns. The fibres of the second parcel are obscure, scattered, separated, and not very numerous they ascend, being bent backwards into the anterior membrane of the
its
:
glossus
pharynx nearest the tongue, between the os-hyoides and the styloand they partly meet the stylo-glossus and are continued ; with its fibres. The third and exterior parcel are shorter but very
strong
:
and
they insert themselves widely into the roots of the tongue, are radiated, so that the anterior incline forwards, the next are transverse, and the posterior chiefly tend backwards." the
When
lower jaw is fixed firmly against the upper, then, the first parcel cooperating with the biventer and genio-hyoides (previously described),
1
Anatome,
Anat. Descript. ii. p. 410. p. 549.

5
Elem. of Anat.
<
p.
1003.
ii.
Cruveilhier, Anat. Desc.
413.
Ibid.
414.
88
OF ARTICULATION.
[CHAP. V.
Fauces.
PaUte.
draws the os-hyoides forwards and upwards. The second parcel draws the pharynx forwards, and as much as possible constringes its sides. The third impels the tongue forwards, and under certain circumstances protrudes the tip of the tongue forwards between the teeth, and even beyond the lips it may also, by bending its fibres forwards, withdraw the tongue inwards. On the other hand, if the inferior jaw be relaxed, and by its powers of elevation or depression the os-hyoides be drawn back, the genio-glossus may also bring down the lower jaw, and open the mouth." 133. " The term Fauces " (says Bartholinus) " is sometimes used (loosely) to express the whole cavity of the mouth but in strictness it signifies the posterior and interior part, which can only be seen 8 when the mouth is wide open." Haller's description is more minute. He represents the throat (guttur) as terminating upwards in an ample muscular sac, which opens above the tongue and loads " Of these, the lower opens between the tongue into two cavities. and the palate, at a small distance above the epiglottis, and is capable of being opened and shut. Above the palate is the other cavity, less subject to change of form, opening into the pharynx, and so leading to the nostrils. The air, therefore, whether it be breathed from the larynx widely opened, or through the glottis when more contracted, has no other way of escape than through either the mouth or the nostrils." 3 Hence we may observe, that the fauces contribute partly to the oral, and j>artly to the nasal articulations. 184. The Palate is divided into soft and hard, which together form the roof of the mouth the soft palate being the inner part, approximating to the fauces, and the hard palate being the Con most "The soft palate (otherwise, part, bounded by the front teeth. called velum pendulum palati) is formed of mucous membrane, enclosing muscular fibres and numerous glands: it constitutes an incomplete and moveable partition between the mouth and the " Its lower Ixmler is live, and has, depending from the pharynx."
; 1 ;
;
" The middle part of it, a red conical process called the uvula." Otorior or under surface of the velum, which is visible in the mouth, "Tin- |>osterior surface, slightly convex, is continuous i concave." u " let ween the two above with the 0OQI of the posterior narea. posed, are lay iTH of mucous membrane, of which the velum is c They consist of live on each Situated the muscles of the soli palate. :.!, r, viz., the levator palati (miser of the palate), ami the rirruniji.\, tut, oi imior palati (stretcher of the |iiate); two
1
viz.,
the palato-gkHtm, and the paltitihp/iari/iu/rus; and one

the
m^ban, which defends into orgiuj was foOMrij mppotsd to

I
uvula." 1
This
la
.t
mentioned
s|>< .
contribute to the faculty of
eh,
was thence ajJUd ,,.
jjj
plectrum; but Bartholin!!! atyi

424.
dial.
" this
Ainto.nr,
p,
,,.
a.
i-io
,...!.
'Quia,
Hl.i.1.,
|..
i""...
hiuii.
CHAP. V.J
is
;
OF ARTICULATION.
89
and that the defects of voice supposed to have been a mere error caused by injury to the uvula were occasioned by defect in some other
organ." 1
135.
teen, of
The
Teeth,
when permanent, form
in each
jaw a row of
six- Teeth,
which however only the
front teeth contribute to articulation
this, according as the tongue approaches to the edge or the root of the teeth, or is protruded beyond them to the lips, and as the passage of the breath between the upper and lower teeth is either wholly free, or partially or entirely impeded. To render the articulations thus produced quite distinct, it is necessary that a continuous row should be formed in front of each jaw, either by the teeth, or, where they are totally deficient through age, by the hardened gums, and that the two rows should nearly meet together, otherwise the air passing between the interstices causes a whistling sound. 130. The Lips bound the anterior aperture of the mouth, forming Lipa. what Homer calls eokoq oIovtuv, " the enclosure or wall of the teeth." " They are composed of an external layer of skin, and an internal layer of mucous membrane, between which are found muscles, vessels, " The principal muscle is the orbicularis oris ; but nerves," &c. several others are inserted into this one at various points, and enter more or less into the formation of the lips." 2 The whole number of the labial muscles, including the orbicularis, has been estimated at 8 twenty-five. Of these some elevate and some depress one or both of the lips, and some draw one or both of them obliquely. Bartholinus observes, " that all the muscles of the lips are so mixed with the skin, that the fibres cross and intersect each other, and hence the motions of the lips are extremely various."* In the Ethiopian race, the volume of
and
5 is owing exclusively to the muscles. 137. After considering the organs producing the oral articulations, we must notice those which produce die nasal. And here it is to be observed, that if the mouth be entirely closed, no distinct articulation, nasal or oral, can be heard, but only a murmur proceeding from the Nostrils. When the mouth, however, is more or less opened, if the air be directed to the pharynx, nasal articulation may take place. The situation and general construction of the pharynx have been already adverted to. 8 In front its walls are attached in succession to the sides of the posterior nostrils, the mouthy and the larynx, with which (respectively) they are connected by muscles and fibrous membranes. The muscles of the pharynx are the superior, middle, and inferior
the lips
Nostrils,
and the palato-pharyngeus. This narrowed by the soft palate, which projects backwards into it, and during the passage of the food is applied Hence it may easily be inferred, that there are to its posterior wall. some possible diversities of nasal articulation, though they cannot be
constrictors, the stylo-phai*yngeus,
organ, moreover,
is
at times
Anatome, p. 8 Cruveilhier,
1
ii.
8 Cruveilhier,
542. 381. ii. 379.
Quain, Elem. Anat. p. 966. Anatome, p. 534. Supra, s. 131.

90
OF ARTICULATION.
[CHAP. V.
so various as the oral articulations, in the production of
which so many
more organs may be employed.

Inference*.
138. From this cursory examination of the articulating organs, and from the previous remarks on them, the following inferences may be
as the breath is merely rendered audible at the glottis, but not articulate, the distinctions of sound, which we call articulations, must depend on organs affecting the breath after it has left the glottis, and before it has entirely escaped from the lips or nostrils. 2. That as sounds are rendered audible by vibrations of the air on thejibres of the glottis, it is presumable that sounds are rendered articulate
3.
drawn 1. That
:
by vibrations of the air on thejibres of the articulating organs. That as the fibres of the articulating organs differ greatly in length, direction, and other particulars, they must be capable of producing very different vibrations, and consequently very different articulate sounds.
4. That whilst the greater or less aperture of the glottis furnished a natural scale for measuring the pitch of the voice, and reducing that faculty to certain positive degrees, the complexity of the articulating organs renders the application of any such positive scale to the nit a-
surement of all articulate sounds, as such, impossible. 5. That as some perceptible differences of audible sound may be caused by vibrations extremely minute in respect to time, it is presumable that some perceptible differences of articulate sound may be caused by vibrations extremely minute in respect to the form and direction of the vibrating fibres: to which cause (in pari at least) is to be ascribed the personal character of every individual voice, which is such as often to furnish proof of identity in courts of justice, and which (as llaller observes) even domestic animals can distinguish. 6. That the difference of articulate sounds, as such, can only be determined by observation cither of their effects or of their causes; that is, cither of the impressions which tiny make on the ear, or of
1
the form
7.
md
action of the articulating liluvs.
method of judging by the car, though it is the obvious to uncultivated minds, has this special ground of inaccuracy, that it involves | poaaible d-'fei in the ptwers of two organs (the tongue and car) instead of a defect in those ofonlj one. h. That the method of lodging by the articulating organs, though lis. ut impel fet t, must liecoine less and less so, as the anatomical improvi d, and directed towards the purThat, the
t
'.'.
That
in
tin
;
physical
tito
science,
the
two methods
tie
mi nl pined had can be only approximate.

.I
hut
determinations to which they

to the
knowledge may he applied

OBJOM HH VOX
m.
cut, '|u:un
n,I.
advancement of
IfMO* tJnguunl.
inti-r
Imliiiin-s,
I'l.y
iti.mi
anim.ilia dODlMtiOt dll-
Kl'in.

CHAP. V.]
OF ARTICULATION.
ways, according as
it
91
relates Anatomy
this part of glossological science in various
to the perfect state of the organs, to their
growth and decay,
to mal-
i^ôgy.
conformation, disease, or injury, to post-mortem dissections, or to comparative anatomv. In the instruction of the deaf and dumb, the vocal In an account of the methods purorgans are assumed to be perfect.
sued for
it is
this
stated that they

the*
how
purpose by Messrs. Braidwood, of Edinburgh, in 1783, began with their pupils, by first showing them mouth is formed for production of the vowels, letting them
see the external effect that vocalised breath has
upon the
internal part
of the windpipe, and causing them to feel with their thumbs and fingers the vibration of the larynx, first in the teacher, and then in 1 The only instrument made use of, except their own themselves. hands and the fingers of the instructor, was a small round piece of silver, of a few inches long, the size of a tobacco-pipe, flattened at one By means of this end, with a ball as large as a marble at the other.
the tongue was gently placed, at
tively proper for
first,
in the various ]>ositions respecletters
forming the articulations of the different
and
Syllables
until the pupils acquired
by habit
(as
we
all
do
in learning
2 The pronunciation of children is far speech) the proper method. from resembling that of adults ; but what a difference is there not also In infancy, the teeth have not risen from the gums in their organs the tongue is comparatively very large ; the lips are larger than sufficient to cover the front of the jaws when approximated ; the nasal 8 Add to this, the still more material cavities are but little evolved, &c.
!
consideration of the slow and irksome efforts
by which the
infant learns
to adjust his voluntary muscles to the action
which he intends to perform. The inferior animals have the adjustments which their several The locomotive and voluntary natures require provided by instinct. muscles of many young animals are accurately adjusted a few hours
after their birth.
With
have to
the
human
race
it is
otherwise
the
awkward
and
ineffective
movements of the
his adjustments
and hands prove that be learned by many ineffectual trials; 4 and

infant's eyes
months
del
>ility
:
elapse before the forms of the articulating organs are fully de-
veloped, and their muscular action adjusted.

effect
In old age the decay or of several of these organs produces correspondent changes of
The words
are
mumbled by
the trembling
office
;
lips. 5
The
fibres of the
windpipe, too, refuse their
and
the big manly voice, Turning again tow'rd childish treble, pipes And whistles in the sound. 8
The
anatomist, therefore, tracing the imperfection of the sound to its cause in the undeveloped or debilitated state of the organs, is enabled
s Majendie, * Ibid. p. 147. Vox oculis siibjeeta, p. 142. Dr. Fowler, Physiol. Proc. of Thinking, p. 34. 5 Cum voce, trementia Libra. Juvenal, Sat. 10, v. 198. As You Like It, act 2, sc. 7.
1
i.
161.
92
OF ARTICULATION.
[CHAP. V.
thence to infer the connection which must exist between the same organs in their normal state, and the sounds which they are then fitted to produce. similar remark may be made on cases of malconformation, disease, or injury for if, in the surgical treatment of these, the causes which prevent the distinct utterance of a particular articulation should be discovered, the operation of the perfect organ in producing a perfect articulation would become at the same time manifest.
In respect to experiments which have been tried on the organs of the
and clearer voice by a living subject, than art can produce from the organs of a dead body: the reason for which is, that in the former the vital power so acts on the muscles of the larynx as to cause them to vibrate, with the percussions of the air, much more quickly and readily.' And
voice after death, Haller observes that a better
is
human
uttered
as these experiments on the larynx illustrate the effect of
its
vibrations
on the audible quality of sounds, so it may reasonably be anticipated that future experiments on the articulating organs of a dead body will illustrate the effect of the vibrations of the same organs, in a living subject, on the physical laws of articulation. Lastly, as several animals having tongues sufficiently broad have been found able to imitate articulations of the human voice and as Haller states (what indeed have myself seen practised), that the master of a dog, by squeezing its jaws into certain positions, may make it utter some articulate sounds nearly approaching to the human* it seems not improbable that Comparative Anatomy may eventually contribute its share towards illustrating the philosophy Ot articulation, as it certainly has dene towards ascertaining the causes of the pitch and strength of the voice."
cndaverc
librntur, ut
in Adparet etiam quare in vivo mclior et clarior vox producatur quam quidi ncmpe vivo homini larynx a viribus musculosis, qtuun aniou regit, ita Klein. PnyuoL ab acre pcrcussus longe trcmat celerius ct cxpcditius. iii. 435. * Elcra. Physiol, iii. 40 1. Univ. Gram. s. i. 452.
*
93
CHAPTER
VI.
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
140. I
havk
said
that the
earliest
distinction of articulate sounds is into
and most generally-received Vowels and Consonants; but
Vocal tube,
when used substantively (as they generally are by grammarians), signify the respective classes of letters, I shall here employ them to signify not letters, but sounds, and make use of them only in an adjectival form, dividing articulations into vowel articulations, or vowel sounds, and consonantal articulations, or consonantal sounds. In the animated hymn on Christ's Nativity, which, at an early age gave proof of Milton's high vocation as a poet, there occur two lines, which, by a striking analogy, illustrate the production of vowel articulations, and their difference from the consonantal. " The oracles," says the young bard,
as these terms,
are
dumb,
No
voice or hideous
hum
roof.
Runs through the arched
Now, when
of
air
the
cavity of the
human breath " runs through " the vocal tube, or mouth above described, it may be likened to a current
running through " the arched roof" of a lofty hall or gallery. it issues from the glottis, the fibres of that organ approximating together are in a state of tremulous vibration, the breath becomes a " Voice ;" if they are quiescent, and wide apart, it utters only a " Hum." And as, according to the form of the arch and walls of the building, the air, though it meet with no impediment in its course, yet yields different echoes ; so, according to the form of
If,
when
the space between the tongue, and the fauces, palate, teeth, or lips, the voice, though unimpeded, produces a diversity of sounds. Such is the origin of the different vowel sounds, or vowel articulations.
But if the breath be impeded, as for instance by a closing of the lips, or by a tremulous motion of the tongue, or if it be turned partially toward the nostrils, the effect is similar to what would happen in the
supposed building,
the air should encounter the obstacle of a door, or be forced to escape through a side window and it is by such impediments that the consonantal sounds, or consonantal articulations, are produced. To the vowel sounds M. Court de
if
fluttering curtain, or
Gebeun's
expressions are peculiarly applicable.
He
says the voice
9-t
OF VOWEL BOUKDS,
[CHAP. VI.
one time expand- itself majestically in a vast palace, and at another time is compressed between two planes which scarcely leave it a free passage." But the analogy between the vocal tube and
at
1
an
architectural
edifice,
however striking
first
in
some
points,
is
in-
form of the arched roof remains unchanged, whilst that of the vocal tube is undergoing perpetual variation by the movement of the tongue in all directions and secondly, the roof simply reflects the sonorous air which it lias
applicable in others; for, in the
place, the
received,
whilst
the
oral
:
organs
character of the sound
for,
contribute largely to the vocal as Mr. Bishop remarks, " if we atten-
tively examine what tikes place whilst the organs change from one vowel sound to another, we can easily detect different parts of the membranous lining of the pharynx, tongue, lips, and other soft textures of the mouth, forced into vibratory motion, attended with a variety of configurations and these different motions and vibrations may, by disposing different membranous surfaces to a state of
;
vibration coexisting with that of the glottis, determine the quality On this theory, to which I peculiar to the several vowel sounds."*
fully subscribe, every vowel sound requires the concurrent operation of two sets of muscular fibres, those of the glottis, and those of some the living see, therefore, that jwrtion of the vocal tube. organization possesses requisites for the production and ready use of articulate sounds, which no effort of architectural, or probably of any other mechanical skill, can fully attain. DUUnctton 141. In stating that the main distinction of articulate sounds is into Ul UC vowel and consonantal, and that these arc respectively produced in wmI.i'' the manner fcbOT6 deft xflbed, the majority both of anatomists and nnnarians agree. "Vowels," says Hallkk, "are solely formed 8 " It is the common DV ft greater or less opening of the month."
We
'
l>y the collision of the tongue So, Bishop W'ii.kins says: "Those or other parts of the month."* letters are called voealas, vowels, in pronouncing of which by the in'"' M 'Those letters struments of mooch the breath is freely emitted.
character of consonants to be produced
in the pronouncing ofwhich the breath is Inter8 cepted, bi -.me collision or closure amongst the instrument sol' speech."
are stvled consonants
of importance! in glossologies! pursuits, that the one class ofartiAs \\r should should not DO COnfbtmdecl with the other. umber that the sound of tht voice Lb generated at the glottis, and 7 so we should remember that ibore nor below this point," whenever th.it -oiiikI passes on I'rcelv and without interruption throw h
It is
(illations
oat
'
tin-
vocal
ni
-.
the modification of
it
produced by the
]..
articulat
M. .!,.!.- Pimi.t
I',
W'.eV,
rot. iii. |'. 98. SBertasf oris mnjori
" Artiml.it.- Snun.l.s,
'JS.
ct
minor!
fonnwtur.
Elem,
Physiol
oiunitio cut nli nllliu
lingum ml klianUD partial

3 7
rari. EUm. PhraioL Ihi.l. p, 368.
RmI
CI
HOllor,
CHAP.
organs
VI.]
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
95
is a vowel articulation, and whenever it is impeded by a collision of those organs, it is then, and then only, a consonantal articulation. It is true, that in some consonantal articulations, the impediment is so slight, that the passage of the breath is left almost open ; as in our v, which is the German w, and the Romaic fi. And in some vowel articulations the free passage of the air is so brief, that they approach
in effect to consonantal articulations
as in our initial y,
which
is
the
Hence, we see the justice of Quintilian's remark, that even in vowels it is the duty of the grammarian to consider whether custom may not have received some of them for consonants, since jam is "Observe," says Volney, " that Quintilian does written as tarn is." not say that./ is a consonant; but only that usage had allotted to it the function of a consonant, by pronouncing jam in one syllable, as it does tarn." 1 This, however, will be more fully considered, when I come to examine the respective articulations in detail. 142. To begin with the vowel articulations. It is not surprising Number that their number should be so differently estimated, as I have above rounds.* shown it to be by different authors. Mr. Bishop justly remarks, that " those who have not studied the subject can have little idea of the
German^.
nice distinctions
by which
the vowel powers are separated."
The
"
1
reason
is,
that they are not separated
by any
natural limits.
do
not deny (says Wallis) that in each part of the organs producing vowel sounds, certain intermediate sounds may be produced ; for the measure of the (oral) aperture is of the nature of continuous quantity, and therefore divisible in infinitum.**
Nor
is
this all
even' articulate sound
production, not only a certain form of the " oral aperture, and, indeed, of the whole vocal tube, but a certain action, as I
requires for
its
have above shown, of the muscular fibres both of the tongue and other organs and as neither the form nor the action is reducible to any fixed scale of measurement, all positive gradations in the distinction of articulate sounds by the human voice must be impracticable. 4 Messrs.
;
Willis, De Kempelen, and vowel sounds (or something
produced different them) by a measurable apparatus but the results of these artificial means can hardly rival the delicate and almost imperceptible shades of sound, which are to be foimd in human articulation. In this view, therefore, the estimated number of vowel sounds may be as great, or as small, as the practice of any nation, or the theory of any private individual, may determine. The celebrated
like
others, have, indeed,
Etiam in ipsis vocalibus, Grammatici est videre, an aliquas pro consonantibus usus aceeperit quia Jaw sicut tarn scribitur. Inst. Or. i. 4. * Alfabet Europ. p. 55. 8 Non nego, in qualibet vocalium sede posse sonos quosdam intermedios efferri est enim aperturae mensura, instar quantitatis continue, divisibilis in infinitum. Gram. Angl. p. 12. 4 It must be remembered that vowel sounds are not fixed and definite sounds, but that they gradually glide into each other. Proc. Ch. Miss. Soc. 1848-9, cxcviii, In alien Sprachen sind die Vocale nur stut'enweise von eiuander unterschieden. Adelung. Wbrterb. p. 3.
1
;

93
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
[CHAP.
VI,
founds his system on the narrow basis of what he call an organic Triad. Assuming, that the short vowels were the original clement of speech, he proceeds thus " The organic Triad of the short vowels is pronounced A, I, U ; or to arrange them more properly, so that out of A, as the source and middlemost of all vowel sounds, may spring, on one side the lowest point U, and on the other the highest
:
Grimm
peak
I, it
may be
represented thus
A
I
U
:
From
the break between
and
is
and / is formed E, and from that between produced, which completes the scheme thus
A
E
I
U.
E and / are the high and clear vowels,

ones, the middle place between
and U the low and obscure them being held by A ; which proa,
nounced incorrectly
into a.
in the
one case degenerates into
and
in the other
The
1
three original vowels, A, J, U, only are capable of a break,
the intermediate ones,

variation."
Here
and 0, being not susceptible of any further must at once say, that greatly as I adniiro the
mental activity and indefatigable perseverance of Professor (J rinun, and deeply indebted as I consider the science of Glossology to be to his valuable works, I must entirely dissent from the fundamental principle of his vocalisms. It not only does not pretend to rest on any anatomical research; but, as appears to ma, it la inconsistent with the Professor Si hmi structure and power of the vocal organs. HKNNER,
i
i
indeed,
who
agrees with
it,
Grimm
as to the
number of primary or
ori-
ginal vowels, asserts
as a natural lact in language, that there
am
be
only three original vowels, owing to the form of the Epiglottis ; but this (as I am assured bjf very able anatomists) must lie erroneous; for tin- whole of the Epiglottis ma) l>e removed, without aflecting the pronunciation. In favour of the division of vowel articulations by the
Die organiacbe dreiheit der kurzon vncnlu lnutct A I U; odor tun sio rieht ijrer mid initio, alli-r vniull.tuti', cincrNoita daw atu dim A, nU der ndtr tiofpunct U, and emit* der hochate giplel I, enUpringt I A U Mah atNN
1
auizufaaaen, SO
>i
1>-
mu
licber
dargestellt
it,
/\
I
Aui der breohung zwiauhen A ood

url'nllt Rich
wild
B
I
iwUcben
kind
dii-
und U wird 0; uud dan verldUtniia

t'
E
I
O
l
Dad
Imlirri, livllen, <) tin

'
dio tieftfl
lien
dort In
M, hier in
I.
ind
brtchbar, dit gtbrocliiu-ii

L
dunkeln vocnle; zwiacheu \ die mJtM Nm dJl dni grondvooala: & auaweit'lit. und O kiincr nt'ticn lirriliuiig tiling.
Deut Oram.

CHAPVJ.]
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
97
number seven, it has been argued that this results from the same cause which produces the seven notes of the Gamut; but though the vowel sounds of several languages, and of oui own in particular, may be con1
veniently so distributed,
are caused
it is
for a
very different reason.
by the
vibrations of the glottis; the articulate
The musical by
those of the vocal tube. The scheme of our distinguished countryman,

nine as
Wallis, who adopts
sight one of the be distinguished into three classes, gutturals, jalatines, and labials, according as they are In all they respectively formed in the throat, the palate, or the lips. arc nine, viz. three in the throat, three in the palate, and three in the lips, according as they are accompanied, in each case, with a 8 greater, middling, or less opening of the mouth. How far I dissent from this view of the subject will be seen hereafter. The most recent arrangement is that of Mr. Bishop, in his able treatise on Articulate Sounds,' above referred to. Having observed that Sir John Herschel considers thirteen vowels to be essentially necessary for the expression of the English language, Mr. Bishop says, that among the examples given of those thirteen, several admit of consider3 able doubt and he finally concludes, that " in the English language there are ten distinct vowel sounds," of which he presents the following diagram
the
number of vowels, appears

judge
" (says
at
first
simplest.
"
he) " that they
may
'
Pharyngeal.
98
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
[CHAP. VI.
have been distinguished by some, as long and short, by others, as broad and slender, or as open and close, &c. The quality of length has been considered in two points of view, either as distinguishing the sound produced by one position of the organs, from that produced by another position or else as distinguishing the sound produced by a given position of the organs during a longer space of time from that produced in less time by the same position of the organs. In the In first point of view, a in all might be deemed longer than ee in eel. the other view, a in hall might be deemed longer than o in holly. The majority of grammarians seem to have adopted the latter view. Bishop Wilkins says that vowels " may be distinguished 1st. For;
mally, by the manner of configuration in the instruments of 2nd. Accidentally, by the quantity required to the framing of them
;
of time required to their prolation,
by which the same vowel
is
made
either long or short.'
11
Wall is
;
maintains that every separate
vowel sound may be long or short instancing the words hall and holly The more recent writers adopt the same principle. abovementioned. 8 Mr. Steele says, "Though the grammarians have divided the vowels into three classes, long, short, and doubtful, I am of opinion that every one of the seven has both a longer and a shorter sound." Mr. Rush applies it to the sounds which he calls Tonics, and which, M have as I have shown, answer to our vowel sounds. These, he sa\ s, more musical quality than the other elements: they are capdbU of a To the same effect, Mr. BlSHOF Bays, " These indefinite prolongation."* modifications (of vowel powers) are of two kinds, the one, in which
the articulation being the same, the dillerence lies in the time during which it is sustained, which constitutes the vowel either long or short
the other depends on an alteration of the position of the articulating "* Mr. organs; whereby ]>erfectly different sounds art" represented. Bell says " long and short are qualities thai cannot be predicated a*
essential characteristics of
indefinitely prolonged
any simple vowel
for every
vowel may
b*
by those WOO have sufficient power over their 1 In tin vocal organs to retain them ste.idily in the vowel position. is said, "the same letter repreplan of the Church Mission. \i:ii>,
it
Rents slight modifications of each sound, such as are called (jkimm says " ounds, and short, or stopj>ed sounds."*
:
full, 01
Voweh
are either long or slwrt, a distinction w huh relates to the time of theii So far he is l>ornc out l>y numerous authorities; bul In
adds certain proposition

bj DO
this subject, which, to say the least, an long vowel" (he says) " has twice th. Hut "the short vowel has precedence ovci measure of the other.." simple original element first, power, th< it is
m '-una
clear.
"The
.1
fteal
Character, p. S63.
holly
;iliii.'|in-
"In W/|
lIltlfliluiN,
I
.ilium
lii.un. Ling, Ali^l.
* "
|>.
:.mr.
6<
ainlitnr
his,
ijii.itur.
7:1.
Articulate Bound*, pp. 16 (

l'i
'
1
Priii' ip I'
IB-'J, exevii,

CHAP. VI.]
long
is
OF
VOWEL SOUNDS.
99
inasmuch as that which is the simpler, is at the same time the elder, nobler, and purer therefore, in the history
a second.
;
And
of language, there arises this important proposition, that in its early state short vowels abounded, and the long were not adopted till a later period." The different modes which have been adopted in written language to express different degrees of length in the same vowel sound will be examined in detail when I come to speak of alphabetical systems. It may be sufficient here to observe that they
1
sometimes have two distinct letters for that purpose, as in the Greek sometimes different arrangements of letters, as our aw in 77 and e awl, long, and in doll, short; sometimes a peculiar mark is added, as (*) in the French Pretre ; and sometimes the distinction is only to
;
be learnt by experience, as in our a. In the foregoing passages only two degrees of this quality are mentioned, a long and a short and in accordance with general usage I have heretofore employed the same phraseology ; and have used (and
;
shall use
when
and
".
Few
if
necessary) the customary marks of long and start, any nations have expressed, by different letters or
"
marks, a greater number of degrees. Yet it is evident from the structure and powers of the vocal organs, that any vowel sound may be indefinitely prolonged or shortened, and consequently that there may be at least three gradations a very long, a very short, and a medial sound. When the grammatical lengthening or shortening of a vowel articulation is spoken of, it must be remembered that this is very different from the lengthening or shortening of a syllable ; though these two circumstances are often confounded. M. Volney, for instance, says it is wrong to call a in ami short; for it may be sustained musi8 cally through a whole bar or to call a in dme long, for it may occupy only a quaver. 8 No doubt, musical composers take great liberties with the grammatical distinctions of the words to which their notes are to be adapted. How far they may be justified in so doing depends on the rales of their art ; but in respect to the grammatical structure of language, Mr. Tucker has justly said, " a man may speak quick or slow
without changing the quantity of his vowels, which depends not so much upon their absolute length, as their comparative among one another." 4 I take the true rule to be this a vowel sound is to be deemed long, when it is capable of indefinite prolongation, without reference
short,
any) which may follow it : and it is to be deemed no sooner uttered than it is combined with or overborne by a succeeding articulation. This at once shows the difference beto the articulation (if
when
it is
Die vocale sind entweder kurze oder lange, ein vmterschied der sich auf die zeit bezieht, binnen welcher sie ausgesprochen werden. Der lange vocal hat das doppelte
mass des kurzen. Dem kurzen vocal gebuhrt der rang vor dem langen : es ist das einfache urspriingliche' element der kurze vocal ist erste potenz, der lange zweite. Da nun das einfache zugleich das altere, edlere, reinere ist, so ergibt sich fur die geschichte der sprache der wichtige satz, das in ihreni alterthum die kurzen zahl-
reich sind, allmalich die langen uberhand uehmen. 3 * Alfabet Europe'en, p. 32. Ibid., p. 34.
Deutsch Gram.
*
i.
32.
p. 10.
Vocal Sounds,
H 2

100
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
:
[CHAP. VI.
tween a long vowel and a long syllable for instance, the syllable Paid, and the first syllable of Polly may both be long, as syllables but the vowel Bound an in Paul is long, because it may be indefinitely protracted, as if it were written Pau-au-au, and during that time it remains uncertain how the syllable may terminate whereas the vowel sound o in Polly is short, because it is at once absorbed in the consonantal articulation I and if the syllable be drawn out to any length it will sound as if it were written Pol-l-l. So in the two expressions " Ah Mother," and " a Mother," the interjectional ah I is long, and till it ceases the m is not heard; but the article a is necessarily short, because it is closely followed, and overpowered as it were, by the word " Mother," on which its significant effect as an article depends. may observe, tot), that the very same vowel sound, in two words immediately succeeding each other, may be uttered and scanned in one as long, and in the other as short. Thus it is in the Hebrew Melo;
We
'
dies'
For the Angel of Death spread
his
wings on the blast
;'
where the ea makes a long syllable in "Death," and a short one in " spread," though the vowel sound is precisely the same in articulation. Again, as we distinguish the vowel Bound an in Paul as long, and o in J'olh/ as short, so we may distinguish the vowel sound au in audacity
BS of intermediate length
If,
I'.k.u
v.kk distinguishes eu as grave in the

first
thus forming three degrees. In like manner, first syllable of Jeitneur

;
aigue in the
And it is clear, that and muette mje. he means to include the notion of a very long or the term <7rat sound; under crigul that of a sound comparatively short and under 'v of a very short, sound; for he thus explains the two lirst of
of jeunesse
;
these
terms
it,
"An
feel
oral
voice (vowel
obliged bo
ii|H)ii
drmo out
that
the pronunciation more,

t
sound) is grave, when being and to press, as it were,

of the longer duratio
we
lie
ear,
it
independently
something fuller, richer, so to speak, and more marked. On the contrary, an oral voice \aaigui, when its pro uindation, being lighter and mora rapid, the ear perceives in it someii. and less marked, and is in some sort rather sharply thing 1 These Dice distinctions of the learned Frenchthan satisfied." tend to show tliat the oualit) of length or shortness in vowel man ill v affected by several circumstances with which it sounds Is '-..in ide. Thfl Sine rOWel mas apjiear long or short according*
the sound, perceivei
in
li
1 1
;.
lined
with dilleivnl con unants, or with an accented or
ii.
Una
'
voix
omlo
ant grave, loroquVtnnt oblige' <IVn trainer
davantwjc
1'oiiillc
ill'
In
Oiation, ot iTnjipuynr, on qui-lqiic ort<! iIckhiih, I'mi out.

I.-
qnr
incli'pcndaiiipltlil
.
In ./i/irr
I
fil'it
Imujut
<ln Mill, V n|>|MTi,l)il

ill!
qilolqilU
I'llOH'
mi.-iI.-.
ph'ill,
de
CRt
nitui dirt, t
pill* llllliqur.
UM
d
\mi\
.iu
..nliairi',
i>roooncltlon on ii.ni
pita
I.
Isfrtia,
liiniii |
SMM
,
'I-
SHIM
u-
ii
i-t
i|r
ni.iniiir,
piui tapidtj I'orttlUjap* <l '( quVlli' 'Mi j
in
inanivrt piquv'o' pi u tot quo
MBpl
: :
CHAP. VI.]
:
OF
VOWEL SOUNDS.
101
and
unaccented syllable a in mast is long, a in the auxiliary has, is short so, even in diphthongs ow in powder is long, ow in gunpowder is
short.
144. The terms broad, open, full, grave, &c. are often confounded Broad, That grave, as used by Beauzee, included the notion of *' with long. length, and aigue of shortness, has been just shown. At first sight, it would seem, that these words grave (weighty) and aigue (sharp) were neither opposed to each other, nor had any natural reference to the qualities of sound. They were, however, used in a similar manner from Aristotle says of sounds very early times. " The acute (ov) stimulates the sense much in a little time, but the weighty (ftapv) does so 1 Suidas explains this use of the words bat little, and for a long time. very fully. '0$u and fia pi> (says he) " are metaphorically applied to
open,
acoustics
for in
respect to touch, that
magnitudes there are both acuteness and weight. In is said to be sharp, which acts quickly as a
;
:
dagger is sharp, which stabs quickly and that is blunt, which acts " So, in sounds, slowly and does not prick, but presses, as a pestle." we call that acute which comes quickly to the sense, and soon ceases and we call that weighty which is analogous to the blunt, and comes slowly to the sense, but does not quickly cease."* Hence we see how a vowel sound, which was comparatively long in utterance, came to be called grave, and one quickly uttered came to be called aigue ; but yet as these designations originated in a certain analogy between the senses of touch and hearing, which analogy is by no means strict, we find several other notions involved in Beauzee' s above-cited definitions of grave and aigue. The terms broad and slender are employed by Dr. Latham in his Vowel System ;* but on what principle I do not well comprehend. He objects to the words long and short but it seems that the three sounds which he calls broad are all long whilst of the fifteen, which he ranks as slender, two are marked by him as long, three as short, and the rest are left without a mark. It would seem that the terms broad and slender, if applied to vowel sounds, should naturally serve to distinguish those formed by a large expansion of the vocal tube, from those which flow through a narrow passage. Thus a in all and o in doll might be called broad, and ee in eel or i in ill slender, without reference to their being long or short in the utterance. Mr. Shaw says, that, in Galic, " the vowels are five, a e i o u, and are either broad or small a o u are broad, e and i are small." 4
:
To ply o%u xtnl tv tu<rttim
oXiyov.
2
it,
oXtyu
XZ"V h*M*Ji
to
Si
(Saau
!v
voXXa It
Aristot.
irioi-î'oipov,
&c.
'0|u, xau /sajtf ixXMrxrav, Ka.ro. ftsrottpooa*, it)

Olju
rw
to, rt Hi), xa) to (Safu.

ft.a.yâ.'iOKn
yao Xiyirai, It)

out
xa.)
<rn S
axoutrnxrir fv oyxoi; ydo litri Afifc to ta.-îiui hioyovv ofov to
ogw,
aXX
atiouv,
on vmx^*>1 us to vtiôv
Mm? dpfiXv ovrus

xa)
Ti ro (ioaiiu;
moyouv,
o|ivv
xa.)
oTov
ou xitrouv,
Taâyivufiivov iti td
attrdttriv,
apjiXii, tod fioaV'tus orxoxytvoftivov \t) rijv eurtnni, xa)
txve; raîa; aTOTauo/xitov fixoi/v Ss tov dvaXoyov r% uh ra%ius aToTauounov.

i\,'oi$uv,
it) twi
Xiyofx.it
tov
Suidas, voc. 'oju.

3
Eng. Language,
p.
112.
Shaw, Galic Gram.
p. 1.
102
OF
VOWEL
SOUNDS.
|CHAI\ VI.
similar distinction might be made in the use of such terms as " full " pinguis and exilis" " crassus and exilis," &c. but and small" whatever expressions may be adopted, they should be well chosen and
and, in particular, it should be fully understood that ; they do not necessarily determine the length or shortness of the vowel sounds to which they are applied. The rules, however, are frequently Vklius Longus (cited by Vossius) says the letter i is neglected. sometimes exilis, meaning short, and sometimes pinguis, meaning long but in this use of the word exilis, he seems to differ from Quintillan, who applies exilitas to the voice of females,* and from Pliny, who applies it to that of eunuchs ;* for in both these cases, the different is produced not by the articulating organs, but by the larynx. He diflers also from Marius Victorinus, who uses the terms pinguis and exilis in the sense above given to broad and slender, as intimating not that a vowel sound was longer or shorter compared with another in point of time, but that it was produced by a greater or less amplitude of the vocal tube.* This last distinction too is evidently intended by Vossius The distinction of open in the use of the terms crassus and exilis.* and close occurs very frequently among authors on vowel Bound, but with great diversity of application. Johnson employs the word open but once, and then as a sort of medium between slender and broad. " A," he says, " has three sounds, the slender, open, and broad ;"* and it is remarkable that he distinguishes the other vowels into long and
carefully defined
K I Port Royal Grammarians (why, I know not) call Vossius, suggesting that closed vowels. 7 O there was anciently an intermediate sound between K and I, or between
short.
Tin,'
open vowels, and

I
UY
and U, or )>erhaps between

is
and U,
says, " in
those three, the in-
Chi.ahni instances the vowel sound sxprasaed by Ifae terms open and dose, in the French syllable 9 eu, as open in lunfieur, and close inaffreux, which corresponds to the >i". Latham says, " the of the French grave and aigue of Beanido.
kermtdiate sound
,'
I
more open." 8
l"<n culled fermi or dose (Italian, chiuso): its opposite, the it in A little further en, lie describes the ./ in fate as fate, is open." "slender." 10 Some Italian writ-is soom t>> use the terms open mid in a dill- rent manner when applied toe, from that which they adopt win n p-'aking of <>. Tim., tiny say, a is pronounced in general
I
lik-1
the Franco eferme',

I
m
-
in
rt,
/<>/<./,
I.
ar
but
it
often takes the
sound
1
vcrA litem intardum txilii

r.-iii
intmliiiu ptngvto,
I
Yw,
"
N'.u -nun 1-inimii
rOCH
Btlbu
Ini
'
i
In
h-iiiiiii'
mi
.wt
rnlw.
Nut.
I
ioi
HUtott RtDgl volo. in "imn ho genon- cxilim

it
Grain, p. 56, I. Int. Oral. i.

|iis\m iiuiribiu
:
Hint.
ii.
112.
Sunt
i|iu
ml.r
U
"t.
Von. (1mm.
<
'
ot
litem-
u|.|.ul:uit
1.
aSMSS
nobis,
qtU
fiiii/niiis
.|iiain
I.
54.
<>
in facinMnt l exilfin <irnm. \>rv['\t<<\ i<. I' In In il.ii .. * ! in
medio, inter Grnscorum T et eorutn |ier T nignavlitMnt. <;i:mi. I, p

' I. .it.
I
T.
llUB.
vi.]
e
OF
VOWEL SOUNDS.
103
On the Other hand, they say the ouvert as in tema, theme." closed like the French short a in bocage ; but the o open is pronounced Tuscan u ; as in sole, giovane, o has a grave sound approaching to the Church Missionaries use the word " stopped" as synonyof the
&c
It is manifest that applied to vowel sounds.* continue to be so whilst the technical distinctions of vocal sound be expressed, the systematic pursuit of Glossology must variously
The mous with " short"

l
greatly impeded.
I never- The Author', 145. Fully impressed with a sense of these difficulties, of ventured in my former treatise to present a slight outline theless me most suited to that system of articulate sounds which appeared to The arrangement, founded present state of glossological science.
the
chiefly
tions,"
on that of Bishop Wilkins, but with many material correcwas not intended to apply to all languages, but merely to those I European tongues with which I was more or less acquainted. somewhat wider range, and first examining the must now take a
several articulations of the English language, shall afterwards notice unaccustomed. of those to which our vocal or auditorial organs are
On
articulations, both this, as on the former occasion, I shall take the vowel and consonantal, in the order in which they occur, beginning with the sounds produced by the organs nearest to the opening of the Of the btynx, and proceeding gradually to the opening of the lips. labial u, English vowel sounds I reckon" seven, besides the French which in the former arrangement made an eighth. Of the seven, and of the oral I call two I consider five to be oral and two labial
;
As it is necessary to affix some mark or guttural and three palatine. sign to each of these sounds, I have adopted the eight following for disletters, y, a, a, e, i, o, w, u, adding to each, when necessary,
tinction's sake,
a number, as y (1), a (2), a (3), e (4), i (5), o (6), To these distinctive marks I shall have frequent occasion, For further clearness, there will be found in in the sequel, to refer. Plate I. some rough diagrams of the principal vocal organs, five of which show, by dotted lines, the course which the breath takes, in
w (7),
u (8).
the interior of the mouth, to form the oral vowel sounds, and three show the external appearance of the lips, in forming the labial vowel
sounds.
" that though the arrangement of It is justly observed by Mr. Bell, the lips produces one set of vowels and that of the tongue another, few of them owe their formation to either organ independently of the
other."
3 The terms labial and oral, therefore, must be understood with some latitude and the same may be said of the above-mentioned The term divisions of the oral, viz., the guttural and the palatine. guttural, indeed, from guttur, the throat, is not strictly applicable to any articulation, for it implies the action of the larynx, which is not
:
3 Principles
Peretti ed. Ballin. pp. 11-13. Proc. Ch. Miss. Society, 1848-0, p. cxcvii. of Speech, p. 24.
104
or
VOWEL souxds.
[chap. vi.
an articulating organ; but long-continued usage has made it signify those articulations which are produced by the vibration of muscular fibres in the interior fauces, and near the opening of the larvnx. Of the two guttural vowel sounds I indicate, by the letter y, that which is produced immediately on the emission of the air from the larvnx, by the vibration of the adjacent fibres; and I indicate bv the letter a, that vowel sound which is caused by the vibration of the fibres nearer to the palate. On the first of these two, it will be nee for me to dwell at some length; for though actually sounded by many nations as a single articulation, it enters into few graphic systems, as
such.
146.
As
the lottery
is
adopted
in the
penultimate and antepenul-
vowel sound which I have reckoned as the first guttural, it may be convenient here to The sound, when long, adopt it for the like purpose generally. though common in France, is almost unknown to mere English cars; but at a medium degree of length, as in sir, but, young, &c., it occupies a great part of our language: and almost all our vowel Bounds so that if are apt to subside into it, when very short and unaccented we were to adopt for it the Welsh y, we should in such cases write altyr, fathyr, thyr, ccmfusiyn, honyr, instead of altar, father, fli> >r, confusidn, hondur : besides which it may be considered as supplying that slight and scarcely distinct vowel sound, which accompanii and n, in such words as handle, metre, listen. Sir W. JONES has observed, " that in our own anomalous language we mark it by a strange variety both of vowels and diphthongs, as in the ph mother bird hovers over her young:" when; we may observe that Of <>nr earlier a, e, i, o, and u have this sound given to them all. grammarians. Bishop Wilkins notices it as short in but, mutton,
timate syllables of
to express the
;
1
Welsh words,
and long in amongst* Waixis says "the French utter this sound in tin- last syllable of the wonl serviteur" &c. " the English (he adds) chiefly express it by u short in turn, duU" &C sometime; pronouncing negligently o and Ott, they give them this sound, 1 In order to produce this articulation, the as in come, coupt \ In* tongue must lie nearly on a level, the back part being rather above, and tip' lor.- part rather in -low the line of the teeth, and its mi eih und lips must be moderately open and mii-t the the whole passage, through the oral cavity, of a medium amplitude. The eil.. in pronunciation is best hoard in the French language; for
riuliln;
: ;
'
t'
ften-d
i|v
in
-everal gradations of length,

:a
its
a simple vowel,
givet
it
written
diphthong.
.al.
Bff,
Ki
\i/,i'i;
I
fottf
Hound*, tln.e oral and one na
The
"
oral
are,
st, i/c./iv,
in jri't-
Alt He-.
Kiili'l'-ni
I-'
p.
:!'.
:
-...man tin'-
|.i..l.
runt
n
runvjtie
~.
exprlmunt i-r
Lev.., In lim,
i-ninl
'lull,
&c.
N'oiiiniiii|inun
.t
I,
i.ii.i
|.i..iniiitiaBlM tod'-'
in
come, couplf,
he
loiiii.
p.
CHAP. VI.]
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
]05
nour; 2nd, aigue, mjeun-esse; and 3rd, muette, in je : and the nasal is ptm.' M. Volney gives three sounds of it, which be distinguishes thus eu clear, as in peur, coeur, &c. ; eu deep, as in je mux and a medium eu, in peu. He in effect adds a fourth degree by comparing the French e mute, when strongly uttered, to the English vowel sound in sir, bird, &c. Haller also reckons it as a simple vowel expressed by the 6 of the Swiss, the Swedes, and the Lower Saxons." Adeutnq says that the sound marked in German 6 is not a diphthong, because it is pronounced by a simple opening of the mouth. And my late valued friend, Dr. Noehden, explains the German 6 by the English u in gull? Sir W. Jones describes it as the first Sanskrit vowel, and as " the simplest element of articulation or first vocal sound. ' According to Halhed, the Bengalee has a short vowel invariably subjoined to the consonant with which it is uttered (as indeed is the case with all or most oriental graphic systems! This inseparable short vowel, he says, is differently uttered in different languages, according to the genius of each, and perhaps in some degree to the organs of speech in the various nations bv which it is used In Hindostan it has the sound of the short e of the French. In Bengal, where a very guttural accent prevails it has a more open and broad sound like the second o " The in chocolate 7 Arabic futtah or fatha (adds he) is generally expressed in European languages by the short a; but in utterance it much more resembles our u butter. Richardson gives a different account of the mark fatha; but he says that the mark damma over certain letters gives
them a sound like u in but, o in above, or ou in rough.' To the Arabic damma corresponds the Turkish euturu, which, according to Davids, g.ves to the letter, which it governs, the sound of (the 1 r The Mab 8 who like the T r and Persians I \a 'u have adopted with some variation, the Arabic alphabet, give to alif when marked with dammah, th t English sound of u in up, utter, or else of o in obey" In Persian, the inherent vowel has several different sounds, but among them is that of the short English . In Albanian he sound rnarked , is said by Colonel Leake to be "uttered deep hi' the throat, being the same vowel sound in the English words bum son but generally very short."In Armenian, the letter yet the ( bet) is sounded " like thfi Fr h '
'
'
SSL" i!:t^
sounds
**
&
MA?stV^^ ! Marshman s account
i8t8 to se evident from Dr of the vowel sounds of that language. Those according to the native arrangement, are twelve in number!
CUla i0n
,r
*-*
<
Elem. Germ. Gram. Bengal Gram. p. 7.
p. 2.
Asiat. Res.
Ibid.
i.
13.
Gran
Ke,h.s : o ree ,,
p 6 P 20 o.
.
14 ,.
Auchcr, Armen. GramT
at *zl sea*
Bfois
p. 8.
106
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
[CHAP. VI
and the greater part of them have four modifications; viz., an opei and a close modification, with a primary and secondary sound in eact of the two divisions. Among these, the fourth open primary is described as " the sound expressed in English by ung, in sung, flung," And the fifth open primary " answers to that of the short u in Eng
In the Indo-Chinese languages also it is probably to be found thought it necessary, when expressing in Roman cha racters the Annamitic sounds, to add to the o a modified character which he explains as " a kind of o and e, a sort of sound compounder of two vowels;" 8 a description which, it will be observed, agree: with the German character 6, expressing this same articulation. Ir the Burman language, the ninth vowel, according to Carey, has t
lish."*
for
De Rhodes
sound which he describes as " au both short, and the u like the EngIn Captain Washington's Eskimaux vocabulary, th( lish u in but.* dotted is said to be "a thick sound of a, common among the natives So among the simple sounds, which are said by th( as the u in but" Church Missionaries to require, in some African languages, a distinct letter, there is one described as "an obscure sound between a and u, 5 This list of examples might easih as heard in the English but, sun" but I have said enough to show that be extended much further; the most distant parts of the world, and by men of dillerent origin, race, habits, and acquirements, this articulation (allowing a reasonable latitude to the movements of the vocal organs) is pronounced as g Simple vowel BOUnd, though with different degrees of length, and othei
.
ir:
incidental modifications.
1
17.
The Second
It is well
guttural
vowel sound
have marked with
tin
Greek
admit
a.
known
to English grammarians,
who
generally
it to be a simple vowel, though diversely expressed, in our orthography, when long by a, or aw, as in all, awful; when intermediate by an, as in auditor; and when short by 0, as in lock, odd, hog, fll
UftlMM, however, seems to consider it as an inquire utterance of <i, 6 And Hai.i.i which he regards as the purest of all vowel sounds. (which is more extraordinary) reckons it among the "sun/," or "not
i;
tongue is kept at a distance from whole length, and is Battened, or rendered 8onicwh.it cniica\e: the lip., I"", are widely opened, so that 1)0 imx of breath, which forms an impivs] i> offered to the volti In adapting the tongue to the ho from " tin* arched roof." all the lilne. 1,1 the ... nio-hyoglossiis muscle are put
true vowels." 7
:
Iii
its
utterance the
<
1 1 1
i,
P.
i"i.
|i.
i
*
'.
Mi
I'.in
ii
p.
LOS,
PtortOll.
Pi
Ann. unit. App.
8.
Hum
(Jrnm. pp.
I
1, 2.
ape,
1.
'
A,
<lr rainata nlli-i

tori
(ii--t
mi
ii,
a dnButli ball (sirisofatn and i) rooaWi ut iriun. i. . bi in A Miwi-i' la.

i
anrtlaglj
iiinticrari,
ii
vn vocale*
In
l>"ii
lotiiii'in
vnculcs
*</,,:
ir breve*,
i
Utcunqn* din producte, udfl unttun- IVrf- pinnuneiniitiir. itur.ili-. Knriim qajdm a UftUdltU Ifl tSalOO ll IngliOQ <ill, I'I'vh. iii. M9, 404. m. OtllJoo
<|ii'
I
CHAP.
VI.J
OF
VOWEL SOUNDS.
The French seem
107
of the interior sound only with a nasal consonant following, as an, a year, cxoxant believing, ampoule swelled out. It is the Swedish a: whence Adelung says of a, it passes, in various dialects, through almost every shade of pronunciation. It most frequently approaches the o ; and it then nearly resembles the Swedish a. The Persians pronounce the second Sanskrit vowel like our a in call ;* and Mr. Price, in his ' Elements of the Sanskrit,' gives it the same sound. 3 He also says that in the Hindoostanee, the Persian letter Alif " in the middle and end of words has a broad sound, like that of aw in fawn* In Chinese, the tenth close primary final (vowel) has nearly the sound which we attach to a in water.* In the Burman language, the ninth vowel is pronounced rather short, as our an in audience, and the tenth long, as our aw in awful" In the Malayan, the alif before ng assumes a sound equivalent to our a in want, warm, ball? 7 In Arabic, the vowel character "fatha, at the end of words, is pronounced like a in ball." 8 M. Volney calls this sound the deep a (l'a profond), " as pronounced in the English 9 words fall, call, law, because ;" and he says " it is rarely used by the
fauces are
in action,
and
for the modification of the sound, those
made
to vibrate.
to admit this
Germans
in
the high dialects, but
is
habitual with those of the
low
dialects in Bavaria,
on the Rhine, &c.
It predominates in the northern
provinces of France, whilst the clear a, as in the English sad, prevails in the south of France so that a Norman would say bateau (baw-toe),
;
It must be owned, however, that M. Volney's ear was not a perfectly-accurate measure of English vowel sounds; for he gives the French dme and male, which are really palatine articulations, as equivalents to the English fall and mil, which are guttural. 10 Mr. Marsden, too, one of the ablest glossologists of his time, says that the vowel sound of a, in the English words icater, altar, fall, &c, agrees with that of the same letter in the French word .male, pate, &c. ; and is not distinguishable from the sound of our diphthong in maul, bawl, bought, and fought. 11 Here the Englishman appears to have been unable to distinguish by his ear the French sound, as in the preceding case the Frenchman had misconceived the English sound. Neither is Professor Grimm much more correct in this respect ; for, in treating of English vowels, he gives wag and wax as agreeing in vowel sound with wall and war. These circumstances only show how difficult, and next to impossible, it is for the most careful observers of articulation, to distinguish with perfect
whilst a Provencal would say bateau" (bat-toe.) 9
1 In den verschiedenen Mundarten wird es fast durch alle Schattirungen der Aussprache hindurch gefUhret h'autigsten nahert man es daselbst dem o, da es denn dem Schwedischen a sehr ahnlieh wird. Worterb. A. 8 Sir W. Jones, Asiat. Res. 8 i. 14. Elem. Sans. Lancr. p. 2. 4 4 Hindoost. Gram. p. 4. Marshman, Chin. Gram. p. 105. 7 Marsden's * Carey's Burman Grain, p. 6. Malay Gram. p. o. B 9 Richardson, Ar. Gram. p. 13. Alfabet Europ. pp. 33, 36. 10 " Convent. Alphab. p. 7. Alfabet Europ. p. 33.
Am
108
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
[CHAP. VI.
accuracy, by the ear, vowel sounds to which they have not been accustomed and may, I trust, help to excuse the errors into which I must, doubtless, have sometimes fallen, in respect to the pronunciation of words in foreign languages. The vowel sound, however, of which I am now speaking, though it is probably unknown to some nations, is found in all quarters of the globe. The Church Missionaries call it in Africa "a sound between a and o, as heard in the English words law, water, bought, not ;" and they add, " it is represented in the
;
Swedish language by a." In the case of this guttural sound, thai, as well as of the preceding, I have proved that the practice of unconnected
1
nations, in very distant parts of the world, lias established its existence
as a simple vowel articulation.
148. The three palatine vowel articulations I have marked respecAnglo-Saxon a, with e, and with i; and supposing each to have three degrees of length, I consider them to be pronounced the first, long, as a in fattier ; intermediate, as a in in English thus fat ; and short, as a in facility : the second, long, as a mfate : intermediate, as e in gregarious ; and short, as e in bet : and the third, long,
tively with the
:
as ee in eel; intermediate, as
in
merry
and
short, as
in it.
am
aware that those
glossologists,
who judge by
the ear alone, will,
many
:
of them, object to this arrangement; nor do I pretend to say, that some points in it may not be open to fair discussion on other grounds but, after the fullest consideration that I can give to the subject, I am disposed to adhere to the arrangement of these vowel sounds, adopted in my former treatise, and to the statement there made of their formation, with some slight additions. In forming the first palatine vowel sound
(that
marked with the Saxon

the tongue
a),
is
"the
teeth are separate,
to the
same
distance as inn;
is
immediately behind
of the tongue is raised the space Ix'tweeii the

n."'
I
have To this mouth, which ejvc to the vowel sound

he
rendered broader, the tip of the tongue l>nt the n-.t the incisor teeth of the lower jaw tbov* the level of the grinding teeth, so that tongue and the bony palate ! narrower than in only to add, that the vibrating muscles i<\ the
its
1
peculiar character,
seem
to
khoM
<>f
the Lack part of the palate.
consider the vowel sounds

palatine articulation
;
in bar
und
bat, ax<-
and ask,
to
he medials
in this
designates the
ngeal,"
two
first
as guttural, 1 and afterwards
and
considers the vowel sounds

theiu his fifth
iMIti our -/ in the same koi n I, Whether nice anatomical Investigation of all the vocal utterances."' hsjufttT detect such di ilim-i uremic powers in the production "I
;
i
4 Mr. 1>i;i,i, then as distinct vowel sounds. in axe and ask lo he di tinct, and reckons Mr. M ausdkn, on the euiitrarv, and sixth in order.* fur, suii, l,istiii<r, iV<\, a a Hording examples of 006 and which 04 regards as "the most general and familiar
treats
t'niv.
(Jmm.
450.
* Artirtil.it..
Soiimk
p,
17.
Il.l.
in i|'li
of Speech, 90, 100.
'
Convent Mpbab.
p.
7.
CHAP.
VI.
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
109
authorize their being reckoned different vowel sounds, I will not presume to decide ; but the contrary appears to me to be the mure probable result. Those who consider the vowel sounds in hard, laugh, lamb, hang, &c., to be different, seem to me to overlook the
these, as
may
of the accompanying consonants; but Grimm, speaking of the Anglo-Saxon vowels, observes that " of all consonants in general, m and n are the most favourable to a pure pronunciation of the vowel which precedes them." And in English, he says, the pure sound of a (reine laut) is heard before m and n in sham, ban, &c* The same sound occurs, as I think, in hard and laugh ; but less pure on account of the rd and the gh. " In the German of Saxony " (says Mr. Marsden) " and more especially in the Italian of Rome, this is the predominant and almost the exclusive a." a In Italian, its three degrees of length seem to me to be perceptible, the long in Padre, the medial in the first syllable of mammti, and the short in the last; or, to take examples from the opening stanza of the Orlando Furioso, the long in Pomdno, the medial in arme, and the short in dmori. In the French pronunciation it is universally allowed to exist; and I think we mav distinguish the three degrees of length in male, mal, and the first syllable of dmant. The long or grave sound in male seems, indeed, to have a somewhat broader sound than is known to the English language so that it may probably be produced by a somewhat wider opening of the interior of the mouth than our a in father, or au in aunt, and may
effect
1
;
cause the vibration of muscles rather nearer to the fauces ; but still it is palatine, and not guttural, and more resembles our au in aunt than our aw in fawn. I collect from Grimm's account of a, in the modern
that a somewhat similar distinction of this pure vowel be observed in that language that it is short in ab, less short in man, and longer in gnade; but in wahr it somewhat approaches our aw* Adelung, however, says a has but one sound, which is
High German,
is
sound
to
either prolonged (gedehnt) as in da, Gabe, laben or sharpened (geschdrft) as in was, raffen, Pallast." Marsden says that this a is the
;
fafha and the alif with hamza of the Arabic." In the Romaic or modern Greek, the a is sounded as the English a in far. 7 In Por8 tuguese, it is sounded as the English a in rat, In the Sechufat, &c. ana language, in South Africa, we find the longer sound of a as in rather, and the shorter, as in lad. 9 Among the Eskimaux the sound of a, like the English a in father, is very prevalent. 10 The same sound occurs in the Armenian language. 11 In the Tonga (a Polynesian tongue) it seems to be heard in two degrees, a longer, as in the last svllable of
our Papa, and a shorter, as in man.
1
1
In Russian, there
2 I bid.
i.
is
our medial
8 5
Deutsch Gram. i. 327. Convent. Alphab. pp. 7, \\ orterb. lit. A.
383
8.
10
7 Scott.
'
Gram. p. 7. Gram. p. 1. Aucher, Gram. p. 8.

Archbell,
Deutsch Gram. i. 218. Convent. Alphab. p. 8.

Vieyra,
Gram.
p. 1.
Washington's Vocab. Mariner's TWa, ii. p. 344
110
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
[CHAP. VI.
So in Polish, the medial a is common, aj in plac, place, smaA, taste 2 and a somewhat longer pronunciation ot the same vowel sound serves to distinguish certain grammatical forms,
1 a, as in Tsar, a sovereign.
;
a is sounded as our a in father, sounded as our a in man, pan, lad, bad.'' These instances sufficiently prove that an articulation identical with, or at least very similar to, that which I have called the first palatine vowel sound, is practised by many nations wholly unconnected and widely distant from each other. 149. The second palatine vowel sound may be considered as a medium between the first and third, in reference to both its organic causes, the form of the vocal tube, and the situation of the vibrating fibres. Bishop Wilkins says, " this vowel is formed by an emission of the breath between the tongue and the concave of the palate, the upper superficies of the tongue being brought to some small degree of convexity:" 6 to which I add, that the amplitude of the vocal tube is rendered considerably less than in the preceding articulation, inasmuch as the teeth are less separated; the tongue is rendered broader and elevated more toward the middle of the palate; by the action of the anterior and posterior fibres of the genio-hyoglossus, those of the centre being relaxed: the fibres that co-vibrate with the glottis, are those ot the middle of the palate. Hallkr's account of the formation is short, and agrees nearly with Bishop Wilkins's. 7 Our English glossologists and generally agree in recognising the long sound of this articulation some of them admit its connection with what I have stated as its short, Mitkohm considers sound, which others regard as a separate vowel. that the vowel sound of e in wfiere, there, is Johnson's slender a as in face, create ; and that this is only a lengthened sound of the c in me~n, separate, &c." Steele gives to his third vowel e, when long, the sound of a in way and make* ShhUDAN places hate, his third vowel, Turning now to foreig] as a medium between hat and beer. guages, we find a full account of this vowel sound in dennan given by Adeluno. "This vowel (says he) has two sounds in Herman; 0M resembling the baim t m //'"-. and the othi r resembling our -i.
as lata, from lata.
In Danish, the
part.*
In
Welsh
it is
The
OD
USe.
first
it
it,
high 6: when the accent (drr ton) is laid ifl also called the resembles the French I ftrmi and thJ8 is its most frequent but Before A, it is usually high, and m conted, as in gihtn, &C,
;
:
The other f'hku, stehlen, &c It is mel with (in deip) 6, is the French e ouvert, and sounds like a. In the first syllable of many dissyllabic words, as leben, rcden, &&, in which it is prolonged and accented; but in some it becomes sharp, as
inaea takes
the sound of
p.
9, 18.
Baak, Oram,
<
;
p.
L.
'
Multo
p. 2. angiutior orl cannlii Oft
Oram.
Baal Charactsr, p.
1
864
in.
paraonim
Intern nut
Icvnntur,
MB
\>idi>*
luperiorea adduoantur,
>t
deatibaj
modlca dUtat. Kloin. I'hyi. ill. p. 4(J3. " Harmony of Language, be. p. 88.
Mclod. and Mons. of Bp
CHAP.
in
VI.]
OF
VOWEL SOUNDS.
1
Ill
in
Berg, Werk, Kessel, &c. Where the e is doubled (ee) the sound is most cases higli and prolonged, as in see, meer, &c." In French, Volney compares the e ouvert in fete to the English vowels in nail,
where, fair, bear, and the German a in alter, &c. ; the feminine termination ee to the English a in take, make, scale, gate ; and the German
e in stehlen, sehen, fee.,
and the masculine termination e ferme' in me, and ea, in red, bed, head, and G enuan e in etwas and besser. 2 Beauzee also gives three sounds of the French e, viz., the grave in tete, the aigue in tette, and a third (the eferm6) in 3 bate. In Italian two sounds of e are distinguished, oue as in tenia, theme, answering to the French e ouvert, the other as in tema, fear, answering to the French e ferme.* The Spanish e has always the sound of the French e ferme', as padre, father, pronounced as if written in French padre.* The Portuguese e is compared to the English a in
repete, to the English e
care.
The Russian language has two sounds of

in fate, as sherste,
this articulation, that
of our a
wool, and that of
e in
met, as pepell, ashes. 7
The Armenian has our

in Sanskrit
;
e in
but a long
e is
met ; as in temk." Our short e is wanting found in Veda. 9 In Bengalese, also, they
have our a in labour. 10 In Persian our short e is represented as answering best to the vowel inherent in the consonants of their alphabetic system. 11 In Chinese Dr. Marshman gives the sound of ai in hail to the seventh open primary vowel, as kai, to turn ; and that of our short e to the tenth open primary vowel, as kyen, firm. 1 * In the Burman language the seventh vowel has the sound of a in name, or ai in air, 18 and the eighth that of ei in their. In the Sechuana there are two sounds, the longer, that of a in hate, and the shorter, that of e in met. 1 * So, in the Tahitian, as in the word Teb&la, taken from the Enghsh, 11 table. In the Australian, e, whether at the beginning, middle, or end of the word, is sounded as in the English tiiere: 16 and the same direction is given in the preface to Captain Washington's Eskimaux Vocabulary. The African Missionaries seem to consider that there are three sounds nearly approaching to each other, and answering to the English bait and bet, and the German a in vater, father. 17 Thus we see that the vowel sound which I reckon as the second palatine occurs in many (probably in all) languages, though to some it is known in more, and to others in fewer, gradations of length. 150. The third palatine vowel sound is that which I have marked i, and of which I think three degrees of length are to be distinguished, as in eel, merry, and it, as above stated. Wallis gives only two, a
'
Dictionary, pref. p. xiv. Gram. Gen. i. p. 11. Martinez, Span. Gram. p. 6. 7 Heard, Kuss. Gram. pp. 1, 2. 9 Jones, Asiat. Res. i. 15, 18. " Moises' Pers. Interp. p. 9. 8 Carey, Bur. Gram. p. 6.
8
Alfabet
4 8 8
Europ.
p. 33.
Ital. p.
p eretti) Gram.
11.
p. 2.
Vieyra, Portug.
Gram
Buschmann, Vocab.
17
Archbell, Sech. Gram. p. 1. Tait, p. 91. Moore, Austr. Vocab. p. vii. Proc. Ch. Miss. Society, 1848-9, p. exevii.
w "
Aucher, Arm. Gram. p. 8. Halhed, Beng. Gram d. 25. Chin. Gram. pp. 103, 105.
112
long and a short.
long, as in beet.*
1
OF VOWEL SOUXDS.
LP.
VX
WilkixS also states the So Steele says i is long

third
short, as in
bit,
and the
But Marsden says "the

by
ee,
vowel
in be and short in bit} has three prosodial distinc-
tions of sound, the longest being usually represented in our language
as in meet, or
by ea
as in leave,
by
ie,
as in believe, or b]
sound between that of the longest and the middle t is not so well defined as to be free from doubt, in many instances, as to which of the two classes certain words should be referred to; but in the following it will probably be thought that the vowel is so much shorter, than in those last enumerated, as to justify their being distinguished from each other, as in the Italian words denti, niente, Ike, and the French limiter, petit, b& The third, or shortest sound of the vowel i is common to all the languages in Europe, the English not excepted, where it is found in In Italian, where it is comparatively sit, bit, thin, titular, spirit. ran.-, it occurs in piccolo, scritti, piu, gia ; and in the French, in the words quitter, piece, permission, plusieitrs."* The opinions of writers, whose attention is directed rather to the letter than the sound, are of less weight: still it may be proper to observe that Johnson gives l in s Jin as the short sound of i, and that Mitfori) states the short t to be the long e (as in adhering) shortened." Grimm compares our ee The to the (German) long i, and cites as the short i, hit, wit, &cT African Missionaries give, as sounds of t, in English, ravine, bit, a answering to the German lieben, sinn. I have cited these several authorities, of different dates, and from very different sources, chiefly to ihow that my view of the shortest sound of this articulation in the shall hereEnglish language is neither singular nor novel: though
in receive.
The
distinction in length of
after
have occasion to notice; the Opinions of those recent glossologistS wlio have treated that sound as a se|)arate and distinct vowel. Of the mode of fanning Che vowel sound /, Bishop Wilkins speaki thus: It is framed by an emission of the breath betwixt the tongue
;
and the concave of the palate, the upper superficies of the " |.nt into | more eonvex postal*, and thrust, up near the palate. the sides of the toll" lie "The lips pailded II W.I.IK adds bOQCfa the flNfl molar teeth, and it | tip is quite curved and elevated, u [add thai the eo as to lie a little dist. mt bom the front teeth." i.u od, and con oquently the w hole tongue If htlj und .ill authorities admit (at least as to the long degree "I There this sound) that the vocal tube is narrowed to its Last extent.
:
.
Hon MBfM
<|ii<>U* correi't
prododtur, Kribunt
*
ul
plaiimui per
'
|>.
cif.
Oram.
.
li
per
lin-vi"
p,
ii[iiiinunt
'.>.
(ilium verO
An.
'
liwd Character, \>. MMiit. Alj.li.il>.
10.
vii.
I
"
Bag.
Melwl. nml Moan. |>. < rjini p. lwi.

.
i
\ii.
lUnn. pfUag,
i.i
i.ii.
1. 1
i
'DratMO Oram,
"
>
i j
RmI
t
|
:
"
1 1
<
-.
1 1
1 1 1 .
1 1
1- ,
rt
i.
it. 'in
Lingua
,
i i
ni.i.i
Character, p. BM. nun prion oontk>

i
I
ibun
ill.
.let.
fclein. I'l).i..l.
i.i.
404.
CHAP,
is
VI.]
OF
in
VOWEL SOUNDS.
is
113
entirely un-
probably no language
known, though there are it prevails, and in some another. Beginning with the Welsh, we find the letter I with two sounds, the long, as ee in the English free, and the short, as t in the English rich : the former sound is expressed by y or u, when they are circumflexed, the short by u not circumflexed, and by y in the final syllable, and in monosyllables, with some exceptions. The Welsh language, says Mr. Edwards, differs from the Breton by a
1
which this vowel sound some in which one degree of
shade
the pronunciation of i. It is an i excessively short, as English busy, and its shade of distinction, in utterance, from the short e, is almost imperceptible, except to a very fine ear/' Elsewhere he contends, that, being unknown to the continental Saxons
in
in the
11
and to the Normans, this fine modification of sound can only have been communicated to the Anglo-Saxons (and so to the English) by
the
ancient
British
inhabitants
:
Adelu.vg gives this account " With respect to pronunciation, it is sometimes lengthened and sometimes sharpened. It is sharpened in hin, in, trirken, sinnen, &c., and lengthened in mir, dir, icir, in the first syllable of Lilie, in the third of Petersilie, and in the foreign words Debit, Titel, &c. In ihm, ihn, &c, it takes the h, as a mark of 4 its being lengthened." This author considers the very short i, or Germany, before a vowel, as a middle sound between a vowel and a 5 consonant. In that case, he says, the i (with some exceptions) "melts into the following vowel, and becomes the medium sound
called
of England. 3
Of
the
German
i,
(before described) of jod, as in jahr, jeder, jetzt"* (the German j, in that language jod (i. e. yod), answers before a vowel, as is well
their
known, to the English y). The Danes, in like manner, give to vowel i the two sounds of the English ee in bee, and i in bill and employ the j, or je, as our (so called) y consonant.7 The French language is considered by M. Volney as having our ee in tie, and our short i in midi.8 It is true that the French He is pronounced exactly like our word eel; but midi is not pronounced like our middy (diminutive for midshipman), but rather as an intermediate vowel sound: and I am inclined to think, with several grammarians, tnat tn c Blench do not possess our short i in it. In Italian the gradations of this vowel sound are not very distinctly marked, yet the long i in
Mpi
1
is
exactly equal to our ee in
see.
Mr. Marsden distinguishes a
Richards'
Gram.
p. 3.
Recherches sur les Langues Celtiques, p. 10. 3 Ibid. p. 13. ist, der Aussprache nach, bald gedehnt, bald gescharft. Ges'charft ist es in tin, in, wirken, sinnen, &c, gedehnt in mir, dir, voir, in der ersten sylbe von Lilie n der dritten von Petersilie, und in der fremden Wortern Debit, Titel &c. In hm, iltn, &c. nimmt es zum Zeichen seiner Dehnung das A an. Deutsch.'Worterb. fol. ii. p. 1347. Ein mittellaut zwischen einem Vocale und einem consonantem. Adelunc' 6 bid.
*
Es
Schmilzet es mit demselben (Vocalen) zusammen, und gehet in den Zwischenuit Jod iiber. Ibid. 1348. 7 Rask Dan. 8 Gram. p. 1. Alfab _ Europ> p> 33>
G -]
114
nr-dial
t
OF
in primi,
VOWEL SOUNDS.
[clIAP. VI
but
rather,
i,
Italian
and a short i in piccolo, answering to ours in ait doubt the accuracy of the last parallel. The shorted perhaps, is that sometimes placed before words beginning
with
sf, st,
&c,
to soften the sound, as isfuggire for sfuggire, istaU

like.
8
In Spanish, as in Italian, the accented i bat of course a longer sound, as in si, yes, than the i preceding a vowel In Portuguese, the i has also two sounds, a Ions. as in hierro, iron. one like our ee, and a shorter, compared (though perhaps with som< In Romaic, the modem Greek) inexactness) to the English i in still. express this articulation by if (ee), differing from their ancestors, win in the classic ages undoubtedly gave to that letter the sound of our The /V in ale, or even one approaching to the French d in male. sians use two letters to distinguish two sounds of this articulation their ninth like our ee, as in mi, a view, and their tenth before anothe: vowel, like our y in a similar position, as Uagovoui: fragranc Polish also there are two letters, expressing a very clear sound (lik< our ee), as in psiarni, of a dog-kennel (genitive), the other (//), more obscure sound (like our terminating y), as in ogrody, gardens. The Bohemian seems to follow the Polish in this particular.' Th< Sanskrit has, besides its characters for the compound sounds li, ri, am Iri, two characters] its third and fourth vowels, the former for a short and the latter for a long ij And the Bengalese alphabet adopts tin 8 In Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Malayan, tin same distinction. articulation exhitd both in a long and short degree, and is marked ir all the alphabetic systems (of which the Arabic is lie original) bj iin<' Thus ii letter, ya, or else by a peculiar vowel mark. tii letter ya has two sounds, a long sound, as 0U1 green, and a short one, as y in yet: and its place is sometimes sup 9 In Arabic the letter ya has the sad plied by the mark hamza. powers as in Persian; and the mark casr takes either the Ions. 10 or the short one. of i in thin. In Turkish tin sound of :ained, and the mark csiv/i answers to the Arab]
for stctto,
)
11
In
mod
the
when
This articulation Supplied or understood." be link' used in CAtnsss, except in combinatid V. Mai lunar with some other vowel, or u ith a nasal consonant. Tim tin- fourth open secondary vowel as king, and the ninth opfl
mark
Ir.ri'i. either
:
shot
.and pivliM
secondary vowels, sod to
short// to eight of the twelve 0p8J
five
One
1
ItlStonc"
In onl of the clo a secondary ones. ml <v, namely, in the fifth opfj
4
Convent. Alplml..
p.
26.
Beard.
I
i>.
-'.
tr, p.
9 and tnbl
i.
p,
i...
"
a, k.
,
|>.
7.
'
p- ' EUlbel, htmlton, Ar, Gram. pp. leu, Mnlnj Oram, p,

i ' i
1.
13,
CHAP.
VI.]
1
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
In the
115
language the third vowel is sounded as and the fourth as ee in eel* In the Sichuana language there are two sounds of this articulation, a long one, as in bltsa\,ronounced beetsa), and a short one, as in lintsi (pronounced lintsy), both which Mr. Archbell marks with the letter I and it seems that 8 there is a very short sound which he marks with our The other y.
secondary.
i
Burman
our
in
till,
African missionaries use i in like manner for our two sounds in beat bit.* In the Tonga, a Polynesian language, the same two sounds are found, both expressed in Mr. Martin's Grammar by the letter but sometimes with an accentual mark, when long, as a/i, to open the 5 mouth, &c. In the language of Western Australia the sound of our t in fatigue is used, as in ira, upwards ." and the same occurs in the Eskimaux language. 7 In the aboriginal American languages in general, the sounds of our ee and I appear to be generally prevalent8 In fine,' I have not found mention of any language, in any part of
and
',
the globe]
where
this articulation
is
wholly unknown.
And
thus
we
conclude
the survey of those vowel articulations, which I have shied oral, as distinguished from labial.
labial vowel sounds in the English language, as I have two, most frequently written o and oo, but of which I have marked the latter with w, being the letter employed for that purpose in said, are
151.
The
o.
the Welsh alphabet, short in nobility ; in a
is
sounded
in
still
shorter sound
it
English, long, in coat, and nearly sinks into the first
is universal and in most written languages it is expressed by one or more characters, winch renders it the more remarkable that such a character should have been wanting in the Hebrew alphabet until supplied by the so-called IMasoretic points, if such was really the fact. 152. The other labial vowel sound known to our language is heard long m our word pool, and short (or rather medial) in puTl ; but we hi " ese G am 8 Carey. Burm. Gram. p. 5. P- 107 3 Sechuana (.ram. pp. 1, 3. * P roc Ch. Miss. Society 1848-9 D cicvii
guttural, as union, persdn, timdrous. It is framed, savs Wilkixs by an emission of the breath between the lips, a little drawn together and 9 contracted. The lips, says Haller, are drawn nearer together than a ; and the greater part of the tongue approximates to the anterior and interior teeth. 10 may add that the position of the tongue and teeth is nearly the same as in the second guttural vowel sound (a) the tongue is slightly raised at the back part, but the sound is distinguished from a by the contraction of the lips which generally assume somewhat of a circular form, owing to the action of the muscle called orbicularis oris hence the fibres of the interior fauces appear : to vibrate together with those of the lips in giving the sound its peculiar character. L he prevalence of this sound in human utterance
We
w.
vol ii. p. 345. Moore's Vocabulary, pVe.Tc. Vocabulary, pref. Vide Zeisberger, Ho yse, &c. 9 I Real Character, p. 364. Labia arctius adducuntur quam in a ; e t lingo* major pars anterioribus ft wrewronotw ei tenonbus dentibus yicina est. Elem, Phys. iii. 464,
'
Manner's Tonga,
a*h
"
'
"f
in m.
i2
116
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
[CHAP. VI
have also a very short sound of it before another vowel when it nearly approaches to a consonant, and has therefore come to be considered ir English as a consonant. This is generally expressed by w, as in water wet, win, wore, wool ; sometimes however it is written u, as in quality and in all cases, it is pro quail, quest, quill, quorum, persuade, &c. perly and strictly a vowel sound ; for the air passes unimpeded througt " This the vocal tube, though for an extremely short space of time. vowel," says Wilkins, " is the second of the labials, requiring a great c: "The lips," saysHALLEit, "are drawn some contraction of the lips." what nearer together than in o, and the tongue is applied to the teeth."
: 1
All agree that the labial aperture is less than in the preceding vowe sound, but it should be added that it loses the tendency to circularity The tip of the tongue also the lips being drawn out in length. more elevated, and brought a little more forward, the teeth remaining English students are ap nearly at the same distance apart, as before.
i
to be misled
o.
i,
n, Fr.
by the mode of designating our fifth vowel , which when pronounced in mule, including the two vowe sounds of ee and oo ; whereas the pure articulation both long and shor abounds in our language, as it does in most other European tongues thus in rule, moon, shoe, moor, woo'd, though spelt so differently, it long ; in pull, full, good, wood it is short so in the French foulr. Mi The Sanskrit has two distinct vowels the German uhr, mund, &c. Ii the fifth for the short, and the sixth for the long articulations. some countries, and particularly in Italy, the o is often softened so I nearly to approximate to the u. li>'\. These seven are all the sounds into which it appears to nl that the English vowel sounds may be most conveniently divided, allow ing to each two or more degrees of length in pronunciation. AmtiM however, there are some which certain grammarians hold to h or instance, that in bet, which specifically different vowel sounds dam to 1)0 a short e, and that in Jit, which I deem to be a short ee
i
really a diphthong,
The
to be correct
majority of glossologies agree in the opinion which appears bo am far from saving that a more minis] nevertheless
;
examination of the vocal organs than has hitherto taken place inaj how | BtCOSOit) for some correction of the above arran he ex An addition to it must m ule of the French u, it
I
i i
ê,
ami possibly
soi
ther
vowel sounds, whirl
mot well appreciate, Mich as the Hebrew ghaiti, should also bt but in this, as well as other respects, the Btudj taken into the account flosaologT require*, and will doubtless obtain, more precise ml'or
;
mation than
",
it
h.i
yet
<piin
'I.
l.'.l.
Ii
is
not sullicieni
I
that
we
:
aci|iiirr
the separate protiunoiatioi
for a greal
portion of
mam
simple
vo\\e
up with combination
Aln|w.nit" prapiui
I.I.
of
tl
omuls.
When two
in o,
kbit addocU habot <iuiin

in
llngumn
mo dentib
in.
I'l,;.
CHAP. VI.]
OF
VOWEL SOUNDS.
117
sounds are combined, they usually receive the not very appropriate designation of diphthongs, and when three (which more rarely happens), If two vowels following in immediate succession are of triphthongs. both pronounced distinctly, they fonn separate syllables, as the i and o in iodine, or the a and e, in aerial ; but they may be melted together, bo as to form only one syllable, as the o and t in oil, which constitutes a The great confusion of our alphabetic system renders it diphthong. scarcely possible to give an intelligible explanation of many diphthongal sounds, by means of English letters in their ordinary use. I must therefore either resort to the peculiar powers, which I have above given to those intended to signify the seven vowels of our language, viz. y, a, a, e, i, o, w ; to which may be added u for the French u ; or else I must employ for these letters respectively the Arabic numerals Now, in order to understand a combined 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Bound, we must first ascertain the elements of which it is composed: we must not for instance suppose the combination yi (1, 5) to be made up of ai, (2, 5) or of ai (3, 5) nor must we suppose the combination yvo (1, 7) to consist of the elements aw (2, 7) or aw (3, 7). Whenever we observe an individual uttering a diphthongal soimd, as it is pronounced in a foreign, provincial, or rustic dialect, we may generally resume that he has an inaccurate conception of the elements of that bund. And on the other hand, one who misapprehends an elementary sound, cannot form an accurate judgment of the diphthongal sound which it helps to produce. M. Volney supposed the English vowel sound u in cat to be identical with the French o in hotte, and the English o in rod ; but as the French o in hotte answers to o (G) in my system, and the English o in rod answers to a (2) and u in cut to ,v (1) in the same system, I cannot conceive that M. Volney fullv iuiderstood the English diphthongs, into which either of those vowels
:
When a student has fully ascertained the elementary sounds of a diphthongal articulation, his next care must be to acquire a facility in uttering it correctly. This is best done in the mode adopted for the acquisition of many other mechanical movements, for instance, that of the roll of a drum, which is effected by giving alt .'mate taps of each drumstick, with a certain interval of time, and
enters as a constituent.
gradually lessening that interval till the difference of the sounds ceases to be perceptible by the ear. So, to acquire a proper pronunciation of
our first personal pronoun, I, which on my system, is the diphthongal sound yi (1, 5), the learner should begin by pronouncing y (1) and i (5) separately, and each at some length, say in the time of a musical crotchet and this time he should gradually reduce to a quaver, semiquaver, demi-semi-quaver, &c, till the ear ceases to distinguish the
;
rapid
into one.
movement of the vocal fibres, and the two sounds seem melted The vowels constituting a diphthong were distincmished by
the Greeks, in respect to their relative position, as the prepositive .nd the postpositive or subjunctive. M. DucLOS supposed, and in this he
1
Alf'ab.
Europ. p. 33.
1]g
-,- followed
of vowra. sousns.
[chap, vi,
prepositive should always be bl M. Beauzke,' that the
read
^),' and
it is
" ^^t^ .^
x
Uk.
.
reason th diphthong, and alleging as a tibey approach bf vowels,
^l^L^ ^Tl,t^\tno
OI1S(mmits .
doubt
eSSSSSSSsswi :s3 * aSg:s3SSSaiai ^^TnJ^^

s
vowel sounds they
and
oomprehendedorwh. h onk
,1
8
;
f'
those combinations of
f,i;,
iii
\'<>rmnn< v
(ir.'ix>un<-''<l
'
rt
Nliroiy,
w*
ftf*.
**"
,.
;,
'
,,
"'
"
mMll(mi
in
itiniu eonundl nntun
Will.ii.
RmI
Character,
p,
CHAP.
VI.
OF VOWEL BOUNDS.
19
Merely
lJ,ul
156. "
a.
aa"
says
Adelung, "
is
the sign (in
German) of a prolonged
Those who confound the sign with the sound have called this a diphthong. But if, as reason directs, we regard the sound alone, we shall as little be able to reckon this a diphthong as ah, or any other
prolonged vowel."
1
The German word aal
therefore (an eel)
is
pro-
nounced as a very long a, with the prosodial mark of length, and it would be desirable that it should be so written, if custom permitted. The same word aal is pronounced in nearly the same manner in the Dutch language.* Halhed adopts aa to express the long a, which is 3 But on this Sir W. Jones says, "if Bengalese vowel. the scroll. anything dissatisfies me in his clear and accurate system, it is the use of double letters for the long vowels, which might however be jus4 From this last remark I must differ. I cannot think it justified." tifiable to express a single vowel sound by two marks, each of which elsewhere expresses a distinct sound though the practice appears to have been very ancient, for we find in a Samnite medal Paakul for Paculus, and many like instances.* ee. " The doubled e or ee (in German) is the sign," says Adeluxg, " of the lengthened e, and it is in most cases pronounced high, as in 8 see, meer, beete," &c. In Dutch, it has a like effect, as in steen, wee, 8 &c. 7 and also in French, as in ne'e, and other feminine participles. for mere prolongation. m does not appear to have been used oo. This has been used by some German writers for a long o. Adelung says, " the long o was formerly expressed by an e subjoined to it, which spelling has been preserved in some few proper names only. More recently the long o began to be expressed by oo, and this sign of a single vowel prolonged was called a diphthong, which it could not really be. Thus Gottsched wished to write boot for both (a boat), and room for rohm or rahm (ci'eam). But the doubling of the vowels is the most awkward way possible of marking prolonga9 tion." Nevertheless, this awkward system has been adopted by many nations. It is probable that the Greek to, or long o, was first formed from a redoubled o, or oo closely joined. It appears in numberless Dutch words, such as book, hoop, stoof, &c.'; and Halhed adopts it to express the long o of the sixth Bengal vowel. 11 uu. " In the modern German," Adelung observes, " that though the u, like all other vowels, is pronounced sometimes long, as in buck, and sometimes short, as in lust, the u is not doubled to express pro12 longation." In the old Frankish, however, the uu (or u repeated) evidently answered in effect to the single w (No. 7) of my system, or the French ou and Italian u, when preceding another vowel, as uuachtuv,
I ;
Worterb.
p. 3.
a
5
7 9
Bengal. Gram. p. 4. Lanzi, Ling. Etrusc. vol. i. p. 245. Sewel, Woordenboek, ad voces.
Sewel, Woordenboek, p. 82. Asiat. Res. i. 8. Worterb. vol. i. p. 1G25. 8 Volney, Altab. Europ. p. 83.
Worterb.
vol.
iii.
p.
551.
10 '-
u Bengal Gram.
p. 4.
Sew!, Woordenboek, advojes. Worterb. vol. lv. p. 729.
120
watching, vigil;
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
selpituillin, self-willing,
1
[chap,
YJ.
Dropping a
vowel.
spontaneous; of like origin, though neither in this nor in the Frankish orthography does it seem to prolong the sound. 157. The vowel a is dropt in the English bear, bread, coat, beauty, The vowel e is dropt in the English toe and blue, in the Genoa &c. knie, in the French poesie, &c. The vowel i is dropt in the English fruit, freight, friend, &c. The vowel o is dropt in the English leopard and broad, in the first syllable of oeconomy, and in amour. The vowel u is dropt in the English laugh and fraud, and is scarcely pronounced
the Anglo-Saxon w, which
and probably
we
still
retain, is
in the Italian fuoco, tuono, &c.
All these, therefore, and the like com-
binations of letters, are to be excluded from the class of diphthongs as

Prodndns
a different bound.
above described. 158. The combination of two vowel letters to produce either a simple or diphthongal sound differing from their elementary powers is manifestly irrational yet it occurs in many alphabetic systems, and more esjêcially in our own, 88 will be seen by the following table consecond!;, the taining, first, the combined vowels as usually written sound produced by them, which I must unavoidably explain by reference to the arrangement of vowel sounds above proposed, with the numerals attached to them respectively, and the marks " long, and 1
;
short.
CHAP.
VI.
OF
VOWEL SOUNLS.
false
121
160. Having thus disposed of the

true diphthongal sounds.
to the
diphthongs,
it
we come
to the
Tnn
dl P hlhonB8#
And
here again
will be necessary to refer
above proposed arrangement of vowel sounds. These being number would, of course, give sixty-four diphthongal articulations, if all possible combinations of them were to be taken into the account but some of them must be excluded as mere duplications and, in regard to others, the usage of different nations, in adopting or rejecting them, are widely different. I will consider eacn vowel, in order, as a prepositive, beginning with the gutturals. have in English three diphthongal sounds, with guttural 161. prepositives, yi (1, 5;, yw (1, 7), and ai (2, 5). Yi (1, 5) is our i in mine, as properly pronounced; but in the north of England it is often pronounced ai (2, 5), like boy, and in some parts of the West it is softened to ei (4, 5). It is heard in the French oeil, the Danish ej, in the German stein, and (as it seems) in
eight in
;
We
Guttural
prepositive*
the
find
first
it
syllable of the Sanskrit vaidya. 1
The
missionaries in Africa
; it seems to have formed the third syllable in Otaheite (as first named by Captain Cook); and it appears in the recent Eskimaux vocabulary, and in many other
in several
of the languages there spoken
vocabularies of unwritten tongues.
Yw
(1, 7), the second of these diphthongal sounds, is heard in the
Both this diphthong and the former are generally mispronounced by foreigners; for as the elementary sound y (1) has no proper letter in our alphabet, most writers who attempt to explain the combined sounds yi and yw employ the letters ai and au, by which the unfortunate foreigners are of course misled and hence a
:
English pound.
foreign accent
sound of these diphthongs a Frenchman, for instance, who trusts to his grammar, pronounces the English word bile, as he would the French bail, and a German pronounces now as he would genau.
is
;
easily detected in the
Our third diphthong, ai (2, 5) as in boy, is also apt to be mistaken by foreigners for ai, (3, 5) and this too is, in a great measure, owing to the defect of our alphabetic system in employing the same
;
character a for vowel sounds so different as those in hall and hat. Besides these three diphthongs known to the English language
with guttural prepositives, there is a fourth not practised in England, but used in many foreign tongues, aw (2, 7), as in the German blau, the Italian Aurora, the Persian Firdausi, and (as it seems) the 14th character in the Sanscrit vowel series, which Sir W. Jones says is " a proper diphthong compounded of our first and fifth vowels." 3 This is the sound, which, as I before observed, foreigners commonly pronounce for our ou in pound, or ow in owl. 162. The palatine vowels a, e, i (2, 4, 5) are more frequently
employed
1
as prepositives in the generality of languages.

Asiat. Res.
i. p. 18. Archbel), p. 4 ; Proe. Ch. Miss. Society. 1848-0, p. exeviii. Asiat lies. vol. i. p. 19.
FMattea prepogitlw*
J22
ai (3, 5)
is
OF
not
I
VOWEL SOUNDS.
in
[e'H.U'. VI.
much used
English.
It
is,
however (or
at
del .ate), prolong since beard a Parliamentary of a proponounced by the Speaker, as the legislative affirmance dialect, as spoken by the it is common in the Wiltshire sition; and It was probably pail. labouring classes, who pronounce pail like Latins as in Mom; and used by the Greek as in eaira, and by the payen, the Portuguese pay, the Spanish it is heard in the French dalxtis, the Russian tcfianaik, &c. The diphthongal sound ao (3, 6) is found in the Chinese km. correct English The diphthongal sound aw (3, 7) is unknown in in the low I rench saoul, but is common in some other languages as and in the dialect of Verdun maou.* heard in the AngtoThe diphthongal sound ea (4, 3) was perhaps arm is still so called in the Westoi England.
least
was
when
'
Sa*on**nn;
It is
for the
found in the Italian and Spanish liea. many languages, The diphthongal sound ei (4, 5) is common to English pronunciation into the simple but has subsided in modern make pail rhyme to vowel sound e (4). Hence our poets commonly from the ancientlv no doubt the diphthong differed vale &c; but does in Wiltshire, where the labouring simple vowel as it still that word pad, (with at, ... 5); classes, as I have said, pronounce And cer* ranks pronounce it peil, (with ei, 4, o). but the middle
tainlv
to make a distinction it would b desirable written, and diflering between the numerous words so differently bad, hale and hail signification, as ale and ail, bale and 10 much in and tail, valemd red; or as cam and malemd mail, 'sale and sail, tale mam and maw, pane and pain, Cain, Dane and deign, fane audfain, law; or as fare and fair, hare and xcane and wain vane and vain, sound et (4, 5) is found in the pan and par, Ac, This dipthongal
:
in
pronunciation
Euian
kauadchei,
in the Polish
*ty,
in
the
Spanish^,
in
the
or-
used m correct English, 'The diphthongal round eo (4. 6) is not form two syllables, and in pigeon , ,/,,/,/ the two firs! rowela fee been employed mav, however, probably have It .in.pt. , [
.]
Wiltshire peasant still says Anglo-Saxon fen, to be; for a ms to terminate the This sound be not" Utln vir3 i,,e i and lt oocun m tlu 1V1 " Homeric QaM****
i
I
'
tialic mei%
&c
diphthongal
lD the tfimniali
ioundi>(4,7)hi not used Vy us; but

:
it
oocnN
deuda
1.
.pi!.-,.,
it
altogether the Krench e, as has been seen, rather gave the in 'A AX.i t ProUbly the u
1,8), and the

/
same mav
(:.)
ii
be
aid
ol
the Greel
01
t'i!!'
'p,,p.,tiv,.
.,,, /(
.
the
in
Tll ...
most prolific of diphtl our word-. pitngt pnom8 t 9us4

...,.-,
and
i
a,
the French
,..
I
fcc
u.l.,.
,,
I.
ManhOMB,
;; ;
CHAP.
VI.]
OK
VOWEL
SOUNDS.
123
The next combination
ia (5,
:
yawl, and short in yon, yonder
it
2) is found long in our yawn, yacht, occurs in the French dande.
have ia (5,8) in yard and valiant; the Germans in jagel, the French in fiacre, the Italians in piano, the Welsh in iard ; in the in Spanish the termination ia is a Gallic dia is but one syllable
;
We
diphthong, as in gracia ; so in Polish, as Psiamia. ia (5, 4) is hoard in the English yea and yet : it is in the French del, and the Italian and Spanish cielo ; in the German jager ; in the
Polish panie, &c. It appears in the ii (5, 5) is heard in the English ye and yield. German jischen, which, according to Adelung, is used in ordinary
life for
gdschen, to froth up.
heard in the English yoke, the German joch, the Italian sciocco, the French aimions, the Spanish predo, and the PortuIn Chinese kydh is the 12th close secondary final guese vio.
io
(5,
6)
is
sound.
j'io
in
the
mule, duty (5, 7) is heard in the English yew, you, curious, German Jude and Jugend ; in the French chiouiine ; in the
Italian
piu
in the
a Spanish ciudad, and in the Chinese kyooon.
ia (5, 8).
do not possess oe (6, 4) in English as a diphthong; Lrttol 103. prepo=m\es but it occurs in the Spanish heroe, and in the French inoelle. diphthongal sound oi (6, 5), for our oi in boil, Neither have we the But it seems to point, &c, is meant to express the sound ai (2, 5). So in Latin Troia have been used in Greek, as in oloc, olroe, &c. in French loyal; in Spanish sois, in Portuguese boy. The sound ow (G, 7) must, from the position of the organs, nearly It is, however, resemble the sound yw (1, 7) above described.
considered as a proper diphthong in the Portuguese dou : and was probably such in the Greek, ovpov, ovXo/uVrjv, &c. The 'vowel sound w (7) is a prepositive in many diphthongal
sounds.
We
In the Wiltshire (pronounced In Chinese, the ninth close primary vowel sound wuts, kwut). is written by Marshman kuwn. wa (7, 2) is found in our wall, water, &c. in the Italian guasto in the French moi, besoin, in the Spanish fragua, &c. wa (7, 3) is found in our wag, wax, &c, and in some provincial It is heard in the last syllable of the French pronunciations of water.
icy (7,
it
1)
is
found
in
our work, wonder, &c.

o,
dialect
is
substituted for the long

1
as in oats, coat,
babouin.
we
in
1
in the
It is sounded is long in our wake, and short in wit. French ecuelle, in the Italian questo ; in the Spanish duerlo, and the Portuguese azues.
(7, 4)
Adelung, Worterb. words i/cast and i/esty.

4
vol.
ii.
p.
1433 and 425.

3
Hence probably come our

4
Marshmuii, Chin. Gram.
p.
107.
Ibid.
Ibid.
124
OF VOWEL SOUNDS.
[dlAP. VT.
Triphthongs.
wi (7, 5) is long in our we, and sho:t in xcit. It is hoard in the French out, bruit, and in the Spanish c xyo and ruido. wo (7, 6). We have this diphthongal sound in woe and wore. In Italian it exists, but with the first vowel very short, in buono. In Spanish it is more fully sounded in arduo. In Chinese the twelfth primary close final sound is kwo. 1 ww (7, 7). This sound is long in our woo and short in wood, and wou'd for would, t and w (5 and 7) seem to be the only vowel sounds, which, by duplication, can make a true diphthong. \q^ I have stated that, when three vowel sounds are combined, the combination is called a triphthong. But it must be remembered here, as in the case of false diphthongs, that the mere sequence of the sounds, without their being combined into one, does not constitute a true triphthong. Thus in the French aicul, there is a division of the syllables a and ieul: and so in the Italian miei, and aiuto (pronounced mi-ei and a-iuto). These, therefore, are not true triphthongs. Indeed the rule of Quintilian, that one syllable cannot be made of 8 three vowels admits of but few exceptions. Our word wound,
indeed, appears to me to contain a true triphthong, for it is formed! of the elements w, y, w, (7, 1, 7), and though the first element w is often called a consonant, and is pronounced so short as to be nearly consonantal, yet I agree with M. Volnky, that an articulation cannot change its nature: being a vowel, it cannot be at the same time a consonant. The vowel nature of the w, and of the u, in our word
wound,
is
the same; both sounds being produced by i\w same po-
sition of the organs.
165. Some writers assert that there are instances in the Italian language of a succession of four vowe's forming only one syllable! ti> which they give the hybrid name Quattrilonghi, as in la But this is altogether erroneous. Indeed, these writers admit that in tin' pronunciation a stress is to l>e laid on the penultimate sellable.
In the
''-/;
example add
at
d, the syllables really uttered are

if
four,
01
hast three,
the
wi
can be taken to be a triph-
1'liin.
Q na,
p.
107.
trlbtn rootllbui ijllabam fieri, quod nequit linoH titan In t. <>rut. lii. i. ' iv. tiun ftinfotar. * Ali.nti, Dta\ prof.
Mini .|uis
|nit:it
Una
offii
Air.i'i.
Korop,
p,
125
CHAPTER
VII.
OF CONSONANTAL SOUNDS.
166. In comparing the production of articulate sounds, by the vocal How to be treatedorgans, to the passage of air through a vaulted edifice, I said that Jie consonantal sounds are occasioned by certain checks, or impediments to the free passage of the breath from the larynx to the external air. Such impediments, it may be thought, do not so much produce different vocal sounds as modifications of vocal sound. Those glossologists, therefore, who restrict the term " sounds " to vowel sounds, designate the consonantal sounds by some other appellation, These, however, are mere such as Intonations, or Articulations. verbal differences: the important object is to determine by what organs and modes of action the impediments in question are caused, and the different consonantal sounds, or modifications of sound, produced. Here, as in the case of the vowel sounds, it will be remembered that the organs fitted to produce consonantal sounds are not separated from each other by fixed and impassable boundaries nor are they moved with mathematical precision from point to point in certain determinate directions but as well the forms as the motions are, as has been said, of the nature of continuous quantity, divisible in infinitum; so that we cannot assign an invariable sound to a strictly definite position or action of any one organ. Nevertheless, we may call certain sounds guttural, dental, labial, lingual, or nasal, according to the organs principally employed in their production : and in that order I shall presently treat them. 167. Before entering on this examination, two circumstances must Preliminary be called to mind first, that the consonantal impediment to a vowel "^ ,kI:l ^ sound may be complete or incomplete ; and, secondly, that it may be
; ; "
:
interposed either before or after the vowel sound is produced. As the impediment to the passage of air through a vaulted hall may be
occasioned by a closed door, which absolutely compels it to take a different direction ; so, when the emission of the vocalised breath from the oral aperture is entirely stopped, a consonantal sound is produced
of which the effect does not distinctly reach the ear, unless it be accompanied with a vowel sound either preceding or following it. The organs, for instance, which produce the consonantal sound expressed by the letter p, completely impede the emission of the vocalised breath:
therefore, I intend to pronounce the syllable pa, but endeavour to dwell for some time on the p, no sound will be heard until the p is
if,
12'?
OP CONSONANTAL SOUNDS.
[CHAP. VII.
followed by a ; and, on the other hand, if wishing to pronounce the syllable ap I dwell on the a, no sound of p will be heard until that of In these instances the impediment caused by the cona has ceased. sonantal organ is complete; but let similar experiments be made with
we shall find that the impediment caused incomplete for in va, if we dwell on v, an imperfect sort of murmur will be heard before the a is sounded and in av, after the distinct sound of a has ceased, an indistinct sound of v may still be prolonged. On this distinction rest the terms st7'ejritus
the syllables aa and vv, and
the consonant v
is
by
and strepitus explosivus, first employed by Amman, and since adopted by several other glossologists ; but those terms, as I have before said, do not appear to me well chosen, though there is undoubtedly a marked difference between the consonantal sounds produced by a complete, and those produced by an incomplete, impediment of the
asqualis
organs.
(Jutturau
168. I shall begin with the consonantal sounds called Guttural, a term usually applied to that expressed by the Greek ^ but including, according to some writers, on the one side, the sounds expressed In- h, and on the other, those expressed by k and g, in their several modifications. The term guttural, indeed, is vague (as I have observed with reference to the vowel sounds), for the Latin guttur (the throat), from which it is derived, has been applied indiscriminately to the but, perhaps, it might be thought to savour larynx and the pharynx of pedantry were I to reject a word which has been so long and so And, besides, the sounds just mentioned approxigenerally in use. mate so nearly to each other in formation, and' so frequently pass into each other in practice, that it may be convenient to class them all under one general designation. 00. With the term " guttural," the term Aspirate is often connected, and sometimes confounded. It seem to mo not improbable that the confusion has arisen from the two different origins from which the Latin word tupitaUo may have Keen supposed to proceed, namely, from le.ithe on, or breathe forcibly, and aspcr, rough. adspini, to AspiThis ratio, from adspiro, answers to the Greek rvevua, n breathing. term seems to have q originally Applied only to vowels when they were uttered with a certain degree of force; but it was used without The orach regard to the menus by which that force was exerted. r. -k athiii" /e /( .i7i( to he two, a rough, 2a?v, and The word 'rntrv,iifi we see in Homer, originally tnOOth on.-, iîXok. hair; and meant thick, ft thicket with shrubs, or ft goat-skin with tfcl w-ikI J,i,W, bare, as a field hare of shrubs, or a skin denuded of
; ;
<
i'i-i
r.
Hence, some
in-
ham
l
vovpi
vm
thought thai the smooth breathing merely to i"' uttered pore, and without any thickI
dial in the Greek bol others, more plausibly, suj with a considerable, and a vowel w.i pri no omei or thickness, and sometimes wit
ness of speech
n iterance
iiout
any.
At
all
events, the
In reality
a con*

CHAP.
VII.]
127
was so treated by the early Greeks, at lea*t by the iEolians, from whom the Romans derived their use of the letter h for this purpose. But it seems that the term canv was afterwards %, 6, and applied, in a different sense, to certain consonants, viz.
sonantal articulation, and
:
</>,
show, erroneously) to be rouo-h or thick utterances of the smooth consonants r, r, and -. This notion, however, has led some critics to suppose that the sothat called rough or aspirated consonants expressed combined sounds expressed the sounds of k and h, d of t and h, and <p of p and h; and X that they were, therefore.properly written in Latin, ch, th, and pit, reBut it is more probable that they expressed the single conspectivelv. sonantal sounds of the German guttural ch, the Anglo-Saxon $ or \ and the Latin/: and if so, there is no ground for calling them, as a class, aspirates, though the term aspiration may still be employed to indicate the stronger or weaker force with which certain guttural consonantal sounds may be uttered, as will presently be seen in detail. 170. According to Dionysius of Halicamassus, and most subsequent Grammarians, there were between the above-mentioned rough and smooth consonants three intermediate, viz.: y, <5, and fi so that this part of the graphic system formed three Triads, thus
which were supposed (but,
as I shall hereafter
Triad*.
Smooth
28
[CHAP. VII.
these pairs of sound) to the glottis, the functions of which are altogether different. I am inclined to think that M. Volney's statement
is
" each
correct (at least so far as regards the articulations in question), that contact (or near approximation) of two organs forms two con-
sonants,
which differ only by the degree of intensity of that contact, and which, under the names of strong and weak (or the like), are absolutely of the same family." I would add that the intensity (to use Volney's term) may imply, on the one hand, a quicker impulse, and on the other hand, a larger space of the organs covered, as will be more
1
particularly explained in the respective cases.
H.
171. I proceed to examine the consonants called gutturals; and I begin with the sound generally expressed in modern Europe by h. According to Haller, this articulation " is formed by a gentle pressure of the breath against the glottis."
MuLLER describes it as a continuous oral sound, with the wlioh oral canal open." Neither of these
;
explanations
is sufficiently full. I think that a pressure of the glottis cannot produce this sound, for two reasons the constriction of the glottis in different degrees produces the different notes of the musical scale ; but the sound h may accompany any note indifferently. Again,
by exerting the muscles of the glottis in a greater or less degree, more or less loudness is produced, and if the muscles are relaxed, nothing can ensue but a whisper. Hence it is maintained by some that the sound of A is always a whispered sound a doctrine to which I can by no means accede, when I find that in our translation of the Bible, this very articulation is employed in the interjection Ho! evidently meant
;
bo
be uttered as loud as possible, in order to
command
attention,
every one that thirsteth, come to the waters."" So much for I.ilU-r's il.'srri|iti n. With reaped to Midler's, it is to be remembered that if the w/ile oral canal (strictly speaking) be open, and no other operation of the organs take place, then' will only ensue an unmodified
I
"Ho!
lias
vowel articulation but that this is not the ease when It is interposed, been shown by comparing the French words la /utile and la dalle. In each of these, the second >t is modified by the preceding letter: and
;
nseqiiriitly the
u'ul
canal
has not remained,

alter
in
either articulation,
wholly open.
is
The sound Immediately

alleeled
issuing from the glottis

\.
in
tin. case
chiefly, perhaps,
i
by the
by the operation of' some other fibres. But in the utterance of

in dillerent
1
this articula-
different degrees
Of force are perceived
;uages
and
-.
Dr. Li.K gives to the

A,
Ildnvw
hour,
tic
aitf the consonantal

;
power of
our una puate,|

aspirated
j|
//,
a^ in
httiuhlr,
as in Intnl.*
In the Aral
hi'.*
In
marked bj thl 6tfa letter, nun. iii. Addling distinguishes:!

< '
&<. and to he, that of our alphabet the stronger aspirahha, and the weaker by the L'lith,
.iron;'-
aspiration (haiirh)
in
(fat
l.egiiinin
o|
wool, as
in ltal>e t
have; and a weaker
the
'
Alfill..
IB109,
not,
|
|>.
71.
"I.::.
i
Il.l,,. i.
Alli.li.
K.no]..
].].
170, 181.
CHAP.
VII.]
1
129
middle of a word, as in gehen, to go. In Volney's table of the consonants used in Europe, A forms the 14th class, and is distinguished by him (as by Adelung) into the strong and the weak aspiration; the former being used in the Tuscan dialect, as hasa (strongly aspirated) for cam, a house, and the latter alone being used in the French or English language. 2 More minute observation might probably detect several nicer shades of distinction in the pronunciation of different countries but in the present state of science it may suffice to adopt
;
the division
And
made by Adelung and Volney, of " strong" and " weak." even this will show that in treating of the letter h, as it occurs in
and modern, something more is necessarv than to call it merely a " breathing." In regard to this, as well as other gutturals, the practice of nations varies in the course of time. The Alemannic and some other old dialects gave, in many fasten an aspiration to h in the middle or end of words, nearly equal to the more modern ch, as floch for floh, a flea. 3 So, we hare altogether dropt the guttural gh which our ancestors, no doubt, pronounced in night, light, &c. In France, Volney says, that within his own experience, the use even of the lightly-aspirated h had sensiblv decreased so that you might hear persons speaking of fromage <T Ollande
"Doubtless," (he of the lungs painful and useless, which the vehement passions and strong desires of 4 the savage or rustic demand." This principle, however, will scarcely account for the very unequal powers which we give to h in our own language, where it is sometimes wholly unnoticed, as in honest, shepherd; sometimes slightly aspirated, as in behold, and sometimes so
efforts
different languages, ancient
(Dutch cheese) instead of fromage de Hollands. adds) " men, softened by civilization, deem those
strongly articulated as to cause a delay of the voice equal to any consonant, as in hand, Jiome. Hence we say a hand, but we cannot say a honest man we say an honest man, but we cannot say an hand, though the cause of these differences it may now be difficult to trace.
:
172. From the stronger aspiration of h to the pair of articulations generally expressed in modern Europe by ch and gh, the transition is easy, in languages which possess the two latter. In English we have neither distinctive letters for those sounds, nor the sounds themselves. I have therefore adopted as marks of them the (chi) and the
One or both of these articulations are expressed in different shades of utterance by the Hebrew kheth and caph by the Arabic
I
(ghain).
Arabic
cha and ghain

jota, as
in
by the Greek x as in x<7*a, a chasm joven, young; by the Russian x, as in

;
,
by the Spanish
in hoch, high, & c They are unknown as sounds, not only to the English but to the French and pure Italian tongues, though common both to the Highland and Lowland Scotch, the Welsh, the Semitic in general, &c. Wilkins describes the common formation of this pair of articulations as owing to " a vibration of the
by the German ch,
xiirost conning;
as
Worteib. vol. Worterb. vol.
i.
p.
p.
ii.
1319. 865.
* Alfab.
Europ. p. 104
Alfab. Europ. p. 105.
G L -J

130
Ob'
COXSOXANTAL S0UKD8.
1
[CHAP. VII.
Muller says of ch, " the tongue is applied to the palate and the air is pressed through Taking these two explanations the narrow space left between them."* together, a tolerably accurate notion may be formed of this pair of articulations in their general character, but they are evidently susceptible of modification by slight differences in the position or action of In Hebrew, Dr. Lee compares klieth (the eighth letter), the organs. 3 to the German ch in nicht ; but he adds that it probably had two sounds originally, the one more, the other less aspirated.* In German
root or middle of the tongue against the palate."
Adelung
distinguishes the articulation ch into

;
two
degrees, a stronger
and a weaker s and Muller reckons three modifications of the same, which he thus explains:
1. " In the first modification the fore-part of the tongue is applied to the fore-part of the palate, as in pronouncing the German words, lieblich, selig, &c.
2.
to the
" In the second, the dorsum of the tongue is approximated middle of the palate, as in the German word tag,
suchen, &c.
3. "
The
third
it
is
in producing
the
uttered by the Swiss, Tyrolese, and Dutch dorsum of the tongue approaches the back
articulation
part of the palate.""
Volney distinguishes the strong and the weak

latter soft, as in
.is ((insti-
tuting his thirteenth class, the former hard, as in the
German
hitch, the
Metternich, Jarnovich.
This
latter
sound he says
7 It should be in Romaic Greek to the letter %. is often given observed, however, that between this class and his eleventh, comprehending ga and ka, he places a twelfth, distinguished by the French term grasseyement (thickening of utterance), which has also a strong
and a weak pronunciation. The former he compares to the I'.'th Arabic letter glmin, and says it is common among the Parisians ;md It is formed (lie Proveneils, and predominates among the lleibers."
savs), by H near 'lit not |iiit* close contact of the soft palate with the d'H-Mini of the tOBgOe in which these organs are placed, as if preparatory
I
t
of gargling; and so that, if the contact were complete, would product the lOUnd offfd, In the weak gramtysment, the backward, and forms only a partial contact is drawn a little the middle of the dorsum, With the palate near the n\ula; and, aj tin, poattton of the organs la very similar to that which produoaj
to the act
I
it.
the rowel
i,
a transition often takes place

;
from the one

find
i/rlitii,
to the ether oj
in
these articulations Hesycluus, Iuiimii

I
'
I
in like
maim<
as
we
the Hellenic ~.\iii,
in
i'
Romaic
are
le
splendour.
These
gru ISJSMflM we just \ Arabs and

'
yarded in brance as vices of pronunciation, but

fcbej
Berbera
..
Itimate
and distinct articukl
RwUCham.
II-
i.,
,,
,-.
12.
Klein. Pfcyt,
"
ML
rol
i.
f.
p.
Ibid. p. 7.
I.
Wttrt*rb. vol.
Ufljb,
l...,, p.
I.
p.
1048,
p,
l"l.
Ibid, f, LOO,
CHAP.
tions
:
VII.]
OF CONSONANTAL SOUM/S.
131
is necessary for accuracy in the signiof the words to which they respectively belong. Many other modifications of similar articulation, might, no doubt, be discovered in the practice of different tribes or nations for instance in the Maya, or Yucatan tongue, which Adelung describes as extremely guttural. 8
a due observation of which
fication
But they would probably be found to approximate in sound either to the Greek %, or to the Arabic j, which to mere English ears sound respectively like a strongly-aspirated kh or gh, though it must be remembered that these double letters are but imperfect attempts to
express sounds, exponents.
which
have,
in
our
graphic system,
no proper
173. Proceeding from the interior part of the oral canal toward the K, o.
which we have which I have marked with k and g, pronounced as in our ha and ga. These are placed by Wallis in the class of gutturals,8 and they are so designated in the Sanskrit system. In the Hebrew grammars they are called palatals* and also by Adelung. 5 By Mr. Bishop they are styled
exterior, the first pair of consonantal articulations for
in
the English alphabet distinct signs,
is
that
pharyngeals.6
It
is
universally
allowed, that
the
position of the
organs
is
the same in the articulation A as in the articulation
and
of the organs is such as to form a complete obstruction to the issue of the vocalised breath. The contact is between the tongue and the palate; but the exact point of junction in this, as in the preceding pair of articulations, is differently stated by
that, in both, the contact
different glossologists, stances.
and does,
it is
By Wilkins
Adelung
in fact, vary according to circumloosely described as " an interception of
by the middle or root of the " the sound is a palatal one, produced when the back part of the tongue is pressed firmly against the palate." 8 Of g, he only says, it is uttered " from the palate, and sounds harder than j (our y,) and softer than ch or k." Mr. Bell says of k, " this articulation is formed by the silent contact and audible separation of the back of the tongue and the posterior part of the palate the precise points of contact vary before the different vowels;" 9 and of g, that " the formation of this element is precisely the same as that of the preceding, but with the addition of an effort of voice during the contact of the articulating organs." 10 Perhaps, on comparing these and other authorities with personal observation, we shall not greatly err if we describe the common position of the organs in this pair of articulations thus the tongue is rendered convex and narrow, and the middle or back part of the convex surface is placed in close contact with the palate, so as completely to interrupt the passage of the
the breath inwardly toward the throat,
tongue."7
says of
k,
Alfab. Europ. p. 101. Gram. Ling. Angl. pp. 13, 15, 16.
a
* "
8 10
5
7
9
Worterb. vol.
ii.
p. 1457.
Mithridat. vol. iv. p. 16. Lee. Hebr. Gram. p. 10. Articnl. Sounds, p. 39.
Real Character, p. 3, c. 12. Principles of Speech, p. 188.
Worterb. vol.
IbiiJ.
ii.
p.
1457.
p. 192.
k2
02
[OHAPi
VII.
and the marked distinction of sound between the two articuapprehend may be sufficiently accounted for, if Ave Bay that the muscles of the tongue, aided perhaps, by the co-operating action of those of the pharynx, strike the palate more quickly and on a narrower point, in producing the articulation k ; but more slowly, and over a
air:
lations I
larger space, in producing g.
It is obvious, that as all the diversities
of action in the vocal organs are the result of imitation, experiment, and habit, not only individuals or families, but whole tribes and nations may acquire one of these articulations and not the other, or may be destitute of both, as will be hereafter shown in a variety of instances.
It is also
obvious, that if k and

it
whilst
x and
admit
to pass
g totally intercept the breath, between a narrow space, ^ is not
merely a rough pronunciation of k, but a distinct articulation. Though I have spoken of the articulations k and g, and also of ^ and , as pairs of articulations, it is not to be understood that either the one or the other articulation in each pair does not admit of nice shades and discriminatory touches as it were, perceptible to some ears and not to others. How far the caph and coph (the 11th and 19 th letters) of the Hebrew alphabet may have originally differed, I pretend not to say. Adelung declares that the German k has a double sound that it retains a hard sound at the beginning of a word before a vowel, as in kaum, scarcely, and in the middle or at the end of a word after a but that it sounds somewhat softer short svllable, as in sack (a bag) a liquid consonant, as in ki-'ui (little), and alter a long vowel, as in /taken (a hook). And on the letter # In- makes somewhat similar rations.' So, in the French language, Volnky reckons two consonants, his tenth, expressed by que and ,'', and iiis lev.-nth by ga and ka. In the tenth, he says, the tongue tonus its conta in the eleventh with the anterior and middle part of the palate 1 do not pnthat part of the soft palate which is near its root." contend to dispute the accuracy of these nice distinctions; though may fess they are not quite clear to my perceptions; and the same
; ;
-t
ee,
say of Mr. BelTi observations, that in /; before the close lingua] vowel the tongns strikes the palate much further forward than before eh that the same will apply to </.* As to agin (the sixteenth " the true sound being unknown, it is bn.-r of the Hebrew alphabet I shall only observe, under the high usually passed over in sttsoot*
,
it I
),
BQthority of Dr. bit:, "that
approaching
Jnst as id tlie 171. H
to that
it probably had two sounds originally, one, of g mixed with A or r; another to that of '<tlr/\ nt case with the Arabs, who have both ghain and ain,
i<
tin*
consonantal articulations,
loo.
.el
and including those called by some writers palatal, turn to a <-la-. which may not improperly be called or pharyngeal, the tongue, in producing the sounds, approaches h unhide the Blticuhl towards the teeth. In
termed
ffVttural,
I
,<
Ibid.
p. 888.
Ail
8 II.
p.
|..
91.
H.
CHAP.
tions
VII.
OF CONSONANTAL SOUNI.
133
marked by me, t, d, 6, 'S, s, z. c, and j (vulgo, t, d, th, dh, s, z, zli). For distinction's sake, the two first may be allied pure dentals, the two next, lisping dentals,' and the lour following, sililant
sh,
and
dentals.
It
is
customary, indeed, with
many grammarians
;
to
make
but as the generic terms guttural, palatal, dental, and labial are employed with reference to an anatomical classification, it seems contrary to sound principles of nomenclature, that any other class should be generically distinguished with reference not to the organ producing them, but to the sound produced. At the same time there can be no objection to name the subdivision of a class from the latter circumstance. In subdividing the class of dentals, as above, I begin with the pure dentals, t and d, which are alike produced by an appulse of the margin of the forepart of the tongue against the inside of the teeth of the upper jaw, at their juncture with the bony palate, the teeth and lips being slightly separated. The articulation t, however, differs from the articulation d, just as k does from g; that is (according to Volney) by a stronger pressure of the tongue in t than in d against the organ to which it is
applied; whence (as Adelung thinks) there results a quicker and stronger expulsion of the breath in t than in d. s But, however this may be, the sound expressed by t throughout Europe is unvaried, and
the sibilants a distinct class from the dentals
sound expressed by d. The case is system for in that there is a series called cerebral, containing a t and a d, and another series called dental, containing also a t and a d. The reason of applying the term cerebral to any of these letters I never could discover; nor does Dr. Lee's remark render it to me more intelligible. He says, of the Hebrew teth, " it should be pronounced with the tip of the tono-ue against the roof of the mouth, just as our own t is, and hence it may be termed cerebral^* To the English ear the sounds expressed by the two Sanskrit series appear scarcely, if at all, distinguishable but to the native ear they are perceptibly different. According to some persons, this arises from a slight lingual vibration in the (so called) cerebral series, somewhat approaching to the Mexican tl. It is said, however, that the native writers employ the characters of this, but
the
said of the
different in the Sanskrit consonantal
;
same may be
not of the other series, to express the t or d in English proper names. 175. The next pair of consonantal articulations is that which I have called lisping dentals, viz. our th in thing and youth, and th in 0, 3S. this or smooth, distinguished by some of our lexicographers as th in the former articulation, and dh in the latter. To any correct English ear the difference of these two sounds is very perceptible yet some ; poets of no small repute confound them in their rhymes ; ex. gr.
It is a sight, the careful
brow might smooth,

itself to youth.-1
And make
1
age smile, and dream
So called by Walker, Pron. Diet. p. G3. Hebr. Gram. pp. 7, 8.
Worterb. vol. Byron.
iv. p.
511.
134
incorrectness of such
[c HA P. VII.
The
that
rhymes would be
at once perceived, if
the final consonants were pronounced with the opposite articulations
smooth were pronounced as youth, and youth as smooth. mark, the Greek ; for the other, the Anglo-Saxon ft. The position and action of the organs, common to both, consist in applying the tip of the tongue, either at once to the upper and lower incisor teeth, or at least to the up])er, leaving an aperture on both sides, and thence expelling the air. Here it will be observed, that the impediment to the escape of the breath is not so complete as in the two last-mentioned pairs of articulations and consequently both and ft are reckoned among semiThe organic process just described was known to the vowels.
is,
if
For the
articulation th in thing, I adopt, as a
Islandic, as well as to the Semitic, and some other and though little used by the Teutonic branch of the Germans, and not at all by the Romans or many of their descendants, yet we find it strongly pronounced by distant tribes of the New World, " by the Cree of the Forest on the coast of the Atlantic, by the Huron of the great Lakes, by the Rapid Indians of the great Western Plains, and by the Flat-heads of the rocky mountains hindering on the Pacific Ocean." Some people knew only one of its sounds the ancient Greeks, for instance, seem to have had only the The difference of sound 0, and the modern Spaniards only the ft. between these two articulations is manifestly the same as between k and g, or t and (/: it is variously characterised by different authors. HABSDKM calls the former "hard;"* VoLNKY calls it "linn and dry;" 3 and both call the latter "soft:" but the proper organic distinction seems to be that 6 is produced by a stronger but narrower pressure of the tongue against the teeth, ft by a weaker and broader. It is u common notion, that these articulations are merely aspirates of / and d: and this emu- lias perhaps been encouraged by the circumstanci- that I if employed in the English written expression of them.
Anglo-Saxon and
:
Oriental tongues
Nd
"iilv
is
the
position,
however,
to
/
ol
sounds approximate
less neaily
the organs different, but the whence audi/ than to 8 and t

J
VoImJ
,
HOI
impi"|M'rlv calls thein drmi-sijjhiiitcs.*

b\
for
And We may
s,
ol.-.i\.-, thai
thj>ell
those
s/wll,
who
lisp, th is
substituted for
is
as mith lor
and the
like:
but ninth
not pronounced for

sibilant
iimf, DOT lh'in</s lor
////</.*.
S.Z.
I7''>.
Tbl
In
|i>r
dentals, and
pur of articulations which I have called which I have adopted as marks our letters
t
,v
and
a
ol
z,
atv doomed, liko the

i
preceding! semivowels.
u
"I
It
might
there
be inferred
Vi.lmVs
act
their
loiniation
that
was
POtWOOB tli- ailii -ulatiiig organs ;* but this is not the fact. The Hand in produced b\ an appul e of the tongue toward the upper tad with or eiuiiM: liie tongue, however, if not in entire t'-'-th
<
those
orgitliit
fl Al:
1
but the breath

p.
is
forced through a small channel, as M

" 1I.pI.
tmm, OkM Oram.
318.
GoftV*Bt A
H.I.
pti:it
..
p,
4
80,
H.i.l.
f.
CHAP.
VII.]
135
were, of the upper surface of the tongue to an aperture in front. This occasions a sort of tremulous reverberation against the palate, and produces a hissing sound, whence these letters are commonly Mr. Bishop, however, makes a distinction, calling termed sibilants. 1 That there is a distinction is s the hissing, and z the buzzed sound. evident but the latter term seems neither elegant nor appropriate.
;
cause of the difference of sound is, I doubt not, to be found in the difference of the tongue's action, by which the breath seems to Be this as it strike rather more forward and upward in I than in z.
The
alphabetic systems,
may, the existence of the two cognate sounds is recognised in most by different characters, as the Hebrew samech and zain, the Arabic sin and ze, the Armenian sa and za, the Greek sigma and zeta, the Coptic sima and zida, the Russian semla and zui, kc. though in many instances the characters are misapplied, as we write our plural termination es but pronounce it ez, write rose but pronounce So in German, Adeit roze, write houses but pronounce it houzez. luno distinguishes three sounds of s, describing one as very soft one harder (like our s), as in haus (like our z), as in rose (a rose) 8 and one still more hard, as ross (a horse). (a house)
; ;
;
177.
The remaining
pair of sibilant dental articulations
is
nearly
c, J.
related, in
have sound and organic production, to the preceding. both sounds in our language, as the ti in nation, and the si in vision ; but we have no proper letter for either our lexicographers, however, express the former generally by sh, and the latter sometimes by zh. To avoid the use of double letters for single articulations, I employ c for sh, it being so used in precious, and J for zh, such being the It is probable pronunciation of/, in the French Jean, jeune, &c. that the Greeks and Romans wanted these articulations, at least they had no letter for either. The Hebrew shin (the 21st letter) answers to our sh in shine, though by a difference in the pointing it is some3 corresponding letter is found times made to stand for s in son. in the Syriac, the Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Amharic, and Armenian systems, which last has also a character (she) answering to the French/. The Sanskrit consonantal system, too, has in its 7th series Bishop Wilkins, (according to Ballhohn) both a sha and a zha* Speaking of the sound common to these two articulations, says, "it is produced by a percolation of the breath betwixt the tongue rendered 5 It must be added concave, and the teeth both upper and lower." that the surface of the tongue is raised so as to approximate nearly to the bony palate, leaving, however, an aperture for the passage of the air, which vibrates, in the same tremulous manner, as in s and z; whence this pair of articulations also are commonly termed sibilant. Mr. Bkll observes that in sh " the point of the tongue being drawn inwards (from its forward position at s), slightly enlarges the aperture through which the breath hisses :" and that in zh " the formation is
;
'
1
We
8 See
8 Worterb. vol. Articul. Sounds, p. 39. 4 Alphab. Oriental, p. 16. Hebr. Gram. p. 3.
iii.
p.
1228.
Real Character.
136
precisely the
difference
[ciIAP. VII.
same as the preceding." between the two articulations

1
He
ascribes,
indeed, the
to an
addition of glottal
i\
I*-
preceding cases, I incline to think In both, articulations, however, the tremulous vibration of the air produces a hissing sound, and as the passage of the air is but partially impeded, the letters, where they exist, are deemed semivowels. 178. The consonantal sounds called labial form two pairs, which I express by the usual English letters p and b, and v. I begin, as before, with the pair which present a complete impediment to the passage of the vocalized breath, viz., those marked by the letters p
latter; but, as in the
sound to the
that
it
is
owing
to a different action of the tongue.
b, as in pall and ball. The common position and action of the organs in these two articulations consist in an interception of the breath by the complete closure of the lips, and a subsequent expulsion of it by their aperture. So long as the closure lasts, if the consonant
and
be an
initial,
no sound whatever can be heard, and
if it
till
be preceded
the lips have
by a vowel,
the consonantal sound cannot be heard
been closed and reopened. On these points glossologists are in general agreed, but in respect to the causes of difference between p and b, their opinions vary. Mr. Hkll having given a clear descrip" This tion of the mode in which the sound p is produced, says of b articulation differs from the preceding in no degree, extent, or continuance of labial pressure.* Volney's account is different ; according to him the contact of the lips is more firm in p than in b. s So M ABSDXN says: "In the mode of its articulation, the letter p differs from b in little else than the harder compression of the lips ami resistance to the passage of the breath." 4 And with the opinions of these able glossologists am disposed to agree. As to the sounds produced, they are weak Kusii, variously characterised. Adki.um; calls /> hard and p, atonic, and b, sitl>tonic ; BlSROP, p, mute, and b, semimute; LATH wi, /'. diarpand b, fiat; the Greek writers/), smooth, and />. intermediate; the Some of these terms, Sanskrit grammarians p, surd, and l>,so,iaiit,kr. however, are Inapplicable to articulation, and none of them throw much light on the organic cause of distinction to which have already We are ;i|>t from habit to consider the labial consonants adverted. the easiest to I"- formed; yet of some of them whole nations are destitut.-, or possess only one <,( a pair, whilst, others observe I)ic6 "The ides of discrimination which we can hardlv distinguish. Armenian alphabet has two letters to which we refer ourp; but one oi th'in, oauad /'"', i- l'-ii ber, the other, called /"'<", is soft Tho characters also dilli-r greatly in form, and are u ed very differently The as to the signification of the words into which they enter. 7 The Hdhtwfc and BorOO languages have neither;;, A,/', nor r.
:
/>
:''
iplMofBpccli.
All
.
pa, 188, 180.
li'i.l.
p.
186.
74.
I.
AJi'lm. ,
Wortsrb. vol
;
p. 677.
i
.
'
Convent. Alpha*, p. 1*. VottMv, imb. Enrop, p. 74.

p. :ii7.
Son
..
Gh mi.
CHAP.
VII.]
OF COXSOXAXTA!, SOU NTS.
137
2 Mixteca has neither p, b, nor /;' the Totonaca neither b, f, nor v ; a the Chinese, Tibetan, and Mexican neither b nor And as articuf.
lations agreeing,
or nearly agreeing together, easily pass
into each
Other,
we
frequently
meet with such
transitions of the labials, not
only in derivative languages from a common source, or dialects of a common standard tongue, but even in the grammatical changes of words in the same language. Thus in our own language passes into v as wife, wives, and in the Wiltshire dialect vine for fine. The Greek 7r passed into the Latin b, as irvtov, buxum.* The Hellenic
beta
became the Romaic

b,
veta.
Latin
vather
as <paXawa, balcena."
The Greek p was changed into the The German / into the English p, as
p into the provincial English v, as pater, be observed that some of these changes were not immediate, but by gradations, as in the last case pater became,
schqf, sheep.
:
The
is
Latin
and
it
to
first,
father, and then, vather.
The
transitions, too, varied in dif-
ferent countries;
thus
became
b in England,
and v
in Italv, as
episcopus, bishop, vescovo.
179. This pair of labials differs from the former, in leaving a partial opening for the passage of the breath. Bishop Wilkins describes the position and action of the organs thus " These letters are formed by a kind of straining or percolation of the breath through a chink 1 etween the lower lip and upper teeth, with some kind of nurnnur."
:
F, V.
description here given of the organic position is more correct than that of M. Volxey, who says that these articulations are produced by the contact of the lower lip with the upper incisor teeth ;""
The
from this it might be inferred that the contact was entire and whereas it is the chink (as Wilkins calls it) between the organs which gives these articulations their peculiar character, and distinguishes from p, and v from b. The difference between and u, however, remains still to be accounted for. Those who
for
close;
ascribe a like difference, in each of the other pairs of consonants above noticed, to a vibration of the glottal fibres, apply the same hypothesis, of course, to this ; but for the reasons which 1 have before given, I
must
lip
dissent from that opinion. I consider that the portion of the which comes in contact with the teeth is pressed toward them
in
more strongly than
in v
it
appears to
me
also, that the aperture
through which the air issues is comparatively narrow in/, whilst in v it extends wider, so as to become nearly equal to that of the labial
vowel, which I have marked with ic, and which is ordinarily written English oo. This observation is confirmed by the fact of the ready transition, in many languages and dialects, between the articuin
lations expressed in English
/ and
1
by v and w; whereas a transition between comparatively rare. 180. The remaining oral-consonantal sounds I agree, with Volxey
is
l.
Adelung, Mith. vol.

Ibid.
iii.
iii.
p. 3, 36.
Ibid.
iii.
p. 3, 46.
p. 3, 93.
5 Ibid.
Festus. v. Bala?na. Alfab. Europ. p. 74.
138
and Adelung,
in calling lingual
;
[CHAP. VII.
because they depend chiefly on an I have expressed them by our ordinary letters I and r; which, however, do not form a pair, the articulating action in the one being very different from the action in They are both commonly reckoned, together with and the other. n, as liquids, a term applicable enough to the two former, but not very
action of the air against the tongue.
appropriate to the
two
latter,
as will presently be seen.
They
are also
entitled semivowels, as agreeing, with other articulations of that class,

in presenting only a partial obstruction to the passage of the vocalized
The articulation I, as uttered in most parts of Europe, is produced by the following position and action of the organs the tip of the tongue is loosely applied to the bony palate, immediately behind the Upper incisor teeth, so as not entirely to interrupt the passage of the air which is allowed to escape on both sides between the edges of The vibration of the air against the tongue the tongue and the palate. in the pure utterance of this articulation is so slight, that some glossologists consider the articulation to be in itself a vowel sound, so as to constitute a syllable in terminations like our le in little, prattle, Ike. But it appears to me, that the consonantal effect is produced by tlu> position and slight vibration of the tongue, and that the vow vl character is given bya very weak utterance of the first guttural vowel sound, viz. hat which I have expressed by the mark y, and which Beauzkk assigns to the French e mute. Other designations are given to the two articulai ions Dr. Rush ranks them among sub-tonics, with reference to I and r sound ;' Mr. Bishop joins them with d and t as lingua-palatals, as to formation.* In some languages they are both wanting, as that o( Laos.* In some, / is wanting, as in the American Othomi* Waiknri? and Natrick? and in some languages, as will presently be seen, r is wholly
breath.
:
:
unknown.
half, (X>uld, folks
beyond tin- ordinary practice, y in making fault rhyme to aught? and it may be observed that tin- articulation dropt in the radical is resumed in the derivative; I'sahn is commonly pronounced Sam, but J'salmml;/ is never pronounced Sammh/. >n the other hand, / is sometimes ueedAi'i.i.rv. mentions that in the bower Saxon dialect, [ntcrtedi
this
(
In ordinary English pronunciation I ; but our poets sometimes earn
is
often dropjt,
Sadeltied
8 and probably is used for Sadctied (se< d tide, or seed time); our terminating le in handle, settle, &c, may have been merely an That articulations so close as euphonic addition to htnitl, scat, &c. The those of/ and r should (niss into each other is not surprising.
i
verb
lailrn
the*
expresses
en
tin*
me
of
for
/,
>."
modifications of
antal articulation
to
There are some which our powers ol

Gram
p. 149.
tab,
*
Bebop.
115.
ft
Mnntlimnn, Oh.
Nil
GoM
tinm
" Ibid. p. 189. M W'oii.ii.. rei, It p.
Manama.
is;,:;.
l'ti<" 't s
I'lliru
/ii
unman,
tt.
trtiwi
pwnoha.
kosni
ii,
aw
nlnim rahlar dar Nntur(
'|mo han
Ian
itl
tin
horvn Umwu.-'
A<l<-I.
Wmi.
rol
p.
h7
.',
CHAP.
VII.]
OF CONSONANTAL
SOUNI.'S.
139
pronunciation are not easily adapted; and which may, perhaps, be called combinations of I with other articulations these are the guttural 11 of the Welsh, the II mouille of the French, and the barred I of
;
the Polish languages. The first of these admits in Welsh a strong degree of aspiration, which seems also to partake of the 0. The French glossologiste themselves do not seem fully agreed on the sound of their 11 mouille. M. Beauzee says that in the word Carillon, as
Ottered
by the most
correct speakers,
where the
11
is
called mouillee,
he perceives only the ordinary articulation I followed by the diphthong to, and that in paille and bail he perceives an I followed by the diphthong ie. M. Volney seems to express himself more correctly, when he says " if we introduce i into the syllable la, so as to form the
x
syllable
lia
pronounced at once, and
if at
the
same time we press
the "tongue
flattened against the palate,
we
shall obtain another consonant,
the French describe

11
by
ill
in the
words fille,
famille, the Spaniards
which by
words llanos, llorar, and the Italians by gli in flglia, famiglia, This consonant does not occur to the English and Germans, and they substitute for it our ordinary syllable ft."* Of the Polish /, Volney thus speaks " There exists another consonant belonging to this family, but of which I know no other example than that which is called by the Poles the barred I In order to form this /, the tongue must be bent strongly backwards, by which means a singular cavity is
in the
&c.
formed in the throat. One can form no correct notion of this sound but by hearing it uttered but it seemed to me, in hearing some Eng;
lish songs,
when
the voice rested on the last syllable of
little,
or of
bubble, that the ble
had some analogy to the barred l." a 181. The other lingual articulation that which I have marked rs. differs from the preceding chiefly in the vibratory motion, which the tongue receives from the breath forced against it, the tip not being in contact with the palate, as in the former case, but loose, though the tongue, toward the back part, rather approximates to the palate and
tie
and
the breath
is
directed, not over the sides, but the tip of the tongue,
the rougher, the latter the smoother sound of this articulation. The extremes of these qualities are, perhaps, to be found in the harsh rolling of the Spanish r, which shakes the whole tongue, and the softest tremor of the English which merely vibrates its edge." Intervening
which is turned upwards. Although all the European languages employ this articulation, and generally express it by a single letter(either the Latin r, or the Greek p), they vary much in the smoothness or roughness of the sound, and in the modifications of action by the tongue, the pharynx, or the lips. The Armenian alphabet, indeed, has two different characters, rra, and re ; the former expressing
degrees are found in the strong vibrations of the Scottish and some German dialects and even in the English, Volney says that he perceives two very distinct r's, one common to all Europe, in which the
;
Gram. Gen.
vol.
i.
pp. 85-87.
Alfab. Europ. p.
8^
Ibid. pp. 80, 81.
* Bell.
163.
140
OF COXSOXAXTAL SOUXI'S.
[OHAP. VH.
vibrations of the tongue, though few in number, are plainly marked,
and the other in which there is scarcely any sensible vibration, as in the words sir, fur, &c., and by the mode of uttering which a foreigner These varieties are owing to the difference is most easily detected. of action in the tongue but the pharynx is used in certain cases to modify this articulation. In these (as I observed with reference to certain modifications of 7) it is sometimes difficult to decide whether the sound is to be considered as a modification of r or a combination Thus, the Greek aspirated r in pulov of it with a guttural articulation. though we admit of no such (a rose) may be said to combine r and h combination in our initials, and only pronounce it in distinct syllables, But that peculiar sound which prevails in Berwickas war-lwrse. shire and Northumberland, allied a burr, and which seems to be the same as is called in Bavaria rdtschen, and in other parts of Germany schnarren* may, perhaps, be not improperly termed a guttural r. "A labial modification of the sound of r " (says Mr. Bell) " would almost The Wiffmu seem to be cultivated among affected English speakers. of the awdinawy ahw, say these sonorous reformers, wendews its cirm/ication fwom wefined uttewance desiwable and weally necessawy."* Unpleasantas this defective pronunciation must lie to a discriminating ear, two other faults are scarcely less so namely, the omission of the r, or its absorption in the following consonant, on the one hand, and its Yet the former of these errors siijieilluous introduction on the other. is countenanced by the authority of many of our rhymesters (whose names I willingly omit to mention), when they make draw answer to war, God to reward, sought to port, wrath to forth, chvrs to tears, dawn Of the pronouncing papa as papar, idea as idrar, and to mom, &c. Mr. Bell says: "This is one of tlie like, before a succeeding vowel Th ilv cure is to finish the first the most inveterate of all habits. vowel by a smart momentary occlusion of the glottis, and give the 4 It is probably subsequent one thus a separate commencement." rather from a bad habit than a bad organization that, some nations, for
1 ;
iastanos,
tba Bormete,
it
pronoanos
>
as y,*
pronouncing
at
all,
as the (Jhinese* the Ilurona? the
and others are incapable of Othomis' the
M Among all the principal lanj snd the M$wioant. of the wkWy-dispereed Polynesian Islands, there is no one that. for poetesses both the /-and the/,- and the Mari/wsanhaa neither." ? tinJbnga language substitutes a, the Xnr Zealand substitutes >/, Among European languages we find a trani." and tli sition between r and s, as the German fans, and English hart) so in In some dialects / is substituted for old Latin, " -/ lor urn, .hi altar.
t
or d, OH
in the
liacklsnburg varer lor rater, father, and Ju

p. 82.
i
Alf. AIM*.
i.
Kuron. Huron,
i,
*
.. |..
ill. A.l.ttm-. Wfl A. I. lull'/, \\ iirtrl It. A.l.-lunjc, Wcirt.il>. vol.

v
iii.
|i |>.
'>'.
I,.
If. A I, I.
4 *
n.i.l
ll.i.l. 1 l.i.l.
- liir. Ki.'i. p. 1G5.

"
''
Chin. ISritm
B,
p.
117.
"
" *
Ibid,
p.
'
Mm, o.i.
Ibti
|
roL Hip.
9U.
Ibid
LIS,
l
li.i.i.
p
p,
18,
"
"p. 51.
ll.i.l.
52.
CilAP. VII.]
141
Jude, a Jew.' But though the smoothness of the sound I contrasts remarkably with the roughness of the .sound r, yet the relation of both to the peculiar action of the tongue renders the substitution of one Hence our Molly from Mary, Hal from for the other most frequent.
practice called in Germany lallen, as above menand hence, too, the common habit of children, when they find a difficulty in pronouncing the harsher sound, of recurring to the
Harry; hence the

;
tioned
softer as a substitute.
182. Having taken a survey of the consonantal articulations which have called oral, it remains that those should be examined which I have called nasal. They are three in number. I have expressed them by our ordinary m and n, and the peculiar character ny, of which maybe called the labial nasal, n the dental nasal, and n> the pharyngeal
I
nasal.
In
the lips are closed, as in
or b
the air passes into the
mouth, but being there obstructed by the lips, and the soft palate having at the same time uncovered the nares, it thence issues through the nostrils ; meanwhile, and until the lips are opened, the vibration of the air in the mouth* causes an audible murmur, giving to this articulation the character of a semivowel. The compression of the lips is said by Volney to be weak in the articulation m, compared with p or b f but this appears to me somewhat doubtful. The articulation is so simple that it does not seem to admit of variation in any language and in few, if any, is it altogether wanting, though that is said to be the case in the Huron tongue, 4 which, however, is also doubtful. In the Sanskrit system, m is reckoned as a sonant in the series of labials by Dr. Rush it is called an atonic, and by Mr. Bishop a labionasal. It has been supposed to have had in the Latin language a weak pronunciation, insomuch that it suffered elision as a terminating consonant before an incipient vowel, as monstr', horrenoV, inform', for monstrum, horrendum, informe ; whilst on the other hand, it seems to have been superfluously introduced in some northern languages, as hump in Swedish, answering to the German hufe (a certain measure).5 183. The second nasal, n, agrees in formation, according to Wallis, n. with m, except as to the point of obstruction of the air; for "if that
;
take place in the anterior palate," (says he) "it forms our n, the Greek v, and the Hebrew and Arabic nwu" a To this description
something more should be added.

as for m, remain open
1
:
The
lips,
instead of being closed,

is
the tip of the tongue

iii.
applied to the
bony
Adflung, Worterb.
vol.
p.
904.
:
2 Aerem in oris concavo manentem solnmmodo in transitu concutiens. (Wallis, Gram. Ling. Angl. p. 16.) So Muller " The sound is not produced by the closing
of the lips, but after they are closed, by the simple passage of the air through the nasal cavity, together with the resonance of the diverticulum formed by the cavity of the closed mouth." (Elem. Phys. p. 104-7.)
s 8
6
Alfab. Europ. p. 73, Adelung, Worterb. vol. iii. Cram. Ling. Angl. p. 16.
Adelung, Mithrid. vol.
iii.
p. 3, 323.
p. 1.
Sin obturatio in anteriori Palato
fiat,
formatur
142
OF C0XS0XANTAL SOUNDS.
[CHAP. VII.
palate, near the teeth,
and the
soft palate
being removed from the
nasal apertures, the greater part of the breath passes through the nose
a small portion, however,

certain affinity
commonly escapes through

articulations,
position of the tongue being similar to that
between these
the mouth. The employed in d, shows a and justifies us in consider-
ing n as a dental-nasal. In the Sanskrit system it is ranked with the t and d of the dental series, and is said to be a surd; by Dr. Rush it
by Mr. Bishop a lingua-palato nasal, and by In Hebrew, Greek, &c, it is (as I think, imAdelung observes, that the properly) reckoned among the liquids. impulse of the breath through the nose is given more strongly in some languages and dialects than in others; and even in German more Other circumstances strongly before some consonants than others. Before g and k, in the concur to vary this articulation in German. same radical syllable, it lias in that language somewhat of the nasal articulation, which I shall have next to mention, marked ry as in langen pronounced lang-en, and not lan-geii), because lang is the root. But it is pronounced simply as our n, where those letters do not belong to the The English letter n, too, is used radical syllable, as in an-genehm? in the expression of two articulations, that of rjj, to which 1 shall presently advert again, and that which I consider as the dental-nasal, or In the latter, indeed, Professor Hayman Wilson makes proper n.
is
called a subtonic,
Adelung a
semivowel.
three distinctions (besides the other
which he
calls guttural), viz., a

;t
palatal in singe, a cerebral in none, and a dental in con/cut
but, not-
withstanding the very high estimation in which I hold that learned see no must own that gentleman's great and uncommon talents,
1
ground
Ii.~.h
for those distinctions in the
language.
Like
many
proper pronunciation of the Engother articulations, n is unknown to several

In
it
languages, as the Mexican* the 7faruHiWmoan (* and the Huron.' mgues or dialects many it is omitted, where in other
i
is
mouth for the German mnnd, and in the (ierinan So in the old Latin, /nn/e luclis for the Ci reek and Lit in Ij/nx, Sic. and tiii/D Uraiiie in a subse<|uent aev fhiui/n and tango; and it is clear that tin- v was a latr introduction, because the radicals frag and tog not on v answer to the Teutonic hm'lwn, and the Italian foocor*, Nit ten ai in the paind MigiJ 184. The lust nasal articulation is that which have marked 0* M
inserted, as in our
I I
1
in
it
afford-;
is
no proper character for
it.
The sound
in
of
lies!
known
mploy
it
in
Kurdish
the terminating articulation

:
our words
WRQ%\
"d
as an
the middle articulation in rnni/iirr

initial.
Iml
we do
not
bo
It
is
producad bj applying the tongue
Dm n
win! mlt mnfin dank iU pndbt, I" ''""'' Miiinliiit nii'lii

Mitliuit'iii lii'lir
in. p.
:il
.
VOr

eilligftfl
vm
Kolmwonni Hsnob ktugMprochtti, doch in in tlor nndcrn: lelb In Du1 ohw Weil' >l>. \"l iii. p. 858< :ili<lriii.
uln
i
Nm
W'.'.Mi.. vol.
!i
Baa*
ll.i'l.
rrl
Onmi
164
,
p.
Miil.n.l. V.I. in. pp. 3, 93.
p,
A'l.-iini-
tYOrtarb, re i.
in.
CHAP. VI I.J
CF CONSONANTAL SOUNDS.
143
bony palate, so as to prevent the air entirely from entering the mouth, and thus cause it to pass through the nose. In other languages it undergoes various modifications, and has been very variously treated of by different glossologists. The Sanskrit grammarians call it an aspirate, Dr. Rush a subtonic, and Mr. Bishop a lingua-palato nasal. Of the Hebrew ayin, the true sound of which is not certainly known, Dr. Lee says, " the sound of ng in king, given to it generally by the Jews, may probably have prevailed in ancient times." To the Greeks and Romans (though they had no character for it) it was manifestly known in the pronunciation of such words as "AyyeXoQ, Anchoret, &c. In the Gothic, it was expressed by gg, as gaggan (pronounced gangan), whence the Scotch gang, to go, retained in our word gangway. It seems to have been anciently used in English as an initial, if we may judge from such words as gnaw and gnat. In
the posterior part of the
1
Sanskrit
it it
forms the
fifth
consonant of the guttural series

;
in the
sounded in many words, as nganga, to gape, and has a special character, which is a modification of the Arabic ain.* In Europe we find it in the French sang, dcdaigneux, champignon ; the Italian sognare, pugno, bisogna the German zunge, zeitungen, bringen, &c. Volney distinguishes two modifications of it: " 1. If we introduce i" (says he) " into the syllable na, making nia pronounced at once, and if (in so doing) we press the tongue against the palate, we form a consonant which the French express by gn, as in signe, ignorance, &c. the Italians in
in the
it is
'
Amharic
has the character gnahas
Malayan
degno
the English, transposing the letters,
by
ing, as
in ring
and
with tilde, that is, a circumflex. 2. If we press the middle of the tongue against the velum of the palate, and cause more of the sound to pass by the nose than by the mouth before removing the contact, we shall form another nasal consonant unknown in Europe, but said to be much used in India, and called in the collections of Indian alphabets nga." 3 How far this statement may be
the Spaniards
n,
by
marked
correct in respect to the Indian nasals, I pretend not to say ; 1 nit a difference may undoubtedly be perceived between the English
and the French in sang, blood. Mr. Bell considers the French sounds en, in, on, &c, to be seminasal vowels. I should rather call the n in them a semivowel-nasal consonant. His account of the
nasal in song,
different formation of the sounds,
however,
:
that I have yet
met with.
is
It is as follows
" Inthe most the French forming

is
satisfactory
depressed sufficiently to open the nasal pasby contact with the tongue to obstruct the passage into the mouth. The English ng brings the tongue and soft palate into contact, and consequently prevents the issue of breath by the mouth. This is the difference between the English ng, and those French elements which give so much difficulty to English learners of French." may add, that the different effect on the organs is verv
sages, but not so
sounds, the soft palate
much
as
We
Hebr Gram.
-
p. 9.
8
Marsden, Convent. Alphab. pp. 17, 18.
Alfab. Europ. pp. 78, 79.
144
perceptible;
OF COXSOXAXTAL SOUNDS.
the
[CHAP. VII.
English sound being accompanied with a strong

is
vibration in the nasal passages, which in uttering the French sound

little, if
at all, felt,
Hottentot.
185. Besides these articulations, which are more or less known to Europeans, some modifications of the articulating power have been found in use among barbarous tribes, in various parts of the world, which Europeans can with difficulty imitate. Among these the most remarkable are those Hottentot sounds commonly described in books
They are produced by suddenly of travels by the word clucking. pressing the tongue against different parts of the mouth, and as suddenly withdrawing it " the first pronunciation is dental, and requires that the tongue should be struck against the teeth the second is palatal, and is produced by striking the tongue against the palate the
: : :
be acquired, is drawn from the lower part of the throat (probably the pharynx) by the root of the These different duckings must be executed in pronouncing tongue. the syllable, and not before or after; and there are sometimes two in
third,
which
is
the
most
difficult
to
Such is the account given by Thunberg; word of three syllables." and so far as I could judge, by hearing the duckings imitated by a reverend gentleman, who had acquired the Hottentot language by some years' residence in South Africa, it appeared to me to be correct. It is difficult, however, to say whether these duckings should be regarded as separate articulations, or as mere modifications of the The name, for instance, of the chief three known letters t, s, and k. whom we call Macomo might as well be written Tmacomo ; and has, in fact, an intermediate sound between those two modes of European pronunciation: and, in like manner, the name of the TmnbooMiti might (and. in fact, sometimes is) written Tsamlmkies, The facility of for the or< uttering these sounds depends altogether on practice employed in producing them are the same in a European as in a
a
1
;
to be imitated, they
Hottentot: and whilst the former tinds the sounds extremely difficult seem as easy to the latter as any in his langu Nor is the habit Of clucking peculiar to the Hottentots: must of the
it.
Katliv tnl.es use

AmericAn.
though
less frequently,
and
in a
Blighter degree.
The
articulation called CashniMlas, in the Quie.lm

\ inerica,
and Othomi
seems, ftpm the description of it by the SpanishAmericaO gnmmariani, to have much affinity with the Hottentot is likened It by those learned writers to a /. with guttural ducking.
a doiiUe
..<
articulation h
a
in
the
throat;
and they compare
it
to
"the
monkey makes
tribe,
l
cracking chestnuts.r*
those
1
"The
to
North American
the h'tm/irs, have a sound

in
which has been

imitate
;
I
Ollled % whittling VD
for,
fact,
who endeavour
i,
it
generally do nothing DUl whistle.

.//./
This
| labial articulation
to
lit,
dialed
dm
ceed
not
(V. iiii
the lip.,
like whistling sound, which seems but from the throat. 4 The sound
106.
proin
off
'
;
....
|.
801.
*ll>i.l.
tbld.

CHAP.
VII.]
is
145
purely
it
the language of the Othomis, a Mexican tribe,

teeth taking no part in
it.
labial,
the
We
cf>
may
therefore call
anf
1
souffle.
The Spanish grammarians
treat it as a double letter, and write it ph; perhaps the sound of the Greek was nearly the same." "A somewhat similar description is given by Kleinschmidt of the Greenland v, which " (he says) " answers to the German w, except that it is produced by the lips alone, without any assistance from the teeth."* In a the Cherokee language there is an articulation between d and In f. fine, "Among the barbarous languages of America" (says DuPONOEAu) " there is a multitude of other sounds equally strange to our ears, but which the Indians pronounce with the utmost ease nor do they seem to us more barbarous than some of those which are to be heard in different parts of Europe as the barred I of the Poles, the yervi of the Russians, or the ao and oes of the Portuguese."* 187. Having thus taken a general view of the separate consonantal Oomttoed articulations, I come to consider their combinations. And here I angulations.
:
find it necessary to recur to the characters by which I have endeavoured to distinguish consonants in the preceding pages, viz. H, v, ', K, G, T, D, 0, 3, S, Z, C, J, P, B, F, V, L, R, M, N, *, e Each of these, it will be remembered, is meant to indicate an elementary articulation more or less generally known in Europe. With respect to other articulations found in various parts of the world, it is not always easy to say whether they should be considered as combinations of the preceding, or as modifications of them, or else as sounds essentially different. Assuming, however, that the twenty-two characters above described may be taken as indicating so many elementary sounds, I have to examine the combinations of them which occur in various languages. Of the combined vowel articulations, commonly called Diphthongs and Triphthongs, I have spoken in a former chapter the consonantal combinations will require separate
:
:
discussion.
articulations
188. There are two causes which lead men to combine consonantal a desire to imitate sounds which they hear, and a desire to signify by the voice other impressions on the senses, or thoughts of the mind. It is of importance to glossological science that these causes should be separately considered. To coo like a dove requires,
Imitative
sounds
in addition to a
vowel sound, one consonantal sound. To imitate the cry of the cuckoo, requires two consonantal and two vowel articulations; and in expressing the sound of a trumpet, the old Latin poet employs a long succession of articulations of both sorts
At
It
is
tuba, terribili sonitu Taratantara dixit.
Ennius, Annal.
ii.
124.
obvious that in many imitations of this kind a single articulation would be inadequate to the intended purpose, and that two, three, or more may be combined. Such imitative sounds may indeed lead (as
*
Duponceau, Mem.
Gabelentz, p. 259.
p. 102.
Gram.
d. Gronliindisch.. Sprache, p. 1. p.
Dupoiêau,
102.
14(5
[CHAP.
VII.
shown hereafter) to the formation of a class of words distinguished by the Greek term Onomatopoeia ; but whether these are to consist of few or many articulations depends neither on the will of the speaker nor on any supposed significance of the separate articulations employed, but solely on the sound or sounds meant to be
will be
imitated.
sijUfieant words.
189.
The
case
is
very different
when an attempt
is
made
to signify-
by
the voice any sensible object (other than a
mere sound), or any
mental act or feeling.
articulate sounds, simple or
Here the mind may make choice of such combined, as it deems fit to convoy the
:
I shall hereafter speak of the motives by which intended impression. such a choice may be determined at present I have only to consider the greater or less number of articulations which may be employee! The simplest mode fur this purpose, under different circumstances. of combination is to prefix a consonantal to a vowel sound as we sea in the early attempts of infants to use the sounds Pa and Ma, as
;
The whole spoken language of China is thus and formed of monosyllables, the consonant preceding the vowel the same simple structure is found in part of the radicals of most languages, as in our go, the German geh, and the Sanscrit ga, which A single last Bopp detects in the Latin navigxre and fatigAre. consonant following a vowel is also a frequent combination in the radical forms of various languages: as the Sanscrit ed or ad, which is But in OUT the Latin ed in edo, the German es in essen, and our eat. own and many other languages, the greater number of roots have
significant words.
; 1
two or more consonants, either preceding or following a vowel, or both preceding and following one, as soul, slow, pride, harp, stray,
spri/ii/,
.Vli
|iiiik'i>
&c.
It
190.
bai
are derived from others
Adelong
is
been contended that all those complex combinations more simple; md oven the groat, authority of invoked in sup]K>rt of this theory; for ho says, "it is a
in
fundamental rale
more consonants, only the
EltvmologT, that if i word begin with two or Now this suplast belongs to the root."'-'
1i|TII'l/l-
posed rule cannot possibly apply to words formed by Onomatopoeia; HOI do 1 find anything in the history of other words to support it as ill principle; though in pirticular oases it may >o agreeable to will be more fully shown when come to treat of Roots. 101, The following rule is more correct, because founded on mica] re .-arches, vi/., that in all languages it becomes difficult, if not lp|i\ to pronounce a (so-called) mrd in combination with a
I
oitaiit,
II
an
8,
J>,
Of I
/'.
fig
instance, with a
tl.
Ilcnec an accurate
e.uilv
prceive
it
that
the plural of our substantive hat should
be pronounced, as
is
written, hats;
but the plural of h
KnUtrllK
i
'
n 'I'T Klvm.ilufNP, (law, wrini nirli
mi Wert mil
Mill. nit. hi
wfKngt, inn
dcr
U-txtc
sum
Stammegohtiret.
Worarb,
/.u.\ n,!,i
CHAP.* VII.]
147
written heads, should be pronounced hedz. So the plural of saint is pronounced saints ; but that of land, landz the past tense of voeep is not pronounced wep'd, but wept ; and that of black is not pronounced This is what Dr. Latham calls " the Law of Accomblakd, but blakt. modation." 1 192. Where an individual or a people has not acquired the faculty of uttering a particular simple articulation, he or they must of course be unable to utter any combination of which that articulation forms part. Thus, Englishmen in general cannot pronounce the -%, which is the German ch ; and consequently they cannot give its proper utterance
:
simple sound wantin 8-
to xXnfxvQ (a cloak) or to nacht (night). So Frenchmen in general, who want in their phonetic system our 6 and SS, cannot well pro-
nounce our words three and worthy.

portion of our simple articulations
is
In several languages a large

altogether wanting.
Hence a Chinese cannot pronounce any combination of which our g,j, d, b, or 8 r makes part. The same may be said of a Huron, in regard to combinations including a b, p, f, v, g, m, n, or r : 8 and of a Mexican, when a b,f, d, g, r, or s enters into any combination. 4 193. On the other hand, though both the German and English languages possess the articulations, which I have marked s and c (vulgd, s and sh), the idiomatic use of them differs in the different languages. Where the English idiom requires, as initials, si, sm, or sn, the German requires cl, cm, or en (vulgo, schl, schm, schn), as in the English sleep, smack, snow, which in German are written schlaf, schmack, schnee : and even in some cases where the German and English adopt the same initial combinations in writing, they differ in pronunciation, as in our
spin and stand, written in
as if written schpinnen
idiomatic
d^ *
1
110 ''*-
spinnen and stehen, but pronounced The causes of these idiomatic differences between sister languages, or dialects of the same standard language, generally lie hid in the obscurity of early times ; but the habitual preference of one combination to another is found, with few
German
and
schtehen.
exceptions, to characterize every separate language. In some idioms, a particular combination may be admitted as medial or final, but disallowed as initial ; or vice versa\ The articulation c (vulgo, sh) is
never found in English, combined with /, m, or n, in the beginning of a syllable. In the Spanish language st, sp, and sc, are never found as initial combinations ; but they are preceded by e, as estar, to stand, from the Latin stare ; espacio, space, from the Latin spatium ; escala, a ladder, from the Latin scala ; escrupulo, a scruple, from the Latin scrupulus ; esfera, a sphere, from the Latin sphcera. In Greek there
are
many words beginning with ps and pt ;
in English, if
we
except
the incondite interjection
be sometimes heard), we have no such initial combination. write indeed certain words of Greek origin, such as psalm, psychology, ptisan ; but the p is dropt in pronunciation. So, the German language has many
pshaw (where perhaps the
We
p may
English Language, p. 115. Adelung, Mithrid. iii. 3, 323.
2 4
Marshman,
Ibid. 93.
p. 90.
L2
148
,0F CONSONANTAL SOUNDS.

;
[cHAf>. VII.
words beginning with pf : in English we have none such but where we have words of correspondent signification, we drop either the p, as
in Pfeifer, Piper; or the/, as in Pfeffer, Pepper.
Unstable combinations.
194. Among several ingenious remarks by Dr. Latham on the combinations of articulate sounds, there are some which may perhaps be thought questionable, more especially when this learned person appeals only, for their accuracy, to " the observation of our own language, as we find it spoken around us, or by ourselves." 1 On this ground, which even if correct, as to the English language, may not apply to others, it is said, " that certain sounds in combination with others have a tendency to undergo changes," and may therefore be
" unstable combinations."* So far as my own observation goes, " there is a natural tendency to change the ew in new, into oo." I conceive that the words news and noose are seldom pronounced alike: and though some persons may pronounce "picture, pictshoor,"* I apprehend that the latter pronunciation is by no means the more elegant. Still less can I think, that " between the words pitted (as with the small-pox) and pitied (as being an object of pity) 4 In questions of this nature, there is a difference in spelling only." the accidental associations of individual experience must more or less
called
I cannot say that
T. Dz, Tc,
*%
of the ablest glossologists. 195. There is a class of combinations which are naturally so easy of pronunciation that they are not only found to exist in the most distant parts of the world, but are marked in many alphabetic systems by a separate character, as if they were simple consonants. The class which I mean consists of pure dentals combined with sibilants, always however observing the above-mentioned rule of combining surd with
affect the speculations
surd,
and sonant with sonant,
viz.
ts,
dz, tc, dj.
I shall notice these
in their order.
7s is not found in English as beginning a syllable. In Italian it is sometimes written zz as in prezzo (price); in German, t: as in I'latz. In Hebrew, Russian, Ethiopic, and Mongol, it is expressed by a single
lett- 1.
Dz is a sound which bmation, anil ran-ly a. a

of a verb, as gadz, wed*
writ!'
;
ii
we do
linal
(i. e.
not use in English as an
initial
com-
(o. g.
adz\ except
In
in the
past tense
gads, weds), or
In
in
the plural of a suhit,
(/..'.
h.mIs, li.'ds).
;
Italian
is
;
sometimes
in
zz,
I
ati
in
rezzo (shade)
.
Romaic sometimes r
Polish
dz in and Mongol.
:
and
it
MS
a serial character in Arabic, Ktliiopic,
fish,
;is
as an
initial,
OT
final, t'h,
in
htUchiiinit.,
|| written ch, as in chin; as a medial mitrh in Italian, before < or i, it is

;
as in OtntO cinque} in Spanish (miieli); 111 German it is written tsrh, as

written
it.
is
written
;
c/<
as in
murho
in
Tschirpr.r
;
in
Polish, cz,
as
ii
in
i
Hungarian,
,
cs,
an in
luocii
in
Romaic and Alba

ii..<i.
|,.
it:,
* Ibi.l.
*
ibid.
p.
1-.
CHAP.
VII.]
149
nian, r.
Sanskrit,
character.
In Russian, Turkish, Persian, Armenian, Amharic, Malay, Manchu, Tibetan, Burman, and Cingalese, it has a special
a frequent combination in English.
in
When an initial, it is James, or g before e or i, as gentle, gin : when a medial, it is written g as in magic, or dg as in drudgery, and when a final, ge In Italian it is written g before e or i; in or dge, as in page, badge. Romaic and Albanian, vr. In Sanskrit, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Armenian, Amharic, Manchu, Tibetan, Burman, and Cingalese, it has
Dj
is
written
J as
special character.
In the English pronunciation of these combinations, the pure dental,

or d,
sibilant
is
very slightly dwelt upon, yet so as clearly to modify the
which follows.
150
CHAPTER
VIII.
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY, AND EMPHASIS.

Various
f
speech?*
190.
Articulation, the
is
only
quality
of
speech
hitherto examined,
by no means
sufficient alone to
which I have communicate

it
the operations of the

there were
human mind.
falling
Even
of the voice if every syllable were pronounced in an equal portion of time, and were delivered with the same degree of loudness, force, and emphasis, and with the same it would be intolerable alike to the speaker and intervening pauses Natural impulses never dictate to men, in any state to the hearer. of society, such a mode of utterance: and the only thing at all like it, in the rude attempts of art, is that painful monotony which is sometimes heard in the first efforts of poor rustic children, at a parish The nobler exercises of the vocal faculty, in school, to read aloud.
rising
no
and
in ordinary discourse,
Poetry and Rhetoric, would lose in recitation their whole force and beautv if the articulate sounds were destitute of measure and melody, of softness and energy, in their appropriate degrees and relations to Let an English reader attempt to give, in the draw ling each other. and unvaried manner just described, the artful oration of Anton] M or the morning orison of our tirst to the people over Caesar's body parents, whose prompt eloquence
l ;
H..wM from
Mori'
tlii-ir li)>s,
in
Ii-d
prOM
Of iiimierom verse,
tim.ilil.- th.
lute or
harp
To add more sweetnw.*
Or even
tin- pathfltifl lines
of Goldsmith
Winn
Ami
Wli
,t
luvi-l)
tilt
,
woman
turns
h.-r
(..
folly,
lietraj
.
I.
too lute that
tinii
limn can nooth
nn-lain-holy ?
'
What
art can waxli bar ^nilt HWftJ .i.lv .ut li.r Mult, to cover,
to
.
in
1 1
Invor,
ii
And wring
hi.s
botom,
to die
in
its
!*
Or
let
the
Orednn
weeping Helen
J.
nlotnl,
exipiisii
the
for
the death
2.
of the brave, the kind, the
Sb.lupwt,
Cm.
A.
ill.
m.
Milton.
1'.
I. r.
150.
Vi.-ar of Wak.-li.-ld.

CHAP.
VIII.]
1
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY,
AND EMPHASIS.
151
or any one of those irresistible harangues to the Athenian people, with which Demosthenes
gentle Hector;
Wielded at will that fierce democratic, Shook th' Arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece To Macedon. 8
Or
let us hear, in Cicero's own words, his majestic oration beginning with that burst of indignant eloquence, " Quousque tandem abutere, ?" 8 Every one must feel that the beauty, the Catilina, patientia nostra pathos, the sublimity of these, or the like addresses, in any language, to the sensibilities of mankind, would be lost in recitation, were they not delivered with the modulation, cadence, and emphasis, which the
respective sentiments
such as that of the
pure, clear, distinct articulation, Madlle. Mars of the French Theatre, is, indeed, no mean beauty, and absolutely essential to the higher influences of speech; but it contributes only in part to those inlate
demand.
fluences
and if we would render it fully comjmnied with the other faculties, of which
;
it must be achave now to treat. 197. But here occurs a fresh instance of that impediment to the Dimensions of souna facility of discussion in all matters concerning language which I have mean the confused and irreconcileable terminology I before noticed hear of Accent, applied to the subject by different writers. Quantity, Emphasis, Tone, Stress, Cadence, Rhythm, and other like expressions (to say nothing of Dr. Rush's Concrete and Vanish) ; but whole volumes have been written on the disputed signification of Several of these terms; to which, nevertheless, the ordinary run of grammarians refer, as if they were as obvious and universally admitted The only clue to guide us as the definitions and axioms of Euclid.
effectual,
We
out of this labyrinth is recurrence to the first principles of the philosophy of sound. Sound has three dimensions, which, with reference By Tone I mean to Speech, may be called Tone, Time, and Force. that pitch of the voice in rise or fall which, in speaking, is analogous to a note in the musical scale; by Time, that duration of a vocal
sound, which, in music, determines the comparative length of a crotchet, a quaver, &c. and by Force, I mean that exertion of the voice which either answers generally to the musical terms forte and piano ; or if applied to one syllable to distinguish it from others, gives it the These effect of what is called in musical phraseology an accented note. three dimensions of sound are compared by the older grammarians to
;
letter" and height, the dimensions of space. (says Priscian) " has altitude in pronunciation, latitude in breathing, 5 and longitude in time."* And Scaliger adopts the same analogy. All other qualities of speech (except articulation) are made up of these, either in the way of combination or of modification.
length, breadth,
"A
198. I have elsewhere said, that the vocal organs may be dis- Organs em P J' ei1 tinguished into the upper, namely, the Lips, Teeth, Tongue, Palate,
l
Horn. II. xxiv. 762. De Accentibus, s. 1.
Milton, P. E. iv. 289. Onrt. I. in Catil. * De Caus. Ling. Lat. ii. 52.
152
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY, AND EMTHASIS.
[CHAP.
VIII.
Throat, Pharynx, and Nose; and the lower, consisting of the Glottis,
cover the Epiglottis, the Larynx, Trachea, and Lungs; that is effected by the upper organs; and that the elevation or depression of tone is produced by certain muscles of the glottis,
its
with
articulation
which enlarge or narrow the opening of that organ. 1 The variations of time and force depend chiefly on the lungs, and the vessels conveying the air from them to the glottis. I say chiefly, for some of the upper organs must occasionally co-operate to produce the intended
an observation of Mr. Bell's is well worthy of (says he) "who complain of weak and powerless articulation, and of pain after protracted or forcible efforts, are sufferers only from ignorance. An organ of power lies dormant within them, the want of whose natural action is painfully and ineffectively supplied by unnatural and debilitating efforts of this organ of respiration. This apparatus is the pharynx, a distensible " When muscular cavity situated at the back of the mouth," &c. the soft ])alate covers the upper pharyngeal openings (the nans), the effort of expiration sends the breath into the mouth, where, 4 if it be obstructed in its passage, it will collect." Though this
effect.
On
this point
attention.
"Those speakers"
observation
it
is
applied,
by
its
ingenious author, to articulation only,

reference
to
is
no
less
important
in
the
time
and force of
syllables.
We have first to examine that quality of voice which I have Tom. This word, and others connected with it, have D employed with various shades of signification. The original was the Greek t6ioq from this pen derived the Latin tmuis, Spanish tone,
199.
called
I
Italian twnio,
German and French
ton,
and our English tOM, which
here use,
in
elli-ct
the sense pf the Greek original, lb* the pitch of the \ rising or tailing. It was primarily a musical term, expressing an
in
verb
tm'c..< (in
on the strings of the harp; and was regularly formed from the As even degree of tension Latin trndo), to .-tretch.
those strings
or depfl
f produced a correspondent degr< and, every each degree of sound was And as 'ailed ron,r (a stretch), equivalent to what we call a note. the voice, when ascending or descending in singing, proceeded by the In speaking, the 70108 same (!,!.... these also Were called n'nur. a -.-in and deseei ids, ;is in singing; bnt with the remarkable difference, wlneh lse here explained,* that the movement is not carried on have e rees, w Inch constitute musical notes, hut by those definite sti .iitnmitie-i of sound, upward, or downwards, which Mr. Sit ilk I'.v the Greek grammarians an ashas aptly denominate! slitlrs.* utiis, sharp ), a descendde, was said to lie ,]^vr Cetio a union of both (In! ascending I, and ing one /J<i(iii< (ffra liable, irnnnirMfiivov (circum and then (JpHcending) on tli nd hence a syllable, with oe 00 the Jh.fi
or relaxation of
elevation
<t>
11
inq.
l'iiini|.l''s
pfflp
I:. ifi.
ib,
,
p. p,
1.
,in.
455.
ProMa'a
.n. .I.
'J.

153
CHAP.
VIII. j
last syllable, is still called
by grammarians an oxytone, and one with
a falling tone on the last syllable a barytone. 200. In reference to speaking, the word tovoq seems to have been PouMe use
applied to
led to
two
objects widely different: the confounding of
which has
the ex-
otlt '
much
collision of opinion
among
glossologists
first,
and words and secondly, the distinction of syllables by their relative rise and fall of sound. This double use of tone Mr. Foster indicated by the terms oratorial and adopting a like distinction, it may be accent, and syllabic accent allowable to divide tone into the oratorial tone, and the syllabic Mr. Steele, who applied the term Accent only to the rise tone. and fall of voice expressive of feeling, characterised it as the " Melody
pression of
feelings in sentences
;
human
of Speech." 2 201. That there must be, in all languages, such a melody, such an Melody speecl1, ascent and descent of tone, in the utterance of sentences, cannot be doubted for without it there could be no adequate expression of the
;
of
passions,
all its
stages of civilization
emotions, or sentiments which belong to human nature in or barbarism. The Esquimaux must
needs utter the exclamation Ippe-rar-nago (hold fast) in a different tone from that used in the question Sap-ing-ippik (Can I?) 3 The Australian asking Nyundu (Will you?), or replying Kwa (Yes),4 must vary the tone, just as an Englishman would in a like question
by way of did you return so late?) or asserting with approbation Fayo gotchaks nasenHmas ta (You have returned quickly). 5 Let us take a dramatic scene, in any
and answer.
said of a Japanese asking,
The same may be
reproof, Nassini osoki vidinaserrimakas ta ?
(Why
language, and observe the necessary elevations and depressions of voice according to the different emotions of the speakers. Philoctetes, in the wretched solitude of Lemnos, sees strangers landing, and
anxiously inquires
who
they are, and whence they come
Tires itot' is
yyv r^vSe vavri\a> irAarj? KuTerxeT', ofir ivoppov, ofir' biKovîvt\v ;*
And when
speak
in his native
'Ci
he leams that they are his countrymen, and hears them tongue, he exclaims in tones of joy,
(pihTCLTOv (pwyrifia</>ef),
rb Kai Kaûi/
XP& V V l*.OLKp<p? Constance, deprived of her only son, shrieks, in the tones of maternal
TLp6cr(p8t'yfxa rotovS'
avSpbs, iv
agony
Lord
!
My
1
life,
my boy, my Arthur, my fair son my joy, my food, my all the world

2
8 *
6
On Accent and Quantity, Ed. 3, p. 12. Washington's Vocab. ad voces. Thunberg, vol. iii. p. 306.
Prosodia Rationalis, p. 24.
Moore, ad voces.
isle
Who are you, that to this harbourless and desert Sophocl. Philoct. v. 223.
most dear sound
I
come with nautical oar ?
long a time
Sophocl.
Ah me
but to hear the voice of such a man, after so
Philoct. v. 237.
[CHAP.
VIII.
154
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY, AND EMPHASES.
The Dauphin Lewis,

indifference to the
Life
is
in tones of deep dejection, expresses a gloomy whole course of human events

:
as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man. 1
So, in comic passages, Horace dramatically describes the eager salutation of an importunate fellow claiming intimacy with him,
and the
cold politeness of his
own answer
repelling the intrusion
Accurrit quidam notus mihi nomine tantum ; Arreptaque manu, quid agis dulcissime rerum Suaviter ut nunc est, et cupio tibi omnia quae
vis. s
Sganarelle, a poor woodcutter,
is
beaten
by Valere and Lucas,

first
to
make him
confess himself a physician.

;
At
he denies
it;
then
as he
retracts his denial but being told he shall be paid as can wish, he eagerly admits that they are in the right.
much
Sgan. Je gagnerai ce que je voudrai ? Val. Oui. Sgan. Ah Je suis medeein, sans contredit. 8
!
Extent or
u,nQt.
kind are endless; but these few suffice to show, that, in all ages and in all countries, the power of elevating and depressing the voice accompanies the expression of the different passions and emotions of the mind, and is consequently an essential part of the faculty of speech. 202. In speaking, as in singing, the extent to which the elevation or depression of the voice may be carried varies greatly, according to the age, sex, mental sensibility, or bodily power of the speaker, and It has to the local circumstances in which the individual is placed. been found by careful observers, that in ordinary discourse the upward slides, compared with the diatonic scale in music, rise aboui a fifth alx>vo the Level or key-note, and the downward fall about a seventh below it, tmt that in impassioned utterance the rise is two tones higher, which makes, in the whole extent, a compass of thirteen notes, or an octave and a sixth.* To this subject the advice of Hamlet to the Players is peculiarly appropriate: " In the \ vrv torrent, t.nip.st, and I may say whirlwind of passion, you must 4 i.i.ii that may give it smoothness." acquire t. To n
this
Examples of
i<
go beyond
recitation.
or to
fall
short of the tour Buited to the passion

first
is
'
fatal
in
At the
\ii\
|>crforniancc of
Mr. Sheridan's
Pizarro,'
Mrs. .Jordan acted the part of Cora.

able for
tin-
natural
ton.-;
..('
her sweet and
That lady was generally remarkpowerful voice, and

I
l.iptatioii
of them to the feeling meant, to

N.
l.y
x pressed.
MmkapMr-. One wli'in
K. .U.n.
I
. ill.
4.
in. -i.-lv
kiu-w
MUM
our. up tO DM, (Hying

"",
how
hit
v. mi
my
dtftrr.i
Wlowf
Il..i.
and
wi.sli
you everything you
can dain*.
II..
Sat.
I
I.
hll mil n phynn
"hull
Ik-
paid
iiiH.li
plenno
? Vai,.
Yes. Sua*. Oh
i.
inn. l-V"ii.l
itiofi, p,
Sti-
difptttt. Molii r*. Htd, m. Itii. n. * Shukxpenre, Hamlet, 87.
n.
iii.
c. 2.
155
terror,
CHAP.
VIII.
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY, AND EMPHASIS. having to utter a scream of
But on
the
this unfortunate occasion,

it
she gave
in so strangely unsuitable a tone, that instead of exciting

of a
sympathy of the audience, it produced a general burst of laughter. rise or fall of tone may take place not only in the delivery On part 203. 8enten of a complete sentence, but in a broken sentence, or even in a single word, if that be substantially equivalent to a sentence. When iEolus, threatening the unruly winds, suddenly breaks off
'
Quos ego
sed motos
praestat
componese
fluctus. 1
The
tone,
single
which was rising on ego, must drop word, in answer to a question, receives
at once
its
on
sed.
appropriate tone
Cleopatra, after the fatal according to the nature of that answer. He battle of Actium, asks iEnobarbus, "What shall we do?" 8 These indignant monosyllables show answers, "Think, and die!" at once by their tone that they are equivalent to the sentences, " must think of our disgrace, and die with shame at the thought"
We
Interjections, in the expression of feeling, are equivalent to sentences
Accordingly, Mr. Steele, in his proposed the statement of fact. notation of the tones used in speaking, gives a rising tone to the interjection Oh ! in the line
in
Oh
Happiness, our being's end and aim
8
!
For
said,
this interjection expresses a feeling as clearly as if the poet
had
"
invoke thee, Happiness

the
vocative,
!"
similar observation
said,
may be
made on
which
have elsewhere
might not
Improperly be called the interjectional case ; inasmuch as it is introduced apart from all grammatical connexion with the other members Thus when Andromache, of the sentence in which it is employed. entreating Hector not to go forth to battle, addresses him
Aai/ioVie, (pdicrct
<r
to
ffbv jxivos,
oW
f>
l\taiptis
rioTSa t m}trla.x ov > Ka^ Â1 ' &H(*opoy,
toxo
xfipV
The
single
word
Aai/j,6vu
his.
(as
Dammius
well observes) expresses

its fatal effect.
her admiration of
It is therefore to
'
bravery, even whilst she dreads
In the ' Atys wholly of vocatives

Patria
!
be spoken with the tone suited to such admiration. of Catullus, we have an expressive line consisting
mea
creatrix
Patria
mea
genetrix
J
!
Each of the words patria,

which that sentence,
require.
1
the effect of a sentence, and

if
and genetrix, contains in itself must have the tone of energetic regret expressed in the strongest terms, would
creatrix,
/
Whom
!
but
must
first
calm down the waves.
Vi>-g. Mn. 1, 135. s Pros. Real. Shakspeare, Ant. and Cleop. a. iii. sc. 2. p. 38. Heroic man Thy boldness will destroy thee, nor dost thou pity thy infant son, nor me unhappy, who will soon be thy widow." II. 6, 407. 5 My country ! source of my being My country parent of my life Catull, Carru. 58, 50.
156
Various esigna on.
OF ACCEXT, QUANTITY, AND EMPHASIS.
[CHAP. VIII.
intonation which I have hitherto which Mr. Foster calls oratorio! Accent, and Mr. By Mr. Bell it is called Inflexion. 1 Steele calls Accent simply. Our great and learned poet uses the word tone (as I have employed it), in contradistinction to numbers, by which latter he means the measure of time, in verse, or prose.
204.
The whole scheme of

is
described,
that
There shalt thou hear and learn the secret pow'r Of harmony in tones, and numbers, hit By voice or hand, and various-measured verse. 8
So much
syllabic use,
Time.
for tone as
an expression of feeling
I shall
advert to
its
when 1 come to treat more particularly of Accent. 205. When we speak of Tim U an clement of language, we do not mean a positive, but a relative duration of sound. The positive time of uttering a syllable or word may be indefinitely prolonged or
by the habits of different nations, but by indisame nation, profession, age, or sex. It is said that good speakers do not pronounce above three syllables in a second, and generally only two and a half, taking in the necessary pauses; and though some persons may speak twice, or even three tames as fast, it becomes difficult for an auditor to keep up with so rapid an 8 And I have been assured by short-hand writers, that one utterance. advocate will utter above 6,000 words in an hour, whilst another, at the same bar, in the same cause, and on the same side, will not utter
shortened, not only
viduals of the
So a Spaniard will generally be less rapid in utterance than a Frenchman: and a North American Indian will be slower than
above 3,000.
cither.
Rhythm.
Relative time, on the other hand, depends on a principle by the Greek* (wOftdc (Rhythm), a word which, follow ing the example of the Italians and French, we have inconvi tly applied to
206.
called
our alliterative fifanw; bid bo the original it signified that ideal Conception by which we mentally perceive, in a succession of externa) movements or Bounds, a continual reference to some integral portion of time laudard measure. Plato thus distinguishes rhythm lioni tone "To th tier perceivable In motion" (says be) "let, rive the name of lihythm, but to that fell in the mixture of acute And elsewhere he BDC grave In the voice, the nam.- of Harmony."' says, of certain deities, "It w.w they who conferred on us the sense producea."1 of rhythm and banuouy*, with the pleasure which
it.
th-Te
is
rhythm
in
the beatings of the
pulse, in the insp inspini-
pfration of the breath,

'
and
In
the
movements of dancing,
1.1.254.
iv
tt) ^wk!}i,
IV-
:.ch, *w., p. 257.

Ration.
Kii>4)trtwt rd!{i
f>\
l'nradiw 1
8*
MnIs, Pns,
rf/t
ftvOfibt 6vt>na
f>j,
rfj
rov rt
i(4oi &pa xa\ fiapiot trvyKtpewvvfiivwf hpfionlai

*
fiyo/ia
irpocrayoptiotro.
Leg.
Toinout
ttvat xa\
roll 88*^rat
I
tV
tupvOfiov rt
Kcil
ivapnAvwv
&icr6i)(Tiv,
1*9
kfio^%.\.*%. 2, 7H7, Id.
..

CHAP.
VIII.]
157
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY, AND KMI'HASIS.
marching, and walking. There is a rhythm in the sounds of instrumental music, and of singing and as ferae was first invented to be sung, there is a rhythm in poetical composition; and in imitation, as it were, of verses, there is a rhythm in tliat finished and perfect oratory, which falls on the ear with a musical effect. In the natural
;
rhythms of the pulse and the breath, intermissions are a symptom (often a fatal one) of disease nor do they occur in walking and marching, except from extraneous causes but in the more artificial and complex rhythms of dancing, of music, of verse, and of measured prose, the intermissions themselves become part of the rhythm, they are subjected to rule, and often add greatly to the pleasing or powerful effect of the movements or sounds with which they are
;
connected.
I shall
revert to this topic
when
come
to speak of
Pauses.
207. " Pulsation " (says the elder Pliny) " is most perceptible in Pulsation the extremities of our limbs, frequently affording an index of diseases, and breatn
and being equable, or quickened or retarded, according to certain modulations and metrical laws, which differ in different individuals, relatively to their age." So our great dramatist adverts to the
1
musical rhythm of the pulse
My
And makes
pulse, as yours, doth temp'rately keep time, as healthful music. 8
" They Aristotle notices the rhythmical motion of the breath. breathe " (says he) " in rhythm." 3 Hence, when either the pulse or
the breath
moves
in orderly, equable,
and healthful time,
it is
said to
be Kara pvO/xov (according to rhythm) ; when otherwise, it is said to be 7rapa pvbfxbv (contrary to rhythm). 208. The application of musical rhythm to the dance and the Dance and march is finely described by Chapman, in his spirited translation of the marcb
-
Homeric hymns
Phoebus Apollo touch'd his lute to them Sweetly and softly, a most glorious beam Casting about him, as he danc't and play'd Dart-dear Diana, even with Phoebus bred, Danc't likewise there, and Mars a march did tread With that brave bevy
So, the infernal host,
summon'd by
their great leader,
In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood
Of flutes, and
Again,
1
soft recorders. 5
when
Virgil says of Venus, "
The goddess by her
step
was
Arteriarum pulsus, in cacumine maxime membrorum evidens, index fere morborum, in modulos certos, legesque metricas, per aetates, stabilis, autcitatus, aut tardus. N. H. 11. 88. 8 3 Hamlet, a. iii. sc. 4. Problemat. Segm. 5. 4v rqi pv9n$ ava-wveovvi.
4
Hymn
to Apollo, v. 313.
Par. Lost, 1, 549.
158
AND EMPHASIS.
[CHAP. VIII.
known-"
cl
209
Music
Eve, adds to her other 1 and when Milton, describing her steps- we cannot doubt but that that "grace was in all movement, the very oppoto describe a rhythmical 1 oth poets meatt or shuffling pace. hobbling, site to an unequal, to an Music, instrumental and vocal, refers
integral portion of time, in modern phraseology is caled the whole positive duration, according as and is of neater or less meant to be quick and lively or slow or afiven portion of it, is These diversity are character. and Solemn, or of an intermediate andante notation, by the terms allegro indicated in our musical been made to fix the en,th the like indeed attempts have of a pendulum; but this s ofa bar, by reference to the oscillations Each integral portion is divisible hardly found to answer in practice. composition the departs, giving to the whole into two, or else three Other divisions or triple time respectively. lation of common thes* into five or seven parte; but doubt, be made, as the two former, and would be resolvable into a mixture of would onlv The bar, or integral our natural sense of rhythm. time occupied by sound, as the well the portion f time! includes as in each particular melody may requ.re : and sUent intervals, which the aud.ble or and subdivided into fractional parts cat fit nay be divided Nates, and the inaudible Rests. Stud be /the audible being called whole bar; or ,h, bar-may or a rest, may occupy a Thu. a note, o and one or more rests. The rh comprise one or more notes, instrument* music to wind it to sTngng is Hie same as that of the syllables in a song do not aZted; but the division of words and for mstanee, in the of the instruments neSWily agr with those linui... hnjt at beginning song of "Rule Britannia," -onosyllab^ third word in this .in, ,s a
The rhythm of
which
a bar;
Ice
Celv
Xlor
mtahHo
r^My Wy
.
1.
in
S
I
"When
:
command," the
it
forms but one note. These here, bemuse they !!,, but 1 mention them brio.lv Jenemlly knoVn; rhythm in the compos.tion of vers, and of uses of
singing,
is
divided into five
notes
and the
fifth
word,
j a doable,
,,,,,:
,|
purt.enlars are very
ie
VT*!.
,
TirHn.hm
of Verse, apart fr-.n,,,,.,
Is
ditVerontly
w,
",.,
tmdteDdit may .all the

.,1s
tl
,
fully,
we must
distinguish
tin.
}
it
into
:
twoglands, whteh
the
,,rammatiral, and
are estimated;
,.
*t,cal
...
o.mer,
tlv
audible
iv;i|
..I,,,,,
b, taken tatoaCC
.
in the latter, the silent pauses are shall speak more .ie:.l nflhe
I
,
li
portion , ,,. .,,: al. the integral

de,H,,ds,
..
V
,
id
U.e
rhvthm
l..
is
ealled n
/- -1
of tun, on n.n.ams a e,r,am
mml
,
or hph.l,,.g every syllable consisting ofa vowel

a of a sentence, there must Deed* be
,
,,
for the judicious delivery
l,nmledlXnceof1
i.Kn.ld.
in
tl,..
....
*H:ibW,
.of
,Miu,tDe.
time.
h*
Lr.
Lost, 8, 488.
1,
: ;
CHAP.
VIII.]
150
differences are in fact various; but for the purpose of versification, grammarians have agreed to consider eveiy long syllable to be equal
two short syllables, neither more nor less. Hence the Greeks and Romans reckoned as different rhythms, or feet, the equal, the sescuple, and the double. The equal consisted of two equal parts, as Trojce, a Spondee of two long syllables or Tityre, a Dactyl of three,
to
;
one long and two short the sescuple was in the proportion of two to three ; as coimpere, a Paeon of four syllables, one long and three short and the double was in that of one to two, as legunt, an Iambus, of one short syllable and one long. 1 The equal and the double, it will be observed, bear an analogy to our common and triple time in music and the ancient writers say, " that these alone are fit for versification,"
;
the sescuple finding a

to the
more proper place (intermixed with others)

In English
in
rhetorical compositions.
rhythm of
verse,
when
usually apply the term Metre considered without reference to alli-
we
This term is taken from the Greek pirpov, which originally signified simply " measure," but was subsequently employed to signify " the measure of a verse," either in contradistinction to rhythm, or else as a species of that genus. Metres, in this
teration or accentuation.
number of feet which they admitted, either simply as Hexameters, consisting of six feet, Pentameters, of five, &c, or by duplication as a Dimeter contained four feet, a Trimeter six, and a Tetrameter eight ; and again they differed as to the kind of feet, as Dactyls, Spondees, Anapaests, &c, terms suited to Greek and Latin verse, but of which, when applied to English poetry, the fitness has been disputed. Verses, that is lines, ort'xot, may be of unequal or equal length ; but every kind of verse has its fixed number of feet. 211. All spoken language which is not verse, is Prose, either ordinary Proee. or measured. The ordinary prose is that used in common conversation, and cannot be bound down to any fixed rhythm, but in measured
sense, differed as to the
to we should apply to it a certain system of numbers." 8 As poetry (says Demetrius Phalereus) is divided by verses, so is prose by periods and members of periods. The verses have each a fixed
say,
degree of rhythm always is, use the words of Tucker, it has " a certain rhetorical measure corresponding in all its parts, like the several portions of a tune, and lying half way between the music of poetry and the plain language of familiar discourse."* So Cicero speaks of it " The ancients " (says he) " thought that, even in this lower form of speech (viz. oratory), there should be an approach to verse, that is
is
prose,
which
employed
in oratory, a
or should be observable.
To
of
feet,
the periods have an uncertain number, but their
number members or
1 "Pv9fj.hs, aut par est, ut Dactylus, unam enim syllabam parem (duobus) brevibus habet aut sescuplex, ut Pajon, cujus vis est ex longd et tribus brevibus aut duplex ut Jambus, nam est ex brevi et longl Quintil. 1. 9, c. 4. * Search (Tucker), on Vocal Sounds, p. 90. 8 Versus enim veteres illi in hac soluta oratione propemodum, hoc est numeros quosdam, nobis esse adhibendos putaverunt. De Oratore, 1. 3, s. 44.
;
160
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY, AMD EMPHASIS.
[CHAP.
VIII.
clauses have frequently an exact or near correspondence of measure
Even this, however, should not occur too frequently, with each other. much less should the known rhythm of' whole verses be often admitted but as into prose, though it must sometimes unavoidably happen rhetorical or solemn prose should not be void of rhythm, so neither should it have so regular and conspicuous a rhythm, as to betray the In monosyllabic languages existence of poetical art in its composition. In the polysyllabic there can be little room for this kind of rhythm. tongues of the North American Indians, there are indeed means of much rhythmical arrangement and to this their best orators are led by an instinctive sense of fitness but not every Indian is an orator. It is no uncommon thing to see a distinguished Chief employ some The early Grecians must other person to deliver his harangues."
;
have had their instinctive sense in a much stronger degree, when we find Homer (in Chapman's words) thus describing " sweet-spoken
Nestor,"
The cunning Pylian orator, whose tongue pour'd Of more than honey-sweet discourse.*
forth a flood
But it was not till ment of syllables
the time of Isocrates, that the rhythmical arrangein
Ymco.
an oration was brought to the perfection of a Item/ which, though carefully Studied by so accomplished an orator as Cicero, is in our days almost wholly neglected. 212. The third quality of vocal sounds which I proposed to examine is that which I have called Force, and which nearly answers to what is termed by Priscian Spiritus* and by Scaligeb of/hit io in Mr. FosTEltsays, " it constitutes what we call Emphasis, latitudine.* An ina mode of sound requiring a greater profusion of breath. stance" (adds he) "of two persons blowing the same note on a flute,
th-.
M with
M
tinction in a clearer light.""
And
observes) " verv disfiaou aeo-nt and (juantity, though occasionally joined with them." atonal has been distinguished from in tone and time th liable, it may not be amiss to distinguish oratorial force from
is" (as he also
mure, the other with " It
less breath,
will
perhaps
set this dis-
ether with the appropriate toad farm ntivev to the hearer certain feelings of the human mind, as '\|.r< - ',| iii whole seiitenees or particular words; the latter to givt pre-emnieiiee to some on.' syllable in a polysyllabic word, and thus to diBtinguidi word, grammatically, -^ the substantive, a present, from SirC. I'.i u. \.r\ clearl) points out the difference th.' rarfa tnpreabU.
syllairic
force, the
to
and time)
Bowm,
*
Crai Gram,
p.
tt,
kiyhi Xlvhlwv ayoprfriit, ToC *aX awb yK<i<TtTT)i ixiKtros yKviclvv fiiiv aM\.
'HSvtir^t
Iliad,
1, -48.
UfM
Dt
I'rinotpn laocraUM inatituiaM fertur, ut
IdtcUtJonl* ntque
4
nudum
*
iBMnditan Mtttquorun dlottkU numeria udntiingerct. Cioero, caurt,
Aooentil.o.-,
I.
I,
Da
cauala lingtuc
I.atitiiE, 2,
6S.
Aw
id ed. pp. 10, 11.
CHAP. VUI.j
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY, AND EMPHASIS,

force,
1G1
and ascribes them to the operation of different organs. He says, " there are two sources of the Font with which words are uttered, the chest and the pharynx The emphatic delivery of several words or syllables must proceed from the forcible expulsion of the breath by the effort of expiration; hut the emphasis on the single syllable, and the forcible enunciation of the letter on which the clearness and distinctness, and sometimes the meaning' C ot words depend, must be produced by the effort of the pharvnx "'
'
between these two exertions of
the sound, yet enough to mark a stronger exertion of the vocal in its utterance and though essentially different from a prolongation or elevation of sound, it seems capable of uniting with a slight degree of both. Thus, in the word contemplate, the stress or emphasis rests on the syllable tern, and in contemplation, on the syllable pla ; ami each of these syllables is sufficiently distinguished from the others in the same word; but this distinction is
of
with oratorial force and under tin- name of Accent, with elevation of tone; and is some^ times described as a peculiar strength of tone ;"* or a peculiar stress ot the voice, " or an " inexpressive distinction of a syllable 4 or " a sort of subdued straining chiefly on the articulations." 5 Unless it happen to coincide with the oratorial force, it adds little to the loudness
;
oratorial force I shall speak hereafter. often confounded, under the name of Emphasis,
213. Of
Syllabic force
is Syllabic
forw
organs
effected by a decree ' ot loudness, elevation, or prolongation scarcely appreciable 214. The elementary qualities of articulate speech, then,
Time, and
Force
called
But of these the
commonly
1
by
is
he term Accent
:
are Tone, Accent. modifications are grammarians Accent, Quantity, and Emphasis.
principal
collision
opinions
one which has given occasion to much and indeed we may still say of it
Grammatici certant,
et
of
adhuc sub judice
lis est. 6
to sing.
but if we examine it soon perceive that the different authors have no very clear, and certainly no uniform notion. of it, as a property of speech. Our word accent is the Latin accentus, from ad and cano,
In most ordinary grammars, and generally in works where accent is incidentally mentioned, we find it spoken of as a thing perfectly well known, and, therefore, needing no explanation
;
more narrowly, we
shall
Hence we may
and depression of tone in words intended to be sum. Consequently it must have been first employed in verse; but afterwards as it seems, in measured prose; which kind of speaking, Cicero calls' a sort of obscure song/ At subsequent periods, til signified
elevation
infer that accentus originally expressed
an
it gren
'
S * Virions of it K some writers, both by ancient and modern, are extremely 'ague. "Accent," says Aurelius Cassiodokus, "is a skilfulT^
'
aCCent
fderT?
*
me
chan e
T1
Philos Trans. 1832, 314.
Mitford,
Hum. Voice, p. 325. Grammanans contend, and the suit

Rush, Phil.
fcst in
3 Harm. Lane p 8 Ibi(J n I Bdl Speech, P 09?'
o
'
P,^
'
dicendo etiam,
qmdam
undecided.-Horace, cantus obscurior. Orator s 18

'
is still
Art
Poet! 78
G.
1

1(32
1

[CHAP. VIII.
Not much more distinct is nunciation without fault." of the passions or sentimodification of the voice expressive lengthening or "* this modification consists in Whether ments depressing the tone, or in shortening the time, or in elevating or in any combination of these, strength or weakness of utterance, or The example, which the Lexidiscover. we are left at a loss to the meaning exclusively cographer gives from Prior, seems to restrict
Dr. Johnson's,
to loudness or
weakness of utterance
The tender accent of a woman's cry Will pass unheard, will ONNfpcdad die, While the rough seaman's louder shouts prevail.
But
Cfa*al
this is certainly
either not the prevalent signification of the term,

literature.
in ancient or
modern
by classical writers, cor215. Various terms have been employed Greek rovoc and 7rpo<xwcm, the responding to accent, such as the was, 8 &c. Ot these UnLatin tonus, tonor, tenor* sonus? fiexio ot the relating, as has been seen, to the P'trh original was rovoc,
Accentus, like rovoc, had its acute, grave, voice in its rise or fall. and it had also the double use of expressing the and circumflex; the tone of syllables, whence the feelings, and of distinguishing
and syllabic accent, above-mentioned distinction of oratorial accent, Of the former I have sufficiently spoken: on the wis adopted.
Greek
opinion has taken place among the learned : latter much diversity of Greek tqvoi, or accents, on which especially with reference to the are extant both ancient and modern. mans treatises ot their no sooner began to cultivate the study
least assumed, that independently language, than they perceived, or at "pressed by it, some syllables required a great*
mmMl
216
The Oieeka
oTthep-elons
deration
iiiMance
3
iii
than others.
In
the
..
first
una
of
the
'Iliad,
The a
fcUiM
&tth was thought

1"
to
have a
this
rising,
and the a
In
QeUt
11
tone.
Cfdef
to
express
circumstance
l,t,ers
generally
over the WTitiL, certain marks were placed 2grammarian, il is K.ai.1. about the
(by Ar.stophanei L* ore C hnst) namel

)
r)
li,r,L
)i
ie falling,
and
fbr th
ewwnAi
In
L71I
in
,of these marks has been disputed.

titl.-l
\
.\mnnim .Urmtuum dnvcorum, published marks in uabot, a wai contended that the
'
questiof
(Irani
,,.,
,,..
ni,i,iK
i'av,i.l.
.1,
Ait,.
!';:;
!
tonJra com^rl. ul rkUUcrf .Mi.Ui
tT^ +
,.. ,
f*
********** tAw.
One*
verbo, qui
rf"
nl
*j
,,..,,
,,;,.,
It IH.
mi .ta&tei ,.... taiaewtibtu.
Clo.Orat.M
CHAP.
VIII.

syllabic,
1G3
were not properly

contradicted
accented in
But this hypothesis is by the fact that the same word is found to be svllabieally the same manner, whatever may be the passion "expressed
oratorial.
but
by
it.
It
were
syllabic.
has been, therefore, generally admitted that the accents Still a question remained, in what manner they were
ability,
for some special circumflex, too, implied an ascent before the descent as if a long vowel had been divided into two short ones differently accented, the w into 6, 6, whence a syllable having a single short vowel could not be circumflected. 3 The rules by which the syllabic
The prevalent opinion was, that the accentual marks related solely to the rise and fall of the voice. Dr. Gally, however, maintained that the acute accent was not intended to mark a mere elevation of the voice l and Mr. Primatt said, " that the ancient grammarians had certainly no conception that there could be any elevation of voice without an addition of time."8 It should be observed that the acute accent was always considered as most important, and often spoken of as " the accent," simply, whilst the grave was only regarded as a mere negation of the acute, and therefore not marked, unless
:
Foster, Mr. Primatt, Lord Monboddo, and others.
intended to distinguish syllables, and this was treated with much about the middle of the last century, by Dr. Gally, Mr
reason.
The
accentuation
was governed were
different in different dialects
or on the antepenultimate, as 0iXor 4 O 0oc (a philosopher) in Latin it could never be placed on the last. 5 In neither language could the acute be carried further back from the end than the antepenultimate In several modern languages a principal accent may be placed even on the fourth syllable from the end, as in the English consolatory, in the Italian ammomtore (an admonisher), and in the modern Greek
:
of the acute accent by the quantity of the last syllable, but the Cohans by that of the penultimate. Hence the Latin language, which was derived in groat part from the Aohc dialect, differed in its rules of accentuation from the common Greek. In Greek, the acute accent might be placed on the last syllable, as Geo'e (God), or on the penultimate, as Xeiyoc (a word)
Greeks
The
in general regulated the position
dvayyaWtc
cen^T56.
8 8
(exultation).
The
it
Greek and Latin accentuation

Di3Sertati n
is
various rules and exceptions of the unnecessary here to enumerate

the Greek language according to ac-
***** P ron ncing
in eidem syllabi conjunctly ita ut acutus posterior gravis 2> est So. TJnde nee syllaba qu* vocalem brevTm potest. Heisk, Prosod. Gr. Accent, inclin p 1 s 1 4 Scdes accentuum possibilis est vel in syllabi uitimi, vel in penultima vol m penuuima, ioi in antepenultimi. Simonis, Introd. s. 2, 28. Ultima syllaba nee acuta unquam excitatur nee flexu circumducitur.-Quintil.
Accentus redivivi, p. 71. Tenor flexus est acutus et gravis

sit,
;
nor
mflecti
hE
Notandum
etiam, quod acutus accentus duo loca habet, penultimum et antrS
de
Ace'T";
8utem I*nultimam antepenultimum,

>
et
ultimum.-SiS,
164
CHAP.
VIII.
Modern
Greek.
they will be found in great detail in the Port-Royal grammars of those languages. In Hebrew, the tonic accent can affect only the ultimate or penultimate syllable of any word. 1 217. It was observed above, that the ancient Greeks called a rising Why these terms, tone or accent acute, and a falling one grave. borrowed from the tangible properties of matter, were applied to the audible sounds of speech, it is not easy to say but that they were so applied, as early at least as the time of Plato, is evident from the dialogue entitled 'Cratylus,' in which he speaks of an acute syllable (oet'a) being changed, in certain words, into a grave (papeta).*
;
modern Greek, Lord Monboddo says that "the modern Greeks have lost the tones abovementioned, and in place of acute and grave have substituted loud and soft;" adding, "that they constantly sound every syllable loud, which is marked in the Greek books with an acute accent." 3 Colonel Leake, however, who is a far superior
Whether
is
or not this distinction has been retained in
disputed.
authority, being not only a profound scholar in the Hellenic, or aiu ient
Other
Greek, but perfectly versed in the Romaic, or modern Greek, from long residence in the country, strongly contends that the inhabitants retain the same accent as their ancestors, and he defines it as "the elevation or depression of tone in a syllable."* 218. In other modem languages, the generality of grammarians peak merely of accented and unaccented syllables, without stating in
what
or
If
particular property of the voice they conceive accent to consist;
nature of the distinction intended.

l't
they add the terms acute and grave, they seldom explain the In the French language, the Abbe
at
all:''
iuvkt denies that there is any prosodical (that is, syllabic) accents whilst M. lb uy.i'i: asserts that there are both acute and
but.
grave,
uishea
The very eminent gl< not circumflex." do less than si\ varieties of accent (Tonehold)
b'
ask,
the
in
Danish language: three long the trailing, the advancing, and the the rolling, the running, and the lvl.oiuiding. abrupt and three short would seem, from this arrangement, that he considered time as It nt as he admits thai some of the the principal element in 100801 oaml by oral instruction (an advantage which have inn paM them o\er with a simple notice of the enuBOl had),
;
meration. 7
.M.
B
the
first
the accent.s of the I-'rvnch language

prosodial,
under
live
1
beads,
oratorial,
musical,
national,
and
written.
The two
tl
de*cril>ed,
then
thai
in
an irer to the oratorial and syllabic above are irrelevant to the present consideration!
or
mo
languages accent signifies that marked der stiiiime) by \\ hich one ,\ liable tl
:
need above the others, as
tin-
.</-''
in
t/c/ien,
and
.i.
i
the Ids
iii
Pbtoa, Op.
1
.
191,
" [bid,
i
7.
>..!.
i.
i:;i.
CHAP.
VIII.]
AND EMPHASIS.
165
be called, in German, Ton, and that the word Accent should serve to express the longer or shorter time of dwelling on a vowel. Consequentlv he proposes to divide accent into long and short; da, gar, and the first syllable in ge'/ien being examples of the long accent and ab, ob, and the first syllable in treffen, of the short." Peretti explains Accento in Italian, "A kind of chant, which raises or depresses syllables, and detaches them from each other." 4 Vater says of the Polish language, they lay a stress (on appuie) on the tonic syllable, which is ahvavs the penultimate, as in si/lam, except in words ending in by, ly, and the like, as Jdkoby, where it is on the antepenultimate. 8 And Marti xez uses the same word, stress (appuie), of the Spanish accent
verldssen.
;
1
He
thinks, however, that this should rather
placed over a syllable, "
On
appuie sur cette syllabe." 4

English.,
219. Our English glossologists leave the nature of accent as obscure as the authors do to whom I have referred. Johnson expresses himself as vaguely in his Grammar as I have before shown that he " Pronunciation " (says he) " is just, when does in his Dictionary.
proper sound, and when every syllable has its proper English versification is the same, its proper quan5 tity." Sheridan applies the term accent neither to tone nor time, but to force. He says " Accent, in the English language, means a certain stress of the voice on a particular letter of a syllable, which distinguishes it from the rest, and at the same time distinguishes the syllable itself to which it belongs from the others which compose the word." 6 Murray, to the same effect, says " Accent is the laying of a peculiar stress of the voice on a certain letter or syllable in a word, that it may be better heard than the rest, or distinguished from them."7
every letter has
its
accent, or
which
in
So Mitford says " In English pronunciation every polysyllable has one syllable distinguished by peculiar strength of tone. This strong tone is commonly called by way of eminence the accent." 8 Walker says more vaguely " The true definition of accent is this, if the word be pronounced alone, and without any reference to other words, the accented syllable is both higher and louder than the other syllables either before or after it but if the word be suspended, as at the comma ; if it end a negative member followed by an affirmative ; or if it conclude an interrogative sentence beginning with a verb, in each case the accented syllable is louder and higher than the preceding, and louder and lower than the succeeding syllables."9 From this very illogical
:
definition,
we
can only
collect, that
the author considered loudness to

;
be the
essential quality of the accent
and though
it
might be accom-
panied in some cases with an elevation of voice, and in others with a depression, yet neither of these qualities, nor length or shortness of
1
Worterb. vol.
i.
142.
v. 1, Ixxxviii.
i.
* *
8
5
7 9
Gram. Polon. p. 8. Gram, prefixed to Diet. Eng. Gram. part. iv. c.
Gram. Ital. ed. Gram. Espagn.
Ballin
p. 11.
p.
2U.
s.
1.
Ibid. p. xlvi. 8
Harmony
of Language, p. 28.
Observations subjoined to Diet p. 90.
It'G
[CHAP. VIH.
duration,
accent.
mus
grammatical character of " Accent is a superior degree of prominence (in a word of more than one sylStill this leaves lable) by stress, or inflexion on one of its syllables." us in doubt whether an accent must necessarily receive inflexion (by which this writer means the rise and fall of the voice), or must necessarily receive a stress, or forcible effort of the voice so that, practically, a learner would be in doubt whether he ought to pronounce an accented syllable in a louder and more emphatic voice, or in a mora elevated tone, answering to a higher note in music. 220. The term Accent has been applied not only to cultivated, but M. Dutonceau, the able American glossoloto barbarous languages. gist, says " that the Indians of the Algonquin family accentuate their syllables." " The manner in which they and all other Indians of North America pronounce the last syllable of a sentence is remarkable, They cast forward this sylespecially in their oratorical harangues. lable with such force, that we can only compare it to the military words !' Port ami* of command, as when an officer cries to his soldiers, There is, however, a certain preparation for it on the preceding syl1 This author distinguishes accents into appiiyc (rested on), lable." and frappe (struck), and he says that the Iroquois have both kinds. 3
was
in his opinion necessary to the

latest writer
Mr. Bell, the
on
this subject, says

1
'
In
harharous, as well as cultivated languages, a variation of accent
often alters either the signification or the grammatical form of a word.
In the Mexican,
many words
1
receive
by a
different
aca
nt
a totally
a trans-
different meaning.'
In the liarotonga, a Polynesian tongue,

in
position of the accent alters the signification,
some instances, from singular to plural, as Tandta, man; 'luimtii, nun; and in other inMdrama, stances from one object to another, as Mardsna, the moon
;
In ancient Greek, the examples of such changes are numerous, ex. gr., A-yopnTof. " person employed in the forum; bydpaioc, a day when trials are had ID the forum; byopuiav iitcrft; a forensic judglight.*
ment.*
Lid
of levoal liundivd words, so varied
in
meaning, was
In Latin, quantum and by Cyrillui or Philoponus.7 qUOii, when used interrogatively, were lv some persons terminated 8 l>ut, when otherwise employed, with an acute. with a grave aeemt In out own lau.'n.i e the eiieet of such tians|K)sitions of accent are
collected either
;
.
and well
//;-,'. s.-nt,
1.
now
c.r
n.
We
he
is
siv, to be present at a
gift.
pi. ire,
and
to
m
Dwell
I
ike
at
tjaeprimti time; but to pruint a

lh.it
We say,
in
'.,/,
a to
,'mfi it, ike.
221.
u..:
As
aeeeiitu.iiioii
w:ll
seem,
rami
he chiefly neceaaarj
for
separating
the Greet
rut.
other,
it
to
he ron lideivd as a rule

M.'tn.
h.
1.
I
<-h, p.
222.
,
or. pp, 106, 108,

:t.
li
A.l.-luni;,
MiiIumI.
'
:i,
o:t.
232.
!.
Sui.hs
voc. Ikynpatnt. e
'
ll
to,
,,
vol, iv. p,
|l,
'
ODCludOBt
CHAP. VIH.
ntr ACCKM, QUANTITY, OF acVKNT UUA.n
AND EMPHASIS.
1G
'
accents.
But ... tho where the word was
i>
Ucc
tt ru
ia ""
rtft clitics, as ili/flpunroc
*",*! a
,
^ En AlI *. * - Such
ta|li
.
is
the
case in our
own
tongue.
on the first" (says sensibly stronger than last has the strong
in
two secondary **J"^^fivWsySleshwand those of wed intertAn. Every as JbSSSSta 0ldlim distinguishing accents, ^2vUon as farf^mfcutfr*, ffi, or more, have .ôreaccen^Fg3 have been made 8y ^darobser of fc J iMmv* exevmmumcatvon V ~m
six
:
*^Z^&*1 ^ f ^J^^S^C *
f
\fy
'
,
.
uttem l with a tone very when th,

the second,
as in
in
even in tongues of other Syrycerum language, and
P^
Stte
syllables, the
slightly but on the others so
^^W ^.^.^
ayUaWe.
6 tajfW8 or the -ame origin, ^Tt^nguishable as to be scarce!)
falls
On
by the rema rked.
terminating often applied to the
222 When we
some of
reflect
on the
given able writers have them having attributed
mfle \?' others to elevation or it seems is Force; ; '.f of doling on a and th,rs to the act and to P each has some g o to conclude that question distinction that the syllabic charac teristic of J The most** o has estimated. as Vossius indeed as kind of accent, as well syllabic casual to strike the most utterance necessarily lorcuae Now, that the effort toward ies utterance. *"* bean elevation of tone;
^^^^^T^ha^t 8** ^
it
d.rlerent character,
* hi h learned
^d Result*
solely to
enable
^, ^ J^^ **^nU
r
?*
*J*^33^%^Na
produces
^^^rS *
J
enclitic,,
^ral
connexion
Nu ll a dictio duplice, KvOp^s T.-Vig de

,
nisi
sequent
notatur accentu, ut
W
.
Idiots ed. Zeun. 671.

all
^
accen tum
'
Harmony
of Language, p. TO. ut Acceutu. lingua, byrysn*,
*m
linguaru
testnun, syllabas imp-res, prim*n, en. v,x cap,a tur -t. u, adeo molliter ut auw
ffJM^* g
n
Etymol.
^"^m ejusdem mam

^
originis, cadit in fortius, in aliis vero
15
sa>pissi
^SS^âte
grfrtfemet
.pan^^m.-Vossms,
tc *
ES.
Accent
prater
norm
etiam

168
[CHAP.
VIII.
but by sliding continuously through the whole interval, an operation as necessarily requiring time as sliding on the ice does, or th< more rapid motion of skating, which the poet has so happily described
all
shod with
steel,
We
hiss'd along the polish' d ice, in
games
Confederate, imitative of the chace
And woodland
pleasures.
The degree
of force, and consequently of tone and of time,
must
manifestly be proportioned to the mental motive which gives the impulse; and this in the oratorial accent may be very strong, but in the syllabic can be but weak. When Cassius, in the celebrated scene with Brutus, exclaims " I, an itching palm !" his vehement indignation
pulmonary action. But where we have to use one of two differently accented words, as ayôya/uog
necessarily cause a forcible
must
ivrmancncc.
(feeding in a pasture), or ayporofiog (pasture-feed), the mere difference of accent affords no ground for strong passion and the only motive tor varying the sound is to acquiesce in the ordinary pronunciation of the word. It seems probable, therefore, that when the Greek grammarians spoke of the acute accent being raised a fifth, and the grave depressed KB much, they contemplated the possible extent of the oratorial accent, and not the ordinary difference of the syllabic. And finally, as the acute accent was always considered the principal, we may adopt Mr. Mitford's scheme, distinguishing English syllables into accented and unaccented, and dividing the former into the stronger or acute, and the weaker or grave.* 22;?. In whatever way the syllabic accent may be explained, it undoubtedly performs an im|K>rtant part in the operations of language. It n<>t only marks the grammatical character of particular wools, but by that means it gives permanence to them through long periods of Colonel I. i:.\ki. enumerates \upiaaa, oAv/uiroc, icdptvfloc, ^<'., time. with the tone on the accented syllable, in modern Greek and he states that when the names remain unaltered to the present day, " in all instances, the accent is plaeed precisely as it has been preserved in the pts from which our copies of the Greek authors have been if ancient names of placesformed." tie adds " In tracing th in GrreeOfl (U inquiry very important to the geographer), accent will generally be found the le to identity, Letters and syllables inged bat where any trace of the ancient nt is generally the same as it has alua\s bun. Thus. Oavfttucit is now l)lumv>k6 OXmsvApi SZoftfoa, fcc1
;
; :
i
>
224. The v
i
word
\i
i'.
i
Quantity has been
s
i,
it
QMS
I,
as
ii
of tone, tune and force,
language in two mi to expn s all the three "Since we measure the voice by
applied to
al
i.
qui
matt'
"and
a s\ liable
is in
its voice,
as
in
its
subject
and
>|iiantity consists in
u threefold dimension,
*
I
long, broad,
p,
Wci.i-,w.iiiii.
ho
ni.-ii
v
I
of Laagoigs,
Reeearchea in Greece,
p,
CHAP.
VIII.]
169
and high, it necessarily follows, that a syllable is affected in the same ways; so that there is elevation or depression in height, emphasis or weakening in breadth, and extension in length." But both the more ancient and the more modern grammarians understand by quantity a measure of the time of utterance only; so that if a syllable Compared with others occupy a long time in utterance, it is said to be long in quantity, and if it occupy a time comparatively short, it is said to be short in quantity. The Greeks and Latins, as has been above mentioned, recognised only two of these measures, the short and the long, the former being estimated as one time, and the latter as two times. It must be remembered, however, that quantity was applied, on this system, to syllables, and not merely to vowels, as some have errone1
ously supposed.
225. Our word Syllable is from the Greek rvXXa/3>), which in strictness only signified " a combination of letters;"* but must alwavs have
Syllabic
been understood to contain

ever, authors, disregarding
one vowel. In process of time, howetymology, applied the term syllable even to a single vowel or diphthong, 1 as a in aw (I breathe) or av in avu> (I call out) and hence a further definition was given thus, " syllable is an articulate sound, which is at once pronounced with one accent, and one
at least
its
;
had a separate origin the a in aw, for instance, being derived from one source, and the w from another just as in the English word guerdon, the syllable guer is derived from one source, and the syllable don from another. 5 But in this part of Glossology, the grammarians of Greece and Rome were little versed. What number of vowels and consonants may be combined in a syllable, in any given language, depends on the usage of the people who speak that language. In Latin, not more three consonants can either precede or follow a vowel and if three precede, as str in the last syllable of monstrans, not more than
; ;
:
of the breath." Possibly there may have been a more recondite reason for the division of most Greek and Latin words into syllables, to be found in the early history of those languages. For, with certain exceptions, which will be noticed hereafter, every separate syllable
effort
two can
1
follow, as
ns; or
can precede, as st. e
if three follow, as rp s in stirj)s, onlv two In the South Australian language, though "sylla-
Cum vocem quantitate metiamur, et syllaba in voce sit, ut in subjects materia, quantitas triplici dimensione constituatur, longa, lata, altd: necessari6 qnoque iisdem rationibus syllaba affects erit ; ut levatio aut pressio in altitudine, afflatio aut attenuatio in latitudine, tractus in longitudine sit. De Causis Ling Lat 1 2 "' c. 52.
et 8 3
a irb rod a-v\\a/j.$dvfiv ra ypififxara. Sergius. Abusive tamen etiam singularum vocalium sonos syllabas
nominamus
Priscian,
1. 2, c. 1, * Syllaba est vox literalis, quae fertur. Priscian, 1. 2, c. 1.
sub uno accentu, et uno spiritu, indistanter pro-
Univ. Gram. s. 338. 6 Si tres consonantes antecedunt vocalem nonpossunt nisidua consequi, ut monstrans, nee si consequuntur tres possunt antecedere nisi dua?, ut stirps. Priscian,
2, c. 1.
170

a vowel, or in one, or
[CHAP.
VIII.
even two consonants, bles may terminate tin those which terminate in more than one consonant are very few, and it appears, from the vocabulary, that not more than one consonant ever precedes a vowel. In the Marquesan and other insular Polynesian languages, every syllable is formed by a vowel, either alone, or preceded by a single consonant. Two consonants together, or one termi1
Hence Amen, at nating a syllable, are unknown in those languages. In the Chinese language, the end of a prayer, is pronounced Aine-ne* in which every syllable forms a word, a vowel can have before it only one consonant (or a complex consonant considered as one), and can be
-
o*
quuuutj.
followed by none, except a nasal. 226. The division of quantity, into short and long s'mply, was first employed by grammarians with reference to metre; but the more philosophical glossologists observed (as Dr. Gaily notices) several de-
Thus Dionysius of in each of the orders of short and long.* Halicarnassus says "There is not merely one degree of length ami shortness in syllables but among the long some are longer than others,
mos,
and among the short some are shorter."* This he exemplifies by a progression in length, first on the short vowel o, as 6%6c, poh>r, t^<j-o<:, (TTpofoc, and again on the long vowel t), as >/\aro, Af/yw, 7r\*/y/), o-7r\>//. Here it is- to be observed, that the several consonants which an- joined in the same syllable with the vowels o anil 77, are so many actual, though minute additions to the vocal cilbrt in utterance; and they are therefore described as 7rf)o<r0/iau aKovarai and dtffOijrai, inSimilar differences may be per* crements audible and perceptible.
ceived,
1)V
a nice car,
in
our
own
language; as
in
in
the syllables
it,
hit,
Briton, ynNflri, with the short t; and

tin'
idle, sidle, bride, stride,
with
Mr. Walker, therefore, is not correct in his observation, we have no conception of quantity arising from :mv thing but the nature (,' the vowels."* On the contrary, much of the beauty of our poatfl depends on a due mixture of syllables rendered It is long Or short in diilerent, degroof, by means of their consonants. said, that the Sanskrit grammarians make four distinctions of quantity in a syllable, which they determine by reference to the sounds uttered A consonant by ditierent birds, ami mark by a sign called Matrang. a short, vowel, without a von to be in length half a matrang wrering in length t' the note of a small bird called a ('hash, Ls in a lung vowel, answering to the note of a crow, is li maliang and a continued or ver) long vowel, answering in length two matiani.es l.tl ill It, is hardly tO the ||.,!.- ,.| the |X'UC.Ock, il 111 length thl'ee
long
in
/.
"that
English
1'
',.-."
Himdimmui,
.
II.-.
M.u.|m.s,-s,
|>.
:.:>.
igatnsl
*
Grwk
Accents,
4m.
,
Tif/t
.
M^wowf fli ittti tvv
ku\
/iun/>ui',
fyaxfoyroi trvKAafiwv iu fi\a <piffts, AAAtk xat fxai, *a] fyaxArtpcu rSn fipax*iwv.- Aioy. w. crvv0*<r.
ovofi
10.
"ii lli-
QlWl U4
l-.'tni
A,
ut an.
Qui&ttty,
UaDtfd'l
fl
it"o
Laws, IV
CHAP.
VIII.
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY, AND KM I'HASIS.
171
conceivable that ordinary discourse could be governed bv .such artificial restraints but in verse, or measured prose, such a system might, no doubt, be adopted. Indeed, something like it is practised, not only
;
by the Hindoos in reading the Vedas, and the Mahometans in reading the Koran but by the Jews in reading the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament.
;
227. The length or shortness of syllables in any language
is
deter-
How
Uetemiine<3-
mined
either
rules of the Greek grammarians as to quantity bore B particular relation to the grammatical system of their language. The
authorities.
by The
certain general rules, or
by the
practice of the best
Greek alphabet having two long vowels, t) and w, two short,"* and o, and three which may be pronounced sometimes long and sometimes short, a, t, and v, Greek syllables were said to be long or short, either (pvaEi or Oiau (by nature, or by position). A syllable was said to be long by nature, if it was written with r\ or w, or with a, e, or v pronounced long, or with a diphthong. It was said to be long by position if it was written with a, e, t, o, or v, followed by two or more single consonants, or by one double consonant, as or ^ (answering to ks and ps). All other syllables were said to be short. I speak, of course, as to the most general rules, not meaning to enter into the detail of subordinate rules or exceptions to be found in the common Grammars. The Latin rules were in like manner framed with relation to the Latin alphabet, and consequently differed in many particulars from the Greek; but they both agreed in the general principle (with certain exceptions) that a vowel followed by two consonants rendered
1
the syllable equal in quantity to two short syllables.* This, however, is fer from being a rule universally applicable to languages in general. Some nations acquire by habit a greater facility than others in uttering
with rapidity certain combinations of articulate sounds. " German can precipitate his voice over four or five consonants without lengthening the sound of the preceding vowel, where a Greek or Roman voice would be retarded by only two." So in English, we can easilv pronounce such words as streiu/thless, strengthever, which an Italian could pronounce with great difficulty, if at all and a Chinese must break each of them down into six or seven syllables, and those very imperfectly articulated. Still, in English, and many other Northern'tongues, though a vowel followed by two or more consonants may remain short, the syllable containing it must necessarily be longer than if the vowel had been followed by a single consonant for every articulation, j whether vowel or consonantal, requires a separate movement of the organs every such movement occupies a portion of time, however minute ; and the time so employed on a consonant must be added to
iffu 5e fj.aKpa.1 yivoviai, Srav j8pa e'os oVtos, t/ Ppaxwo/itvov ^v^vros, X ffvfupava ttjtttv, f^ra^ avrod re K al rod t9is |fjs ffvWaPfjs (pwvfcvros, itXelova ivbs airKov, f) ev StirKovv. Heplia'stion, ed. Gaisford,
Quintil.
Longam (syllabam)
9, 4.
p. 3.
esse
duorum tempo-rum, brevem
unius, etiam pueri sciunt

172
that of the vowel,
syllable.
Authority.
[('HAP. VIII.
OF ACCENT, QCAXTITY, AND EMPHASIS,
and must consequently augment the length of the

from the
228.
We
find in all languages, that deviations take place

rales,
and it then becomes necessary to consider on what This is the case in regard to the quantity of authority they rest. syllables, as well as to other properties of language; and whenever it occurs, we must be guided by the example of the best writers and most accomplished speakers. " The goodness of words considered in itself," says Scheller, " rests on the custom of good writers." When it happens that a syllable is found with different quantities in two authors, it may be proper to follow the example of the more celebrated writer, even though deviating more widely than the other from a Diphthongs in Latin are usually, but not always, long; general rale. and, agreeably to that rale, we find prce in prceiret made long by
most general
Statins,
Cum
vacuus domino prairet Arion. 8

it is
But by Virgil (as well as others)

Nee
totd
made
short
tamen
ille
prior praeunte carina. 8
We
should, therefore, generally prefer the latter quantity, since Virgfl

Statius,
lived in an age of purer taste than
and was himself
most
correct
and polished
writer.
Sometimes the
authorities are few, and
not very weighty on either side. It is related of Sir James Mackinti *sh, that being on a visit to Cambridge, and reading in one of the colleges an inscription containing the word academia, he pronounced it academia, shortening the Professor Porson thereupon observed, are in the habit here of saying academia," with the i lengthened. Sir .lames might have cited the authority of Claudian
'.
"We
In Latium spr.tis Academia Btlgnrf
Atlu'iiis.*
On the to
'.
other side, the authority of Cicero might have been appealed

Iii.|in'
Acwli'inla iiinluif.Ta, nitiilmjiii' J.y
ii'ith-r Cicero nor Claudian was of the firel authority as a poetj Creek origin, a dm lit might and though In' word in <|iirsti<.n u.i still remain; for we find it in that language written differently Aristophanes uses tin' former, Plutarch <ii,i)iini and \ kiii iiftiu.* and Atl latter, winch however may probably have been R. Stephanos says of the Latin read with a long qoentit} on the t. jwiitili mi itc." and he therefore leaves the syllable won I. uidiont in. uk hi quantity.' A vowel is usually termed common In such a case, and with Mill greater reason when we find (as we soinoI
<
>l
'.
'
Bonito* vomfmlonim, (Mr
m
p,
conlderaU oowtwtodiM
I, ..
'.'.
bonorom loriptoraa
i.
fuller, Styl.
...
I
Un...
h.
I.
0.
...
Vityil,
Mn.
.1-
ft,
186.
I,
I.
I
'
|i
17. 04.
iv.
|
{'i. .!..,
T
Divin.
I.
II.
Htcphwi. vol.
K. strpiinii. roL
rod Aosdwnla,

CHAP.
VIII.J
173
times do) the same author using a syllable with a different quantity in the same word, ex. gr.
Nulllus addictus jurare in verba magistri
;'
and elsewhere
Dante minor quamvis
fers te nullius
egentem. 2
relation to
229. That quantity being a measure of time, must essentially differ from accent, considered as a measure of tone, is self-evident. Neverit being theless, these two qualities may coincide on the same syllable pronounced, perhaps, somewhat longer, if accented, than it otherwise
;
would
first
be,
ever, render accuracy
and somewhat shorter if unaccented. Several causes, howIn the on this point a matter of some nicety.
the rise or
is
fall of the syllabic tone (as has been already extremely slight; whereas that of the oratorial tone, which may happen to be combined with it, may be strongly marked. In the words honour and dishonour, as occurring in ordinary discourse, the syllable hon may be pronounced with an equal tone, and of equal
place,
explained)
length.
to their signification, the oratorial tone

will
argument these words be set in direct opposition as must be thrown on dis, and render that syllable not only more elevated and more emphatic,
But
if in
So, when Othello, surprised at Iago's but also longer in utterance. mention of Cassio, hastily asks, " Is he not honest?" the syllable hon, having only the syllabic tone, or a very slight oratorial tone, is comBut in Iago's hesitating repetition of paratively short in utterance. honest ? as if reluctant to answer directly, the same syllable has a strong oratorial tone, and must by any skilful actor be considerably
lengthened.
third circumstance,
which renders the correct adapt-
ation of quantity difficult, is the diversity of habitual pronunciation
and districts. Mr. Foster has dwelt on this point " The English" (says he) "join the acute with great minuteness. The Scotch observe (accent) and long time together, as in liberty. They pronounce the our quantitv, and alter our accent, as liberty'. same syllable long which we do, but they make it longer. The Irish observe our quantity and accent too, but with a greater degree of spirit or emphasis, giving to most syllables an aspiration, li'berty. The Welsh keep our quantity and alter the accent, with a manner of
in different nations
which Cicero calls aspera, fracta, scissa, flexo sono, llber-ty."* Elsewhere indeed, he says, " VVe English cannot readily elevate a 5 syllable without lengthening it;" but this rule at all events does not hold good in all languages for, as Bentley observes, the first syllable of (pveric (nature) is short, and the first of (bvaiou) (to blow) is long f though the former is accented, and the latter not. 230. As accent was primarily regarded only as a measure of tone, and quantity is without doubt a measure of time, so Emphasis may be
voice,
;
Emphasis,
Horatius, Epist.
Ibid. p.
1, 1,
14.
iii.
3 5
Shakspeare, Othello, a.
se. 3.
4
6
25
Idem, ibid. 1, 17, 22. Accent and Quantitv, pp. 38, 39. Phalaris, p. 377.

174
said to be a
[CHAP. VIII.
measure of force ; and may be distinguished (like force) and the syllabic. The latter I have already considered under the head of " syllabic force:" the oratorial, however, first gave occasion to the word Emphasis, which is derived from the Greek k^(paivu) (to indicate) because, in the use of emphatic sentences or words, something more is usually indicated than the same This is well illustrated by words if unemphatic would signify. Qnintilian in Cicero's appeal to the personal clemency of Ca?sar, on
into the oratorial
;
1
behalf of Ligarius.
to the Conqueror,
that victory
in thyself I say, and I know what I am saying would be clouded with most bitter grief." Here the emphatic word thyself clearly indicated that less noble-minded men Take, to the same effect, two were urging Cesar to vengeance.* examples in modern history: When that benevolent sovereign Louis XVI. was subjected to the mockery of a trial before some of the vilest of men, the brutal President of that infamous tribunal said The King, who had till to him, " Vous avez fait couler le sang."*
possessest in thyself
" If in this thy u;reat fortune," says the Orator " there were not as great a clemency, as thou
then borne himself with dignified composure, instantly ami loudly exclaimed, " Non, Monsieur, ce n'est pas Moi, qui ait fait couler le
4
i;."
It
has been said by an Englishman
painful scene, that the emphasis with
who was present at the which the insulted monarch

(
pronounced this sentence, and particularly the xpressive Moi, made it echo through the hall, and seemed to startle the guilty consciences of tin' real criminals. At a subsequent period, and on a very different occasion, a single syllable forcibly uttered drew admiration even from th" mil 'ending spirit of Buonaparte. At the time of his treacherous he had summoned from Elot for seizing on the Spanish Peninsula, isbon to Bayonne a deputation of Portuguese, at the head of which
the Count, Dl Lima. On receiving them in public, Napoleon asked the Cuunt whether the Portuguese did not wish fr> beepme Spaniards. "At thee words" (says the AI>1h' Dk Puadt), "I saw the
Cunt
1>.'
I.
ana, swelling to ten feet
in
height, planting himself in a
(inn portion, placing his
hand on the guard of his sword, and answerNapoleon the next with a voice that shook the rOOm, " No!" " The Count Do in conversation with a gem nil officer, In the former of these terday gave mo a superb No,"
i,
GXatnpl"<, the indignant

t.
bt>
mistaken,
Iihces,
wise aceombloodshed which had desolated in the case of the Ooonl De Lima, that noble Portuguese
I
he
IV
id.
of Louin XVI. indicated, m of the AsseinU\ and

,
in
manner not
I
his
the
true
authoi
of
the
tn<patrtt nltlori-m
I.
prubons JaUlUotaBU,
..Urwit
Quli.tll.
gain
verba [NT M,
T, |"i
/'<
8,
iii-
tiiitiiion
.
SMtt
.
(iu:ini.u.i
tn pti
D (lattUIfO qnld
,
l-'|o.irJ
acorblmtimo huh.
I'm Q.
.
I
6.
humsI blood to !>< be.|. jr, It wiw not / that cniwwl blood to bo

CHAP.
VIII.]
175
country men were not
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY, AXD EMPHASIS.

his
indicated,
by
emphatic No, that he and his
only not desirous of being extinguished as a nation, but were prepared to resist to the last extremity so unprincipled an attempt. 231. It is observed by Mitford, that in the English language, " Ac- J**^,* cent" (by which he means a rising tone) " is inseparable from empha- Time. sis and that emphasis has also a connection with quantity insomuch
:
that
it
may sometimes be
1
said to create a long time
more
especially
in monosyllables."
We have
know me,
a striking instance
)f this
in the line
Not
to
argues yourself unknown, 8
where, in the edition of 1669, printed under Milton's own correction, And the emphatic me, is printed Mee, evidently to mark its length. when the vowel is necessarily short, it sometimes extends even to semivowel consonants, as in the word Death, in the opening of
Paradise Lost
The
fruit
forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the world. 8
Of that
With regard to the effect of emphasis on tone, Mr. Bell accurately observes, " That the more emphatic an inflexion is, the lower it
begins
when
I
it
is
called iîsing,
and the higher
it
begins
when
it is
called falling."*
Thus (says he) "

"
/,
in the indignant utterance of the
pronoun
(by Cassius)
an itching palm
*
!
the voice
its
must begin considerably below the middle tone, squeaking and cracking when beyond manageable
form an emphatic
to prevent
limits."
"
And to
falling inflection, as in the strongly assertive,
boastful utterance of the
same pronoun
her, and so will /,*
" Be buried quick with

the inflection
will
must begin considerably above the middle
tone, or
it
not have space to descend without croaking hoarsely beyond vocalizing limits." 7 This observation, however, as well as that of Mr. Mitford, relates to oratorial and not to syllabic emphasis. 232. Hitherto I have spoken only of the Sounds of speech but Pan maIlai Intermissions of sound are also necessary in the communication of our thoughts and feelings. These intermissions occurring in speech are termed Pauses. Now in the communication of our thoughts, that is, in matters of reasoning, pauses serve to mark the grammatical arrangements of our sentences. This, therefore, we may call a grammatical pause. If we say, for instance, " God is infinite," we utter
;
a simple sentence,
from the Greek and the same,

1
Trepiodoc,
if
and we may mark its conclusion with a period, which Cicero renders ambitus, or circuitus 8 we say, " Man is finite." At the end of each
:
Harmony
of Language, p. 76.
8 Milton, Par. Lost,

5
1,3.
* Principles
s
Milton, Par. Lost, 4, 830. of Speech, p. 261.
Shakspeare, Jul. Caesar, a. iv. sc. 3. Principles of Speech, p. 262.
Ibid.,
Hamlet,
s.
a. v. sc. 1.
Orator,
61.
176
sentence there
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY. AND EMPHASIS.
[CHAP.
VIII.
is, or ought to be, a pause, the sound being intermitted. make, indeed, a slight intermission of sound between every word, but that is so extremely minute, as to be scarcely perceptible on the contrary, the pause at the end of a sentence must be distinctly
We
made by
ligible
:
all
persons, in
this,
all
states of life, to render
themselves
intel-
whether the sentence be simple, like the two above stated, or as complex as the first sentence in Thucydides. Let us then render the two sentences complex, by developing the idea expressed in each, thus, " God is infinite in power, in wisdom, and in love but man is finite in all these energies." Here we see the two simple sentences combined into one. There is a pause between each of the t wo portions, though less than if either stood singly and there are :" still minor pauses after the words " power," and " wisdom all
and
and clear expression of the thought be communicated. Again, the thought may be expanded into an argument, thus: " If God be infinite in power, in wisdom, and in love, and man be finite in all these energies, how can mere human power measure the power of the Almighty, or mere human wisdom comprehend the wisdom of the All-wise, or men human love appreciate the love which embraces at once the loftiest and tin* meanest of created beings?" The different portions of this and of all other complex sentences require, for their clear and forcible utterance, pauses of different lengths; the relative proportions of which it may Speaking generally, the languages not always be easy to adjust which afford a large scope to the inflection, derivation, and composition and may of words, must furnish means for complexity of sentences consequently be expected to adopt a variety of pauses. Now, the Greeks possessed a language extremely rich in tliis wealth of words, and their ]K>ets, orators, historians, and philosophers produced from Yet so little had their gramEta itores works of immortal genius. marians studied this part of glossological science, that they distinguished only two subordinate members of a period; and these they named ctftuioni and vAXo, construed by 'icero incisa and membra? To these we have and giving name to our commas and colons. aided the semicolon : and our ordinary Grammars have adopted the absurd rule, Lit the com ma requires the slimiest pause, the semicolon u ptBW double that of the comma, the colon double the semicolon, :md the period doable the colon on which, however, Bishop Lowth judiciously observes, M that in all cases the proportion of the several
are necessary to the full
to
1 ;
which meant
<
..i,
in
o iprcl
to
one another,
ll
i-
rather
\<>
!"
regarded, than their
tapPHMV*.
inpofed pradM quantity, or proper office when taken sejwrately." 1 rammalieal pause; lul a pause ma\ have So much for ulirm a different and far more Impressive .lli'ct, when
..'.;:;.
I
to
strengthen
thl
fcollngl
expressed
I
by
the
words which
it
fol
The
would call the impm of prate, then, occasions on which it may be introduced, and the diffei
latter sort
tor i, 62.
171.

CHAP.
VIII.]
it

may
177
AND EMPHASIS.
lengths of time which
which
sign
it
serves to mark.
I will cite
occupy, are as various as the passions a few examples, with the usual
Senate's
for the pause.
Cicero pauses, with indignation, at the mention of the
with Antony, then a rebel in arms against their lawful authority " But we have sent ambassadors to him Miserable that I am I who have always been the Senate's eulogist, why am I now compelled to reproach it?" 1 The poet thus describes Satan pausing, in gloomy melancholy at the sight of his fallen comrade
having offered to
treat
is
If thou beest lie
But oh
is
how
chang'd
how
fall'n
The
agitation of crime
seen in the hurried pauses of
Lady Mac-
beth, whilst her husband
murdering Duncan
!
It
Hark Peace was the owl that shriek'd

.
!,
trepidation of intended guilt is picted in the hesitating pauses of King John,
The anxious
still
more
when
striking! v dehinting his bloody
purpose to Hubert
I
had a thing to say
But
let it go.
And
again
Good Hubert Hubert Hubert throw thine eye On yon young boy I tell thee what, my friend
He
Lastly,
is
a very serpent in
my
way. 4
strongly
the awful solemnity of a pause was never, perhaps, more felt, than it is in Milton's description of the Lazar-house, where,
amidst the dreadful train of forms
human
maladies, in
Despair
all
their ghastly
Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch And over them triumphant Death his dart Shook but delay'd to strike. 5
There
is
a third kind of pause, which
we may
will
as its effect relates to versification alone,
it
call prosodial ; but be best noticed under
the head of Prosody.

2:>4.
Before I conclude this chapter, however,
it
may be
proper to Harmony.
notice
some terms relating to this part of Glossology, which eminent writers have employed either vaguely, or with some peculiar and un-
signification. And first, in reference to Tone, I have noticed above*that Plato uses the word appoi'ia (harmony) for the elevation and depression of the voice. This, however, was only his peculiar application of it to language. The ancient meaning was far
authorized
from
1
more comprehensive, denoting any fitness or agreement of things, Hence Homer uses apîovia for the fitting of planks apo), to fit.
In
M. Anton.
Phil. 7, 4.
a.
iii.
Shakspeare, K. John,
sc. 3.
3 Par. Lost, 1, 34. Macbeth, a. ii. sc. 2. Milton, Par. Lost, 11, 489

178
in
[CHAP. VIII
1 a ship; and elsewhere for the compacts binding men together 8 And in the Homeric hvmn: which the Gods were called to witness. the Goddess Harmonia seems to represent the general fitness of thing!
Harmony, therefore, is improperly applied to th< in the universe.' degrees of a single quality, for instance Tone, which constitutes wha Mr. Steele and Mr. Mitford more properly call the " Melody o Speech;"* whilst the latter seems to mean by the " Harmony o
Language," a pleasing result of all its qualities judiciously combined Even this, however, is by no means what is meant by harmony ir its modern application to music; for in that art it signifies the fi adaptation of concurrent notes (that is tones) in different parts, of on< or more instruments or in voices of different pitch, with or withou And a: instruments and that in certain mathematical proportions. the musical acceptation of the term is so well and so generally known it would be advisable not to apply it in a different sense to speech whilst the term melody, as used by the two glossologists above mentioned, agrees well enough with the use of the same term ii music; and moreover answers to the terms fii\og and ivfiiXeia o 5 Dionysius of Halicarnassus. 235. In respect to time, the word Cadence has, I think, been in Cadence is used, ii judiciously adopted by some writers for rhythm. the standard works on music, to signify a certain progression o sounds at the end of a piece, without which the hearer would expe It is derived from the Latin oado rience a sense of incompleteness. to fall, and is alluded to in the beautiful speech of the enamoured l)uk<
:
Cadence.
to the musicians
That
!
strain again
it
had a dying fall!

violets,
it
came o
er
my
ear, like the sweet south,
That hreathcs upon a bank of Stalling and giving odour.'
Mr. Steele uses it as analogous in speech to a bar in music, which a measure of time; nevertheless he calls it emphatic, because, accord rinin. -<l by the arsis and thesis, the raising anc ing to him, it is lowering of the bend or foot, la betting time; the raising bcinj. Mr. Mitford, thoogj kenned by htm /////<', end the falling heavy.' he does not oanronnd cadence with emphasis, does with rhythm l'r^.;..," hi ItySi " which the Latins call Numeri, ma\ p.
i:
t<
'
r6fi(poiiri 8*
Upa
ri\v
y*
teal
hpnavlyaw Hpyptv.
Odyss. 5, 248.
'AAA' iyt Htvpo
0oiit iirtSfi*Oa, rbi
yip Hpurroit
Iliad, 22,
Mdprvpoi
tfftravrai *al
MtTKoiroi kpfioviawy.
954.
* 'Ai/rfyi i0rK6i(afxot x<fy><Ttr, *al it^>pov*t r Clpat,
'KpHoAr\ 9*,"H/3j t, Aibs Bvydrrjp r' HmuII. A|.m|.
'A<f>po6lrri
I'\ III.
ill'
I .
|L
II",. 'II.
i'.
1 1.
10.
'
I'll
\
ll.ii
1.
* Di-
t,
Shnkup-nri-,
Tw. nth Night,*.
I.
10, 14. m. 1.
Plwod, Ration, p. 24.
OilAP. VIII.]
its
OF ACCENT, QUANTITY, AND
F.MI'HASIS.
179
by the word And again, " Cadence is determined by the quantity of Cadence!' time employed in the pronunciation of syllables." This word having a distinct signification in the art of music, I think (as I said of harmony) it should not be applied, in a sense totally different, to speech. And generally speaking, as a thorough knowledge of any language cannot be obtained without attention as well to the tone, time, and
largest sense be most nearly expressed in English
1
force of its utterance, as to
its
articulations,
it
becomes necessary
that the terms used to express these qualities, and their respective
modifications, should be well defined,
and that they should not be
employed with a variety of

1
significations.
Harmony
of Language, pp. 10, 11.
180
CHAPTER
IX.
OF INTERJECTIONS.
Appiuation
>ri:iciple9
'
236. HAVING taken a general view of the various systems of speech, which, under the name of Languages, Dialects, and Idioms, it is the province of Glossology to examine and to compare, and having exelements, namely, Articulation, Accent, plained their material Quantity, and Emphasis, I proceed to inquire how mankind, in ages and countries near and remote, have applied to speech, so const ituted. Those principles, I have elsethe principles of universal grammar. where said, are developments of the idea of language (that is, ol
language considered universally) as " a signifying or showing forth But for the readier understanding of the disquisition! of the mind." about to be entered upon, it may be expedient to state more precisely the meaning here attached to the terms " Mind," and " signify ing 01
1
setting forth."
Mind.
1* This word is the Anglo First then, as to Mind. 7 mynde, which was no doubt taken from mente, the ablative of the Latin mens, and that probably from the same root as the Sanskrit men or man, explained by Wk.stki;<;aai:i>, putare, credere, opinari cogitare, meminisse, nosse, scire ;* and by SCHOEBEL, ptnser, reflcchir, mediter, se souvenir, croire, opiner, entendre:* ami a like variety ol well Latin, Italian, and significations is found in its derivative*, In Knglish, Spanish, as Ciothic, Genua, Swedish, Danish, &c. Johnson giVM six explanations of it as a substantive, and three M j mention two senses, one limited and the other compre1 shall Verb. hensive, which have aflbrded occasion to different grammatical systems
'
In
t,
.ill .tin.
.
the limited MUM, iiiind linn to frrlinij it

\
is
is
applied to the faculty of rWMOfl

the
in
<
0JM
(lis-
.Ii,
know,
j..\
reflect,
pi.
..
foresee,
which we pe|Vei\e, conjecture, judge bul QOl
power
>y
which u
used by
.in,-,
sun.
pain, or entertain
fear,
hope, desire,
it
it
aversion, or :m\ Other passion or emotion,

.Milton,
in this hunted sense
when be makes Satan say

1
What pow'r
:
l'i
of mind,
,l..|.lli
1.
thr
Of km
;.
Of
b
pNMBt, 00OM
1\
li'ar'd,
noted
I'm,
Aa atood
liko tlicao,
of gods, ho* could ever know
mutef
/
/,
I
>
licoa,
Snnak.
p,
192.
"
Analog, Conatlt.
p.
B8,

CHAP.
So,
IX.]
OF INTEBJECTIOH9.
181
tlie
when
Uriel speaks of the desire to know
works of God, he
adds
But what created mind can comprehend Their number, or the wisdom infinite That brought them forth ? Paradise Lost,
5|
more comprehensive sense, the word mind includes incorporeal faculties, and is used in simple contradistinction body. Thus Lear says When the mind's free,
in a
But
all
our
to the
The body's
delicate.
Shukspeare, Lear,
a.
iii.
sc. 4.
So Petruchio
For
'tis
the
mind that makes
the body rich. Shakspeare, Taming the Shrew,
a. iv. sc. Z.
And
Milton, in his pensive meditation speaks of
The immortal mind, that hath forsook Her mansion in this fteMy nook.
If
Penseroso, v. 91.
the narrower view of mind as the basis of grammar, we must found that science on logic exclusively ; that is to say, we must consider language as a signifying or showing forth, not of our whole
we adopt
but of a certain limited part only. In this cannot acquiesce for I understand by the ideal conception of language above stated a showing forth of the whole mind and I think a slight degree of observation and reflection will convince any one, that if we regard only our reasoning powers, we shall leave untouched a most important and interesting section of the philosophy of language. Moreover, in the greater part of life it is practically impossible to
internal consciousness,
view
separate the faculties of perceiving, distinguishing, and knowing, from those of loving, desiring, and enjoying, or their respective contraries.
They
act together, at the
scious being, in the closest
same moment, on the same individual, concommunion, mingling with and modifying
each other;
so that, except in the profoundest depths of scientific meditation, or in the unbridled passions that touch upon madness, it is difficult to estimate precisely the preponderance of thought or
any conscious state of the human mind. This difficultv will more obvious, when we reflect how shadowy is the line between the conscious and unconscious parts of our mental being. And here I must again advert to a remark in one of my earliest publications, which still appears to me pregnant with important consequences in the philosophy of mind, and consequently in the philosophy of language. I then said, the frame of the mind has a like unity and a like variety with that of the body. If any strict line of distinction could be drawn, one would suppose it might be between the fixed and the fleeting parts of our nature. In a general view, we can
feeling in
still
be
readily separate strong feelings, clear notions, marked events, from the thousand nameless affections, and vague opinions, and slight accidents, which pass by us like the idle wind. Yet even these latter are gradations in the ascent from nothingness to infinity ; th?se dreams,

182
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[CHAP. IX.
and shadows, and bubbles of our nature are a great part of its and gradually acquire essence and the chief portion of its harmony strength and firmness ; and pass, by no perceptible steps, into rooted It has been truly said, that habits and distinctive characteristics." " the unit of thought is a judgment ;" but our incorporeal being (to
;
feelings
say nothing of its spiritual character) includes not only thoughts but ; and the unit of feeling is an emotion. From what I have said, however, it will be obvious, that the unit of consciousness may not only be made up of both faculties in various proportions, but may be either well or ill defined. It may be a slight bias of opinion, or an
unalterable conviction of mathematical truth ; the fleeting shadow of a momentary wish, or the fixed resolution of a hero or a martyr. When once a thought or a feeling becomes a fact of consciousness (and not before), it may be shown forth by some external sign. 238. Now, these signs are various a gesture, a look, a frown, a Hence Homer smile, a sound of the voice, inarticulate or articulate.
Si?*
gives irrevocable force to the nod of Jove

. . . .
bv yhp
1/j.bv
TrdkivAsyptroVf ovS airaTijAov

8, ti
OW b.r*\t\rrnTOV y',
And
of
the effect of smiles
is
k(v Kt<pa\fj KaTavtvcrm.

Iliad, 1, 526.
For that can never be recalled, nor vain, Nor ineffectual, which my nod confirms.
my
admirably described old and dear friend, Charles Lamb
in the exquisite lines
Your smiles are winds, whose ways we cannot That vanish and return, we know not how,
trace,
And
please tho better from pensive l.ue, thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.
Sonnet
to
Miss Kelly.
Bat the vocal signs which constitute speech are far more complex in It is a common error to regard words alone as the only their nature. whereas the liner shades of consciousness vociil signs of the mind; frequently signified by the simpler :i in thought ami fiinihw A slight change in articulation, a variation <A' leiii nts of voice. more or n'ning or shortening of the time of utterance, U>\
11
less forcible
emphasis,
may
1
indicate! to the
hearer either a diversity of
filling
1.
a dillerenre in his thoughts. Still it is to be 11, the inhered that these sounds, whether simply elementary or com-
bined into words, are but material instruments which the mind They do not nprwmU the mind, as the picture of a man employs. they merely thmboM Its state ami acts; and this i-i-presenU a man not be one of feeling or of they iiniv equally do, irhetbaf the state whether the *i</n le a simple! elementary sound, or I tl,,, wool or words. 11. sounds it) riiinl'iiiat:
;
Ii
11
onuuuuiicut
289i
Of
the opposite grammatical
earns
which are built on the

I
limited and comprehensive significations oi the term mind, the former ut hi l' no plnlo npliieal analysis of lanjnia;^: mi.', that th'i"
1
I:
'
..ml Scenery,
v,,l.
ii
y.
.'!".l.

CHAP.
that
IX.]
is
OF INTERJECTIONS.
confined to
83
its expression of our thoughts, that is, to the Consequently, on this theory, sentences are only enunciatke, and interjections must be excluded from the parts of speech the latter system, on the contrary, extends its analysis to the whole actual state of the human mind, made up (as every one's daily experience shows that it is) of a complexity of thoughts and feelings, which we only distinguish as such by their relative preponderance. 240. Whether or not the word sentence be well chosen, as including Sentence, both enunciative and passionate forms of speech, (that is to say,
which
reasoning faculty.
other,)
from each worth while to dispute. Etymologically, it comprehends both, inasmuch as it is derived from the Latin sentio, which Juvenal, speaking of is primarily to feel, and secondarily to think.
expressions
it is
of thought and of feeling, as distinguished
scarcely
his notion of a great poet, says
Hunc, qualem nequeo monstrare,
et'sentio
tantum.
One whom
can't point out, but only feel. 1
Si judices the other hand, Euathlus argues against Protagoras " If the pro caustl me& senserint, nihil tibi ex sententia debebitur. judges decide in my favour, nothing will be due to you by their sentence." 2 But it must be confessed, that in modern usage, a sentence is more generally understood, both grammatically and judicially, to Still it may not imply an assertion, that is, an act of the judgment. be improper to distinguish between those sentences which are purely enunciative, and those in which the assertion is modified by an
On
emotion.
241. The nature of interjections must be considered more at large, Grammar, which proceeds by deduction from the principles first in the order of science, it is advisable to begin with those parts of speech which relate to the reasoning faculty ; and assuming a judgment or proposition as the unit of thought, to treat first of its necessary constituents, the noun and the verb, and then of their possible accessories, the preposition, conjunction, adverb, &c, and finally (if at all), to notice the interjection, as the exponent of the and this method I accordingly followed in my former sentient faculty Treatise. But as I am now to proceed by induction from the systems which have actually been adopted, as well in the most uncultivated as in the most refined nations, it seems proper to trace the grammatical principles in their natural development, beginning with the first articulate cries of the infant or the savage, and rising by imperceptible gradations to the finished productions of the orator or the poet. In this view, since our emotions precede our judgments, the interjection, instead of being the last object of examination, should first claim our and I therefore agree with M. de Brosses, " that among the notice eight parts of speech the first is not the noun substantive, as people commonly suppose, but the interjection, which expresses our sensaIn a treatise on Universal
; ;
interjections.
Satira, 7, v. 56.
Aul. Cell.
1.
5, c.
10.

184
tions."
1
OF IXTKRJECTIOXS.
[ciIAP. IX.
Defined.
M. Coukt de Gebelix has still more accurately distin" The grammarian" (says guished the place of this part of speech. he) "should place interjections last; but the etymologist should begin with them, because they (often) furnish the origin of words whose and they form an energetic source of language filiation he seeks without the knowledge of them he would make vain efforts to give his researches the depth and certainty which they ought to have."* 242. An interjection has been defined, "a part of speech, showing 8 forth a human feeling without asserting it," or rather, without asserting It is therefore no part of a proposition, it is no anything whatever. element of the unit of thought; but it does not follow from these premises that it may not have relation to thought, or that it may not
; ;
will illustrate
I even modify the proposition or propositions to which it relates. my meaning by two examples; first, the opening of Horace's pathetic ode
Eheu
fugaces,
Postume
Postume
Labuntur anni. 4
Horat. Carm.
1. ii.
14, 1.
only one proposition directly asserted, " that the years of our life flow on," labuntur anni, a truism which, if it stood alone, would certainly add but little even to our knowledge, and nothing at all to
Here
is
our feelings.
It
becomes somewhat more expressive when we join
the adjective fugaces, amounting to the implied proposition that our H are rapid in their flight; but when these propositions are intro-
duced by Eheu! they assume a degree of interest from the feelings of the jxjet; and when to this is added and repeated the vocative Postume ! Postume ! the force both of labuntur and of fugaces is doubly augmented, by their relation to the sorrow of the person so
tenderly addressed.
(piite
t
And
in
it
will be observed that these vocatives are
as
Interjections]
their
nature as the
word Eheu
for
they
nothing whatever, and form do part of any proposition. My other example is from Theognis
Zf v wdrnp, HO* ytvoiro
flo?s <pl\a.
it
Oh, Father J upitcr
w.ml.l that
wen- plotting to the godl!
Bera MbV
|.ui
'
expressive of wishing; it modifies it. verb yivoiro by causing it to nothing; and M Vbti nature posnUal " (saj s Hoogeveen) in theoptstive mood,
is
plainly
i yit
man
Interjection
nt opt. null
.
nodo
jun'.'atur."*
.NMtMiry.
have else where shown that interjections exist In the Hebrew and Greek, in the Latin and its derivatives, and in several langi shall presently show their use iii the inonoof German Origin; and
I
>
ariteti
In
lot Imii partial

-i"it
da Portiaon,
i "
Ii
noma
|i
di
oouno ob M
.
.1
11 i:t
.-
1
.
mail ot aont
.
i..
rab tantlrV nt ion1 pat mi

'
la
pra
hnant
wiiwitinn
ilu ili'lmm.
h'ttrmntiun
,,.
1
I
li.ni
n-
dot LftngUM, 1,901,

I
miit.l,
v,.|.
)..
1
tit,
Qtnm,
s.
408,
Po tomoj
10
'
I.V.
j..
'I'll.-
BtOtlt)
I).,.
tin,, PartiaO, od. Schlltz. d. i78,
871,
CHAP.
IX.]
OF INTERJECTIONS.
185
Tooqtun, Siam. and Burma; in numerous African, American, Polynesian, and Australian; and in the European tongues not previously specified, as the Swedish, Danish, Russian, Wallachian, Gaelic, &c., from all which an inductive proof may be fairly drawn, that the interjection, as above defined, is a part of speech essentially necessary to human language in
syllabic languages of China,
polysyllabic
tongues,
Asiatic,
general.
244. It has been known, indeed, by many different appellations. Appellations. first Greek grammarians called it 'Eiripprjfxa, thereby confounding it with the class of adverbs some authors, however, applied to it the more appropriate term of 'Eiritydeyfia (exclamation). The early Latin writers used the word Jnterjectio in a very different sense, applying it only to a short incidental reflection thrown in between the parts of a narrative; as when Cicero, relating the slaughter of Clodius by one of Milo's slaves, throws in the passing remark, that in defending their master they only did what every master would wish his slaves But Priscian, following some of his immediate predecessors, to do. 1 employed this word to designate a part of speech which is thrown in by way of exclamation, under the impulse of any passion of the mind. 2 The Welsh term Taflodiaid seems to be a mere translation of the Latin, from taflio, to throw. The German Zwischenwort seems to be meant for a translation of interjection, but Empjindungswort signifies a word of sentiment or feeling and the Danish Udra absord is literally " a word of exclamation." Either of the two latter would convey a tolerably accurate impression of the proper effect of this but it would scarcely prevail in Europe generally part of speech over the word interjection, which is so much more euphonious, and has been for several centuries adopted by most literary nations. 245. It is contended by some writers that there is a definable Relation to relation between certain affections of the mind and particular organs 0r8aus of speech. According to M. de Bhosses, " the voice of Pain strikes on the lower chords, it is lengthened out, aspirated, and deeply guttural. Where the mental pain is softened into Affliction, the voice becomes in some degree nasal. The voice of Surprise touches the vocal chord at a higher point it is free and rapid; that of Joy is
The
equally rapid,
and is less short. The voice of Disgust and Aversion is labial it strikes on the higher part of the vocal organ, at the end of the chord, and with a protrusion of the lips. The voice of Doubt and Dissent is nasal; the former being
it
is
often repeated,
the longer continued, the other short, and with a marked movement and generally the nasal sound expresses negation."3 The examples which the learned President cites in support of these statements are
1
Orat. pro Voces quae untur.

2 8
Fecerunt
id servi
Milonis
10.
quod
1.
suos quisque servos in
tali
re facere voluisset.
interjici-
Jlilone,
s.
cujuscunque passionis animi puisu per eselamationem
Priscian, Inst.
Gram.
15,
i.
c.
7.
Me'chanisme des Langues, torn.
pp. 203, 206.
[(SAP.
! !
186
OF INTERJECTIONS.
IX.
taken from the French, Latin, and Italian languages only, and are
therefore too few to afford a general induction applicable to
all
lan-
guages
deserve notice, as suggestions to future observers, in tracing the effect of the laws of mind on the vocal
;
but they
may
organization.
246. There are in most languages various modes of expressing the
by imperfect consonantal murmurs, A ah ha O oh ho thirdly, by certain syllabized sounds, combining the vowel with the consonantal, as Poh ! Pshaw ! Pape ! Euge ! Hem r dear ! Hei mihi fourthly, by some of the former joined to words, as Olpot ;-aXac Achich ungliicklicher ! fifthly, by abbreviated phrases, as Prithee ! abbreviated from " J pray tliee," Zounds ! from " by u per aidem Polluting or "me Deus Christ's loounds," jEdepol! from
feelings interjectionally;
such as h'm
! !
st
as
first,
secondly, by vowel articulations, as
"
Pollux adjuvet "

yes
!
and
sixthly, distinct verbs or nouns, as
hark
peace
lastly, entire phrases, as
Amabo
among
te
!" "
God
bless
pax ! me !"
" Vita
Deum
immortalium /"
Of
the
first class, I
scarcely rank such half-uttered sounds
have said I should parts of speech ;"' yet
them used by Terence and Cicero, and acknowledged at by some able grammarians. On the second, third, fourth, and fifth classes there can be no doubt. The sixth and Beventi Thus, Vossius says, often denied a place among interjections.
find
interjections
we
"there are other words, which, although they evince an

the mind, do not, however, belong to this class, as
interjections.
affection of
Gelius Calcagninus, 1. 2. But it is an

to
epist. 8,
malum ! which excludes from the number of

by
interposition, as
iiritpwyrjâ
Donatus
has noticed on several passages of Terence; and the same reasoning

applies
be, or
miserum!
infandutn!
nefas!
precise grammatical
function of an
iiruf>u>yt)fia
and others." 8 Whal the by interposition may

to
it
say; but
how tar it may differ from an interjection, I cannot pretend when any word showing forth an emotion of the mind, be
noun, verb, or other j>art of speech, is either thrown into a sentence, or placed at its i>eginnmg, more especially if nol connected with it think it may not, Improperly be called an interjection, grammatically,
I
t
is
in
(act
called
This
is
the doctrine of
by many grammarians, in different countries. PUNlAJr,' which he instances in the lint

t
Nnvilntx, infitiulum
amissis uniua
!
ol> iriim. 4
Our
ships,
monstrous
lout
through fault of :no.

it
allipticallVi as
where the verbal adjective, infcmdum, however put of i separate sentence, la here
dos interjectionally,
I
may be explained
in
fact
thrown
into
the prin
Priscian adds, that
"one
or
worth) ma> m ho applied, vol plures." peculiar to the Latin language, of which be treats; for Mr.
more"
Nor is this Mabsdkn,
Dt An, ,! ..-,;,,
ogali
I, ri
I
2.
\h.iii,
t.MMn-ri
ill
1 1 1
plans,
li";i.
Mint
Ht VirgiliuN,
I.IJU'I.I; m/,i;i./i/m / ]U'o illtii )
Melliilt.
CHAP.
IX.]
OF IXTEIUECTIOXS.
1S7
enumerating the Malayan interjections, observes, " that in some inthe exclamation itself consists of more than one word, as Hei-pada-hu ! woe is me !' Even where it is a single word in one language, the correspondent exclamation in another language often comprises several words as the Turkish interjection solah ! is expressed in French by attez-vous-en !* for as the feelings themselves have no distinct gradations, nor any positive separation from each other, so One person the modes of expressing them are purely arbitrary. breathes out his passion indistinctly ; another fashions its expression In one language a feeling is indicated by a into syllables and words. simple vowel; the same feeling is expanded by the idiom of another The examples language into a phrase or an insulated sentence. already given, and those which I shall presently adduce, will show how impossible it is to fix one and the same mode of expressing in More espeall languages any particular shade of emotion or passion. cially would the simple articulations be unfit for such a purpose, since in many languages they undergo various and even opposite changes
stances
;
of signification.
Hence Suidas and H. Stephanus give
to the
the effect of expressing admiration, consternation,
indignation,
Greek a and
and
commiseration, and of deterring, dissuading, reprehending, wishing, rejoicing. So Martinez says of the Spanish ah ! ay ! o ! that 8 they denote sorrow, joy, indignation, or astonishment. Nor must we
be surprised to find that Ciconio ascribes to the Italian ah ! and ahi the expression of more than twenty different affections ;* for the effect of an interjection depends far less on its articulations than on the " Their accents," tone, time, and force with which it is uttered. bays Priscian, speaking of interjections, " are not certain, for they are 4 And I have varied according to the nature of the feeling excited." heretofore observed, that a slight degree of elevation or depression, of length or shortness, of weakness or force, may indicate a marked difference in the emotion producing it a difference felt by infants long before they can distinguish articulate sounds and even by domestic animals, to whom articulation is an unfathomable mystery. 247. Some grammarians have reckoned among interjections certain imitative sounds sounds, articulate and inarticulate, which are merely intended as imirations of other sound?, not expressing any human passion or affection. These, however, do not fall under the proper definition of an interjection, though they may sometimes be introduced into discourse, as " If an interjection " (says Vossius) " be nouns, verbs, or the like. the sign of u mental affection, as Charisius admits it to be, the sounds produced by irrational animals cannot be reckoned in this class. Charisius, therefore, improperly enumerates under it frit, which in the ' Corollaria of Nsevius is meant to represent the squeak of a mouse.
'
3
s
2 Malay. Gram. p. 97. David's Gram. Turk. p. 110. 4 Gram. Espagn. Univ. Gram. s. 413. 177. Accentus (interj ctionum) non sunt certi quippe pro affectus commoti quanti.
tate cont'undaatur in eis (jnterjectionibus) accentus.
Priscian,
1.
15,
c.
7.
188
In the same light
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[cir.VP. IX.
tor the croaking of frogs
Classification.
consider {3ptKKi!-, used by Aristophanes and the like may be said of sounds caused by inanimate bodies, or even by mankind, when they have no distinct signification, and express no mental affection." So far Vossius but on this subject I shall speak at large in a future chapter. 248. As it is impossible to reduce the infinite variety of feelings, emotions, and passions, which affect mankind, to a strict and minute classification, so neither can the interjections which express those movements of the mind be minutely and strictly classified. Yet a general survey of the interjections and interjectional forms, in a variety of languages, will suffice to show that they have their source in feelings common to the whole human race. At the same time it will be seen, that if nouns and verbs are sometimes used interjectionally, simple interjections pass no less frequently into verbs or nouns, with long Bishop trains of derivatives, in the same or cognate languages. Wilkins' distinction of interjections into solitary and social will form the former being (as he a first step towards an arrangement of them explains them) those used by us when we are alone, or not directly In the first, the individual gives tending to discourse with others. forth a sound evincing some change in himself; in the other, he Even this primary designs to procure some mutation in his hearers." distinction, however, is not to be taken strictly, as if the same inter* jection, which we might utter in solitary pain, could not also be used so as to excite the sympathy of others; or as if the pleasant companionable laugh might not sometimes break out, in our moments til
:
we may
jo\ -fill recollection,

Solitary,
J.amiiii.
when
alone.
249. I have now to show that interjections of the several kinds above described are in fact to be found in languages the most unconI shall begin with those which the nected, locally and historically. good bishop calls solitary, and of which the earliest uttered express These gradually pass from simple articulations, more or less pain. accentuated, prolonged, and emphatic, BO distinct words single or comhave eUewhere instanced the Knglish Ah! Oh! bined. Of such Altai Welladay ! Woes me! the Scotch Waly, wily! War's my Wala ! Walaira ! the (iothic Wai! fieart ! the Anglo-Saxon Wa !
I
tli'*
Welsh Guxii!
the
(J
reek
Oum,
!
J, !,
7ru7T7rn, irawal,
tio
the
Latin
Ah!
!>/
:
<>li!
to!
i'
1
r<v !
i
Iwu
jxi/x; !
and the
Italian
.1//.'
n/ii
tntei
r'.<
1"
ii.it
French, At,'
it/
i
>h
ime character are to be found in every Thus we have bare been able to consult. l/<n! H&atl* In Spanish Ah! Ay I <>! Ahqut
I
l.v
'/MS
ill-
pena!
minis',
demh-chutlii do
mi!
!*
(>
Cielos!* in
I'or-
Mvn
/fros." in (ierman,
Ach!
Wfli! <iu!
A<l;
!
'
.
in
Danish,
!>
An! nk! o!
cUsWBtre
v
4
in
Swedish,
|>.
urk
Anil
177.
p
K.-.d
<
Clmni.t.T,
'" p<
i
:!0H.
ii.
'..mi d (mImIih, roll

'.
p, B
/..
|..
1U8.
"
U.iii.L. it.
CHAP.
IX.]
OF DTTERJECriOKS,
189
himmel
mo
mig /' in Gaelic, Och! och mo chreach ! ! ajda! tar! we 3 thruaidh!* in Russian, llvue ! Ach ! Ai! In Hebrew there are interjections answering to our 0! Alas! Woe!* in Arabic to Ah I
Ala*
I*
!
in
Persian to
0!
Alas!*
in
Turkish to
Oh! Ah! Alas!
(a hai, derigh, eivah, behei, ah, vai ! 7 ) in Armenian to Oh ! 8 in Sanscrit to Oh sad! alas! woe be to me! wretch that I am! 9 woe ! alas! ah! in the mixed Indian to Ah me! (hay ma!) xo in the Tamulic there are different interjections of weeping and grieving." 18 in the Annamitic of In Chinese Ee! and Oo-hoo! express grief; Tonquin and Cochin China, Thu ung-he ! Kho-he ! cha-oi! and hi-oi 12 express grief, and ho-i-heu-heu ! lamentation; 13 in the Thai language of Siam we find no less than six interjections described as exclamatio
Woe
doloris
o infortunium
o cor
meum
o miseria
o instabilitas
rerum P4
Burman language we find an interjection answering to our Oh! and two others expressing pain and anguish. 14 In Japanese, aware marks grief, aware moutsoukasii io no naka kana ! (literallv, Oh
in
the
!) ha! aa! regret or repentance hat ! fear;sara! sometimes pain. 16 In Hungarian we have yai! ah! yai nikem szegenyiiek ! Oh wretched me Hai, hai ! alas Yai szegeny ! Oh miserable! 17 In the Tscheremissian (a Finnish or Tschudish tongue), we find for pain and grief, Oi! Ai! Ai, ai! Oi, oi! and for terror, Ui! ai!' 8 In the Syryaenian (a kindred dialect), the interjection of 19 pain is Oi! oi! In the Greenland tongue we find A! Oh! Ahasik! O lamentable! 40 In the Lapponic, Woi! Oi, oi! Ai, ayai! iX and in the Malayan, Adoh! Adolic ! ah! alas! Hex! alas! Heipadehu!
world full of trouble
Woe
is me Weh ! alas !** In the Tonga language, Seeoohe Seeookele ! Oiaoo ! Oiaooe ! express pain or distress.*3 In the Otaheitan, Aoue expresses pain.* In the South Australian, Yakka alya! Oh dear! a In Coptic, Ouoi! alas! Woe to me! O! oh! 88 In the Wolof language, Ohi man,! alas! Oulai! Alas! Oh! oh! Eh! ah!*7 In the
!
Sechuana, Yoa ! What grief it is 28 In the Lenni Lenape (North American) the exclamations of sorrow are Jhik! hd! lhi! Auicik! Ekih ! Iuh ! i9 In the Cree language, PittaOe ! Would that 30 In the Dakota (language of the Sioux), Yung is an interjection of pain. 31 In the Kiriri (South American), are Aga! Aganori! Ah! alas! Bo! oh! He! ah! Ache! oh! Hombro! alas! Yahe! Osad! 38 250. It is not to be understood, that the interjections here enu-'oiuot. merited are all confined to the expression of pain. Where the com- 0chhone;
J i
fl
Seranius and Kraak, ad voces. * Lee, pp. 382, 383. Heard, p. 275. 7 Davids, Moises, ad voces. p. 110. 9 I0 Yates, p. 250. Lebedeff, p. 58.
3
*
9
Shaw's Analysis,
8
,l
12
is
Marshman,
p.
497.
13
l8
De Rhodes,
p. 27.
M
,7
p. 85. Richardson, 157, 166. Aucher, p. 119. Ziegenbalg, p. 114.
Pallegoix,~p. 57.
18
21
Carev, 177. 58. Carsten, Tscher. 58.
8i 27 30
Pariz Papai, ad voces. 19 * Kleinschmidt, 166. 2 23 Ganander, Gram. * Marsden, p. 97. Mariner, vol. ii. p. 369 2" Buschmann, p. 103. Teichelmann, Vocab. 1. Tattam, 123. a 29 Zeisberrer, Roger, 115, 116. Archbell, 81. 247. 31 3Howse, 291. Smithson, Contributions, vol. iv. Gabeleatx, p. 59.
Landresse, 88. Carsten, Syryam. 116.
"
190
OF INTERJECTIONS.

[CHAP. IX.
ponent articulations are few and simple, the flexibility of the vocal organs easily adapts each particular combination to the expression of very various emotions, as I instanced above in the Greek a, the Spanish Ah! Ay! 0! and the Italian Ah! and AMI But where the articulations are more complex, it will generally be found that the Thus the Greek 61 is feeling is directed to some one definite object. said to be dlvpopivwv kirityBrypa, an exclamation of mere grief or pain (without mention of self) ; but oipoi is suggested by the learned Vigeu to be compounded of this exclamation and the dative pronoun 1 So the Gaelic Och ! becomes more definite in Och hone a rie! fxU. Alas for the prince or chief! in my lamented friend Sir Walter
!
Scott's early
poem of "
The
Glenfinlas?
is
Och hone arte! Och hone a rie!

pride of Albin's line
ne'er shall see
o'er,
And
fall'n
Glenartney's stateliest tree.
We
The word hone
is
Lord Ronald more
evidently connected with the Anglo-Saxon lionyian, and Gothic hunyian. Lye says, " to hone after a thing" is " anxie rem aliquam appetere," to desire anxiously to obtain it ; " agi desiderio
alicujus rei," to be actuated
it is
by grief for its loss. In this latter sense used in Glenfinlas, answering to the desiderium of Horace
Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus. Tarn cari capitis
!
Herat. Carm.
24.
In the other sense it is used by Ulfilas in the Gospel,* " I/iraiva aglu ist thaim hunyandam afar fathu I* " How hard it is for them who anxiously desire to obtain riches!" (which in our translation is less Lye says, the word accurately rendered " that trust in riches.") hone is very commonly used in Devonshire; Bfid G&08I savs to hoe after a thing is to long for it, in the Berkshire dialect.
ftp*
251. The words Pope! Papa;! Ilo7rai, ITotto/, seem to be connected, and to have been used interjectionally, with various oilect, in
Dante commences the Italian, Latin, and Greek lai seventh Canto of the " Inferno" with this exclamation S.itnn, pape! Sntnn alepe
.'
his
Coniinix') I'lutull 008 ll fOOI

Iii
<
him via.
Latin
it
expressed wonder
Eoquid boo
to ? M>nc ?
Papa t
mira subito accipiontis ;" and " Admiranti i Interjectio, habet enim, in m It is, bowever, admitted to be the Greek aiTectum rerbl miror." irwrnl, whieh is manifestly used by SOPHOCLES as an exclamation of
sayH,
Interjectio
i:.
Donatus
"/',;//
mi.i-iiwus says,
pain
liana, wawa, irawu, iranii wairai.*
Ex
41
tt datite ^"1 ooaflataai

lin<i(*tv.
I)o
i!4.
aaron dotatL idrnrbhua Uftn

p,
imdi
4 vorbum
i*iiii..
,
MiotUmi-.
i"
Mam,
Tan
:, <ih.
Phil

CHAP. IX.]
OF INTERJECTIONS.
191
H. Stephanus says it is synonymous with /3a/W, an adverb of wonder and it is remarkable that fiafiai in Romaic, and Bobo in Albanian, are rendered by Colonel Leake " Indeed!" Perhaps the
:
origin of itu-irai
may be found
in ttottoi,
which
is
often used
by
Homer
'Cl 7r<foroi, t) fxlya.
irevQos 'AâfiSa yaiav i/caeci. terrain invadit. 1
Dii, certe
magnus luctus Achivam
*X1 tt6itoi, oTov St)
vv Otovs fipOTol aiTi6wvTat.

!
Papas
ut scilicet Deos mortales culpant
In both which instances,

tion, or reprobation, is
this
word
ttottoi
;
it is clear, that a strong feeling of dissatisfacintended to be expressed. Plutarch saws that signified in the language of the Dryopians the same
it was originally an invocation of the minor used by Euripides as an exclamation of pleased admiration, which the Cyclops utters when he has tasted the wine
as
daifiovec
if so,
deities.
We
find it
IIa7rol, co<p6u
ye rb {uAoe
is
ttjs afiirt\ov.
Aha
clever indeed
the
wood of the
vine ! 8
The
to
TTvn
:
effect
'lUv
of IIa7rat I have here rendered Aha ! as answering nearly inthe Septuagint. 'H3u fioi on IQepnavQr^v, koX ilZov which is given in our translation, " Aha I am warm. I have
fiot,
!
seen the fire." 1 Again, with the intensive termination a, (as in the Latin evax, audax,ferax, &c.) we find IlaTnraiaZ uttered by Silenus, as delighted with the very smell of the wine
irairai&|, iis Ka\r)v ocr/x^y
?X e ''
has
s
!
Ahaha
what a
delicious smell
it
The English
interjection, Pah ! as used by Shakspeare, seems to be of a different origin, and expresses only disgust
Lear.
Fie, fie,
fie
Pah !
Pah 1
Give
me an
ounce of
civet,
good
apothecary, to sweeten
my
imagination.
Shakspeare, K. Lear,
a. iv. sc. 6.
252. From interjections primarily expressing the painful feelings of Solitary, the individual, I turn to those which primarily indicate pleasurable P leasaut emotions, but still without necessary reference to other persons. Of these I formerly noticed the Greek llye and the Latin euge ! Similar emotions, but infinitely varied by circumstances, find expression in
,
most languages, and in very different modes. Sometimes they indicate delight in a particular object, sometimes a general feeling of pleasure, sometimes joyful surprise, or admiration, or eager desire. And again, they are either uttered in mere articulations, or expanded into words
and phrases.
admiration,
Thus we
and Ach
!
find the
surprise often
Dutch hei or hey mixed with

Juchheisa!
3
6
shows pleased
pleasure. 6
;
The
and
of
German Ah
Heida!
1
Aha ! show joy,

Juch
!
admiration, surprise, contentment
Heisa!
254.
Juchhei!
various degrees
Iliad, 1,
* Odyss. 1, 32.
5
Isaiah xliv. 16.
Eurip. Cycl. v. 153.
Euripides, Cyclops, v. 569. Marin, ad voces.
192
mirth, joy, or exultation.
joy.
4
1
OF INTERJECTIONS.
jYiiAP. IX.
The Swedish
;
glddje
Lustig
express
In Greek d, with the rough breathing (pronounced ha!) and circumflected, expresses admiration with the smooth breathing and
circumflex accent,
it
expresses desire.
'low expresses delight
;'
as does
expressed also in Greek by tide, and 6 and in Latin by Utinam ! utinam F In French, at yap si ! lou I is a cry of joy 8 and in rustic discourse, gay ." and mixed with some admiration Aga ." Hi! Hi! Hi! both in French and German indicate a slight or suppressed laughter." In Spanish we
the Latin evax
,
/'
Desire
is
In Portuguese, to the same que gozo ! li ah, what pleasure Oh, que gosto l u In Italian, Dello! Che gioja! Che piacere ! l * In Gaelic, Oh ! Ho ! express admiration, and nach answers to the 6 xb Latin utinam ! In Welch Wi! signifies approbation.' In Russian, Ah ! Iia ! Oopa ! express joy. 17 In Hebrew there are interjections answering to Oh happy ! and to aha ! when expressing pleasure. 18 In Arabic to Voy well ! Charming ! Very fine ! It goes well /' In Very fine!* In Armenian, to Oh Turkish, to Well! Cliarming ! In Sanskrit there are joy I Well, well ! Would to God it may be M In the mixed interjections of gladness, of laughter, Oh brave! &c. 88 In Chinese, Indian (or Moors), of admiration, of joy, laughter, &C.
have
Ay
effect,
tsai expresses admiration generally as To-tsai! great indeed!*
In (he
In Tamnlic there are interjections of approving and admiring.* Annamitic, Mang-he ! is an interjection of joy.** In Siamese there are In Burman, of pleasing interjections of admiration and of joyfulness." surprise. 88 In Japanese, admiration is expressed by Satesate! Satemo! ad pleasure sometimes by Sara!" In Hungarian, Vaja! Oha!
80 In the Tacheremissian, Oo! answer to Utinam! and Jool! to Bene. Aa! express admiration, Xa xa! and A7 xi! laughter. 81 In the 8i In the Syryi'iiian, El Ei! express admiration, and Cliee! joy. 88 In the Tongan, lot Malayan, Baik! Saba! express well! good! is
well!
8*
(looa
lille !
Very well!
Ojt-l>e!
Oh
that!
Shook*
ad*
South Australian, Payat expresses astonishment 8 In and admiration, and Paitya heightens the impression.* the " Wblof, Boo&HM hi! ! marks approbation, literally " it is ven good I" 7 In theiorubat In the Sechnana, Baaul oxproaooa admiration/' and in the Haussa, (a cognate dialect,) a woid of approbation
miration.
In
tin-
ad vocaa.
c.
lrt, .
!-.
''
a SuiJns, v. 1.
r
|>.
1.
* II. 1.
1.
]..
EKapnan, ad voc.
2, n.
1
Hoogor,
&
"
q.
Mottfcra,
1.'.
Staphan. ad
p.
i,
Mil. 1,
p,
s.').
1.
'"I
''
'"
i'i-ouk,
,1
Hilpart.
Marfan,
sIimw,
Lat,
..
177.
Vim,
Riohud
120.
p,
u
'
p.
K)9.
p.
ii.
..i, p. '.:7:t.
"
848.
"
Richardson,
L58, &0.
110.
I.rl-.|-il,
]..
bhar, p. 119.
** Yal
ibalg, p.
.'.H.
HI.
l>
.
hraan.
p.
87. hh.
n
"Pall
116.
-'
177.
"*
Mai kJcn, p. 97.

Kojfcr,
j.
Marina
nball, p. Bl.
v'i74.
U-.

CHAP.
the
IX.]
effect is
given to
OF INTERJECTIONS.
193
In the Lenni Lenape, the exclaYu ! Anischik ! Quek ! and those of
same
YoP
mations of joy are Ho ! Hohok ! admiration are Ekayah ! Hoh ! Quatschee ! Ehee 1 Ekisah !* In the Cree language, Keeam expresses admiration, Hi ! pleasure, Attatepun ! I am glad of it Pittane I Would that Papeyway I Good luck 3 254. On a few of these interjections it may be worth while to 'ioi>. make remark. In the Greek drama of the ' Cyclops,' Euripides Uge Q makes the Chorus thus express their delight, on hearing the plan of Ulysses to blind Polyphemus
! ! ! '
'
'lov, 'low, ytyrjOa.*
Strepsiades expresses delighted

is
to
be called 'AXtKrpvaiva
admiration on learning that a hen

vi)
'A\fKTpvcutiav; E&ye,
rhv
de'po.*
So, in Latin, old Demca, casting off the surliness which had rendered him odious, is delighted to find himself addressed in terms of affection
Euge ! jam
lepidus vocor
"
!
Stalino, delighted to get hold of the supposed Casina, in the absence of his wife, exclaims
Evaxl
Nunc
pol, ego
demiim sum
liber
7
'
The
French song cited by Alceste, in the anthrope,' thus expresses his delight in his mistress
If King reply
rustic lover, in the old
Mis
would
Henry were
to offer
me
his
good city of Paris to give her up r'
J'aime mieux
ma
'Mie, oh
gay 1
This exclamation, Oh gay ! seems to be the origin of Aga ! a rustic word used in some parts of France, and even in Paris, by the lower classes, in calling for admiration. " N'ai-je pas bonne mine ? Aga /"" And perhaps the latter may lead us to the verb agacer, and the substantive agaceries
Elle est toujours
autourde
lui a
I' agacer.
10
Agaceries soins de
plaire affecte's, souris, minauderies. 11
This etymology is at least more plausible than that of Menage, who derives agacer from a Latin word, acax, of his own coining. 255. Desire, in its various degrees of emotion, contemplating future n or possible pleasure, is shown by such expressions as Oh si! gin' ! 'EiyaL, &<= utinam! 'Elde,'El yap, &c.
.
.
! si
angulus
iste
!
Proximus accedat, qui nunc denormat agellum

1
'
8
5
Crowther, ad voces. Howse, pp. 34, 243. Aristoph. Nubes, v. 66T.

Plautus, Casina, 4, 4, 13.
'
11
Leroux, ad vocem. Campistron.
247, 248 463. Terent. Adelph. 5, 7, 3. 8 Moliere, Misanthr. a. i. sc. 3. Moliere, Fest. de Pierre. i* Horat. Satir. 2, 6, 8.
Zeisberger, * Cyclops, v.
0-1
19 4
OF IXTERJECTIOXS.
gin my luve were yon red rose That grows upon the castle wa'
l
!
[CHAP.
IX.
ittinam turn, cum Obrutus insanis esset adulter aquis
Laceda:mona
classe petebat
s
!
"ft
yepov tW, us Bv/ibs

yovvaff eiroiro.
6"
ivl ffr^faaai <pi\oi<riv,
"O.S tol
Et yap 'Aiylff6a>,
duov.*
Homer
with the same effect uses A1 yap, in the Doric dialect,

icai "AitoAAoj', 'Puyap, ZfC re irdrep, Kat "AflWl. 'Axaiwv. Totodrot Seica /xoi (rv^piôvts thy
>
,3i,,,ul -
Hoogeveex that l\ or <u In the two last cases it is suggested by 8 of the wish ; but at all events signifies the wish, and yap the cause phrase. the combination forms an interjectional It will of course 256. Let us now turn to the social exclamations. have considered as solitary, may happen that many of those which I other persons, and even with i also be uttered in the presence of mdignataon, their minds with feelings of pity, direct wish to impress and to be discussed must be, iov, or the like: but the class now The shriek or groan of agony, are, directed to some such end. always or in the in total sohtnd bodily or mental, may be forced from us are exclamations angry hearing of surrounding multitudes; but there to the feehngs ol our feUowor tender, which can only be addressed their those which show ^pleasure at Let us first consider beings. faugh! as in English, Fw conduct, or aversion to their persons;
,
Avaunt! Pshaw! Pish! Tush! Tut! Harrow! Goto! Sjaml &c. In Scotch, ! Aroynttlve! Of! Away with thee W* In Anglo-Saxon, Toy! In Gotfuc, .oorth you! Hout! h Swedish, Fi! Pfuil In Danish,^ / Vee In German, thus! T E t icopaicac. W Apo,'. Bart! Fy sham! We dig! In Greek, ^, nltal.an malum rem ! Eja! Shot Vatibi! Apage ! Alnin Latin, In A has! Hah In French, h! horn!
Foh> Pah!
Poll!
Oibo! Oitu! Oisl! Via!
Smniah Ah' Ay! 0!
In lWiu./...-. //to/
.MWa/
Fora.'
Omn!
inter
il
Aattw^Ffwrdd!
Aha! Mowirort!
t
I
Wft! Wh>
,// In Turkish.
-w
In
^c Mularhd dho!
llylMvwthe.v are
/-''"//
.
Hah!
x
In Ruiian,
r
7i/r.'
In
-"<'
/Ao
ol of
'
to
;;
u>(.rt. y,,u ,,,.
r
.
r
/
Woe
be to
you/
IIV,/,/,
pm aw/
-'onteinp
disbeliel
[ Sanskrit
[
.h-r- an- -v-uil

..f
-xpnûns
In
PWN 0ôf aM* am

''"'.'f
I
n mix.Ml Indian,
l
disdain.
Tamulio,
'
and
0(
fcKfig
<l,inese,of anger and
contain,,.,
fo Aju>amitic,
.1
con*
and
, te
.
,,
In
Siamese
In
iuppUca&m,
of fear
Mt
,,,.,.
,.,.,.,;
Japanese,
In Malayan
<"'
""tgP^J
roeaive of
Out! Wottotiml VarbtU! disgust, anger, rati

I
/WW.
^"
II,.,,,,, II.
'Z,
370
Do,tn,a
I. i,,.
16,8,1.

CHAP.
IX.
i

OF INTERJECTIONS.
195
of my
In South Australian, of aversion and disagreeableness, ! In Wolof, answering to the French Fi! Fi done! Va t'en! In Yoruban, Sai is a word of defiance, and Bo ! of contempt In
sight
Be of!
Lenni Lenape the interjections of indignation, &c., Mskelendam! Ekisch! In Cree, Wa! is applied
are
Sa ! Gissam !
words
to several
forming interjections, or interjectional phrases of displeasure, as Wa!-keetim-it! How lazy he is! Wa !-keit-apitch-eun! How long thou hast been absent! In Dakotan, Liocheat! disbelief
Fudge!
It
is
needless to repeat the
names of the authors who
mention interjections of this class, since they are the same which have been already quoted in the notes, with reference to the preceding classes. I proceed to remark on some of the words just noted. 2.">7. Few words in any language more obviously deserve the title of interjection than yet Mr. Tooke ranks fie ! does in English it among adverbs It is certainly connected with the Gothic verb fiyan, Anglo-Saxon feogan, fean, fian, Frankish and Alemannic fieri, figen, all which signify to hate. Probably the verb was formed from the exclamation, of which Wachter gives the following account: " 7*V, interjectio aversantis apud Saxones inferiores et Gallos hodiernos, sicut apud latinos fit. Germani superiores dievmt phui et pfui. Gneci 6ev, a flatu contra putidum." And this is manifestly connected with the French puer, and Latin putor. R. Stephanus explains the Latin fue "interjectio ructum exprimentis" (see Plautus, Most. 1, The Greek <j>?v sometimes expresses sorrow, and in this sense 37). probably was the same as the Latin elieu ! Thus Xenophon says, <ptv
;
!
Fie!
t^v^q both relating to persons dead and (f>ei> tov avlpog Sophocles says, 0tu TaXag, heu, me, miserum! The same interjection is also used to express admiration ; as by Aristophanes, <f>tv,
;
w ayadt)
piy
that
ivopio
<j)ed
BovXevp iv opvidwv ytvet 1
where the
(f>tv,
j)
scholiast observes
admiration.
expresses complaint or indignation, but here So, in Latin, phy is an interjection of admiration (see Terence, Adelph. 3, 3, 59). With the verb fian are connected feide,
commonly
odium, and feind, hostis. Feide or Fede is explained by Wachter " inimicitia aperta, persecutio, vindicta. Anglo-Saxon fcedo, Island. fad, Latino-barbaris faida and feida, Belgis veede, Anglis feud."
Thus
in the
Lombard Laws
(lib.
" faida,
1,
tit.
7,
art.
&
id
est inimicitia."
From faida was formed
15), we find the barbarous
Latin diffidare, which is the origin of the French de'fier, and of our verb to defy. The modern German fehde, the Low-Saxon veide, and the Danish feide, all express enmity. Feind, hostis, an enemy, is properly, says Adelung, the participle of the old verb fian, to hate. This word is written by Ulfilas /and, by Kero and Ottfried by
Willeram
in
fiant,
vient, in
Danish fiende, in
it
Anglo-Saxon feond, fynd, in Lower-Saxon fijnd, Swedish fiende, in Icelandic fiande ; and in many
of those dialects
cation of an
enemy
receives, like the English fiend, the particular signifito the soul, an evil spirit. So, in old English
1
Aves, v. 162.

196
He
OF INTERJECTIONS.

[CHAP. IX.
The small fendes that bueth nout stronge shulen among men gonge.
Christ's Descent into Hell.
In the Scottish dialect, the
word fient,
the Devil,
is
jocularly
employed
as a sort of adverb, answering to our colloquial use of phrases such as
" the devil a bit," &c.
When
I look'd to
my
dart,
It
was
sae blunt,
Fient haet o't wad hae pierc'd the heart 0' a kail-runt.
Bums.
Idem.
They
loiter,
lounging, lank and lazy,

ails
Tho' deil haet
them, yet uneasy.
and faugh ! and they all three express various modifications of dislike. Thus the French fi done ! is a slight and often a sportive reproof, while the English foh ! " is, as Dr. Johnson says, " an interjection of abhorrence
Fie
is
also related to the interjections
foh
Foh! one may
smell, in such, a will
most rank,
Shakspeare.
Foul disproportions, thoughts unnatural.
Both foh
and faugh ! are connected with the Anglo-Saxon fah and English foe, an enemy but this circumstance has led Dr. Johnson He says foh is from the into an error in grammatical reasoning. Saxon word fah, an enemy, "as if one should, at sight of anything
!
:
This supposes the conception of an enemy to hated, cry out a foe .'" be prior to the more general emotion of dislike, or at least to liave
received a
name
before the other had been expressed

is
by a sound.
Now
the contrary
so obviously probable, I had almost said so
necessarily true, that

ciples of rational
it must be taken as resulting from the first prinetymology. From faugh and fah the transition is easy to pah and bah ! and ba ! Pah, as used by Lear, has been already mentioned. The French bah ! answers to the Latin ba ! described by R. Stephanus as lutrr-
jectio aversantis
Bal
Nequc
hercle
I
istud dico, noc
dictum volo
Plautus, Asin. 1, 1, 24.
With foh! (! GeMliD

/
'
too, the
(v. 2. p.
French foin! seems to be connected; for Court 367) states it t<> l>e nearly of the same ellect a*
ongi
<i';iv.iir
in
expressing disgust or indignation

PbfcJ ''
i.
mi otqo'oa
nibnl
Soarron.
exclamation of the vulgar nations of danger, terror, or alarm: as when the clerk John's
1
uses harrow! as a
common
horae
ia let
loote
John p'th out, mid I'ynt his horn nway, An. I Kn to cry harrow! mid wclc uwiiy 1
So,
wlun
the
wnlnw saw
the fox running
away with
t
the cock
Sh cryd out harrow 1 and wol away

CHAP.
So,
1X.J
OF INTERJECTIONS.
the miller's wife unintentionally hits
197
when
him "on the

!
pilled
skull
"
Down
he goeth, and crieth harrowe I
I die
So, in the Proves of the Sevyn Sages, v.
477
;
With both honden here yaulew here Out of the tresses sche hit tere
And And
It is
sche to-cragged hire visage gradde harow ! with gret rage.
probable that this exclamation was brought by our Norman In the old Coustumier of Normandy haro ! or harou ! is the cry of the country for the pursuit of felons, or other demand of justice.
ancestors from France.
Denyaldus,
in his Rollo
Normanicus, interprets
it
as
ha
Rami
for-
a cry addressed to Rollo,
Duke of Normandy, whose name was
midable to all evil-doers. This is what we now call the hue and cry, from the French huer, to hiss or hoot; in the Statute of Westminster, a.d. 1272, it is termed crie de pays (see the ingenious remarks of the Hon. Daines Barrington on the Statutes), and in the Statute of Winchester, 1285, heu e cri. Other etymologists may perhaps prefer the derivation of this word from the adjective horowe, used in old English for filthy, odious ; in Anglo-Saxon, horu, horuwe ; from the Icelandic hor, mueor ; probably not unconnected with the Latin horreo : And thei wer noughtie, foule, and horowe. Chaucer.
Sometime envious
folke
with tonges horowe.
Idem.
may, the interjection harrow, although its origin is involved in some obscurity, was evidently used to denote a strong feeling of horror, or a want of help, in which latter sense it would
this as
it
Be
nearly resemble the invocations for help,
common
!
in old
poetry
God
help Tristrem, the knighte
He
faught for Yngland

!
Sir Tristrem.
quhare is the wynd suld blowe Me to the port quhare gyneth all my game ? Help Calyope ! and wynd in Marye name.
empti
saile
The King's Quair.
The clamour of the Jewish populace against our blessed *Apo T Away W1 'Apov, Apov which is rendered in our translation by the interjectional phrase, " Away with him away with him !" may
259. Saviour
properly be called an interjection, though it is in origin an imperative mood. The same may be said of the expressions of Philoctetes, T 0\w\a, and 'AttoXwXci (v. 749 and 752), which differ but little from the vulgar Irish exclamation, " I'm kill't !" ?Apov, T Apov, may
be compared,
in point of
grammatical form, to the expressions so
common in popular meetings, Off! off! Down! down! " Away with him !" may in like manner be compared to
" Out upon
it!"
&c.
And
the phrase

198
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[CHAP.
IX-
Sky. My own
Sail.
flesh
and blood to rebel

Shakspeare, Merch. Ven.
a.
iii.
Out upon
it! old Carrion!

sc. 1.
the interjections indicating slighter emotions of displeasure toward other persons, some express contemptuous expostu! some indicate the trivial nature of the subject, as some show a degree of vexation in the mind of the speaker, as pshaw ! some denote the absurdity of the thing in question, as the English tut ! and tush ! the Latin vah ! the French bah ! and the Scottish hout ! whilst others mark in the speaker a certain feeling of disgust or weariness, as the English humph! the French ouf ! &c, Tooke ranks pritJiee among adverbs. Johnson does not decide what part of speech it is, but merely terms it " a familiar corruption of pray thee ! or I pray thee /" Now this corruption, as he calls it,
260.
Among
lation, as prithee
!
pish
the natural consequence of impetuous feeling, which, in its haste, condenses a complete sentence into a single word; and such a word The learned is grammatically and properly called an interjection. Doctor, however, is right in remarking that pritliee is injudiciously used by some tragic writers, as it certainly is, in the passage which he
is
cites
Alas
why
To shock the peace Away, Iprit/we !
com'st thou at this dreadful moment, of my departing soul ?
leave me
Row c
is
For the passion here meant
to
be shown
sad and solemn, and would
naturally deliver its expressions slowly, deliberately,
and
at full length.
On
the other hand, the shortened
interjection
suits well
with the
Jmllnn, reprimand of Celia to Rosalind
Cry
holla
to
thy tongue,
prithee ! it curvets very unreasonably. Shakspeare, As You Like It, u. iii. se.
_'.
261. Amonc and friendship, of respect, salutation, and admiration, of encouragement and applause, will be found U> be expressed by most nations in interjc-etions or In Knv.lish we have Welcome! InterjeCtional forms. Hip! Hurrah! well! Hail! (ireetiin/ ! /fear! Well dour In 'eh, Leeze me! In German, Ha! or Sa! marks active joj
pleasurable emotions of a social nature those of love
' ;
//
'
|g
poetir.illv
'.
vised as a salutation of veneration;
so they say
Lebe
use
wohl
Willhammcn!
\r/, !
tin*
Latin Vivat! as
Gut! we do the
Italian
Aelt
!
Trefflkh! Hussah! and they llravo! In Hutch, llei!

to
ud mi ration;
is!
I
'
M
ire
how
//
|
beautiful
i
she
Ztgm answers
\iinr
!
wat is zy sc/ioon our Greetin /!

;
Ah!
They
Welli'imiif
irel !
(ioeden
t/,ii/ /
&c.
The
!
Ciothic
I\tr
'
lit'
In
Xu!
a iaiwl.
Yelliomst!
Lei) eel!
Del!
I
Swedish,
!
Hum!
In
' I
Will
</i<>nl/ !
Waelkomme.u
In
!
Farwael!
'..#.'
In 'ireek, \n't[,
iv, Ctirti,
Italian,
lee
t
Latin,
Salvn
I
!
,
Vain
I'vox!
In
/leiieeniitn
<
Ail, I'm!
Ehol BrtKo!
Am!
Ill
'ininn/e
I
In
Spanish,
Ay!
I
I'm!
/>,';.'.
I',
.i
ii-ll. <,
Hi
i/ue ,/ns/n!
Ainnf!
OF INTERJECTION'S.
!!
CHAP.
IX.
199
In Welsh, Da ! (Good !) Ah da ! Croesaw ! (Welcome !) Ymadawiad! In Gaelic, Oh! (Farewell!) Ha) (Well done!) Wil (0 brave!) Ho! (admiration;) Slan hat! (Farewell!) Failteach! (Welcome!) Oora ! (Hurrah !) Noo In Russian, Prostschaite ! (Farewell !) In Hebrew there are interjections answerNooje ! (encouragement). Farewell In Arabic, to Welcome Well done ing to Rejoice
!
Well done
for
In Maltese, Tayyeb
(Good
!)
is
used interjectionally
Peuh
1 In Turkish, Aferin! expresses approbation, and approbation. In Sechuana, Haiyah ! haiyah ! is a shout ! peuh ! admiration.
The Sanskrit has an interjection of of congratulation and triumph.* affection. In Hindoostanee several expressions answer to toelcome, In Siamese there are interjections of and several to farewell? In In Chinese, of applauding. approving, admiring, and applauding. Hungarian, farewell is expressed by Men hozzad, a literal translation of adieu from hozad (to) and Men (God), and Yool! expresses approbation.
In Malayan,
!
Ayu ! marks
!
affection,
and Sabas
!
approbation.
In Tongan, Malo
is
a term of salutation, good wishes, and approbation,

!
Chiodofa ! is a answering to welcome well done well said &c. Gova lille ! very well. In Otaterm of affection and endearment Mama haou ! to good day heitan, Io nei oe ! answers to farewell In Wolof, Yoruba, and Houssa, expressions of approval and admira4 In Lenni Lenape there are interjections of tion are mentioned above. blandishment, approbation, and admiration. 262. The three first examples of the class above mentioned are Welcome uniformly reckoned by lexicographers among interjections, and properly so, because each of them falls within the definition before given of that part of speech, each shows forth a human feeling, and neither of Nor can it be said that they the three asserts anything whatever. are propositions elliptically expressed for if the supposed ellipsis be
.;
;
!
filled
up,
it
will not
show
forth
the feeling intended

I
by
the inter-
jection, as I shall presently

first,
exemplify in each case.
begin with the

this
Welcome
The
different feelings
shown
feeling,
forth
by
and the
following interjection are happily discriminated by that nice observer
of all the most delicate shades of
human
Shakspeare
Welcome ever
smiles,
And
Let us
first
Farewell goes out sighing. 5
this smiling demonstration,
"
I rejoice
to
me."
feelings are meant, to be shown forth by and reduce them to the propositional form, that you are come ;" " Your coming is a source of pleasure You are a welcome guest; that is, one whose coming gives
consider
what
pleasure to those
who
utter the proposition.
The
signification has
testi-
been carried further, as addressing imaginary beings, but always

fying pleasure in the person uttering the sentiment.
Thus
in the
song of Comus and

1
his
monstrous rout
32.
2 *
Vassllo,
Gram. Malt.
5
p.
Harris's Narrative, 1838.
8 Gilchrist, Hindoost. Diet,
ad voces. Shaksp. Troilus and Cressida,
Supra,
sec.
253.
a. iii. sc. 3.

200
'
[~CHAP. IX.
OF INTERJECTIONS.
Welcome, joy and feast, Midnight shout and revelry, Tipsy dance, and jollity
!
And
in the exclamation of the chaste
young Lady
Hope,
Oh welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed And thou, unblemish'd form of Chastity !*
The
feeling of a similar pleasure
is
attributed poetically to the animal

to the lark less welcome!*
creation
The night
to the owl, the
morn
And
even to the senseless earth

Welcome hither
As
is
the spring to the earth
!*
Now this sense of pleasure in the person or thing gratified by the approach of another is differently expressed in the languages above cited. The Greek verb \aipu> primarily signifies to rejoice, but in a secondary
sense the imperative
his arrival, as
mood of this verb is addressed to a guest on when Telemachus, welcoming the unknown Minerva,
XaTpt eiW1
says
Trap dufit ^nA^creai.
5
"Rejoice, stranger, thou shalt be kindly treated by us," implying a mutual pleasure both of the host and of the guest. And the same word was addressed to a friend at his departure, as we are informed by Lucian in his " Apology for an Error in Salutation." 9 But in both cases it must be observed that nothing is enunciated lor the imperative mood (strictly speaking) asserts nothing, it has no logical character, and is really interjectional. The same remark applies Hence Galba is praised for mainto the Latin Salve! and Vale! taining the old custom that his slaves and freed men should approach
Literally,
:
him saying Salve! and depart saying ValeF Our own interjection, Welcome ! is explained by Johnson, " a form of salutation used to a
new comer,"
adjective
'
elliptically
used for
"you
are welcome."
And
the
welcome (the predicate of

it
f
this proposition)
he explains by
received w
to
(..in. |
hive
this
gladness;" but he omits to tell us how the adjective signification, the fact being that the adjective is
grammatically derived from die Interjection, which shows forth a <//Wt necessarily implied in the adverb well, and not at all in the
/,/
,
the elements of welcome.

interjections,
mill irl\-|.. niied
The same is wlhmst, iriUkommvn,
to
be
said of
vc/konist,
and
ininru, in
all
1
came
ft
Dutch, German, Danish, and Swedish: they no doubt proposition! originally, but in their transition to inter*
Ml.i.l. v.
line, a. ill. c.
Mill. m,
8.
Ibid.
Hii.f', Tala,
v. sc. 1.
rb
l'i
(ilv
ti)
I.
x a 'p*
in,
">
I
*PX a ' a M^" ^

..i|.
.
irpoiTaySptvtris k&,
Wn
anlovrts
Tra/)
dAAÂwp.
7
i
I'm
int.
Snlut.
li"
.,'ull
Ulcercnt.
fkwMBtM
iidoMont, ac
mm
Sin-ton. (iulbn,
4.
IX.J
CHAP.
OF INTERJECTIONS.
201
and are no longer to be treated with reference not to the cognitive, but to the sensitive part of the human mind. 263. As we have seen in the former example that the same feeling may be shown forth in different languages by different interjectional forms of speech, and that the same interjectional form may show forth
their character,
is,
jections they
logically,
changed
but morally; that
Farewell!
so we shall find the case to be with the second example, Farewell! The predominant feeling in this interjection is regret, to part with persons, or places, or things, more or less dear to us as in the parting of Brutus and Cassius
different feelings;
:
For
If
ever,
and for ever, farewell Cassius
we do meet again, why we shall smile If not, why then this parting was well made.
bliss
Satan expresses deep regret at his expulsion from the regions of eternal
Farewell,
happy
fields,
s
!
Where joys
for ever dwell
Othello enumerates, with like regret, the splendid objects of that military greatness which he must now abandon
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big war, That make ambition virtue O farewell! Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump;
!
drum, the ear-piercing fife, royal banner and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war
spirit-stirring
;
The The
s
!
Observe how differently the feeling is expressed in different languages, and how completely it would be lost in them all, if their respective terms were stated in the form of propositions The Greek xaipt, reduced from the imperative to the indicative, would be, " I hope that you will be joyful in mind."
:
The The
Latin Vale
Italian
Addio
" I hope that you will be healthful in bodv." ! the French Adieu ! and the Hungarian Isten
hozzad! "I commend you to God!" The German Lebe wohl ! " I hope that you will live happily." The Dutch Vaar weel! and the English Farewell! (from the AngloSaxon Faran, to go) " I hope that you will go on well, succeed well,
or prosper."
Not only would the force and beauty of the passage be destroyed, but there would be no expression given to the feeling which peculiarly
distinguishes the interjection.
Observe, too, that the expression of feeling is not varied by a difference of the grammatical elements, which enter into the form of
the interjection.
For Lebe wohl! and Farewell and an adverb.

1
are
compounded of an
infinitive
mood
Shaksp. Jul. Ca?s.
a. v. so. 1. 3
Milton, Par. Lost, 1, 249.

sc. 3.
Shaksp. Othello,
a.
iii.

202
OF INTERJECTION'S.
[CHAP. IX.
Addio I and Adieu I of a proposition and a substantive, whilst x ai 9e And this last is of and Vale ! consist of imperative moods alone. very ancient usage; for we find in Homer that Calypso thus takes
leave of Ulysses
ah 5
X a 'P e
Ka ^
epTrVS-
And
Menelaus bids farewell to Telemachus and Pisistratus
manner
Hail:
in
like
XdtpfTOV 5
KOVptM)
264. The last of the three interjections above noticed is our word Hail ! which Johnson describes as " a term of salutation now used only in poetry." It is sufficiently familiar to us, however, from its use in our translation of several passages in the New Testament, where it answers to a third sense of xu 'P m tne original Greek, which is rendered in the Vulgate Ave ! and expresses a feeling of respect, rial or feigned, amounting sometimes to veneration, and sometimes to
mere common civility. In Roman Catholic countries, the salutation of the Angel to the Mother of our Lord seems to be regarded as almost, and in this view, certain hours of if not quite, an act of adoration so that individuals of the lower the day are devoted to its recital classes are often found, who cannot distinguish the time of evening by hours, but merely by reference to the first, second, or third Ave
; ;
Maria. In the earliest specimen of Teutonic writing extant, the Mceso-Gothic translation of certain portions of the Scriptures, we find the \alpe of the angel rendered literally Fagino!* rejoice, a word which Pikffenbach traces through the analogies of many Northern
languages.*
But
is
in all the other instances,
xat P
xs
rendered
in
Gothic,
by Dieffenbach through many languages, It would as signifying "whole," "sound," " well," or the like.* seem, from the well-known story of " Kowcna," that Wivs hail (be well! be in health!) was a festal salutation among the Teutonic nations, whence we have; derived the name of the wassail low], and The interjection Hail! the modern custom of drinking healths. appears to have been sabeoqnentlv employed In old English, aa an
Hails! which
also traced
I
invocation to the Saints.
One of onr most

last
ancient
poems begins
use of
lltiil!
/[nil! Sriiit Mirlnl with the langa sper! 6
And
is
'
it
is
pmbalilv from this

to
custom
that the
modem
ginenuj confined Sail Muse!" or of

I
.'
the
<
invocation of supernatural
beings,
as
the
liv.it
I'
Creator Himself, as
!
Sim
.in.
I
In in'.';
I'uivpnml Soul
Kssi-iitiiil
I'ri-si-iioo,
Ol' Id .imii
K.uili!
AatVI 7
'-'"
..
I>r.
.1
will sun explains the Scottish expression

is
mM<M,'m
*
Lei/
It
is
me, "dear
to
me," observing
*
H.i'l.
...
that
me
(in the former phrase)
dative case; and elsewhi

Ody.
R.
/<'//',"
as signifying dear,
LI, 161.
Loki
I.
Wttrtbuch
ii.vi. vi
.,
v. I.
I.
p,
348.
i
Ibid. vol.
ii.
p.
197.
ii.iinsdii,
Spring, v.
r
.
>a;s.

CHAP.
IX.]
203
OF INTERJECTIONS.
"leesome," or " leifsum" desirable, and leman, "a sweetheart, male Unknown as all these expreadonfl are to our modern Or female."
English, they are all connected with the Anglo-Saxon, and manyother Northern tongues, and in part at least with the old English, Lieb (says Wachter) occurs in all our old dialects. The passage,
1
" Thou art my beloved Son,"* is rendered in Mceso-Gothic, " Thu 3 is Sunus meins sa liuba," and in Frankish, " Thu bist mein liobo Sun. 4 Lieb, liuba, liobo, are probably all connected with the Hebrew In the Dutch and Scotch Leif, dear, the b passes Leb, the heart. into/. In the English Love, it passes into v ; but /is retained in several antiquated and provincial English words
Is
The soule of this synfulle wight wonnen into Heven bright, To Jhesu lefe and dere. 4
So
Bullcalf,
troth, sir, I'd as lief
having been marked down for a soldier, savs, " In very be hanged, sir, as go."* Liefman, too, was con-
tracted with us, as in Scotland, into leman, the old
word
for a lover
or mistress.
Andrew Aguecheek says to the clown, " I sent thee sixpence for thy leman? The Scottish Leeze me had a further transition of meaning, when followed by the preposition on, as in the
Sir
Leeze me on your curly pow Bonnie Davie, dainty Davie
popular song
!
seems rather to mean " blessing on your head !" as in the Scriptural phrase, " Blessipgs are upon the head of the just."8 And clearly as an interjection, it expresses a feeling different from any tliat can be given to it as an elliptical proposition. 266. The interjections hitherto considered express feelings which, Relating tc in Bishop Wilkins' language, are " the result of a surprised affection, Jud sTOent moved by the apprehension of good or evil." But there are other feelings which he attributes to an impression on the judgment. Such are those of doubting, of surprise, of bespeaking attention, of acquiescence, of dissent, and the like. As these belong to human nature, they will be found, on examination, to furnish interjections in most languages though, from the slight nature of the feelings themselves, they have attracted comparatively little notice.
For here
it
267. Doubt is a state of confused and hesitating judgment. When the matter in question is of slight importance, the emotion produced
Doubting,
weak, and not unnaturally vents itself in imperfect and inThis circumstance led Bishop Wilkins to reckon Km I among the interjections of doubting. But though some grammarians may agree with him in this particular, the majoritv will hardly regard such unvocalized consonants as deserving the name of
it
by
is
articulate sounds.
Gloss. Germanie, voc. Lieb.

Ultilas,
Mark
i.
11.
Mark
i. ii.
11.
p.
a.
Tatian,"
Mark
i.
11.
iii.
* Halliwell, v.
7
512.
iii.
Twelfth Night,
sc. 2.
See Hen. IV.. a. Proverbs x. 6.
sc. 2.

204:
OF INTERJECTIONS.
when one
I
[CHAP.
IX.
or more distinct syllables are and Au I the English Hum I the Like many interjections, Hem Greek apa, and the Maltese Yagan ! has a variety of significations, depending on the tone and manner of It indicates a sort of doubt in Phaadria's soliloquy utterance. speech.
case
is
The
different
uttered,
as
in
the Latin
Hem
Ccepi egomet
mecum
:
inter vias,
Aliam rem ex
Occepi
aliS,
cogitart
mecum Maneudum est

!
cogitare
Hem !
soli sine ilia ?
biduum hie Quid turn postea? 1
The
Latin
Au
servant maid,
who
shows a ludicrous confusion of mind in Mysis, the cannot imagine what Davus means by asking her
es
questions about the child
Davus. Dieturan'
Mysis.
quod rogo
Au
s
!
The English Hum I which is sometimes written Humph I is called by Johnson an interjection, and described by him as " a sound implying doubt and deliberation," as when Macduff refuses to come at
Macbeth's
call
The cloudy messenger turns me
his back,
And
hums, as
who
That clogs
me
should say, you'll rue the time with this answer. 8
The
origin of this interjection will appear
under the head of Onoma-
topoeia.
The Greek apa, among

;
other meanings has that of doubt
of which Hoogeveen gives what he calls " egregium dubitantis et in diversa abeuntis animi exemplum," " a striking example of a mind doubting and turning itself in different
expressed interjectionally
directions."*
Where
Tf
the Chorus, suggesting a
number of
ridiculous
causes for the non-appearance of the old man, says

iror' oil
,
Tpb QvpSiv
s
<piivtr' &p' rtfiiv
'O ytpwv
The Greek &pa,

The Maltese
in this use
!
of
it, is
not unlike the Irish Arrah

?
Arrah
what do you think of us volunteers now

is
Yagan
described by
di dubbio, e sovente vale

Vir i'-i<'-
forse?"
Dr. Vasallo as " particella " a particle expressing doubt, and
7 often answering to prr/ni/is, used interjertionally."
2<iH.
SmrpriW
>
- fell
ni
numberless shades of intensity, from overthe transient
whelming
Mlniililiinwnl
bo
impression of mere novelty,

>l>
and these again modified

andotlier passu
1 I
l>y
,
delight, anxiety,
nv, aversion,
h
terror,
.i,
d ,>uU m.-nt
..
Hal La! How!

I
bMH
lit.
to
t ti
ink.
within
I'.im..
im
'In
l
It,
I
ft,,
stay
on Hie road, about one tiling after anol lii-re alone with her tor two days?
and
!
wb.it next
? Teruncc,
\n
In.!,
i.
iv. mo.
4. Da.
8.
Will you answer
my
question
My. An
Doet
il.
5,
:,
"
M,
ffaUUBi
Iltlttsa, p. 30.

CHAP.
IX.J
I
OF INTERJECTIONS.
Hoity-toity
I I
205
What
Indeed
!
Hon I the Danish Hood I the Dutch Hal Ail Eil Eitochl Ochl Achl the Greek Oha ! the Malay ij>ev, the Latin Ehem ! Eho I the Hungarian Aha I weldyna ! the Javan jangan kan ! the Gaelic Ri I the Welsh ha Ayou I the Chinese Hho tsai ! Ee foo ! Ee tsai I the Yoruba Hd I Hohu ! the Australian Paia ! &c. All these, different as they are in
certy
My
the
Whew I Heyday ! German Eyl Hum
the Scotch Hech
the French
expression, clearly
indicate surprise in its different phases.

in
Thus,
when
shown King Henry the degrading way Archbishop Cranmer is treated by the Lords of the Council,
Dr. Butts has
which the King
exclaims in indignant surprise
Ha !
Is this the
'Tis he, indeed
honour they do one another? 1
the other hand, when Servilius applies to Lucius, with a message from Timon, he says, " May it please your honour, my Lord has " Lucius, interrupting him, exclaims with delighted surprise, sent " Ha I What has he sent ? I am so much endear'd to that Lord
On
he's ever sending !"*
The Scotch Hech ! well expresses the surprise of the dog Luath, on hearing how the dissipated nobility pass their time
Hech man dear sirs Is that the gat They waste sae mony a braw estate ? 8
! !
often used ironically to express surprise with !" der kluge mann !" " O what a clever fellow The Dutch Ei ! and Eitoch I sometimes mark surprise with a degree of doubt as " Ei lieve, eitoch is dat waar !" " Now really is that true ?" The Greek <pt v, expressing angry surprise, was employed as
I
The German Ey
is
admiration, as "
Ey !
an ingenious compliment to Praxiteles, on his statue of the naked Venus at Cnidos

'A Kvirpis rav Ki'rwpiv
KviScp flirty ISovffa,
eG,
<pev, iroD yv/xviju 6i5e fit
HpaiTt\Tis
;*
269. Interjections bespeak attention in various ways, sometimes in that of civil request, sometimes in calling to a person, or in pointing out a particular object, or in imposing silence on those whose attention " I pray," says Johnson, " that is, J pray you to tell me, is required.
is a slightly ceremonious way of introducing a question sometimes only pray elliptically." Here is seen a connection with prithee (j. e. I pray thee, as above noticed) ; but a slight variation in the form of the interjection marks at once the spirit and character of the speech. Thus a traveller, respectfully asking his way, may say, " Pray, sir ! is
:
Bespeaking
attentlon -
this
1
my best way
to Glo'ster?"
Whilst another impetuously pushing
8 Shaksp. Hen. VIII., a. v. sc. 2. Ibid. Timon, a. iii. bc. 2. Burns, Twa Dogs. * Her naked statue when fair Venus spied, Good heav'ns ! where did he see me thus ? she cried. Greek Anthology.

206
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[CHAP. a person aside may exclaim, " Prithee, get out of my way f " Ileus ! is often used with nearly the same effect as our Mark
IX,
The
!
Latin
J
Attend
Hark ye
Thus
the parasite
Phormio
l
calls
upon
JSausistrata
Hens!
Nausistrata, priiis
Temere,
audi
quam
huic respondes.
Polonius, calling the attention of the
King and Queen to
his supposed
1
discovery of Hamlet's madness, uses the imperative
Mark
inter-
jectionally
I
Who
have a daughter, have while she is mine, in her duty and obedience, mark!
this.*
Hath given me
And this,
it
will be seen, agrees in effect with the
Hebrew
interjections
Observe J8 Attend !* The Hungarian Hallode"! is deemed equivalent to the Latin Heus tul i The Greek ij Hollo Xanthias a In the Romaic, is of the same effect, as ?] Savdiag
which Dr. Lee has rendered
Pointing out.
Hark jrel Mind! from a superior to an inferior; but with some difference of effect the last being deemed the most gracious and condescending. 7 270. For pointing out a particular object, there are many words
irpe,
fipi,
pirpE,
fiwpe,
are interjections according to our
used interjectionally, as the English, Lo ! Behold ! the Latin En ! Ecce ! the Greek llov, the Romaic Net, the Albanian la ! the Frank ish Seke! Jnu! the Mceso-Gothic Sat! the German Sicker! Seht-da Siehe-da! the Welsh Welil Weldyma! Weldaccw! the Hungarian Ikoul Jnu! the Otaheitan Ahione ! the Australian Nangandol ^. The Latin En! is evidently from the Doric or (Eolic ?)ii, used to the same effect Eneas admiring the paintings of the Trojan war, says
En
Priamus
Sunt
hie etiam sua piremia laudi. 8
our Saviour to the Jews, says, in the (ireek, 1h i avOpwiroc, which in the Vulgate is translated Ecce homo !" though from he ordinary use of Eccum! Eccam! Eccos ! and Eccas I it would seem that Ecce, if considered as a verb, should be followed as an accusative whence it case: and a like remark may l>e made on the Greek "ilt is to be inferred, that l>oth "tde and Ecce have undergone a grammatical The change, in jMissing from the verbal to the interjectional form. leiiuaii- nteraction Net is also changed from the ancient Greek ad verlual Conn 'iru, and answers to Ell! behold! but with an ami
Pilato, presenting
f ;
I
Sativc case, as vii n)v yvvultca " behold the
woman!" 10 The German

or L<>ok there
uttering
it,
Sieheda!
literally see
8* betokening
then! is often used like our Lo! some degree of surprise in the person
or
Calling the attention of the party addressed,

1
" Ich stand und uartete,

I
//';
!
'
hi
iiy
Terent.
Hudop.
Nu,
/.
.inswcr him hastily, liear what
btvl
t<>
l'lmniiio, oci-n. ult.

a.
Hiini-t,
...
n.
m.
n
8.
"
I
.
"
[YU$ Bib. firam, *>M8.)

.
(inn-sis xxiv.
.1
.
)'.!.
Ii.
(Il'id.)
,
1
I'.i|.ii
.i.l
\..i
v.'J7.'l.
lii
I.V
its
l:.
:u.
>!
I,
.
481
>>'
I'riiini
bTin
li'"'
|-iu ,0
li:itli
5.
Leak.',
ivwunl. .u. I-
.,
|..
II.

CHAP.
IX.]
207
OF INTKKJ1-XTIOX3.
!
unci siehe da
er karri nicht!" " I

1
came not! Siehe da ! wie libel The German Da seems to have given mischief you have done!" occasion to the French Da, which Leroux explains, " Sorte d'interjection, qui n'a lieu que dans le style le plus simple, ou dans la conversation familiere.
stayed and waited, and Lo! he du gethan hast." " Look there! what
Elle est toujours jointe a quelqu'autre mot, soit
adverbe, ou particule, et sert a afhrmer"* La devote Caliste De son niari a fait un Jan Out da ! un Janse'uiste *
t
271. For silencing others, in order to command attention, or secrecy, Hear, hear ! of Yes ! of the Courts of Justice we have our formal the Legislature, and other public meetings; Hark! Peace! List! The Greek language has 7rdue, aiwitu, aiya; J I ash! Whist! Mum! the Latin s't! Pax! the French Chut! the Italian Zitto! the old
;
silencing,
nivdhFrid! the modern German Husch! Hich ! H'st! the Dutch Still Zwyg ! the Danish Stillo! Tys! the Swedish Tyst; the Turkish Sousa! the Hindoostanee Choop ! Choop ! Hisht! the Malay Diyam 1 &c. In the present day, Oh yes ! which is the Norman Oyez ! hear ye lias lost its verbal character, and has passed into a pure interjection and the only relic of tire verb, which we retain, is in the judicial commission of " Oyer and Terminer," i. e., to hear and Hear, hear ! in its interjectional determine certain pending causes. seriously, as testifying approbation, and use, has a double character Shakspeare has made ironically, as evincing a contemptuous dissent powerful use of some of these interjections; as in Lady Macbeth'6 agitated exclamation, while her husband is murdering his royal guest
<;<
Zayh!
Hark! Peace!
*
!
It
was the owl that shriek'd
So,
when
the ghost of Hamlet's murdered father adjures his son to
listen to the details
of the crime
List! list!
list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love.*
to be without etymology ; but Mceso-Gothic Hausei ! hear and the German Husch ! which Adelung explains, in its secondary use, as " ein Zwischenwort stillschweigenzu gebieten," " an interjection to command silence." In Upper Germany hosch is used for the adjective 8 still, as " die hoschen Wdlder," " the silent woods. So we use the word hush adjectivally
!
Our Hush
is
is
said,
by Johnson,
it
certainly connected with the
We
A
often see, against
some storm,
silence in the heav'ns, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below As hush as death.'
1
Adelung Worth, vol. iv. p. 204. Macbeth, a. ii. sc. 2. Adelung Wbrterb. ii. 1295, 1334.
9 s 1
Leroux, vol.
i.
p.
335.
a.
ii.
Scanon.
Hamlet,
a.
i.
sc. 5.
sc. 2.
Shaksp., Hamlet,

208
OF INTERJECTIONS.
hausei
is
[CHAP. IX.
The Moeso-Gothic
gr. Hausei, Israel
!
the imperative of the verb liausyan, ex.

fan ains ist."
fan
is
Goth unsar
"Hear,
Israel
one Lord." 1 This verb, which occurs frequentlv in the Moeso-Gothic New Testament, is from auso, the ear; and Dieffenbach has traced it through many languages, some retaining In the former class is the the letter s, and some changing it into r. Greek o?c, in the latter the Latin auris ; but this, in the early Latin, was OKAS, as appears from auscultare. The r, however, prevailed in most Northern tongues, as the Frankish and Alemannic ora, ore, or, the Low Saxon and Dutch oor, the modem German ohr, the Danish ore, the Swedish oera, the Icelandic eyra, the Anglo-Saxon eare, and the English ear. The Italian orecchio, and Spanish oreja, are corruptions of the Latin diminutive auricidus ; and from orecchio comes the French oreille. Hark! is of the same family. From ohr, the ear, the Germans have formed Horen ! to hear, and horchen ! to listen as the Latins, from ausis, had audire and auscultare ; and so the Anglo-Saxons, from eare, had hyran and heorchian, which are our liear and hearken, or hark ; and of this last the imperative mood easily becomes an inthe Lord our
;
God
terjection.
The
Scottish exclamation whisht

!
may
same origin with hush as Johnson observes,
We pronounce
1st, as
this
not improbably be of the word whist ! and use it,
an
interjection,
;
commanding
silence;
2ndlv, as an adverb ; Brdly, as a verb and 4thly, as a noun, the name Bums uses whisht of a well-known game, requiring silent attention.
as a noun, implying silence
tight outlandish hizzie, braw,
Cam" full in sight. Yc needna doubt I held my whisht
P
:
Nearly similar to this is our word Hist! of which Johnson thus " Hist, intcrj. of this word I know not the original prospeaks bably it may be a corruption of hush, husk it, huslit, hist." Mum ! is reckoned by Johnson as an interjection, as it undoubtedly is; but he adds, "Of this word I know not the original: it may be o1.mia.m1, that when it is pronounced it leaves the lips dosed; a word (tooting prohibition to spiik." Thus, Sir John Hume, soliloquizing of Suf|0 himself, whilst lie is endeavouring to entrap the
:
folk
How
Seal
up your
llpe,
? now, Sir John and give no word but
HUM
mum!
ThU
business axkcth silent secrecy.*
From
tin-
mi. -rji -ctional use it
When
the
Duke
sometimes passes to the adjectival. of I'.uckinghain has in vain endeavoured to prevail on

for
the citizens to dtdare
liichard,
he replies to the
inquiry of the
latter
'
Illiliu.
Mark
ill.
29.
Bun,
n.
I.
, Tin- Vision.
Sl.nkup.
Second Part of Henry VI.,
sc. 2.

CHAP.
IX.]
OF OrrEHJEOTIONB.
Now, by the holy Mother The citizens are mum, say
of
209
!
Our Lord
not a word. 1
The
len,
syllable
mum
is
a kind of onomatopoeia, which seems to be at
the root of the
German mummeln, and mumpfeln, the Dutch mompe-
the Swedish mumla, the Danish mamle, and the English mumble is probably connected with the Latin murmur* and the English mutter. The Greek nave and oiioira. are both used by Aristophanes,
and
as imposing silence.
his
When
way
to the infernal
Hercules tells Bacchus that he may find regions by hanging himself, the latter cries,
!
Ilawt, nviyripav Xeytig, " Hold your tongue you talk of a suffocating way." 3 Again, when Bacchus is sitting in judgment on the Poets, and JSschylus exclaims against the calumnies of Euripides, Bacchus
cries
auoira,
" Silence
!" 4
pose,
when Gorgo
silences Praxinoe,
Theocritus uses aiya for the same purin order to hear the celebrated
singer
'Slya Upaîvoa, /xeWti rby 'ASojj'jj' atiSav
"A T?is"Apyelas dvydr-qp
iroKviSpis aoiSbs. 5
Of
s't,
chut
and
zitto
have elsewhere spoken. 6

:
The old German cry of Frid! is thus explained by Vadrianus " De obscuris Alemannicorum verborum significationibus. Fredum
solet acclamari.
hoc ipsum est quod nos hodie Friden vocamus, et pacis turbatoribus Frid ! Frid .'" 7 The word Friden, used by this old
is,
modern German, Friede, signifying public and private "to keep the peace." In Frankish it is Frido; in Lower Saxon, Frcde ; in Swedish, Frid; in Danish, Fred; in Dutch Frede. Some suppose it to be derived from frey, free, and some from the Mceso-Gothic friyon, to love, as ak, silba Atta friyoth
author,
in
peace, as " Frieden .halten,"
is-wis,"
whilst others derive
it
from the Hebrew brith, a treaty of union
and perhaps there may be a general connection between all these. Very many proper names in the Northern nations were compounded with Frid, as our own Alfred, Frederick, Wilfred, &c., all of which
implied a love of peace. 272. The emotions which accompanying acquiescence in, or dissent from, the assertions of others, or confirmation of our own, are necessarily connected with an exertion, more or less distinct, of the intellect ; and consequently their interjectional expression in language, though it may sometimes be effeeted by a simple articulation, especially among
1
Acquiescen dis <if. * ent C

'
Shaksp. Richard III., a. i. sc. 7. 'Ovoâroirda, id est fictio nominis mugitus et sibilus, et
runt.
3
murmur
inde vene-
Quintilian,
-
lib. viii. c. 6.
722. 4 Ibid- T# 957> * Hush I Praxinoe ! That skilful singer, the Argive woman's daughter, about to sing of Adonis. Theoc. Idyl. 15, v. 9G. 6 Univ. Gram. s. 412.
7
Kana? > v
is
just
The word Freden

ii.
is
what we now
!
call
Friden
and hence
it is
usual to cry out
to the disturbers of the peace, Frid
Frid
! Goldastus,
Alemannicorum Antiqui-
tatum, torn.
8
p. 63.
For the Father himself loveth you.

[G.]
Ulrilas.
John xvi 27

210
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[dlAP.
I\'
rude and barbarous people, more frequently appears as a verb, noun With regaixl to the simple Yes MM or adverb, elliptically uttered. Ufa of our language, as it has been disputed whether they should b< called interjections or adverbs, or should form a class by themselves I shall only refer, on this point, to my former Treatise, where thei: In al grammatical character has been discussed at some length. languages, however, interjectional expressions will be found, eithe: and tha plainly, or by implication, affirming or denying an assertion with more or less vehemence. Thus, besides a simple Yes, we hav< In French we find Certes ! ou the affirmative Troth 1 and Faith I da I in Italian, Sicuro I in Greek, vai ovrw, SijXov in Romaic, vai in Albanian, ait, aovrov, (ieprer ; in Latin, Sic ! Etiam vaiWe Certe I in Welsh, le ! Do ! felly y Mae I in Gaelic, Seadh ! is e Dearbh I in Hungarian, Ugy ! Bizouy ! Moudjak ! in Malayan, Iya Behkanl Bali I Nischayal in Chinese Xil cu uyenl in Otaheitan El Oial Eal Ail &c. The French Certes I was adopted by ou elder writers, as " Certes I the text most infallibly concludes it."
1 ;
:
Troth is the noun truth, used interjectionally, and, by an ellipsis, fo u ia truth." Thus Benedick says, in answer to the Prince, " Troth, m\
3 Faith I is, in liki I liave played the part of Lady Fame." manner, the noun faith, used interjectionally, and by an ellipsis, fa " by my faith." So, Hamlet, excusing himself to Horatio, says
lord,
I'm sorry they offend you, heartily Faith! heartily. 4
German, Jafreilich ! or Ja icohll serve to strengthen an affirma In Dutch the same effect is produced by Ja toch I or, Ji tokkerl and, in Swedish, by Ja wist I and all those agree nearly witl But here, as in mos the French Out, da I or our Yes, indeed!
In
tion.
s
other interjections, a slight change in accent, quantity, and emphasis may greatly alter the character of the expression. Instead of affirma
tion
it
deed
is
I
DUty Imply doubt; as, in the (ierman, Ja ! ist es wahr? "In Dissent is expressed, contemptuously, by 6a it brae?"
Tut! Bum I Fftfdtetfal/
(be Scotch Tiissl
Hootl the Welsh Wffi

Fidelbogenl
says
th
the Latin
Ehol
the
the
German
Swed
French Zest!
Pawn! Pah! "Of Tush," &c.
JoHNSOH
"I
can Bad n( credible Hunology." Perhaps tliis, as well as th pror lnckl Qermaa 7vst/ and Swedish Tystl may have been loosed Imitated from th* Latin lave! or the French Taisrz-vims I since it illy used la answer <", or anticipation of, something said, o Thus, Roderigo impatiently in to be said, by another person.
i
. I
Tuxh! St*er 'H mcj

402.
take
it
imuh
tnikin.lly !
Bhakm. Lor**!
1
t,
n. Iv. c. 2.
%,
li,
-..-.
li.M.
M.,.h
li
!
\.i.,
kbonl Nothing,
i.
i.
;.
Jn
iVriln
I
JaWOblt
venttlirkrii
li
.lie
Itrj.ilinu
< [bid, Snalat, a, Adeluu^. vol. U. p,
I.
n.
alu-ll.., n.

CHAP. IX.]
211
OF INTERJECTIONS.
Tut is supposed by Johnson to be only a different pronunciation of Tush; and, in like manner, serves to answer contemptuously something previously said. Thus, when Bolingbroke addresses the Duke of York, " My gracious uncle," the latter exclaims
Tut! tut!
Grace
me no
grace, nor uncle
me
no uncle. 1
Buz !
It is
is evidently an onomatopoeia, imitating the buzzing of bees. usod by Hamlet to interrupt Polonius
Pol. The actors are come hither,
my
Lord
Ham. Buz!
buz!*
of the Scotch Hoot ! is exemplified in the story of the who, having been confined to the inn at Inverary for several days by rain, peevishly exclaimed, at his departure, " What! does it rain here always ?" To which the landlord answered, with great .simplicity, "Hoot! na, it snaws whyles !" (Oh! no, it snows someeffect
The
traveller,
times.)
The Latin Eho! marks disbelief; as, when the impostor tells Charmides he has been at Arabia in Pontus, the latter exclaims, Eho ! an etiarn Arabia est in Ponto.* So, when Simo suspects Crito's story to be a fraudulent fiction, he says
Eho!
tu Glycerium hinc civem esse ais
!
!
The German Possen

word Fkddbogen
sayings
;
means Nonsense
and expresses
jocular contempt, like our interjection Fiddlestick!

(fiddlestick) is not
!"
slight or Indeed, the very
as,
"
Wer
die Wahrheitgeigt,
uncommon in German popular dem schlagt man der Fiedel-
with his fiddlemouth." 8 The French Zest ! is a sort of interjection used on various occasions, and particularly when a person says anything which is thought to be a falsehood, or an empty boast. In such a case, the interjection Zest! implies that you don't believe him. 7 273. It would be endless to enumerate the various interjectional expressions which arise out of incidental circumstances in all languages. few examples, however, may be noticed, such as Yo ho! the cry of sailors in heaving the anchor Boat ahoy! used in calling a boat. 1 he Greek wow cix, and pv-rnranal, exclamations in rowing. 'l7T7ra7rcu, a supposed cry of horses, (answering perhaps in effect to our Tally-ho I and Tantivy !) Craven ! the cry of a defeated champion in a trial by battle. Words of like import in other conflicts, as Hold! the German Halte ! Genug! the Italian Basta ! and the old Guanche
faddle, will get a rap of the fiddlestick on his
bogen aufs
Maul
"
He who
blurts out the truth
incidental circum,
Shaksp. Rich. II., a. ii. sc. 3. Ibid. Hamlet, a. u\ sc. 2. Remarks on Local Scenery, vol. l. p. 261. 4 Plautus, Trinum a. iv. sc. 2. * Eiselin, p. 168. 6 Lorsqu'une pevsonne dit quelque chose qui paroit fabuleux, une invention, nne menterie, ou gasconade, ce mot Zest! a autant de force que si Ton disoit " Je ne vous crois pas." Leroux, voc. Zest. 7 Aristophanes, Ranse, v. 210.
8
:
p 2

212
OF INTBRJECTIOXS.
! .
[c'HAP. IX.
it,
Gama !
Words meant
;
to accelerate speed, or to moderate
as the
Mautikal parti I and the Maltose Isa! Malai, malail make haste the Italian Piano I and the Maltese Qajla ! gently, and Words of deprecation, as cf/ra, of the Tongan O'ooa I softly ! inquiry, as Quoeso 1 Cedo ! and of caution as Ware ! Gare ! Cave Lullaby ! used by nurses and finally expressions of a vague and scarcely determinate nature, as Heigh-ho! Go to! the French Cd!
Australian
expression for I have heard Russian officers, who attempted to imitate it, call out Boat agoy it being common with them to change h in foreign words to g ; as in the Hanhut, a vessel so named from a victory obtained near a place of that name on the coast of Sweden ; but which the Russian and crew always called the Gangut. The Greek uoir, and djoir, o'tt, seem to have been used in giving directions to the rowers for Bacchus having entered Charon's boat, the latter orders him to row
;
i
Sus ! Or sus ! Sec. Boat ahoy ! is a mere English
Strongly; after
1
some
dispute, Bacchus says, KaratctXevt
ci),
("Will
which Charon does, in the words, \Iott Sir, The word pvmrairal was apparently used as an incitement <io7r ox. and may probably have had Borne for all the rowers to pull together connection with the verb p&urdai, combined with the above-mentioned interjection 7m7rcu; for pweadai is explained by Hesvehius "to hasten," "to urge on." 'l7T7ra7rai seems to have been used by
then, give the order!")
;
honemen
makes
the;
in imitation
of the preceding interjection, at
least if
we may
so understand the sort of allegorical language with which Aristophanes
knights praise their horses

Elra tAj Kwiras \a&6rrfs,
&<rirsp fy*r oi $porol,
'Efifia\6vr(s iytfipvuây, imrcural, rls ^jSaA*?,-*
rally-ho
taillis,
is
a Norman hunter's cry,

because, as
it
Au
taillis !
to cover
to the bois
in
the underwood, called in legal Latin sylva ca'dua, ami

;
Italian
bosco ceduo
is
said,
"si taglia
di
tempo
in
tempo*"
"it is cut down from time to time." Craven! In a trial of battle, "victory is obtained/' says Bhckatone, "if either champion proses recreant, that is, yields, and pronounces the horrible word craven."' The learned jurist, adds, that " this is a word of disgrace and oUoqu)
rath.T than of any determined
enough.
.'
'
Bui the meaning is obvious rooming" The oonqnered champion cravtt his life; just as he might fcr! Mercy! or the like.
|
was to
Benca,
An.
.\il. uiiatioii
of similar
oomhatfc
M
1
1
import, applied
to
single
I.ny on, Mimlnh"!

first cries
dimn'd bo ho who
lloUlt
Enough 1*
'
\i
bid.
I'l'iit.
r.
v.m.
i.-li
down
Thru takhg th"
oart,
m
*
wo
mortiiN
.1",
and landing
a. v. ic. 7.
lli'-m,
lliry in
Ml
lli|'|..i|..i
who
|miIIn?
iO.
Bhetap. Macbeth,

CHAP.
IX.]
213
it is in
OF INTERJECTIONS.
And
the same
may be
Ralpho
applied to verbal contests, as
Hudi-
bras's dispute with
Hold! Hold! quoth Hudibras, soft fire, They say, does make sweet malt, good squire. The quirks and cavils thou dost make Are false, and built upon mistake. 1
The German verb

manner;
has
the
as,
lialte
halten,
to hold,
is
sometimes employed
2
in
like
deine Streiche
zuriick."
And
the same
verb
which in German same sound and sense for Adelung says, " Halt ! das gewbhuliche Commando- Wort, wann die Truppen auf einem Marsche stehen bleiben sollen." 8 Gama,gama! Enough, enough! This is among the very few words now known of the language of the Guanches, the extinct inhabitants of the Canary islands and it is said to have been used by the council in ordering duellists to cease fighting.* Mantikatparti is given in the vocabulary of South Australia by Teichklmaxn and SchOrrmann as signifying "Make haste!" Perhaps as manti expresses inability, and mantikatpa slow or lazy, it should be rendered " Don't be slow " or " Don't be lazy !" Isa ! is given by Vasallo as " Make haste !" and Qajla as Gently "Malai, malai!" I have often heard myself, in addition to Isa ! as signifying "make haste, quickly!" Arjra is used by Electra in deprecation, when she is desired by Orestes, whom she does not know as such, to put down the urn containing the supposed ashes of her
;
;
!
supplies the origin of our military interjection Halt!
brother.
M$) Sfjra irpbs
Ota>i/
tovtA
/xtpyaffti, tVe. 5
only the ancient pronunciation of quasro, " I ask," and was used in dirierent moods of that verb by Plautus, ex. gr.
Qimeso
is
Mirum
est
me, ut redeam,
te opere tanto qucesere. 9
But in the more polished age of Roman literature, only the word quaso remained in use, answering nearly to our interjection Pray ! " Pray what am I to do ? " 7 as, " Quaaso quid sit mihi faciendum ? " Cedo ! is also an old Latin verb, of which the other portions fell into disuse. It was equivalent to our " Pray tell me," as
!
Cedo
Pray,
quorsum
itiner tetinisse aiunt. 8
tell
me, whither they say they held their way.
Ware ! i e. Beware ! is the French Gare ! and both agree with the Teutonic waren, and numerous derivatives, the first signification being
Butler, Hudib. 1, 3, 1251. * Hold thy blows. Hilpert, voc. Hold, halte. Halt! the usual word of command if the troops on a march are required to Stand still. Wbrterb. 2, 933.
3
4
1
Hodgson's Notes on Northern Africa, 1844, p. 104. Sophocl. Electra, v. 212. I beseech you by the gods, stranger, do not this act
!
to
me
Bacchides,
a.
ii.
sc. 2.
7 Cicero ad Atticum, 11, 15. Pacuvius, fragm. ex Medo.

214

OF INTERJECTIONS.
;
"
;
[CHAP. IX.
then to be aware of the approach of danger " corarae quand on crie Gare, gare /* then to warn others against it Hence the cry in a farmyard, Ware Hawk ! i. e., beware of the hawk hovering over the poultry, an exclamation which smugglers address to each other at the approach of an Excise officer. " An expresHeigh-ho I is reckoned by Johnson an interjection.
;
to look toward an object
sion," he says, u of slight languor and uneasiness."
The example
which he quotes, however, shows that it was at first merely a sound produced mechanically by vocalizing the act of yawning; for it is
that of a carrier entering scarcely awake, with a lantern in his hand, An't be not four by the day, I'll be and crying "Heigh-ho!" In a secondary sense, indeed, it expresses a mental hang'd!" weariness, or slight vexation, as that of Beatrice, on finding that she really loves Benedick, whom she had before treated scornfully.
11
By my
troth, I
am
exceeding
ill
heigh-ho ! a
On
is
this passage
title
Malone observes, that " Heigh-ho
for a
husband
the
of an old ballad in the Pepysian collection.
This expression is also, and justly, designated by Johnson, an interjection. He explains it thus, " Come, come, take the right This explanation, however, does course a scornful exhortation." not fully describe the emotion expressed by Dogberry in the play just mentioned. 4 He is a constable, inflated with the dignity of bis office, and vain of his talents in the execution of it and is, therefore, vehemently indignant at being called an ass by tin* ollender To repel this imputation, he enumerates his own under examination. good qualities, "I am a wise fellow," "and one that knows the law, Go to! and a rich fellow enough Go to! nt The precise meaning of the expression is not very clear; but the constable evidently thinks that any one of his statements is enough to disprove Being a rich fellow, he cannot be an ass; the imputation of folly. or knowing the law he cannot be an ass; therefore the calumniator he must n< must be silent on this topic, \n\t go to go 0/1 with now other, Again, is the same play, there is a little masquerade) in which Ursula tells Antonio, who is masked, that she knows him. He denies that lie [| he person hut she mentions various eircumyou are etances, proving that she is right, and adds, " Go to! Mum
to
!
Go
>t
it.,
for
much m to have shown that

is
say,
"yon need not go on with they are false." The emotion

is
these assertions,
mples,
somewhat
it
implied in the iikhv than BCORI, and in the other

indignation,
in
somen
plll\
fill
hat
|.
less.
|,|.,.|.
Ii
ji,
the firtt
is
the second
mere
h.
I'u! has an enlivening effect, as
in
the pleasant old
ry
song
141,
|ffl
Mr.ik
.
Il.ii.
IV., t.,t
"
Mm
Ii
Ii
A.l.i hIm.iiI
.
N.. tiling, n. Hi.
I.
I'm, a. 'IbULa.lV,
Il.i.l.
,i.
..
I.
..'-'.
i.
u.
ii.
1.
CHAP. IX.]
OF INTERJECTIONS.
Malgre la bataille Qu'on donne Jemain
215
Cu!
faisons ripaille
!
Charmante Catiu
Which has been imitated, but not quite with the spirit of the original, and without an equivalent to the interjection Qd
Though the
fate of battle
On to-morrow
Now, my
wait
!
Let's not lose our prattle
lovely Kate
In French Dictionaries Qd, as an interjection, is compared with the !" Italian Orsu ! Su via ! as Qd, travaillons I " Come, let's set to work
Qa, aUous
" Come,
it
!
let's set off'!

is
Orsus
in its first sense, signified
"Now
rise!" but
also applied as introductory to a question,

1
nearly like our Well
evidently the Italian
Sus ! is in "Well! What do you say to it?" Su! a portion of the Latin super. It is described as an interjection, used in commanding a person to stand up.* The Italian Su ! is also used, in the familiar style, to encourage one to go on in any undertaking and when doubled, Su, su ! may be con;
sidered as equivalent to the French interjection Courage 274. There is a considerable class of interjectional
relate to brute animals, either as directly addressed to
.'*
cries
which
Brute
them, or as
his
anmi* u
employed
in
their pursuit.
The
celebrated
Grimm
has entered so
largely into this subject that I cannot
do better than extract from
"Interjections relating Deutsche Grammatik the following passage. I do not mean to animals have been introduced into language. merely as attempts to bring their cries nearer to the articulations of the human voice; but also as expressions peculiar to particular
dialects,
and transmitted from generation to generation, by which

either lured or intimidated
diilerent animals are
by human
beings.
These sometimes resemble the natural cry of the animal, but so variously modified, that animals of the same class are accustomed to The following may be quite different sounds in different countries.
deemed
cries luring animals to food, &c. " In Middle High German, Za za za ! (to hunting-dogs), Lower High German, Da da ! (to dogs), Suten sut silt ! (to horses), otherwise Hiif hilf! Hichis ! (to colts), Schdpen schdp schdp ! (to sheep'),
:
Austrian, Dunkel dunkel
Hbdel hddel
(to goats),
!
and
in other places
!
Zub zub ! Luk
luk
also Luzel luzel Koss kuhel koss (to cows),

!
also Helo helobe

in Suabia,
wuzi wuzi! (to pigs), on the Rhine, Huss, huss da
(to cats),
Hutz ! in Austria, Hutah ! and Fug faelfug ! Ninrn ninni also Minz minz ! Mudel mutz mutz ! Ze zitz ! or Pus pus
!
I
!
Gusch gusch
Giiss
gus
Gds gos
(to geese), Hessian
and on the
1 Or Or sus! Interjection qu'on exprime lorsqu'on interroge une personne. Leroux, v. 2, p. 239. sus! qu'eu dites vous ! * Sus! Interjection lorsqu'on commande a quelqu'un de se lever sur ses pieds.
Leroux,
3
Su
particula esoitativa-raddoppiata
v. 2, p.
497.
Su! su! Courage!
Alberti, voc. Su.
! !
216
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[CHAP. IX.
Rhine, Wulli wulli! Low Saxon, HuUihidli! Sleswig, Ixusch rusch! Fit fit ! (to goslings), Pile pile I Bile bile I (to ducks), Austrian, Aut aut ! also sometimes Nat natl Lip lip I Pi pi I (to hens), in other
places,
Put put I Tick tick ! Tict tict " Intimidating cries are the following. In Middle High German, Schu schu ! (to fowls), in Bavaria, le ! (to birds), Huss da ! lluschkt
(to hens), Lithuanian, Tisz
!
(to hens).
" Peculiar sounds for calling or driving them, are directed to intelligent dogs, horses, and cattle. The driver's words which direct harnessed oxen right and left should here be mentioned. The most usual for the right is Hott I Austrian, Hatt hott ! Low German, Hot, hut Hurhaut ! but in Bavaria and Grain, Diwo diau 1 Di dist ! Tschoa For the left, Hail and Wist! often together, Hautcist dist ! Wisthau ! Hotta ! and Wust ! often both together Suabian, Jist Austrian, Htl Zohi! Tschohi ! Swudee ! for left is singular. Frisch gives Schwodee ! a vocabulary by Pauzee gives Zicoudee ! Zwustache ! and Hans Sachs, Her! and Zuher ! I do not pretend to understand trange, and probably very ancient words.' So far Giumm. It is curious that the sound Schu ! Schu ! which he mentions as used in Germany for driving away fowls, is not only like what farm-servants in Cheshire and Lancashire use for that purpose, but is nearly the same as that which was employed in ancient
;
Athens, as
we
find in Aristophanes
IloP, irov, '$, 'ffiov rb SIktov ; 2oD, <rov iraAtc coG. 1
The
from aim
Scholiast derives aov from the verb aofiho, and SuiDAS derives it but it is manifestly a mere arbitrary sound, supposed to be ;
likely to drive
away
birds,
which
l>oth
critics
agree
is
the
meaning
io
Intended by the dramatist. In the Hnii'/arian language, Hoss

linas
is
explained, " Interject
gal-
abigendil
''
"an
interjection
nt'
one
driving
away
fowls."'
'." ' sivs \\\\i llTKi:, "is the cry of the Sualuans calling swine; I In. and Sir! of the Bretons for driving them." The Chinese have a particular interaction for driving OU1 a dog, tlie sound ('h/iih! and thence they ha\e formed which the]
a verb, to
friend,
r/i/ii/i,
as
in
the pio\ rrl>al expression, " In the presence of a
dog;"1 the meaning of which, no doubt, Among the poor friend* with your domestic grievances." nbfeannoi eel by our waggoners to their hoi appropriate kouii for turning. 4 In Germany, as Gee-ho ! for going on, and Woh I 1 informs as, Rep ii addressed to a itumbling hone. hear-baiting, encoui II op I DMd to be applied th'' fear. them
do
not ohhih a
I
i
'
vThara, trberVi
Parii Papal,
M.it
l,n, u,,
nj
nti
}
>t
Shoo
|>.
,,
ifaool
iboo igaifl
p
Vasp.
v. 9
D* Uon. L
<
i
Hi ogi
I'.tH.
('linn
ioiiii.
,\ am.- I.
ad.
isi
I.
\\,,,t, 'ii,.
r,
-.',
),.
L2S0,

OF INTER JECTIOXS. To let them breathe a while, and then Cry Whoop! and set them on again.
1
CHAP.
IX.
217
Johnson says, is " an interjection, a word of encouragement, when dogs are let loose on their game."* Hillo ! ho, ho, boy 1 Come, bird, come I is the cry which a falconer uses to call his hawk down from the air and in imitation of this, Hamlet uses the same cry to Horatio and Marcellus, after he has been some time separated from them.1 In the Winter's Tale,' the old shepherd calls to his son, Whoa ! Ho ! Hoa ! and the latter answers, Hilloa ! loa ! So ho ! is a very old expression used among huntsmen on discovering a hare as appears from the ancient ballad of the Huntynge of the Hare
Halloo
I
; ' ; '
'
The yoman rode and cryed So hoo ! And putte his hare up with his boo.*
Mercutio jestingly applies this cry
to the
appearance of the old nurse
Merc. So ho I Rom. What hast thou found ? 9 Merc. No hare, sir.

275. Hitherto I have considered interjections and interjectional forms with reference only to the ordinary concerns of life but language owes much to the religious impressions of mankind. These have, in all ages, called forth or modified sudden outbursts of feeling with relation either to the one true Gon, or to false deities, or to angels, saints, or, in short, to any person or thing which the speaker deems sacred. Superior beings, real or imaginary, are, perhaps, at first addressed solemnly in distinct terms of invocation, prayer, praise, or
:
Religious
"" semimti
ie.
thanksgiving
or their
names are employed among men
in adjuration,
but in course of time, the expressions gradually become vague and obscure, are corrupted in form, and dwindle into mere interjections, showing forth nothing but the ebullition of the speaker's feelings. I shall begin with those striking acclamations which connect the Christian dispensation with the
attestation, benediction, or the like;
Mosaic Hallelujah
most of us as
and Hosanna
interjections, of a sacred
These are vaguely known to and reverential character, ad-
dressed to the Almighty and the Saviour. They are, however, of Hebrew tongue. Hallelujah appeals in our translation of the Book of Tobit,' where the holy man, predicting the restoration of Jerusalem, says, "And all her streets shall say, Alleluia! and they shall praise Him, saying, Blessed be God, which hath
distinct origin in the
extolled
it
6 for ever !"
We
"
the
'
Book of Revelation
:'
have retained the Hebrew form also in heard a voice of much people in heaven,
I salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God I"7 But in the Book of Psalms,' where it forms the opening of several of those sacred lyrics, and often their conclu1
saying, Alleluia
Butler, Hudib. 1, 2, 165.
Dictionary, v. Halloo.
Hamlet, a. i. sc. 5. Romeo and Juliet, a.
*
i.
sc. 4.
Weber's Metr. Romances, v. 3, p. 285. ? Kevelation six. Tobit siii. 8. 1.

218
sion, our
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[CHAP. IX.
translators
Lord!"
to be
It seems, therefore, to
interjectional
have uniformly rendered it, "Praise ye the be not a simple interjection, but an form derived from a Hebrew root, signifying praise, and
in that sense, in
employed
which
all
created beings, to
whom
the faculty of contemplating, however imperfectly, the works of the Great Creator, is given, are bound to testify their utmost admiration
Hosanna is of a differof His infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. ent import ; it appears to be adopted from a passage in the Psalms, O Jehovah, which Dr. Lee has rendered, " O Jehovah, save now give now prosperity /"* The Jewish youths, it is said, were accustomed to recite this verse when they carried branches of palm in proand hence, when our cession, the week after the Feast of Tabernacles Saviour entered Jerusalem, they preceded Him, as the expected Messiah, crying, " Hosanna to the Son of David !" that is, " May the Soa
!
8 Suidas, therefore, seems to be in error of David save us now !" when he says, " Hosanna signifies Glory."* Nor is Johnson more " accurate in explaining it as " an exclamation of ' Praise to God !' though he seems to have been led into this error by Milton, who bee the angels answering to the call made on them by the Almighty Father to adore his Son
With
jubilee,
Heav'n rung and loud Jlosannas fill'd
Th' eternal regfons.*
may be supposed to have uttered and thanksgivings, or to have glorified God with Hallelujahs ; but there was no need to cry to Jehovah to save them, or to give limn jrrosperity, which, we are assured on the best authority, is the real import of Hosanna A great part of beathon worship seems to have consisted of invoHere, indeed, the blest voices
praises
cations, such as
'!>)
Ihuijov,
'I>), 'I/,
"laK-%, wÎok.^' l"<uhoe\

fi^rrjp
riaif/or i.KOVffr). 9
&C
OvSi &trts 'AxiAAija Kiv6p*rai &tktva

'Oirir6T
'Ify riai7Joi>, 'iJj
Again
'1*1, 'li]
<p6tyy*<r0t. 7
Îexy', Z"\<iK\f, is the acclamation of the Chorus, meant apparently to represent what was practised in the invsteries." The Latin Ehtho$l is
t " Well an Interjection Of the baOChantls, taken from the Greek m hit AOMj niy son!" which was applied l>y .love to Bacchus, for his
/
:
exploit!
in
the
WV of the Thine,
often
;
In
Almighty have
trivial OOOaitioiis
degenerated
Into
modern mere
times, invocations of the

ejaculations on the most
as
when
Sganarelle's wife Marline
comes
"
in
search of
Ud.fi,
UVulin
*
.-vi.
:uu\
48, &C.
IVilm
OH
:i!4,
B88.
ed.
Matthew
'Cinavvi 8<$a* mniiivti. Siiida*, v. t, p.
1619.
NOr did Til. to, w'Ikmi .1m- IhmmI

.);-.
III.'
ii
Ulrtrllr.l liinlll.T, ilr|.luiv AlllillOH,

i'.,..i,
:
if
I'ii ..ii
Callun
1
.
i,
I,.
llvimi A|>ll. v. 20.

v.
n.,.1. v.
25.
Arlrtopb. Rene,
:ti9.

219
CHAP.
IX.]
OF INTERJECTIONS.
her husband, she exclaims,
"Ah, mon Dieu
que
j'ai
en de peine a
trouver ce logis." 1 century or two ago, a similar abuse of the sacred name of the Lord was common in our own country, even among
Thus the learned SeLDST, speaking persons of great respectability. of a certain Hebraism in our translation of the Bible, says, "It enough as long as scholars have to do with it; but when it comes
! what jeer do they make of it !"* This exclamation occurs, too, very frequently in the Diary of Mr. Pepys, a person, indeed, of low origin, but of no small official weight and importance. Interjectional forms of adjuration have been common both in ancient and modern times, and these also frequently became mere exclamations, as Mehercle I Equinim ! &c. It is commonly thought that Mehercle ! and Mecastor ! were elliptical expressions for " lta me Hercules adjust .'" " lta me Castor adjuvet .'" But M. Dacier gives a more
amongst common people, Lord
probable explanation of them.

as
He
considers the vie and e of the
by pa and vj), &c., per Castorem ! " by Castor !" was the import of Me Castor and Mehercle, as per Herculem! "by Hercules!" Ejuno, as per Junonem, "by Juno r Ecere! as per Cererem ! "by Ceres!" Epol ! as per Pollucem ! " by Pollux !" 3 Mediusfidius ! was a similar adjuration and
Ri (mans to be equivalent to the Grecian adjurations
! :
this, also, is
differently explained, for
Festus supposes
Jidius
was an
ancient form of filius, the son.
He, therefore, takes the adjuration to answer tothe Greek pa tov Atoc vibv, " by the son of Jove !" meaning Hercules. Others, however, explain it to signify "by Fidius!" (the God of Faith or Fidelity), and this seems probable, from a passage in Plautus, where Denuenetus, being conjured to speak the truth, says
Per Deum Fidium quae quaeris jurato mihi Video necesse esse eloqui quiquid roges.*
Since I'm conjured by Fidius, I must speak out, and answer
I
see
all
your questions.
In adjurations like vat pit Aia (by Jove, affirmatively), and 'ov pa Aia (liy Jove, negatively), it is well observed by Hoogeveen, that the adjuratory force is given by pa, and the affirmative or negative character
by vat or
he
6v, respectively
5
;
and
so,
when
the adjuration
was by
:
any
7rt,
inferior
object, as
will
when
Achilles swears
by
his sceptre, affirma-
tively, that
never again go out to fight for the Grecians
piyav opKOv
Nai
Ofxovpai
ro5e
kui
fj.a
ffKr/irpov. 6
And when
he swears to Calchas that no one shall touch him
Ou
1
yuo
yap 'AirbWwva 7
ovrts
<rht
'P as 'irf<r.
Moliere, Med. malg. Lui. a. iii. sc. 9. Dacier, Not. ad Testum, voc. Mecastor.
Aniaaria, a.
i.
a Selden's
s
Table Talk,
art. Bible.
4 *
sc. 1.
i.
Homer,
Iliad,
233.
7 Ibid. v.
86, &c.
De Particulis, c. 25. here I swear a great oath, yea, by this sceptre! Nay, by Apollo ! no one shall lay hands on thee
And
"
OF raTERJBCTION8.
[chap. IX.
find
it
220
But
/id alone has an adjuratory force ; plied, ludicrously, to trifling objects, as
and we sometimes
1
ap-
Ma
rbv kvv
Si
tiiK6<TTpa.T
ov cpi\6êvos.
who is reported to This, no doubt, was said in ridicule of Socrates, ri)v Kpa^rtv (by the have' used a similar interjection as others did, fxa
cabbage !*). Aristophanes puts in the mouth of Socrates ua. to yojc, absurd ejaculations, as fib. ti)v av(nrvor\v, by the breath P the chud : by Chaos I fxb: ri> 'aeon, by the air ! ua nj op'x^"' shortened to a single Occasionallv /xd is omitted, and the interjection that Dorically, for yrjv, syllable, as'Theocritus uses Sav for yav, and
several other
the Earth, or Ceres

/o//*e
\eyovri
Tlavrfs &otl>bv ipiffrov, iyi> 5 ris 6v
raxovaH^-
'On Sav.*
So
(I
jumper Pollucem! in Latin, the entire phrases, juro per Herculem I down to the swear by Hercules I swear by Pollux !) are melted and Poll Chamea, fearful of being seen and short interjection, Herclel
!
recognized, exclaims
Perii hcrcle
!
obsecro,
Abeamus
intro, Thais.
So
the Argive nobleman,
when cured by
Pol!
his friends of his pleasant
lunacy, cries out
me
occidistis, amici,
Non
ries.
voluptu, Et demptus, per vim, Mentis gratissimus error.?

servastis, ait, cui sic extotta
276.
"The custom
"brouglu of the middle ages," says GRIMM,
Into battle. CM the* into use a separate war-cry for every party going Montjme celebrated in the early Prankish romances was the most anc Mont gaudii of Ducange), sometimes written Monsgoyi
(the
onetimes Uonmye"*
"fessot Wilde, in 17'.':;, predicts monarchy, said, "Instead oi the tamul the restoration of the French may yel be heard and din of their anarchy, the human voice divine The cry of Bourbon nostn Dame spirit ma) yet revive.
11,ni '"
The
ancient
and Montioie
,
Tknya\ maj again resound through France. was sometimes added Pretiosal the name oi Cnarle ordistrid magnp's sword. Often, too, the nameof the warrior's town,
St,
this
This
m the unpfa of
is
bdicrouslj Imitated ta Bi ixee,
in
describing
Aldermen of Borne, who," be says

h.i.
,,
'irhMMBW.
ArUtnli. V-Kp. v. Ub. n.
N..,
do
>y
Um
dos N
'
he
is
nol
'
MpttaUj
TJB1S
o
:;;o,l. 157.
Nu
l
Ibid.
And
they
ill
call
dm
an untltal riaMrj but
not wsllj
lt
ptnusaw
By
Uirouktl
"'
am
2-
ODdou.
i
l-
.,,!
y.u,
Thd
us go
in. loren
i
,,, r,,..,i,|s,
'
ud
307.
not bmofltwi
i
dm, line* tou

dtll|pBttl
th.iH robb<
"i
,rt
'
tram dm nj
p.
MM
QfUasri DtatMlM Qnnimtflc,
r,
lii.
"
I*

oiiAP. ix.]
221
of
unmracnc
!
Did ride with many a good morrow, And hej for our toun! through the borough
ras, P. 2, C. 2, v. 603.
"
The
knights,"
adds Grimm, " contented

or
!
themselves with the
mere cry of
!
iSchevaliers !
" on knights Be heroes of the country, as Schevaliers Parmenie!" 1 So Shakspeare, in the First Part of King Henry IV. (a. iv., sc. 3) says
Ey ! Schafaliers ! Werder helt !" Come And even here with the distinctive addition
God and
St.
George
Talbot, and England's right

Perverted
277. In the middle ages, too, an evil custom prevailed, although strictly forbidden by the law of the church, of swearing by various parts of Christ's body, as his hair, his head, &c. " Si quis per capillum Dei, vel caput juraverit" (says the Decretum Caus. 22, qua?st. i., c. 10) " si Laicus anathematizetur." To evade this formidable penalty some absurd perversions of the words were adopted, which rendered the interjections apparently as unmeaning as the Latin poll or the Greek Thus the names of God and Christ were travestied by Gog, lav. Cock, Ad, Od, I, or S. The oath, " By God's body" is perverted into the interjectional forms of Odsbody ! Udsbody ! Odsbodikinsl and Bodihins! The carrier, in the First Part of King Henry IV. (a. ii., sc. 1), cries out " Odsbody ! the turkies in my pannier are quite starved." The milkmaid, seeing Viola faint, exclaims, " Udsbody! Nan, help, she's in a
sound
!"*
!
Udsbodikuis
is
on the
carter,
whose team had been

If, Giles,
a diminutive of the preceding, as in the old epigram stolen

I've lost six geldings, to
my
smart
If not, Odsbodikinsl I've found a cart
Bodikins ! is the same shortened as when Justice Shallow, in the Merry Wives of Windsor,' says, " Bodikins ! Master Page, though I now be old, and of the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to
; '
be one
!"
! is " By God's side," in allusion to the side of Christ, which was wounded by the soldier's spear. Thus Hodge savs to Dickon, in 'Gammer Gurton's Needle' Gog's sides! Dickon, me think Ich hear him.
Gog's sides
Be Goddesface!
more distinct oath, occurs
in Winton's Chronicle
Evyn in the Peth was Erie Duwy, And til a gret stane that lay by, He sayd, be Godde's face, we twa The fleycht on us sail samyn ta.
UoVsfoot!
By God's
Udsfoot!
1
foot!
is
an interjection of the Scornful Lady,

thus!*
when she
finds she has
been deluded am I fetch'd over
2
3
Grimm's Deutsche Grammatik, v. iii. p. 307. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Coxcomb, a. v. sc. Ibid. The Scornful Lady, a. v.
2.

222
OF INTERJECTION'S.
[CHAP. IX
ridiculed
'Sfoot! and 'Foot! are the same shortened. Bclleur, vexed at heins by Rosaline, says, " I will not be a history, 'Sfoot I I wil
!"'
not
'Foot
at the usurer's
is an exclamation of young Loveless, when surprisec unexpected liberality

is
'Foot! this
stranger than an Africk monster! 2
By
is,
Cock's bones! originally signified
"By
the bones of
God!"
tha
"of Christ"
Thei swere
all be
cohkes bownes! 3
So
in
Chaucer
See
how
How
he woll
he nappeth ! see for cock's bones fall from his hors at ones.
'Sfacks ! signified originally " By Christ's hair !" and Mas the ven oath per Capillum Dei, specially prohibited in the canon law rbi
:
feax in Anglo-Saxon town of Halifax, i.e.,

fakes
is
the hair of the head,
whence was named
the
hoelig feax,
the holy hair.
Hence, too, the name
of the well-known English family Fairfax, i.e., fair-hair. The won for the hair is still used in the Cheshire dialect !' Cock' s passion ! is an evasion of the oath " By tin' passion of Christ As an interjection, it implies only a slight alarm, when used bj Grumio on his master's approach
Cock's passion
!
silence
hear
my
master. 4
God's blood!" i c, "By the blood of Christ!' an oath, which, taken seriously by a Christian, must have been felt as a most sacred obligation but we find it as an interjection in thf mouths of reprobates, who appear to have had little sense of religion thus Falstaff, engaged with Prince Henry in a robbery, has had hit horse removed by one of his companions, and exhaling his vexation an interjection, he exclaims, "'tf/'lcMxl! I'll not hear mine own flesh s<
'S'blood!
is
"By
it:
tin
'
afoot again for all the coin in thy father's exchequer."' N' pretious ! or Ud's pretious! was "By Christ's precious blood!"
This also became an interjection expressing vexation, as when Hvlas, who lias been deluded by a sham marriage, is told that no marriagi has taken place, be cries out in surprise and disbelief, "'Spretious vi.u'll make' me mad. Did not the priest tie our hands fast?"" Sc the tinker's trull, when jealous of poor Viola, cries " Ud'sprttiousl
J
i
jron
be ticlng?"'
I'.\
Zoii:
Coil's
in
wounds!"
Sir
I,.. .line,
" the baron
rich,"
expresses himself
!!.
Coleridge's wild and beauteous

in Jphii'k
poem:
sworn hy the wound oath,
Hide!"
five
The more common

1
however, was by the

rTQdfOOM OhSM|
N
.
icoumh;
viz.,
Bwuni'.Tit nn.
i
ri.t.h.i, Tin.I
i
ii.
i .
i.i.i.
ti,.- ,-..,. .a
Lady,
h.
I,
:i.
y.
1 1
1 1 1 . t
ii.
ii
i\
iv.,
oftht Ran, in Paii

i
f.
1. v. 117,
'
in.
II.
I.
Mona, TI
I
7 ll.l.l. TI,.
"
Chi,
CHAP.
IX.]
OF INTERJECTIONS.
;
223
allusion
is
those in the side, hands, and feet

in
to
which frequent
made
ancient heraldic bearings.
This awful oath,
too,
passed into an
ordinary expression of alarm or violence; as

the travellers are eight or ten in number,
when
Falstaff is told that
they not rob us?"' his wife

That,
all
80 when Petruchio
is
he cries, " Zounds ! will asked if Katharine shall be

and swore so loud,
book."
" Ay, h/ Gog's wounds!" quoth

amaz'd, the priest
he,
let fall his
Od's nouns
from
Dame
another perversion of the same oath ; as we learn Quickly, when Parson Evans is examining the boy in his
!
is
grammar
Evans. How many numbers is in nouns ? Will. Two. Quickly. Truly, I thought there had been one more; because they say
Oil's
nouns
I
Merry Wives of Windsor.

I
Od'slife
'Slife
Life
and
OcTslifelings
a very solemn oath
"By
the
life
of
God!"
"As the Lord liveth!" We find them marking some degree of impetuosity, vexation, or sudden alarm. When Sir Anthony Absolute is indignant at his son's pretended indifference to Lydia's beauty, he exclaims
'Odslife ! when I ran away with your mother, anything old or ugly to gain an empire
!
are different evasions of or in scriptural phrase, as interjections, casually

I
wouldn't have touched

Sheridan, Rivals.
'Life
is
an
interjection of
like
I
angry surprise
:"
in
Thomas Middleton's
play "
No Wit
Woman's
'Life
had he not his answer ?
Sir
Andrew Aguecheek having been

'
beaten
by
Sebastian, and mis-
taking Viola for him, cries out in alarm

Odslifelings ! here he
is
!
Shaksp. Twelfth Night,

'Slight
I
a. v. sc. 1.
God's light !" but when used interjectionally, it is often applied on very trivial occasions. When Mark Antonio sees Eugenia pass by, veil'd, he exclaims to his companion
is
"
By
'Slight
sir,
yonder
is
a lady veil'd
a. iv. sc. 1.
Beaumont and Fletcher, Love's Pilgrim,
Several French interjections have arisen from similar evasive oaths,
by the blood, the body, the head, &c., of our Saviour. Palsanggueni I corrupted by the peasants from Par
"By
the blessed blood!"
e.,
of Christ:
le sang be'ni thus the peasant Lucas,
amused at Sganarelle's droll expressions, says, " Palsangguenne'! v'la un Medecin qui me plait." 3 Parlacorbleu I originally " By the body of Christ, when dead and livid!" It was afterwards shortened to Corbleu! Parbleul and
Pardieu
1
Henry
IV., First Part, a.

!
ii.
sc. 2.
Taming
th<>
Shrew,
a. iii. sc. 2. a.
i.
Palsangguenne
here's a pleasant doctor
! Moliere,
Med. m. Lui,
sc. 6.
bile!
1
224
OF INTERJECTIONS.
Parlacorbleu
!
[CHAP. IX
gardez d'ethautler trop
ma
Corbleu, nion Gendre, ne m'ecliaufl'ez pas la bile
Parbleu ! s'il faut parler des Gens extra vagans, Je viens d'essuyer un des plus t'atigans. 3
Pardieu
J'en tiens, c'est tout de bon
!*
Morbleu ! seems to have been, in like manner, shortened from " Par la mort bleue" reminding us of the iroptyvptos Oavaros of Hosier. But used as an interjection, it may express angry surprise as when Alceste is indignant at the insincere praise which Philinthe bestows on Oronte's silly verses
Philinthe.
I
never heard verses so well turn'd.
Alceste
Tetebleu
J
(aside).
Morbleu l b
and Ventrebleu ! belong also to this class. They are both employed by Destouchks, the first to mark indignation
Le Com. Moi
and the second
to
je
ments?
Tetebleu,
mon
pere, permettez;
mark contempt
Treve de colere
Le Marquis. Ou
Le Baron.
Ventre
!
je
me
ficherai
Fdchez vous, Ventrebleu

:
is
sometimes used alone
Et si j'avois quelque pouvoir, Ventre ! je vous terai savoir
Ventre Saint Gris
was the common exclamation of Henri IV.
Its
but it may possibly have referred, tike I'cuirebleu, to the dead body of Christ. Cadedis I is a Gascon interjection, originally Cap de Dieu ! " By id of God!" the word cap from the Latin caput being used in Gascony to signify the head: thus BfKNAQK, explaining the word CUOVT, mats it as a diminutive of cup, and says, the Gascons pronounce it capdet, meaning a younger son, the eldest son being the proper htad of the? family. Probably the Latin caput was corrupted first into cop*, and then into cap ; andcapt with the diminutive particle rt, formed mpt-et, and by contraetion cadet whence we use cm/,/ for I yotAger sun of a family, and of late years as tin' peculiar title of a student admitted into a military colli o he an officer. M Bod) "I Baeofaost I is an Italian exclamation of surprise, which have often heard from persons of the highest re. hty and which may, perhaps, have been .it firsl adopted by
signification is obscure;
: I
;
,
profane use of an oath

is
\>\
the Ixuly of Christ.
The
i-xi I.tn
ation
/'./
BOOOO! however,
ika
also
common, and may

Mulicii',
pOSSiblj
ttn
ti
to
leu!
my
ou-iiidaw, don't
Mir up my bill-. up my Ml-. Itii

I
Com.
Iinnginaire.
.l.ni.lin,
Ibid.
Cnu-c
n.
i.
roott
of troabUtOBM fcDoWi, annoying. Ibid. Ml antliropo, a. II, >'. ban Htnl r ',;' t flslnf icro, Mimntliro|), a. i. m. 3.
:
bV'
.i"-<
nut willi one
ol'tlu:
'
>'
>
'
Aanad

CHAP.
IX.]
OF INTERJECTIONS.
;: !
225
have descended from the times of heathenism, as the similar phrase By . we ! has done in English. Certainly, in neither case is there a serious intention of appealing to deities which are well known to have no existence it follows that the words are merely interjectional fonns of speech. Next to the appeals addressed to the 'Almighty and the Saviour prior to the Reformation, were those addressed to the Saints and the Virgin Mary, as is still the case in Roman Catholic countries but everywhere the solemn invocation has passed into a mere interjection. In Malta, for instance, the exclamation Santa Maria ! which is continually heard, especially among the lower classes, neither conveys nor is meant to convey to the mind of the hearer any other impression than that of surprise, or alarm, on the part of the speaker. similar effect was formerly produced in England by the interjections now obsolete Marry ! By the mackins 1 Birlady I and provincially By Lakin ! and By Leakins ! It is a remarkable instance of the effect of habit in converting a solemn invocation into a mere interjection, that Bishop Latimer, who was certainly little disposed to worship the Virgin Mary, nevertheless employed her name interjectionally. " To whome," savs he, " did God promise coronam vitae, everlastyng life ? Marye ! diligentibus, unto them that love him." 1 Here the good bishop uses the word Marye by no moans as an invocation, but merely as expressive of the same sort of feeling as Polonius shows, when, in directing Reynaldo to inquire into the character of Laertes, he says
:
And there put on him What forgeries you please. Marry ! none As may dishonour him.*
so rank
By the mackins! "By the maiden!" is used interjectionally bv T. Randolph, a satirical poet of the seventeenth century. Mackins ! is a diminutive like the German mddelene, whence also comes our word maiden, often used anciently for the Blessed Virgin
or village, as Maiden Newton, There was some vears ago an inn called the Maidenhead Inn, at Salisbury, which originally had for its sign the head of the Virgin Mary. Adelung observes that Ottfriep and the other Frankish writers invariably designate the mother of our Saviour by the simple word Magad, the maid. (Worterbuch, v. 3, p. 13.) Birlady is used in Beaumont and Fletcher s play of The Coxcomb (a. 5, sc. 1), where the Justice addresses Curio, who has brought him
as
when
applied to the
name of a town
Maiden Bradley, and Maidenhead.
'
some papers
Birlady
!
sir,
you have
rid hard, that
you have.
we have By'rlahn I and again, in the Night's Dream,' a. in., sc. 1 ; and this is still further corrupted in the Cheshire dialect, to By lakin ! and By leakins ! but it
In the
'
Tempest,'
a. in., sc. 3,
Midsummer
Latymer, Sermon Seventh, fo, 54, Shaksp. Hamlet, a. ii. sc. 1.
ed.
1562.
[]
226
is
OF INTERJECTIONS.
[CHAT. IX.
the present day has not the obvious that a Cheshire peasant at interjection he is speaking ci the slightest notion that in using this
cross of Christ, and the mass, a Of thincrs held sacred, the rood, or church, were among the most service of the Roman Catholic solemn Brengwain is brought into "a grisly clough, to When remarkable.
be killed by the murderers

Sche cri'd merci enough,
And seyd, for Cristc's Bode ! What have Y done wough Whi wille ye spille mi Mode ?
Sir Tristrem, Fytte
11.
st.
59.
Mass I an interjection frequent was originally an adjuration, By

;
in our old plays, but

ihe
now
obsolete,
mass
in
jests
vS believed to be bodily present. It must, but we End it employed as a mere ejacuoaTh of weightv obligation When old Capulet's servanj approbation. of gold-humoured merrily replies to fetch logs, his master
therefore,
which Christ himself have been an
kto
on being ordered
Mass! and well
said.
Thou
shalt be loggerhead. Borneo and Juliet, a.
W.
sc.
4.
may nationally,
It
obsecro! which is often u*,l here be observed that the Latin sacra rogol "I beseech you by is equivalent to Per
!"
the sacred rites
Quidnam H
est, obsecro I
quid
te adiri
abuntas
Fragm. mcerti Tragici.
tlieir head" NV.th.a expressly forbidden to swear by y P not make on, haU by thine head, because thou canst fhak t on have beenH v. 86,)-* may perhaps or black,'' (Matthew o, by the pan of that precept to swear
A Christians are
ZZ
Xd
1
as a lawful evasion
" by the top!"
pan ! Lou ia a greter lawe, by my nun. Than may be yeuen to any ortlily kith BWOTI M hys top, Sir Simond do Montfort .!< Kigot Hevedc he nou heiv Sir Hi..him twtlWDOQU scot \| he thulde gramitr
'
*"
Tl,,t a
man
shnuld
pkd
iiSttonstan.,tl..nr. latitude tutHi .., joctionally with greater
to il.o truthôf hi bis Ufe or his.faith km. but w, find expressions of tl,,< II1 ,.-U.l.
:
Import'
an ox.-lamat.on
ol
ÂWt-.W-l).-aU. ofm)
.uttered bj
-
life!" is
f
me
.I.-M..I
Bourbon, uh,n.l,,Kn,h.l
11I
l,. l
||,rv V.,
mvudod Krance
vie
lt
i
Mort do ma
J
i,
If
they .hall march ftloaj

i
To
win bat buy ah'l'lx'ry und duly
t-ii
wjimam,
I
tan
,SAaA*p.
l*ti
>
Inthstnook-ahottmiiUoiAlbloa.
>-
.|
' lU.
'
'

CHAP.
IX.]
OF INTERJECTIONS.
227
sort of evasion,
Of the pledge of life, however, there is a humorous Mor non pas de ma vie ! " Death not of my life !"
Mornonpasde
not of
ma
vie ! C'est
un malin
is
my
lite,
that master of yours
Death diable que votre maitre. a mischievous devil. Arlequin, Misanthrope.
fluously introduced
'
enough, though somewhat superopening of his first book of The Life and Acts of the most victorious conqueror, Robert Bruce
!
Per/ay
By faith I
is intelligible
by Barbour
in the
'
Alexander the king was dead, That Scotland had to steer and lead, The land six years and more, perfay
When
Lay
desolate after his day.
But
it is
rather ludicrous to find this interjection uttered
by Satan,
in
the old English
poem
called
The Harrowing of Hell
'
Parmafcy ! Ich holde myne Alle tho that bueth her yne.
278. There are several interjections and interjectional forms in old Of doubtful which the original signification is not easily to be deter- ongin mined. Such are, By Godde's ore ! By cock and pye 1 God'slid ! 'Slid Od'sbobs ! Zooks ! Gemini I Ad'sniggs ! Sniggs ! Hey how, and Jiumhylowe ! the German Dopp ! Gott henne 1 &c. Bi Godde's ore I appears in the romance of Sir Tristrem
writers, of
"
Brengwain the coupe bore Hene rewe that ferly fode,
He swore
bi Gode's ore In her hond fast it stode.
" Ore" says Sir Walter Scott, " is a word of uncertain derivation, and various application." Tyrwhitt explains it as meaning grace, favour, protection. (See a note upon this phrase in Ritson's Metrical
'
Romances,'
dinner, says
v.
iii.,
p.
263.)
you
Page, persuading Slender to come in to

shall not choose, sir
By
cock and pye
Come, come Merry Wives of Windsor, a.

; !
i.
sc. 1
Steevens says
that this
was a very popular
adjuration,
and occurs
it,
in
many
in the
of our old dramatic pieces.
Justice Shallow also uses
much
same way,
to Falstaft*
!
By
cock and pye
sir,
you
shall not
away
to-night.
a. v. sc. I.
Second Part Henry IV.,
of this whimsical exclamation, the most probable seems to be that cock was the above-noticed corruption of the sacred Name, and pye was an abbreviation of lit va, a tabular index in the offices in the Romish service.
Among
different suggestions of the origin
By
origin.
God'slid
and
'Slid
are doubtless expressions of a
common
Pandarus, pointing out Hector to Cressida, says
By
God's lid
it
does one's heart good. Troihis and Cressida, a.
i.
sc. 2.
Q2

[CHAP. IX.
2-2
OF INTERJECTIONS.
Slender, timidly approaching

I'll
Anne Page,
'Slid
says
.'
make
a shaft or a bolt on't.
'tis
but venturing
a.
Merry Wives of Windsor,

It can
iii.
sc. 4.
hardlv be supposed that this was originally an oath by God's eyelid; perhaps it was, By God's lithl from the Anglo-Saxon lith, a limb. Od'sbobs ! unless it be a corruption of Od'sbody ! above mentioned,
may be
It a mere arbitrary exclamation. bantering conversation with Lydia Bianca

! !
is
used by Mirbel in his
Od'sbobs
Mark ye hark ye you are angry, lady. Beaumont and Fletcher, Wild Goose Chase,
!
a.
i.
sc. 3.
Zodks
is
another
equivocal
interjection,
expressing
emotions
usually of the lighter kind.
In the farce of 'Midas,' Apollo, offering himself as a servant, sings to the farmer! strike hands I'll take your offer Further on I may fare worse. Zooks I I can no longer suffer Hungry guts and an empty purse
!
Come
very obscure: it may perhaps have beat oaths taken on which the Gospels, (" tactis Sanctis evangeltis ") were deemed peculiarly sacred ; and are at present required (with some exceptions) in the ordinary mode SI giving evidence in our courts of justice. Gemini! was probably an evasive imitation of Jesul What Ad'sniggs! and 'Snigs ! were meant to express T own I These exclamations, however, occur (generally with a cannot guess. ludicrous effect) in various writings of the seventeenth century
The
origin of this
word
is
"By
God's books!" that
is,
"
Ad'sni<j'js !" cries Sir

1
Dominc,
" Gemini
I'.ut
.'
Gomini !"
;
T.D'Urfnj.
tht niMii of Clare Hall that proffor rtftUM he'll be beholden to none but the Muses.
G. Stepney.
one or two plays of Beaumont am I'letchcr. and fotfl I ami liumbelow ! which are Ibund in old Scotch and Knglish, seem to be merely arbitrary exclamations
also in
I
|
Willi luij
'II
i.-
mul howl rohumbelow!

b)
rOBflg folk wero full
kL
Peblis to the Ploy.
ili
rowed* hard, and nunggo ther too h.iu km I and rumbelool

tiKuvinr*
hovcel
<rd
Camr de Lion.
\mu
Dop}>!
hi
yngoa rowe and rumbylowt I

idiall
Bquyrt of Lowe Degree.

to
German,
i.
ml
l'\
Wa.iiiki:
bean
interjection of a
v\
who
|.ro|o,.s to
make a bargain: " Interjectio ad
provocuntm."
The
,
origin to obscure, bat
Wachtkb
radical
is
ptobablj
ol
rigli
ii|..-rali\.'
of an
connected with the Greek
nnr,
in
Trvn-rw.

CHAP.
IX.]
OK IXTKIUKCTIOXS.
229
Hence is analogous to our expression, " Strike hands!" and it is connected with our word, dub, to make a knight, by the formality of striking him on the shoulder with a sword. This, in Anglo-Saxon, is dubban to ridda ; in Islandic, addubba til riddara
the interjection
1
Dopp !
and
in German, Zum ritter schlagen. With the Islandic agreed the barbarous Latin adobare, from which the old French adouber was taken, which occurs often in romances, as
Adoubez-moi biax meles, dit Oarin; Et dit Fromond, Volentiers, biax amis.
Roman
Mcs d'une chose me
dites verite',
de Garin.
Se onques fQtes Chevalier adoube'.
Roman
de Girard de Vienne.
And
Adoube alone
En
is
often used for a knight
Ilicard s'en vet a
Laon
la Cite'
sa
compagne
trois cents
Adoubes.
Roman
de Garin.
Dub
is
also
used by us as a noun
As skilful coopers hoop their tubs, With Lydian and with Phrygian dttbs.
Butler, Hudibras.
an interjectional expression for In modern German we meet with dub/tummer, a beating a drum. " There are some other great hammer used in certain copper-works.
!
And
this again leads to
Rub-a-dub
expressions," says
for instance, the
nenei
Groim, "which it is quite impossible to explain; Lower Hessian Gott fienne ! the Hainault Speck henand elsewhere, Ja henne ! and Ja hennenbere ! And how are
Blomenharte ! Blomenheide I according to the Blemish dictionary, an interjection of admiration ; and in the Netherlandish, Blommerheit I Blommerhart !"* 279. To the examples of interjections and interjectional forms here Conclusion, given, numberless others might be added, were it possible to examine in detail the various languages which have prevailed among mankind. It unfortunately happens that most of the persons, who have hitherto collected materials for Glossology, have thought, with Mr. Lindley Murray, that " it is unnecessary to expatiate on such expressions of passion" which they regard, with him, as " scarcely worthy of being ranked among the branches of artificial language." (Eng. Gram., Part ii., c. 10.) On the contrary, enough, I trust, has been shown to prove that the expressions of human passion deserve as truly the
to understand
we
attention of the philosopher
as the expressions of
The former
class of expressions, as well as the latter, are
Glossology to be used in ancient

rous and civilized, by each sex,
1
human intellect. shown bv and modern times by nations barbaold,
by young and
!
by the learned and

!
Nam
sponsiones,
more antiquo, complosis
dextris percutiuntur, et hinc is qui
ad sponsionem provocat, dicere solet Dopp 8 Deutsche Grammatik, vol. iii. p. 307.
id est,
peicute
230
illiterate,
OF INTERJECTIONS.
and, if not
[CHAP. IX.
much employed by
by the most
the historian or the philoso-
pher, yet abundantly so

poets.
It is
energetic orators, and the noblest
shown that in a great variety of languages (and presummodes of speech are employed which show forth the passions, feelings, and emotions of the mind in all their various energies, their nice shades, and their marked distinctions, without formally asserting their existence and that this is done sometimes by incondite sounds, sometimes by single words grammatically called interjections, vocative cases of nouns, or imperative moods of verbs and in other instances by fragments of sentences, or by sentences We may, if we elliptically condensed, or even by whole phrases.
ably in
all) certain
;
please, call the incondite sounds
and the other modes
and the single words mere interjections, forms ; but these two modes are so nearly identical in effect, that the one may often be substituted for the other, in the same or different languages, and that the more complex By confining our forms often degenerate into the more simple. attention exclusively to the single words usually called interjections, we run a risk of misconceiving the real force and effect of those words It is owing to such themselves in a philosophical view of language. misconception that some writers deem it part of the definition of an interjection to be indeclinable; whereas, I have shown that in various languages a declinable word is often employed as a true interjection. Other persons maintain that interjections have no government of cases, or influence on moods, which is sufficiently disproved by the Latin Hex mUii I and the English
interjectional
!
that
were where Helen
lies
These points I shall further notice when I come to speak of Syntax, I shall also show, under the head of Etymology, that some of the simplest interjections pass by transition into nouns or verbs, and are attended, as in the case of the Latin wp, with numerous derivative^
From
all
these considerations together,
it
is
fairly to
o interred that
comparative grammar agrees with universal, in assigning to interjectfOM and Interjectiona] forma of speech an Important place in the
Philoaophy of Language.
381
)
CHAPTER
X.
OF ONOMATOP(EIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.

280. The earliest impulse, in human life, towards the use of speech, Meaning of The next is imitation. have seen that the interjec- Uie tem emotion. tion is the first vocal expression of emotion ; we shall presently see that the first vocal expression of imitation is the Onomatopoeia. " Imitation," says Aristotle, " is natural to man from his very childmay observe this," says the President Des Brosses, hood." 1 " most remarkably in the formation of words. When it is necessary to give a name to an object before unknown, which acts on the sense of hearing, man does not hesitate, reflect, or compare; but he imitates with his voice the sound which has struck his ear. This is what the Greeks called an Onomatopoeia."* The literal signification of the term, indeed, is nothing more than " word-making ;" from ovofta, a word, and ttoucj, to make and such also is the meaning of 8 Priscian's term, " Nomen factitium." But neither of these denominations is well chosen; for words may be, and constantly are, made from other motives than imitation. Nevertheless, as the term Onomatopoeia has been adopted by grammatical writers, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and English, I shall not hesitate to employ it, in the sense, so generally received, of an " imitative word." 281. Two points are here to be considered, first, the natural power Power of 11* 1101 of imitating, by the human voice, sounds which strike the ear; and secondly, the putting this imitative sound into the form of a word. The first point is admirably illustrated by my lamented friend Wordsworth, in one of his " Poems of the Imagination." He is speaking of a4x>y standing alone by the glimmering lake
is
We
''
"We
And
there with fingers interwoven, both hands
Press'd slowly palm to palm, and to his Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
mouth
Blew mimic
hootings to the silent owls.
Here the imitation is said themselves were deceived

1
to have been so accurate, that the birds
2 8
est, 4
T<5 T yap fit/xuffdai avixtpvrov rots avBpuirois 4k TrdiSuv iari. Poet. s. 6. Median, d. Lang. 1, 229. " factitium est, quod a proprietate sonorum per imitationem factum (Nomen)
ut Tintinnabulum, Turtur."
Instit.
ii.
Grammat.
1.
2, c. 6.
Wordsworth, Miscel. Poems,
vol.
p. 117,
Ed. 1820.
232
OF ONOMATOPOEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.

And they would shout Across the wat'ry vale, and shout again, Responsive to his call.
[CHAP. X.
Differently
282. But this cannot always be the case. The vocal organs of mankind differ according to age, sex, and individual constitution. The same sound strikes differently on the ear of different individuals, and excites in their imagination different notions of similitude. What to one man sounds like tap, seems to another to resemble pat What a German means to express by the imitative sound krahen, sounds to an English ear like that which we express by the verb to crow. These diversities of impression on the senses and the mind, naturally produce a similar difference in their vocal expression, when formed into words. Thus, Mr. Leighton Wilson, speaking of the Negro dialects of Southern Africa, says, " that a handsaw is variously called sero in the Mandingo language, grikd in the Grebo, and egwasa in the MjKjngwee, according to the sound of this instrument, which took the strongest hold upon the imagination of one or the other tribe. So, a bell has the name of bikri in Grebo, talango in Mandingo, tcoyovcoyo in Bambara, diololi and wahcal in Julof, agogo in Yebu, In the same manner we may account and igcdingo in Mpongwee." in the Latin tintinnalmlum, and for the different names of a bell
.
we find similar sounds a great variety of languages by words of similar or cognate articulation; the weaker being generally marked by the less open vowels, and the stronger often by additional consonants. This is very observable in the words click, clack, clink, clank, cling, clang, all which are Onomatopoeias, imitating sounds more or less
in the
German
in
Glocke.
On
the other hand,
imitated
similar.
cuck, clack,
283. Click is defined by Johnson, "a sharp, small, successive noise;" bat it does not necessarily imply succession; it marks only M the click" of a the quickness and slightness of the sound, as pistol.
In Dutch, a woman's pattens, from the short rattling noise which In French cliijuetis is the short, slight they make, are called klikkrrs. D0U6 made y the clashing of swords. rally means something louder than click, but of the .same
1
.
Thus in Hai,i.iwku/s \\rchaic and Pro" clacks of wood," small pieces of wood to clap with; clack, to map the fingers; dock, a kind of small windmill set on a pole, io turn, and clap on a hoard, to frighten away birds; docker or clacke.t, a rattle to frighten away birds; clack, the clapper Tin' Doric /.ATii,, a key, of U mill, which in French is called cla</wt. was probabh to named from the sharp sound it makes when turning
shar|
a and
quickness.
vincial
Words,'
we
find
in
a lock.
Of the sound
The (irrman K lack made |, tl.

s
I
|'
;
or /(lacks!
,||
,,f
|>n,atl
h n di
h carried l>y
an interjection expresand lofl BUbstUOe. lepers an on which

is
.
nil of the American Oriental Society,

Mil|*rt ad. voc.
vol.
i.
BfOi
I.
342.

CHAP. X.]
they knocked, to
the disguised
call
233
to

the attention of the humane.
So Lucio says
Duke
His use was to put a ducket in her clack-dish. 1
to this
2
Somewhat
similar
is
the
Scotch cleckin-brod, a board for
striking with at hand-ball.
This sort of loud sharp sound, when caused by noisy talking, is contemptuously called in English, clack ; in Dutch, clakker ; and in In Italian, where chi answers to our cl, chiaccheria French, claqicet. Dr. Johnson, who often defines a word by an signifies babbling. accidental circumstance, defines clack " anything that makes a lasting and importunate noise." It is true that noisy talk may be imporbut these circumstances are tunate, and may sometimes be lasting not implied by the word clack, which imitates the sound in its quality, and not in its duration, or in the trouble it occasions. 284. Clink and cling produce a further modification of vocal expicssion, by introducing a nasal articulation but the sounds which they imitate are of the slighter kind. Clink is the sound made by the latch of a door, in a passage of Spenser
; ;
Clink, cling,
Tho', creeping close behind the wicket's clink, Privily he peeped out through a chink.
Johnson erroneously suggests

knocker
within.
is
that clink here means knocker but the on the outside of a door, and a person peeping out must be
;
The
lifting
its
clink is
the latch.
sound.
a slang term for a gaol, from the sound made in Die klinke, in German, is the latch, evidently from Mr. Lowell, an American poet, uses clink for another
slight rattling sound,
which often occurs
at public dinners
our verbs tinkle and tingle, as " Ein tbnend Erz, oder eine klingende Schelle," " sounding brass " Das klingen der ohren ;" or a tinkling cymbal," (1 Corinth, xiii. 1.) " the tingling in the ears." It also signifies the rattling of arrows in a quiver. " Der kbcher klinget ;" lt the quiver rattleth," (Job xxxix. 23.) 285. Clank and clang express various louder sounds. Clank is often used for the noise which prisoners make when walking in fetters. The ' Spectator ' uses it for the sound of marrow-bones and cleavers. In Dutch, " de klank van un klok " is the sound of a church bell. Milton uses clang for the cry of many birds rising at once into the air for the noise of sea-mews ; and for the tremendous thunders on
A rat-tat-too of knives and forks, The German verb klingen answers to
a clinkty-clink of glasses.
Clank clanK
Mount
Sinai
1
feather'd soon, and fledge,
They summ'd their pens, and soaring th' air sublime, With clang despis'd the ground. Par. Lost, 7, 421. The haunt of seals, and ores, and sea-mews' clang.
Ibid. 11, 835.
1
Shakspeare, Measure for Measure,
a.
iii.
sc. 2.
Jamieson, ad. voc.

234
[CHAP. X.
OF OXOMATOPffilAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang. Hymn on Chr. NaUo, v. 156.
uses KXayyf) in describing the flocks of cranes, or other on the stream of Cayster the Grecian soldiery ceasing their noise at the voice of the heralds ; the clamorous noise of the swine, driven together into their sties ; and the terrific noise of Apollo's arrows, rattling as he advanced
So,
large birds, alighting noisily
:
Homer
"EvQa
(cod
iv&a iroT&vrai, aya^xS/Jievoi Trrepvyecrcn,

Iliad, 2, 462.
K\ayynSbv KpoKaBifymov.
eTO \abs, Ipfavdev Se KatP fSpas, Tlavaifxevoi K\ayyr\s.
KAee-yy); 8' &a-irfros 2>pro av5>v iuXifojuej/ciaij/.
"SirovSrj 5'
Iliad, 2, 99.
Odyss. 14, 412.
"EK\ayâv
8' tip'
ourro) iv Hi(jmv x<ofJ.evoio.
Iliad, 1, 46.
BOrger uses both Ming and Mang

Und jedes
for the lively
sound of cymbals
Heer, mit kling und klang, Mit Paukenschlag, und sing und sang, Geschmiiekt mit griinen Keisern, Zog heim zu seinen Hiiusern.
JLcnore.
According to Julius Pollux (Onomasticon L. 5, c. 13), Kkayyavw expressed the cry of hounds in hunting, and *:\ayyriw that of cranes in their flight; from which latter Hippocrates describes a hoarse harsh voice like that of the cranes, by the term K-Xayywîjc </>wr). The Latin clangor is applied by Virgil several times to the sound
of trumpets
It ciclo
clamorque virflm clangorque tubarum.

JEneid, 11, 192.
But he also applies
it
to the noise
made by
the harpies
At subitd, horrifico hipsu, de montibus ndsunt Harpyio?, et maguis quatiunt clangoribits alas.
Ibid. 3, 425.
Clangore,
in
in Italian, is
used
for the
sound of a trumpet, as
is
clangour
English.
Thus Dryden says

With
i"V they
view the wnving colors
fly,
And hear
..
the trumpet's clangour pierce the sky.
\\Mi.| in
describing the death-cry of
however, tnakei mother, and very poetical use of this Warwick's brother on tin' field <i
And
I.ikiiii
battle
to a
the Tory pangs of death, ho cried, alar, dismal elm .< '
IhM
u Warwick
He\'
ah !"
Third
Pmi
</
//m.'lW,
a.
ii.
in
i
the Boiddk
agta,
the chtvofa belli being called tubes ecchsinstinv

1.
their
sound wai called clangor, and

x
belfrv
Obtained
tl"'
nan
f r!,in,iri>im.
.
voc. Clango,

CHAP. X.]
235
formed,
has been said, it is evident that an onomatopoeia How by a simple articulation or a single syllable, but also by a combination of syllables, as cuckoo, cockatoo, hiccup, ululare, according as the sound imitated is more or less prolonged and varied. And as these sounds pass into each other by gradual approximation, so we find gradations of onomatopoeia in such words, as cry, schrei, shriek, schrecken, or as tang, twang, tinkle, tingle, rattle, In different languages we find onomahurtle, &c, and the like. topoeias quite or nearly similar, because the sounds which they are meant to imitate are the same; but yet there is frequently some
286. From what may be formed not
only
difference
differently.
between them, because the same sound strikes different ears Thus it is the same tuneful note of the nightingale which the English poet describes by jug-jug, and which makes the Persian
the bird Bul-bul.
call
287.
classify
To enumerate
the onomatopoeias, which are to be found in
H w classi
"
the various languages of the world,
would be an endless task, and to them minutely would be not more practicable. They not
;
only present themselves in their simple forms, but are to be traced in numerous derivatives and compounds and thus they form a much larger element of speech than is commonly suspected. Grimm, who
ranks them
among
1
interjections,
enumerates
many
in
the
German
Sachs, and the Kindermdrchen. A slight attempt at classification might be made by referring them to the different kinds of sounds which they imitate, as produced by inanimate objects, or by insects, reptiles, birds, beasts, or human beings remembering, however, that these classes often nm into each other as it is impossible to say whether the word roar, for instance, was first suggested by the roar of the sea, or of a lion,
language, quoting,
other authorities,
;
;
among
Hans
noXvifkoiafioio 0aXct<T<T>/e, or rugientis leonis.
288.
first
begin with the sounds produced by things inanimate, taking
Crick, creak,
and quickly. Click has been already mentioned. Near akin to this is crick, which Johnson derives from cricco, an Italian word (if it be such), which I have never met with, but which he explains " the noise of a door." Cric, in Italian, signifies the sound made by glass in breaking and, in French, criccrac, is used to express the sound made by tearing paper or stiff silk.8 In this sense it nearly coincides with our word creak, which Johnson calls a corruption of crack, though all the examples which he quotes imply sounds different from cracking
those
strike the ear slightly
;
which
Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silks, betray thy poor heart to women. Shakspeare, Lear, a. iii. sc. 4.
No On
door there was, th' unguarded house to keep, creaking hinges turn'd, to break his sleep.
locusts
Dryden.
Idem.
The creaking
1
with
my
voice conspire.
Deutsch. Gram. vol. iii. p. 307. Gewisse interjectionen ahnen dem schall Bach, der beim fallen, schwingen, wegraflen, zerbrechen, tonen, aus gewisser Ge* Leroux, ad. voc. genstande entstehen.

230

[CHAP. X.
As
applied to the hinges of a door, creak answers to the similar
Latin crepo
Sed quisnam
Foris crepuit.
ZVreni.Adelph. 2, 3, 11.
From
a similar sound comes the

I
name of the
cricket
heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry. Shakspearc, Macbeth.
" Zingen too, the Dutch name for the same insect, krick. een kriek," " to sing like a cricket." Creak also resembles break, and that the Latin fregi, supposed to be from an old verb, frego or
Hence,
als
frago,
These, and similar words, mere variations of a more ancient root, Hack, expressing the sound which certain bodies make in breaking. The fact would perhaps be more accurately stated if we were to say, that the essential consonants in this whole class of onomatopoeias were rk or rg ; that these were modified, according to the impressions on
afterwards pronounced frango.

conjectures to be
Adeluxg
minds, by the prefixed consonants b, p, f, or c; and that the were expressed by the weaker vowels, the more forcible by the stronger vowels. As this latter remark has been found applicable to click, clack, so it will be to crick, crack; for the German ftrocfcn, the French craquer, and the English word crack (in its various modifications), generally express (when applied to sound) something more forcible than crick. do not say that a glass has been crick d, but that it has been crack'd. So we speak of cracking nuts, not o crickdifferent
slighter sounds
We
ing
them
Thou
wilt quarrel with a man for crackituj nuts. Shultspcare, Romeo and Juliet, a.
iii.
K.
1.
crackling of a roast pig. "There is no flavour comparable, contend" (said my dear old friend, Charles Lamb), " to that of tfae crisp, tewnj, Well-watched, nut over-roasted crackling, as it is well called. - (Dissertation on Roast Pig, Works, i. 282). Crackers are small fireworks, which explode witli a short, sharp noise. The We of Wight is famous for it-; crachnds, so Darned from tip sound emitted by mem when broken,
Bo of the
will
In the Scottish dieieCt, Oradkfng old jwasants at a merry meeting

'I'lir
.
is
applied to the lively chat of the
mil.' |0ld fblkl rr.uhin
0TO1
'I'Ik'
young mien rantln

it
thro' the hoime.
Burns,
Twa Dogs.
From
loud talking
comes
to signify boasting.
And
1,
Kthiopa of their tweet complexion crack. Shaktpeare, Love'* Labour Lost,
a. iv. sc. 3.
ure, in colloquial language, a crack
regiment
is
a regiment,
bo be
I.0.1
i.
d
.
.if
for it*
bravery and dtodpHne.
-nth.
.
I'ti
,|, u.l.h, In- Stamen dieaea Wortea achoint rack zn gewiaee h'Urpen im Brachen Adtfmtg. Wttrttrb.
,
ah>W
im
VOL
i.
p.
1177.

CHAP. X.]
; ;
OF ONOMATOBEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.
237
must be observed, that (in modern language, at least) when simply applied to sound, it signifies a short and quick, but not an awfully loud sound and, if used in the latter sense, on solemn occasions, it throws over the whole an air of ridicule as when, meanBut
it
crack
is
ing to paraphrase Horace's description of the just and fearless

Si fractus illabatur orbis,
man
Impavidum
ferient ruinae,
(Carm.
3, 3, 6,)
the imitator unfortunately says
He unconcern 'd would
hear the mighty crack.
Recurring to the essential consonants contained in the primary roots rak, rek, &c, we find these diversely modified, as expressions of sound, in several languages. Rak, in Swedish, and raco, in Finlandish, signify the making up of the ice. With the prefix h, we have, in Anglo-Saxon, the prefix hraca, the noise made in clearing the throat of phlegm in Islandic, hrak, the spittle emitted with a certain noise in Greek, prjyyuw, to break. With the prefix b are the English
1
break, the
Greek fipa-^fiv, which is explained by emit a sound; or âtpijnrai, which Aristotle applies to the rattling at a door from within ; the Mceso-Gothic briken, the Frankish brikhan, the Dutch breken, and the Swedish braeka.
brechen, the
to
German
Hesychius vxnooct,
With the prefix p the Alemannic preehen, and the Albanian irplo. With the prefix the Latin frago, fragilis, fragor, &c. and with the prefix c the words before noticed under crick, crack, &c.
289. Another large class of onomatopoeias, imitating the sounds produced by inanimate things, has, for its essential consonants, t or d, with uk, or ng : and here, as before, the weaker vowels interposed represent the slighter sounds, and the stronger vowels the louder or shriller sounds. Thus we have the Scottish and Northern English
Ting, tang, tong

-
accompanied with noise) the English tinker, from the rattling noise of his trade to tinkle and to tingle ; and, for louder sounds, the English tang, twang, twangle, tongs; the Anglo-Saxon tange ; the Welsh tonge, the sound of a stroke on metal and, with reduplication, the English ding-dong, the continued sound of a bell the Mantschu tang-tang, the noise of striking iron, and tong-tong, the
(necessarily
ding, to strike, to beat
down
the
Welsh
tine,
a tinkle or
blow on a
;
kettle
Chinese name of a gong. " Tinker," says Johnson, " n. s., from tink ; because their wav of proclaiming their trade is to beat a kettle, or because in their work they make a tinkling noise."
and for the metal,
The coin may mend a tinker's kettle. An' Charlie Fox threw by the box, An' lows'd his tinkler jaw, man. The daughters of Zion walkmaking a
I will
Prior.
Burns.
tinkling
with their
feet.
Isaiah iii. 16. bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever hearetli, his ears
shall tingle.
Jeremiah
xix. 3.

238
[CHAP. X.
is derived by Johnson from the Dutch meaning which he gives to it is " a strong taste ;" the fourth, and last, is " sound, tone :" and he says it is mistaken for tone or ticang. Of the Dutch word, tanghe, I know nothing the Dutch tang is our tongs, and is so called, like the latter, from the sound which this instrument makes when snapt together. As to the Twang, as he admits, is a word mistake, it is Johnson's own. formed from the sound, but he does not say so of tang, though both Both words are now are mere variations of the same onomatopoeia. fallen much into disuse, but were formerly used by Shakspeare, Dryden, Butler, Pope, Arbuthnot, Prior, Bentley, Locke, Atterbury, South, and other eminent writers. The imitation seems to have been applied first to the sound of a bow, when suddenly drawn ; then to a harsh voice thence to any marked utterance of the
Tang, a noun substantive,
tanghe, acrid.
The
first
voice; then to a note of the bagpipe, or an ill-toned fiddle; afterwards, by analogy, to the sharp taste of liquor and finally, by a
;
farther analogy, to a peculiar mental taste.

1.
His silver
bow
twang'd, and his shafts did
first
Chapman,
2.
the males command. Iliad, 1, 48.

a.
ii.
She had a tongue with a tang.

Shakspearc, Tempest,
sc. 2.
3.
Phalaris, being one of their posterity, must needs for that reason have a twang of their dialect. Bentley, Phalaris, p. 313.
4.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears. Shakspearc, Tempest,
leaves that tang behind
it.
a. iii. sc. 2.
5.
Although the body of the liquor should be poured out again,

There was not the
least tang of religion in
yet, still
it
Bourn,
6.
anything ho laid or did.

Attcrbur;/.
The
reduplication ding-dong
was meant primarily

bell
his knell,
to imitate
the
noise occasioned
by repeated strokes on a
now
I
Sen-nymphs hourly ring

!
hear then, diiuj-dong-bell! Shakspearc, Tempest,
a.
i.
sc. 2.
Than the note of strokes in fighting; and then, by analogy, the procal vehemence of pertiee bo a dispute.
The
:
repetition
i" the
],.
idded
end continuation of noises is often shown l>\ a parnot, as rattle, hurtle., rustle, rumble, bumble, grumble,
ttaitter, pipilo,
I
idustU, jingle, clatter, chatter,
fa
German rasseln
<>m v.rb, to
rattle,
il
the
Mitch ratelea, and
Nor rwlu the ftam tli it UOWI without, Tlumaon, Winter, 92. rttttm on Ihh humble roof.
I
Ihnlle
i:.
<
.nl
the verb h< rattle, with an aspiration prefixed,
|he Afiglo Sax'>n /mule, to rustle; hriddel, I riddle,
fa
ur,
>.
Thl
noleo Of bttlo hurt!,.'
in
!h-
ill*,
ii,
Shakspearc, Jul. Cl
*c. 2.

CHAP. X.]
OF 0X0MAT0PCEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.

Iron sleet Hurtles in the darken'd
of arrowy show'r
air.
239
Gray.
Here Gray has confused Shakspeare's striking passage with one no less poetical by Milton, describing the Parthian horsemen
How
Of
Sharp
their pursuers.
quick they wheel'd, and flying behind them shot sleet of arrowy show'r against the face Milton, Par. Reg. b. 3, v. 323.
'
In Shakspeare's passage the sense of sound alone is appealed to Gray, a poet of study, and not of deep in Milton's that of touch. feeling, jumbles the two together, and adds the sense of sight, by the word " darken d." Our verb, to rustle, is the German ruscheln, from rusch, a rush, so named from the sound of the rushing or rustling wind
sound from heaven as of a ncshing mighty wind.
Acts
ii.
2.
The storm without might rair and rustle Tarn didna mind the storm a whistle.
Burns,
Tam
o'
Shanter, v. 51.
Humble may perhaps be connected with the Latin rumor. It agrees with the Dutch rommelen and German rumpeln, and generally exThus Lear defies the thunder presses a heavy noise.
Bumble thy
bellyfull
!
spit fire
spout rain ! Shakspeare, King Lear,

!
a. iii. sc. 2.
Hoor hoe haar darmen rommelen (Dutch).
Hear how
his bowels
rumble !
The
wolf,
who
feels large stones in his
stomach, cries (in German)

Grimm, Kinderm'arch.
Was rumpelt und pumpelt

In meinem Bauch
herum ?
to a large basket, attached to the hinder part of a stage-coach, as seen in one of Ho-
The
rumble-tumble
was a name formerly given
garth's prints. Grumble is the same onomatopoeia, with an aspirate prefixed, as in the Dutch grommelen. Bumble, as in the bumble-bee, commonly called humble-bee (from its humming noise), is from the radical to bum; in Scotch, to hum as
a bee.
Some
le,
lighter sounds are expressed
by
the
same terminating
particle
as jingle, whistle, &c.
chatter, twitter
others, with the termination er, as clatter,
Of roaring,
We
E'en now, with strange and sev'ral noises shrieking, howling, jingling chains, were awaken'd. Shakspeare, Tempest,
a. v.
While the plowman near at hand

Whistles o'er the furrow'd land.
Milton, Alleg. v. 63.
The
nicht drave on wi' sangs an' clatter.
Burns,
Nightingales seldom sing,
Tam
o' Shanter.
The swallow people They twitter cheerful.
....
the pie
still
chatters.
Sidney.
there
Thomson, Autumn, 844.

240
Fiz, fuff,
[CHAP.
J
OF ONOMATOPCEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.

other slight noises are imitated with the
Some
weak or short voweh
as fiz, ichiz, whisk, whiff, puff, fuff. Fiz is explained by Brockett, Jamieson, and
Halt 'well, a
sligli
fysa sufflare whence fizzle, or fissle, th same sort of noise continued and fiz-gig, according to Halliwell, small quantity of damp powder set alight by boys for their amuse ment and according to Johnson, a kind of dart or harpoon wit which seamen strike fish
hissing noise
;
in Islandic
Canst thou with fizgigs pierce him to the quick ?
Sandys.
" Whiz, " from the sound that
it
expresses
(says
make a loud humming noise." But it is better and Brockett " to hiss, like hot iron in water." None of the amples quoted by Johnson imply loudness in the sound
from the quiver each his arrow chose Hippocoon's was the first ; with forceful sway It flew, and whizzing cut the liquid way.
Johnson) " t explained by Gros

ex
Dryden.
Whiff expresses a similar sound

But with the whiff and wind of Th' unnerv'd father falls.
his fell
sword
a.
ii.
Shahspeare, Hamlet,
sc.
'?..
Three pipes after dinner he constantly smokes, And seasons his whiffs with impertinent jokes.
Prior.
Puff is a labial onomatopoeia, expressing first the sound of a bias which swells the checks, and thence, a small blast of wind. In Dutch pqffen is a colloquial word for blowing
seld-shown flaflMM
Do press among the popular To win a vulgar station.
throngs, and puff
Shaksjware, Coriol.
a.
ii.
sc. 1.
Like foggy south, puffing with triad and

.
rata.
It, n. iii. sc.
You Like
3.
This word is connected with piff and paff, which latter Ami r\, says is an " indeclinable word, imitating the sound of a smothera Hfl adds, " slighter sound of the same kind U Or explosion." expressed l>\ /'/'//', and a coarser by /<//'." pronounced with a proximate labial M .( iMOSOli Broc'm.i r explain! it " to blow, or puff; Germ. p/^%n.
'
i,
quote*
Gawuu
Douglas for
pk>
II.-
it
to
the sai
tlie fire
(fleet.
Burns employs if
"ii
oft
nut in
Mi'iv.M
\
.
-.
own' htT, an' afet own- him, wti attar iiuii pari
i-
Till
/.-</'.'
hr
ut-.l
up
;>
th..
linn
An* Jaan had
a'an
(air
(Marl
t
J?alh\o fl'n.
202. Certain sounds occasioned by the striking

i
ther of
hut
uubaoderllche* Wort,
hi. li.ii.mt
;
fat
ataa
it IdaiMT odtr
fUn
pdarnpftra Sohall und artna t, duruh pifi

Hi. p.
grower
Ut,
Sittrbook) rol,

CHAP. X.]
Oil
241
;
OF ONOMATOPOEIAS,
IMITATIVE WORDS.
pat, tap, clap, slap, snap
bodies arc imitated
by the vowel
a, in
and
in clash, clash, plash.
Pat is erroneously derived by Johnson from the French patte, which he incorrectly translates " a foot ;" and thence infers that it may be a blow with the foot. A slight blow with the fore-paw of a cat might indeed be called a pat ; but a blow with the foot is in English Hilpert more correctly explains the English a kick and not a pat. substantive pat, " a gentle and quick stroke with the hand," and he also renders it by the German tappe, a slap with the hand
'
Children prove whether they can rub upon the breast with one hand, and pat upon the forehead with the other. Bacon.
rvn, in tvwtu, on the other.

This
is
Tap agrees nearly with pat, on the one hand, and with the Greek Our tap is first a slight blow or touch
the right fencing grace, tap for tap.
Shakspeare, Second Part Henry IV.,
a.
ii.
sc. 1.
German, tap or taps is a slight blow.* Other cognate words and derivations will be mentioned hereafter. Slap imitates a similar but somewhat louder sound, produced by a sharp blow, " properly (says Johnson) with the hand open, or with
in
So
something rather broad than sharp." To clap is with us primarily to strike the hands together with a similar sound And they clapped their hands and said God save the king. 2 Kings xi. 12.
The German klapf answers to our clap and slap. The Dutch Happen to similar sounds, as " Happen met de handen," to clap the " Zyn zweep doen Happen" to crack his whip. hands. So in Danish, " klappe med hauiderne, to clap the hands. The cognate
words
To
in several languages are numerous. rap, " v. n. to strike with a quick sharp blow,"
Johnson
Knock me
at this gate,
I'll
And rap me
well, or
Shakspeare,
knock your knave's pate. Tam. Shrew,
a.
i.
sc. 2.
This agrees with the French rapper ; but, to " rap at the door" is expressed by a different onomatopoeia in Dutch, " an een door Hoppcî, ,, in .Swedish " klappa pe partem " in German " an die Thiire Hop/en." apply to rapping at a door, but not to a rap on the fingers, the interjectional onomatopoeia Rat-a-tat, especially when the sound is
We
repeated.
in its first sense " to break at once, secondary sense, " to strike with a knocking noise." It is clear that its first use is an onomatopoeia to imitate a sharp quick sound, from various causes, of which breaking is only lone. Hence it was perhaps primarily applied to the noise made by a dog's teeth in biting or attempting to bite anything
is
Snap
explained
by Johnson
in a
to break short ;"
and
Der gelinde und schnelle Schlag mit der Hilpert, voc. Tappe.
Hande. Hilpert,
voc. Pat.

242

when

the foe
[CHAP.
I

All mongrel curs bawl, snarl, and snap
flies
before them.
L' Estrange.
Hence
it
was applied
to a
mute animal making a
like
attempt
I
young dace be a bait for the old pike, I snap at him. Second Part Hen. IV., a. iii. sc. 2.
If the
see
no reason but
m:
it
In another transition the word related to the act of breaking, wh< produces a sudden sharp noise
Snapping, like too high-stretched treble-strings.
Donne.
Or
to a like noise
made by
as in the
German schnaphan,
two hard bodie the lock of a musket, 1 and schnapjtinesse

the sudden collision of
a clasp-knife. 8
schnaps
Again, the shortness of the time was alluded to, as in the Gerrm 3 " met een snap" in a trie* ; protinus, subito, and the Dutch Hence it is applied to short and quick talking
And
snip-snap short.
Cowper.
Craab, clash,
fee.
And to a short and hasty meal, " Let us take a snap ;" in Scotcl a snack? So a gulp of ardent spirits is called in German schnapps. 6 293. Crash belongs to* a class imitating noises generally louder tin Johnson describes it as "a word probably deriVO the preceding. from the thing, to make a loud complicated noise, as of many thin; " falling or breaking at once
Senseless llion
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top Stoops to his base and with a hideous crash, Takes pris'ner I'yrrhu.s' ear.
;
Shakspean; Hamlet.,
a.
ii.
sc. 2.
Johnson calls a clash a " nois of more limited meaning. It always implies collision, indeed, but tl collision of two Ixxlies." as appears from tl collision is not necessarily of two bodies only examples which .Johnson himself gives of the verb; e.g.
Clash
is
;
Those few thnt should happen to clash, might rebound

It 18 related to clatter, of
clasli ol't.-n
after the colliito
Bmtlty,
which .Johnson gives

it
as the
first,
sense "
'
rspattad
of tun
is
;"
bol II bs had before confined the term clash

Clatter would fact. His B6C01
1
'
I
the OOllilloa
only the collision

Sense of clatter
would follow that B ft, of two repeated, which is not the

bodi.
"any tumultuous and

first
is
!
confused noise;
but.
Ih
seems as much
too general as the
too specific.
The
true
dill'e
clatter is that, by the particle the lata ence btta ( il iuii, which the other do.s not n always gives a notion of Th' Grarman onomatoporia, kkUtcbtn, Is related bo both the pi ii rbs, and al ,o to the Scotch clatter above mentioned, wliic
..
i .
\v.i. iit.T,
*i. veto.
* iiii|H-rt, nd.
no.
'
w.hht,,',
,i,i.
roe.
Jnmleson, voo. Snack.
Adtlung,
ftd.
V00,

CHAP. X.]
OTl
OF ONOMATOPOEIAS,
IMITATIVK WORDS.
-J4.">
according to Jamieson means to chat, to prattle, to talk idly, to be a babbler, and tale-bearer. He might have added, to talk noisily in
friendly mirth, as in the line before quoted from Burns.
The German
verb kldtschen
is
connected, according to Hilpert, with our clatter,
smack, and also with the Scotch clatter, when it the primary meaning of all these onoma; topoeias being a loud noise, and for the most part with repetition. Lash and slash are both primarily from the sound of striking, and secondarily from the act of striking, or the stroke given
clap, clack, crack,
signifies babbling, gossiping
From hence Of sounUing
are heard the cries of ghosts, the pains

lashes,
and of dragging chains.
Dryden.
Johnson
lie
explains to slash, to strike

line
at random, probably because
so understood the Knights
which he quotes from Spenser, of the
Hewing and
slashing at their idle shades.
English makes it apply to the stroke of a sword, whereas lash is by us applied to the stroke of a whip. To slash agrees with the German schlagen, to strike; of which Adelung says, " it is in in form it is an intensive of lagen, its nature a direct onomatopoeia The Anglo-Saxon slagen, and Mceso-Gothic slahan, agree legen." with the German ; the English slash with the Islandic slasa : and according to different idioms the signification is extended from striking,
in
But which
slash is the onomatopoeia lash, only modified
by the
prefix
s,
wounding and killing, in which last sense we have it in our slay and slaughter. Plash and splash have the same analogy to each other as lash and slash. Plash agrees with the German platzen, which seems to be a provincial word, and is described by Wachter as " verbum a sono fictum." From the noise made by treading in marshy grounds with puddles of water, such places were formerly called plashesto
l
The
aquatile, or water-frog,
whereof
in ditches
and standing plashes
we
behold millions.
Brown.
Platzregen, says Martin ius, s is used in Germany to signify a heavy shower, from the sound which it makes, platzen being a word formed from the sound. Splash is strangely defined by Johnson, " to daub with dirt in great quantities." This may sometimes be the result of splashing; but splash has no necessary connection either with dirt or quantity. A stocking may be splashed with a single drop of mud or boys may
;
splash each other in sport with very clean water. Johnson's definition has misled both Danish and German Lexicographers. Hilpert, usually most accurate, translates to splash, " mit Koth bespritzen," to sprinkle Avith mud and a recent Danish Dic;
tionary renders
" overstaenke med ekaru." Originally plash, splash, wash, and dash were onomatopoeias imiit
to the
same
effect
Wachter, voc. Platzen.
Martinius, voc. Imber.
R 2

244
OF OXOMATOP(EIAS,
Oil
IMITATIVE WORDS.
[CHAP.
by the Wot The iVash was the name of the miry road where John Gilpin's ban
rating the sound of water suddenly struck and scattered
scattered the water on both sides
And there he threw the wash about, On both sides of the way, Much like unto a trundling mop,
Or a
wild goose at play.
Coitper.
in England is usually a domestic employment withi but in many other places it is carried on in the ancient simp! manner, in the limning brooks, and often occasions a splashing nois< So the Princess Nausicaea, went with her maidens to wash Ik
Washing
;
doors
clothes
rat
8' ott' awfiirqs
"EtfiaTO
x fpoly
5'
eAoTo
/col
tcr(p6ptov /xt\av D'Soip
2rt?ô^
iv P6dpoi(ri.
i
Which Chafman
the
lias
rendered somewhat paraphrastically, but quite
Homeric
spirit
^-^
The maids from wash then took Their cloaths, and steept them in the sable brook, Then put them into With cleanly feet.
springs,
and trode them clean

Odyss. b.
6. v.
126.
And
so have I seen the Syracusan damsels washing linen at the one

is
it
sacred fountain of Arethusa; nor or near a brook.
even yet uncommon,
in
man
i
parts of Scotland, to find washing carried on in a similar manner,
Dash is noticed by Johnson as a verb, " the etymology of which, he says, " is in any of its senses very doubtful." Yet in speaking "an onomi it as an adverb, hie sufficiently shows it to be original topa-ia;" fbf be there defines it "an expression of the sound of watt dashed" And this is evident Gram the lines which he quotes froi |)i:vi>i n, Thomson, and Bacon
< I
tin* watan fall, bar! And with a murin'i ine; lotmd, /Wi, deal, ripon tin- groaad,
Bait
Dryden.
fall.
id*
tin
'.i'-ii
head
tlic
km
And down
If
pushing watcn play, roup) fifisttt all litsliimj

:i
Thomson.
the water,
it
von
il'ish
I
ft
atono npninst
stonr
it
tin-
Mttun
maket
a sound.
cribed b)
md
in
lie calls
lull
as an interjection, compounded) low word; and, Indeed, It Is unfit G suitable enough to the light and ludicrous, n
it
Johnson
n
AnsICy'h
Baft <iuide'
Up comas
Bbttfl
,
man, on
ft
sudden, slapdash
tli
candles, iind currloK
uway
.ill
UK
cash.
Ft
294. Our word //lump aipiaaami a heavier sound, but equally pudda rhsom says, " riuiH|., :m advarb, probably corrupted from plumb ih, Diind of .i stone fulling on the water.'

CHAP. X.J
245
There can be no doubt but that the latter is the nearer to the true etymology. In regard to its suddenness it seems related to several other words beginning with pi. Milton dks plumb with the
same
meaning, as applied to Satan
falling
through chaos
plumb down he
Par. Lost,
drops.
2,
Flutt'ring his pemioiis vain,
933, ed. 1669.
Danish, plumpe is to plunge into. In Swedish, "plumpa in e watnet," is " to plump into the water." The German plotz expresses toe like suddenness: as "auf den plotz," in a moment; the Swedish plotsl/g, and Dutch plotsglyck means sudden. In regard to sound, the German plotz and platz seem to express something more sharp' and shrill, answering to the Polish Trzaskl Hukl Pukl all which are mterjectional onomatopoeias. The concluding part of the word plump agrees effect with thump and dump, which are also onomatopoeias 1 he English dump (or rather dumps) is derived by Johnson from the Dutch dam, stupid but this is a secondary sense, the first being that of a dull heavy sound
In
Sing no more ditties, sing no more Of dumjjs so dull and heavy.
Shakspeare.
Thump
word;
1
is
derived by
but, as
he onomatopoeia imitates the sound of a heavy blow, and thence used to mean the blow itself
Their
Johnson from thombo, which he calls an Italian no Italian word begins with th, this must be a mistake
is
of
hollow sides the rattling thumps resound. Dryden 295. The awful sounds of thunder are so many and so various, that we must not be surprised to find them characterized by a variety of onomatopoeias in various parts of the world, according as men sought to mutate its clang, or crash, its distant murmur, or its deafening explosion. Our own name for this war of the elements belongs to a numerous class: the German donner, Swedish dundra, Danish dundre Lower feaxon dunner, Dutch donder, Frankish thonar, Anglo-Saxon thunor, Persian founder, Hindoostanee toondoor, Latin tonare, Italian tuonare French tonmrre, Spanish tronar, and Portuguese troveja all
Thurder.
Tonans designated him as the Donner-Gott, and the day sacred to him (Dies Jovis) the Donmrstag, the Anglo-Saxon Thoresdag, and our Thursday. With these the Hungarian dorgok, to thunder and dongok, to resound, appear to be connected and lihaps some others. But the Greek and omiw are 'of \ term; and of another, the Russian gram, Bohemian hrom, Polish grzmot, Hindoostanee guruj, and Malay guruh. Others vary widely from each of these classes; as the Albanian .ovp.ov, and W0I> in and irpovvovXlpa; the Annamitic sam, the Marquesan hatouh, the Tongan mana, and the Bornu zirgangalo 116 S Un dS 6 b V allimal Hfe Were erha S Sti11 earlier Insects. Pr dUC P P ,o,I of onomatopoeia. T . juices Even insects and reptiles have occasioned
ot our
which had a
German
direct or indirect reference to Thar, the Jupiter
ancestors,
who
A^
Sent
,
^V<
'
'
*e.

246
;
[CHAP.
'.
still more birds and beasts, and human beings themselves. regard to irrational animals, the sound produced has not only be< imitated, but has often given name to the animal itself, and has then been extended to various significations. I begin with the beetle
them
Ere to black Hecate's summons,
The shard-born beetle, with his drowsy hum, Hath rung night's yawning peal.
Shakspeare, Macbeth,
a.
iii.
sc. 2.
We
have seen this onomatopoeia applied
among mankind
to an intc
jection of
doubt (supra, s. 267). It is used also to express a sum Thus Thomson having described t of bees, and other insects. myriads of winged insects which pour forth swarming at once summer, adds
Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum To him who muses through the woods,
at noon.
Summer,
v.
281.
In Scotland the sound of the bee is called bumming, whence t name of the bumbee, or bumble-bee, which is our humble-bee, or as it shot perhaps be written, hummle-bee ; the name of bumburt, or bumbcai,
also given (as
Jamieson says) to this insect, and to the flesh-ily. Greek the sound of bees is fiofifioc, whence Plautus formed
ridiculous
name of bombomachides
Quemnum
IgO scrvavi in cainpis Gurpistidoniis,
Ubi Bombomachides Cluniustaridysan ihJdM Erat Impcrator sunmius, Noptuni nepos ?

Mil. Olor.
BofifivXioi;
a.
i.
sc. 1.
humble-bee for its noise, and some say to the mosquito. From this word Aristophanes coined With the Greek the Lai Judicious expression fio^fiuXo /Jo/ij6o$. agreed in their Ix/mbus and bombilo
to the
was a name given
si
Ex
apidcs conjecturam capiunt,
intus fnciunt Itomhttm.

lii>.
Varro, i Ra Rustics,
iii.
o.
16.
Bombilat ore
legen.s
inuncm
in
mollis apes.
Anct. Phikmelm,
kind of beetle
is
called
fitOBQ
the
'and a clock-bee,
the DOlse which
north of Knglaud a clock, and makes, and which it
atmblea,
1
In
soma dagrta,
struck
m-11
when
i
by
its
tha ducking of liens, and the sound of a lai chi|>|>er. Of these two the former ha*
In Latin i/lacirc
similar
(
Dato|xriii in ninny languages.

iL's)
.
and
glociti
gallinamm pffOpfium
In Italian
BSt OQBQ <vis Incubitura sunt.

cluck,
oboOMUt, in Spanish
cloi/tifttr, to
bglouuir,
Uuckhen,
llOOik,
.1,
okioooiat*, In
in
German glucken,
kluchi,
*
and clucca, clucking In Lower Sai

in
1
in in
hutili hi ul:kt\
Swedish
laid. instance
it
Hungarian
hitgiiln/t.
timepiece
clni/i/ii,
named
and
klocke,
</!
1'iniii
wi! find
timet!
m
il
ni.di:c\.il Latin clucii, oloOfO,

is
modarn
in
<iennan
gloch'.,
in
Swedish
nounccd
iii
I'ivi
doclw, which in tha Picard d
cl,ii/iir.
|)

CHAP.
after
X.j

in this sense
247
by
different
enumerating various derivations of cloca

" Vel potius ab
ipso sonitti,"
writers, very rationally concludes
but rather from the sound
itself.
We
more commonly apply
to the sound of a bee the onomatopoeia
buzz, of which
I have before spoken among the interjections, and which seems to be connected with the Latin name of a bird called bubio, from
the verb bubere, signifying its humming noise ; just as bienen-vogel, or bee-bird of the Germans, a humming-bird
Inque paludiferis bubio bubit aquis.
we
call
the
Auct. Philomela.
And
in the
wat'ry marsh the bubio hums.

call
The
sound, which
we
buzzing,
it
is
very variously expressed
in
different languages.
summen, and sumsen in Danish, brumme and surre ; in Swedish, brumma and snorra (like our snore); in French, bourdonner ; in Italian, rombo ; in Lussian,
is
In German,
surren,
jooj-jat
in Polish, bee-zee
in
Hindoostanee, phish-phish-ahut
in
Hun-
and bongok ; and in Malay, ddngung. The noise of the grasshopper is confounded by some authors with that of the cicada ; The the sounds, however, are very dilferent, and so are the insects. former dwells in the grass, and is named in many languages from its motion there, as in the Swedish grdshoppa, Danish grceshoppe, German But in other grashupfer, French sauterelle, and Italian cavalletto. instances it is named from its sound, as in the German heuschrecke The insect called in Latin cicada, and in Italian (cry in the grass). cicala, is the same as the Greek tittiI, which sits on trees, and makes a continuous noise like that of a knife-grinder. To these Homer comgarian, zengek
pares the old Trojan counsellors
....
Ttrriyeffffiv ioiK6res, 8it Kaff vArji>

tiira
Acj/5pbi 4<pe6iJ.fvoi
Xapwfooav
sit
fain.
Like the cicadas of the woods that Send forth a thin weak voice.
on
trees,
and
II.
Homer,
3, 151.
The sound
fritiuit
is
described in the
Et cuculi cuculant,
poem
of 'Philomela' by the word
fritinit
rauca cicada.
somewhat resembles Malay kredek does our cricket, from the similar sound produced by the same insect. The cricket is known by its peculiar noise, from which it receives in many languages its name. I have mentioned the Dutch kriek, and sometimes krekel. Probably the Greek ypvXX, in ypvWoQ, was a similar onomatopoeia, and from that are derived the Latin gryllus, Italian grilh, French grillon, and
for this insect, tidda,
The Hindoostanee name

tLttiI,,
the Greek
as the
German
grille.
Its voice,
too,
is
expressed differently in different

chirp
by the German zirpen, which agrees with our chirrup, and is expressed by Adelung as " an onomatopoeia, the peculiar sound uttered by small birds, crickets, &c."'
languages, as
1
and
to express
Eine Onomatopoie den ahulichen Ausdriick kleiner Vogel, der Grilled,
auszudriicken.
Worterbuch,
a. s.
f.
iii.
172G.

248
Welch
ein concert
leise
!
[CHAP.
die kleine Grille

ein.
Mischt,
zirpend auch sich
Mus. Alman.
i
The French have a

Italian
it is
peculiar
name
for this sound, viz., gresillonner,
called "to stridor del grille"

;
Johnson
describes the noi;
as squeaking or chirping
Reptiles.
Gay
as shrilling.
reptiles, that
297.
Of sounds produced by
of the
common
snake
most closely imitated by the English hiss, the Dutch hissen, and Angl Saxon hiscian. In Greek, the verb ai'(ui closely resembles the Tom sisi. The Latin sibilo is a more prolonged imitation of the same soun This in Spanish becomes silbar, and in French sifler. The Italit so are the Danish hovese fischiare is a different form of imitation Swedish hwcesa, Polish kszyk, and German zischen, of which las Adkluxg says, "it is a direct onomatopoeia, which, with sligl variations, is found in all languages." It must be confessed, hov
;
1
ever, that in
some
cases the variations are very considerable, as in
tl
Hungarian suvolto, and the Hindoostanee phoophkar, though both wer no doubt, intended to imitate the same sound. The croak of the frog is an onomatopoeia imitating its sound, at also the similar sounds uttered by various birds, which will present! be noticed. In the Frogs of Aristophanes, the onomatopoeias are mx and /Spevtce^. In Latin, coaxare, e. g.,
'
'
Garrula limosis Rana coaxat
&>quis.
Auct. Philomel.
be observed that the Latin coaxare and coa.rat difi! from the simple imitative sound kooS, only by the additions of tl verbal terminations or* and at; and a similar remark may apply of the onomatopoeias, when cited in their verba] or nomin forms. In German, for instance, the verb is quctken whei
it
where
will
doiely resembles
Koat,.
first
Lucuktius considers the sweet warbling of birds to have mankind tho art of singing
At
li<[llid:i>.
brag]
Avium
nNM
Ifl
imit.iriiT ore
Ant' luit
multo quam n4a I'.nininn enntu Concelebrare homines potMBl Miiiis.pi.- Jul U%
\
\i reckons among interjections the attempts to bring the cries beasts and the notes of birds nearer to the articulations of the huinn Introduces many such attempts to Imitate tl the Aves,' ttor (v. 7."> ,) orto rorororcn
I
um
rM
rtnvrortyi (v, 74M)

ro/Spi
');
no,
r,
no, re (v. 74f>);

topot
rptorrf,
rpwro,
rptotj
ro()o,
ttotto,
ro(>o,
a<X< (v.
(v.
268); TmriririuurM
.'(11);
(v.
815);
DoifOi
r.
iroiro,
irmrumu
'iWoiroi,
woiro
won
nc
2228); Kikku/JoO, KUCKaflaH

lii
(\.
\
1
immlttalban Oi
\\
.it .-il.n.li
\
.
h nil irtnJg
.m.i.
in.
I7'.!7.
iiiiiiih-u
nitli-i
/..
t.im-.n.
DpuUcha (iron
d#r
man
hllchan artieulatk

CHAP. X.]
It
is
; ;
249
probable that the peculiar sounds of some wild birds were
imitated before any birds were domesticated; and again, that of the wild birds, some uttered sounds more distinctly perceived bv the ear than others, and more nearly approaching to human articulation. The
cuckoo's
name
in
many languages
is
mere onomatopoeia of
its
voice
The cuckoo then on ev'ry tree Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo ! Cuckoo 1 A word of fear
Shakspeare.
The Greek name of

In Latin
cucullus
it
is
according to SuiDAS, covKXOfr lengthened to cuculns (as we have seen above), or

is kokkvE,, or,
the bird
Cui
Cessisset
sa?pe viator
magna compellans voce cucullum.

Hot. Sat.
1, 7, 31.
In Italian, cuculo ; in French, coucoit ; in German, kuckuck or guckguck in Danish, hahkuk ; in Bohemian, kukaeza ; in Polish, kuktdka ; in Russian, kukushka ; in Persian, coocoo ; in Hungarian, kukuk ; in Hinin Gaelic, cuach ; in Islandic, gaukr ; in Welsh, gwew Norwegian, gog ; in Swedish, gok; in Anglo-Saxon, gcec and geac in provincial German, gugauch and gauch and in Scottish, gowk. The cockatoo utters a somewhat similar, but more varied, sound, from which its name was derived, as in the Malay, kakatuva. The aid has very generally attracted notice by its peculiar sound but the articulations by which that sound is expressed are various. From these the bird has received different names, and has impressed its bearers with very different feelings. Coleridge (following Shakspeare) describes the sound thus
doostanee, koel
in
The owls have awaken'd the crowing cock, Tu-whit Tu-whoo Ckristabel,
!
v. 2.
The author
of Philomela expresses
it
differently
in t*nebris.
Noctua lucifugans cucubat
And
again
Bubulat horrendum
ferali
carmine bubo.
In Hungarian, the word cucubo
rendered huhogatok. To hoot, to shriek, to screech (as well as to scream, above mentioned) are all onomatopoeias, applied to the cry of this bird, as
is
The
bird of night did
sit,
Ev'n at noonday, upon the market-place, Hootintj and shrieking. Shakspeare, Jul. Caesar,
a. i. sc. 3.
And
boding screech-owls make the concert full. Shakspeare, Second Part Henry VI.,
is
a.
iii.
sc. 2.
From
ulula
in
;
its
various sounds the bird itself

;
called in Latin bubo
and
Greek, fivae in German, eule and uhu ; in Danish, ugle Swedish, ugla ; in French, hibou, choue, and hulotte ; in Hindooin
stance, ooloo
and ghoogoo.

250
[CHAP.
J
OF ONOMATOPCEIAS, OR IMITATIVJ: WORDS.

character given to the cry depends
The
much on
the preconceive*
notions of the hearer.
Thus Shakspeare,
in a lively description o
Winter, says
Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit Tu-who a merry note.
! !
Virgil, on the contrary, represents

Solaque culminibus
ferali
it
as plaintive
/En.
4, v. 462.
carmine bubo,
Saepe queri, et longas in fletum ducere voces.
Gray, who imitated Virgil's use of the word, queri, has in many other instances, entirely misapplied the meaning
The moping owl does
to the
in this, a
moon complain
near her secret bow'r,
Of those who, wand'ring
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
This supposes that the owl cries only when disturbed, a notion quil contrary to the habits of the bird, and not intimated by VlRGIL, any other poet who studied nature. The ferali carmen was an exprea sion dictated by popular superstition, which conceived the bird a predicting some approaching evil, and bewailing the danger. The raven, crow, rook, and daw seems all to have been namec from their voices. The name of the raven in Danish, ravn ; Anglo-Saxon, rafn; in Islandic, krafn; and in German, rube, The croak of (In evidently connected with the Danish raab, outcry. raven, or crow, is distinguished in German from that of the frog, th The name of tin former being sounded krdchzen, the latter qua ken. crow, in German, krdlue, and in provincial German, c/ira, c/ira, krok in Dutch, ktOjf', in Anglo-Saxon, crawe ; in Danish, krdgt ; in Sun! ish, krriku; in Latin, corvus and comix; in Greek, Kopaîa in al thtee cases an onomatopoeia and so, probably, are the Hindoostanei kuowa, and the Malay gagak. The rook is called in Latin cornicu/a Tin at a diminutive of cornix ; so in Hindoostanee it is set-knowa. Saxon /</<*' is evidently connected with our verb croak, th< It seems doubtful whether tin h croasser, and Latin cmntare. Latin graotiiu was this bird or the jackdaw, as in the Roman law imnem vim cui resisti non potest dominum colono prastas
ii
i
It
'_'.
pnta
lliiiiiiiiuin,
,/euritlnriiin
.sturiiorum,"
t\w.
&C.
(Digest
xix.
15),
wherl Cnjacina observes, "

tin*
that
graaili
must he
birds tha
llv iii Bocks" (at rooks du). an onomatopoeia, resembling:

.
Tha
radical syllable gra la evidenth Swedish name of the bird luiju, tin
kaa, and our
imitation
of this voice, caw!
Thus
Cooper':
en
..I
Vlncenl Bourne
II.
,!!
i
Imt thin
mat
1
riMiinliil'iiiit,
TIki World, with nil its unit ley rout, ('lino Ii, nimy, pot lo, HW,
It.
i
ii
.,ni
in
ill
1'iinlnnm
:it
nil ufllil
An
mjt
what aaya ha I Cawl

CHAP. \\]

is
251
for the
In French, too, this bird

reason.
sometimes called chouca
same
The English name of the turtle-dove combines two onomatopoeias from different sources. Varro cites the Latin name of the bird, turtur, as an onomatopoeia, and correctly, for it is produced by the repetition of the bird's sound, toor, toor, answering to our verb to coo, The Greek rpvyiov, in its radical syllable tru, stems to if repeated. be also an imitative sound. The plaintive character of the note is
expressed by the verb gemo
Nee gemere
aeriS cessabit turtur ab ulmo.
The word dove, pronounced in Scotch doo, is a different modification of the same imitative sound. In Lower Saxon, duve ; Danish, due ; Gothic, dubo ; old High German, duba, tuba, whence the modern German taube is taken. In the older German dialects the word is much varied, as tupa, tuopa,dubha, duva, &c. in Hindoostanee it is totroo ; in Malay, kukur. Our verb, to coo, is expressed in Danish, kurre ; in Swedish, hurla ; in German, gurren and liichsen; and in French, roucoulcr ; in Hindoostanee, koohook. It seems to appear in the first syllable of the Latin columba, and is manifestly repeated in cooloo, cooloo, the Tonga name of the bird. The jay, erroneously supposed by some to be the graculus, is in Flench named getri, of which Court de Gebelin says (V. 5, p. 508), " C'est une onomatopee." In German it is called he'her, " ab incondito clamore he he !" says Wachter (v. Guguk).
;
!
The The
quail, in Italian quaglia, in

its
French
caille,
derives
its
name, as
in
BCALIQER suggests, from

Latin upupa,
is
cry, quai.
hoopoe, in French huppe, in provincial

also
is
German hupp, hupf,

and
in
named from
its
its
peculiar cry.
The lapwing The The

shrike
is
called in Scotland peisweip,
some
parts of
England peewit, from

a
sound.
provineially given to the lesser butcher-bird
utters.
name
it
from the shriek which

crane, in
kranich, in the old Bavarian dialect called crano, in the old Suabian cranch, in the Lower Saxon krahn, in
German
Swedish kran and trann, in Danish tram, Greek yipavoq, appears in these several forms
in
Welsh garan,
be meant
,
'
in
to
to imitate
" 1st es wahrscheinlich, says the distinguishing sound of the bird. Adelung, " dass er diesen namen von seinem unterscheidenden geschreye hat." The same may be said of the heron, at least in its Anglo-Saxon appellation hragn, which, perhaps, was connected with the Italian Aghirone, shortened to Airone, whence came the French
heron, and our lieron and hern. In Anglo-Saxon the cranes were
named yeldo, probably from their sound, as giellan was to yell, to shriek. The clamorous noise of these and other high-flying birds is often mentioned by the poets

252
Grimm
Clamor
in aetheriis dispersns

nubibus Austri.
Lucretius, 4, 182.
[CHAP. X.
Loud
shrieks the soaring hern.
Thomson, Winter, 146.
The cormorant on high

Wheels from the deep, and screams along the
land.
Idem. v. 144.
The sound of
topoeia
:
the eagle
is
described
by
a yet
more
forcible
onoma-
Aquilae clangunt.
Auct. Philomel.
the nightingale is preeminent. Its song is frequently described by the poets with imitative sounds, as by Coleridge
Among
birds distinguished for their song,
And murmurs
musical, and swift, jug, jug
And
the bird itself

bibilit,
is
named
either
from
its
peculiar note, as the
Persian, Hindoostanee, and
Malay
bool-bool, the
Albanian
billnlct.
the
and the Wallachian nipilpil ; or from its general power of song, as the Greek 'Antiioy, the Romaic 'Ancivvtov, and the derivatives from the old Teutonic gal, and Islandic gala, to sing, as the Anglo-Saxon naxtegab', Swedish ncectergal, Danish nattergcu, the olel Suabian nahtegal, and modern German nachtigall. From in same verb gal or wale comes also the name of another bird, the
Bulgarian
1 t
wodewale.
The
note of the lark
is
described
by Grimm
as tirelil
Siiak-
speare says
The
lark that tirra-lirra chants. 8
(Jiiimm describes that of the swallow as tisch touch*
Thomson
v.
m-
ploys the verb twitter for the sound of the same bird
They
twitter cheerful.
Aulnmn,
Zxritsrhcrn,
ziritsc/urten
844.
This
tin-
verb
answers
to the
German
i/'ii/tra.
"Wie
is
die alten
sungen so
and the Swedish As die jungen."

1'roverbs.)
old ones sang. SO the

called in the
young ones
twittered.
(German
This bird
Tonga language bcra-beca.

.
rives tohjUb as the note .f the sparrow," bul peepl and from ancient times, been used to express that sound* Catullus, lamenting the death of Lcbbia'b sparrow, says
Grimm
rjiir/il
have,
iIaiii
(loiniimin UKi|iii>7>i/>i7'io<tt.
I.,
Carm.
'.',
The
Scottish Icing, .lames
applies
it
to the
nightingah
'.
v. 10.
N"\v Hwetc birde say ones to im- \>\

i
Kbig't (fair,
o. 2, it.
88.
'/<///,
atTOneoa
lly
con iideivd
In
titix' "i
Johnson
ill'
1
to be an abbre\ iation of
Mny,
in
n<
(I
.
In
4
wodt
Til.',
i.
It,
r.
_>.
Orimm,
ut tup.
* II
253
CHAP. X.j
up.
OF ONOMATOKEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.

It is the
German
zirpen or tsckirpen, which, as has been

is
seen,
is
applicable also to the cricket's sound, but
socially applied
1
to the sparrow, " der sperling tschirpt;"
"the sparrow
chirps.
'
It
nnswers to the Danish pibe, and quiddre, the Polish swierczye, Swedish qwictia, Hungarian pipegek, Russian tchirikat, Hindoo cheeurhuu/:, Malay chichi, and Tonga gi ; all which, however diflerent in articulation, are indubitably onomatopoeias.
Some
human
birds are named from the similarity of their cry to certain sounds, as the kekek, a kind of parrot, from kekek, the Malav
verb to laugh.
So an American
bird
is
called the
" whip-poor- icill"
from the supposed resemblance of its note to those words. In other instance! the peculiar sound occasioned by the flight of birds is
expressed by an onomatopoeia, as The moorcock
springs,
on whirring wings, Burns, vol.

iii.
Amang
the blooming heather.

p.
274,
ed.
1813.
Of domestic birds, the cock, with its female to the greatest number of onomatopoeias.
the
st
the hen, has given occasion
It is to be observed that names, cock and hen, are derived from diflerent sources, the former agreeing with the French coq, the latter with the German henne. The crowing of the cock " distinguishes its cry," as Adelung observes, "very remarkably from that of any other bird." In English the simple verb is to crow, but the continuous sound has been imitated by cockadoodledoo
Hark hark I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer, Cry Cock-a-doodle-doo!

! !
Shakspeare, Tempest,
a.
i.
sc. 3.
Grimm
expresses
it kikeri-ki,
!
as in the "
Kindermarchen "
wieder hie
!
Kikeri-ki
Kikeri-ki
ist
Unsere goldene jungfrau
The same
sound, as imitated in Mceso-Gothic,

it
is
hrukjan.
In the
seems to be confounded with it is pronounced cuccurire, in Bohemian kokrhari, in Malay kuku, in Hungarian kakas. The names of the bird in French coq, in Swedish tupp, m Russian petuch, seem to be connected as one class of onomatopoeias; the Latin gallus, Italian gallo, and Hungarian gale, form another class connected with the before-mentioned verb gotten ; and therefore do not so much imitate the peculiar sound of the bird as its resemblance to singing, whence the French say, " Le coq chante;" and give the bird the name of chante-clair, our chanticleer. The German hahn agrees with the Gothic hana, written in the Salic laws chana, in Frankish hino, Anglo-Saxon hana, Islandic, Swedish, and Danish hane. These forms are derived by Wachter, Frisch, and others, from the old " This Persian pronoun han, he as merely signifying the male bird. derivation," says Adelung, "appears at first sight plausible; but
;
Latin crocitare and French croasser, the cry of the crow. In Italian

254
OF OXOMATOPCEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.
consider that this pronoun
[ciIAr.
3
when we
was unknown
to the Goths,
it
wh
b
nevertheless had the noun haiia, as had several other tongues,
may
thought, more probably, to have agreed with the Latin cano, to sing. The words cluck and cackle are evident onomatopoeias, represents the sound of the hen, the former in calling her chickens, the latter o
laying an egg.
To
in
cluck has been already noticed.
To
cackle
kakatzen, in
modern German gackern and gaksen, in Austria Lower Saxon kaMn, in Dutch kackelen, in Danish kakh
is
i
in Swedish kakla, in Italian clieccalare, in French caqueter, in Gaeli claganum and gogallach, in Russian gogoxoan, in Polish gcegach, We apply cackl Hindoostanee kurkurana, and in Malay kdtok. not only to the cry of the hen, but also to that of the goose, whici latter cry is, in some parts of Germany, expressed by the peculia onomatopoeia schrxattern. The European names of the bird seem be derived from two sources, but whether either of these is imitativ seems doubtful. On the one hand, the Greek ^v or yav appears be connected with the Latin ans-er, and the German gaxis, Danisl gaas, Swedish gees, Islandic gas, Wendish gus, Polish ges, flsc. 0) the other hand, the old German auca was the origin of the Italiai In the Suabian dialect gagak was the name occa and French oie. the goose, from the noise which it utters, and which in Hungarian The noise of the duck is in English quack and in German gagogni. quak! "a word," says Wachter, "ab ipsa naturfl Anatibm e
i
t.
From a somewhat similar onomatopoeia, tb Ranis suppeditata." In Hindoostanee to quack, bird itself is called in Hungarian katsa. qintqaw. In Malay the duck is termed bebek, which seems to b
i
in its European names, e. g. th pawn, Danish paa, Swedish pat Dutch pauw, (ierman pfaxi, Bohemian and Polish pare, Russian am Hungarian pava, Welsh pawn, Spanish pawn, Italian pawn*, Freud paon, "welche insgesammt," siiys Adkujnu, " eine NacbahraOBj bey da natllrlichen Geschreyes sind, welches, besonders "All which together an jifanhcnne sehr deutlieh plan lautet" ;in Imitation of its natural cry, which, particularly in the hen, vep
another onomatopoeia. The peacock lias great similarity

Latin pavo (paico), Anglo-Saxon
icily
iibli-
Bounds
tin-
that
R^k (Wttrtarbuch, \. 8, p. 712). li Is remark Hiinloostanee ta-OOS Ver\ closely approaches the <ireel
rwc.
g, the domestic friend of man, ha
Dane of
1
this bird
299.
dilleient.
Of
beast
OOCasion to
many onomatopoeias, imitating its various sound; nude ciri-iiinstaiices. The first name by which a dog is known h
children
*
English
is
bow-WOW, from
(act
i.
its
most
common sound:
so
ii
.-poarc's
Tempest'
sc.
2)
Bark I hark I
ougfa
Tin\v:iteli-.I.
;
I I.
.uk,

CHAP. X.]
WORM.
255
OF OXOMATOIHE1AS, OK IMITATIVE
The same sound is expressed by Aristophanes Av, at), and by others whence the verb fiavto " ex canum voce quam latrando fiav fiuv edunt" (H. Stkphanus, voc. y8ai5w). So the Latin baubare, as by
;
Lucretius (L.
In Italian
5, v.
1009)
in oedibus.
Et cum deserti baubantur

it is
abbajare, in French aboyer, hence in English to bay

I'd rather be a dog,
and bay the moon
at bay whilst the dogs are baying him. In the mediaeval Latin we find baulare, which seems to have subsequently declined to the German bellen, applied to the cry of a dog or a fox. The first syllable of the Greek vXato, to bark, is, as Dammius observes, " ex sonitu canis efflicta, aqua, et est germanorum heulen,"
and a stag stands
to howl.
to urlare,
hyla, in
seems
to
This agrees, too, with the Latin uhdare, reduced in Italian and in French to Hurler. In Dutch it is huilen, in Swedish Danish hyle, in Islandic yla. To this last our word yell bear relation as an onomatopoeia, in the description of the
Never
till
sleeping mastiff
now
she utter'd yell

Coleridge, Christabel.
Beneath the eye of Christabel.
So of
the hell-hounds surrounding Sin

These yelling monsters, that, with ceaseless err. Surround me. Milton, Par. Lost, 2, 795.
The sound of an angry dog, which we call snarling, is in German hnarren or gnurren ; and the dog is then said in Latin hirrire, whence Lucretius uses the word gannitns for the sound our word irritate.
of a dog's fawning
Longe
alio pacto gannitit vocis adulaut.
Lib. v. v. 1068.
The German expression
for
this
is
schicdnzelen.
" Der hund
" The dog fawned upon his master." Bchwauzelte vor seinem herro." The noisy cry of a young dog we imitate in our verb to yelp, in
provincial
German
galpen.
Of
pur.
the cat's sounds
we have two
distinct onomatopoeias,
mew and
HOTSPUR
in his
indignation says
and cry
I'd rather be a kitten,
mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.

Shakspeare, First Part Henry IV.
The Welsh miew, or meic, nearly agrees with the English. The German miauen and mauzen, with the Dutch maauwen. The Danish mauve and miave with the Islandic and Swedish miava. The Italian
miagolare
The
the
is contracted into the French miauler and Spanish maullar. Gaelic niambal agrees with the Malay ni-yung, in adopting n as
said that in Chinese the name of a cat is miao. the verb mewl (an evident imitation of the French miauler) for a similar sound caused by verv young infants
initial.
It is
Shakspeare uses
Mewling and puking
in the nurse's arms.
As Von Like
It, a.
ii.
sc. 7.
25o"
[CHAP.
The continuous sound of a cat, when pleased, is expressed by ou onomatopoeia to purr, in German schnurren, in Danish knurre, Swedish hurre. In some languages it is compared to the continuou sound of a spinning-wheel; as, in French, filer, /aire le rouet, is sail of a cat purring. So, in the Swedish, spitina. In other instances is considered as a sort of mewing, as in the Spanish maullar de aUcgriu The word, in Hindoostanee, is an onomatopoeia of a different form
i;
i
khoorkhook.
The sounds emitted by beasts kept for food furnish several onomato The lowing of the cow is, in the Northern English dialects expressed by the sound moo, and generally, among English children The same sound, substituting th< a cow is first known by this sound. labial b for m, is found in the Greek fiovc, giving name to the specie
poeias.
generally; and perhaps the o in ox afforded a similar onomatopoeia From 77100 come directly the German muhen, the old French miiir the Latin mugire, Italian muggire, French and Spanish mugir, Greel
fivKuofiai,
in
and Romaic /iovyvpiw.
The Anglo-Saxon adopts

to low,
tor in
the verb hlowan,
whence we have
and the Dutch loeym
The Greek
fiovq (in the genitive /Jooc) is manifestly a compound the simple imitative sound bo, and the grammatical particle vq, or oe
In Welsh the sound ha alone forms the nam* of the species. In the Greek fiodu), and Latin boare, bo forms tin In a fragment of Pacuvius we find the Lata] radical of the verb. wi'n written bo-iint
as in the Latin BOV-IS.
Claiuore et sonitu colles resonantes bdunt.
In Romaic the
ted
in
the
name of the animal is fiofo. Its prolonged sound German briillen, Danish brCU, Anglo-Saxon bulgitm
i|
French beugler (pronounced also meugler), and the English bugle Skinner thinks, from the Anglo-Saxon bugan, to bend :-, from the Latin buinht, a heifer; bul from tin French beulgler. From the Anglo-Saxon butgian comes our verb t< (peculiarly applied to a i>ull), and perhaps the substantive bub it --If, agreeing with the Russian, l'olish, and Wriidish vol, the nam* of th^ same animal.
called, not, as
The nameof
;
the
cow
i
furnishes onomatopoeias
in,
in
m
'i
kau and
,
in
/.-<,
still more extensively, Swedish ku, in German hub, in Low Danish /.<<, in hutch hoi, in Armenian too,
ii
Laplandish kvsa,
ox, as
in
Affghan kua,
it.
in
Hindoostanei
The English word

0,
we pronounce
in
loses the imitative broad
winch
is
mote
ftUly
expressed
the
.
to the who].- i|M-i:ies;

ohs, the
Low
G< im. ni
I
ih'/is, a word applied sound appears in the Ihitcli Aii-lo Saxon and Frisian nxa, old Teutonil
the (Jeinian
.aine imitative
"/,
|,
WeUh
yck,
Turkisl:
okUs, &c.
Th
it!
of the sheep
is
one of the
rarliest,
imitative
CHAP. X.]
OF ONOMATOPOEIAS, OK IMITATIVE WORDS.
257
sounds in most languages. Nurses talk to their infants in England of " JJu, ha, black sheep ! and in Scotland of " the sheepie ma's." And before they it is observed by Schlschkoff that the lambs bleat ya I
come
to utter ha
B>), which was pronounced sound of a sheep by Catinus,

2' i)\it)toe
in
Greek
fir\
like bee, is described as the
in a passage preserved
by Suilus,
&
" But he, stuXtyioy fia&iet. bee!" pidly, like a sheep, walks on, crying bee Hence a she-goat ("which produces a similar sound) is called by Hesychius /fy/cjj, and
Coairzp
irpofiarov,
fiij,
If
a sheep pq(qv but the.more The bleating of sheep fiijXa.

:
sheep and goats ml ; but according to some writers the latter was particularly spoken of goats, and the former of sheep, and the same may be observed of the verbs (3\ri\To bleat, in Latin, is balare, and anciently aojxai and /u/mw. (according to Varro) belare. Hence the Spanish belar, Italian belare, French beler, which gives name to Belter, the Ram. The Northern onomatopoeias sometimes vary the form as the Anglo-Saxon bleetan, the German bloken, Danish breege, and Swedish brdka ; the "Welsh is hrefa, and the Gaelic, for the sound of sheep, meilaich, and of goats tneigiollaich. In Hungarian the sound bee still appears in legetek, to bleat, and in Hindoostanee both sounds are retained in viea-mea and
common name
was
for
/Satî) or
firjicr)
bhea-blwa.
The sounds
the
earliest times, particularly the
of swine are so peculiar as to attract attention in the grunting of the old, and the squeaking of
gruittle,
For the verb to grunt, we have also in English to Scotch to grumph, Anglo-Saxon grunan, in German grunzen, Danish grynte, Swedish grynta, Welsh gryngiaw, Gaelic groassal, Greek ypuw and ypvX\tw, Latin grunnio, Spanish grunar, Italian grugnire, &c, and in Hindoostanee ghoorrana. The name of the animal, when taken from the sound is, in Greek, ypvWov, in Romaic yovpovvi, in English a grunter, in Scotch a grumphy, and in the Delaware tongue gosh-gosh. Our onomatopoeia squeak, for the cry of a pig, agrees with the Swedish sqwdka. It is the German quieken. Aristophanes ex-
young swine.
in
presses
it
by
Koi
ko\
sound of the horse is that which we express by the onomatopoeia to neigh, agreeing with the Anglo-Saxon knegan, the Swedish gndgga, the Islandic gnegg, and the Scotch to nicher. express a slighter sound of the same animal by the verb to whinny, answering to the Welsh icihi, the German vrichern, and the Frankish weio. Luther uses the word hui! (which Wachter calls " vox
principal
The
We
naturalis equi,") in his translation of Job xxxix. 28, " wenn die Dromimete fast klinget, spricht es Am'.'" By our translators, " he saith among the trumpets, ha! ha!" The Latins expressed these sounds
in general
1
by the verb
hinnio,
whence the French
hennir.
The
Italians
Vergleichendes Worterbuch in zweihundert Sprachen, 2 Theil. p. 193. hort eher den laut ja-a, als bja-a."
"
Man
[G.]
258
use rignare,
[CHAP.
and the Dutch runniken. Our word nag is the o German nago : in mediaeval Latin it was naccus, nachus, or nacti The etymology of all these words is greatly disputed but,
;
Wachter
observes, " salva res est ;"
we
have only to refer to
tl
and we have at once a neigher for the appellation horse, by the same analogy which terms the swine a grunter.
Islandic gnegg,
of
The noise of the ass is too remarkable not to have furnished on matopceias in various languages, though with very different articul tions. apply the word brag, as well to the loud noise wlm the stag makes on certain occasions, as to that of the ass ; but tl German yanen, explained " des esel's geschrei," " the cry of the ass
We
does not seem to be generally applied to the stag; for they Btt " esel yanen, hirsche schreien." To bray as an ass is in JSwedi; skrdna, in Danish skryde, in Dutch balchen and ruchelen, in Freru braire, in Latin rudere, in Italian rugghiare, in Welsh brefu, in Gael The anim beciam, in Hungarian orditok, in Hindoostanee renk. itself is named in Egyptian to, evidently from its sound. Of wild beasts in general we do not in English distinguish tl sounds by any peculiar onomatopoeias ; for though we say the Ik roars, we employ the same term for the roaring of the sea. ami many other noises. So we apply the term howling to wolves and doj indiscriminately; but in Latin the sounds of the elephant, the lio and the tiger have distinct onomatopoeias. " Barrire elephant " Elephao cuntur, sicut oves dicimus balare, utique a sono vocis." are said to barrire, as we say of sheep balare, namely, from the BOO! The verb raucare is applied to tigers, and to lioi of the voice."
i
:
<
rugire
'
9 Tigrides indomiti raucant rugiuntque leones.
It may here be noticed that certain small animals have been nam* from a fancied resemblance of their cries to articulate sounds ifuvi-qui-su, a small quadruped of the North American prairie:
t F
i -
the thit-a-be-bee, a sort of titmouse, so called by tin- Indians of th country; the Virginian Wkip-pOOr-WHl, a bird called in Germ;
I may add, that Julius PoLLTJX bi whole chapter on the sounds of birds and beasts. L. 5, c. L8, which are produced .'JOO. The sounds, natural and artificial, mankind, afford scope to numerous onomatopoeias. Many of ther liuwver, are so similar to sounds produced by other causes, that t! and it is not always possible to d game word is Hied in The hissing point, of time. t. inline which application was prior in ip.nl., the hootiDg Of owls, and the growling of hears, have th< it would ,-,,111 lin sounds of the human voice, and idle to inquire whether man or the blackbird was first said to whistl by the voice, and partly by oth hue natural sounds pari
zuigenmelker, or goatsucker, &c.
;i
l>.
..
In
.!
a,1
m.I.miiiiii
i-iiilii
ill. in
nc.
* Au<:t
"lul- niflcD,
V.
49.

CHAP. X.]
organs.
OF ONOMATOKEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.
259
By the sound of the voice we more or less plainly mark our thought or of feeling. Indistinctness in the utterance of our thoughts is expressed by our terms murmur, hum, croon ; imperfect articulation by stutter, stammer, lisp, babble; low secret utterance by whisper, susurro ; light talk by chat, clack ; loud noise by halloo, express our pleased feelings by such words as laugh, akaXri, &c. titter, snigger, giggle, chuckle ; and our sufferings by to groan, sigh, whine, whimper, ejulare, boo-hoo! oufl &c. Many sounds, too, aiv produced by us for other purposes than those of language, as to
state of
We
gargle, whistle, cough, wheeze, hiccup, retch, spit, sneeze, kiss, &c.,
all
or
most of which wor-ds have been generally regarded as onomatopoeias and this is equally obvious when we speak of artificial sounds, as those of the drum, trumpet, fife, hurdy-gurdy, the explosion of firearms, the tolling of a bell, the stroke of a whip, or the like. A few
may here be noticed. 301. Murmur is strangely explained by Dr. Johnson as a " low, Murray shrill sound." turn to his definition of thrill, and find that it is " a word supposed to be made, per onomatopeiam, in imitation of the thing expressed, which, indeed, it images very happily." And what Why, truly, it is, according to the same author, " sounding is this ? with a piercing, tremulous, or vibrating sound." Now, a shrill or piercing sound is the very opposite to a murmur, in its original signification, which is that of a suppressed and obscure sound of the human voice, as when the poet is indulging in solitary and all but silent meditation
of each class
We
He murmurs,
A
Or when
lover
near the running brooks, music sweeter than their own. 1
the fond
woman
softly breathes out a sad farewell to her
Tristis abes, oculis
Et
dixit, tenui
abeuntem prosequor udis, murmure, lingua Vale J*

tears
Sadly thou goest,
And
softly
is
murmurs my
sorrow sad tongue
my
tell,
farewell
Our word murmur
from the Greek
fiopfxvpuj,
and Latin murmuro,
both which are formed by repetition of the sound mur ; of which kind of repetition, as common in the early stages of language, I shall hereafter speak more fully. The labial sound mur, in its simple form, appears in the Greek fivpiw, and in the German murren. On the one
noticed, and on our verbs mutter and mumble. To murmur does not always result from the tender emotions ; but often from a discontent which it is not thought safe to utter openly. This signification of the word is well explained by Wachter, " Obloqui occulta, et pressa voce, a similitudine sonitus ipsius mur-
hand
it
bears a certain relation to the labial
pur above
in
the other hand to the labials
mut and muen,
murantis, qui
dum intra
1
se loquitur, videtur
ed.
eum sonum
iii.
edere quern
Wordsworth, Poems,
1820, vol.
p. 10!.
'Ovid, Epist. 12, v. 55.
s2
260
[CHAP.
" To censure with a secret and suppressed voic< verbo imitamur." from the similitude of the sound of the murmurer, who, whilst he speaking inwardly, produces the sound which Ave imitate by thi This is also the sense of the German murren, and of on word." " Da murrete das volk wider Mose." " And the peopl mutter. murmured against Moses." (Exod. xv. 24.)
i
What
does his cashier" d worship mutter ? Shakspcare, Tim. Ath. a.
iii.
sc.
4.
By
ones
;
analog}' to these
as
by Milton
applied to several simila to " the liquid lapse of murm'ring streams,"

is
sounds,
murmur
and to " Bees' industrious murmur:"' by Lucretius to the noise c 6 4 The Germai the sea, to the thunder-clouds,* and to the winds. language has murmeln,& frequentative verb, like the Latin murmuri/k This in Frankish was murmuln, in Danish murmle, all answering b our mutter. Of murmeln, Adelung says, " es ahuet den laut welchei es ausdriickt ;" " it imitates the sound which it expresses." Mummeln in German, in Lower Saxon mumpeln, and in Dutcl mompelen, is to mumble like a toothless person, " Alsdann sollst ilu an dem staube mit deiner rede mummeln." "Thy speech shall mumbls on
Wbuper.
Our translation has "whisper;*' hi of the dust," (Isaiah xxix. 4.) the Vulgate has mussito, which, as well as musso and mutio, is neavl; related to our verbs above cited, and also to our interjection mum whence mummers in the West of England are a sort of rustic actors who depend more on gesture than speech. Their rude holiday play In oh as they go about from house to house, is called mummery. French momerie was a similar entertainment, as mummtrty was in oft German; and as the performers were masked, momene was in tha To murmur is in French murmurer, in Italiai language a mask. mormorare, in Spanish mormorar, in Albanian povpôvptc. TheGreel (besides [xopfivpuj) has yoyyvw, which is retained in tin' Romaic; h Welsh it is grwg-uaeh, in Gaelic moumJiur, in Hungarian morgok, Hindoostanee voalwulu and chutchuhi, in Malay vhumil and sdnijHtlc. 302. To whisper is a still softer suppression of the voice than t< The Germai nniniiiir. In Danish it is hoi.sk, in Swedish hwiska. \Y\< iiii.i; suggests that this is from th is irisprln, or irisju-m. v rl sound vis, vis, which (as he says) the teeth give forth in whispering Al'U.UNQ says it is an onoinatopo ia and heme he supjxtscs that th name uritperlein is given to the greenfinch " vermthlich wegen seim pnilubly from its note." To a like cause we ma] ascrib nun. in (lisprni and zisr/irln, which latter is connected with tischen flu and i- -us. u< n \ with the other oi latopu-ias mention* In t<. has als< It (together with that word) in the preceding section L'!>7.
ii
'
<
.,
'
<;l..iMir.
(Jormniiic, von.
im.
in|>
it
Murren.
Pnr. Lout, b. 8, v.
263.
Pn..
l.l
,
I:.
..r,l.
|'ii
in .ult.ue. iiiurm'T.i |M)titi.
lirr.
Tom
Una Mgno fhmHai fit murmur* Ma^no iiiilitpumtur murmure clnwi. Ilu.
magla
I.
\
cpo.
.
Nut.
".,
04.*>.
(
[bid. 9
L00
I'."'..

CHAP. X.]
261

! !
some resemblance to our words hist and whist before mentioned. The Greek -^Svpô) is employed by Theocritus for the softly-whispered words of lovers (Idyl. 27, v. 67) as the Latin susurrus is by Propkrtius (L. 1, Eleg, 11, v. 115). These as well as the French chuchoter, the Italian bisbigliare, the Spanish chuchear, the Dutch prevelen, and linsteren, the Russian shepot, the Polish szeptai, the Hungarian suttogok, the Hindoostanee phusphusana, the Malay bisik, and
the Tongan/a/a?i</o, different as they are in form, were probably all intended to imitate the sounds produced by whispering in the ear, or
by other causes having a like effect. Several of these causes are enumerated together in Milton's exquisite poem of " Lycidas "
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks.
And
And
again in Paradise Regained (b. 2, v. 26)
Where winds with

in the
reeds and osiers whisp'ring play.
same poem, describing Athens

There Ilyssus rolls His whisp'ring stream.
And
in the Allegro
tales, to
Thus done the
bed they creep,
By
whisp'ring winds soon lull'd asleep.
So Adelung, enumerating
1
the causes of a similar sound, specifies
the softly-moving foliage of a tree, the purling of a brook, and other But none of these uses of the word ichisper are like movements.
It should here be observed, that the labial isp noticed by Johnson. connects whisper with our verb to lisp, in German lispeln, in Dutch Thus in German they lispen, in Swedish lo?spa, and in Danish lespe. s:iv " Uspelnde bdche," "whisp'ring brooJis," and "das dumpf lispehide liiftchen," " the hollow whisp'ring breeze." 303. To croon is a North-country word, for which we have no precise equivalent in standard English; and which indeed seems to be used as an onomatopoeia, with great latitude of signification. By Burns it is employed with happy effect in describing Tam o' Shanter's dreary midnight ride
Oroon.
Whiles haudin' fast his guid blue bonnet, Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet. 8
and merely humming a

;
a sort of undersong, something between singing, tune. Halliwell, however, says it is used in the north of England, both for to bellow, or roar, and to murmur softly and Jamikson explains it in the Scotch language, not only as used by Burns, but also as to cry like a bull, in a low and hollow
In this sense
it is
tone,
1
and
to
whine and
persist in
moaning
which
last is the
sense of
Das sanft bewegte Laub des Baumes, das Rauschen einer Quelle, ahnliohe Bewegungen. WSrterb. voc jliotcm, 8 Tam o' Shanter, v. 33.
und andere
2G2
[CHAP.
ik.iibie.
the Dutch krennen, as " Zy doet, den heelm dag, mit dan krennen. " She does, the whole day, nothing but moan." With krennen on word groan seems to be allied and both are evident onomatopoeias. 304. To babble is most frequently employed by us in the sense c but it originated in an onomatopceif idle talk, or senseless prattle which is well explained by H. Stephanus under the word fiafa, t From this word," says he, " many grammarians derive th speak. verb |9a/9aw but I am persuaded that the latter was the origina and was no less ancient than iraTcira and fxdfxa, or fia/jfiiu for a these words are the earliest, and as it were the natural rudiments c the stammering tongue of a child so I think that |3a/3a is a sort c inarticulate word taken from such stammering and thence is formei So tar H the verb /3a/3aw, which by abbreviation became /3aw." Stephanus. From this repetition of ba, comes bab, the origin of th Islandic babba, the German babbeln, French babiller, Dutch babelen Swedish bjabbla, and Danish bable. Hence, too, come our babe am baby, the Welsh baban, and as Menaok says, the Syriac babion, fo an infant. The Greek /3a(9a, is a babbler. Introducing m, we hat li in Homer the verb (Za/jfiaivu), which Dammius explains as verbal fictum ex sono eorum qui loqui conantur, cum valde algent," and tin chattering of the teeth may be occasioned either by cold, or by (ear,
;
by
infantine weakness.
Italian bambino,
And
to
of a like
To (iapfiaivu) we may trace the origin of th an infant, more especially applied to the Infant Chrisi origin with some further variation is the Latin balbutic
<
stammer or hesitate, in speech. Among the secondary senses the word balMing is what Mr. Donne has well termed a most lie.mtitl expression for an echo; when Viola says, were she a lover of Olivu she would
Holla her name to the reverberate hills, And make the babbling gossip of the air Shakspeare, Twelfth Night, Cry out, Olivia!
AAaAi).
a.
i.
sc. 5.
305.
I'll
Of
StI \NUS as " vox (|u:edain ui'mf)|io;, a certain inarticulate, or confusei clamor, which is raised by soldiers in rushing on the enemy, like on hurrah! I'rammarians dispute about its etymology; but as ( Vsa Use*, in the same fcense, the word ulutatus, which is a clear nnoinato n-ckon 6XaX// in the same class. uc may w And from tin In Ik urn 'AXuXay/ioc. "Atrart Avtu> iirr/iu Kttiyor, miXw " Sing unto the bold a new song sinj i//<iXXur< ii iWitXuyfiu). iil\ onto him, icith a good courage." l'salm xxxiii. (Oi
languages.
II.
<
loud tumultuous noises there are onomatopivius The Greek A\oXr) or 'AXoXj; is described by
in
man;
II
ii.
.'5.
a.,
the N'ul^nte has
aI,
i.
'
it, " cum Vix-ifcratioiu:") HbBobOUOl an evident 0B0Oiat<>|i<iia, winch H\U,IWKia\ describe .iilliei.-ntly imitative ol that which it wa a i.nlu H d iimi ..-," i;
,
-ant
to
n
,
and
i
,Mi.
*.
ii
(.eneive that it is adopted from llie vulga '- recent " Dictionan <>f Americanisms," a
that,
ciintry, " a riotous noise.
The Franco
Charivari
! ;
CHAP. X.]
203
of which, a few years ago, much use was made for political purposes, is a noisy demonstration of disapproval of an individual's conduct, much like the Skimmington procession described by Butler, in which
One might distinguish different noise Of horns, and pans, and dogs, and boys, And kettle-drums, whose sullen dub
Sounds
like the
hooping of a tub. Hudibras, p. 2,
c. 2, v.
587.
These noisy tumults have been known in France for some centuries by the name of Charivari; for an Arret of 1G0G, " fait deftences a toutes personnes faire aucune assemblee illicite et tumulte, qu'ils appelant Charivary" The learned Scaliger and Salmasius disputed about its etymology, which the former derived from calybarium, signifying, according to him, " crepitus aeris, aut vasorum a?reorum, rudi ;" " the clank of brass, or brazen VOaorifl, aere aut rudio pulsatorum when struck by a brass rod." But all this learning was thrown away for the word was simply an onomatopoeia, well enough expressing the discordant sounds which it was meant to imitate, and perhaps in its first part connected with the Italian ciarlare, to chatter. 306. The expression of laughter in its various degrees, from the
loud burst of uncontrolled mirth to the half-suppressed movement of a ridiculous feeling, has a great variety of onomatopoeias ; hence our ha
Laaghi
ha
I ha I to laugh, smile, grin, snigger, titter, chuckle, giggle ; and the In our modern pronunciation of the verb Scotch guffaw and whihher. to laugh, we have dropped the characteristic guttural both in the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon and old Gothic hlahan ; the former is retained in the Islandic hlaca, and the latter in the German and Dutch lac/ien, and old German lahhan; but both are dropped in the Danish and Swedish Of another class of lee, which has some relation to the Latin ketus.
guttural onomatopoeias, the simplest form
is
seen in the Sanskrit kakh,
whence we have the Greek ica^Xdiiti, which Hesychius renders UOpwe yeXa (he laughs impetuously), and the Latin cachinno, to laugh im-
As KayXafci seems to agree with our cackle, so myXi^ti, which Hesychius gives the same signification, more nearly resembles our chucMe and giggle, the Hindoostanee kheekhiyana, and the Malay kekek, whence (as I have observed) a laughing parrot is named.
moderately.
to
We
this
have seen that cackle represents the cry of a hen or a goose. From it was applied to human laughter of a kind resembling.that ay. Johnson represents it as synonymous with giggle, but the diflerence of the vowels shows that there is a diflerence in the character of the laugh. One is that of a man who, without restraint, gives loose to his selfsatisfaction, as in the instance quoted by Johnson himself, from Arbuthxot. " Nic grinned, cackled, and laughed, till he was like to
giggling
fell a frisking and dancing about the room." Whereas more the act of a girl laughing lightly without sufficient Hence a giglot is a foolish wench, apt to laugh withcause for mirth. out reason, and not, as Johnson supposes, lascivious, from the Dutch
kill
himself, and
is

204
geil.
['.II.VP. i
similarity of character between giggle and tittei which, Johnson justly supposes, " is formed from the sound ;" bot imply laughing without much noise ; but the latter implies somewlia
is
There
much
To chuckle is not, as Johnso; supposes, to laugh vehemently or convulsively, but on the contrary to laugh rather inwardly to one's self, from a sense of secret triumph
more of intermission than the former.
with a noise somewhat resembling the clucking of a hen. To snicke by Johnson, is to laugh slily or con temptuously, and is probably connected with the Scotch neiher, t< neigh, or laugh with a sound resembling that of a horse. The Scotcl ichih/ier, too, is only another form of our titter. The Greek ytXciw and fi.ei$au>, differ both in origin and signification as much as our lutigi and smile ; and therefore (pi\ofieih)c A<ppoSiTr) should not be trans lated, as it sometimes is, laughter-loving Venus, but Venus ever smiling, or delighting in smiles. smile is not accompanied wit! sound as laughter is, and therefore neither the Greek pnYn.i, nor th< Whether or not ycXaw be sucl English smile, is an onomatopoeia. seems doubtful. At all events it has little relation to the Gothi< hlakan, to laugh; but may possibly have some to the Anglo-Saxoi giellan, to yell, though the sounds expressed are different The Scottisl gaffaw, a horse-laugh, seems to be a sort of compound, gaff, agreeing with the German gaffen, to gape, and aw being a mere imitative sound like/wzJ ha! ha! In the north of England agoff is im oaf, probabh from gaffen; as a gaby is a silly fellow, probably from the Danisl
or snigger, as properly described
gabe, to gape.
groan.
all our painful feelings, the most expressive utterance is i In Milton's terrific picture of the Lazar-house, after enu merating the varied forms of agony and torture, he concludes
307.
Of
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans
an onomatopoeia no one can doubt and it seems contin- English grmrl, applied to the sound of an angry bear, and with the German araan, horror, and Danish grue, to shuddei Our sigh is the Danish verb siikke, Swedish suka. with horror. German .*/';<//, (provincially suchtcn), Anglo-Saxon scian, and
That groan Meted with
is
si//,-;
among which* our own

tin-
sigh.
If
pronounced as
it
vraj
anciently, with
'
bennina&on, approaches the nearest to a Our verbs to whine anil imitation Of the actual sound. whiniju'.r are related, much as the German wcincn, to weep, and winseln, In M<cso-(iothic i/ueinan is to lament, and " taking thit to whine, arc.
gnttaral
the
it would lie an onoma* which usually accompanies weeping."' The [slandic qtmna retained the </", which In the Sueo-Gothic was ehanged to JtoWM t and in the Swedish to /wind, whence we have mi
.,.,
primary signification (sayi Am.i.um;)

ggnp
t,,|,.iii,
oiind
Win*
1,1
iWrtu'H
11.
ili' .,11
ohl
I'.'.l.
iitiin
',
10 wiieli'
cini' <)ni>iimto]>a>io ties
\v.-i
rtrbandi torn
Lsojmtyn.
-Wttrtsrtwwh, ivi L457.

CHAP. X.]
whine.

the
265
formed from
Of
German
winseln,
Adelung
1
says, "
;
it
is
weinen by means of a double derivative syllable for the s gives it an intensive force, and the ein a diminutive." In like manner we mav say that whimper is doubly affected in relation to whine, first, by changing the n into for euphony, and then by adding per as an
Latin ejulare is said to be that son of loud lamentation or shrieking, which is fitter for a woman than a man. Yet, as Cicero observes, even Hercules was heard to shriek out, in (Eta, when overcome with the acuteness of his pain.* Ejulare is an onomatopoeia with manifest relation to ululare ; and indeed the Greek
iterative particle.
The
u\oXvyi)
is
I
rendered both ejulatus and ululatus?
Boohoo
seems to be an American onomatopoeia, adopted by the
Haliburton to signify blubbering aloud. Scream, screech, and squeak, which have been already noticed the sounds of birds and beasts, are also common to mankind.
witty Judge
;
among
Ouf! is a French onomatopoeia, expressing the sound extorted bv wearisome exertion as by M. Jourdan, who makes this exclamation after the pretended Turks have kept him a long time bending forward with the Alcoran on his back. 4 308. Among the sounds proceeding from the vicinity of the vocal organs, but not for vocal purposes, that produced by the act of
gargling the throat
find that
it
Gargle.
is
not the least remarkable.
furnishes in
many
is
And accordingly we languages a variety of expressive onoGreek yapyapiwv," and we

have-
matopoeias.
in relation to
The uvula
called in
gargling the Greek yapyapifa, and the Latin gargarizo, with their derivatives. In German gurgeln is to gargle.* in Dutch gorgelen, Danish gurgle, Swedish gurgla, French gargouiller, Italian
gorgogliate,
Spanish gargarezar and gorgonitear. Our gurgle is evidently another form of the same onomatopoeia, as when our poets speak of " gurgling rills;" and perhaps the sound gave rise to the Latin gurges, Spanish gurge, and Italian gorgo, where the waters
boiling
<
up resemble
in
sound our gargling or gurgling.

is,
It
is
>bservable that the throat itself
in various languages,
of a like origin.
it is gurgel, of which Adelung says, " es ahmet ohne Zweifel den schall nach," " it without doubt imitates the noise." In mediaeval Latin and Italian gorgia, in Spanish garganta, in French gorge, which our poets have adopted, as in Hamlet, " My gorge rises
1 Es ist von weinen, vermittelst einer doppelten Ab]eituna;ssylbe, gebildst das s maelit daraus ein Intensivum; die Sylbe ein aber ein Diminuti'vum. Worterbuch,
;
In German
iv.
1564.
* Ipsum enim Herculem viderunt in (Eta, magnitudine dolorum ejulantem. Tuscul. 2, 7. 8 H. Stephanus, Thesaur. 4, 1527. 4 Moliere, Bourgeois Gentilhomme, a. iv. sc. 13. 5 Caruncula, quam gutturi, pro tegumento, natura addidit ; nomine a genere soni indito. Constantin. voc. ya.pya.ptwv. 6 Helandus illud a sono, quem motus reciprocus in gutture excitat, effingit. Wachter, voc. gurgeln.
266
at it."
filled
[CHAI\
i
say also, from the French gorger, to be gorged, that with food to the very throat; and from degorger, to disgorgi and from gorgette, a gorget. The French call the redbreast Gorg Bouge, and give the name of Gorge-de-Pigeon to a changeable eolo like that of the pigeon's throat. The throat in Russian is gorlo, ai
in Polish gardlo.
We
For the gurgling sound of
liquor passing
!
throat the French use as an onomatopoeia glou

Qu'ils sont doux, bouteilles jolie
!
gloux
down
tl
Qu'ils sont doux, vos petits glou
gloux Mol. Med. Malg. Lui.

!
a.
i.
sc. 6.
To gulp is described by Johnson as " to swallow eagerly, to su< down without interruption." But it is an onomatopoeia, imitating tl sound of a liquid forced down the throat, not without interruption,
i
a continued draught, but suddenly, and, for the most part, lductantl Thus the Spanish liberals used to sing, by way of insult to the kin " Gulp it dow: a song of which the burthen was " Tragala perro
!
you dog
!"
<
WMtft
309. It rnay be doubted whether whistling be natural to man, The simple sound is use derived by imitation from singing birds. by Falstaff as an indignant ejaculation, when his companions whistl
"
Whew
a plague upon you
all
Give
me my
horse,
you rogues
The English verb
to whistle, is a manifest onomatopoeia, agreeing wii
the Anglo-Saxon hwistlan and Swedish hwisla. the verb as " denjenigen feinen
dieses
Hilpert
same
describi
Ton von
sich horen lassen,
wok
lu
Wort nachahmet," "
to give utterance to the
fine
sour
which the word imitates." From its similarity to other sound however, it is confounded with them in diilerent languages; as in tl French sijjler, with hissing and whispering; in the Spanish silba with whistle, whizzing, and hissing; in the Indian silhido and jischi with hissing and piping; in the G erman pfeifen and Danish pibe, wil piping. The Germans say "die winde pfeifen" we say, " tl winds whistle." Shaksp-are's Fairy Queen, however, speaks in tl same breath of " dancing our ringlets to the whistling winds," and 44 It may he douUod whether tl the winds )>i/>ing to us in vain."* Latin fistula, though similar in sound to our whistle, had any coi
i
n
ntl\
tin-
with
le
it,
but wiw not rather of a different
origin,
as
wi
tin
tl tl
noticed.
On
the other hand,

in
we
cannot doubt hut

choohdhoohiya^ and
IlindiKistarx'e
chooh, cltooh, in
the noun
whistling,
verb chiMihrhimhi/uiiu,
la-fore
though differing
for
articulation
from
all
mentioned onoinuu>|xi'ias
was
realbj
meant
inn!
<
md.
M0
:\\n. Tin- Northern expressions for coughing, and similar allectioi of the throat ami lung-., form onoinatojxeias of different classes, wdiic To cough beloii ni. d by our cough, fwarse, and retch. |.o
'
MmlnpMn, fbH
|li 1. 1.
PW
H*0. IV.,
,v.
ii.
H,
w:.
'1.
'_'.
MuLiiiniiii
Ni,;lif
Kmam,
a.
Ii.

311 AP.
X.]
267
to the Gaelic
the
Dutch kugchen, and German keuchen, and perhaps

all
seems to be connected with the Scottish hoast, which indeed is used in the north of England, both for the cause, a cough, and for the effect, hoarse. The Anglo-Saxon hvwstan, is to cough, so the Dutch hoesten, German husten, Danish hoste, and Swedish hosta. And our retch is the Anglo-Saxon hrecan, to retch or cough. To wheeze, which is a weak imperfect cough, is the Anglo-Saxon hweosan, and Swedish hwiim, and perhaps the provincial German wasen. To these we may add the hiccup, or hiccough; in Swedish hicka, Danish hiche, provincial
gothan,
signifying to cough.
adjective hoarse
Our
German
hicksen,
and Anglo-Saxon geoxan
whence our yex, used by
Shakspeare
And then the whole quire hold their hips, and laugh, And yexen in their mirth. Midsummer Night's Dream, a.
ii.
sc. 1.
The German hauch, an aspiration or thick breathing, agrees with our hawk, in Welsh hoch, an effort to force phlegm up the throat; for which act, however, the German has rduspern, the Swedish rahhla, and the Latin screare. The Danish has ralle, to rattle in the throat. The Latin tussis, a cough, hardly seems to be an imitative word it
;
however, the origin of the Italian tosse, the Spanish tosar, and the French tousser ; khokhee in the Hindoostanee, and kakuka in the Bornu language, are both onomatopoeias, having a distant resemblance to our cough ; as the Malay griyak, to spit, has with the Anglo-Saxon to
is,
retch.
311. The Latin spuo
is
a closer imitation of the labial sound, pro-
Spit,
duced by the act of ejecting liquids from the mouth, than the Greek tttvu), or v//wrrw; though Const antine says truly of the latter, " a
In Moeso-Gothic, to spit is speiwan, as speiwands attaitok tuggan is," " and spitting, he touched his tongue." Dieffknbach has traced this word through its various analogies in the old high German, old Saxon, middle high German, modern high German, Netherlandish, Anglo-Saxon, old Frisian, west Frisian, north Frisian, old Norse, Swedish, Danish, upper German, English, Latin, Greek, Doric Greek, Lithuanian,
factitio,
ut arbitror, sono."
vii.
in
Mark
33. "
Ye
Lettish,
old
Slavonic,
Polish,
British,
Persian,
Ossetic,
Sanscrit,
Armenian, Basque, Hebrew, Coptic, Daco-Roman, Provencal, Gaelic, Albanian, Esthonian, and Lappish. It will be unnecessary to follow him through all these but it may be sufficient to notice the Latin spuo, sputo, and spumo, with their derivatives, as respuo, sputum, spumosus,
1
&C., the English spit, spittle, spew, spout;
German
sputzen, spocken,
Anglo-Saxon spcettan, spittan ; Dutch spitten, spuwen, spowen, spuigen ; Danish spytk, Swedish spotta. The French cracher, to spit, seems to be connected with the Anglo-Saxon hrceca.
speutzen;
312. Our verb to sneeze,

1
is
the
German
niesen,
a nasal word, of
ii.
Sneeze.
Vergleichendes Worterbuch der gothischen Sprache, vol.
pp. 294, 295.

268
OF OXOMATOKEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.
[CHAP
which Adeluxg says " es ist ohne Zweifel eine Nachahmung c mit dem Niesen verbundenen Lautes," '' it is without doubt imitation of the sound connected with the act of sneezing." Prankish TiMisan, in Danish nr/se, in Swedish ninsa, in Anglo-Sax niesan, whence is derived neese, which occurs in the Midsumn Night's Dream, immediately after " yexen in their mirth," (abc
1
cited)
and neeze and swear merrier hour was never passed there.
>
Adelung
certainly
suggests that the nut in sternutare,

s
common, of
stern uo,
into
t,
may have been
by exchange, not i of the same origin but this

;
not the case, for sternuto
is
the regular frequentative
Italian sternutare,
which agrees with the Greek TTTupvvfu. The French itemu and Spanish estomudar are mere variations of t
Latin.
Our verbs
all
sniff, snivel, snuff,
the Scotch sneeshin, like sr*

tl
and snort, are

source
imitative of nasal sounds, and, probably, from

;
names of the nose itself in many languages as t Latin nasus, Italian naso, French nez, old German noz, nas, mode German nase, Dutch neus, Swedish nasa, Danish ncese, Islandic n Anglo-Saxon nasu, nosu, Low Saxon ncese, Russian, Polish, and Otl
come
the
Slavonic tongues, noss ; Wallachian nase, Hebrew nas, Sanskrit run Hindoostanee nak, Gipsy naksh, New Guinea nisson, and MaUict missun ; and, in point of form, as the nose projects from the face, s< promontory projects from the mainland; and hence it is called :. Anglo-Saxon noes, nesse ; in Swedish, nces, nos ; in French, so our mss y as in Dwb in Grisnez, between Calais and Boulogne Jnrerness ; and the Naze, a promontory near Harwich, ^
/.
With
Ktw.
sneeze agree in origin, as onomatopoeias, our
sniff,
sneer, sno
snort, &C.
313, Our verb,

says, "
to
Es
'*
scheinit
It
kiss, is the Gorman kussen, of which Ai dem mit dem kusse verbundenen Bchall nach2
ahmeii,"
similar onomatopoeias
,,
sound connected with a kiss ;" a the Greek ^w, kvm, the Frank] the Anglo-Saxon oytam, Swedish fa/ssa, Danish /,y/.w, a
seems
to imitate the
an
found
In
Welsh
the
hnsiin.
truroenti used for the purpose of producing sou is niie of the simplest, is found, in a rude form, amo drum, as th' must barbarous nations, and is very generally named from Our drum is the (ierman trommel, and in some dialer id. tr annuel. of >'. "Die trommel bedeutel ein dii Aoi welchcH den laut titnn oder 'mm hervor bring!."* The word tmnu
814, Ai
it
a substance which, when struck, gives out the sound, tr st.ito, it is no more than a hollow log of woo I---.I .ut m tli tten PSOord which we have of its use, it nppet to Imve talon tfM form which we commonly cull tambourvM, and whl
(drum)
I
stanifles
i
\'.i,|.
i.
iK'inh-n
I.
WlirUrbuch dr gothitcben
iv. J91.
Sprnulii!, vol.
ii.
pp,
04,
CHAP. X.]
OK ONOMATOPOEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.
269
seems
to be meant, in our English translation of the Bible, by the word timbrel. This, in the Septuagint, is called tvixttuvov, the Latin " tympanum, words of wider extent, including the " spirit-stirring drum The diflerent onomatopoeias by which it is deof modern warfare. scribed, depend on the impression made on diflerent ears by sounds somewhat similar. Thus, the American Indians call their drums, tom-tom, agreeing with the top of the Greek rvpiravov, the tym of the Latin tympanum, the tarn of the French tambour, and the tarn (with a different vocal articulation) of the Italian tambvn'o, and our tambourine. The Danes and Swedes, like the Germans, Dutch, and English, insert the r ; the Danes saying trombe, the Swedes trumba, and the Dutch tram and trommel ; the Germans apply the word pauke to the drum,
but chiefly to the kettle-drum. Of this verb, pauken, Adelung says, " Dieses zeitwort ahmet den schall welches es bezeichnet genau nach." 1 In This verb sufficiently imitates the sound which it signifies." one passage where the Septuagint uses rvpiravov, and our translation, " Du sollt nodi frblich pauken," tabrets, the German has pauken. Thou shalt again be adorned .with thy tabrets."" In the Otaheitan and other Polynesian languages, the name given to a drum is (accordin- to French orthography) pahon, differing but little from the German 3 The Russian has a still diflerent imitation of the same onomatopoeia. sound, viz., baraban, which seems to depend on the repeated strokes In the Yoruba lanDn the drum, like our row-de-dow and rub-a-dub. guage, the war-drum is called gan-gan from a like repetition.* 315. From the drum we easily pass to the other sonorous warlike Tnunpet instrument, the trumpet, the name of which is, in many languages,
**.
similar to that of the
drum.
In
German
it is
trompete
;
German, trummet
irumpette
;
in
Luther's Bible, drommete

;
in
; in Upper Lower Saxon,
in
n Welsh, trwmpt
French, trompette in Danish and Swedish, trompet It seems that a larger kind of ; in Gaelic, trompa.
trumpet was called
in old German and Frankish, triumbo, trumbu, and irumbo. Adelung, having noticed these, the speaking-trumpet, &c, says, " Alle diese werkzeuge haben, so wie die trommel, ihren namen von dem laute tram, welchen sie hervor bringen," " All these instru-
;hey give forth."
nents have their name, like the drum, from the sound, tram, which 5 The trumpet was, probably, first formed from the 10m of an animal, whence, perhaps, the Anglo-Saxon truth-horn, our French-horn, the German jagd-horn, and our bugle. Tantarare, which Lerotjx seems to consider as a French word, " invente pour exprimer
e son de la trompette,"
6
is
at least as old as
Ennius
At
tuba, terribili sonitu, Taratantara dixit. The trumpet then uttered aloud Taratantdra, terrible sound.
Annalium,
1
lib. ii. frag.
124.
Worterb. vol.
iii.
676.
d.
1.
Jeremiah xxxi. 4.
8 *
Buschmann, Apercu
6
langues d.
lies
Marquises, pp. 98, 99.

*
ii.
Crowther, voc. Ganijan.

Diction. Comique, vol.
Worterbuch, 504,
vol. iv. p. 693.

270
Fife,
[CHAP.
&c.
316. The " ear-piercing fife " is connected with numerous onoma' According to Lucretius, the music of the pipe originated pceias. an imitation of certain natural sounds
Et Zephyri cava per calamorum sibila primiim Agrestes docuere cavas inflare cicutas. l
So Wordsworth's Ruth,
in her
childhood
had made a pipe of straw, And from that oaten pipe could draw All sounds of winds and floods.*
early onomatopoeias of this class is the Greek word irmt^t of which HESYCHIUS says, " Kara, /i'pj<m' >/ Xt'Sie 7T7rotijrai, ri/c r opveuiv ^wj'ijfe," "This verb is made by imitation from the voice I have before observed that pip and peep were applied to 1 birds." In mediaeval Latin, pipare was thence used softer notes of birds. " Instar forte gallinarum," says Ducanc playing on the pipe. " quae Latinis pipare dicuntur." 8 To this class of onomatopoeias belo The Dutch am the Welsh pib, Danish pibe, and Swedish pipa. The German pfeifen piepen to the sound of young birds and mice. applied to the cry of chickens and other young birds, to whistling, a Adelung says of it, " Denjenigen hell to many similar sounds. laut, von sich geben, welchen dieses zeitwort nachahmet mid ai driicket," "To give out that clear sound which this verb imitates a 4 expresses ;" and from pfeifen., dropping the p, we have taken word, fife. The German flote, flute, is a different onomatopo; " Ohen zweifel," says Adelung, " von dem Latein flo, flan
t
Among
" Doubtless from

clearly
the Latin flo, flare"* But the Latin flo, to How, In Lower Saxon, fldte is also used an onomatopoeia. The tarnish jhn whistling with the lips, as is the Dutch flaiten. The Italians restrict flauto is to whistle, hiss, or ])lay on the (lute. the name of the musical instrument only. Another ancient onomatopoeia, expressing similar sounds, was Greek 26pty, which we call the Pan's pipe, agreeing with the La susurro in the elementary, sibilant, and labial 8USUrro, and with Greek Verb, avpirrau), (rvpiTTu), or <rvpiu>, to hiss; and (he Rom Tin; Pan's pipe was the simplest, form of (In whistle. tTVf)iii), to c".m|>o8ed of a row of reeds, each having a separate note, sometin
1
nine, us
"Xbpurf &V irolffa Ka\ia>
^-yu>
ivvt&Qwvov.
1
A In VjK'.n
iiiiii'-tiniiMl
beaiiU'cius
Syrinx
have made.
Theocritus,
l.lvl. S.
ti,
the pipe has only seven notes
Km
mini diaparlbua teptem compacta clcutis.

Eclog. 2, 26.
MUe<l,
rooms, od. 1820,
vol.
i.
p,
|.i.
iii.-.i.
>i
mi'.
i..iiin,
'
roc
11.1,1.
\v,-,,i..i.,.ii. v..i. Hi.
717.
rol. n. p,
Ml,

CHAP. X.]
271
OF ONOMATOPCEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS.
fistula, as I have before observed, was probably defrom the sound, but from the form. On the other hand, there are onomatopoeias in various languages, expressing the same sound by very different articulations, as the Hindoostanee chhoochee, and the Tonganfango-fango. The sounds produced by metals struck together afford many ono- b^ 1 &c matopoeias, according to the nature of the instruments, as a bell, a Bells vary Chinese gong, or the cymbals of the Phrygian goddess. greatly in size, and, consequently, in sound, from the light tinkling
But the Latin
rived, not
bells
of
The
folded flocks penn'd in their wattled cote's,
To
the tolling of the curfew

Swinging slow, with sullen roar.
And
the contrast
is
well
marked
in the old
Oxford catch
Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, says the little bell at nine,
To call the topers home; But the devil a man will leave his can Till he hears the mighty Tom 1
The sound
tarn,
a manifest onomatopoeia, gave
name
to several large
bells, as that at Lincoln, that at
Christchurch, Oxford, and
The Chinese
give to a gong the appellation of tong-tong.
some others. The name
of a cymbal, in Greek kvûXov, seems to have been formed from the sound, and with analogy to the rvfiiravov, both instruments being used
together in the noisy worship of Cybele
Leve tympanum remugit, cava cymbala recrepant. 1
is commonly said to be taken from the sound or motion of a bell when tolling or striking. " Le President Fauchet XII., 17, dit que ce mot est tout Francois, et qu'il represent Taller et le venir de la cajnpagne e'brantee." 2 That it is an onomatopoeia, I have no doubt but I rather think that the name was given from the oscillations of the pendulum, which, in the early clocks, produced a sound not much unlike the clucking of a hen. In mediaeval Latin, we find it written cloca, clocca, clogga, and glocca. Ducange, after enumerating various derivations of these words, very rationally concludes, " vel potius ab ipso sonitu," " or rather from the sound itself." In modern
Our word
clock
is the German glocke, the Swedish klocke, and the French which, in the Picard dialect, is pronounced cloque. The large machinery first employed to measure time being generally accompanied with a bell, the French word cloche, like the German diminutive glockchen, or gldcklein, was applied even to small bells. 318. Our words gun, cannon, musket, &c, are not onomatopoeias, Bomb, but a bomb is evidently an imitative of the sound, like the Greek PofjipElv, above noticed, the elementary sound bom being applied not only (as has been seen) to the sound of bees, but also to the louder sounds of explosion. have, besides the word bounce, which
times,
it
cloche,
&c.
We
Catullus, Atys. v. 29.
Menage, Origines,
p.
221.

272
OF ONOMATOPOEIAS, OU IMITATIVE WORDS.
[CHAP. X
approaches nearly to the sound bom. Sk inn Kit says it is "a formed from the sound," and Hilpert calls it a " schallwort"
WOT
He
speaks plain cannon,
fire,
and smoke, and bounce.

a. ii. so. 2.
Sluikspeare, King John,

I
wuuk
Dec.
whip,
The Sandwich Islanders called a musket poo from its noise an when they heard a cannon they called it a poo-noo 319. Our words whisk and whip ate onomatopoeias, similar to thos mentioned in a former section under the term whisper. They hot
;
represent a quick motion, attended with a slight but distinct sounc

If
we
take the imitation of such a slight sound as the primar
shall easily perceive the analogies wlm connect their different applications. The quick motion of a besom brushing away dust, or of a wisp of straw employed by a groom i currying a horse, produces a slight sound, whence the instromea
meaning of these words, we
itself is
called in English a whisp, or whisk, in Swedish wiskn, Danish visk, and in German wisch. Such an act of brushing is calle in English to whisk, in Danish viske, in German wischen. A simil; sound is produced by the garments of one who moves quickly in out of a room, whence he is said to whisk in or out, and by movin any light thing quickly a like sound is occasioned. Hence th
i
c
ludicrous lines of Butler

Cardan believ'd great states depend
Upon
the tip of the bear's
tail
end,
Which, as she whisks it tow'rds the sun, Strews mighty empires up and down.
Hudibms,
p. 2, c. 3, v.
895.
Ideating up of cream with a xchisk is called in Swedish htrispi Here we gj ami cream so beaten up is called by us whipt cream. And it is to t tlie connection in sound between whisk and whip. observed th.it | BOUnd nearly similar is expressed by the word whij Whether it apply to whipping the person as a punishment, of Whipping a top as pastime, or to whipping a liorse in a race, or eve and thai there is a like- activ to whipping cream with a whisk
The
movement, and consequently some degree of sound, when

Brisk Susan tcAips her linen from the rope.
Or when
of two travellers, one w/iips up a tree; or

Whij-, ln>
i.i|.ii
i-
when Hamlet
out, and cries, u rnt!
Ah
to
Ix-iiig
imi,
pimi-liiin-iit.
i
in
" whipt with sarcasm," this is l.nee to the pain of being i.

I.
merely figurativ
lil.T.ilU
whipt as
'111.'
of a rod,
,i
Is
wind irhiju as imitating the sound caused by til sometimes used interjectionally j so Grimm reckon
of
the
.urn'
,,,,,,,,,.
signification, Jick]
rod
I't
\i
ii
makes
the
jection Uut\ not unlike our thwack!

'
flckl jifsrhr slave Sagaristio use the intei
DeuUdu'
<!.,
utik, vol. in.
[>.
307.

CHAr. X.]
OF ONOMATOPOEIAS, OR IMITATIVE WORDS. Tax! Tax! meo

'Twill be
tergo erit, non euro.
273
Thwack ! Thwack ! upon
my
back
care not
a.
ii.
Persw,
sc. 3.
From thwack Fielding formed the name tutor of Tom Jones. The noun itself
compositions
:
of Thwack am for the severe occurs chielly in ludicrous
But Talgol first, with hearty thwack, Twice bruis'd his head, and once his back.
Hudibras, p.
1, c. 2, v.
795.
The verb is in the Anglo-Saxon thaccian. The vulgar word wop (provincially, according
is
to
Halliwell, whap)
:
an onomatopa>ia expressing a forcible, and consequently loud blow it is found in the radical part of the Latin vapulo, as Jlog is in that of fiagrum and flagellum. 320. It has thus been shown that imitative sounds are among the Conclusion. first elements of speech, that they are natural to man, and that they actually exist in numerous languages (and presumably in all) words or the roots of words. In applying such sounds to speech, we have seen that there is no necessary connection between the sound intended to be imitated, and any definite action of the vocal organs ; for different individuals, hearing the same sound, do not always possess, or at least do not always exercise, the same power of distinguishing it bv the ear; nor does one and the same sound, when heard, alwavs strike the imagination of different persons as similar to the sound producible bv one and the same action of the vocal organs, as is evident in the diilerent names given by different African tribes to a saw, from its sound. Moreover, men do not always imitate, or attempt to imitate, a primary sound ; but they more commonly adopt that imitation of it, which they have been accustomed to hear from their associates or instructors. An Englishman expresses the sound of whistling either
by the interjection whew ! or by the word whistle. Hindoo expresses the same sound of whistling by the syllables chooh cftooh in choohchoohiya and choohchoohana* because these different modes of expression have been handed
generations.
down
to them, respectively, through several
from this rule, that where we find the onomatopoeias expressing a given sound to be the same, or nearly similar, in any two or more languages, we may infer that the
nations using it have been, at some former period, more or less closely connected, as the Swedish hwisla and English whistle show an ancient connection between those two nations. It is to be observed, that
It follows, as a corollary
an
onomatopoeia, as such, is not necessarily a monosyllable, although the sound imitated may be resolvable into two or more elementary syllables.
of the
dove.
For instance, the word cuckoo is resolvable into a repetition word coo ; but the duplication produces a word totally different
It is not
1
in signification
from the simple coo, which we apply to the voice of a to be supposed that all, or even the majority of
s.
Supra,
282.
Supra)
Si
309#
G]
27-i
[CHAP.
words, can be traced to the mere imitation of sound ; but that onom topceias must necessarily be numerous is evident from the grei variety of sounds imitated, proceeding (as I have shown) from caus< inanimate and animated, irrational and rational, from insects, reptile
birds, beasts,
portion of
and human actions, them here given is the
natural
first
and
artificial.
attempt (so
far as I
The sma know)
bring under a general classification this considerable branch of tl Yet it is certainly not without interest to tl elements of speech. glossologist to trace the onomatopoeia through its different gradation first, as a mere imitative sound, like that of the boy hooting to tl owls, which is not properly to be deemed a part of speech ; secondl;
1
an incondite sound, which, being connected with some human feelinj 2 called an interjection, like the fuffl used by Burns; thirdl; ;' forming a noun or verb, as snap, in the Dutch " met een snap
may be
word, as mu (which Wachter cal " vox vaccas naturalis") in the Latin mugitus, the lowing of a cow and fifthly, entering into the formation of a compound word, as Man Finally, any onomatopce in the German wolilklang, harmony. which is peculiar to a given language or dialect is felt, by those wl understand it, to give appropriate form and expression to the sentem in which it is employed, as in the word croon above cited fro: Burns. 4 And consequently no one can feel the beauties or niceti of a language, who lias paid no attention to the effect of this elemei
fourthly, the root of a derivative
of speech.
1
Supra, Supra,
s.
s.
181. 292.
s
*
Supra, Supra,
s.
s.
291. 303.
; ;
275
CHAPTER
XI.
OF ROOTS.
321. The two forms of articulate speech treated of in the two preceding chapters serve, in their primary use, only to show forth but neither of them, in emotions, or to imitate irrational sounds itself alone, depends on the reasoning faculty, though it may be comTin bined with the forms which serve to express that faculty. latter, together with the interjections, are called words, and are grammatically distinguished into the classes commonly called parts of Of words in general I shall speak hereafter; but it is necesSpeech.
;
Oonoectton
chapter*.
first to explain that portion of a word which is called its root. 322. In comparing the words of any language which is not purely Origin of the term Koou monosyllabic, we usually find a number of them more or less exactly agreeing in some one articulation or number of articulations, as amo, amas, amat, amor, atnator, amabilis, adamo, deamo, &c, agree in the
sary
portion
beloved,
am;
or as lovest, loveth, loved, lover, lovely, loveliness, unlovely,
in the portion love; or as sang, song, songster, agree less exactly with sing. Nor is this circumstance peculiar to the cultivated languages. find in the Yoruba (a negro tongue), oru, night, and oruganjo, midnight, agreeing in the portion oru; and so
&c, agree
We
ose\ a
sound made by smacking the

;
lips,
expressive of grief, and
osisi,
a poor miserable person, agree in the portion os. In the Cree language, we find nippow, he sleeps nippdsku, he sleeps very frequently
nenippow, he sleeps frequently ; ndnippow, he sleeps at times nippdsu, he sleeps a little ; and nanippasu, he sleeps a little now and then all agreeing in the portion nip ; and so, pimmee, grease ; pimme'ewoo, he is greasy pimmSeumn, it is greasy pimme'ewissoo, he is greased pimmeewetayoo, it is greased, &c, agree in the portion pirn. In all
;
make up far the greater part of articulate speech), the portion directly or indirectly common to a number of
these cases (which indeed
words is from the
by analogy to the root of a plant for as a stem, branches, foliage, and fruit, so from the former spring a noun, verb, pronoun, &c, with their inflections, derivatives, or compounds. The root agrees with the words which spring from it, not only in sound, but in signification for it always
called their root,
;
latter spring
mental impression, which may be traced throughout them, under different modifications of person, time, place, cause, effect, likerelates to a
t2

276
ness, contrast, &c.
of roots.
[chap,
x:
The analogy
of a verbal root to the root of

;
plant
forth
for as some plants sen few shoots, or extend over a very short space of ground, whih
may be
seen, too, in other pirticulars
others rise aloft

Branching so broad and long, that in the ground The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade High overarch'd, and echoing walks between. Paradise Lost, b.
9, v.
1104.
So we have
in the
Greek tvvoq (agreeing, perhaps, with our wor

;
tiny) the root
root tvtt has a large

passive,
tw, with only two derivatives whilst in tvtttw th number of words springing from it, as the vert
rviri),
tvxtu), TVTrio), tvttqu), ru<rdw, KTvniia, with their inflections activt
and middle; the nouns
tvitciq, rinroe,
;
cases
the derivatives rvrriKoc, rv-jwhqs
the
&c, with the compounds avTirvTrra
(TTtpvoTvirric, fiovTviroQ,
:irst
&C
323. The ancient Greek and Latin grammarians paid little or n attention to the roots of words, and hence their notions of what w now call etymology were very vague. Vahro, who here and els< where uses verhum in the sense of "a word," says, "Primigenjl He therefore took th dicuntur verba, ut lego, scribo, sto, sedeo" &c.
ficst
as a root,
person singular of the present tense, indicative mood, of a veil and did not reflect that the root of lego was leg ; that c It does not appear tin: "bo, scrib ; of sto, sta; and of sedeo, sed.
there
was any attempt
to arrange
roots until
the very learned
Greek words according to H. Estiknne (commonly called
thei
St<
phonos) undertook it, in his great and admirable Thesaurus Graq Lingua, first published in 1572, with dedications to the Emperc Maximilian, King Charles IX., Queen Elizabeth, and the ElectOJ rd nek Count Palatine, Augustus of Saxony, George of l>rai His words are these denborg, and their respective universities. "Primiun OUidem TMQ. est, nee prius audita, vocum Gra>carum dfi
I
podtiOi qua earum maxima pais ad Boas origines, tanquam rivi a And there 1008 fontes, vel stirpes ad suas radices, revocantur." Be, bon bo doubt the justice of his claim to originality. like Varro, take,, the first person singular of the present, tensi
'
.
indicative
mood,
M
\t
root,
not
in
only
in
what
is
still
mOW rem arkable,
/V//</,
such verbs as tvtvtm, bui of which, as well of lli

:i
.
a sto, the root

'
Sanskrit sthd\ and probab] have \- n an ancient: Greek verb <rrau), condensed into the root, however, remaining in most of the other inllei
certainly tta (the
tabam, ttabo, &c,

did
not
kill
in
1579,
John Scapula
publiahe
V.
plan,
lie :,i\s, indeed, that
Into
bl
until
be had nearly completed
hi
On
.
Um
il'-i-
put
i.l'
th. in
pool
<]. irord rn trm-cil Imclt to their origins, Th .mi. to. .v. rol, i. p. 10,

CHAP.
XI.]
277
OF ROOTS.
is
own
but this
extremely improbable.
At
all
events, he, like his
predecessor, took rvVrw,
It is a conclusive f<mffu, &c, as roots. proof of the originality of the Indian system of grammar, that it not only differs from that of the Greek and Latin grammarians, but is far
philosophic, by distinguishing the roots separately from their use Hence I cannot in forming nouns, verbs, or other parts of speech.
more
agree with those
who
call
a Sanskrit root " the crude verb," which
as inconsistent with true analogy as to call the root of a plant a crude stem. There is a collection of Sanskrit roots by Panixi, 1 whom the Hindoos call the father of Sanskrit grammar, and who
seems
to
me
lived at a very remote age, probably long before any
Greek gram-
This collection has had many commentators, one of the latest Panini's fame of whom, named Sayana, lived about A.D. 1350. a Treatise on his Roots being still also spread into distant countries 8 And from the schools of Panini and extant in the Tibetan language. two other very ancient grammarians, Katantra and Vopadkva, the
marian.
;
celebrated Danish orientalist, Westergaard, collected^ his great work, Radices Linguce Sanscritce, published in 1841. The Hebrew roots, as such, do not appear to have been collected before the sevenThey are, however, alluded to in Butler's ludicrous teenth century.
description of the Puritan knight
For Hebrew
roots,
although they're found
To flourish most in barren ground, He had such plenty, as suflic'd

Hudibras, part
It is
i.
c.
i.
v. 59.
somewhat remarkable
that
among
the different explanations
" which Dr. Johnson gives of root" he does not mention its use as But indeed the nature of of a word. signifying the radical part verbal roots had been little studied in his time, on any general prin-
One of the first considerable embracing many languages. attempts of that kind was the collection of supposed primitive words in the third volume of Court De Gebelin's Monde Primitif, pubSince that period, and especially since the Sanskrit lished in 1775. system began to be understood in Europe, this part of glossology has been cultivated with great energy, if not always with success, by
ciple
many eminent continental writers. 324. The root of a word may be
defined
an
articulate sound, or
Definition.
combination of such sounds, expressing, or referring to an emotion, imitation, or general conception, and serving, directly or indirectly, as a common portion to words, in one or more languages, having relation to On this definition, several the same emotion, imitation, or conception.
questions
may
arise.
First quesl1
325. First, it may be asked, what kind of articulate sound, or what combination of such sounds, may constitute a root. And here I
1 See Mr. Talboys' translation, with valuable notes, of Adelung's Histon'cal Sketch of Sanskrit Literature, p. 1 7. * Journal Asiat. Soc. Bengal, No. 74, p. 151.
278
OF ROOTS.
[CHAr.
XI.
must adopt the old distinction of vowels and consonants, which I have shown to result from the form and action of the vocal organs. A verv learned person, however, in a recent work of great research and
undoubted talent, repudiates that distinction. " We are taught " (says he) " from our earliest years, to distinguish between vowels and consonants, and to regard them as necessarily having a separate existence. This is a notion which must be at once discarded by every one who would make any progress in philology." And again, " The distinction of syllables into consonants and vowels is perfectly arbitrary. Neither a vowel nor a consonant can have any separate existence in spoken language." ' With unfeigned respect for this learned author, and great admiration of his extensive researches in language, I must take leave to dissent from the reasons on which this particular doctrine They are thus stated: 1. "The consonant always reis founded. 2. " The vowel cannot quires a vowel appendage to be pronounced." be pronounced without an initial breathing, which is sometimes so Here are three actions of strong as to become a definite consonant." a consonant, a breathing, and a vowel. the articulating organs stated I have shown that the so-called breathing is always a consonant. Doubtless, neither a breathing, nor any other consonant, can be pronounced without a vowel, because they are mere impediments to the 8 But to say that a vowel cannot direct utterance of the vowel sound. be pronounced without an initial breathing is as inaccurate as to sayTo that it cannot be pronounced without any other initial consonant pronounce i or a is, in fact, easier than to pronounce hi or ha. In the first case, the breath is unimpeded, and requires little effort; in the second, the breath is impeded, and a greater effort is necessary. 326. Assuming, then, that the distinction of vowel and consonant
Asinsio
is a correct distinction, 1 say that the root of a word must consist of at least one syllable; but that syllable may be formed by a vowel, cither alone, or modified by another vowel, or by one or more con-
sonants, according to idiom.
First, it may consist (though rarely) of a vowel alone; for a is the root of the Greek verb du, " I breathe; Bon- says, "That in the earliest and /, of tin- Latin ire, M to go." .'I of language a simple voted is sufficient to express verbally in Idea," an d he observes that "this proposition is supported by the
ninaikal'le concurrence of nearly

i.lv
of languages,
thoqgfa
<'l
in
all the individuals of the Sanskrit expressing the idea 'to go,' by the root t."
And
in
Dr.
lin.l
Ln
says,
"
"the mots of words
in
Hebrew always
consist
tin
uhi>h we
he afterwards admits that there are east's Secondly, a primitive BOOM with mill/ CM letter. 4 a vowel modified by another vowel, as <ti in the
yel
I.
nd
in
ir !
the
Latin
interjection,
ir
which was profact, B
limine.
d MM,
in
Scotland; the v or
VOWel sound, and
or ae another.
n.
!
.
.
VOWel modified
b) a
,n
.<
Very short Thirdly, it may consist of a .noil pivcedin^ or following it, as our
being,
In
II... *
In.
|..
Sup
CHAP.
XI.]
OF ROOTS.
;
279
ad,
go and up
the
so the Latin do, I give,
and the Sanskrit
answering to
German es, in essen, to eat. Fourthly, of a vowel preceded or followed by two consonants, as flu in Latin and plu in Sanskrit, to Fifthly, of aks, in Anglo-Saxon, and ask, in modern English. flow a vowel between two consonants, a very prevalent form in most languages, as in the Sanskrit pad, answering to ped in the Latin pedis
;
(and
to irol in the
I
Greek
ttoIoq), of a foot.
tvtttu),
strike
the Gothic bug in bugun, to

;
So, in the Greek tvtt in bow or bend ; the
sag in sagen, to say the Hungarian lab, a foot, in labatlan, the Polish pan, a lord or master, in panski, magisterial, &c. Sixthly, of a vowel between several consonants, as our strong, screech ; the Galic bard, a poet, in bardamhuil, poetical ; the German grab, a grave, in grablegung, burial ; the Latin grand in grandcevus, aged ; the
German
footless
Greek fxaar in paoriZ,, a scourge, &c. several consonants with a single vowel
first
Doubtless, the combination of

is
not so easily pronounced at
infant is sooner as that of one consonant with one vowel. But the able to pronounce tong than strong, or peak than speak. power of uttering combined sounds results from practice, a practice to
An
which, in certain cases, whole nations are unused. Nor does this depend on a defect of intellect. The Otaheitans are generally thought to be far superior in intellect to the Negritos of the Indo-Pacific Islands yet the latter pronounce English words with much greater 1 No one would dream of facility and accuracy than the former. comparing the Australians, in intellect, with the Chinese; yet the former have many such words as marongorong (the moon in its first quarter) and ngambaru (tattooing),* none of which a Chinese would Causes not now ascertainable have given to attempt to pronoimce. the Russian language a greater variety of articulations than to either the French or the English; and hence a Russian acquires a facility of utterance, which enables him to speak English more fluently than a Frenchman, and French more fluently than an Englishman. On the other hand, few Europeans can acquire the cluck which a Hottentot utters mechanically, and combines rapidly with other articulations. 327. It has been supposed, that all roots are necessarily mono- TVooruioro SJ syllabic, "La premiere langue" (says M. Court De Gebelin), " n'est composee que de monosyllabes." 3 It is probable, indeed, that men, in their first attempts to make themselves intelligible to each other by speech, would, in many instances, employ the shortest sounds ; but this method would often be inapplicable to interjections, and to onomaThe Latin interjection eja ! is the root of ejulo, ejulito, topoeias. ejulatio, and ejulatus : the Greek bipoi, is the root of oipwyr), ot^w^w,
;
Our onomatopoeia, bubble, which represents vipuKTi, and dtftwcrov. the sound of water boiling up, as in the witches' cauldron,* or issuing from a spring, is the root of bubbled and bubbler, and in the Scotch
1
Crawford's Malay Gram. vol. i. clxxiii. Moore's Australian Vocabulary, ad voo.
Monde
Primitif, vol.
iii.
p. 43.
Macbeth,
a. iv. sc. 1.
; ;
280
dialect,
1
OF ROOTS.
[chap. XI.
a Bubbly Jock is a name given to a turkey, from its noise when angry. Here the syllable le is an essential part of the imitation ; as it is in gurgle, rattle, and the like for we cannot say that bub, and gurg, and rat, are the roots of these words since they do not appear as such in the inflections, derivatives, or compounds. Pope speaks of " bubbling fountains," and Young of " gurgling rills," and Shakspeare of drums " rattling the welkin's ear ;" but we nowhere hear of " bub; ;
bing fountains," or " gurging rills," or " ratting drums." In onomatopoeias, by iteration of sounds, the same rule applies for though the Germans use the verb murren, of which mur may be said in that language to be the root, the Latins use only the iterative form murmur, in murmuro, murmuras, murmurator, murmurillo, murmurillum, &c. So of the onomatopoeia cuckoo, we do not use the verb coo in the compounds, but cuckoo ; as in Shakspeare's description of the Spring
;
When daisies pied, and violets blue, And cuckoo-biids, of yellow hue,
Do
paint the
meadows with
delight. 2
So
it
must unavoidably be with the names given
to a
saw by
cer-
P**"-
mentioned in the preceding chapter, if they should be employed (as they probably will be, or have been) with In none of these words is the inflections, derivatives, or compounds. vocal imitation of the sound of a saw confined to a single syllable and yet they must be taken as roots, since they seem not to be derived from any root in the same or other languages. 328. A second question may arise on the difference meant, in the above definition of a root, between the terms expressing, and rrfrrring I use these terms, in consequence of an opinion to, an emotion, &c. held by some Grammarians, that a root cannot be employed as a word, and consequently cannot alone express any act of the mind though it must of course refer to some such act, in all its inflections and derivatives. Now, this is purely a matter of idiom. In English,
tain African tribes, as
the s\ liable love not only
serves as a root of lover, loveth, &c.,

;
all
rring to the emotion of loving

directly expressing that emotion.
root of lego, legis, &c.,
it all
but
it.
may
also
be used as a word
serves as a
In Latin the
s\ liable leg
rrfrrring to the conception of reading; but
Cannot be used as a word, directly expressing that conception. 829. Thirdly, it may be asked, when does a root serve directly, and
ini/irrrtli/,
when
is,
y
it.
oomi
found
portion to several
words?
The answer
words
in
lh.it
a root
serve, directly as a
is
common
portion of the
Quest
when
in all
i.tn<-.
-
am and
t
)
IlMW, are, in the
of them without change, as the roots above mentioned and a root serves
;
i<
like
purpose
l.in
;ii.i
iiulirrct/i/,
',.',
when
ii
undergoes some change, either
in
the
same
DOHitioii, or i-l-e
Thi
..I
purposes of inflection, derivation, or coniin ti.m ill. m from one Jaiiv,ua-,e or ilial'rt to another. consist, sometimes ill a diflercncc of accent, quantity,
for the
in
articulation,
1
sometimes
(d
too.
transj>osing a vowel
articulation or con*
Lout.
Jniiin-.iiii,
Low's Labour
CHAP.
XI.]
OF ROOTS.
281
sonantal articulation, sometimes In prefixing, inserting, or affixing one or more articulations, or the contrary and we often find a root undergoing two or more of these changes together. 330. difference of accent sometimes mark a different dialect in Different the same language, and sometimes a different signification of words, "***
;
agreeing in articulation. The Scotch accent differs from the English. " It is well known " (says Mr. Mitford), " that those accustomed to Scottish pronunciation from infancy to manhood, can never entirely
insomuch that the most polite of the Scots are distinguished England by their speech, than any transmarine people." "The circumflex, with which the Scottish pronunciation abounds " (says Mr. Foster), " is not formed as the Greek, Latin, and English, of an acute and grave, but of a grave and acute, va6g (Gr.), ros (Lat.), round (Eng.), rdiind (Scot.)" 8 A Frenchman who wrote some English verses on Shenstone, made natural rhyme to rural; and in a French farce, an English lady was represented introducing
it;
drop
more
certainly in
1
her niece as her niaise (foolish girl). Differences of accent are parGreek, both as marking dialects, and as distinguishing significations. In the Attic dialect, 'p C (hands), is
ticularly observable in
vised for yfiptc
in the jEolie [eve for ev C

<f,i\o<r6<j>oi
;
in the Ionic
d\i?0m
for
aXrideia;
in
the Doric
for <j>t\6(ro<poi.
but dyoc a crime Xdoc a stone, Xaoc tho people /xoV>; alone, fiovij a mansion Tlaiijv Apollo, valwv a measure of four syllables aiiv the preposition with, avv the accusative of <e a sow, &c., &c. 331. The difierence of quantity (that is, of longer or shorter time occupied in pronouncing a syllable) forms another distinction of words
;
;
signifies a leader,
The word dyoc dome an opinion, cWoc a beam

;
Different
i UiUlti, y-
Such a difference exists between the Scotch and English pronunciation. " Scottish pronunciation," says Mr. Mitford, " in giving its strong grave (accent), to the same
sylla-
in the same, or different dialects.
makes
bles (as the English), almost always lengthens the vowel, and thus the syllable long, as in English mdnarch, Scottish monarch."4
difference is reversed, as in the English the Greek dialects differ in quantity, as the Attic Xay^c for \ayo C (a hare), and de for &}, and the iEolic d X iXX>joe for a tX\ioc. In our derivatives from the Latin, we often X substitute a short vowel for a long one, as orator for orator, auditor for auditor, &c. But this rule is not without exception and it is sometimes aj> plied in Scotch, and not in English, as we retain the long a in curator,
total, Scottish tdttle.
Sometimes, however,
this
So
in Scotland is pronounced curator. Hence, when an eminent Scotch Advocate, pleading before Lord Mansfield in the House of Lords, us. d the word curator, he was corrected by the learned Peer, who said " I suppose you mean curator, Sir." " I stand corrected,'' replied the Advocate, " by so distinguished a senator, and so great an orator, as your Lordship."
1
which
Harmony
of Language, p. 96.
3
Harmony
* Accent and Quantity, third edit. p. 39. of Language, p. 97.
282
OF ROOTS.
[CHAP-
XL
Vw*
'
UffereDt
from are of course numerous, 332. The differences of articulation of tins faculty ; and in of organs employed in the exercise the variety render them intelligible, withmanTcasJs I should find it difficult to with regard to pronun uaouTadopting, as a standard of comparison Umver^ in my of articulate Bounds given Sn, the'arSngement *) I begm erred to above (sect. 460), and re
<
Grammar'
therefore,
a with the vowel articulationsy (1), into long and and u (8), distinguishing each iTo) o (6), w (7), d.phthongs. simply, and also with their short; and iking them both (Fr.), butter (Eng.) = beurre
<
(^ m,
ay),
,,
(l)y K)
f
e
fJo
y=
5?= I
volk (Ger.) honneur (Er.), honoris (Lat.), vblker,

brother, brethren (Eng.) lov (Dan.), leaf (Eng.)
iw<W*
brawd (Welsh). f = aw brother (Eng.), = u blood (Eng.), bluid (Scot.) y
(l,5))'i=i yi = a yi=I yi = o =o (1, 7) yw
fight, fought (Eng.)
night (Eng.), nacht (Ger.) bite, bit (Eng.)

night (Eng.), notte (Ital.) BOttnd (Eng.), sonus (Lat.)
yw = & yw = yi
fit
'y\v
=a
i
= yw m y v\v = w
(2) a
fi
=w
bound, band (Eng.) bound, bind (Eng.) bound, bond (Eng.) found (Eng.), finden (Ger.) hour (Eng.), heure (Fr.) town (Eng.), toon (Scot.) quhu (Scot.), who (Eng.)
15b, club
i.lll,
=J d=5 a=a a=5 g=a
(Eng.) (Eng.) (Ital.) stii (Swed.), st;i bodv (Eng.), bodie (Scot.)
tell
dollar (Eng.), thaler (Ger.)
(2, 7)
dw= ywhaus
aw = cii
(Ger.), bNtoe (E"g.) haus, Imusen (Ger.)
(2,8) i=5i (3) 8 = 5
(EBg.),gi5j (Ital.) j5j altn, (Ital.), autre (It.)
8-8 8. a
,-,-,-
m8n, n8n (Eng.)

8881 (Ger.), h5ll (Eng.)
.s 1(i
ii,
mi.- (:-r.)
li.alllMl-
8.8
8 =
ft
lt
llli'llll,
(<icr.)
Vht. (GOT.), mMV (Eng.)

caim,
8-1
Uniniino (Ital.), 1; "" |;| " (( ini (Lat.)
<
K "")
8-y
(3, 5)
81
,-
c8rle (Boot),
AW (Eur.)
Ay
(Eng.)
=
-
5
.',
ACe (Eng.
Lear,
l...ra
(4
WOT.), (Eng.)
slay, sleu
(Eng.)
CHAP. XI.J
a
e e
OF ROOTS.
283
= di
play (Eng.), ploy (Scot.)
=f
brennen (Ger.), burn (Eng.)

rifivti),
(4,
=o e =I G) eo = i eo = e (5) I = a I = &
TOfiog (Gr.)
eben (Ger.), even (Eng.) ceol (A. Sax,), keel (Eng.) ceol (A. Sax.), Chelsea (Eng.)
eel (Eng.), aal (Ger.)
eat, ate
(Eng.)
i=y
I
drink,
(5)
I I
=e
drunk (Eng.) drink, drank (Eng.) feel, felt (Eng.)

(Lat.)
= * fill, full (Eng.), SiirXovc, duplex = d sing, song (Eng.) i = yI me, my (Eng.) (5, 5) il = iw ye, you (Eng.) (5,7) iw = yi new (Eng.), neu (Ger.) (6) o = e soul (Eng.), sela (Alam.) froze, freeze (Eng.) 5 =1
i
5 (7)
=w
yoke (Eng.), jflgum (Lat.)

(Ger.)
= aw mourn (Eng.), maurnan
w=yw uz (Alam.), out (Eng.) w=u good (Eng.), guid (Scot.)

w=a w=o
moon moon
(Eng.),
(Eng.),
maan (Dutch). mond (Ger.)
= vv lune (Er.), moon (Eng.) u = iw union (Fr.), union (Eng.) 333. The differences of consonantal articulation are also numerous. Consonant* P roximate ''hey may be distinguished as those of proximate organs, and those of
(8) u
-
rgans more
rticulations,
aral,
or less remote.
Dividing consonants into

class, as
five classes,
he guttural, dental, labial, lingual, and nasal, I
mean by proximate
the classes are
two of
the
same
one guttural with another gut-
or one labial with another labial, &c., and
when
ubdivided, then
two of the same
subdivision, as a pure dental with a
ure dental, a lisping dental with a lisping dental, or a sibilant dental dth a sibilant dental, &c. And I mean by articulations more or less
jmote,
>ntal
two of different classes, as a guttural with a labial, a lisping with a sibilant dental, a consonant with a vowel, a compound ith a simple articulation, &c. ; all which will be more fully shown 9 the following tabular examples, beginning with the proximate And first, as to the gutturals h, ^, t, k, g, which, for ticulations.
is
purpose, I
number
1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
(1.4)
(2, 1)
h=k (1, 5) h = g
horn (Eng.), cornu (Lat.)
(2.5)
(2, 4) (4, 5)
x=n x= x=k
hermano (Span.), germanus (Lat.) X 'P* (G r 0> hiems (Lat.)

Xetv (^ r -)' aigan (Goth.)
brechen (Ger.), break (Eng.) kuat (Alam.), gut (Ger.)
k=g
284
Dentals
OF ROOTS.
1, 2, pure, t, d. 3, 4, lisping, 6, ft.
[chap.
5, 6, 7, 8, sibilant,
s, z,
c,j.
(1.2) t=d (1.3) t = (2,3) d = (1,10) t = s (2, 4) d =ft

f3,
tag (Ger.), day (Eng.)
tunny (Eng.), dvvvoc (Gr.) erde (Ger.), earth (Eng.) saltus (Lat.), aXaos (Gr.) rad (O. Ger.), rathe (O. Eng.)
close, adj., close,
5j9 = s
s
=z ^5,7) s = c (7, 8) c = j = ft (3, 4)

(5, 6J
0o C (Gr.), Side (Êolic). wr6 (Eng.)
sleep (Eng.), schlaf (Ger.)

occasio (Lat.Y occasion (Eng.)
bath, bathe (Eng.)
Labials
1, 2, close,
3, 4,
[1,
p, open,/,
b.
v.
2)
p=b
capo
(Ital.),
cabo (Span.)
\, 3) p = f 1,4) p = v 3\ b = f ^2, 4) b = v
pellis (Lat.), fell
(Eng.)
wander.
palari (Lat.), wallen (Ger.), to
(3,
4)
f=v
geben (GerA gyfati (A. Sax.) geben (Ger.), give (Eng.) feed (Eng.). weiden (Ger.)
Lingitals
1, I; 2, r.
(1,2)
=r
KXifiaroc (Gr.), Kpl/3ai>og (Attic).
Nasals
(1, 2)
1,
m;
2,
n;
3,
ty.
m n
m=rjj
n
(1, 3)
(2, 3)
(Eng.), hanf (Ger.) stimulo (Lat.), sting (Eng.)

avyyvwfitj, ovv ayvwfit) (Gr.)
at
first
hemp
nj
Conn>u
remote consonai each other than vH PUB find such substitutions cum mon in the compari pi i.it of different languages, and sometimes even in the same language They may 1"' arranged in five classes, as in tin' preced dialect. section, but with a change of numeration.
334.
-:
It
articulations
.
1
would seem were less
Bight,
that
the
easily
substituted
for
Gutturals h, x
i,
k,
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
7, 8, 9,
DtntaU- t, d, u, Labialsp,b,f,
/Annuals
I,
ft, a, z, <\ j (<;,
10, 11, 12,
\-\).
(14,
is,
|;i).
1.5,
1(1,
17).
r
ft,
Nasalsm,
(20, 21, 22).
Ami
first,
as to those having a guttural
(1, 16)
fl, 10)
{2, if,)
f h=s
f
herin..:,.,
,,v.
(Span.), Ibnnosus (Lat.)

.
('.,.).
,1
(bat.)
nrtrefa (Gar.),
dwarf (Eng.)

CHAP. XI.]
I
OF ROOTS.
285
(Lat.)
(2, 18) (3,
x=l
nij
(Span.),
filius
21)
(4, 6)
(4, 14)
= k=t
rjf
brought, bring (Eng.)

Ktivof (Gr.), rijvog (Doric). otto)q (Gr.), ftcwc (Ionic).
k=p
(4, 7) k
(4, 10)
(5, (5,
=d k=s 15) g = b 18) g = 1

a dental
t
:
bollwerk (Ger.), boulevard (Fr.) kukjan (Goth.), kiss (Eng.) fiaXayog, an acorn (Gr.), yaXavog (Mol.)
fxoXis (Gr.), fioyic (Attic.)
Having
(G, 11)
(6, 19) (6,
=s =r 14) t = p
t
rv (Doric), ov (Gr.)
putum, purum (Lat.)

arddiov (Gr.),
ludo, lusi (Lat.)
1\q (Gr), bis (Lat.) gaudium (Lat.), yavpidu> (Gr.)
<nraltov (Doric).
(7, 11)
(7,
d=
15W = b
19) d = r 18) d = l =f 16) 11) t = s 19) z = r
labial
:
(7,
(7,
(8,
Saicpvfia (Gr.),
lacryma (Lat.)
OepfioQ (Gr.), Qepftac (Attic).
(6,
(11,
av (Gr.), tv (Doric and Lat.) freeze (Eng.), frieren (Ger.)
Having a
(14,4) p = k
(14, 5) (15, 18) b =
(15, 20) b
pen (Welsh), ceann (Gal.)

Xvirtiv (Gr.), lugere (Lat.)
pofiiToe (Gr.), PoXitoq (Attic).
p=g
1
(16.20)
f 16,
m f=m
=
f= h
(17, 5)
(16, 2)
v=g f=x
:
marbre (Fr.), marmor (Lat.) reif (Ger.), rime (Eng.) forst (Ger.), hyrst (A. Sax.) wasen (Ger.), gazon (Fr.)
av\r)v (Gr.),
av<f>rjv
(jEol.)
Having a
lingual
l
(18.21)
(18, 5)
=n =g
:
irvevfiMv (Gr.), itXevpnoy (Attic).

fjioXtg
(Gr.),
/xo'ytc
(Attic).
Having a
nasal
(20)
m=b
n =1
i
often
I
(21
ma.rmor (Lat.), marble (Eng.) kind (Ger.), child (Eng.)

consonant
tor
335. The vowel articulations, i and w, preceding other vowels, are pronounced so short, as to have the effect of consonants, and a like observation may perhaps be applicable to the old digamma of the Greeks, and the of the Latins. Hence we find each of these short rowels often passing into a consonantal articulation of the same, or a
voweL
lifferent organ.
i
=g
\v= v
w=g
336.
yolk (Eng.), gelde (Ger.) water (Eng.), wasser, pron. vasser (Ger.) ward (Eng.), garder (Fr.)
consonantal articulation, in one language or dia-
compound

286
Compound
consonants.
OF ROOTS.
[CHAP. X]
dii
lect, often
answers, in another, to a simple articulation, or to a

ex. gr.
:
ferent
compound,
sk = c dz=t tz=-t
risk (Dan.), fish (Eng) zwo (Alarm), two (Eng.)
=k ks = x, dz = g ct = p t = di c = sk k = ts k = dj tt = dz
tc
wartze (Ger.), wart (Eng.) child (Eng.,) kind (Ger.)

2ta (Attic), citâ (Gr.)
<pvr) (Ionic), (f>vy{]
(Gr.)
luctus (Lat.), XvTTtj (Gr.) bitten (Ger.), bidjan (Go.)
shine (Eng.), skeinen (O. Ger.)

uv/xfiaXov (Gr.), zimbel (Ger.) ecke (Ger.), edge (Eng.')
avplu) (Gr.), avpirnj (Attic).
k = tc wraecca (A. Sax.), wretch (Eng.) d = dz Kvia (Gr.), wilt) (Attic).

rr
= rs
Qapativ (Gr.), dappeiv (Attic).

yXwffcra (Gr.),
tt=SS
c
yXwrra (Attic).
= dj munch (Eng.), munge (prov. Eng.) ts = ss (Ta\viu) (Gr.), oaXiriaau) (Dor.) kr = kk fiUpov (Gr.), pUueov (Attic), pt = dz vlxTbt (Gr.), Ww (Doric). s = ks (tvv (Gr.), liiv (Attic).
s
= tc
cross (Eng.), croce (Ifcil.)
TtuufoA'
tk.n.
337. It seldom happens that a diflerenco, In-tween two langu; dialects, is marked by the transposition of two vowels but often b the transposition of a vowel and consonant, or of two consonants. I: the first of these two ordinary cases, the principal stress seems to b which some persons pre laid on the consonant, especially if a lingual nounce with a preceding, and others with a following vowel as in th
;
:
Greek Kaplia, and Ionic Kpalia, with which

criodhe, all signifying ''the heart."
latter
agrees the Gali
So, in the old English, mill,
brenne, for the
modern
With
loi
curl,
and burn
am
kes crull, as they
wore Uidl
in presse.
Chattcer, Prol. v. 80.
The
chnffls lie sclial
brenno with
Bv
anqonnohtbl*.
Wiclif,
Lake
iii.
17.
The
other case seems to arise from a mere Inability

in ilistingni ihing,
L
<ii.
to distinguish
ot oaralei m<>s
S.. in
frv.iî.)
(|n
bj the ear, Bounds somew bal similar uituvd surid/.o), and Doric trvplo&tt
I
Afiglo-Sason,
<n-simi,
and
>ld
English, 0X9, for our
modern
vri, 24.
</.;/,
Axe
Boj
s.i,
yh.-,
sad
yh'-
sebalan tnke.
WloUf, John
'' Romaic vfdyu ii '!' Graak plfyttj Latin mwoso, and Dr. Donaldson suggests tiut th. Greek Xojjoc is the Latin luaout
I
on
(S.v.
2nd Ed.,
p,
255.)
in
838.
root
Oftan
MiUl d
sound, by
pivlixin;;;
t.i
i!
vowel

CHAP. XI.]
OF ROOTS.
287
H. consonant, or syllable, with or without alteration of meaning. Stephanus gives as a root, apiXyio (I hiilk) but this is manifestly a variation of pe\y, an ancient root, agreeing with that of the Latin mulgeo, the Russian moloko, the German milch, Danish melk, and In such cases, as that of apt Xyw, the prefix arises from English milk. a sense of harshness, which affects the ear of some persons in uttering an initial consonant without a preceding short vowel. Thus, Alberti says of the Tuscan pronunciation " II Toscano per isfuggire l'asprezza della pronuncia, aggiunge la lettera i alle voci comincianti da s seguita " The Tuscans, in order to avoid harshness of da altra consonante." pronunciation, add the letter t to words beginning with s followed by
; :
1 another consonant."
Hence they say
istato for stato, isdegnare for
sdegnare, ispezialita for spezialitd, &c.
The same
;
cause makes the

;
Spaniards prefix an
sphere,
e,
as escandalo, scandal
escorpion, scorpion
esfera,
&c; and
so the French, espace, esprit, &c.
The a
prefixed in
seek, however, most commonly

so formed
will
is in fact
alters the signification, and the word a derivative, having sometimes an intensive force, sometimes a privative, a collective, a combinative, a negative, &c, as
be more
fully
shown
is
hereafter.
A consonantal prefix
and
no
less frequent
and
it
often tends to ob-
scure the root in a derivative.
The
prefix c converts
lump
into clump,
lub or lob into club or clob. ein
Germans say "
Mump
butter."
We say "a lump of butter;" the We do not use lub; but a lob, in
(She
I
a large lump of anything; and we have and from lub. lobster, which in ordinary English is the name of a well-known shell-fish, designates in Norfolk a stoat, from its lobbed or lubbed (that is thick) tail and in Yorkshire, for the like reason, the same animal is called a lubstart. sort of thick porridge used at sea is called loblolly, from its lobs, or lumps, and the boy that serves it up is called by sailors, the loblolly bov. lobcock, hhy, luby, or looby, is a provincial term of contempt for a "heavy stupid fellow. Chaucer uses the word clobbed for clubbed bringeth me the great clobbed staves.
the Lincolnshire dialect,
is
derivatives both from that
The Monke's Tale,
v.
13905.
Lubber, a term of contempt, applied at present, by sailors, chiefly to landsmen, is found in Milton, as lubberly is in Shakspeare
:
Go, patter to lubbers and swabs, d'ye see
Dibdin's Poor Jack.
Then
came
to
lies
him down the
lubber fiend.
Milton, Allegro, v. 110.
marry Mistress Ann Page, and

Shakspeare,
she's a great lubberly boy.

a. v. sc. 5.
M. W. Windsor,
Anglo-Saxon gives a guttural sound to many words vhich we write and pronounce with r or /, as hriacan, to reach ; hlafs, ind in Gothic hlaifs, a loaf; whence the procession of the host in the Saxon ritual was called the hlafgang.
prefix h, in
1
The
Dizionar, Ital. Franc, voc. isbacaneggiare.
[chap. XL
288
OT ROOTS.
prefix s, converts our lash, mash, and quash into slash, smash, and squash, and plash into splash :
The
As he
that leaves a shallow plash to plunge into the deep. Shakspeare, Tam. Shrew, a.
i.
sc. 1.
In the Italian strozza (the throat) the s appears to be prefixed to & Teutonic root, whence spring the German drossel, the Anglo-Saxon throte, the English throat, throttle, &c. In our poetic word yclept, the y is prefixed to the old English clepe, to call
:
Go
up, quod he, unto his knave anon
Clepe at his dore or knocke with a ston. Chaucer, Miller's Tale, v. 3432.
But come thou goddess
fair
and
free,
In heav'n yclep'd Euphrosyne
Milton, Allegro, v. 11.

t
In the Scottish word grieve, a farm manager, g is prefixed But the two lastthe designation of one of Chaucer's characters. mentioned prefixes, y and g, are only contractions of an inflexiona
particle,
which
I shall presently notice.
The
syllables prefixed to a root are often prepositions, or particles
used elsewhere to form grammatical inflexions; but it is not alwsfjj easy to trace them to those uses. H. Stephanus gives, as a root ynXct, milk ; but, whatever may have been the original function of th< syllable ya, it seems, in this case, to add nothing to the meaning the proper root, which is the Latin lac, or lact, nor does it affect tin
k
derivative
ya\am;
for Cicero renders
yaXaUac
kvkXoc laotnn
This ya is probably connected witl and we " the milky way." the Anglo-Saxon and German particle ge and our old English // usci as verbal inflexions, and also as prefixes to nouns derived from them The Anglo-Saxon slean, to slay or strike, is used both alone and witl Th< this prefix; as geslean, to slay, gesloh, struck, geslcht, slaughter. Gorman has leiten and geleiten, to lead or convoy so him and gehirn the brain, answering to the Swedish hjema and the Scottish liarnes the brains; and so stern, a star, and gestirn, a constellation. The Latin prefix in usually gives a privative character to a word, a; adds little o; but in some instances sanus, sound, insanus, unsound The Uin nothing to the signification, as curvus, incurwu, crooked.
orbis,
;
;
it,
doostani na has a similar force, as to its privative character, as In Malay, the prefixed syllable per marks khoosh, displeased.
,< rtit/iii,
M
i
hermit, from tapa, seclusion.
In
Turkish
the
|.
Ilsbles
in
bd and
<ljitn,
.1'
mark
alters the
I
derivatives, as bd Vekdr
SndoWSd uiih
BMrifea.
'
possessing a soul.
The
insert
in
vowel
I
appearance and sound of

Or dialect tO another,
chiefly
.
from
a:
notmos
/('"./. a-,
The word mean, which we pro Alsntnnte, arm, English, if written with a singles, was probably pronounced bj unced In WiHj si it it written, and aj it is now pn
i
iw-uii.
The vowel
'.
Inserted In
|
the
with win.
Swedish hy't, forms tin OOX Vulgar words oAojm

CHAP.
chops,
XI.]
OF ROOTS.
chaffing.
289
i is
t
and
So
the root laus, loose.
Gothic fraliusan, the Dr. Donaldson considers the

in the
inserted from
viuifja to
in
be
inserted in reference to the liquid p, which follows it. In some Other cases, which he notices, the insertion seems arbitrary, or perhaps accidental.
The word
shed, in the old Scottish ballad

is,
Janet has shed her yellow hair (that
divided
it),
becomes, by Diefexbach has

Sanskrit root
insertion
of a vowel, in
the Gothic
skaidan, which
to the In the Turkish language, the insertion of the syllable me or ma, between the root and the particle, or particles,
c'hid.
traced through
many Indo-G ermanic tongues
forming the grammatical inflexion of a verb, gives the verb a negative as sevmek, to love, sevmemek, not to love. In the Akkra, a West African tongue, a single vowel inserted in a verb is said to have a like effect. The insertion of a consonant produces a different alteration of the root. Thus the above-mentioned root c'hid is altered, by introducing n, in the Latin scindo, which is omitted in the inflexions, scidi, scissus. So in frango, the root of which is seen in the Latin fregi; so in the Gothic munth, German and Danish mund, Dutch mond, &c, but omitted in the English word mouth, the Lettish mutte, and the AngloSaxon muth. The r, which is omitted in our word speak, is inserted in the Anglo-Saxon spracan, Frankish sprahhi, Alamannic spraha and spracha, Swedish sprceka, German and Danish sprechen, and Dutch The b is inserted in our tremble, from the Latin tremulus spreehen. and mediaeval Latin tremulare, and in our grumble, which is the Dutch
effect,
grommelen.
340. The
affix,
or,
as
some
;
call
it,
the suffix of a vowel, conso-
Affix,
nant, or syllable to a root, serves, in
most languages, to form a gram-
matical inflexion of a
which
it
word shows an idiomatic
the signification.
To
but there are many other instances in sound without any effect on the first class belong the Latin es, in lapides
difference of
'stones), the English
d or ed, in turn'd or turned. To the other the jrerman tz in saltz, compared with the Latin sal ; and the German ze n icartze, compared with the English wart ; and there are numberless nstances of both kinds in most languages. 341. It will have been observed, that in several of the instances complex ibove-mentioned the roots have undergone two or more changes in the d^Kf*.
ame word
prefix
as the
Greek aXc
h and the
affix s.
So
is changed from the Latin sal bv the the English chel in Chelsea, from keel,
lubstitutes ch for k,
and
e for ee.
aus, substitutes
du
for au,
and
rother, e is substituted
ini,
I.
for o,
The German plural hduser, from So in our brethren, from and en is affixed. So in the Latin
affixes er.
and the a of the root can is changed Greek Ttrvfa, re is prefixed and the it of the root is So in Welsh, dant, a tooth, doubles the n and hanged to <p. hanges t into dd (that is th) in the plural, dannedd. These changes
the syllable ce
in the
is
prefixed,
So

290
are carried so far in
OF ROOTS.
in a long
[chap. X
some languages, that of. Thus in the passive from the Greek root tvtt, we have
root
is
word the
origin
almost lost sight
participle of the first futu
rvtydtjao/jievoc, where, out has any similarity to the root, ar even in that the tt of the root is changed to <f>. In the participle the paulo-post futurum passive, we have TtTvôptvoQ, where tl second of five syllables varies the root tvtt to Tvty, that is wire ; ar in the plusquam-perfectum passive, irervfifxrjv, the root appeal's on in the third of four syllables, and then the tt is changed into Similar alterations occur in other inflexions from the same root ai this, in a language considered to be one of the most highly cultivat< Yet some languages, which are commonly deemi ever known. In the Len barbarous, exhibit as many, and as great valuations.
five syllables,
none but the
first
Lenape", from the root luw (say or tell), we have ridellaicipannik, did not say to them ;' and from the root lauch or lauchs (live), v have n'dellauclisohalc/mieep, he made me live.* In the Cree tanguag from the root sake (love), we have sahgehahgaigoog, love ye then In the Sechuana, from the root reka (buy), we have 'nkabokinckirek 4 In the Cherokee, from ined (speak), we ha I should have bought. In the Japanese, fro diyosdenedsisoi, we will occasionally speak.*
Causes of " 8e *
the root fouko (deep), we have foukakaramndaridomo, though it w not deep,* &c. &c. 342. The causes of change in roots are various but I need on
;
notice here the following, viz.

1.
A A
physical difference of
men
in the
organs of speaking
of hearing.
2. Imitation.
3. 4.
contiaction of significant sounds.
Love of change.
Euphony.
5. Assimilation. 6.
7.
nee
Modes of writing.
is
t
a question for further anatomical research, how far men necessarily produce diver Undoubtedly tin- vocal organs of children, and ties of articulation. persons aged, or diseased, are inadequate to pronounce certain artfe iii. And U ll no less obvious that certain races of men, in ( of their faculties, do in fact pronounce with difficulty, or ri ma vocal sounds, which men of other races utter \vi ease and fluency but in the greater porti f language, there seel lo pa do phynool reason, why men of all races should noi be capal of giving the same vocal eilect, to the same position of (libe believed that Englishmen in general of the pi lt ..in hardly
343, It
physical difference! of organization in
I.
.ii
'it.
/..
I..I.-.,
|.|..
Ita. 201.
II..*-*..,
pp. 919, 921.

]
Ibi.l. pp. 188,184 A,, hi.rll, pp. 58, 57.
ManM)
B7l,
Laadrmt,
pp. 57, 81.
CHAP. XI.]
OF ROOTS.
291
Bent day are physically incapable of uttering the aspirated ch of the
Germans, or gh of the Scotch, which
their ancestors ntttrcd.

;
That
they experience a difficulty in so doing, is true but for this we must The same Beek a different cause than the state of their vocal organs. Some persons perhaps are reasoning applies to the auditorial organs. so constituted as to be physically incapable of perceiving certain nice shades and distinctions of sound, which to other persons are perfectly obvious and from the instinctive connection of the vocal with the auditorial faculties, what they never hear distinctly they cannot plainly But we have no reason to believe that this circumstance exists utter. cannot to any great degree in the population of a whole district. ascribe to Attic ears in general an impossibility of distinguishing, by their natural formation, the <ra in yXwaoa, from the tt in yXwrru ; or
:
We
Cohans a physical defect causing them to confound the sound of fiaXavoc, with that of yaXavog. 344. It is clear therefore that other causes than those of mere phy- imitation, sical organization must operate to effect most of the changes which we perceive in roots, or their immediate derivatives. And of these the most obvious are, in the first place, a want of minute attention to the sounds heard, or to the mode of imitating them, and subsequently the habit of pronunciation which acquires force by the usage of successive generations. may observe the first of these processes in the attempts of children to speak; or of ignorant peasants to imitate the language of their superiors. Thus a child will say, " Donnv dood itty boy," for " Johnny (is a) good little boy." So a Wiltshire peasant calls "mashed turnips" "smashed turmets." So in the Negro Testament we find " Hem mamma takki na dem focteboi," for " His mother (mamma) said (talked) to the servants (footboys)."'
to the
We
By
a like imperfection of sound heard or expressed,

;
we
find
words
imitated in different languages
as in the Lettish lahstigalla from the
German
nachtigall, or the Italian rossignuole
the nightingale.
When
in
from the Latin lusciniola, one generation such an imperfect sound

tradition
;
has prevailed,
it is
handed down to successive ages, by

districts,
and
vary in different form diversities of dialect or language;

as the original imitations
they contribute to as the nachtigal of High
German
is in the Swabian dialect nahtegal, in Danish nattergal, in Anglo-Saxon, naectegale, and in Swedish, nactergal. This, however, s only one of the causes of the actual diversity of languages. 345. Haste in pronunciation tends to alter roots and their deri/atives by contracting them, as a chay for a chaise, a cab for a cabriolet. |Thus the town of Devizes is called by the neighbouring rustics Vize the Anglo-Saxon Cantwarabyrig is the modern Canterbury ; the amily name of Cholmondeley is reduced to Chumley, as De Sancto Claro s to /Sinclair; and I am inclined to think that Stambovl is a mere .ontraction of Constantinopolis, as Napoli certainly is of Neapolis. In ike manner the prefixed or affixed ] (articles will often be found to be 6
Contra- stlon.
John
ii.
5.
u2
292
OF ROOTS.
["CHAP.
mere abbreviations of prepositions or pronouns, as the Greek prefix is sometimes a contraction of ava. So our aboard for on board, abenc
(old English) for " on the bench."
Home
Is
sette him abenche. barpe he g;m clenche.
King Horn, 1427.
And
probable that the o in amo is a contraction of ego. '546. Another affection of words, which has been called assimilatk tends to give an apparent change to the root of a compound wor
so, it is
This may take place either in the word itself or in its relation to preceding or following word, according to idiom. In the word itse
the Greek
father) ei
to a preceding
iawpi is converted, by assimilation, to ivvvf.it. In relate word the Welsh tad is converted to ddd, as tdd ddd (his father). In relation to a following word, the Gre
in ped'
r
Duplication.
is
changed to
a wrote,
for fitra ai/roic.
Love f
change.
347. Duplication (improperly called Reduplication) also changes root, as has been already exemplified in the German root mur, win by duplication becomes the Latin murmur. 348. mere love of change may sometimes cause an alteration well in a root as in a derivative. This disposition has been somet&tr attributed to the lower classes of people; but on the contrary they t
the least likely to deviate from the usages of their progenitors:
ai
accordingly
Kdphony.
day the words and pronunciation the Anglo-Saxons are retained in various parts of England by t peasantry, though they have long been lost by the higher classes. 349. The most prolific source of these changes is the sense Eupltcny, or pleasing sound, which varies so much in different tim and places, depending entirely on the ear. This seems to be men accidental in origin; but it obtains a settled force from habit know of DO reason a priori, why an Attic ear should prefer yXwrra y\b)<T(TU, or Oafifnh' to Oapereiv, or why we deviate from our ancest<
find, that to this
in
we
laying burn rather than lurinw, or why the old have been called in later ages Furii : hut am
I
Roman
far
Fusii slum
tl
from saying
such a cause
nunciation
not
may
not be detected by more careful Inquiry.
850. There are Indeed certain eases in which a difference of pi lias arisen from different modes of writing the same wor ex.gr. dpcuda, Thr<t>i<t, ThraOt; where our word Thrace is e\ ident
taken
from
the Grraek Opaxla,
which we
ninmn
(perhaps groundlesaly)
;^
but from the Latin Thracia, that thee had the sound of o
The
old letter
has given occasion to
much
confusion
in
Sootti
end old English words.

i
Thus we give
it
the force
of*
and
i
in
Machuu
of g
in
/A////.'
(often
pronounced
Vy*J),
that
861. Having thus exhausted the questions, which

of the definition of a root,
the original source of
1
proposed
in h
ha\ e to inquire
roi
il.
li
I
\<n obvious from u

bo
tted, that
an interjection, or an onomatopoeia, thoUj
in
tl;
primary
tate H
relation
the reasoning facuM
CHAP.
XI.]
OF ROOTS.
293
may nevertheless be employed as words, or roots of words, used in The interjection eja, as has expressing the exercise of that faculty. been said, is the root of ejulatio ; and the onomatopoeia cuckoo ! is used as a noun, in naming the bird which utters that sound. Of these roots, and euch as these, there can be no doubt. But they supply a comparatively small portion of language.
The
difficulty is to ascertain in all
other cases,
how
certain combinations of articulate
sound came to
express thoughts of the mind, or impressions of the senses: and on this point several theories have been suggested. 352. Some authors assume, that there is a power in every letter to Power leUer8 express a peculiar emotion or perception a notion which furnished
;
or
-
Mr. Whiter the cabalistic writers with many mysterious doctrines. He adopted a similar theory, but on somewhat different grounds. argued, that as algebra is founded on the simple principle that equals being taken from equals the remainders must be equal ; so a knowledge of words depends on the simple principle that the letters composing words have each a natural power of expressing some mental impression. But in the first place it is a gratuitous assumption that letters possess any such power and secondly the analogy to algebra entirely for the algebraic principle is an idea of the mind, which is necesfails sarily universal ; whereas the supposed glossological principle, were it true, could only bo discovered by induction from numberless facts, and must therefore be necessarily but general. Again, if Mr. Winter's theory were true of letters, the English alphabet of twenty-six letters
;
must be competent to express little more than half the thoughts, which might be expressed by the Sanskrit alphabet of fifty letters. And it the principle were applied to the articulations represented by letters, a Chinese, who cannot pronounce several of our articulations, must be unable to express (though he still might conceive) many of our thoughts. We may therefore fairly deny that any such power of
expression exists, either in letters or articulations, uncombined.
353. It is an ancient doctrine that the signification of words, and consequently of their roots, was established among mankind by contract but to this the same objection lies, as to the doctrine of contract being the foundation of government namely, that no such contract ever existed, as far as we are informed by history, or can conceive by probable conjecture.
;
Contract,
354. Persons of no inconsiderable eminence

that the language of our
first
in literature
have held
Divine
iaspira
'
parents
was
inspired
by the Almighty.
not plainly asserted in the sacred writings, we cannot be justified in claiming their authoritv for such an assumption; and even were the fact admitted, there would be no reasonable ground for connecting it with any one existing tongue, and much less with the
But
as this
is
vast variety of tongues,
which are or have been spoken throughout the
world.
355. Upon the whole, the present state of glossological science Uncertain. does not justify us in asserting with confidence any primaeval origin of
294
verbal
roots,
OF ROOTS.
except those which
are
[chap. X
supplied by interjections
<
onomatopoeias. In respect to all others, Donaldson, " that it is a mystery to us,
we may truly sav, with D why particular combinatioi

1
letters should be chosen to express certain qualities," or indeed ar It may be true, that " in tl other conceptions of the human mind. earliest period of language a simple vowel is sufficient to express ve bally a conception ;" and " this proposition is supported by tl
of
u em to find u root.
remarkable concurrence of nearly all the individuals of the Sanski family of languages, in expressing the conception of going by tl 2 But as on the one hand the same conception is different root t." expressed in numerous languages of different origin so on the oth hand the same articulation has in different languages difierent, ai All that we can do at present towai even opposite significations. tracing the words of difierent languages to a common root is first observe the variations of the same radical sound either in a vowel, in a vowel, as the Sanskrit sad, Latin sedei a consonant, or both English to sit ; in a consonant, as pot-ens, possum (i. e. pot-sum),pot Or in both vowel and consonant, as tl (i. e. pot-fid), potero, &c. Anglo-Saxon mceng, mcengan, the English wangle, among; all which see And in the ne to be related to the Greek piayw, Latin misceo, &c. place, we must observe certain analogies of sound, which differ in tl idioms of difierent languages, but in anv one language generally agre Thus a shadow is in the Islandic skuggi, but in Anglo-Saxon soad which in its derivatives is scadewung, sceadugeard, &c, all analogo to our s/iade, shadow, shadowy, shadowless, &c. 356. It remains to show how the root of any word is to be disti guished from any other part. And here it is first to be consider whether the word be native or foreign. If a word be introduced I'm a foreign language, it may indeed serve for a root to certain derivativ or compounds, which may be formed from il but its own root is be sought in the language from which it is taken, and thence perha in another, or others. Take, for instance, the English word Parh ment, which has Im-cii used in this countrv for several centuries, in t Now this word may be considered as sense which it still retains. in reference to the derivative Parliamentary, or the compound Parliament-man.
;
i
Tlicv say,
In- tlic
An.
is 'iiuilihi'il
now
constable prontly out inn. I'm a /\iW('nm<W-m.ei.

Anstri/,
l':itli
Cuiilr.
fa
But
:
the
word Parliament
tin.,
.mi
is
it
rout, in
the Knglish
guage and to liml ot uhirh the iin.t

but
it
we
at
imi.t look to the

lir-l
French word
tins
;
I'tirli'mr,
in.-,
light to be farl, in /xirlrr, to spaa

find
that
is
we
inquire further,
we
.shall
from
the
[tali
and purola is C< parfar*, and that from />ar<>la, a word or s|ieech d I... in the Latin /'lira/mitt, which is adopted from the Ore
nui'ifiiiXi/,
1
and
this
last is
,
Compounded
224.
Of
Tnpk and
I
1
/iiiXAni.
oo.
M
'
'
104,
CHAP. XI.]
OF ROOTS.
295
tracing of roots from one language to another forms great part of the
art called
(however improperly) Etymology, which
will bereaftaf
be
considered more at large. On the other hand, if the word, whose root is required, be of native origin, that is to say, if it belong to those
ages, as those English
which have formed the great staple of the language from its earliest words have, which have come down to us from the Saxon times, we must begin by depriving it of those particles, which, in the same and other words, serve the purposes of inflection, or
derivation, either as prefixed, inserted, or suffixed.
The remainder
;
will
this
be what some grammarians

is
call the
crude form of the word
and
the root either unchanged, or subjected to
some of
the differences of
articulation
above specified. 1 It depends on the idiom of a language, whether a root can be involved in few or many particles. The English language admits of few involutions of a root, seldom exceeding four
particles,
as in the
word unforgivingly, where the root, give, has two prefixed un and for, and two affixed, ing and ly. The North American
shown above, generally involve the root in many particles, and subject it to various changes. In Welsh a derivative may not only have particles prefixed and suffixed, but also subject
languages, as has been
itself to change, as in difrychenlyd, unspotted, the root frech, a spot, has not only the negative prefix di, and the affixes en and lyd, but also changes its vowel from e to y. 357. Grammarians have adopted different parts of speech as roots, Dr. Lee thinks that the noun substantive should be considered (at 2 M. Court de Gebelin considers least in Hebrew) to be the root. every primary root to be a noun substantive describing a physical 8 Dr. Donaldson seems to regard adjectives as the primary object. 4 roots. In the Albanian language, not only nouns substantive and
the root
in what
pce<
pan
adjective,
and verbs, but also adverbs, often show the root in its lit; cheaply, Hire, cheap.* Of those who adopt the verb as a root, H. Stephanus and many others take the first person singular of the present tense indicative for that purpose ; some take Mr. Archbell the third person singular of the praeterite indicative.
simplest form, as
states the (so-called) second person singular of the present imperative,
as exhibiting most distinctly the root, in the Sechuana language.

this situation
" In
(says he) the simple root appears,
unencumbered by
prefix or affix, and yet not wanting in any of its integral parts." * This remark may be extended to most, if not all, languages; because the imperative expresses emotion, and therefore leads to a short mode of Hence it is always either a simple root, or a root with a expression. In Turkish, Mr. Davids says, " the short vowel prefixed or affixed. imperative is formed by suppressing the termination of the infinitive, as deug ! (from deugmak), strike kork I (from korkmak), fear But in common conversation, the sound of the (short) letters alif and ha
!
Supra,
sec.
332, 337.
iii.
8 p. 57. *
*
Hebrew Grammar,
p. 83.
8
6
Monde
Primitif, vol.
New
Cratylus.
p. 7.
Leake, Researches in Greece, p. 290.
Sechuana Grammar,

296
OF ROOTS.
'
[chap. XI.
are often joined to the imperative, as deuga! korktth!"
So
in
Latin
we have pende
and
in
Greek
txitzte.
But
these are merely matters
of pronunciation, affecting in a very slight degree, or not at all, the meaning or effect of the word. The same may sometimes be said of
our
common
prelix a, as in Satan's address to the infernal host
Awake!
arise! or be for ever fallen,*
where, had the metre permitted the use of the imperatives wake ! rise' The prefix a the signification would have been precisely the same. before an adjective is often in like manner superfluous, as in Macbeth's mournful exclamation
I 'gin to
be aweary of the sun, 8
Conclusion.
prefix a serves at most to mark somewhat more strongly the feeling which weary alone would have expressed. 358. From what has been said, it may be concluded that the root
where the
of a word, though most commonly a single syllable, may, in certain comprehend more than one syllable that it may be susceptible of change both in its vowels and consonants and that though, according to the idiom of some languages, those articulate sounds, which form the root of a word, may be also employed alone as a word, yet
cases,
; ;
generally a root requires the aid of
some one or more other
articulate
sounds, prefixed, inserted, or suffixed, to form a word, and enter into

construction as part of a sentence.
1
Gram. Turke,
p. 57.
8
Paradise Lost, 1, 330.
Macbeth,
a. v. sc. 5.
297
CHAPTER
XII.
OF PARTICLES.
359.
The term
Particle has been
employed by most grammarians,
ancient and modern, to signify certain classes of words, which are said
Meaning of term
*
to be indeclinable, such as adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and
This use of the term, though sanctioned by long pracappeared to me objectionable on two grounds first, because the indeclinable words being reckoned, equally with the declinable, as parts of speech, it seemed inconsistent to term them also particles, that is, something less than parts; and, secondly, because the grammatical systems which treat whole words as particles, furnish no specific designation for those portions of articulate sound which, combined with roots, make up the great majority of words in all languages not purely monosyllabic. For these reasons, I many years since employed, and shall continue to employ, the term particle to signify any portion of a word, unless separately cognizable as a noun or verb, wliich is either introduced for the mere sake of euphony, or else serves to modify the root lexically, or grammatically. In this sense, the term particle nearly answers to the Greek XtEiiSioy, derived from \iE,tc, Any portion of a Xefr'oe, Ionically, as pncreidtov, from pirate, pi'icriog. word, which may be recognised separately as a noun or verb, is not to be deemed a particle, but will be considered hereafter under the head of compound words. particle may consist of one or more articulations, and may 360. be placed at the beginning or end of a word, or in some intervening position. When placed at the beginning of a word it is called a prefix ; when at the end an affix, or (perhaps more properly) a suffix; and when intermediate it may be denominated (as in fact it has been by some writers) an interfix. Thus in the Latin cecidi, ce is a prefix in amavi, vi is a suffix. In the Greek tTirvtyuv, t is a prefix, re is an interfix, and tiv is a suffix. The interfixes have been comparatively little noticed, yet in many languages they perform important functions. Thus in Turkish the root sev with the suffix mek forms the active infinitive sevmek, " to love ;" if the interfix il be added, sevilmek signifies " to be loved ;" and if the further interfix me be introduced, as in sevilmemek, it signifies " to be not loved." 8 In the Kafir language the particle ka is inserted between the negative verbal prefix
interjections.
tice,
:
Position,
Etymol. Magn. voc. \ieidiov.
Davids' Gram. Turke, p. 33.
298
and the root
OF PARTICLES.
;
[CHAP.
XII.
in the sense of yet as, Anikagondi na ? yet understand ?" The particle sa is inserted in the affirmative form of the In tenses, to denote that the verbal action is or was yet performing. the present and past tenses it is inserted immediately before the verbal In the root; as, Uyihlo usahlelina? " Is your father yet alive?" future tenses it is inserted between the prefix and the root of the auxiliary ya; as, Amsayi kubuya nibone ubuso bami. "Ye shall see my face no more." It has been surmised by one writer, that the
" Do ye not
particles
which we
find
were
a
ter
originally pronouns,
employed in the Latin declension as suffixes, and were placed before the nouns so that
;
the very ancient

;
Romans
did not say Deus, but us
De
;
nor terra, but
nor vinuin, but urn via."* It is not improbable that its, a, ion have been formerly used as pronouns or articles but it does not necessarily follow that they were ever placed, in Latin speech, before the nouns to which they related, nor is there any historical ground for Indeed, in most languages which admit of articles, such a conjecture. but there are examples of a contrary practice the article does precede for instance, in the Basque language, " Los articulos " (says Larra-
may
MENDi)"en
tivos,
essas lenguas
al
o antepuestos
6 subjunctivos." and others) are Basque they are postpositive, or subjunctive."3 A similar circumstance occurs in the Bulgarian dialect " In der Bulgarischen mundart, wird, ganz gegen den Gebrauch aller andern Slawischen, hinten an die substantiva, ta angchangt." " In the Bulgarian dialect, contrary to
; :
(Romance, Frances, y otras) son preposinombre pero en el Bascuenze sen DospuestOfl "The articles in those languages (Roman, French, prepositive, or placed before the noim but in the
;
the usage of
Euphony.
all
other Sclavonic dialects, (the article) ta
is
placed after
the substantive."* ;;i', l. It is necessary to keep clearly in view the two different purposes above mentioned, which particles serve in language, namely,
euphony, as to
its
sound, and modification, as to
its
sense.
have
already spoken of euphony with reference to roots; but some further The English word remarks on it are necessary as affecting particles.
euphonv (which the (iermans less musically render tvo/ilhlan;/) is adopted from the Latin eii/i/ionia, as that was from the Greek iitfon id. .tli the Latin and (ireek words were used by classic authors to deb a i/rnrriil utterance of speech a gave pleasure to the ear and tin. u':i, called l.v Oiiintilian WOfHitOS* Bui modern glossologies commonly tmploy the terms euphonv, wohlklang, and the [ike, bo signify those particular variations of articulate BOUnd which habil
I',
-
.\|.|.i.
y :i
K.iiir
Lang, pp, 844, 245.

igf, Vul.
i.
* *
*
Km
Kl Inipoai lbll
\
p,
v nrMo,
p. 2.
Ill
letting,
Mithrid. rol.
:ic
par,
t,
p.
M4,
OMI
</(/
mfliii.l
"
i.l.in
Vocalitcu,
l(jniticiit,
qun iwpayia
tantiiii'li'in
dlcltur, ouju* In to daltottu (. ut Inttr due,

vuli'iit,
snn.it,
malii."
!)
lust. Mr.
Sd Aiilu* Qolliut ny, "jiiomdiut
"/
ourvm, oomplttluique."
Sort, Att.
r,

CHAP.
XII.]
OF PARTICLES.
2P9
far as regards particles,
rendered agreeable to certain nations or classes of men, and which, so may consist in introducing a redundant syllable without any distinct meaning or in omitting some particle in whole
; ;
or part
or in substituting one articulation for another in a particle.
Homer
prefixes to the verb airaipu the redundant particle

Ka\ robs niv Ka.Tt6T)Ktv
M
;
xôvbs ao-iraipomas.
laid.
1
These palpitating on the earth he
have seen that both Shakspeare and Milton use the same prefix a superfluously ; and it is often so used in our provincial dialects, as afeard, for feared ;* aslat, for slit avrore, for frore (that is, frozen),* Nor is this practice confined to prefixes. In the Greek language &c. it was for the sake of euphony that, in the verb tvtttu), from the root TW7r, the particle r was introduced. For a like reason, the particle c
a suffix in the imperatives rvirre, \aipi, and the like. Similar variations take place in the speech of uncivilized nations. It is observed by Mr. Logan, that some particles, introduced into words
in the Polynesian language, appear to have originally had no verbal moaning, but to be merely euphonetic additions.* So M. von GabeLENZ, in his short grammar of the Kiriri (a south American language), says there are certain particles not used separately as significant, but which, employed as terminations to a verb or substantive, either extend its meaning, or give it a certain force and elegance.* Of the omission of a particle, in whole or part, for the sake of euphony, there are
We
was added as
instances in
Ittio-kovoq, is
many
languages. Thus e, part of lm, in the Greek omitted in the Anglo-Saxon biscop, German bischof, and
a, part of and, in the Greek anoOiiKri, is rejected forming their word bottega. But the most general effect of euphony is to substitute one articulation for another in particles, as has been already shown in roots. Thus the Dorians change the
English bishop.
So
by the
Italians in
of pâv^, to the proximate vowel a, in jj, and they also change the internal vowel w, of vpwToc, to the remote vowel a, in Trparoe. So the Greeks in general change the consonant 7r, in km, before iipipa, into the proximate 0, in ifriptpie. And so the Ionians change the initial n, of nu>t, to the remote consonant r, in k-Jie. being guided by the same feeling of euphony which distinguishes the Welshmen, the head, from the Galic ceann, the head. Of the changes, both in roots and particles, in the Sanskrit language, for the sake of euphony, numerous examples occur throughout Professor Wilson's learned " Introduction to the Grammar of the Sanskrit Language," particularly in the long and able Chapter on Derivation,
terminating particle
firixava
In Welsh certain initial consonants are changed, pp. 268 to 336. according to the euphonic effect which the words preceding hare on them as car, a kinsman ; ei char, her kinsman ei gar, his'kinsman fy nghar, my kinsman so, pen, a head ei ben, his head ; ei j)hen, her
;
Brocket, ad voc. Iliad, 3, 293. Journal Ind. Archip. vol. v. p. 231.
Hall-well, ad voc.
Gram.
Kirir. p. 57.
300
;
OP PARTICLES.
[CHAP. XII.
head fy mhen, my head. This variation of the initial consonant is always regular in Welsh, and constantly between letters of the same Initial vowels, too, are occasionally subject organ of pronunciation. ebyrth, sacrifices. 2 Many other to change as, aberth, a sacrifice In the Malay language euphonic changes occur in this language.
1 ; ;
similar causes of
euphony take
place.
Thus
the transitive particle
before words beginning with ch, j, and d, is draw out before a vowel, or an aspirate, or
: :
men ; as, menchabut, to g hard, it is meng ; as,
Modification.
mengganapi, to complete before b and p it is mem ; as, membayer, to pay before r, I, m, n, and w it is me ; as, melutar, to fling. 8 362. In order to comprehend the use of a particle in modifying a root, we must remember that a root, as such, presents to the mind a The root conception in its simplest form, without any modification. man, for instance, presents to an English mind the conception of a human being but does not necessarily cause the mind to regard it under any circumstance of person, number, time, place, cause, effect, or the like. Now every conception may occur to the mind under and for the expression of a conception so various circumstances circumstantiated, different languages have more or less abundantly provided, either by separate words, or by words or particles added to
: ; ;
the roots.
Tne
provision by separate words
is
regulated by the gram-
matical rules for the agreement of words in the particular language to which the root belongs. The provision by words added to the roots
compound icords ; but, with the exception of these latter, and of bare roots, every word in every language consists of a root, and one or more particles ; both roots and particles, however, being liable to be varied, for the sake of euphony and the root, in some rare cases, being either wholly or entirely suppressed, in a course
constitutes the class called
;
of transition through several languages or dialects, as will be hereafter

Lexical.
considered under the head of Etymology. 363. By modifying a root lexically is here meant varying
fication
;
its
signi-
as the signification of the root
trite is
varied in the adjective
untrue,
by the negative
varied in
tin'
man
the
(rammiti.:l
is
particle un ; or as the signification of the root substantive /mnu/i, by the particle of orders/ore;
tell
or as the signification of the root
is
varied in the verb foretell
by
same
particle/ore.
liy modifying a root grammatically is here meant varying its '.U\4. grammatical relation, as belonging to a class of words commonly called a part of speech, or to a subdivision of such a class, or declining or Thus the adverb goodly is varied a noun or verb. COnjn Mi'ir' il from tin: adjective gfjod, by the particle ly and the ideal noun friend' :/ varied from the personal noun friend, by the particle ship. is Thus, too, the possessive case John's is varied from the nominative John, by the particle of declension ('s)j and the past tense talked Where is varied from the root talk, by the particle of conjugation cd. the signification, or the pari of speech, or class of words is varied, the
ki. iiai'i
.,
<ii.
mi.
j).
4.
' Iiii'l.
]>.
'<.
Martden, Grata.
\>.
5:5.
CHAP.
XII.]
is
OF PARTICLES.
derivation
;
301
process
tion
is
commonly termed
where declension or conjugacalled inflection.

w,th word"
effected, the proce83 is
commonly
865. There are two methods of declining nouns or conjugating Comjared

verbs: one, the method of inflection by particles; the other, that of declension or conjugation by separate words, namely, the nouns by very able glossprepositions and the verbs by auxiliary verbs.
ologist,
M. Abkl Remusat, contended
that the distinction betw u n

;
these
two methods was not an essential distinction meaning (I prethat it was not a distinction founded on the necessary operations The marks of case are, perhaps (says he), ancient of the human mind. and, on the other hand, small words joined to the theme by SVIMNMlfl the prepositions answering to them are only marks of case written Hence he denies that the Chinese and Tibetan languages separately. Tcfioun- Wang- Ti in Chinese, or Koun-gyal-poi in are monosyllabic. Tibetan (says lie), constitutes as truly a polysyllabic word as BaotXiwv The in Greek, or Begum in Latin, which convey the same meaning.
sume)
;
writing of the Chinese and Tibetan syllables, separately, whilst the Greek and Latin are written as forming together single words, is
(according to him) a mere rule of orthography, which, in fact, does If the assertion not touch the essential character of the language. that M. Remusat qualifies with the word " perhaps " could in every if it could be plainly proved that all instance be clearly established the inflectional marks of case, and, indeed, all other signs of inflection,
1
were ancient words, or fragments of such words M. Remusat's inBut though this proof has been ference might, perhaps, be accepted. given in a considerable number of instances, it is still doubted by very eminent glossologists whether these suffice to establish the proposition " Je ne partage nullement (says in question as universally true. M. W. Humboldt) " l'opinion que toutes les flexions aient ete dans " I by no means partake the leur origine des affixes detaches." opinion that all inflections were in their origin detached affixes."* 866. Since particles, lexically modifying a root, vary its signification, a question naturally arises whether particles in general were originally significant words, or at least fragments of such words. This
'
whether
slgnmcant?
question
is
slightly adverted to
by
Plutarch.
In speaking of the
:
so-called prepositions in composition,
he says
" Consider whether
they be not rather parts and fragments of words, as those persons who write hastily make their letters incomplete, and shorten many of them.
two words e^fifivui and tKftiivai, of which the go in," and the latter " to go out," are manifestly abbreviations of Lvtoq fifivai and Utoq /6>/'at." s Little attention, however, was at that time paid to particles, as such but in modern times they have been carefully examined, especially by German writers; and from their labours it clearly results, that most, if not all, those particles which affect the lexical signification of the roots were
instance, the
For
f >rmer
means "
to
Recb.
s. 1
Lang. Tartares,
8
8 Lettre a M. A. Remusat, p. 56. p. 353. Plutarch, Platonic Question, p. 9.

302
OF PARTICLES.
[CHAP.
; :
XII.
Take, for instance, the English particle themselves anciently roots. fore in the verb foretell ; or the correspondent Latin pro?, in prcedico Fore (as above observed) lexically or the Greek irpb, in irporftripi. varies the signification of the root tell ; for to foretell is something very But the particle fore is clearly a root different from merely to tell. in the adjective foremost and the preposition before, and it is used alone as an adverb ex. gr.,
:
That time, bound straight for Portugal, Right fore and aft we bore. 1
So the Latin pros is a particle in prceceps, " rash, inconsiderate," nearly answering to our phrase " head-foremost," since ceps means
" head " in " biceps apud inferos Cerberus ;" 8 but pros is also a root when used adverbially, as in "I pros sequar." " Go before ; I will 3 follow." So the Greek 71-po, which is a particle in irpofnîi, is a root when used prepositional ly, as irpb veQv, " before the ships."* Although
the instance above given from Plutarch, of particles considered as fragments of words, was not well chosen, the derivation of many particles from fragments either of words or of other particles is clear. The particle gnus, in bemgnus and malignus, is manifestly a fragment of genus ; whence these words signify "of a good kind," "of an evil kind." The word genus is employed distinctly in the compound omnigenus, which answers to the Old Norse allskyns, Swedish alskeihs, and Scottish allkin kind. The prefix a in acorn looks at first sight like a particle but it is a fragment of a word, for in Anglo-Saxon it is ac-ccani, that is, oak-corn. The terminating letter n in our verb learn is a fragment of the particle an, in the Anglo-Saxon learan, to teach, of which the root is leer, or lar, as in lar, lore, lartoit, a teat her, &c. In some instances one and the same particle has many difierent significations. The Latin or may express a person, as victor ; a passive verli, as vincor ; a noun of bodily action or passion, as labor, sudor or of mutual action or passion, as lionor, tiinor ; or an external cause affecting the sight, as splendor ; the bailing, as clangor; the smell, as
;
fator
tin'
taste,
acor
and the touch, as

a
it
calor.
in
So
the Greek
in
particle
a has sometimes
privative force, as
&ro0oc, unwise;
the
sometimes, on the contrary,

nUt/Xtf
:
has an intensive force, as
word
'fli
8'8t *vp &itr]Kov iv 4{i/\<p ifxiriay

fire falls
ffAjj.
As when consuming
Soni' itim
it
on a woody grove. 3
'
iprOMK's
at ion.
as
pfrXnwS
n\ uftnv*
Soni. times
it
'lato observes, Sn to Annpaivu expresses similarity of on

I
The Latin particle hci\fur, a bfo&Af Uterine, froad o\^c. uterus. i.-tini.-i tod lit boa above, as in dborvum, duotntbt and hence, looking down on another with contempt, as d$spiok>i ir verb to despise. wlu-rn Sometimes it has an augmentative
1
'
liitxlin,
Tsrnt,
Soa Song. Amir. 1, 1, 111.
ro,TuHol
4
11
1,
1,6.
Iliad,
is, 172.
IMd. 11.
Cntjrlot, p. 279, id. Pldn.
CHAP.
XII.]
OF PAUTICLES.
;"
303
force, as in
demens, mad, or, as
sometimes a negative, as in deamo, " I love vehemently we say, "out of his mind." 367. The particles of one language may appear in another language as words, or as fragments of words, or as particles somewhat changed. Various circumstances in the history of our nation have enriched our
language with particles from several foreign sources. Although in English the preposition with always implies connection, we have with, as a particle, implying opposition or negation in the verbs withstand, But this is a fragment of the Anglo-Saxon withtold, and withdraw. wither ; in Gothic, vidra ; in Alamannic, icidhar ; in Low German, In our old law wedder ; in Swedish, vcder; in German, wider. retain the Latin particles con and language we had withernam.
Derivation,
We
;
com,, in concur, convince,
from the Greek ava and Kara from the French pour our purchase and purveyor ; from the Arabic al our alchemy and alcoran, &c. Our suffix ard seems to have come, in many words, directly from the French, in which it is seen in bavard, babillard, louchard, cornard, and
complain, &c.
;
come our analogy and
category
the
Norman
guischard.
With
us
it
occurs in coward, bastard, wizard,
dullard, niggard, dotard, braggard, haggard, sluggard, lubbard, drunkard,
and in the old words trichord and bayard. The origin is probably to be found in the Teutonic art, "genus, natura, indoles," whiqh Wachter derives from erde, the earth but which, I should rather
1 ;
tort, the heart, the imaginary In several English words, however, the suffix ard or art is only a fragment of ward, a root found in the Anglo-Saxon forweard and hindweard, the German warten, the French garde, and the Italian guardiano ; and it appears as warda in the laws
suppose, agrees with the
Low-Saxon
seat of
many human
qualities.
of
Edward
the Confessor, and as gardingus in those of the Visigoth
Hence our backward, forward, inward, and outward are popularly pronounced backward, for' ard, in'ard, and oufard ; and the old English designations of office ending in ward have been shortened
king
Wamba.
some proper names, as Goddard, from Goatward Stoddart, from When two particles, agreeing, or Stodward, and several others. nearly so, in sound, difler widely in signification, it will generally be found to arise from a difference in their etymological origin. Our suffix ness, in goodness, has the effect of expressing an idea or universal conception in Dungeness it describes the local peculiarity of a point In the former case it answers to the German affix hiss, in of land. in the other case it answers to the French subfinsterniss, darkness Our prefix anti, in antipathy, expresses oppostantive nez, the nose. sition, from the Greek preposition avTi; in antiquity it is not properly a particle, but a Latin root agreeing with the preposition ante, whence come antiquus and antiquitas. In Latin it would seem at first sight
in
; ;
:
that cilium was a particle of the same effect in supercilium as it is in domicilium ; but in the former it is the substantive cilium, the eyelash;
and
in the latter it is
a combination of particles added to the root dam,

1
Wachter, voc. Art.
304
in
OF PARTICLES.
[CHAP. XII.
the sense of a dwelling. In the English words unliappy and unanimous, the syllable un might be thought a particle of a common meaning; but though in unhappy it is a real particle, from a Gothicsource, expressing negation, in unanimous it is a fragment of the Latin numeral unus, and expresses uniformity. These instances show how necessary it is in languages to distinguish accurately, whether a portion of a word be a root, or a particle, and whether from a native, or foreign
source.
Cumulation.
have seen that there may be several particles preceding or but languages differ greatly in the degree in which Where the modifications of a conthey cumulate particles in a word. ception may for the most part be expressed by separate words, there is manifestly little occasion to combine with a root many particles and when such modifications can always be expressed by particles, the forms of the language become naturally abundant in inflections and In an ordinary English verb (exclusive of participles) derivations. the variations of form, by combining the root with particles alone, are only three (e. g., lovest, loveth or loves, and loved) in an ordinary Greek verb (exclusive of participles) there are 266 forms so constiIn nouns substantive the difference is less; but we have only tuted. one variation of case effected by a particle, as John, John's, and one of number, as dog, dogs, or ox, oxen ; whilst in Sanskrit the cases so 368.
following a root
;
:
We
formed are eight

vocative
;
the nominative, the
objective, the instrumental, the
dative, the ablative, the possessive, the locative,
and sometimes the and the numbers are three, the singular, the dual, and the
In the North American languages
particles is carried to a great
plural, varied in their cases, so as to present in all sixteen forms, be-
sides the varieties of declension.
the fabrication of
length.
words by means of
" The general character of the American tongues " (says M. Dupon(JEAu) "consists in their uniting a givat number of ideas under the form of a single word; whence the American philologists " By means of inflections, have allied them polysynthetic languages." as in Greek and Latin, and of prefixed and suffixed particles, as in Coptic, Hebrew, and other Semitic languages; by joining articles, as in Chinese; and sometime.-; by inserting syllables, 0T single niters, adapted to excite the idea of a word to which that Letter belongs; or, lastly, by the aid of an understood ellipsis, the American
Indian;
have
proi
bsCfl
in
.
BUS
bO
form
numlx>r of ideas
dilli-P-nl
.
the smallest possible
languages comprising the greatest ( )f these number oi words."

1
we have
I
al'iindant evideiicv in the Isnapv"
,t/ii.i.
tin-
tli.'
Cth Grammar
of
Iowsk.
Grammar The former g

fransi-
pcitivi- and
ii'
stive
forms active, passive, reciprocal, and

,
tive, :ind tin- p-i ,iiiv
word
of the Paflacted and advol >i:tl of the l-eiiape verb 1 Many of these are long baar, amounting bo 285 forma. uliivd. and it ex. gr., attapstulawith parli'l'
i
i
-.
.
p.
89.
* liniiii.
Lamps' Laagi
L69-1T5.

CHAP.
XII.]
OF PARTICLES.
1
305
Mr.
wachtichitpanne, "
Howse if they had not heard each other." gives ;K4 different forms of a Cree verb, founded on the root sake, or sdhge, signifying love f and these also abound in particles, ex. gr.,
8 Moreover, h-sahe-ch-eg-as-oon-owoa, " ye are loved." several forms are omitted by both of these authors.
it
seems that
are the
Nor
South African tongues less amply furnished with verbal inflections, for Mr. APFLEYABD, in his work on the Kafir language, gives a paradigm of the regular verb teta" (speak), occupying no less than 4 Mr. Archbell, in his Grammar of the thirty-five octavo pages. Bechuana language, 5 gives a paradigm of the verb reka (buy) and this, though containing only the simple, and not the compound forms, Hence it may be inferred, that the arts occupies fifteen octavo pages. of declension and conjugation by means of a large accumulation of particles, instead of being the result (as has been supposed) of profound thought and meditation by learned inventors of language, rather ndicate an origin in a very low state of civilization.
;
369.
;o far
as a
The use of particles is in every language word may be borrowed from a foreign
idiomatic, except in
idiomatic.
tongue.
Hence we
nay observe, (1.) That languages differ greatly as to their habit of employing mrticles. In the Greek language particles abound in the English they
;
re comparatively rare.
(2.) \V hat one language effects by particles, another effects by In the Latin word amabo, compared with the correiterate words. Hondent English expression, " I shall love," the particle ab answers
j
the English
(3.)
the
word
shall,
and the
effects
particle o to the English
word
J.
What one
leas,
is
language
M le
Anglo-Saxon
degree
wcerleas,
by a suffix, another does by a prefix. compared with our unwary, the suffix of
former,
tive
reat,
The superanswers to the prefix of the latter, un. generally shown in English by the suffix est, as in
in
greater, greatest: the superlative
Hungarian
as in dreg
is
is
shown
in-
kling to the comparative the prefix

8 der), legoregebb (eldest).
leg,
(old), oregebb
in Italian
diminutive
;
produced
ie
r
v
suffix etto, as cavaUo, a horse
cavalletto, a little
;
horse: in
by Welsh
the prefix
lied,
as achwi/n, to accuse
in the Coptic
lledachwyn, to blame slightly. 7

is
he plural of a substantive in English

a star, stars
:
and
New
expressed by the suffix s, Zealand it is expressed by ru
va prefixed. 8
In different languages or dialects, the same relation of things is metimes shown by particles of different origin. The Alamannic a (which is the German zu and our to) answers in zuanimis to 9 This is analogous to the use of to for at a Latin ad in adsumis.
(4.)
1
Gram. Lenape Lang.
p. 165.
a
*
Gram. Cree Lang.
p.
212-238.
* Ibid. p. 227.
5
Kafir Lang. p. 197-232.
Gram. Bech. Lang. p. 53-67. Richards, voces achwyn and lied.

8
e 8
Wekey, Hangar. Gram. p. 10. Lee. Hebr. Gram. p. 69.
Kero. voc. adsumis.
J>.]
306
OF PARTICLES,
[CHAP.
in the Devonshire dialect, as " I live to raignton," for " I live Paignton." (5.) In some idioms, a certain particle may be employed cither a: in others it is restricted to one of these nses. prefix or a suffix T
;
a prefix in leasmod (thoughtless), and a (weaponless) the correspondent English parti The Italian particle vole, as less can only be used as a suffix. In the former language it can amorevole, is the German roll, full. employed only as a suffix; in the latter it is used sometimes a;
Anglo-Saxon
leas occurs as
suffix in weaponleas
suffix, for instance, in freudevoll, joyful
and sometimes as a
prefix,
instance, in vollkommen, perfect.
(6.) In some idioms, a particle or a word may be employed Thus in English the superlative of high may be exprese equal effect. eidier by the particle est, in higliest, or by the word most, in most In)
So
in
Latin
we may
phis
use doctissimus, or valde doctus.

belle.
So
in Fren<
la meilleure, et la
(7.) In all languages, which admit of the accumulation of particl the additions are made in a certain order, according to the idiom
ision.
each language. Thus, in Latin, vindex precedes vindicis; from that con Tin nee came in the lov vindico, and thence vindieans, vindicantis. Latin, vtndicantia ; in Italian, vendicanza : in French, wngea And it is observable that, in regard to sign in English, vengeance. cation, each successive particle (after the first) modifies not the prim; root, but the word immediately preceding it in the order of derivatu Thus the English root hap is modified in signification by the parti y, in happy ; that word is further modified by ness, in happiness; a that by un, in unhappiness ; in which last word the original signili cation of the primary root hap is almost lost sight of. 370. The elements, of which words are composed, were consider by the ancients with reference to their sound only. Hence ii was. tl they gave the name of elements ((rroi\ela) to the letters of t
alphabet, or rather to the articulate sounds expressed by those lette I'.ut in this and the preceding chapter, the elements of words ha
Iwcn considered with reference to their sense; and in this view th have beta shown to be Of fcWO kinds, roots and particle... And sir: DJga I'wrv word (with the exception of those call i.ouiid word;) is either a pine rout, or a rout modified by one
more
from
pari
th.'
bat to distinguish one of these elemei

otibef
must be
essential to the
knowledge of
am
s
langtrat
"N, m In, Arabic Grammar, alter observing that ma: Hr, l.'i baj Persian word, art dtrrvad from the Arabic, adds, " that a thousand Arab'' ned to a knowledge of forming 1 'uh nt m.r alive;, a in an acquaintance wit which otherwise no coma perhaps, twiii fa] words,
i
in.'iiiorv
<
.nbl either ilccjirire or retain."'
Bill
the Spirit of this ivina
it
applicable not only
to
1
any
Aral..
two languages, howeve

ChMBa
|'
CHAP.
XII.J
OF PARTICLES.
307
Dectedj but to every separate language; for to learn first the roots, and tin -a to apply to each root such particles as the idiom allows, is at once the easiest and the most philosophical mode of acquiring a
thorough knowledge of the words of any language. It is the easiest because every root thus furnishes a greater or less number of words, and every particle (with some exceptions) affects the roots, to which it is applied, in an analogous manner. And it is the most philosophical because it traces the development of our conceptions, expressed by the toots, through all the modifications which they receive from the
particles.
Nor
is
the study of the merely euphonious particles withpeculiarities
out
its
use, in
illustrating the
of different idioms, and
sometimes the nicer shades of thought and
feeling.
x 2
308
CHAPTER
XIII.
OF WORDS.
Connection
371.
those
Having
discussed the elements of
Words, both
I
material an
<
VtcUln
formal, I have
Various
designations.
understand those whie regard the matter of words, namely, vocal sound, and which hav been considered under the heads of Articulation, Accent, Quantity and Emphasis; by formal elements, I understand roots and particle* on which depend the forms of words, as differently constructed, in th In this inquiry it will be advisabJ different languages of the world. to notice first the circumstances which relate to words in general, an then those which apply peculiarly to the several parts of speech. 372. It is desirable, in all matters of science, that the terms en
pi ove( i j n their discussion, should be well chosen
now to examine words By material elements elements.
themselves, as composed
and
clearly explained
t
terms should not be employed signify the same conception, nor the same term to signify dillerei; Unfortunately these requisites haw been little attends conceptions.
especially, that several
and more
to in choosing, or explaining the terms
employed to designate what w We have, in Englisl by the term word. Combinations of articulate sound l>y which we express this cor in, viz., word and term ; the former being of Teutonic on have elsewhere shown, and the latter being derived from the Lati word / riiiiniis, which was a technical expresssion, in relation t In some other languages there is a considerable variety logic. for the same thing signified; as the Latin diotio, wrbvm, ooa the Qreek faroc Xoyoc, /xu0c> \itu nil, looutioj
mean,
i
in
common
parlance,
yXwffTK
the
mot,
expi.
the
the French parol Spanish /mlabra, voz artiovUido, and pari the Orients] languages are still more numerous. gives, in the Hindustanis, Imt, buohutl, snn/Jionii, hi/:
Italian parola, ivxv, vcr/x), termine
;
TM
looghutf
in
/"/''/,
//<///(*,
Itinf, bcifShubd,
kulmu; and Mr. Crawpqi

hilimah, hilar,
lilu/i,
gives,
thl Malay,
In
all
ipiitah, hit a,
iirih.
words used occasionally as syn< hav, BO doubt| various shades of meaning, since n\ in relation t <ut as ihev have a conin n from different source; one general oouosption, they may often be confounded iii reaaoninj
and others.
,
these <a
,,
the
I'niv
Gram.
71.
CHA1'. XIII.]
OF WORDS.
309
from one language
to
more
especially
when used
in
translating
another.
373.
fluous
;
To
define the term word,
may
appear to most persons super- Former
and, indeed,
is
many
writers on language assume that the
mean-
definitions,
ing of word
universally
known, and therefore leave
it
undefined.
calls his work, *E7ra nrepoerra, " Winged Words," does not attempt to define the meaning of word, nor can his notion of it be collected from any part of his volumes other writers have attempted a definition, but with much diversity, and no great Dr. Johnson leaves the term word unnoticed in his success. grammar ; but in his dictionary he explains it as " a single part of speech, a short discourse, talk, discourse, dispute, verbal contention,
Mr. Tooke, though he
promise, signal, token, order, account, tidings, message, declaration, purpose expressed, affirmation, scripture, the word of God, and the second person of the ever-adorable Trinity." All these explanations, except the last (which will be noticed hereafter), may be traced to the grammatical signification which the learned lexicographer intends by the expression, " a single part of speech." But this leaves the
nature of a word in obscurity, until
by "a
we know what the Doctor means part of speech," a phrase on which, as will hereafter be shown,
grammarians differ. Lowth says, " Words are articulate sounds used, by common consent, as signs of ideas or notions." Certainly words must consist of "articulate sounds;" but whether their use does or does not result from " common consent," is no part of their definition, though it is a question which may deserve a separate examination. Again, words, no doubt, are " signs " of something
that something is, it would from Dr. Lowth's definition. He savs they are " signs of ideas or notions ;" but it is not clear what force he means to give to the conjunction or ; probably he means it to signify " otherwise," and considers an idea and a notion to be the same thing under different names, the one from the Greek tiia, and the other from the Latin notio : but whatever may be the meaning of the Greek word, the Latin word certainly regards only acts of the judgment, and not at all of the affections. Yet among the " nine sorts of words " which Lowth states to be in the English language, he reckons the interjection " as thrown in to express the affection of the speaker." If, on the other hand, Lowth meant ideas and notions to be different things, we are wholly at a loss to discover the nature of either. Lindley Murray simply copies Lowth, omitting the word notions, but leaving us still in the dark as to the term ideas. The greatest fault of this definition, however, is its omitting to notice the relation which a word, when employed in the operations of reason, bears to a sentence and on which I shall presently remark. Harris gives, as the definition of a word, "a sound significant, of which no part is of itself significant ;" and for this he cites, from Aristotle on Poetrv,
that passes in the
difficult
human mind, but what
be
to discover
<bwi>i) trr/fiayriicij
>/
fiipog ovciv iisti Kaff aiiro crrjfiarTiicoy.
But, in

310
OF WORDS.
[CHAP.
Xlll-
the first place, Aristotle is giving the definition, not of a word, but of a noun; for the entire passage stands thus 'Qvopa hi ia-rt (ptoyrj (jvvQeti), (rnpavTiKi), avev \poyov, rjc pipoQ ovfiev e<ttl icaO' avro
:
a vocal sound composite, significant, without of itself significant." 1 Secondly, <pu)vq here means not simply sound, but vocal sound. Thirdly, Aristotle calls the noun "composite," as being necessarily compounded (according
(TTjfxavTiKov,
is
"
noun
time, of which no part
is
to
him) of
:
adds
this explanation
noticed)
cant; for
and as to the last phrase, he would have been well that Harris had " In double nouns, we do not use a part, as of itself signifiinstance, in the proper name, Qeodwpov, we do not use
several syllables or letters
;
(which
it
definition given
the whole, therefore, I cannot adopt the Dr. South says, " As conceptions are the images of things to the mind within itself, so are words, or names, the marks of those conceptions to the minds of them we converse
dupov as
significant."
Upon
by Harris.
with."
But
this
seems rather meant to be applicable to language
in
general, than to serve as the definition of a
word considered
in itself.
M. W. von Humboldt, though he probably never heard of South, He says, " by words we underuses (in part) similar expressions. 2 Much as I respect the stand the signs of individual conceptions." memory of that eminent glossologist, I cannot adopt this as a satisI confess I do not understand what the author here means by an individual conception ; for, on the one hand, a word may be a sign of several conceptions combined either by composition,
factory definition.
derivation, or inflection
and, on the other hand, a sentence
may
be &
tin-
sign of a distinct conception resulting from the mutual relation of
words which it contains. emotion, whether standing

;i
Moreover, a word
it
may be
the sign of an
alone, or introduced into the construction of
sentence; and in either case I apprehend said to lie a sign of an individual concej)tion.
I
could not properly be

is
!7
1.
Having
rejected these
to
definitions,
it
not without
prupunod.
hesitation that I venture
propwe
the following:
A Word
is
some an
articulate sound, or comlnnation

either alone, or
of such sounds, consisting of a Root, combined with one or mors particles, or with one or more
other word*,
;7o.
and expressing an
toge.tlwr with other words,

-
On
I
emotion, or conception, eit/ier solely, or as part of a phrase or sentence. this definition I have to offer the following explanatory
:trt ilat sound, or combination ofsuch sounds," from the tpwyi) owOcn) (vocal sound coniposi/e) of may perhaps have been correctly used l>\ him in
i.
<
remarks :
(1.)
say,
it is
it
" an
I'
tie, which tinmg a Greek noun.

I
1'nt
in
(1
reek, as
well
as
in
English, and
articulate
a, the
iji..
..tin
Ltii'.'u.i".-,.
there are
words consisting of only one

tin-
sound, as
1
<*i.
the Greek interjection; A,

/.'
'
French preposition:
t,
i,
article;
conjunction;
.
the Latin
preposition]
:;
l.
I'.l.
Tnwlntt.
i'i
Obsr
'i.
'
ii.
i'-~

CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
311
Latin Imperative; J, the English pronoun ; 01 the English, i, the French, and Latin interjection, &c, &c. all which are recognized as words by all grammarians. (2.) I say, a word may express "an emotion;" which is true, not only of interjections, commonly so called, but also of the vocatives of nouns, as Lord I God! when used in the humiliation of prayer, or in So in the imperative mood, the the grateful joy of thanksgiving. words hear ! help ! forcibly speak the emotions of one who so addresses the same Almighty power. (3.) I say, a word may express "a conception," which it does in setting forth acts of the reasoning power, not only as a necessary part of speech, that is to say a noun or a verb, but also as an accessorial For the conjunction and expresses a conception of continuity ; part. the preposition for expresses, among other conceptions, that of a motive existing before the mind of the speaker; the adverb now expresses the conception of time present; and so of all conjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs in all languages. (4.) I say, a word effects these expressions " either solely, or to;
gether with other words, as part of a phrase or sentence." interjection vce ! standing alone, expresses an emotion of
The
grief,
Latin
which
may be either present, past, or future. Thrown into a sentence without governing (as grammarians say) any particular word, it may refer to past causes of sorrow, as in this line
Mantua
vce! miserae nimiiim vicina Cremonae.
Mantua
To
sad
Cremona was, alas!
too near. 1
The same
governing a dative case, and therewith forming an assumes the character of a prophetic denunciation " Vce tibi, Coroza'in of fat are woe. Vce tibi, Bethsaida!" " Woe Woe to thee, Bethsaida !" * Again, observe the effect to thee, Chorazin " Belovel " (says of the other words in a sentence on the word love. St. John), " let us love one another."* Here the word love is a verb, embodying the highest precept of the Christian religion in regard to human society. " Love " (says St. Paul) " is the fulfilling of the law." 4 Here the same word, love, is an idealized substantive, used argumentatively, to prove the excellence of that spiritual affection which " worketh no ill to his neighbour." Mr. Holdkk has well illustrated " If I ask you" this effect on words by the instance of the word but. (says he) " what I mean by that word, you will answer, I mean this or that thing, you cannot tell which but if I join it with the words in construction and sense, as, "bid I will not," "a but of wine," '-but and boundary," "the ram will but," "shoot at the but," the meaning of it will be as ready to you as any other word." In short, it is true, in all languages, that as the signification of a sentence (be it a simple or a complex, a long or a short one,) depends on the mutual relation
vce,
interjectional phrase,
Vir-il, Eel. ix. v. 28.

St.
2 St.
4
Matt.
xi.
21. 10.
John
K\\ iv. 7.
Romans
xiii.
312
of
all its
OF WORDS.
parts
;
[CHAP.
XIII.
word in a sentence depends same sentence. For a sentence is a sign, or showing forth of an act of the mind, which, if clear and distinct, is one complete unity; and the separate words of which it is com]X)sed contribute to the whole signification their respective portions,
so the signification of one
on
its
relation to others in the
each receiving from the combination a particular The only apparent exceptions to this remark are to be found in sentences not purely enunciative, but admitting interjections, expressive of emotion unconnected grammatically with the
as integral parts,
force
and
effect.
other words in the sentence.

Gasification.
376.
Words have been

These
;
reduced to classes on different principles.

is
The most
them
in
ordinary classification in grammatical works

I
into
the
parts of speech.
a future chapter
have already noticed, and shall revert to but previously I shall consider single words
classed according to their intrinsic circumstances, as formation, origin,
antiquated, or
Formation
words.
wnnU.
mental or physical signification, and whether obsolete, newly brought into use. Of their extrinsic relations to each other, I shall notice analogy or anomaly, identity of sense or After sound, generic or specific effect, and reciprocal signification. these examinations, I propose to consider the effect of repetition of words, in whole or part, which differs greatly in different idioms. 377. The formation of words regards them either as consisting of one or more syllables, or as containing a root with or without parOf monosyllabic and polysyllabic words enough has been said ticles. In regard to roots and particles, I have stated that for the present. every word in every language must be either a root alone (ami is then called a radical word), or a root combined with one or more particles, When a single root is combined with a or else a compound word. particle, or particles, the result may be distinguished as forming either when two or more roots serve to an inflected, or a derivative word On this modify each other, I call the result a com]>ound word. system words are distributable into four classes, 1st, radical; 2nd, inflected; 3rd, derivative; and 4th, compound. 378. By Radioed words, I mean those which are actually used roots of other words, or may possibly be so w^vd, but of which no Thus, say otlur root is known from which they may he derived. that the Knglish substantive Mmi is a radical word, not derived (so far as I know) from any other, but tirttudh/ serving as a root to maidt/,
definiteness,
;
tnardiness, muii/nlli/, tkr.

is
And
say
that,
I
the
balm preposition pnu
know) from any other; and word, uol derived (so far as (unless we regard it as Identical with pri in primus) not serving seivable word. actually (though it may possihli/) as a root to some n be wholly comn whether a lai n mail It has peted of radical WOrdf, tod the Chinese has been said so to
a
radie.il
i
<
An
observation of
If.
point
roc Rotcboldt'i throws some light on this toM| ;l Chinese word, or particle, which be oon-
W,
Univ. (irain.
73.
CHAP. XIII.]
siders
OF WORDS.
313
as approaching the nearest to what he calls in European And he reduces it to three siglanguages " a suffix, or flexion." 1st, the participial sense of " passing;" 2ndly, the effect of nifications and 3rdly, the same pronominal meaning, a demonstrative pronoun
'
but so employed as to render tela what M. v. Humboldt calls "an empty, or grammatical word." * If his reasoning be correct, it may lead to an inference, that in other languages, as well as in Chinese, the vocal sounds, which now serve only as particles, may formerly have been words. And, indeed, the further back they are traced, and the more widely those of different languages are compared, the more pronot perhaps bable does it seem that this may have been the case At the exactly in their present forms, but in others more simple. present day, however, the radical words in most languages form a small proportion, compared with the inflected and the derivative. 379. Inflection is a term derived from the Latin flecto, to bend, As it is now most commonly understood (and as it will here be used) it signifies the marking of the cases, genders, and numbers of nouns, and of the voices, moods, tenses, numbers, persons, and in some languages even the genders, of verbs, by the combination of one or more particles with a root, or, in certain instances, by a change of vowel, or
;
inflection.
consonant, in the root
itself.
It is
when
applied to nouns, and conjugation

all
now commonly called declension when applied to verbs but

;
the use of
these terms has varied at different periods.
The
first
of them employed, as a grammatical term, seems to have been declension (in Latin declinatio or declinatus). Varro, the earliest Latin glossologist extant, uses declinatus, from the Greek kKiviiv, and old Latin dinare, " to bend." But his use of it was by no means philosophical.
Assuming that the nominative case singular of a noun, or the first person singular of the present tense of a verb, was to be taken as the basis of analysis, he considered either of these to be analogous to a perpendicular right line, and the other cases or tenses to be analogous
line declining from the perpendicular. Moreover he divided " Ego declinatus verborum et declensions into natural and voluntary. " I think " (says he) " that the voluntarios, et naturales esse puto." declinations of words are both voluntary and natural." * And it is
to a
clear
from what immediately follows, that he calls voluntary declination what we now call derivation, " ut a Bomulo, Roma, a Tibure, Tiburtes ;" and that he calls natural declination what is here called inflection of
nouns and verbs, " quae inclinatur

lus,
Romuli, Romulo
in tempora, et in casus, ut ab Romuet a dico, dicebam, dixeram." Quintilian, in
first century of our era, applied declension to the inflection both of nouns and verbfc-^ "Nomina declinare et verba in primis pueri sciant." " Let (boys ^first.learn to decline nouns and verbs."* Pris-
the
' Lettre a M. A. Remusat, p. IS". By an " empty word" this author seems to mean p. 35. called a particle. 8 4 De Ling. Lat. 1. viii. p. 134, ed. 1788. De Inst. Orat. 1.
lb.
what
i.
is
here
25.
c. iv. s.
314
OK AVORDS.
[CHAP. XIII
ciax, in the fourth century, defines conjugation to be the successivi " Conjugatio est consequens verborum declinatio,' declension of verbs.
and he explains conjugatio (as if it were a term of recent introduction in different ways; but prefers the last, "quod una eademque rationi
plurima conjugantur verba " " because several verbs an one and the same method of declension." ' Aldui Maxutius, in the fifteenth century, defines the verb " pars orationi: declinabilis" a declinable part of speech, and reckons conjugation as on< of its eight accidents. 8 G. T. Vossius, early in the seventeenth, con siders declension, " peculiaritei\ ac presse dicta," " when used pro perly and strictly," to belong to nouns, including pronouns arid par 8 ticiples, and adopts from earlier grammarians the term conjugation sa belonging to verbs, and derived from the Greek avi^vyia which however, does not seem to have been used in a grammatical sense, bu merely to signify the conjoining of any two or more things together The word injlection, in a grammatical sense, seems to be modern ;" 4 have, indeed, in Latin, u jlectere vocabulum de Gneco but thai means "to adopt a Greek word with some slight change," us th*. Latin pellex from the Greek iraWaKtcThe word Jlcct/ones, applied to the voice by Cicero,* means only the variations of tone fa singing Even in recent times the term inflection has been used with souk diversity of meaning. F. von Schlegel understands by it the internal alteration of the sound of the root, as sing, sang maim, indiuicr and these changes he sets in opposition to prefixes and suffixes, as fcwt, loved, beloved. This view is also adopted by Mr. SPURBBL in lib Welsh Dictionary. Other writers seem to confine the term Section, 01
declinationis,
conjoined in
We
inflection, to terminating particles. It apjiears to me that it may bo reasonably extended to any alteration in the sound of a noun or verb. earning such a difference in its grammatical effect as has been above These alterations may be produced internally l>\ a change described.
Of vowel, as
tlry
stri/m,
struck;
or of consonant, as
wife,
tries; ^v
;
ex-
0
M lWll
j
by a
prefix, as
il
interfix, as
in
in
fin the Greek hmrov, from rforrw or by the Turkish srriliiir/i, from sevmck or by a sullix.
;
as en
the English foatot, firdm l#at.
380. Whether or not a particular class of words, in any given Iannage, be marked by Inflection, is a circumstance merely idiomatic:
general.
and, consequently, cannot afford a ground of classification to wonts ir .M \\i PIUS. (Iflkl AS dsoftnoobj the noun, pronoun, \erl\ am:
and
and a^ iiuMinahks the adverb, preposition, conjunction. Hut admitting this distinction to he allowable it Nor, pplicable to our own and many othei indeed, an all Latin verbs inflected throughout all their moods: tin Imperatives of dico, duco, fach, faro, are die, due, far, fer. The Poll Latin <ir.iuiin.ir says, "these should naturally terminate in,i
participle;
interjection.
j.
:
17, 93.
..
M.irmt. In
I.
OttXU.
I.
|i.
.
1,
nl. LS81,
ii.
..
I.
G'II. N. Alt.
*
IV.
De Orntore,
B,
CIIA.I'.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
315
like lege;
the case.
Now the reverse is but they have dropped their final e." They are pure roots naturally uttered, under emotion, in the Imperative mood and, on the other hand, e is added in lege, and other verbs, for the sake of euphony. 381. The term Derivation is figuratively applied to words, from the Latin derivatio, which signifies the flowing of water through a rivus, or channel, from its source. So a derived word flows from its root either immediately by a single particle added, or mediately by the addition of successive particles. In discussing this topic, it is usual to call a derived word a derivative, and it may be convenient to denominate the word from which it is immediately derived a derivant. In this view a derivant is either a root, or a word which has flowed from the root by the addition of one or more particles successively. Thus in will, wilful, wilfulness, the root will is a derivant, from which by adding the particle fid flows the derivative wilful; and this latter,
;
Derivation
when
the further particle ness
is
added to
it,
becomes I derivant
to the
have next to inquire, whether they are native or foreign. Our word incommutable, for instance, cannot be traced to a native root but is a derivative from the derivant commutable, which is the French commutable, a derivative from the Latin derivant commutabilis, and this last is derived by the successive addition of particles through commuto and mido, to the ultimate derivant, i!i Latin root mut, signifying change. 382. The effect of derivation is to produce in the derivative word Its one or other of the three following variations from the derivant, viz., either, first, a change of signification, as the derivative untrue differs in signification from the derivant true; or a change of the part of speech, as the derivative adverb goodly differs from the derivant adjective good; or a change of the class of words falling under the same part of speech, as the derivative substantive gunner, signifying a person, differs from the derivant substantive gun, signifying a thing. There are, indeed, some instances of slight variation in sound, effected by adding a particle, without altering the signification or grammatical effect of a word, as alike for like ; but such instances can scarcely be deemed either inflections or derivations, and are owing to a mere sense of euphony. There are also some additions of particles, as Johnny for John, and the like, which are terms of familiarity chiefly addressed to children, and In derivation, as in inflection, the object is to ftre merely idiomatic. modify a single root but the means employed are somewhat different. The portions of a word used for inflection, whatever may have been
derivative wilfulness.
Of
derivants
we
eifccta.
their original signification, are in their actual
state
mere
particles;
whereas many of those employed in derivation still continue to be used as words other than nouns or verbs. Among these, the most numerous are the so-called " prepositions in composition," which abound remarkably in the Greek language. In the great and valuable Greek
lexicon of Kobert Constantine, the derivatives effected by the preposition avii, amount in number to 1,135, and
means of
those
in
316
OF -words.
[CHAP. XIII
as
which some other prepositions

Its Import-
are employed, are nearly or quite
numerous. 383. It
inflection
is
obvious, that in
all
cultivated languages, derivation anc
ance.
must supply the account the fact that most
far greater
number of words,
taking intc
words are also inflected. Lan guages, indeed, greatly differ in their power of multiplying words from a single root. The richness of the Greek from this source ii obvious from what has just been said, and is, indeed, universalh Of the Latin language, Varro says, " if you take acknowledged. thousand primitive words, you at once lay open the sources of fiv< hundred thousand." M. Maudru has a like remark on the Russiai He draws up an etymological table of derivatives lion language. and he imat, to take, amounting in number to nearly three hundred observes, " that in every language the number of derivatives must b
derivative
|
incomparably greater than of primitive words." 2 Derivants may bt furnished by every part of speech, and even by onomatopoeias. Fron the onomatopoeia roar, is formed the derivative a roarer ; from tin Scottish interjection wae ! is formed the derivative waefu, woeful fron the Greek adverb )$> yesterday, is formed the derivative \0iairoc belonging to yesterday; from the Latin preposition super, above, formed the derivative superbiis, haughty; from the Latin participl) sapiens, knowing, is formed the derivative sapienter, wisely; fron the Latin pronoun alius, another, is formed the derivative cUienus, alien
;
i
But the greatest number of

will require
derivatives, in
all
languages,
is
formec
from nouns substantive, nouns adjective, or verbs; these, therefore
more
particular notice.
Krom Snbgianttved.
384. Grammarians have distinguished those derivatives, which an formed immediately from nouns substantive or adjective, into si: as: 1. Patronymic; 2. Gentile; 3. Possessive; 4. Diminutive 5. Augmentative; and fatly, a miscellaneous class called Denomina tive. I shall first notice those formed from nouns substantive. Patronymics are derivatives regularly taken from the Dame of th.< father, as Pelides, the pttranymk of Achilles, from his father Psbui but sometimes from the grandfather, as sKiddes, from /Jutcus, hi: grandfather; or from the mother, as Aj-(>i?>/c, Apollo, from hi: mother A//r<l, Lltona. The method of distinguishing an individua
by the name of his lath.T WIS of very ancient
use.
Thus we
find
ii
the Beythio version of the Behistun [ntcription, column I, line 8$ 1 '. h sahri, "Cyrus "ii ;" on which my very learned friend, Mr
Eswni Noun, makes

a
the following judicious

after
1',-lide.s
remark:
I
"The
wort
i
100, til
its
regimen,
'/)/< tides,
l..nniii",
think, such
ooni|K)und as the (ireek

\\\
and
or the Russian I'tiulacich"

.
Htctj this is
exactly similar to our J

i.
Williamson, &c.
a.,/,/,-
(ihit
to
a\,
Dstional) derivatives, serve to designate)
person's country of origin, is the Latin

'
Appuiu
id,
a
man
of Apulia
I. ii.
..,,
i.,t,i,
p,
i.
iv.
p,
c.i.
'
l.lrmenid.
1.
Lang. Kumv,
17S& Bojthie Vntkn,
pp. 68, 84.

CHAP. SlH.]
OF WORDS.
317
The derivatives of this class are at first adjectives, as vir Afpuklt; but afterwards used substantively, by an ellipsis of wr, a man. Possessives denote appurtenance, or belonging to a person, or thing, as the Greek adjective /WiAtkoc, royal (that is, belonging to a king),
from fiaaiXivQ, a king.
Diminutives express smallness of size, and often imply delicacy or tenderness, as in the old French joette, a pretty little cheek, from joue, a cheek; and fossette, a dimple, ivoxa fosse, a loss:
Et
se
li
prend de
rire
en vie,
Si sagement, et si belvie,
Qu'elle descrive deux fossettes, D'ambedeux parts de sesjoettes.
Roman
These abounded
de la Hose.
Plautus He even uses diminutives has labellum, ocellum, digitulus, papilla, &c. of diminutives, as paucus, pauxillus, pausUlulus, bella, bellula, bellutula. Augmentatioes show an excess of size, quantity, or quality, and often With some contempt, as the Italian boccaccia, a large ugly mouth.
class called Denominative* embraces a great variety of relations, which the derivative may stand to the derivant. I shall mention a few, which fall under the heads of place, time, person, and thing. In reference to place, we have foremast from the derivant mast; in reference to time, we have antemeridian from the derivant meridian; in reference to person, there are derivatives which mark rank, office, proand in reference to things, those which mark fession, or occupation The Italian marchese, abstracts and concretes natural and artificial. signifying the rank of a marquis, is a derivative from marca, a district The Turkish defanciently governed by an individual of that rank. The terdar, a treasurer, signifies an officer, from defter, a treasure. The English word lawyer is a derivative from law, as a profession. French fermier, a farmer, from ferine, a farm, marks an agricultural The Italian bottegajo, a shopkeeper, from bottega, a shop, occupation. marks the occupation of a person engaged in retail trade. The Turkish kifeshguer, a shoemaker, from kifesh, a shoe, is one occupied in mechanical employment and the French portier, a porter (in old English, a doorward), from porte, a door, one engaged in the menial occupation
in the early stages of the Latin language.
The
in
Derivatives, signifying things abstract, are of attending to the door. From such as the Latin amicitia, friendship, from amicus, a friend. the English concrete, earth, in its natural state, comes the derivative eartfien ; from the Latin candela, a candle, comes the derivative canTo these may be added derivatives delabrum, an artificial concrete. signifying likeness, as angelic, from the derivant, an angel. 385. Derivatives formed immediately from nouns adjective either From tives produce a change in the grammatical character of a word, or else vary by producing The grammatical character is altered its signification. a different degree of comparison, as the Latin durior, harder, and duriasimus, hardest, from durus, hard ; or, by forming a personal substantive,
Adjec-
318
OF WORDS.
;
[chap.
XIII.
as sacerdos, a priest, from sacer, sacred

;
the French richesse, from riche, rich Latin caverna, a cavern, from cavus, hollow; or a verbal infinitive, as the Anglo-Saxon sweartian, to blacken, from sweart, black ; or an adverb, as the Greek ao^Qq, wisely, from
.alter
or a substantival abstract, as or a substantival concrete, as the
Of those which trocpoe, wise. the signification, without changing the grammatical character,
Verbs from
relate to a quality simply, as the English roughish, from rough. Others relate to a quality with reference to the person, as the Latin ebriosus, given to inebriety, from ebrius, drunk. Some express tenderness, as y\vKi)piov, the proper name Glycerium, from yXvwg, sweet. 386. The immediate derivatives from verbs may be either verbs,
some
nouns substantive, or nouns adjective. Of verbs from verbs, some express a wish to do the act expressed by the derivant, as the Latin esurio, I wish to eat (or, am hungry), from cdo, I eat Some a beginning to do the act, as the Latin horresco, I shudder, from horreo, I am horrified. Some a slight degree of action, as the Latin sorbillo, I sip, from
sorbeo, I
suck up. a frequency of action, as the Latin peimto, I revolve in mind, from pendo, I weigh. Some a return of action, as the Latin redeo, I return, from
Some
my
eo,
g Some
.
an increased action, as the German horchen, to
listen,
from
Iriiren,
to hear.
an opposite act, as the German widerstehen, to stand in oppofrom stelien, to stand. Some show the cessation of action, as the Greek avaXyiio, I cease to grieve, from aXyiw, I grieve. Some the completion of an act, as the German vollendoi, to bring ompletely to an end, from eudon, to end. Some the failure of an act, as the German missliayideln, to mismanage, from liandeln, to manage. Some tl^ non-.xiM, liiv of an ct, as the Latin nolo, I will not, from
sition,
Some
volo, I will.
Borne a power of causing an act to be done, as the Turkish scnlitrmek, to cause to low, from sevmek, to love. Borne I !>< iprocity of action, as the Greek &vri(piXiu>, I low reciprocal! \, from QtXiw, 1 love. an imp., al.ility of art ion, as the Turkish itchimeme/;, Bo HMble to drink, from itchmanrk, not to drink.
In certain Jmttmom, the derivant verb has become obsolete, and appears only in tlm derivative, as the old Latin wrl> pleo appears i"
ear/
>,
compleo, depko.
'
FUntur
antiqui etiarn Bine pr

'
Honiboj dicebant," says

1
from
vei
Vt Vrbor.
lignif.
CHAP.
Xlll.]
OF
I
WQBD&
shall
319
frequent in most languages.
mention a few of the heads to
which they may be
referred.
Certain acts necessarily refer to place. Thus in Latin, latebra, a place of concealment, is derived from lateo, I lie hid. Others refer to time. Thus the Greek Tpo^'njc, a prophet, is derived from 7rpo0T7p, I foretell. Every act must have an agent.
Hence from the Latin verb
ago, I
do, comes actor, the person who does the act. Acts may generally be contemplated in the abstract; hence from the Latin verb cupio, I desire, comes ciqrido, desire. Some acts give name to the instrument by which they are performed, the Latin tribulum, a thrashing machine (originally teribulum), from
tero, to
braise
whence comes,
in a figurative sense,
our word tribulation.
acts furnish derivant verbs to derivative substantives from the candela, a candle. effect produced ; as candeo, I shine, has the derivative Some from the substance required for doing the act, as the English
Some
substantive /odtfer
Some from
is a derivative from the verb to feed. the habitual occupation of an individual in doing the act,
as the Latin scriba, a scribe,
from scribo, I write. 388. Adjectives derived immediately from verbs
may
express their
ajec
qualities actively or passively.
If actively, the adjective
may
express
^^
the act of the verb, either simply or intensively, or as causing it, or as evincing a capacity for it, or as showing a disposition towards it, or as practising it in a remarkable degree, or as exercising it habitually. The simple act of living is expressed by the Latin adjective vivus,
from the verb vivo, I live. act of wandering is expressed intensively by the Latin adjective errabundus, much-wandering, from the verb erro, I wander. The quality of causing terror is shown by the Latin adjective terrificns, from the verb terreo, I affright.
alive,
The
Capacity for flying in the air is shown by the Latin adjective volucer, capable of flying, from the verb voh, I fly. Disposition towards butting is shown by the Latin adjective petulcus, inclined to butt (as Lucretius calls the lambs agni petuki ), from
1
peto, to strike at.
The displaying of boldness in a remarkable degree is shown by the Latin adjective audax, bold, from the verb audeo, I dare. The exercising acts of nurture habitually is shown by the Latin adjective almus, nourishing, from the verb alo, I nourish.
fitness to
it,
Adjectives derived from verbs may express passively the quality of become the object of the act, or that of a tendency to undergo or that of liability to it, or that of actually receiving it. Fitness to become the object of love is shown by the Latin adjective
amabilis,
from the verb amo,
I love.
is
Tendency to become the object of laughter

adjective ridicidus, from the verb rideo, I laugh.
1
shown by
the Latin
De
Rer. Nat.
1.
ii.
v. 368.

320
Liability to
rolled,
OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII.
be rolled
is
shown by the Latin

is
adjective volubilis, easily
from
volvo, I roll.
The
actual receipt of adoption
shown by
the Latin adjective adop-
from the verb adopto, I adopt. It is to be observed, however, that some derivatives, in certain languages, may be understood both in an active and passive sense, as the Latin immemorabilis is applied to a person who does not remember, or In the first sense, Plautus to a thing which cannot be remembered.
ticus (adopted),
says
Sibi moderatrix fuit, atque immemorabilis. 1
But Lucretius uses
it
in the second sense

posse.*
Immemorabile per spatium transcurrere

It is to
be observed, too, that though in derivatives from verbs, I have (for brevity) mentioned the derivant verbs, as they are most commonly recognised, namely, by the first person singular of the present
tense, or
is
by the
infinitive
mood
yet, strictly speaking, the derivation

its
often taken directly from other portious of a verb, or even from
particles, supines,
Thus, the proper derivant of esurio is not the &c. present tense edo, but the future participle esurus. The proper derivant of errabundusis is said by Vossius to be the 8 imperfect tense errabam ; but that may be doubted, for none of the
derivatives in bundles refer to a past time exclusively, and
SERVIUS by the present participle errantia* The effect of this particle, however, was disputed among the Roman grammarians; for C.i 58ELUUS (like Servius) considered it to have the fonv of a present participle; whilst Tebentius Scaurus thought it implied the simulation of the act in question; but Apollinaris (with whom Aulus ilius agrees) explained the participle bandies, more plausibly, as
explains errabunda
giving an extensive force, from the verb abnndare, to abound.* Mlier modifications of a single root, by means of derivation,
*
may
donbtleas be found in the idiomatic forms of different countries; but those above given suffice to show, tint this mode of combining panicles
frith
roots
is
capable of
alii
>rding to language an extraordinary
c^P*und
beauty* of richness, energy, 389. By the term i Oompomd Word, as here used, is meant I word, iii which two or more roots, or derivatives from different roots, It is true, unbilled as to niodifv each other in Signification.
thai
\;n
md
a different
combined with a particle, either for inflection orderi* a compound; but as it performs in lanj function from the combination of two or more mots, each
root,
ctiy speaking,
diii'
have though! it advisable modifying the Other, nt sorts of words by difftrent appellations.
I
i
to distinguish
those
po-
Where two
neiit parts
of a word si* eithtt both nouns, or both verbs, there can be

\,
ft.
II.
w.
ii.
rj
Del:... N.t. 1. It. v. 192. * Edog. ri. v. 58. Ad Y,,

i
Noct. Attic
I.
chap, nn.]
of words.
321
no doubt but that the word belongs to the class here called compounds. For instance, in the English word horseman, the portions horse and man are both roots, and both may be separately used as nouns substantive.
In the Latin word patefacio,
lay open, the portions pate
and facio, are derivatives from different roots, and may In the English word household, both be separately used as verbs. the portions house and hold are both roots, and the former may be In separately used as a noun substantive, and the latter as a verb. the Latin word respublica, a republic, the portion res is a root, and may be separately used as a noun substantive, and the portion publico is a derivative from a different root, and may be separately used as a noun
(for patere)
adjective.
In the Latin word suaviloquus, sweet-spoken, the ]>ortions suavi and loquus are derivatives from different roots ; the former may be separately used as a noun adjective, and the latter represents loquoj;
which
if
used separately
is
a verb.
Nor
can only nouns and verbs be
be compounded with a noun substantive, as in the Latin word plebiscitum, a plebeian law, where scitum is a participle of the verb scisco, to enact. numeral may be compounded with a noun substantive, as in the Latin triumvir, one of three magistrates or with a noun adjective, as An adverb may be compounded in the Latin sexangulus, hexangular. either with a verb, as satisfacio, or with a noun substantive, as satisfactio, or with a participle, as wellborn, or with another adverb, as henceforth, or with a phrase, as nevertheless. 390. Though a compound word must always be taken as an integer in the construction of a sentence, it may sometimes be doubtful whether a word should be deemed a compound, or should be divided into its constituent parts. In this respect, compound words are of different Those which afford room for such a doubt, are where the conkinds. stituent parts would stand in the same relation to each other, if used separately, as they do when compounded. Of this kind an example was shown above, in the case of the words " gallant-mast :" and such compounds I should call imperfect. On the other hand, I should call
used, in forming
compound words.
A participle may
Their
effect,
word a
perfect
compound, when
its
constituent portions
would bear
from that which they would bear if used separately. The compound a horseman, for instance, will not admit of being used separately, as signifying a man having the quality of a horse, or as signifying a horse partaking the nature of a man, or as signifying a being, partly horse and portly man, like the imaginary
to each other a different relation
centaurs of old. The fact is, that all perfect compounds stand in place of short phrases; as a " horseman," signifies "a man" (actually or usually) " riding on a horse," the verb " riding" being dropt bv
ellipsis. So, " a household," does not signify " a house which holds" anything, nor anything which " holds a house ;" but " the persons,
which are hold

in other
in a house." In similar cases, the corresponding terms languages are often derivatives, as a horseman answers to the
Latin eques, and the French chevalier.

[G.]
But
this
does not happen
in

322
those
OF WORDS.
[CHAP. XII
indirect relation to tl
compound
adjectives
which have only an

qualify.
substantives,
which they
Thus
in
Shakspeare's
'
Rape
Lucrece,' the situation of the chaste wife, in the grasp of the ravishe
is
elegantly described
Her pity-pleading
On
eyes are sadly fixt the remorseless wrinkles of his face.
Here the eyes do not plead pity as an attribute of the person pleading but they plead to obtain pity on the part of him to whom they a So in Cowper's exquisite poem on Alexander Selkirk directed. But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard.
Here the
bell
does not go to the church

thither;
it
only sounds to
call
tl
worshippers
who go
and the
allusion renders the
com pour
more
Simple or
multiple.
striking.
Where an inflected, derivative, or compound word is mere formed as above described, that is to say, an inflected or derivati word with a single particle, and a compound word with two POO alone, they may respectively be designated simple ; but where a furth element is added to their construction, as by combining one or mo particles with a simple inflected, or derivative word, or one or mo roots or particles with a simple compound word, the result may th be designated a multiple inflection, derivation, or compound, as t All such words are called by Priscian, decomposita, d case may be.
391.
compounded words.
He
adds, that of these decomposita " there
some, of which the simple composita are not in frequent use."* Th replro, 1) the Romans employed the term defensor, but not fensor not pleo, &c. These however were exceptional cases. According Tims general usage, the multiple is framed upon the simple. Greek, tvtttio is a simple inflection of the root tvtt, and from ruV In Latin, demensiaa sinq is formed the multiple inflection itvtttop. derivative from the root mens, and from demens is formed the mnlti] In English, horseman is a simple compound derivative dementia. roots horse and man, and from horseman is formed the multi)
compound horsemanship. 892. The term ayylu/iiuition has been

mil particles,
in
applied to the combinatl forming a word, either lor inflection, dern tioii, or composition, when lome portion of the root or particle dropped; mot* especially it. change also takes place in the articti of inn- or more of the component portions. We have instance!
i
in
tl
liinaiv expressions ct'nt, in'iit, sha'nt. lor cannot, will n
shall
nob
I,
In i(Cnt,
borl
,
we
and
after the
not only drop the ihstn, but substitute alo second n we drop theo. In vad
shorl
i
we drop
1
and
retain instead of the

ililmn i|inmiin nimplii:in
USD frtquentJ
sunt." Ibid.
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
wolde.
323
dropped, and the short a of
Anglo-Saxon
sJiall is
So
in
shant,
is
lengthened.
persons and places, as

cester.
Such agglutinations are frequent in nanus of Chumley for Cholmondeley, Ciceter for Cirencapsis for cape si vis, lapercalia from luere
So
;
in Latin,
per
caprum
and
1
solitaurilia,
from
sue, ove
and tauro.
Quintilian) " non tarn ex tribus (vocibus)
quam
eoeunt."
In the North American languages, as I

is
" Sed hiec" (says ex partialis trium have shown above,
agglutination
carried to
2
an extreme length, and forms to learners

is
their chief difficulty.
393. The distinction of origin
to
be found
in
most,
if
not
all
As
u> origin,
known
is
languages.
And what
Quintilian says of his time and country,
" Verba aut latina aut our own. Peregrina porr6 ex omnibus prope dixerim gentibus, " Our words are ut homines, ut instituta etiam multa venerunt." 3 either native or foreign. The foreign have come, I might almost say, from every country as men themselves, and even some institutions have done." may add, that the daily increasing intercourse of distant nations with each other, in the present age, enlarges in each language the intermixture. In this view, words may be classed as
applicable,
invito fortiori, to
peregrins sunt.
We
native, foreign,
and hybrid.
-
394. In most large countries, at least in those at all advanced in EUtta words civilization, the native language may be divided into its cultivated and
uncultivated portions.
By
cultivated, I
spoken by the best orators, and written

derstood by well-educated persons of
rally
mean that by the best
portion which
authors,
is
and unis
geneBy unregarded as the standard language, for the time being. cultivated, I mean those forms of any language, which are discussed in the above chapter on Dialects. The standard of a language varies considerably in the course of time. The authorised translation of the Holy Scriptures was perhaps, in the reign of King James I., regarded
all
ranks, and
which
specimen of the standard English language then existing demands careful study, from all who would attain a complete command of our tongue. The same may be said of Luther's translation, with reference to the German language. But at present neither the words, nor their arrangement, in either of these translations, can be implicitly adopted, without striking the hearers or readers, as a peculiar deviation from the standard language of the day. Take an example of a somewhat later date. Bishop Jeremy Taylor, one of the most exquisite prose writers of the reign of Charles II., uses the word considerable in a sense which, though accordant with the Latin verb considero from which it is taken, is at present antiquated. He says, " it is considerable, that God, and the Sinner, and the Devil all join in increasing the difficulty and trouble of Sin ;* meaning that this circumstance is worthy of consideration. Such was, no doubt, the first sense in which the word considerable was introduced into the English lanas the best
and
it still
Inst. Orat.
i.
5.
9 *
Sup.
s.
91.
3 Ibid.
Life of Christ, Disc. IS.
Y 2

324
guage from the French;
OF WORDS.
[chap. XI
for in Cotgrave's French Dictionary (E " considerable, to be considered, advised on, thought of." But at the present day we only use it in the subordina senses of " important, valuable, rather great than small." Dr. Johns. gives us all these last-mentioned senses but leaves us to our ov judgment, for the use of the word in any, or all of them.
1650)
its
explanation
is
Dialectic.
395. Dialectic words, that is, such as belong to the uncultivat may be distinguished into local and personal, Among the latter, are vulgarisms, and lc has been seen above. colloquial words, of which the ordinary dictionaries seldom deign
portion of a language,
1
take notice or if noticed, often explain them incorrectly. Thus I Johnson explains jorden, a pot, and derives it from the Anglo-Sax gor and den. Now, according to Bosworth, gor is gore, clotted bloc and den or denn, is a valley, a cave, a resting- plat dirt, mud, or dung and allowing it to mean (as Johnson says it does) a receptacle, compound word can never be applied to what all the authorities quot by him prove it to signify, viz., a urinal; but the word was probal
; ;
adopt-tl with a ludicrous allusion to the overflowing of the river .lord;

archaic
Mr. Hau.iwki.l, though devoting his valuable work especially and provincial words, sometimes misses their precise signific tion. Of the word palaver he only says it is "to flatter." JV
Brockett
fact, it is
says, it is " to use a great many unnecessary words." the Spanish palabra, " a word ;" and it is used by the Engli
lower classes, to signify any kind of talk, which they either do i comprehend, or think is meant to deceive them; but the motive,
necessity
is to be judged by the accompanying circumstances. In t popular song of 'Poor Jack,' the word palaver implies in t hearer neither disrespect, nor want of confidence, but merely want
comprehension
Why, Ix'Mi.l our good chaplain palaver, one About soul>, lna\.ii's mercy, and such. 8
1
day,
Again, Mr.
l.ir
Il.\i i.iwki.i, is
rather lax in his definition of ji>r<im,
'
8 disfa
!
Of jtJg Of any rn/ahles, or liquids."
He
should
at
least ha
that
1,
is more especially ( it' not exclusively) applied to a drix it which is circulated round a table, such as a punch-bowl,
the hk
';
as in the old far
('the
hot,
(i
olden
/'//'/(in
Wln'n blck'ringi
il
'moog goodwivM
got,
nut
:ii
thtlr gftXMjoram,
I'l'-n
rait, thtlr rage to cool,

l.\u>
In
*'
push about
joram!"
lost, If
cal
humour would be
which
,;
i
the joram did not meai
drinking vessel,
Or
di
in
all
might share.
The expressions of
ridio
a
t
in
the \ul;\ir laii";u:ige of distant tun.,;
An aw kward
fiddle
i
player on
called, In
1
vu
.
lsh,a toroptr
In
olgar
<
lerman, vcAng
>ii|n.i,
Dibdin'
CHAP.
is
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
;
025
and Verrius tolls us that a similar expression was used so to play by the old Romans. " Hasores fidicines antiqui appellaUmt, qui, ut
ait Verrius, ita appellari videntur,
1 quia radere ictu chordas videantur.
Aristophanes describes an
father,
ill-taught
young man
^8' '\aimbv
contradicting
his
and
calling
him Japhet.
t
ivaTpl
/^rjSej',
Mt;5' avTiiTtilv
KaKfcravra. Nubes, v. 994.
In the last century the term of contempt for a father was old Squaretoes. Drink it away and call for more,
Let old Squaretoes pay the score. Old Drinking Song.
In the present day, a vulgar young man shows the same disrespect to his father, by addressing him familiarly as Guv nor, a slang term ap1
plied
by thieves
to the jailer.
calls all
396. Quintilian
words barbarisms, which deviate from the How

no
:
far
standard or cultivated portion of a language and he directs them to " Prima barbarismi, ac solcecismi fueditas be avoided by an orator.
absit."
2
But
occasions often occur where an ignorance of their
mean-
ing leads to
have known counsel, in a collision case, greatly confused by not understanding the nautical term closehauled, which is applied to a sailing ship when her head is laid as close learned judge as possible to the point from which the wind blows. was much surprised by the assertion of a Newcastle witness, that he was " born in a chare." The word chare meaning, in the Newcastle And I remember seeing a judge on the westdialect, a narrow lane. ern circuit puzzled by a witness, who, in speaking of certain sheep, always called them hogs ; until his lordship was informed, that in that part of the country a sheep under a year old was called a hog-sheep, and for shortness, a hog. 397. In most civilized countries there is a greater or less distinction of words, according to the intimacy or difference of rank between the In Bengalese, in a reSpeaker or writer, and the person addressed.
much
inconvenience.
nisttactiooa of rank vc
' '
spectful address to superiors, the
third
it
instead of the second. 3
In English
is
person is generally applied only the greatest degree of
intimacy that excuses one person's addressing another in the second person singular of a verb. Our grammarians in general overlook this " It is to be observed circumstance; but Wallis long ago noticed it. too" (says he) " that the custom has obtained among us (as among the
French and others now-a-days), that when any one addresses another, though only a single person, yet he employs toward him the plural number. But we then say you, and not ye ; and if anv one addresses another in the singular number, it is commonly either from disdain or from familiar affection." 4 To certain persons of rank or official station the possessive of the second plural is used with an addition of title, and then the verb agreeing with it is in the third person, as to the
1
Festus, voe. Rasores.
2 4
Instit. Orat. lib.
i.
5.
Halhed, B. G. p. 184.
Gram. Ling. Anglic,
ed.
1765,
p. 98.
326
of words.
[chap,
xi:
Queen, " your majesty commands ;" to a magistrate, " your worsh decides," &c. Our Quakers, wishing to avoid this ceremonial, oft( fall into the error of using the accusative of the pronoun instead of tl nominative, as " Friend, dost tliee know?" &c. On the other ham
in Italy the
obsequiousness
is
carried so far, as not only to address
and several indi vidua but the titles vossignoria, yoi lordship, and even excellenza, excellency, are addressed to persons in very ordinary rank of life. In several barbarous languages dirlerei words are used by the different sexes. In the Quicha tongue a son called by the father churi, by the mother huahua ; a daughter is callc
single individual with the third person singular,
;
together, with the third person plural
by the mother huahua; a brother is called by a woman huaoque ; a sister is called by a brother tun by her sister nana. In England children of the middle and upp< ranks call their mother mamma, in France matnan. In England sue children call their father papa, whilst children of the peasantry ca
father ussusi,
by the
man pana, by
him daddy. In Friezland heit and mem are used for father and mothe though the proper Dutch names are voder and moeder. A very n markable instance of the coexistence of different languages or dialed It was first particularly noticed by the Swedis occurs in Java. traveller Thunberg, who visited that island in 1775, and who grw copies of a letter from a native prince to the Dutch governor-; in three dialects, which he calls the language of the mountaineers, tl: But Thunlxr Vulgar Javan or Malay, and the language of the court. knew so little of the Malay, that he said it appeared to him to be a Aral iic dialect.* W. Humboldt's able Dissertation on the h'ari, or of the Javan dialects, is well known and the recent dissertation Mr. CftAWFUfiD, prefixed to his Malay Grammar, places the whole These, according to hin the languages used at Java in a clear light. are four: first, the Malay, which differs from the Javanese proper, an
1 ;
<
of commercial intercourse throughout th Archipelago; secondly, the vulgar Javanese; thirdly, th ceremonial or court-language j and fourthly, the Kavi, which is at entirely confined to certain compositions, chiefly dramatic r.t' a mythological Character, and is supposed by Mr. Craw fur
is
the
common medium
Eastern
to
l>c
!
The ceremonial language is (he on! an antiquated it | kind amOUg the languages of the East. It is called l>\ tli riima, " the polite," in contradistinction to ngoho, " th
.1
or vernacular."
Mil'.ir
.Mr.
it.
in
KM
The sovereign and his family address other tongue, while thev themselves are addressed m the 06n
Crawford
inalyeei the
latter,
ii.
and gives specimens
<
words
is
differing sltogether from the vulgar, but taken
sense.
In .shoii
1
from the San ikrit, though bj far the common Javanese, a little altered In sound mODJal language of Java seems analogous
.,
some fra greater pa

<
v..\
,.;.
v-.i.
i.
p.
:iuh.
* n,i,i.
]..
958,
DisMTtiition, p. \\\\ ni.
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
327
what the court language of England might have become, had the euphuisms of John Lilie taken root there in the time of Elizabeth, and been in part Latinized by the pedantry of the first James, and in part A Frenchified by the dissolute followers of the second Charles. custom prevails in Thibet and Middle Asia, and also in Polynesia (says Mr. Logan), of temporarily disusing words, which enter into the sovereign's name. In China a similar practice was introduced, B.C. 249 ; and on the accession of the present emperor the character chu, which forms part of his name, was ordered to be written in a mutilated form whenever it is used for common purposes. 398. There is no community which can subsist for any great length of time, without the introduction of foreign words into its language. The causes for this are various; among the chief is religion. By this were the Greek and Latin words connected with the Christian faith
1
Foreigu
wordb -
By this were the Arabic spread over a large portion of the globe. terms of the Koran first heard in the interior of Africa, and in the " Mussulmanism, established for a long time steppes of Tartary. among must of the Turkish nations, may be reckoned " (says M. Abel
Remusat) " among the causes which have most powerfully contributed to the alteration of their idioms, by introducing into them a great number of Arabic and Persian words, destined to fill the voids of a language not over abundant to express religious ideas and to designate objects peculiar to the countries whence the Turks drew their Similar remarks apply to the sacred knowledge of Islamism." * language of Brahminism, many words of which are spread through " Sanskrit " (says Mr. great part of the continent and isles of Asia.
;
;
Crawi'urd) "
is
found
in
Javanese, in a
much
;
larger proportion than in to
any other language of the Archipelago and the numerous relics of Hinduism still found
judge by this
fact,
and
in Java, this island
have been the chief seat of the Hindu religion in probably the chief point from which it was disseminated over the rest of the islands." 3 In the present Javanese the proportion of Sanskrit words is about 110 in 1000. Words thus introduced often remain for many centuries after the religion has been eradicated, and perhaps forgotten by the great mass of the people. Who, but comparatively few scholars among the many millions that speak English, is aware that Wednesday implies the worship of Odin ? So, the practice of augury among the Romans was derived from avigerium, and that from avis and gero, meaning to predict future events by observing the motions of certain birds. Hence the Augurs were those who professed that art of prediction, and augurare was to predict by those means. Now the practice has for many centuries ceased, and is quite
forgotten in Europe yet we retain, in the general sense of predicting from appearances, the English to augur, the German augurire, the
; 1
must the Archipelago, and
2 3
Journal of the Indian Archipelago, v. 231. Recherch. Lang. Tart. p. 249.

Dissert, p.
.x.\six.
'
328
OF WORDS.
[chap. XI
!
French augurer, the Italian augurare, and the Spanish agorar. Shakspeare makes Proteus say
Which,
if
my
thy face, and thy behaviour, augury deceive me not,
Witness good bringing up.
Next
to
religion,
as a cause of introducing foreign words
ai
phrases, conies commerce.
Hence we have borrowed from our tradh
customers such words as percentage, average, bankrupt, &c. In o military affairs, we have colonel, bayonet, bivouac, and many oth foreign words, adopted at different times. In maritime matters mo of our terms are French or Dutch, as an admiral, a frigate, to luff, veer, &c. The administration of the English law furnishes whole di tionaries of words mostly either Latin or Norman-French, from tl ancient " Termes de la Ley," to the " Law Dictionary " of Tomlin Our civil government has naturalised the word monarchy from a Greel and legislation from a Latin source. For scientific purposes, we dai] form derivatives from Greek roots, as homoeopathy and palaeontology In the common affairs of life, we take from the French such words a depot, a bon mot, and a soiree ; and in the poetical style, from tl Latin, consummate is employed with great beauty by Milton in a passac elsewhere quoted for another purpose
;
So from the root Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves
More
aorie, last the bright,
consummate
flow'r.
Par. Lost,
v. 47!>.
Where
a derivative
word
is
from a foreign source, a teacher should
particularly careful to explain to the learner its origin.
How man
schoolboys are there, who have been long repeating the G reek Aorii tenses, without knowing that they signify an indefinite time, from
.ides.
and opoc a boundary 399. The transferring of wlvole words from one language to anothei Whether it be done by means of speech or writing, must frequently li It' the transfer he mad Imperfect, either in sound or sense, or both. in writing, the word is often so changed in pronunciation as to b This is particularly the case in proper names scarcely recognized. write l'dris as the French do; bul we do ni Deo or places. pronounce it like them. A Dutchman writes the English name Data
privative,
<
We
The bit do, bul be pronounce! It as we pronounce Davis. Bishop Borgess, when a young man, edited Dawes's Mis'vllaiie Some time afterwards, travelling in Holland, he met wit gome le.uihd men, who uked him many questions alioiit a Mr. I>avi id them), and they were much surprised at his savin he knew no such person. >n the other hand, if the word be unite
(
differ ntly
from
tl
igirml,
it
leads, as VV. v.
Humboldt
oi.sei \,-s,
a dilleivnce in die
'
pcedi.*
I
When we
ftthren
write Coptmhagni,
wc make
Tw
<iintl.iii.ii
of V. -11.11:1,
In din
* Vi
Schrifl
xu Verandrung*n
In
der Sprnche,
\\
iboldt, Zai

CHAP.
in
XIII.]
OF WOIUS.
a
329
the Danish original
pronunciation
very different
word from
The chances of error are much increased when the words Kibbenhavn. are merely caught by ear, for then both the speaker and hearer may Hence we cannot rely with much contribute to misapprehension. confidence on the vocabularies of savage tribes collected by ordinary travellers and hence too the extraordinary corruptions of English and
;
French words by the barbarous natives. Dr. Latham has given some specimens of the curious changes which European words undergo among the Chinuks of North America such as hakatshum for handkerchief, paia for fire, tumola for to-morrow, siapul for the French chapeau, and some equally curious changes of sense, as tola for silver,
;
because silver was only
known
to
them
as the substance of a dollar,
Kintshosh (King George) for an Englishpronounced by them tala. man, olutnan (old man) for a father. To the French words they
generally prefixed the article as a part of the noun.
Thus they
called
a mouth luhush (la bouche) a table, latapl (la table), the teeth letan These last words are analogous to the expressions of (lea dents). our ignorant persons, who call an umbrella a numberella ; or to that of Captain Cook, who called the island of Taiti, Otaheite, the o in the So when an Taitan language standing in the place of an article.
him to a egg, and she told him he should say an egg, he replied, " Well, then, give me two neggs." Tynvhitt thus explains nale, in the Friar's tale, by Chaucer
old farmer asked his daughter to help
They were
inly glad to
fill
his purse,
And maken him
gret testes at the nale.
This Tynvhitt considers to be merely a corruption, which has arisen from the mispronunciation and consequent miswriting, atte nale for at an ale, the word ale being used for an alehouse ; or rather (as I suppose) for a meeting to drink ale, as Whitsun-ale, which Halliwell explains " a festival held at Whitsuntide, still kept up in some parts of the country." On the other hand, Tynvhitt supposes ouches to be used fur nouclies in the Clerke's tale of Grisilde
And
coroune on hire had they han ydiessed, set it full of ouches gret and smal.
Nouclies being perhaps the
same
i.
as nuscas, in the laws of the Angli
and Werini, that

dimittat
filiae
is
Tliuringians.
e.,
spolia colli,
different but
common
error, in
" Mater moriens Tit. 6, s. 6. murenas, miscas, monilia," &c. the sense of words caught by ear, is
the giving a general sense to some particular expression. The common Maltese use the English expression " shove off" for ordering a dish to
a garment to be taken off the person that when the Maltese boats crowded inconveniently round a man of war, the sentry ordered the boatmen So the Chinuks adopted from the English the word to shove off. pilton for a madman, because an English sailor named Pilton became insane. So also the natives of New Ireland call a rope pilpili, because
table, or
be removed from the
the origin of this expression
is,
Dr. Latham.
330
OF WORDS.
[CHAP.
XIII.
they heard the sailors often call to each other to pull the rope. Nor do errors of this kind occur only to uncivilised people. M. Dupin supposes that we use the French word promenade to signify a gravel walk in a pleasure ground, because he had probably seen some persons taking a promenade (that is walking for amusement with some degree foreign word is often reof regularity) on such a gravel walk. ceived in one language or dialect from another in a secondary sense, whilst the primary sense is unknown or forgotten. Dr. Krapf gives an instance of this in the word wasimu, which, in the Suaheli dialect, 8 signifies mad, but in the Sambara the same word signifies evil spirits. Thus in English many persons who use the word lunatic for mad, are wholly unaware that it relates to the Latin word Luna, the moon, to
1
whose
Transition.
influence
madness was anciently
ascribed.
400. In the transition of foreign words to different countries, it does not always happen that those countries which are nearest to the local source of the word retain it most accurately. Italy, France, and Spain, though much nearer than Wallachia to the source of the Latin language, deviate more than the latter does from the original Latin of certain words, ex. gr.
Latin.

CHAP. XIII.]
OF WORDS.
331
In German, Wachter explains fell, " tegumentum animalis naturale," " the natural covering of an animal." It is allied to the Greek (peWoe, In Welsh pil is our word peel, the cork, the covering of a cork tree. In English we have fellmonger, a dealer in hides rind of a vegetable. and peltry from the French pelleteria, the dealing in such or skins The Latin has both pellis, the skin, and pilus, a hair. From wares. pi his comes the Spanish pelo, a hair, with many derivatives, among wT hich is peluca, a wig. From peluca is token the Italian perruca; from that the French perruque ; and from that the Dutch parruik. It seems that from the Dutch (pronounced par-wick) the English first took periwig (for Shakspeare speaks of a " periwig-pated fellow"); but the fashionable people, at a somewhat later period, adopted peruke, from the French. This also has now become obsolete, and of periwig
;
we have dropped
the
two
first syllables,
retaining only wig.
Abbreafter the
viations of this kind are frequent
Within a very few years
it became in common speech a bus, and in was shortened to a cab. Nor is this at all In Malay we have for ampadal, the gizzard, peculiar to Englishmen. The padal ; for nwang, money, wang ; for tiyada, no, tada and ta. Sanskrit name of the nutmeg is jatiphala ; in Malay and Javanese it
invention of an omnibus
like
manner a
cabriolet
is
shortened to pala*
idea,
401. The first requisite, towards the useful adoption of a foreign failure in this word, is to understand it perfectly in the original. respect may entail great confusion and obscurity in the language into which it is introduced. I will exemplify this in two very important There are few foreign words more frequently words, Idea and Law. occurring in English discourse than idea; and still fewer of which It the original and proper signification is so generally misunderstood. is a common error, that Plato invented both the term idea, and the But the term was certainly philosophical system founded on it. used long before his time by several Pythagorean philosophers, particularly Epicharmus, Archytas, and Aristaus ; and Plato himself ascribes to another Pythagorean, Timceus the Locrian, the following explanation of it: to psv elptv ayivarov re, (cat aKtvarov, koX pivov re, koli ra.Q ravrui (pvaiog, vourov re, (cat irapaCetypa tuv yecwaeVwv, OKotra iv pera/SoXy. kvr\, roiovrov yap re rav 'l(?cav Xiyeadai re, (cat " The being ungenerated, and unchangeable, and permaPociordai.* nent, and the like, and a model of generated things which exist in change such is that which we call, and understand to be an idea." It is clear then, that Plato, and his predecessors the Pythagoreans, regarded ideas as certain necessary laws or forms of the mind as, lor instance, the idea of a circle, which, to use the words of Timaeus, is ayivarov, not generated by experiment or observation, in comparing the sun, a chariot wheel, a round table, and other circular objects but on the contrary, it is the irapalEiypa, or model, to which we
Crawf. Gram. 65. Plato, Opera, p. 1089,
Crawf. Diss. cxc.
ed. Ficin.
332
of words.
[chap, xnr
mentally refer them all as the test of their circularity. This form oi law of circle in the mind is adinrov, not moved or affected by anj change from causes external or internal ; and it is pivov, permanent the same now that it was thousands of years ago, and as it will b< thousands of years hence. I cite this explanation of the Platonic
or Pythagorean doctrine with no reference to its philosophical meri: or demerit ; but simply to show the original meaning of the Greel word idea. Now let us see how this unfortunate word has beer
treated
by those who have introduced
it
into the English language
Mr. Locke says, " Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or is th< immediate object of perception, thought, or understanding, that I cal an Idea." If therefore the mind perceive in itself & desire to drink, oi to game, or to rob, or murder any one, this is an idea if a glass oi beer, or a dice-box, or my neighbour's purse, becomes to me an immediate object of perception, this likewise is an idea if I think of taking a ride, or of building a house, or of feasting on turtle or venison, this is an idea; if I understand Mr. Locke's book on the understanding, the book itself, being the immediate object of my understanding, becomes an idea. Now the comprehending under one common head all these mental acts, and external objects, may or may not be ingenious but why call that head by a Greek term, with which it has no more to do than with any other word in that or any other language? The consequence is seen in the utter confusion that hsf appeared in all the psychological speculations formed on Mr. Locke's Mr. Humk, for instance, considers an idea to be doctrine of ideas. nothing more than & fainter kind of impression. Dr. Watts says it is " a representation in the mind of something that we have seen, felt, heard, &c, or been conscious of.'" Idea then, according to this author, is only another word for Memory. Be develops his notion at souk; length and among other tilings, he tells us that " those idtSS which represent bodirs are generally called images" a notion which the Abbe CONWLLAiG readily embraces, and improves upon, in M Lcs sensations" (says he), " considerees comma his usual manner.
; ; ; ;
rapresentant Iss objets sensibles, se nonuneiit idres, expression ligurde, " Sensations, conqui att propre signilic la mome chose t|u' images."
sidered as ronrosonting leosible objects, are called ideas, a figurative Dr. expression which properly signifies the same thine- as images."*
II, was particularly indignant against llmotl iiiiivei-.il DM of the word idea, in the sense of notion or opinion thinking it clear that idea can only mean something of which Now the conception of SO an nmigr can In- formed in the mind.
1
thi'
imago of a
an
idea, in
s.
ii
ill.
1'lato's
sen..-,
object not only does nut correspond witli that of pond with what he calls a ml d
I ;
"Tfiu, or appearance
0cWa*7M
i,
1
in
and though an idea is necessarily true, I "iav bs either true or false. For thus speaks the Eleatic the Sophintaj ri 2 ($), iiuvoia re, Kal ci><<, i.m vimtiiitiii,
, i
La
ii'
i.
i.
Li
8.
;;
CHAT.
fizv
;
XIII. ]
OF WORDS.
a{kov,
333
tei aXrjdij tzuv&
>//i(Jv
ovk
jJcj/
on
raiira yivr)
xj/tvci} re
tv rale ibvyaiQ iyrlyvtrax ;' " What shall we My of cogitation, and Is it not plain, that all such things may be opinion, and phantasy?
either true or false, as they arise in our
;
minds?"
Instances of this
but the above are sufficient confusion might be carried much further to show that, until very recently, the authors who have succeeded Mr.
Locke have wandered, in various directions, far away from the meaning of the foreign word, Idea. In common discourse, the
taken
in the
original
latitude
use of this word

real
is
402. hended.
The
It
almost unlimited. origin of our word Law is frequently misappre- Law.

is
said to be from the Anglo-Saxon laga, but laga was not a word of native origin, and was in fact unknown to the Saxons in England till the time of Canute prior to which epoch the Anglo-Saxon laws were variously termed sometimes find rihte mence, asetnysse, domas, or geradnysse. In Canute's but that was evidently from the Latin rectum. tioned laws laga first occurs, introduced, no doubt, by the monks from the Latin lex, which word had previously undergone various changes of So far as we can discover anything approaching to signification. certainty in the ante-consular history of Rome, it seems that the first notion that the Romans had of laws was that of a command, expressed by jus, from the verb jubeojussi, and that ancient word remained in The accounts which we have of Leges Regice, use to the latest times. royal laws, at that period, may be set down as fabulous ; and the first written laws, of which we know anything certain, were made after the expulsion of the kings, when the people, or at least that class which was called on to give sanction to legislative acts, heard them This reading was called a lex from lego, read at a public meeting. I read. And for many centuries afterwards, the term lex was confined to laws so enacted, whilst senatus consulta, edicta, &c. had also a binding force. When the emperors did away with popular legislation, it was declared that their ordinances should have the force of leges, that is, should have the same binding authority, which the written laws read to, and sanctioned by the people, anciently possessed. These imperial laws, under the name of Constitutioms, were collected, by order of Justinian, in his Code; and to these he caused to be added, in the Digest, extracts from the works of eminent lawyers, to which also he gave the force of law. Meanwhile the original term jus had obtained a more extensive scope, signifying what we call law in general, and being thus contradistinguished to the Leges, which were specific acts of legislation. This distinction is preserved to the present day in most continental countries as between droit and loi in France, dritto and legge in Italy, recht and gesetz in Germany but in England we unfortunately confound jus and lex under the common term, law; a circumstance which causes much confusion in the administration of justice, in those dependencies of the
commonly
;
which
is
so far true
We
Plato, Opera, p. 184, ed. Ficin.
334
British
OF WORDS.
[chat.
is
XIII.
Crown, where the
judicial
system
founded on the
Roman
law.
The same circumstance
renders
it difficult
correctly to translate
on English law into any of the continental tongues, or to law-books into English. The practice which has lately prevailed of using the letters D. C. L. to signify " Doctor ol Civil Law," may be tolerated, if confined to the English language; but if taken for Doctor Chilis Legis, it involves the solecism of using Lex tivilis for Jus civile, a fault in Latin phraseology only paralleled by the terms Lex Salica, for Jus Salicum, Lex Burgundionum for Jut
treatises
translate continental
Burgundionum, and the

ran the
Deeand
like,
employed by the barbarians, who

i
over-
Roman
empire.
403. The use and abuse of foreign words in any language on their superior fitness, or the contrary; and that fitness is to be determined on the ground either of signification, or of euphony. "With respect to signification, Ducange observes that there is no language so prolific, and so fortunate as not sometimes to want words of its And my learned own, wherewith to express things strange to itself, friend, Mr. Bo yes, has suggested a rule, that if by the introduction ol a foreign word we can set forth the conception, which we wish fed
1
express,
more accurately by a
It
single shade,
we
are
justified
in
sc
was, perhaps, for this reason, that the English translators of the Bible introduced into the first verse of Genesis the word create^ from the Latin creavit, rather than shaped from the Anglo Saxon sceop ; because the latter might seem to imply that God only gave shape or form to pre-existing matter; whereas to create conveyed the true idea, that both matter and form owed their existence to the Almighty will. So long as we have a native word sufficiently expressive of any intended conception, it is mere affectation to use a Quint ilian n word, unless it be manifestly more euphonious.
doing.
be a barbarism.
in
considers the introduction of a foreign word into a Latin discourse to " l'arbarismum pluribus modifl accipimus. I'nuin
gente,
at."*
tlic
vel Hispanum Latins oration! sit, si quia Afrum Yet Cicero, the most eloquent, and most philosophical ol Roman*, had 1n- weakness, at least in his Epistles, to introdnre
quale
words, without the slightest necessity, either on the ground ot For instance, " Ubi inirtvyfut magnum euphony, or of signification.
'.
hwdnvyfia, vel non magnum, molestum futurum " For when no great it<h<in/<i</i' ufHtKivlvvivttv'^ can be gamed, and even a slight nror may lie injurious, what need is In this passage all the Greek words might there to f101 th' risk?"*
milium
fieri
posset,
have been ftrpplied

>
I
l>)
Latin
rquall)
forcible, equal I)
well-sounding,
quibug
tUB (botmdafl Uxqiui
linîm, 'i"
'
''
nun
is
cat-cat nliquiuulo,
ret hntnl aibi rolgmt * " mi. I.- uiiil
Qlo
in
!.l
piw.
i
p.
ii
We
liiiilniri
in reference to the nation
..r in
.t
.in.
iiiinnliuv
.in
African
wonl,
in
1
'
I
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
335
and more generally intelligible. I admit that where a foreign word is more euphonious than a native word of tlte very same signification, its adoption may add to the pleasure of sound, which is by no means to be disregarded in language. At all events, where such a word has been long used, and has become perfectly intelligible, it would be pedantic to reject it, for a harsher one of native origin, either new,
or obsolete. On this ground, I am disposed to prefer the substantive a manual, which has been above two centuries in use, to a handbook, which, though of Saxon origin, had become obsolete. Foreign words, whether well or ill introduced at first, may become in course of time
useful adjuncts to history.
The names
Greeks
to their letters, being
alpha, beta, &c. given by the without signification in Greek, but all of
them
significant in Hebrew, and other Phoenician languages, indisputably prove, that the Greek alphabet, and consequently all others in Europe, were of Phoenician origin. Mr. Crawfurd has argued very ingeniously on the greater or less intercourse of the Malays with several other nations, from the various words in their language derived from foreign sources, and from their own words spread, or not spread, to neighbouring lands. Thus he shows that the domestication of wild animals must have taken place very early among the Malays and Javanese, only one (the goose) having a foreign name. On the other hand, tobacco, which appears from records to have been introduced
1
into
Java
Most of
religion
by the name Tambahu* showing that the Hindoo prevailed very early among the Malays and Javanese but
in
1G10, shows
its
American
origin
the theological words are Sanskrit,
the tribes converted to
Mahomedanism make
large use of the Arabic
words relating to that faith. 3 It may be observed that not only foreign words but foreign phrases are sometimes adopted in our language as
words, ex. gr. nonplus, nonpareil, videlicet, facsimile, &c. The lastmentioned word, however, is not in Johnson though he has the uncouth word facinorousness, apparently coined by himself from the
Ciceronian facinorosus*
404. Besides words wholly native or wholly foreign, there is in languages a class in which one part of a word is native and another part foreign. These have been called hybrids. "Hybrida" (gays K. Stephanus) " vox est ex diversis linguis conglutinata :" 5 hybrid word is one conglutinated from different languages." The term hybrid originally implied contempt, being derived from vfipig, insolence, and that from irrcep, above. Hence, probably, it was used by persons of a dominant race, to characterise the issue of a connection with one of baser origin; and thence it was applied to brute animals and plants, and subsequently to a mixed language. But I mean it here to be solely understood of single words, in which one part belongs to one language, and another to another. This may be in different forms. noun may be modified by a particle either preceding or
many
Hybrid wurds
'
"A
Dissertation, p. clxxxiii. 4 Orat. Catil. 2, 10.

1
Ibid. p. cxci.
Ibid. p. cxcvii.
Thes. Lat. ad roc.
336
following.
of words.
[chap.
xiii.
Quintilian gives the instance, first, of lidinium, where the Latin particle hi precedes and modifies a noun, from the Greek verb kXli'W, and, secondly, of epitogium, where the Greek particle tt pre-
In other cases cedes and modifies a noun from the Latin noun toga. different parts of speech may be combined, in various ways and not onlv two, but more parts of speech may unite to form a hybrid word. Nor is this peculiar to what are called the learned languages. I shall presently show combinations, not only of Latin with Greek, but of Latin with Teutonic, Italian with Latin, Italian with Arabic, Arabic with Malay, Sanskrit with Arabic, Sanskrit with Malav, American with
1 ;
English, and what may, perhaps, be less expected,
American with Greek. 405. The causes which produce such words are various political changes, religious or commercial intercourse, custom, a supposed ana-
and various other circumstances. Lombards invaded Italy, they heard the Latin word don um, a gift, and they combined with it their preposition tcieder, against, whence came the Italian guiderdonare, and our guerdon, as I have elsewhere shown, through all their transitions. 2 When the monks drew Op
logy, jesting, affectation of learning,
When
the
laws
for the northern barbarians, they often
jumbled Latin and Teutonic

" a bull belonging to tres, three, and
the Arabs held
in the formation of a
word, as taurus
trespellinus
trespellinus,
three villages;"
Sicily,
where
is
from the Latin
8 the Teutonic pell-hus, or bell-hus, a belfry.
When
they called Etna, Gibl, " the mountain." On their expulsion, the rustics of the country added to this Arabic word the Italian montr. and formed Mongibello, the present local appellation. Names of places are
peculiarly liable to such combinations of different tongues,
by
the suc-
occapiers of the country.
The town of
Cfiesterfield is the site
of a
is
castrum, afterwards called by the Saxons ceaster, to which learned critic has pointed out a mixture of different languages in the name of Longstroth-dale (a district in the north-west part of the deanery of Craven, in Yorkshire), which conHe tains tlie Celtic strath, a valley, and the English long, and dale.
Roman
added the English field.
adds, as a
still more remarkable o an bi nation, Mountbenjn-ldir, the aunt Here we have the Engof the mountain at the head of the Yarrow. lish mmiitt, the Gallic /''" firif (Mountain of the Yarrow), and the
Lowland Scotch
law,
a mountain.
The
religious
and commercial
the
intercom e of the Javanese with the Hindoos ami
Mahomedons
has prodnced such hybrids IS buvibuhana, composed of a Malay ami a i:i word, each signifying sound or noise;' triujung, a trident, 8 So from tii'' Sanskrit numeral three, ami the Malay ujnng, a point. jin/, ill in from pri, the Malay word for slate or condition, and lial, the bso, with the sains meaning/
406. Custom has much to do

'
in
giving or refusing authority

limv.
lb.
7.
p.
888. rtarh Rtrfow, No. CX.

i.
|
Qmnmftr,
mtoti, Malay Oram.

i
li..
81.
'
p.
84
p,
81.
CHAP.
XIII.]
0F W0EDS
In certain cases
33?
-
the we refuse, and in others permit, 1 hus kin native nouns, or vice versa. with .union of foreign particles and we say to imply diminution ; re mrticles used in English instm.Jlancet, for a small lance- shaped
hybrid words.
ZZ
I n
ta^fforaS
lamb,
lancekin, But we cannot say tembet or m a particle a Teutonic word, and rf is easily combined with lamb, Sole with lance, from tocw, an
because
fall is
a1
eutowc
L worT Onle
SiL
isn
thP.Italian etta
easily
combined
othe/hand, there are in English Teutonic nouns and vrce ve or Latin origin mixed with of Greek which we therefore rendered familiar to us, and which custom has The Greek preposition am, an Iv to other hybrids by analogy. such words as antidote, a,Uipodes, ha^ been so long known in
many
particles
:gSjr
/ocoWfl
iciE,
th
t
and the like. The Latin as nonjuror, nonplus nearest prefixed to words of Latin origin lone the hytads understood without difficulty in and s therefore
bo the Greek anti-GaUkan, and anti-Machiavel witticism, attnm, fca, been so long used in baptism, words present day to the new hybrid ve easily apply it in the
that itsforce
is
easily
felt
*****-+
particle
**
^
.
*S
parliament, Kle3um,fo ms port of the hybrid wordsantechamber, settlement. from the before, in
t^r^J-a,
The Latin ante, the intelligible in anteroom from a chamber, is equally still even carry the principle of analogy rum, room. Anglo-Saxon an to Latm word, ternot only apply our termination further but by analogy to so well KomJnus, Roman; in anus, Sicilian, Arabs, an Arabian; Siculus a n a word, we translate k apply the termination enânmanner.
in daily
use
We
5SL
rin,-
We
^many others in like
We
, and " from MhSk war.

long custom,
eed, thev
gracious to the Latin gratia, as to the Latin osus, not only there ,s no pukhron but also to beauteous, though ; olatiosus bu beautiful, from though bettor does not signify
fc,
become
as
it
established All these hybrid words when of which, were naturalised to our language,
form no inconsiderable part. It: J-tu* cause of hybrid words 107 I have spoken of jesting as a stock of a language, permanent lent that this can neither add to the notrant Nevertheless, we cannot omit to
as Cicero occasionally even so great a master of language Atticus, on certain pecuniary in sport. Thus, bantering vbnd word! Neque enim latter had engaged, he says: Actions in which the neque to in tocullionibus rûa negotia provincialia esse putabam, of yours were of Lbam "-" For I neither thought that those affairsrank you among I, on the other hand vincial magnitude, nor did from " tocuUionibus is a hybrid, formed
ce
tty usurers
'
is it
intended so to do.
coined
,XXW,
;Lh
Here the word Greek wrurrfc, a usurer, to a supposed diminutive of the The jestmg mutations termination 8m. Qcero adds the Latin
1
Epist. ad Att. lib.
ii.
ep. 1.

338
of words.
[chap,
xii:
of Latin verse, called Macaronic, by their original author Folegno, \vh wrote early in the sixteenth century, under the name of Merlinus caius, abound throughout with hybrid words, e. g.
&
Desdegnatus equi pungit sperone fiancos. 1

Disdainful, he pricks with his spur the horse's flanks.
Affectation learning.
Here the Italian words disdegno andjianco are mixed with Latin particle; 408. The case is different, when, with an affectation of learning, th
nornenc i a tUre of a science, or the name given to a scientific inventio is made up of a confused mixture of foreign words, Greek, Latin, Noi man-French, &c., as the case may be; for this is a mere jargon, whic word Menage derives from the Spanish gerigonza, a corruption (s Covarruvias thought) of Grecigonza, meaning that persons talking language not understood were supposed to be speaking Greek, .largo does not appear as an English word in Cotgrave's Dictionary, publishes by Howell, in 1650; but as a French word he explains it by M (iil Swift attributes to th ridge, Pedler's French, a barbarous jangling." puritanical preachers " an enthusiastic jargon ;" and of what kind tin was we learn from Butler It was a party-colour'd dress
Of patch 'd and

So, the law Latin of our
particles to
piebald languages. 2
Norman
as "
courts
I.
8
was made up by tacking
Lati
Norman words,
C. Ballivus hundredi de Chillesfor
attachiatus fuit ad
respondendum."
So, in anatomy,
in
my learned
frien
Dr. S. B.
that
science.
Watson complains of the wanton way
Shakspeare spoke " is They tell us of apteryo-maxillary bone, a pteryo-puhi' and a gastro-duodenalis muscle; pteryo being from the Greek irripvl "a wing;" maxillary, from the Latin maxilla, "a jaw;" and palatini from the Latin palatum, " the palate ;" gastro, from the Greek y<m)/L " the belly;" and duodenalis, from the Latin duodenus, *' the twelfth*] Numberless other fabrications of the like kind occur in scientific work dt' this class, which are not only offensive to a correct taste, hut mtl bend to disgust the student, and even to entangle and pervert th
which " the tongu dealt with, by certain writers on ths
judgment of
Exhibition of
t.v
the teacher.
In
the
official
Catalogue
ol
the
(ire:;
1851, an
ingenious
di'n ihrp at
mmm
is
Instrument, for determining th described by the hybrid term, a velocmtm
lioiii
the
Lai in velox, swift,
and the Check

a
nasal
fxirpov,
measure.
perhaps,
Th
hav
inventor
1
(who was probaUv

the latter
officer)
inav,
n misled by a sup]
that
t> the word chronometer, not bein compounded from two (deck word.* me, and fUrpOVt measure. Such an error is excusable in
d analogy
regularly
I.
in. in
wild
hall \\>-
ma\ have
a\
l.nt
i
what
109.
SO
,-.t
lain but little in la :ical range a Inlaid as linguistic ?

.
.
learninjj
The French
lir.
I 1
wad
liiiguistit/Hf.
I
pur|x>rt,s
to signify, as
in
we
ar
|(ir
the
time told by the

li
i.
>ict
iaiic
de I'Academie,
m
i:.
the editio
M Co
c. I.
Maoaronlca, p. 7H.
"
lluilii.i.i-,
pari
v. 95.
Muildx,
lo ma Bargij
p,
59<
:iiai\ xiii.]
)f
of words.
339
1835, "the science of general grammar applied to different lanHere we see a hybrid word, of more than ordinary barbanages." ism, employed to designate the very science, which the word itself openly violates. I say, of more than ordinary barbarism, for the Latin
ubstantive lingua
is
;wo Greek
particles, tor?je
here combined, not merely with one, but with and ikoq. In the Latin language lingua,
;he tongue, has several derivatives,
but
all
formed with Latin
particles.
The Greek
is
a particle forming derivatives from verbs in iw, ind signifying a person who habitually performs the act of the verb,
tarrjc is
uttikLu>,
speak or act
like
an Athenian
;
itrruuorijc,
I carrv
who speaks
rro\/xi(T7)c,
is
or acts like an Athenian a warrior, one
noXe/jiiû),
one on war
who
carries
on war.
The Greek uoc
a particle forming adjectives which signify, as above mentioned, the oroper or usual quality of a given substantive, as liriroc, a horse,
belonging to a horse. And, in the regular course of Greek both particles may be employed in the same word. Take, for instance, Xoyoe, in the sense of an account. Thence comes the <rerb Xoy/w, I reckon up an account; thence Xoytoriyc, an accountant, one who reckons up accounts; thence XoyioTuoc, belonging to an Accountant; and (by an ellipsis of rex*-?? or irciaTt]^) y XoyiffriKi), may
iinriMc:,
derivation,
an accountant ; as ypa^cmia}, >/ fiovIn Latin, mrf, the art or science of a grammarian, a musician, &c.' he particle ista answers to the Greek torjjc and this ista is fitly employed in words wholly derived from the Greek, as logista, answering but of hybrid words in ista, with a Latin radix> the Greek Xoyicrrz/c
signify the art or science of
'/
than artista, a mediaeval word cited by Ducange,* and which seems to have been used in the universities of ;hc thirteenth century to designate all the students, except those of the aw. 3 Hence came the Italian artista, the French artiste, and the 3erman and English artist, all which words were eventually established At a much later period (probably in the seventeenth cenOf custom.
cal, I
know no
earlier instance
tury), linguista, linguiste,
and
olished
by custom
in Italy,
linguist, similar hybrids, were also estaFrance, and England. But it is carrying
;he confusion of tongues
much
too far,
when
a hybrid
first
is
heaped on a
lybrid, as in the case before us.

tive,
Here we have
hybrid, linguiste
a Latin substan-
with a Greek and this hybrid is igain conglutinated with another Greek particle to form a second aybrid, the adjective linguistique ; and, finally, this adjectival form is converted by ellipsis into an abstract substantive. The fundamental !>rror of the author of this new hybrid, whoever he may have been, was in supposing that he might apply Greek particles to a Latin word is liberally as the Greeks applied their own particles to their own
wticle, and so forming the
first
;
lingua, conglutinated (to use Stephanus's phrase)
vords.
1
The
result rivals in incongruity Mountbenjerlaw or Longstroth-
a Ducange, Bos. Ellips. p. 469. Ed. Schceffer. voc. Ars. 3 " Auch die Universitat der Artisten, d. h. aller Nichtjuristen, hatte ihre Stauten. Savigny, Mittelalter, t. iii. p. 163.
'
z 2
340
dale,
OF WORDS.
[CHAP.
XIIJ
without their excuse of having been caused by rustic ignorance Let it be considered, too, that if we allo^ of linguistique, it will serve as a precedent for the sciences of dentistiqu and oculistique, and our harp and pianoforte players will become pre Ill weeds thrive apace. fessors of harpistique and pianistique. It i litde more than twenty years since linguistique found its way into an French book of authority. I am not aware of any such earlier than ths of 1835, above quoted. It does not appear either in Gattel's Frenc Dictionary, in 1813, or in Laveaux's, in 1820, esteemed the best the known ; nor even in Laveaux's Dictionnaire des Difficulte's, published i 1822. Linguistic, the English translation of this French barbarism, not admitted into Richardson's full and valuable Dictionary, nor inl
or by political revolutions.
I
Walker's Pronouncing
infinite or
indefinite.
Dictionary, edited, and greatly enlarged, by tli But I am sorry to add, that it has bed Rev. J. Davis, in 1852. recently sanctioned by an eminent writer on language, and it thcrefoi becomes necessary to enter an early protest against its use. It is 410. Words may be distinguished as definite, or indefinite. mistaken notion that every word should be definitely significant, fc words represent mental impressions, a large proportion of which ai
indistinct.
desirable,
latitude
And occasions are continually occurring, where it is nc and often not possible, to employ words without a gret of signification. Take, for instance, the Latin circiter, " al h mt,
with reference to quantity. Its just application to a particular oaf must be left to equitable decision, according to circumstances. Hoik
certain
tribunals
lay
down
the rule, that "circiter importat
quartam partem minus,
arbitrio judicis."
" About may apply
etial
to eve
<
a fourth part less (than the quantity in question) at the discretion the judge;" as if I sell a quantity of corn for about a bushel. On tl:
other hand, there are occasions

in
the
w miram. "The Okete says, understand I tpooxfisd day: another day don The dm of Indefinite words for definite is often pd understand." 1
proverb
ni
I
words OSedL
"Ok^te
when a perfect distinctness is net The negroes of thaYoruba country have an

ojo gboglio
lion
acul
m6, on kd
md
ojo
doctive of vary evil consequences.
How many
slanders,
how mar
and mischievous statements are circulated under cover of tl h "on dit" the (i.Tinan " man sagt," the Italian "si dice." ai: Those Important wools "the people," at the English "they say!" 44 the publii ," If reduced to their true meaning, would often be Pons applicable to that small class, or faction only, to which the petal using them belongs. It serins extraordinary in the present day ih: and vague expressions as fame, rumour, and the hk< should ever have Itei-n dee d sufficient grounds for putting a pers< on his trial lb an allem-d nileii.-e. Y. not. only has this been the cat from times ni the Roman canon law, even when the paraaj
i
i
"mala opinions infamatus," was
a priest;'
1
but the 113th

'kote.
0.
l:t.
Dccretuni

CHAP. XIII.]
OF WORDS.
341
as well the crimes
the Church of England states that certain officers are sworn to present and disorders of criminous persons, as also the
common fame which
The learned comis spread abroad of them. mentator, however, judiciously adds, " that the oath ex officio being now abolished, it is not safe to present any person upon common
1 '
fame
'
only, without proof."

Nature.
all the indefinite words in the English language there is which a greater variety of significations has been attributed than the word Nature ; and no one of which the abuse has done more
411. Of
to
no one
injury to science, to morals, or to religion.
It is
not surprising that
the heathens, who troubled themselves but little about religion, should vaguely ascribe the cause of all things to some unknown power, which they termed <pvai, from the verb <f>ixo, to plant,
those
among
produce, create, &c.

&v<rts
Kfpara ravpois,
'/irirois,
'On-Acts 5' tSeo/cej'

,
noSuKirjv \aywots Atovfft x c' <r u b$6motv.
k. t. A."
In other words, " that which causes the bull to have horns, the horse to have hoofs, the hare to have swiftness of foot, the lion to have wide extended jaws, &c, &c., that (whatsoever it be) we call Nature"
Other persons, who thought they could solve this mystery by reflection, declared that Nature, the great source of all things, was merely a fortuitous combination of matter and space
Omnis ut
For
est igitur per se
Natura, duabus
et
Consistit rebus,
self-existent
tilings
nam Corpora sunt
Inane. 9
Two
Nature can embrace alone, which Matter are, and Space.
And
that
two constituents include all sensible objects, it was said everything was Nature. " Sunt autem" (says Cicero) " qui omnia
as these
Naturae nomine appellent." 4 " There are persons who call all things by the name of Nature." Such was the origin of Pantheism. The wisest and greatest of the ancient philosophers rejected these vague
and senseless doctrines. 6>/<rw to. p.tv <pvau Xeyontvu irou'iTdat Otiy ri\vy* says the noblest scholar of Socrates. " I lay it down, that those things which are said to be produced by Nature are formed by Divine art." Some even raised the word Nature to the signification of the Divine Artist himself. " Lex " (says Cicero) " est Ratio summa,
insita in
Natura." 6
"Law
is
the highest Reason seated in Nature.'"
Whereon Turnebus observes, that Cicero here adopts the language of the Stoics, who held that God and Nature were the same. The
God, the Creator, from Nature, the created. For, whether we look to the Greek word <pvtrir, as derived from 0uw, or to the Latin word Natura, as derived from nascor, we evidently see that they express an effect ; but every effect
Christian writers, however, justly distinguished
Burn, Eccl. Law, vol. ii. p. 24. de Rer. Nat. i. 417. 5 Sophista, Op. ed Ficin. p. 185.
1
* 4
6
Auacreon, Od.
2.
ii.
3 Lucretius,
De Natura Deorum, De Legibus, i. 6.
32.
342
;
OF WORDS.
[chap. XI
must have a cause the produced must have a producer ; the creafc And the produced and created must diner from, and a creator. subject to, the producer and creator. " Hath not the potter power ov 1 Nor is it less absurd to say that Natu the clay ?" says the apostle. wills or acts in any manner, than it would be to say that the clay, ai not the potter, gives the vessel its shape and form. Yet we continual hear such phrases as " Nature abhors a vacuum," " Nature relieves disease," " Nature cicatrizes a wound," " Nature prompts us to i venge an injury." Every such personification of Nature impedes t Yet it is a fault into which many emine study of true philosophy. writers inadvertently fall. Dugald Stewart was usually very card and correct in his style, and by no means wanting in religious sentimer yet he thus expresses himself: " Nature has done no more for mi than was necessary for his preservation, leaving him to make row acquisitions for himself which she has imparted immediately to tl brutes."* And a little further on he speaks of "that provident ca which Nature has taken of all her offspring in the infancy of the 3 Lord Bacon was no doubt a religious man, but b existence." expressions too often lead the mind away from the contemplation of personal first cause of all things, to a vague and blind abstraction In the very outset of his work, ' De Augment the things caused. Scientiarum,' he speaks of Nature as of a being actuated by, and acti]
on,
personal motives.
He
states,
;
that the
first
division of natur
in
history considers
Natwe
at liberty
the second,
Nature
he- erron
Nature in constraint. He afterwards talks of " hel He says that " Xafu ing her forwards," and "setting lier free." governs all things," either by means of " her general course," of " h
and the
third,
human assistance." He speaks of " the irregnlariti of Nature" of " tracing Nature in her wanderings," and of " leadii 4 Elsewhere he says, th. or compelling her to her course again." " Nature catches and entangles in her inextricable net" the swel Nor is such langoa] raised in the sea, the clouds, and the earth.* An inc to he justified on the ground of its being merely figurative. dental metaphor in a philosophical treatise may well be tolerated, hi when throughout the whole work a mere abstraction is invested wit mal attributes, the Impression on the reader's mind cannot be oth< The term Nature, in its pure and correct sense, si; than injurious. the normal *><ite of all created beings, assigned to them (eithi with or without the faculty of deviating therefrom) by the pOUW, tl Lord Bacon's reiterated expivssioi Wisdom, ami tin: goodness of (itxl. Mod tO make n- fbfget that If it he the nature of the sun to shine,
excursions, or of
i
it
of brute animals to be guided by their appetites be the nature of mem to have higher faculties and doom
in ic
all
tl
nit
from
the
law
imposed on h
res
1
by the grati Creator.

Mm. I. foL
.
i.
I.Vi
.
Il;:iii;in
iii.
!!,.,
"
]..
388.
Il.nl.
|,.
Ibid,
Mot
ii.
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
343
412. It is an old remark that the words used to express the acts MeotaUnd p J and states of the mind, are taken from those used to express the acts body. This is in great part true. The German and sensations of the word vernunft, " reason," (as I have above shown) is derived from niman, "to take;" and we speak of a warm friendship, a tender The fact, so far as it goes, is well accounted esteem, and the like. " Language," for in Mr. Maxsel's admirable Prolegomena Logica. Bays he, "as taught to the infant, is chronologically prior to thought But this is not the whole fact; for as and posterior to sensation." the same very able author (agreeing with If. Maine de Biran) remarks: " while, as regards attributes and phenomena, the language of mental science has mostly been borrowed from that of sensation in all that relates to the notions of cause and power, the language properly belonging to the mental fact has been transferred by analogy to Our notions of cause and power cannot be originally the physical."" for those only show us a succession of derived from sensible objects But the events more or less numerous, and more or less similar. notions of cause and power originate in the consciousness of our own will to operate on other beings, and in our experience of the and it is from analogy to this results which follow that mental act With this exception that we speak of physical causes and effects. we may admit that the names which stand for mental acts and But notliing notions are derived from those of our physical being. can be more subversive of all sound philosophy than to infer from this circumstance, as M. Destutt de Tracy does, that penser c'est The analogies, however, besentir, " thought is mere sensation."
1
; ; ;
tween mental and physical operations
are so various, that the per-
sons who have endeavoured to trace them have widely differed in Of this the meanings attached to words used for that purpose. there cannot be a more striking instance than the word idea, above
explained, 3 which, from being the
most important term in the philosophy and the true key to all its mysteries, has become, as Mr. Mansel truly remarks, " the most vague, indeterminate, and inaccurate, that can be selected ;" and (as now employed) is " universally pro4 The term perception, too, is very variously ductive of confusion." understood. Its modern use seems to have little to do with its etymologv, as derived from perciph, i. e., perfecte capere, " to take perfectly." The Stoics held that nothing could be perceived but that which was so true that it could not be false. 5 They, therefore, applied it to a mental act, without reference to the bodily senses and so it seems to have been most commonly used by the classic writers, though Cicero, in one instance at least, uses the expression " percipi"In modern philosophy, from Descartes to Reid" tur sensibus."'
of
intellect,
; 1
Prolegomena Logica,
p. 20.
8 Supra, sect. 401.

5
tale verimi, quale

6
Percipiendi vis ita definitur a Stoicis, falsum esse non possit. De Finib. v. 26.
155. Piolegom. Logica, pp. 29, 37, 91. ut negent quidquam posse pcrcipi, nisi
* Ibid. p. 4
De
Finibua,
i.
11.
344
OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII.
was used widely, as coextensive with apprehension, or consciousness in general, with some minor modifica" By Reid and his followers it was used for the consciousness tions." of an external object presented to the mind through the organs oi
sense, as distinguished from sensation, the consciousness of an affection " According to M. Royer of the subject through the same organs." Collard the senses of smell, hearing, and taste, give rise to sensations only touch is in every case an union of sensation and perception while sight holds an intermediate and doubtful position, as informing
:
(says Mr. Mansel), " this term
us of the existence of extension, but only in two dimensions of space. Sir W. Hamilton, on the other hand, holds that the general consciousness of the locality of a sensorial affection ought to be regarded as a The examples of idea and perception are sufperception proper." ficient to show, that when a word intended to express a mental act is
1
employed in any formal treatise, it would generally be advisable to accompany it with an explanation of the sense in which it is intended to be used ; and if many such terms be employed, the best way to afford explanation of them would be by an alphabetical table to which The word law has the reader might refer in any doubt or difficulty. both a moral and a physical meaning. In the former it applies to the rules laid down to be followed by beings which have the power In the latter it of choice between obeying and disobeying them. Of serves to guide the action of beings which have no such power.
law, in the former sense, I spoke in a preceding section
sense
;
in the latter idea of
some
further observations on
it
are necessary.
The pare
law is set forth in the noble language of the admirable Richard Hooker. "That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term a law."* Hence it is said of the Almighty, " ponebat pluviis legem" which in our
coelo et terne posui."
"he made a decree for the rain." 8 And again, "b{M "I have appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth." 4 Ami in like manner the Creator has laid down to our bodily and intellectual faculties certain laws which we cannot overpass.
translation
is
Thai unto the body it is said, " which of you by taking though! can add one cubit to his stature?* And, as to the mind, " we can pen permitted by the laws of our perceptive faculties, as we Mive only
can
think
milv
irises
in accordance with the laws of the understand another important distinction. When we speak of law ilit\, we refer to our own consciousness of its
absolute necessity;
as
when
it
is
said
"thou
shalt
not
.,
teal,"
we
know,
alone,
oureelves can law; and secondly, that the law

lii
.t,
that
ue
never steal without infringing the
I.
ut
Ji
extendi t" a law e\i

I
all
..
Dot merelj personal to our. elves being! who, like us, are capable of knowing is .-.aid I'.ut it that the sun h.i
i
wbu
Prologon, Logical Job >xviii. 28.
p.
II, nolo.
Bock's,
'..lit
I.
i.
<.
w.
Wattli. vi. -J7.
Jortm. \wiii. Prolog, Logic
. i
108.
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
345
many thousand years, though we do not doubt that it will to-morrow, yet our consciousness presents to us no such ground Nay, we are fully persuaded that a morrow of absolute necessity. will come, when to us, at least, "all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll." Nevertheless I say, that the sun has hitherto risen, by virtue of a laic imposed on it by the Creator, and that so long as it may continue to rise, it will rise by virtue of the same law for such I consider to be the result of the idea of law as defined by Hooker, which idea is itself (as I conceive) a primary law of the human mind. 413. I have above adverted to the changes in force and effect, to Change in which words are subjected in the lapse of time but these I must tune more particularly notice as affording grounds for classification. When we consider the state of a language at any given period, we shall find that a portion has become obsolete, another portion, though not wholly lost, is in a great measure disused, as antiquated the great majority of words continue in long-established use but a number of words entirely new are from time to time introduced. It would be very desirable that these four gradations should be marked in the dictionaries of all cultivated languages, if not with exact precision, which, perhaps, would in some cases be difficult, yet so as to guard the student, especially if a foreigner, from any gross error in confounding the language of one age with that of another. For this purpose it is not sufficient to cite authorities from writers of different dates; for whilst some expressions of Chaucer or Wiclif would pass current at the present day, others, even of Swift or Addison, have already fallen into disuse. 414. Words wholly obsolete are easily distinguishable, and are Obsolete, commonly so marked in the best dictionaries. Their meaning, indeed, is often disputed, as in the instance of contenement above cited ;* so in the discussions between Servius Sulpicius, Varro, and Valerius Soranus, on the signification of the Latin favissce capitolince, which seems to be still left in doubt.3 The old Roman word perduellis was superseded by hostis, to signify an enemy/ Chaucer's word swinhe is superseded by our modern labour And of my sveinke yet blered is min eye.*
daily for
rise
' ;
'
The French haultban, a tax formerly levied on bakers in Paris,* is quite obsolete, the tax itself having long ago ceased to be exacted ; so
the old Scotch drogaries for the
modern word drugs. 7

Antiquated,
415. Words may be said to be antiquated which, though not wholly obsolete, were formerly used in a sense somewhat different from that which they bear in the present day. This is the case with many words of our best old writers, as has been shown above in the words "contrition" and "considerable" used by J. Taylor, and " it
1
Isaiah xxxiv. 4.
a
5
A. Gell. Noct. Att. 1. il. Canterb. Tales, v. 1699.
s. 70. Gains, Dig. 50, 16, 234. Cotgrave, ad. voc. 7 Jamieson, ad. voc.
Sup.
c.
10.
346
resteth " by
OF WORDS.
[chap,
xij
Hooker, in the preface to h he had " with travail and care perform* the Apostle's advice," and he speaks of " the civil regiment of Geneva meaning what we now call " the civil government." Expressioi such as these, though perfectly accurate when they were written, ar still easily understood, would give a character of pedantry to ar composition of the present day, and might even mislead persons n< It was observed well acquainted with the history of the language. the celebrated Professor Hugo of Gottingen, that he " material
'
Book of Common Prayer,' it is they would innovate all things."

Ecclesiastical
Polity,' says,
Hooker, Bacon, and Milton. said, "
So
in
the preface to
tl
Some be
so newfangled th
facilitated the study of the progress of the Roman law, by the ca: and accuracy with which he distinguished the different signitic.ttioi which were attached to the same word at different periods of tl
Roman
history."
verb censeo.
As an instance of such changes we may notice tl Cicero says, " Sed tu Atti, consideres censeo diligente
1
utrum censorum judicium grave
velis esse,
quam
Egnatii?"
" But
advise you, Attius, to consider diligently whether you would waj that the judgment of the censors should have weight, or that
I
Egnatius." 2
Papinian,
who
lived
above
200
years
later,
sa\
(when a father had imposed an illegal condition on his daughter dowry), " Privatorum cautionem legum auctoritate non censrri " That the conditions imposed by private individuals are not to I Here it is clear that the leg invested with the authority of laws." 3 doctrine of Papinian would be much misunderstood if it were inte I preted by the meaning which Cicero gives to the word censeo. these changes, words are sometimes depressed in signification, an sometimes elevated. The word demon anciently signified the men the golden Rge, who, after death, were supposed to be raised to th dignity described by Hksiod
; i
Tol
fxtv Saiftovts
fieri,
Aibs /xtyd\ov
Sick
BouActr,
'EcrfAol, iTri\B6vioi <pi\a.Kts Owi)tuv ivOpinruv'
Ol ba tpvKdercrovffi rt Micas, km <rxVA.ia tpya, 'Htpa taaaîvoi, travrrj (puiruvrfs V alav.

Opera
These :uv
lr--ti
I
et Dies, v. 121, seq.
Ztanont, by pitA Jort*i award mi earth the race nl'meii t0 gtUUrd j

just
TIht,
vcil'd in olodds, ronni o'er the
Th.- dealings of the upright
world ami trace Mid the base.

spirit,
is
In
ino.fein
|iy
actuated
I
tunes a demon is either i malignant such | spirit ;iml in Italian, // Demonio

;
or B
mi
linn
the devil
tin-
other
lied
only a boy,
ml.
r.
hand, the Anglo-Saxon word cnichi ori w g., " Tviiwintiv t'nicht" boy of ten
\.i>.
ear
J
old."
(L
i.
i
720.)
But
it
now forms
a title
of
honow
-,o
ighi
1
hivhlv as to be conferred only on prim u( the (i.uter." It sometimes happens that*

,.
i
l:..|.i,
:,, p.
90.
I.
Pro Chwi
I'',
IV.
Hi.

CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
is
047
antiquated
sense
the
is
word
retained
in
a secondary sense,
when
the primary
forgotten.
In a
civil action
a few years ago, the meaning of
word "garbled" came
into
question, and the learned

1
Jm
It is certainly expressed himself in doubt as to its signification. derived from Garha (Fr. Gerbe), a wheatsheaf hence garberina was a mediaeval word for a threshing-floor, and garbellare was to clear the
;
It was ordained by a municipal law of Marseilles, 1269, " Ut quaecunque grana vendentur in civitate Massiliensi debeant garbellari, tali modo, quod folium et frusta, lapides et pulvis ejiciantur ;"' " That all grain sold in the city of Marseilles should be garbled in such manner that leaves and chaff, stones and dust, should In 1604 the statute 1 James I. c. 19, was enacted be thrown out." under the title of 'An Act for the well garbling of spices;' and in 1707, bv stat. 6 Anne, c. 16, the lord mayor and aldermen were empowered to appoint a garbkr of spices for the city of London, an officer whose functions seem at present by no means unnecessary.* The word garble, however, in common parlance, is now confined to written statements of fact, in which certain parti are omitted, so as to give a false colour to the whole this is called "a garbled statement." 416. Of the classes in this branch of our discussion, that of new xew words requires the most careful attention ; for, on the one hand, every new word introduced to express a new and just conception, or to express a former conception more adequately, is not only an addition to the wealth of a language, but is the germ of new thoughts, and, and if it be well chosen in point Consequently, of additional words of sound, it renders the language richer in melody, and more pleasing to the ear; but if it be introduced from mere caprice, without necessitv, or to express coarse or over-refined thoughts or feelings, or if, in point of sound, it be comparatively harsh and unpleasant, it deserves The rules laid reprobation, and should in use be discountenanced. down by Horace for the proper introduction of new words into the Latin tongue are applicable, mutatis mutandis, to our own, and all
grain from chaff, &c.

A.i).
words.
other cultivated languages
Si forte necesse est
Indiciis
monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis Continget : dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter, Et nova factaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si Graeco fonte cadant parce de'torta. De Art, Poet, v. 47, &c.
A new-discover'd theme For those unheard in ancient times may claim A just and ample licence, which, if us'd
With
fair discretion,
never
is ret'us'd.
New
words and lately made shall credit claim, If from a Grecian source they gently stream.
Francis.
is
417. The incessant activity of minds

1
in
a highly-civilized society
*
when
Justifiable.
Powell v. Bradburgh, &c, B. R., 1847. 3 See Hassall on Food and
Dueange, voc. garbellare.
its
Adulterations.
348
constantly producing
inventions, or
OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII.
appellation
new sciences, new modifications of science, new new modes of operation, every one of which requires an unknown to former ages. The cinctured Cethegi of
ancient
Rome would have found infinitely less cause for wonder at the refinements of the Augustan age, than the rude Jutes, and Angles,
first
and Saxons who
landed on our coasts, would have, could they be Owen on Palaeontology, or examine the tubular bridge of the Menai Strait, or witness the effect of that modern miracle, the electric telegraph ; yet each of these objects requires for its full intelligibility, not one, but a whole train of new
present at a lecture of Professor
words, adding as
much
to the activity
and power of our minds,
as to
the richness and variety of our language.
Nor
is
as, for instance, long cultivated may, from former defect or abuse from what Mr. Mansel justly calls " the vague and vacillating employment in modern philosophy, of the term Idea" 1 require words new to our own language. Mr. Mansel elsewhere says, " I have availed myself of the term envisage as the best English equivalent that has yet been proposed, to the German anschauen, a word which is applied
this all
sciences
generally to any presentation of individual objects in sense or imaging?

are not so much restricted as the Romans were to the nation."* still, as that use of Greek in framing new words from foreign sources
;
We
language
is
so peculiarly well
fitted
for
frequently be found most advisable, in
forming compounds, it will matters of science, to draw
from
Lee,
it
as a pure and intelligible source.

careful
Thus
my
friend,
Mr.
II.
experiments have thrown much light on the vitiated state of the blood, has recently given to its glutinous consistency the designation of Jxoacemia, from the Greek iwi)r;c, glutihaw nous, and a^fia, blood. Of derivations from other languages spoken above." Horace adds to his directions for forming new words, similar advice for the giving an effect of novelty to known words,
whose
Dfanrit egregife, notum si cnllida Kr.Miilcrit juncturu novum. *
verbum
in
This seems, indeed, chiefly applicable to poetical composition, as Virgil's " mare velivolutn
"
Ciim Jupiter
scthcre
sunimo
jan-ntes.'
IVspieirns mart' rclirolum
taTMQQI
Velivolum Btigbl perhaps Ih> loosely imitated in English, "the IBM ftwplsea;" but Dryden hat judiciously avoided so boldacompound
Wln'ii
I'ihiii
.'iliit'i
:ilini"lity
Jon
:
surveys
Kutli, air, ami ahoNB, and nari inhlo seas.

i.', however, may be often applied to philosophical topioi Itacon says, thai though his " conceptions are new, and dillerent from the common," yet he " religiously maintains the ancient forms
-el).""
'
The
398. v. Z2\.
EnteOtiOD
was good, so
*
'
far
p.
a.
practicaUe; hut
rVrisgonaa Logks, p. 46.

a.
i.
Wd.
107.
t,
Supra,
*
l.ip'i.l,
Da Art, Pott,
41.
Da Augment, Sclent,
wot
Hi,
CHAT.
XIII.]
it
OF WORDS.
349 by
his lordship, with
cannot say that

perfect success.
was always carried
into effect
418. a
When
individual word, yet the warning of Horace should be kept in view. The license of coining new words should lie " sumpta pudenter," " used sparingly." The Poet ColeBIDGE, whose sweet verses are, for the most part, masterpieces of the pure English tongue, was apt, in his prose works, to be too lavish in pouring from classical sources (for he was a ripe and good scholar) new compounds, which overburdened his stvle. In his small volume on The Constitution of the Church and State,' I noted the following: allocosmite, allogerwous, coinstaneous, cler-isy, dwarfdom, extroitive,
'
new word becomes a blemish ever may be the fitness of an
the justifying causes, above enumerated, are wanting, when nay, we must remember, that what- ^justifiable.
;
enclesia,
Jieterocosmite,
inverminate,
interdependence/,
incorrespondency,
leggery, maitresseries,
metapolitics, metapolitkians, plehification, precon-
figuratuui, personeity, proprietage, retroitive,
and transuterine, besides
some known words used in new senses, as nationality and propriety, and gome words of our old writers, which had become antiquated, and were icarcely worth revival, as diffluent, a word of Sir Thomas Browne's assymnetry and concinnity, of Dr. Henry More's, and inconversance, from More' s " inconversable ;" all which I the more regret, as such an abundance of uncommon words tends to repel the casual reader, rather than to invite him to the perusal of a work abounding in profound and original thoughts. To form a new English word of two Latin words, each of which is a mere translation of a corresponding English one, and where no euphony is thereby gained, is palpably
;
manufactured article has lately been introduced of Pannuscorium ; the fabric is said to be very useful for certain purposes, but its name is a mere translation of clothunnecessary.
under
the
title
jxinn us, cloth,
it is composed. The words simply added together in one language, as they are in the other; nor do they gain thereby in euphony for as our th is a single articulation, the English name contains in effect only nine articulations in three syllables, whereas the useless Latin compound has twelve articulations in five syllables. That the barbarous hybrid word linguistique is wholly unnecessary is obvious, for the definition given of it, in 1835, exactly applies to glottology as used by some continental writers, or to glossology, which I prefer these words differ only in dialect, and are both derived regularly from the Greek. The unavoidable haste in which our daily newspapers are written, tends much to produce new words which are often unnecessary, but sometimes form valuable additions " to our language. risky customer " was lately used, to signify a customer whom a tradesman cannot trust without much risk of loss ; so " a noteworthy person," meaning a person worthy of note. Neither >f these compounds appears necessary ; but the word foresense seems judiciously applied in the passage " the Basques have a fore-
leather,
the
two substances of which

and corium,
leather, are

850
OF WORDS.
war."
It' is
[chap.
XIII.
sense of the miseries of a civil
remarkable
cab,
how
soon
is
many new words come

mere vulgarisms, or
into general use,
which seem
originally to be
colloquial expressions.
The word
which
an abbreviation of the French cabriolet, was unknown in England thirty years ago ; but in a few years from its introduction, it was admitted even into our statutory law. Words of this description, however, are equally apt to go soon out of use. hear nothing now of any carriage termed the diligence, or the dilly, though common in the latter part of the last century
We
So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn, The Derby dilly carrying three insides.
Analogy or anomaly.
glides
Loves of the Triangles.
T their intrinsic circumstances, I
......
419. Having considered several distinctions of words
in
regard to
,
come
to extrinsic circumstances, that

First, as to
;
is
those of one
word
in relation to
is
other words.
analogy or
that
is,
anomaly.
All our reasoning
either logical or analogical
we
is
reason either from universals to particulars, or else from like to
like.
Analogy, from the Greek avaXoyia,

naturally the less perfect.
is
of the latter kind, which
Where we perceive, or think we perceive, a similarity in certain causes, we infer, by analogy, that the consequences will be alike, and hence we lay it down as a ride that they
But such rules are often violated by custom, and the an anomaly, from the Greek avofxia, " a breach of law. or rule:" hence certain words are classed as regidar, and others as irregidar ; but custom so far prevails over analogy, that it governs the Standard language of a nation, whilst words formed by the strict rules of analogy are often banished to the vulgar or provincial dialects. Thus, a peasant may say, " I drived two oxes," instead of I droit- two
should be
so.
result is called
it
oxen; whore drived
is
in
strict
analogy to the regular termination of
the past tense of verbs in general, and oxes
is equally so to the regular termination of the plural of nouns substantive in general; \et these WOrdfl would lie justlv Censured as not agreeable to the anomalies
drove and oxen which are established by custom; for as QuintibfBJ

observes, " analogy
lust created,
bul
i,ut
It
was not sent down from heaven when men were was invented alter they had talked together, and
:
had noted
on,
how
taken
to his great work above Bmj So Grimm, in his Deutsche columns of anomalous (ircek words. collected "anomalien drs ...,,thischen sul'stantivs" Gramn
grapher,
can to Const antutb, has subjoined

.
occurred in sp h consequently, it rests not on example." 1 (Jlossologists, therefore, have oftsl point out anomalous Words. That Indefatigable lexicosoittii Is
(v.
i.,
<il<),
"der
altnordischeii
substantivdeclinationen"
(t'6.
(il>.
(>(':>),
rnittelnie
derlandischen substantivum"
(/'..
obafl CMiijuâtion"
,
693), "der gothis* 851), "tier luittelniedeiiandischeu conjugation"

in
Mini
;
pi
in
ii
Bngtrentor bon
; :
Anali
i
fornnun
t
lomsadji dtdll
Md*
nrtnU
cat
pontqumn loqntbantor,
noUtum
in
rmonc quid
It,
I,
Ol
8,
CHAP.
(ib.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
351
979), &c.
My
old and valued friend, the Rev. J. Penrose, in

a remark, which, though applied
work on the Atonement, has him to that sacred subject, may

his
by
also illustrate the use of analogy in
language.
"
It is the very principle of all
reasoning by analog)-, to
proceed from looser or
less perfect analogies to the stricter

first
and
better.
Thus the
is
child,
whose
acquaintance with the larger quadrupeds

is
with the cow or the horse,
apt to give the
name of cow
1
or horse
to any large
quadruped that he happens to see." Agreeably to this, Sir Walter Scott used to relate the anecdote of a young boy, who had never seen any river but the Tweed until he was brought to Edinburgh, when he exclaimed, on beholding the Firth of Forth, " Eh What a bonnie Tweed !" " It is as indispensable a part of the
!
order of nature" (says Mr. Penrose) "to lead the mind through very loose analogies to an enlarged and real knowledge, as it is to enlarge
the bodily frame through the ordinary processes of nutrition and growth." In like manner, a boy being taught that many Latin words ending in us in the nominative, have t for the termination of the genitive, as lupus, lupi dominus, domini, &c, will be apt to think that nanus should give mani, and munus, muni ; but as he acquires a bettor knowledge of the language, he discovers that these words have different analogies, so that manus, by a stricter analogy, forms in the genitive manus, and munus forms muneris : and these words, which at first seemed to him to be irregular, are now found to be regular. Hence arises the variety of declensions and conjugations in different inflected languages, as will be seen hereafter. Grammarians for the most part speak of analogy as having relation exclusively to the forms of inflec" Analogia est similium similis declinatio. tion of nouns and verbs. 'AvwpaXia est insequalitas declinationum, consuetudinem sequens."* But both these appear also in other forms of speech. In the formation of abstract substantives of opposite meanings, we say by analogy gratitude and ingratitude ; yet we express the opposite to magnitudo, not by parvitudo, but by parvitas. In comparatives, we say great, greater, greatest, yet we do not say good, gooder, goodest, but good, better, best so in Latin, not bonus, bonior, bonissimus, but bonus, melior, optimus 30 in Greek, not ayadoQ, ayadorepoc, ayadoTaroc, but ayadoc, ipeiviav, apioroe so in ordinal numbers, we say sixth, seventh, &c, v'ct we do not say oneth, twoth, but first, second; as in Latin, not mitus, duitus, but primus, secundus. And similar anomalies are found n most, if not all languages. Some persons pertinaciously refuse to employ a well-established anomaly. " Inherent quidam" (says Quintilian) " molestissima diligentiae perversitate." 3 Because from velox ,he analogical form velociter was in use, they used audaciter, when the established form was audacter. So we sometimes find persons em)loying firstly and illy, where the established adverbial forms are first
.nd
ill.
1
Moral Principle of the Atonement,

25.
a
A. Cell.
lib. ii. c.
p. 303. r^t. Qrat.
lib. i. c.
6.
352
Synonyms.
OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII.
other classes.
420. The identity of different words in sense, or sound, furnishes Where in any given language two words not agreeing in sound are considered as having the same signification, they are commonly called synonyms, from the Greek ovvuwpia, a derivative of In point of fact, it can seldom, or ovofia, with the preposition awnever happen, that any two words in a language can express exactly the same conception for if the conception be of an external object, we
;
shall generally find that the object differs in

in different lights
some
quality, or
is
viewed
when expressed by
the different words.
The English
horse
them
same kind of animal, but custom has given We may say "the knight was mounted on his steed;' but it would sound pedantic or ridiculous to say "the Pococke asserts, that the Arabic dung-cart was drawn by its steed." Gouts language has above a thousand words signifying a sword. says, it has above five hundred signifying a lion.* SlMONIS says, be has reckoned in Greek forty-six words signifying rough, and above fifty
and
steed signify the
different applications.
1
signifying obscure.
No
word
doubt,
its
in all
these cases a nice discrimination

If the con-
would give
to each
peculiar force and meaning.

t
ception be of a mental object, which, as such, cannot be

test of sensible experience,
it
nought
to the
will
be
still
more
difficult to find
any
two words which do not express distinguishable shades or modifierA tions of the same idea, when applied to different circumstances.
schoolmaster asked a
said the child,
'
little
boy, " Don't you love

;
I like
you
but
I love
me ?" " No, sir," my mamma." Pity has for its
synonyms,
in Ma<ki:n/.ii:\s
compassion,
painful
mency."
It is clear
Dictionary of Synonyms, "commiseration, sympathy, sympathy, condolence, mercy, clethat circumstances might OCCUr, in which any one
Colof these words could not properly be substituted for the others. lections of synonyms have been made in many diilerent languages. In
the Greek,
iijiiHioy
Ammovxos, who
(Kh.iiHov XiEitor,
lived
in
the fourth century, wrote
ml
"on
similar and differing
words" (ed.
i
Valckenaer, 4, Lugd. Bat 17o'.>). collection, with judicious remarks,
Of
in
Latin synonyms, there
Dr.
Crombib s Gymnasium.
Of
French Synonyms, the AU'c Gdusd was the firsl (above a century He says, with truth, in regard ago) to make a valuable collection. le. Je ne crois pa uage, " .'e n'ai copte* pers 7 In qu'fl \ ail encore en personne k copier sur cette matiere."' came forth ih work on synonyms, by Dr. Trusli r, who
1
">
II
did
little
the languages
.iiury
J\I:
more than adapl lirard' distinctions, as far as would permit, to English phraseology.
'
-
the difference
The
present
has seen
milar collections, the best of which
was
lew pages aro dedicated by Martin El comprehending nol onl) nouns substantive and
{Total to abnlfluragiot, p.
;
153.
nil.
p,
I
mum,
105,
I.
Iotroductio
hi
CHAP, mi,]
adjective,
OF WOBD6.
;
353
and verbs, but also pronouns and adverbs and, in some the synonymous agreement of a word with a phrase, as despacio compared with poco a poco. 421. Some words are erroneously regarded as synonyms, which The English word spouse has been represented as are not so in fact. synonymous with a "married person," either husband or wife; whereas in truth it signifies exclusively a person betrothed, but not yet married. It is a translation of the Latin sportsus and sponsa, which were derived from spondeo, to stipulate. For it was an ancient usage of the Romans for a man and woman to stipulate together for a future Hence in the law and custom of this country (and, indeed, marriage." of all Christian Europe), for many centuries, spouses were persons beinstances,
1
False
8yDOD5
trothed but not married.

spouse,
often applied to married persons
"one joined in was applied to the word espousals. By the proper definition, espousals were a mutual promise of future marriage;* they were, therefore, ;" necessarily contracted per verba de futuro, " in words of future time whereas a contract of marriage per verba de proesenti was, by the law of England, until the year 1753, an actual, legal, and valid marriage.*5 and on this distinction often depended the most important interests of individuals and of families.
or nearly the
was and Johnson even defines the word 3 marriage, a husband or wife." A like error
in
Yet
process of time, the designation
422. The converse of a synonym is a word, which, with the same, Homosame sound, expresses different meanings. Words f phone8,
this sort are called,
Homophones ; from the Greek " vocal sound." Collections of such words have been made in several languages. It may have been observed that the treatise of Ammonius above mentioned comprehended Greek
recent writers,
by
bpur, " like," and
<j>u>vt],
homophones as well as synonyms. Thus he says /JaenceuVw signifies both to envy, and to calumniate. Mayor, he says, is used by JEschines for a certain kind of medicine, and by Herodotus for a person employed in sacred services. Among the manuscripts extant in Thibet, there is a treatise by Saphu Kirti, entitled Hjam Divangs, on words having the same sound but different significations. 8 The words, which are most commonly noticed as belonging to this class, are words signifying totally different objects ; but strictly speaking, the class includes also those which present the same conception in different relations; as our word Action, which may signify the quality or state of acting, or an
1
Gram. Espagn. pp. 206
216.
Digest,
Sponsalia dicta sunt a spondendo, nam moris fuit veteribus stipulari et spondere uxores t'tit><r<i<<, Unde et sponsi sponsaeque appellatio nata est. Digest, lib. xxiii. t. i. frr. 2 et 3.
sibi
3 4
Johnson, ad voc. Sponsalia sunt mentio et repromissio nuptiarum futurarum.

fr.
lib.
iii.
t.
i.
1.
* Letter to Lord Brougham on Irish Marriages, 1844, p. 7. And see the Opinion of Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, in the Queen against Millis, 22 Feb. 1844. 6 Journal Asiatic Society, Bengal, pp. 74, 151.
[G.]
2 A
OF WORDS.
[chap. XII
354
act or thing done, or operation, or the series of events represented a fable, or gesticulation, or a lawsuit, or a battle by land or se
Words
is
of the
first
kind will often be found on examination to be d
examp by our word Rent, which signifies 1. A rent caused by tearing, as in cloth, ex. gr., " No man putte a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise the new makei In this sense, the word is from the Anglo-Saxon rendu a mii." to rend, or tear, which seems to be connected with the German reisse of the same meaning.
furnished
1
rived from different languages or dialects: of these an obvious
paid for the hiring of a house, land, &c. In this sens from the Latin reditus, or redditus inserting is a participle from redeo, I return, whence reditus privdii means t! sum which the farm returns annually, " proventus qui quotannis rcdit. Redditus is a participle from itddo, I render, as "reddite qua sojj Gesaris Geeeari " render unto Ca?sar the tilings which be Caesar's* Words of this kind sometimes differ slightly, or not at all in promt: ciation, as male from the Latin masculus, " masculine," and nutil fro. the French male, "a sack for carrying letters," &c. Honiophon words of the other kind are much more numerous. They arise fro the natural transitions of thought and feeling in the human mind. Tl thought of doing an act implies the existence of an agent, and that The feeling of an impulse involves the act done, or to be done. sense of acquiescence or of resistance: and there are numerous oth relations of thought or feeling (to which I shall hereafter advert which give occasion in one language to separate words, whilst
2.
A rent
is
the
word
another language a common word expresses both of the allied COOOej tions or emotions, and we can only perceive by the context, to w hich applies. Thus in a case before the late Lord Chief Justice TiCNTKRDE]
and h a question arose, as to the meaning of the word Commission loroahlp obaarved, that it might signify either," 1st, a trust or authoril
;
exercised; or 2dly, the instrument conveying the authority or tins: or 3rdlv, the j>ersons by whom the trust or authority is exercised and that in such CSM "the court must collect from the context of tl
nca In
illl.llt,
in
which tin word occur.-., and of the other parts of which of tin- three SellSeS it was used." 4 There
of commission, as of a
tl
sum charged by comme
cial
n,
agents, a fee paid to oartairj judicial officers, a verbal authoril in. i and various modes of determining them are employed, Bj
og
to their respective
i
dn am
hide
itance
nor indeed |m
word
it would be neither of this Idnd from any cullivad

i.
i
language; i>ut then- abuse too often leads to most perniciou quences; as is particularly observable in the above remarks on
i
tl
XiUun.
Viiotliei
1 1 1
OtMrfcami
l.o!.
distinction
Calvin,
i
ol
Furl
word;
relation
*Lak
\ii.
-i.
4 BarnswaU
and On
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
355
shown by the
other, is that of their generic or specific signification, as
The Latin word beneficium, in its proper words. generic use, signifies " any benefit whatever," and the Latin confero is " to confer," in general but in the middle ages beneficium was employed to signify specifically what was otherwise called feudum, a feudal grant of land from a superior to an inferior, for which the latter was bound to render homage to the former and confero was, at the same time, used specifically to signify the issuing of such a grant. Now it happened in the year 1158, that Pope Adrian, in a letter to the Emperor Frederick, used the words " imperialis insigne corona confervas" and intimated that he would willingly do him " majora The emperor indignantly resented these words, as implybenejicki." ing that the imperial dignity was a feudal grant conferred on him by Adrian, however, disclaimed this meaning, and papal authority. asserted that by the word beneficia, he merely meant benefits in general and tint he used confero to signify the act, which he had ofticiallv performed, of placing the crown on the Emperor's head, at his coronaWe, in a free country, have an instinctive abhorrence of slavery. tion. But the generic term Slave includes a great variety of specific relations, which should be carefully distinguished in our reasoning on them. There appear to have been among our Saxon ancestors two species of slaves, the Servus, or household slave, and the Villanus, or rustic slave :' and the villanus was afterwards distinguished into the villein 8 Among the Greeks there were in gross, and the villein regardent. the BoiiXoc, depavwv, Xarptjc, otKtrjjc, av2pa7rotW, ôpi/aXwroc, and in different countries the EiXwree, HtveaTai, KXaptorai, Nvuirru, &c.* Among the Hindoos, slaves are of fifteen kinds, Gerhejat, Keereeut, Lubdehee, Dayd.vaupa.kut, Eenakal Behrut, Ahut, Mookhud, Joodeh Perraput, Punjeet, Opookut, Perberjdbesheet, Gheerut, Bhekut, Berbdksame or
different
; :
rut,
and Beekreet?
Reciprocal.
A correlation exists in the mind between certain thoughts, and also between certain feelings, which gives occasion to a class of words that may be called reciprocal ; as in the natural correlation of parent and child, the social of master and servant, the commercial of Hiving and selling, the political of freeman and slave, the legal of plaintiff and defendant, the military of belligerent and neutral, the scientific of teaching and learning, the local of above and below; and numerous others, all which are differently provided for in different languages, the correlation being sometimes marked by separate words, as in the cases just mentioned, and a common term being sometimes used to mark
424.
1
indifferently either of the related conceptions.
The
parental relation
gives occasion in our
every other language to the separate words Father and Mother, and we apply the common word Parent to
1
own and
ficium et conferre.
"
2
'
Pabst Hadrians Entschuldigung wegen des wahren Verstands derer Worte beneSenkenberg, Corp. Jur. Feud. Ger. p. 528. 3 Blackst. Com. Spelman, voc. Servus. * Halhed, Gentoo Law, chap. viii. s. 1. Julius Pollux, lib. iii. chap. viii.
a2
356
ot wokds.
[chap.
xiii.
express that relation in both sexes, but the latter provision seems to be wanting in most barbarous languages. So as to the connubial relation, we have the correlative terms Husband and Wife, but we have in English no common term for both, except that of "married persons;" whereas the French, besides Mari and Femme., have the common term Us Epoux. In some languages there is an obvious analogy of sound between words expressing an analogy in natural relationship as in the Hungarian Fiver, brother, Nover, sister; Ipa, father-in-law, Napa, mother-in-law. In Latin, I have reckoned up sixty-three distinct terms, several of which can only be rendered in English by an awkward
;
circumlocution
as Triavus, a great-grandfather s great-grandfather.
Trineptis, the great-granddaughter of a great-grandson, or great-grand-
daughter. 1 So we have in Greek iu-tCuu ii<: answering to our " first cousin once removed." In the Hindu law, Sapinda is any one within
the sixth degree of ascent or descent.
Samonadaca includes
relations
I observed in so far as their births and family names are known.* Scotland, that where the precise degree of relationship was obscure,
and perhaps
connection.
distant, the individual
was
in
common
discourse called I
by consanguiby many persons little understood. Consanguinity u Affinity is relation by marriage," 8 so that my is relation by blood. In the social wife's sister by consanguinity is my sister by affinity.
The
great distinction between relationships
nity
and
affinity, is
relations of master
political institutions
arily
;
and servant, the terms used vary according to the and usages of different countries, but there must
be a correlation in the terms used, the Semis must, ha\e a and when freed, the Libert us must have a Patron us. The. Apostle says, in the original Greek, Ot $oi>Xoi viritKovtre rote xvptoti (literally, slaves, obey your lords,) which in our translation is softened down to "sen-ants, lie oliedicnt to them that are your musters."* On the other hand, the word sen-tint la superseded in the United States l>y the more relined expression, a liel/i. What the correlative term is for the person helped, I do not know. In commercial relations, men with barf, r, i term equally applicable to both parties concerned Imt oommoo medium of exchange was agreed on (whether of cowries, or lumps of metal, or lastly of coined monej ), the acts of "buying and selling," and the persons of " buyer and Seller," were hed in language; though some term, applicable to Ixith mi lie, were iilvi employed, as "to deal," " bargain," &C. En term "freeman" implies the existence, somewheie of othei, of parsons not tree, under some of the various modifk The opposite to '' overeign" mi freedom above alluded to. n the term people may comprehend is subpH't Mini though in one both sovereign ami subject, j el the term " the sovereign people" must,
Domintis
.1
i
i
ll.ii>-..".,
I,,
iii
.
u t.-s
in
>>!'
it
i.iii
Iil>.
iii.
t.
G.
'
s,r
w. Joni
i.
Mean, chip,
r,
90.
>ii,
4 '-I

CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
;
337
always be a solecism just as it would be absurd to say the black white, though in a certain sense both black and white may be termed colours. Again, the sovereign may be a tyrant, or a just king and Laxguet forcibly says, " Tyranni regibus, injusti principes justis e diametro opponuntur." "Tyrants are the diametrical opposites of kings, unjust princes of the just." 1 In legal phraseology, the plaintiff
;
is necessarily contradistinguished to the defendant, the actor to the reus; but they are both comprehended under the term Pars, "a party to the suit." So, with us, the court, which decides on the law, is contradistinguished to the jury, which determines the fact ; and an ordinary juror is contradistinguished to a talesman. It is remarkable,
Roman procedure in general was from our own, yet admitted, in certain cases, a practice not dissimilar to our choice of talesmen. For Ulpian says, "nonnunquam solent magistrates
that different as the
it
nominatim, vice arbitri, dare." "The people use sometimes to nominate a traveller, in place of an arbitrator."* But he adds, " this is rarely done, and only in case of urgency." In the modern law of war, neutrals are properly contradistinguished to belligerents; but these terms are of comparatively recent date. Grotius calls the neutrals, "in bello medios," " mediates in a war." 8 Bynkershoek describes them simply
viatorem
magistrates of the
populi Romani,
Roman
as
states
"nonkostes" "not enemies:"4 and he briefly, but energetically their duty " Horum officium est omni modo cavere, ne se
bello interponant, et his
quam
is
illis
iniquiores."
" Their duty
by
all
means
partibus sint vel aequiores, vel to take care, that they do
tnot interpose in the war; nor show themselves more favourable, or unore unfavourable to either party"* a doctrine everywhere allowed in theory, but alas almost everywhere disregarded in practice In all
and in all arts, the acts of teaching and learning must be reciprocal and most cultivated tongues supply such terms, as " to teach," tand " to learn," docere and discere, Sifjawu) and fiavdavcj- Nevertheless our verb learn is from the Anglo-Saxon Iceran, " to teach." In old English, we have "scoleto lerne chyldre in," for "school to teach children in," and to learn or lam is still used provincially for to teach." H They don't know, and they wo'nt let me larn 'em," says the Irish
sciences,
;
ihedge schoolmaster.
ito
In the Malay language, ajar is both to learn and In reference to local relation, the meaning of susque deque was disputed in the time of Aulus Gellius; 8 but it clearly meant, as explained by Dacier, " to care not whether things looked up or down ;"
teach. 7
;
tus being used for upwards, and de for downwards as in suspicio, and despicio, and in sursum and deorsum. Thus the Parasite says to the slave Parmeno
Vindiciae contra Trrannos, Qu. 3. De Jur. Bel. and Pac. iii. 17.
' IbiJ 7 Crawfurd,
Ulpian, Digest, v. 1 82 Jur. Pub.' lib. i. e Halliwell, ad voc.
Q U{E st.
voc. ajar.
x oc t.
Attic> lib< xyi
c> 9>
358
OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII,
hos menses quietum reddam. Sex ego te totos, Parmeno, sursum deorsum cursites. Ne
I'll
months, Parmeno, give thee rest for six

1
From running up and domi.

Kepetition,
called same sounds, which is sometimes redupho* and sometimes, though improperly JaLoTduplication,
425 The
repetition of the
Tfl/in
all
languages, ancient
S
the
nolite and produces P
TuZs^
See
^Mr. Crawfurd says, " the practice of reduphcation
often recurred to (m Hebrew) of nouns or particles is comparison, or distribution, diversity, of denoting

is
manv remarkable
effects.
LEE ^"JftJ".^
Dr.
says,
um
o
h
fre
so
ît^'ent
is
SLtSAriimitative sounds.
Thirdly, a substantive or adj,^ I^figurative sense. n tau~ aparticle pre hx a radical is repeated with abb eTatd. Fourthly, Example relation or negation. ffl! n 2fi.t S ervin- to show
W K^JM
active
or
subsuUi,
considering the different ell,,,
SL?
Intensity.
re
Fon S
S s,. v .,,,,,, of soud from this

;
m<* U
-5 a- ^-^^r.st&cq
t|,
r .|.,lr tl > arc
. .1..1..1..-.1
1
..no.
.
Im5 "'".."
I, K ,1.^.
;,,,!,.
rtmsUi
,r,,,.l.TH",x.
5 "sisîs^MSsa*
;:ivi.r.r. ri
I.
,,.
:..
;-.^
i
"
ii.nc.2, v.4rt.
ii.i,,,
ii,.i.
Grammar, art, 294, No. Gram, art, LW, Ho, L.
CHAP.
quet
;
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
359
answering exactly to the French ver-vrrt in Gresset's well-known In Yoruban, pelle pelle is " very gently," and rondon rondon " very pale." In Western Australia, kallang kallang is " very hot." is So is funfun in Yoruban. In In Taitian, tea-tea is " very white." In Bornu, zumzurn Cayuscan, thlaththlako has the same signification. " hot," and shumshum is " fermented liquor." In Bechuana, ceu is
poem.
is
" white," ceu thata, " whiter or whitest," and ceu thata thata, the " whitest emphatically." In some instances, repetition may give a word the effect of a diminutive, as in the Susu language di is " a In the Mandingo language, dingo is " a child," didi " an infant." " a river," baba "a rivulet child," dindingo " an infant;" and ba is Again, repetition may express an indifference or or minor stream."
uncertain state of feeling, as in the Italian cost, cost ! in the Bohemian In tak, and in our correspondent expression so, so !
gakz takz, tak

neither
French, miton-mitaine is said of a remedy or expedient, which does kala, good nor harm. In Malay, kala is " time," and " perhaps,'' i. e. time will show. 428. In some languages a simple repetition expresses the plural number of things or persons. In Malay, orang orang signifies " men," u fireworks," riris riris, " continuous raja raja " princes," longloagan,
Mm
Plurality,
drops of
Taitian
rain."
And
so a collective quantity of anything, as in the

Frequency,
hum, "a hair," huruhuru, " the hair of a person's head." 429. In many languages repetition expresses frequency, either as a general notion, or as the name of an act implying frequent motion, or of something produced by or employed in producing such motion. The adverb " frequently " is, in Hungarian, ottan ottan. In Malay, gupuk gupuk is " hastily." In West Australian, ilak ilak is " immediately."
In Wolof, legIn Javanese, wanti wcuvti is " incessantly." In " frequently." In Tongan, fa fa is " to grope about" leg is Yoruban, fake fake is " palpitating." In German, schling-schlang is " slinging the arms in walking." In Malay, kata kata is " chatting," agreeing in effect with the talkee-talkee of the West Indian negroes. Fatoo-fatoo, in Tongan, is Pehi-pohi, in Marquesan, is " to beat."
in
Fangofango " to fold up." Toni toni, in Marquesan, is " to sew. Tongan, is " to blow the nose." Kubhee kubhee, in Hindoostanee, " now and then." Uinta, in Malay, is " to ask ;" minta minta is is " a beggar." In Tongan, holo is " to rub," Mo-Mo is " a towel." In West Australian, butak butak is " to wink frequently." In Tongan, In Malay, duga is " to think;" duga duga kila Mia is " to dazzle."
"
to meditate."
430. Reciprocal action

In
is
expressed in our see-saw and roly poly.
Reciprocity,
West
side."
Australian, binbart-binbart expresses " rolling from side to In Malay, tulungIn Mpongwe, timbia rimbia is the same.
J^SSj
In West Austratinulung is rendering each other mutual assistance. In Yoruban, ammo is " a child," lian, bur-bur is exact resemblance. and ommo ommo is " a grandchild." 431. The notions of order and confusion are alike capable of ex-
Order, confusion.
3G0
pression
OF WORDS.
[CHAP. XIII
is is
by the
repetition of similar sounds; order
shown
in dis
" one by one ;' in Hindoostanee, dus dus is " ten by ten ;" in Mongol, hhougav khougcn is " two by two." So in the distribution of substantives, in t&u Yoruban language, agba agba is " man by man." In Laplandiah, yapesx yapai is " from year to year ;" in Hungarian, eszendorol eszendore th( same. In Malay, muda mudahan is " easily," and suka suka is " aepaj rately." In Hindoostanee In Yoruban, kaba kaba is " irregularly." jugra-rugra is " a (confused) brawl." In Malay, tiba-tifsa is " unawares." In Tongan, fa-fa is " to grope about," and heke heka is " slippery."
tributive numerals.
In Persian and Turkish, yek-yek
Figurative,
With a
connective.
be observed that the repetition sometimes gives { word, as in Malay, kuda is a horse, kuda kudo a wooden frame, which we call in English a horse, to dry linen on vlar a snake, ular idar a brook, from its serpentine course; mate " the eye," mata-mata " a scout." In Tongan, matta is " the e\ <,' and egi is " a chief," matta-matta-egi is " stately," one who lias the appearance of a chief. In Yoruban, ennu is the mouth, ifen, (that is fi ennu ho ennu, mouth to mouth, as in kissing) is used t< express agreement 433. In most of the above examples the repetition is of a word, ii whole or ]>art, simply; but in some there is a connecting particle This latter form of repetition occurs in many languages both cultivate* and uncultivated. We have the phrase hand to hand
432.
It is to
figurative sense to a
In single opposition, hand to hand, He did cont'ouud the best part of an hour In changing hardiment with great Glendower, 1
hand
a mano a mano is " successively." In German, hand ii " united." In low French, flic et Jlac expresses repeated slaps. In Hindoostanee, lub " the brim," lub a lub " brimful] ;" tcu/u " time," wukt be wukt " now and then," roo " face," roo bu roo " far Our " here and there" is in Hungarian, iinit is, amot is. Ir to face." In Yoruban, oglxrn is " sense 01 Laplandiah it is tobben ya tobl>en.
In
Italian,
is
cunning," ogbonhogbon
abbreviated, aa
n
is
duplicity."
Sometimes the connective

Ii
in
ogfionkogbon just mentioned, where kogbon
of ki
loi
Oijbon.
So
,;,/
in
Voruluin,
<>jo is
"a day,"
is
OJOJO
(for
><}>
ojo)
"a
;l.
Soinetiini'sa negative
added
to the connective,
as
iorin*.
in
I
tanee, Hind Analogous
kmsh, ga na
the
k<x>sh,
"now
glad,
now
Bad."
to
repetition
of the same word,
in
whole
Qj
pleonasm, which la not uncommon in Qreek, d employing together a noon and verb of the same simnliration, anv, to aerve as a slave, w6\tfiov woXtfttiv, to war ai I warnor. tain liia" (sayg Wkiski eat aimplicitas antiqued nam priuaquam populua artibua bonis excolitur, d redolene artatera
kind
<>f
)
dicendl
maxima
artern tractare Incipit,
multa
Part
in
deincepa elcgontmi
mi
um
|w>lita
.
oratio rcspuit."
sermono adhibet, qui " There il in
aatraj Hea, i\
a,

CHAP. XIII.]
OF WORDS.
361
these a manifest simplicity savouring of antiquity

is
for before a people

it
furnished with the liberal arts, and particularly before

it
begins to
1
cultivate the arts of speech,
employs many unnecessary words which
So afterwards the polished oratory of a more refined age rejects." we find in Latin authors, like pleonasms of various parts of speech, such as " etiam quoque," " nunc jam," ** propere ocyus," " id propterea" (for ideo propterea).
Thus
in
Terence
hither. 9
Id propterea nunc hanc venientem sequor. Therefore, on this account, I now follow him coming
Similar superfluities of expression occur in
poets, as Fairfax, speaking of the rich
some of the
to
older English
armour brought
Argantes
He
I
don'd them on, nor long their riches eye'd. 8
am much
inclined to think that not only
what
is
called the
augment
in
oe
Greek verbs, as re in Ttrvtya, but the like prefix in Latin verbs, as in cecini, are remnants of a more ancient form, in which a root was
repeated, to express the past time of a verb, as nnrruTra contracted to
and cincini to cieini, cecini ; which would not ; be more extraordinary than some of the repetitions above mentioned for expressing plurality in substantives, or a superlative quality in adAt least, I have never met with any more probable suggestion jectives. of a cause for either the Greek augment or the Latin prefix; and it appears to me to be connected with the Sanskrit formation of the third or indefinite preterite of certain verbs, agreeably to Bopp's remark " The past time is expressed in the (Greek) perfectum, as it is in the Sanskrit third preterite by reduplication. Here, too, as in Sanskrit, In the absorbed accidental letters are thrown off", rtTvira, or rirvtyaSanskrit tutupa, from tup." 4 435. The effect of repetition of sounds, as agreeable to the auditorial faculties of mankind, in all stages of the development of that faculty, is shown, not only by the repetition of the same words, but by what
rvrvira, rvrvtya rervâ
is
Amu-ration,
commonly
called alliteration.
Alliteration is defined
by Johnson,
is
"the beginning of
letter;"
several words, in the

is far
same
verse,
with the same

neither
but this definition
too limited.
Alliteration
confined to verse, nor does
apply solely to the beginning of words, but is no less frequent at the end, furnishing our modem rhyme ; and when in the middle, it contributed to the metre of our Saxon ancestors. It is true, that " there are instances of it " (as Johnson justly observes) " in our oldest and best writers ;" and it often appears in their poetical works with striking effect. Thus Milton, in his noble description of
it
the creation, says

1
Pleonasmi Gra>ci,
s.
15
a.
Andria,
a.
ii.
sc. 5.
Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, vii. 12. Die Vergangenheit wird im Perfect : so wie im Sanskrit bey dem dritten Pract. durch die Reduplikation ausgedriickt. Aueh worden hier, wie im Sanskrit, die
4
aufgenommenen zufrilligen Buchstaben abgeworf'en, rtrinra oder Ttrv<pa Tutupa von Tup. Conjugations system. Ed. Whulischinann, p. 63.
Sanskr.

362

OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII.
Behemoth, biggest born of earth, uphe.iv' Paradise Lost, His vastness.
vii.
471.
So Shakspeare,
describing Lucretia in the grasp of Tarquin
Her pity-pleading eyes
are sadly fix'd In the remorseless wrinkles of his face.
Rape of Lucrcce,
S]ienser abounds in alliterative lines, as
stanza 81.
So faire and fresh, as freshest flowre
in
May.
i.
Faerie Queene, b.
c. xii. st.
22.
And
again
The blazing
brightnesse of her beautie's beatne.
Ibid.
st.
23.
In the very old
satirical
poems
this
form of
alliteration is
common,
as
Of rybauds y ryme Ant rede o my rolle.

Harl.
MSS.
2253,
f.
124
b.
And
equally so in the heroical ballads, as
On
Thurch
hclmes gan they heme brinies brast the blod.

Sir Tristrcm,
i.
18.
And
it is
ridiculed
by Chaucer,
as often introduced merely to eke out
a line
All other women I forsake, And to an elf queue I me take, By dale, and eke by doun.
Rime of Sire Thopas.
At
as
later periods it
was
intentionally used to produce a ludicrous effect,
They roll and nimble, They turn and tumble, As pygges do in a poke.
Sir T. More.
Such, too, are the expressions of the wolf he feels large stones in his entrails
in the
German
(able,
win
Was
rumpelt und putnpelt In meinem Bauili h.rum?
Qrimm, Sieb.jmg,
DIflhNnt
<:<
436. Alliteration may consist either in a similarity of vowels, the consonants being different, as in )>cU-mcll; or in a similarity of con* sonants, the vowels only being dilleivnt, as in see-saw. It may nivalin wort Is alliterative t<> each other, as in " lichemuth, Imiijest-hom" or in
allit.i.itiv tyllabUa
Case,
of the same word, as m ijewgaw. In the latter wools form I class, to which few eJossdloLMsts have paid much attention, -u wlmli are particularly noticed bj Grimm rod Aoi.i.t v;, nil' we find numerous instances of them cited l>\ .Ion \mikhoh. Grose, Bioodr r, and Haixtwill, have already men* * il, under t.lir of )iioinato|ncin and Interjection, and nhall now ii'lect a f.-w of those Used a.s nouns substantive and adjective,
th"
I
.i
1.
-.
<

OilAP. XIII.]
OF WORDS.
363
437. Milton uses the word gewgaws as a substantive, in speaking Gewgaw, of the punted skins of the Britons " a vanitie " (says he) M which hath not yet left us, removed only from the skin to the skirt, behung now with as many-coloured ribands and gewgaws." Johnson gi\ two dissonant etymologies of this word, viz., gegqf, Anglo-Saxon, and joyau, French but neither of them seems very applicable to the mean:
ing of the word, for the one signifies base, and the other a jewel. Mischmasch, in German, is from the verb mischen, to mix.
And
here I would observe that in such words it is oftentimes only one part that has a significant origin, the other part being added merely for the sound. " Mischmasch " (says Adelung) " is a word used only in com-
mon
contemptuous sense, a mixture of various In Lower Saxon and Danish, we have miskinask; in French, micmac (an antique) ; in Scotch, mixtie-maxtie, or mtxte3 Adelung observes that in maxie ; in old English, mingle-mangle.
life
to betoken, in a
2
substances."
other like words, the repetition is unknown in High German.* Knickknacks, petty trifles or toys, generally used in the plural.
this instance, the latter part of the
In
word
is
the significant, being derived
8 trick, a clever mode of doing anything. Thus the witch Hurly-burly, a tumultuous uproar, as in a battle. answers the question, when shall we three meet again ?
from knack, a
When When
the hurly-bwlt/'s done, the battle's lost and won."
this, Hendkrsox remarks that, however mean this word may seem modern ears, it came recommended to Shakspeare by the authority of H. Peacham, who, in a book professing to teach the ornaments of
On
to
language, mentions hurly-burly as an onomatopoeia, signifying an uproar
and tumultuous
stir.
Hurly seems
allied to hurtle,
mentioned
in a
former paragraph.
Hubbub is a similar onomatopoeia. Johnson, not apprehending such a source of the word, says, " I know not the etymology, unless it be
Certainly it is not from either; but it is from up, up, or hob-nob." well applied by Milton to the tumult and noise at Babel, on the confusion of tongues
great laughter
was
in heaven,
And And
looking down, to see the hubbub strange, hear the din/

Zigzag, &c.
438. The word zigzag is used adjectivally in English ; as, " a zigzag line " is a line which advances by angular turns. It appears to be sometimes used also substantively, as the German der zickzack, which Adelung describes as " a line formed with in-and-out corners, like, for 8 He ascribes the origin of the word to the example, the Latin Z." Low Saxon dialect, in which alliteration is much employed, as in misch1
Hist, of England, b.
ii.
2 4
*
mingle. * Halliwell, voc. knack. 7 Paradise Lost, b. sii. v. 59.
3 Halliwell, voc.
Worterbuch, voc. mischmasch. Worterbuch, voc. wischwash. Macbeth, a. i. sc. 1. Worterbuch, vol. iv. p. 1701.

364
masch, icirrwarr, &c.
[chap.
XIII.
OF WORDS.
The
significant portion is zag,
from the German
zacken, a point or indentation, as in the branches of a deer's antlers, Zigzag, though it escaped Dr. Johnor in the prongs of a pitchfork.
son, is used
by many French
as well
as
common
Embroidery in zigzag use in both countries. Italian by another alliterative word, ghirigori.
ficant part of the
English authors, and is in is expressed in

1
Humpty-dumpty is proverbially used for hunchbacked. The signiword is hump, which Johnson thought was corrupted from bump. He should have said that hump and bump were alike
tion,
hump and hunch were varieties of pronunciawith the same meaning. Hence, humpback and hunchback Richard III., who is popularly equally signify having a crooked back. said to have been hunchbacked, is several times spoken of in Shak> speare by the appellation of " Crook-back," as by Clifford
onomatopoeias, and that
Ay, Crook-bach, here
I
stand to answer thee. 8
Cotgrave uses the words bunch-backt and hulch-backt for the French bossu, which is from bosse, a hump. Harum-scarum is used adjectivally for giddy, thoughtless. 8 The significant portion seems to be scarum, from the verb to scare, as " a " harum-scarum person " is one who acts wildly, as if he were scared,
or so as to scare others
Pell-mell
is
by
his thoughtless violence.
used adjectivally by Shakspeare

Never yet did insurrection want Such moody beggars, starving for a time Of pell-mell havoc and confusion.*
<><.
This word is derived from the French pGle-mele, and is generally regarded as a compound; but I am inclined to think that the only significant portion is mell, from the Italian mescdare, old French m >/ /\ and modern French melrr and that pell is added merely for alliteration. 4:5S. The Scotch verb to argle4>argle is explained by JamiksoN " to contend, to bandy backwards and forwards," and lie derives both j>ortloni from the bundle;* but I am rather of opinion that the only significant portion is argle, from argue; and that the proper force of the is, to bandy words in the way of argument. If, indeed, the expression were argl'-lxirgin, which Jamieson also mentions, it inighl be ium1 a com|Niiind derived from argue and bargain; but this does not appear to me to be the true origin of the word argl$~bargi$, rely the verb gi vc receiving a reciprocal ellect from the It 1- used, however, in the north of England as an abstract alliteration. sul ignil'y M unpremeditated disCOUr ition, but BUMwell, more probably, '"tend, it not merely In either sense it is suitable to the alno tO mutual jOOOBWBOdatiOa
;
1
I
pio
'
ni.il
v.. v..
|,
How hip."
1
iMiev.11.
1.
H,
,
,,
I
luii.wii.
* Kt
1
1.
|,
Third Pari ofHtn. VI, . Pari .1 Htn. IV. a.

1
11,
r.
0,
L,

CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
it is
365
In the expression roly-poly,

significant,
clear that the first portion alone is

roll.
being derived from the verb to

is
It
w applied
to several
matters in which rolling
made
is
necessary, particularly to a kind of pudding in layers rolled together, and also to a game in which a half-bowl
1
rolled at certain pins.
Snip-snap
snap, but
cited
is
not formed, as Johnson says
it is,
by
reduplication of
in the passage
by
alliteration
with that verb
for
it signifies,
by him, a
;
short, quick, verbal controversy, the significant part
of the compound being snap, an imitation of the sounds in such dialogues whereas snip (as a word) has no relation to it in signification, but is connected with the Anglo-Saxon snithan and German schneiden, to cut ; and as a tailor is, in vulgar English, called snip, so a tailor is, in German, a Schneider ; but snip in snip-snap is merely alliterative
And
Dermis and dissonance, and captious art, snip-snap short, and interruption smart.
As
this
is
a distich of Pope's,
there seems no reason
who was certainly not a vulgar writer, why Johnson should call snip-snap "a.cant word,"
though it was no doubt intended to have a ludicrous and somewhat contemptuous effect.
Tittle-tattle is a verbal alliteration.
Here
also the latter portion
is
the significant one
for tattle is
an onomatopoeia, like babble.
In
fact,
Cotgrave translates tattle by the French babil, and a tittle-tattler by babillarde. Shakspeare uses the word in the Winter's Tale.* The Clown, reproving Mopsa and Dorcas, says " Is there not milking time, or when you are going to bed or kiln-hole, to whistle off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests ?" Scribble-scrobble is given by Halliwell as a north country word for
:
scribbling.
Here the
first is
the significant portion, and the addition
seems intended to give it an iterative force. The same observation may, perhaps, be made on the Hindoostanee und-phund and chukur mukurh, both signifying to quibble. So in the Malay, pukul is to beat, and pukul-mamukul, to deal continuous or mutual blows. Indeed, the Orientals in general seem inclined to alliteration. The Arabs, according to Mr. Eton, are accustomed to repeat a word, changing the first letter into m to signify et ccctera, as cahue mahue, "Coffee et caetera," which he illustrates by the story of an Arab who complained that his camel had been overloaded with cahue mahue the cadi, who had been bribed by the other party, gravely decided that the mahue should be taken oft", and the caliue left 3 so that the burthen remained as before. 439. Higgledy-piggledy is used adverbially. It is spelt very vari- Higgiedyously, higgledy-piggledy, and hicklety-picklety by Brockett, hicklepy- ^BiM&Y, &c pickleby, and higiedepigle by Halliwell. The first mode is undoubtedly the most correct; for the significant portion is higgle 01
alliterative scrobble
; 1
of the
Halliwell, voc. Roly-poly.

3
Winter's Tale,
p. 33.
a. iv. sc. 3.
Survey Turk. Emp.

366
haggle,
higgler
; ;; ; ;
'
OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII.
which
is
to bargain with pertinacity on both sides; and a a hcncker or pedler going about the country, not merely
is
"
selling provisions
by
retail,"
(as
his pack a miscellaneous collection of wares, such as those
Johnson supposes,) but carrying in enumerated
by Autolycus
Lawn,
as white as driven snow Cyprus, black as e'er was crow ; Gloves, as sweet as damask roses Masks for faces, and for noses Bugle bracelet, necklace-amber,
Perfume for a lady's chamber Golden quoifs and stomachers, For my lads to give their dears Pins, and poking sticks of steel What maids lack from head to heel. Come buy of me ; come buy, come buy
he afterwards says, " I have sold all my trumpery. Not a counterfeit stone, not a riband, glass, pomander, broach, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, hom-ring, to keep m y pack Higgledy, therefore, comes from the confusion of from starving!" and the alliterative piggledy is added to mark the higgler's pack more strongly the disorder. The same notion is expressed in Hindoostanee by several alliteratives, gud-bud, oolta poolta, and durhumburhum. Ribon-ribaine is an old French adverbial term, which COTQRA.VS rendered " by hook or by crook, will ye nill ye, whether you will or no;" and Leroux explains it, " a quelque priz que ce soit, nonol slant toute resistance, et empechement :" " At whatever price, in spite of
And
resistance, or obstacle." Miton-mitaine is a similar French term used adjectively, and sig" C'est de l'onguont nifying anything which is neither good nor bad. tniton-mitaive :" " It is an ointment, which does neither good Dtii harm." It seems to lie taken from miton, which Cotgrave renders, M tin- small worm or vermine called a mite," as if so small a thing
ill
could produce no effect. I.amperdee clumperdee,
is adverbially used to describe, in a ludicrous manner, a person moving Lompiahlr, that is, heavily and awkwardly, .is in the "Id laice of Roister Doister.
Th. re shall ye
we
Not tumperdee clumperdee,

J'/iji/iiti/ jlnj,
Tibet, air*, trends the mouse so trimnie, like our spaniel Uig.
is
I
given by
Hulliwell as
Warwickshire term
loi
djnaggletail-.l.
VU
flop for
Jtii/>,
which
;
ban
1
an adverb, of which the significant portion onornalopieia, from the sharp noise made
-nl
thing that stiil... de or end and th.

ftni>l>iii<i
1 I l.
moth. t,
to
t
when held only by

tin'
ail
.
n<
motion,
ihe
nf a hie'
th.-
idly, to
anything capable of
mob
'
motion, as the flap* of a waistcoat, or hat, or

Winter's
T.-nV,
...
,v. tc.
8,

CHAP. XIII.]
OF WORDS.
367
of a table, a By-flap, a flap-eared dog, &c. So when the border of a woman's dxeaa flaps repeatedly against the mod, and becomes draggled,
it is
provincially said to
go
flippity-flop.
CriscroM,
c#
of an alliterative form are in reality contracted compounds. Criscross is the name given by the vulgar to the mark of a cross, by way of signature, made by those who cannot write. It is an abbreviation of Christ's cross, and the alphabet (according to
440.
Many words
Brockett) was formerly called

superstitions
Christ's cross
it
custom of writing
in the
row; probably from a form of a cross by way of
charm. Hotchpotch is the Scottish mode of writing the word which in our law terms is spelt hotchpot, in French hochepot, and in provincial English hodge-podge. It is a well-known dish, in which many articles of food are mixed together. Various etymologies are suggested for I think it is most probably a compound of the French the word. hocher, and pot. In our north country dialect, to hotch is to shake In French hocher is to shake; so that hocliepot may signify together. different things shaken together in a pot. And in this sense it seems to agree with the Dutch hutspot, for a dish of the same kind, where huts is from hutselen to shake together. Lakeicake is given by Grose as a northern word signifying the watching of a dead body. This in Chaucer is spelt Lichewaclie, when describing the funeral of Arcite
Ne how Ne how
Liche
is
Arcite
is
brent to ashen cold,
the lichewache All thilke night.
was yhold
Knightes Tale, v. 3959, &c.
from the Gothic hiks and Anglo-Saxon lie, the body ; and wache is from the Gothic wakan and Anglo-Saxon wacian, to watch. Chaucer (as Tyrwhitt justly observes) confounded the Lichevvakes of his own time with the funeral games of the Homeric age. From this liche is derived the Leechway given by Grose as an Exmoor word tor the path in which the dead are carried to be buried. Lake, in lakewako, is evidently corrupted from the substantive liche, or He, for the sake of alliteration with the verb wake. In some instances it has been further corrupted to latewake. 442. I have spoken above of the repetition of a word with a connecting particle but there is also a form of alliteration prevalent in most languages, between a significant and non-significant part of a word, with a connecting particle, as in pit-a-pat. This word is particularly applied to the quick pulsation of the heart, as in the Beggar's Opera
;
Pit-a-pat, see
a good housewife sees a rat In the trap in a morning taken, With pleasure her heart goes pit-a-pat.
When
notion of the effect of alliteration as the is probably from the French pas a pas, or patte patte, to neither of which expressions it has the least
origin of words, suggests that this
Dr. Johnson,
who had no

368
relation.
OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII.
is
The
significant portion is pat, an onomatopoeia;

effect
and pit
merely prefixed, with the general

repeated action of the heart, &c.
of alliteration, intimating a
This may possibly have been first applied to Spick and span new. a lance new both in the spike, (the pointed head,) and in the span or But if so, it is of different origin from span new, in which handle. To spin in Mcosospan, spun, or spon is the past participle of spin. Gothic and Anglo-Saxon is spinnan ; in Islandic spinia ; in Swedish Ihre explains sping spang, plane novus. spinna ; in Danish spinde. Chaucer has span new, as when Troilus speaks in praise of Cressida
.
This tale was aie span new to beginne. 1
Here span
is
evidently from spin, as in the old
rhyme
When Adam
delved, and
Eve span,
Who
was then the gentleman ?

is
In the romance of Kyng Alisaunder it ander dismisses the Persian with honour,
who had
spon neowe, when Alexattempted to kill
him
Richeliche he doth him schrede In spon neowe knyghtis wede. 8
Bot of Bale (the remedy of evil) Saviour
is
applied, in old English, to the
Now
he, that
is
Bot of Bale,
schall.*
Helpe yow well, and so he
Whicketfor Wfiacket, or Quitteefor Quottee, according to GBOSE, are

me-Jieesle,
RackKentish expressions for an equivalent return, a quid pro quo. according to Jamieson, is a Fifeshire ami Perthshire The same meaning is word, answering to our higgledy-piggledy. In the Tongan PTp gnrid in Bindoostanee by Idhur ka oodhur. language, Utngi is to weep, and tangi-fe-toogi is to bemoan, to beat In French, flic et flac is an expression serving the face with grief. (according to uXBOUX) to represent a few slight slaps, as " Flic lui " She gave a donse* deux on trois soufllets, flic et flac, sur la joue." him tun or three slight slaps on the clink." So " entiv le zist* et Ifi zeste," is u pumYHj. between good and bad, neither too ranch DOC too little." The significant part here is teste, a bit of orange-peel put into a glass of any liquor, to give it (as we say) a zest or relish.
...
of vanity
Tin
ii
Nil
i.l'|ili>nHure,
and their balm of w

ol
at-
,,!
words originate in the abbreviation Thus a ///./, and a < \i sa are colloquially used b\ phrases. oi Pitri facias, and Capias ad satisfaciendum. fbt tha Witt torn*)
II
.:
<
alliterative
was.
in
my
tune,
the vulgar term of the Wiltshire
peasants for the assizes, from the clause AV.w print audita.
Troiltu inn! Ores Ida,
b<
UL
f.
'
IflTli
Sir
Ainudw,
v.

CHAP.
XII1.J
is
OF WORDS.
used
in
3G9
Hiccius Doctius
sulted by Hudibras
Butler's description of the lawyer con-
An
old dull sot,
who
told the clock,
For many years, at Bridewell-dock, At Westminster and Hick.s's Hall,
And
hiccius doctius play'd in all. 1
This has been suggested to be a contraction and corruption of hie est But more probably it is a mere variation, by jugglers and ter doctos.* till others, from Jlocus pocus, which some derive from Ochus Jlvcchas, a demon of the Northern mythology but others more probably supi>ose it to have been first used at the time of the Reformation, in ridicule of the Latin words " hoc est corpus," applied by the monks to the
;
sacramental bread.
Rigmarole
is
no doubt a corruption of the above-mentioned expres8
sion of " rede-o-my-rolle."

c
,
444. In the proverbial phrases of most nations,

conspicuous feature, ex. gr. In Greek, Aivov XtVw awairrtiq " one weak reason to another." In Latin, " Laudari a laudato viro"
alliteration is a Proverbial
phrases,
You add
flax to flax:
you add
praise-
worthy man."
In French, "
bite."
Homme
mort
In Italian, "Chi va piano, va In Spanish, " Al hierro caliente batir the iron is hot."
" To be by a ne mord pas " " The dead do not lontano" " and goes " " while de
praised
Fair
softly
far."
repente
Strike
fel
In Portuguese, " Lingoa doce como mel, coraeao amargoso " " Tongue sweet as honey, heart bitter as gail." In English, " Tit for tat."
como
In German, " Geschenktem Gaul, siehe nit ins
Maul
"
" Don't
look a gift horse in the mouth."

In Swedish, " Fast bundit, fastfumrit"
" Fast bind, fast find." In Esthonian, " Libbe keel, herrikse meel" " Honey in the mouth, venom in the heart." " Mez a nyelvinn, mereg a mellyeben" In Hungarian, (the
same.) Besides the I have noted
alliterative
words
in
the present and former chapter's,
many
others, in various languages,
which
will
be menof
tioned hereafter.
445. Glossology
collectors of words.
is
indebted, in various degrees, to the different Modes
The
first
contributors are the
travellers
and ôrds^
more or less comprehensive. words relating to particular suband finally, the Lexicographers, whose labours embrace a whole jects language. On the vocabularies of travellers and missionaries is
missionaries,
who form
come the
vocabularies
Next
to these
collectors of
Hudibras, part
iii.
chap.
iii.
v. 577.
3
Halliwell, ad voc.
Supra,
s.
434.
[g.]
2 B
370
OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII.
founded great part of the admirable Mithridates of Adelung, and also of the extensive glossological work of Hekvas, the Catalogo Our judicious circumde las Lenguas de las nacioms conocidas. navigator Cook collected specimens of many barbarous tongues before unknown and his example has been followed by subsequent voyagers one of the latest of whom, Captain Washing ton, put forth (anonymously) a verv useful vocabulary of different dialects of the Esquimaux. By far the largest contributions of this kind, however, have been made by monks and missionaries, for spreading Christianity
;
among
the
Of these, the earliest extant is the Prankish, of From such sources, recant preserved by Goldastus. writers have compiled vocabularies of several barbarous tongues, such as the Taitian, by W. Humboldt the Marquesan, by BusCHMASNj tin- South Australian, by TE1CHELMANN and SdBURMAKN, &C. fcc.
the heathen.
Monk Kero,
of words of certain classes have been made front verv early times; as of words relative to particular subjects of words used by particular authors or at particular periods of time, or of The (hioparticular dialects, or of particular grammatical ('onus.
Partial collections
:
masticon of Julius
Pollux
distributes the words, of
which
it
treats,
under
fifteen
heads, according to so
many
different subjects.
Rhetorical words were explained by Zosimus of Gaza, and Harpocration rhetorical, poetical, and other uncommon words by Photius and HESYCHIUB. Other Greek compilers illustrated respectively medical, juridical, philosophical, and theological words. Subsequent times furnished concordances to the Uolv ScriptaraS. Of these, the earliest is said to be a Latin one, without date or name of author, but which appears to have been taken as a model for several that subsequently appeared in was by the learned languages. The first, in our own IfouuKflE, who u as foBowed bj Corrnr, Bbrnabd, Newman, and Concordance is still in repute. The at length bv ('kuden, whose words employed by particular authors, ancient and modern, have
royal, domestic, naval, military, &c.
illustrated
and
supplied subjects re the

edited, with
to several
Xe'ctt
compilers.
Of
this
kind,
bj
among
the
'OutiptxcA
(Homer's words)
in
Latin
translation,
bv VlLLOISON
ApollohiuBj I77:i, the \tc
nXorwural (Plato's words) ly Tim.kus, and also by I'alamkdes. So the sixteenth oeu tury the words of Cicero, by Nizoltub, and in
111
rccenl tune.-,
I >
th
Homcricum, and
the
also the
I'mdancinn, by
m m
..
and
Lexicon
( i
Ioiiiciiui
lo
;
(of
Herodotus), bj
'joined
to various
.K.uiuus
historical
In this
.11
view the
<
I.
.il
works are nfj

I
d teful
for In itance, those
added
to the
:
nlurnes of
I'lliloi
!'.
l/istorica
that of K.
that
lo
id"
Capitokn, and aln

t" the
to
the Salic
'it/iuirum.
I
Law; and
In
like
>
of
Lindknbroo
I
c,!
,-
're Index** t.
71.
CHAT.
XIII.]
OF WORDS.
371
words of Milton, and Mrs. Cowdkn Clarke's to those of Shakspeare. On ancient Latin words, that by lapse of time had become obscure, we have the work of Festus, which was an abridgment of one written by Verrius, in the reign of Augustus, and of which Paulus, in the time of Charlemagne, made the Epitome now extant. from the gn at In later times, many similar collections have appeared work of Ducange, on the Mediaeval Latin, to the Archaic English In France, there words in Mr. Halliwell's recent compilation. have been not only collections of ancient words, but also one or two of Neologisms, (new fabrications,) especially those introduced in the
;
revolutionary period.
Many
collections of provincial words, in different
languages, have been noticed in previous chapters of this treatise: and

similar works existed among the ancients. Lupercus of IWytus wrote on Attic words, as did Pacatus, and Polion, the Alexandrian these three being among the authors from whose productions Lastly, among partial colSuidas compiled his general Lexicon. lections of words, are to be noticed those restricted to certain grammatical forms, as that by Ammonius of synonymous and homophonic words, above mentioned; and that by Cyrillus (or rather Phii.oponus), of words which in different senses receive different accents, both which collections are subjoined to the Greek Thesaurus of H. Stephanus. 446. The compilations which embrace whole languages we com- Dictionaru-, monly call Dictionaries or Lexicons, the former from a Latin, the T<" twlM*c latter from a Greek root; and both these terms are well established by modern custom, though alike unknown to classic literature. The ordinary terms applied in ancient times were, Collections, Onomastica, or the like. Sometimes, indeed, figurative expressions were used, as in Greek, "the meadow of words," by Pamphilius; so in Persian, *' the seven seas ;" in Arabic, " the ocean ;" but in later times,
;
Thesaurus, the treasure (or rather treasury), became a very

designation, being used in
;
common
Greek by Henry Estienne; in Latin by his iitther Robert in Hebrew by Pagnini in the Turkish, Persian, and other Eastern languages, by Meninski, &c, &c. Henry Estienne indeed complained that in the use of this title to his work some persons had endeavoured to forestall him; but his complaint, whether well or ill founded, was wholly disregarded. The two old Greek collections, which he himself edited, bore the title of Glossaries. The Etymologicon Magnum, quoted by Eustathius in the twelfth century, and edited by Muslims in the fifteenth, is merely what we now call a Greek lexicon arranged alphabetically, with small pretensions to etymology, in its modern sense, as may be judged by its derivation of alpha, 7rapa to dXipix) to evpiotcw, irpwrov yap t>v aXkuv (TTOi^tiwy
;
1
reddant.
quum me
In hoc opere prsestare conatus sum, quae ipsum Thesauri nomine non indignnm Eum quidem certe titulum mihi prseripere jam olim conati erant quidam, de hoc opere aggrediendo cogitare obaudiissent. Thes. Gr. Ling, ad
Lectorem Epistola,
p. 17.
2 b 2
372
OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII.
tupidr), " from u\(put, to find, because it was found out before all the There are two principal modes of arrangement in other letters!" works of this kind 1st, the alphabetical order of words by their or 2ndlv, the deduction of derivatives from their roots. initial letters
if carefully drawn up, is undoubtedly the most philoand most serviceable towards affording the student, who is somewhat advanced in his learning, a comprehensive view of the but for ordinary purposes, especially to structure of the language the younger students, the former is superior, and has consequently
The
latter,
sophical,
been
almost universally adopted.
The
alphabetical
arrangement;
Suidas,
generally follows the

ever, in his
common
order of the alphabet.
how-
Greek lexicon (for what reason does not appear), deviated from that method, placing the diphthong at before t, and t before 0, and w before t, and also varying in different ways the order of the Our English lexicographers often confound t with secondary letters. j, and u with v, though in pronunciation the articulations in each Johnson says, "I is in English considered case are widely different. both as a vowel and a consonant though since the vowel and consonant differ in their form as well as sound, they may be more properly We may surely ask, when two alphabetical accounted two letters." siuiis differ both in form and sound, what it is that makes them one letter? Hence Johnson's words follow in " most admired disorder " as We proceed from jabber to ice, and from idyl to j. to sound. and so on, shifting from j to i, and from to j throughout the alphaAnd a like confusion happens with u and v: we begin with bet vacancy, and presently come to liberty, and proceed from udder to real and all this for DO other reason than that the Roman alphabet had only and u, to each of which letters, when applied to our language, our monkish instructors chose to give two totally distinct articulations. The alphabetical order Of words differs in different languages: thus in Wehh, oh comes between c and </. //' between f and g ng between // <j and between / and m ; ph between p and r; ih between I
; 1
/<
and u: and
t..
this alphabet contains no

In
"'s,
/,
</,
v,
X, or
a's,
Z,
except as applied
C*8,
foreign words.
Polish there are

,s's,
two
;
two
two
c's,
two
ft,
two
OHM
though the difference, in and three :'s Similar instance., is so slight as to be often overlooked. may be made on the alphabets of most other European
*,
tWO
two
till
it,
is
desirable
thai
in
dictionary
the order 01 the
The ereat diversities alphabet to Which it belongs should be followed. mong alphabets render it necessary, in many cases, to explain the and hence have arisen the pronouncing dicproper pronunciation of which ll best in English, is Walker's, before.
; ,
I
Even author But here a new difficulty presents itself. own method ot explaining sound,. Tims Mr. Walker, In a "Mr. Sheridan was certainly of note on the word oommand,M) opinion that the unaccented o might be pronounced like u, as he baf
med.
.
|)|< ti<>ll.
'il llll.
!!<]
III.
I. llll.

CHAP.
so
XIII.]
it
OF WORDS.
in
373
command, commence, commission, and commend, though marked not in commander i and in compare, though not in comjiarative ; but in almost every other word where this o occurs he has given it the sound Mr. Scott lias exactly followed Mr. Sheridan and it has in constant. Dr. Kenrick has uniformly marked them all with the short sound of o. Why Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Scott should make anv difference in the first syllables of these words, where the letters and accents are exactly the same, I cannot conceive." Such are the discrepancies, even where
;
the lexicographers treat of their own language hut the confusion is increased when a foreign writer attempts to explain the English pronunciation to his countrymen. Thus the o in command is expressed by Mr. Walker as &, which he had previously stated to be the o in
;
German and English dictionary, but this he explains to be "tier doppelte ton des o, mit dem halben tone des a," which, to an English ear, is not very intelligible. These circumstances tend strongly to show the necessity which exists for a standard alphabet, to ascertain the present sounds of words, at least, in the languages of modern Europe. good dictionary may embrace much more than the mere articulation of words. The accents should always be marked, and generallv are so, but not always with sufficient care. The French language is understood to have two accents, the acute and the grave but even in the most celebrated French dictionaries the application of these accents seems very capricious. In the * Dietionnaire de Trevaux,' sacrilege has a grave accent; in the ' Dietionnaire de V Academie, it has an acute accent. In the former, /<e'w? has an acute accent; in the latter a grave one. The Dietionnaire de 1' Academic ' dillers in its different editions in that of 1778, it writes secritement with an acute accent; in that of 1811, secretement with a grave. In a Latin dictionary the quantities should all be marked, or, at least, those where the quantity is not known by a grammatical rule. The Thesaurus of K. StkI'Haxus, generally marks the principal syllables but it often leaves other syllables unmarked, so as to occasion to young students much uncertainty. Thus in the word bipeddlis, the a alone is marked but we are left to discover elsewhere that the first I and the e are both short, as
love.
it
By Mr.
Hilpert, in his very able
is
also expressed
by
&,
'
Ad summum
totus moduli blpCdsilIs. 1
lexicographers have, with laudable industry, traced the use of individual words historically, from the earliest period at which they
Some
can be found; but it must be remembered that the earliest form of a word now extant, may not be really the most ancient use of that word in the language under examination, much less can it show the word's
The history of a word, to be really from the root through its successive derivations in due order. A dictionary, in some respects valuable, may, no doubt, be formed without any pretensions to etymology ; but if the
derivation from a foreign root.
it
instructive, should trace
Horat. Sat.
ii.
3,
309.

374
derivation of a
fully
:
OF WORDS.
[chap.
XIII,
word be given at all, it should be given correctly ami of small use to give, as Dr. Johnson usually does, a single for instance, he says, to achieve is from the French step in derivation achever, to complete; but this gives us no information of the primary
it is
;
of the word in either language, and consequently assists Here the root; is the word the use of the derivatives. chef, the head, seldom now used but figuratively, for a chief or head of a family, or office, and formerly for the end of a place, time, 01 business. Cotgrave has the expression, "venir a clief d'un attains, to compasse, finish, or overcome a businesse;" and Court de Gebetin,
signification
but
little in
deriving chef from the Celtic cap, the head, explains achever, conduirc Hence, though Johnson's first sense of the word chef, an bout. achieve is correct, viz., "to finish a design prosperously," the second
is
erroneous, viz., " to gain, to obtain," which

it
is
only supported by
the inaccurate use of
in Prior's line
the spoils hy valiant kings achiev'd.
Show
all
The kings did not
achieve the spoils; they achieved the wars by which the spoils were obtained ; they brought those wars to a chef, a .successful termination. It would, further, be projxu to state, that in
-
the
modem use of the English word achieve, it is seldom employed but with reference to martial achievements; hence the word Jln/ch-
ment, for the coat-of-arms of a deceased person, originally signified the Memorial bearings commemorating the martial achievements of himself
or his ancestors.
omptlere.
447.
It
is
dictionaries,
worthy of observation that whilst the compilation of comprehending a whole language, has often required the
united exertion of learned bodies, l>y command or under the special patronage of their res|>ective governments, some of the besl works of
this
private
h
kind have bean produced by the energetic labour and talents of individuals. Such was the ease with the unrivalled Wmlcrtigin of all our English of the elder Ai)i:i,CN(i, and such was il
dictionaries, from that of
the raceri
ale
Bishop Cooper in the sixteenth century, to work of Mr. Richardson. In China, a dictionary of the //'/'/, ompiled by order of the Emperor written lango
I
and long before any similar collection in Europ this, and six successive ones, were formed, down A.i'. 7 >. when the present great 'Imperial Dictionary,' in .vi volume was compiled from all the preceding, b) the collective of Dearly a hundred persons, and the characters explained were lab Diitinmuiire <!< V Academi'? in France, was Tinah<< the u,,ik of the whole of that, learned body, us was the Di ionaria Crura' i.hal of the most eminent Italian literati and the
iiit
I
!>
years prior to the

;
<
Jhristian era,
'.
'
'
Spanish
Often hap|
Did
I
arj
thai
thai
in'
i
In
re
Yel it has boo of the Spanish Academy. an individual has devoted the mo precious
t
id the
to
tin'
energies of a whole lifetime to a task so essential literature, In- has not mils failed to obtain an ade
CHAP.
XIII.]
OF WORDS,
375
quate remuneration for his labours, but

in
lias been left to close his days penury and distress. Whilst I am writing, my eye is caught by the Greek lexicon of Robert Constantix, in two folio volumes, containing together 1785 double-columned pages of a small type, and giving, in alphabetical order, almost every Greek word that can anywhere be met with, and authorities for the various significations of each. The author of this most laborious and valuable work was born at Caen in Normandy, A.D. 1530, and after many distresses, died in extreme poverty, at the
age of seventy-five, in Germany.

father
The two Estiexnes (Stephani), and son, are equally entitled to the gratitude of the literary world: the Latin Thesaurus of ROBERT (the father) appeared in four volumes folio, in 1532 the Greek Thesaurus of Hexry (the son) in Both these meritorious individuals were five volumes folio, in 1570. Robert fled subjected to persecutions and vexations of various kinds to Geneva, and died there at the age of fifty-six; Henry breathed his " Such" (says a last, at the age of seventy, in the Hospital at Lyons. French writer) " was the deplorable end of one of the most learned men
; :
!" I have spoken freely of the defects and errors in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary; but it must be remembered that the English language could never boast, until his time, of a collection of its words accompanied with authorities for their different significa-
that ever existed
by our best writers. His work was one of immense labour and we cannot but lament that, during great part of the time which he devoted to it, he was in fact writing, from day to day, for bread.
tions,
376
CHAPTER
XIV.
OF PARTS OF SPEECH.
Meaning of
the term.
448. Hitherto I have considered a Word as a separate exercise of vocal power : I have now to examine its grammatical relations to But it has been seen, that in other words as a " Part of Speech." this term the word Speech has been used in a greater or less extent of It sometimes includes the expression of our icholc mind, signification. In this sense it seems to answer to as well feelings as thoughts. Aristotle s dictum, tan \if.v to. tv tt\ <pu)rrj rG>v iv rrj ipvî, iruOnand such is the sense in which I prefer employing ficLTtttv av/xfioXa: But grammarians in general restrict its it throughout this treatise. use to the expression of tlioughts, that is, of the reasoning jxnvor, ami consequently exclude the interjection from the parts of speech, lie in v they employ the term Partes Orationis as synonymous with Partes Sentential, "Parts of a Sentence." " Oratio " (says Priscian) "est ordi1
natio dictionum congrua, Senteutiam perfectam demonstrans."*
But examine the various languages of the world, we find that in all of them, human emotions are pul into words as well as human thoughts; and often with sufficient distinctness of
when we come
practically to
Natural
i
ragrm.
Impression on the mind of the hearer. 1 I'.i. The efi'orts of the young and of the ignorant towards developing their menial powers, are gradual and hence the imperfect language
;
When a of an infant ma\ often throw a light 00 that of a savage. child is horn into the world, it finds itself in a chaos of conscious impressions, which present, as it were, an
Illimitahle ocean, without linninl.
Without dimension, where length, And tiBM, and place art) lost."
hreailth,
nnd
hi
contains
bts of
tli!'
the
elements of
all
the
future
feelings
that
l>\
and
the
cries,
human
being,
Commt
"I
its
child
first
i
evinces a OOOSCiousiicss
/"/\,
i
rperience shows personal existence
which
I
and
t'roin
which originates the
interjection.
lanj
first
already s'ii thai

i
the
Interjection exists
m
it
all
our
pre,., nt
pmpo
i,
,(>,
regard
as the
part
eh.
Tin
of the
I
a .oiling
power
is
more
raduul.
Here WfJ must distinguish what
have called Conception from Thought
Milton, P,
I...
,i.
CHAP. XIV.]
OF PARTS OF SPEECH.
377
the former being only an element of the latter.
Before I can think of any thing, I must regard it as one thing. 450. In the diversity of terms employed by different writers to
signify the various faculties of the
results,
Conception,
human mind,
their operations,
and
it is not easy for an individual to find, in every instance, a term, which shall be generally and readily understood, in the sense it
which he intends
to bear.
have used the term conception to

1
express "that faculty which enables the mind to contemplate one

portion of existence separately from all others." And I have also spoken of a conception as a result of the operation of that faculty.
In some languages different words are used to distinguish a mental as in the Greek, vo-naiQ is distinguished from faculty from its object voi] pa. But the English idiom allows words terminating in tion, from
:
the Latin
faculties,
tio,
to express as well a faculty, as its result.
We use,
and
for
the words sensation, perception, intuition, volition;
we
It has
use for their results a sensation, a perception, an intuition, a volition. been suggested, that for the result of the faculty of conception,
we
should adopt the word concept, sanctioned by some late French But in this I cannot acquiesce. The novelty of the word in English would produce no small confusion; whereas at present the context generally shows whether by the word Conception the faculty
writers.*
or
And if we adopt concept, we shall, by parity its result is intended. of reason, be required to adopt a host of other new words, such as a s'usate, a percept, an intuite, a vdite, &c., &c, all foreign to the genius of the English language.
451. I revert to the consideration of a child's opening faculties, time elapses after birth, before the child begins (in the language of the nursery) " to take notice." But it is not, during all this
operates by
Some
laws*
Minute observation of children will show that the mind gradually awakes to its nascent powers. No sooner does it inwardly feel its own self-existence than it becomes also aware of an external world. There is an 1, and aiVoi /: and on both it exercises the faculty of conception. Probably conceptions of the external world are those which succeed most immediately after the notion of personal identity. Each of these forms what is commonly called an external object. It appears as one conception, not because it is naturally and necessarily one, but because by the laws of mental existence the individual is led to conceive it as one. Such is the theory of mental action which I maintain, and which is opposed
time, in a state of mental torpor.
to every system founded on objective impressions
passively received
by the mind from without.
have asked, anil I repeat), "what constitutes one object? Is it the Feeling, or Thought, which takes place in a minute, a second, or any other portion of time ? Is it the impression made on one sense, or on one part of the organ of
(I
"
What"
that sense
Is
it
the sensation of warmth, for instance, experienced

light experienced
2
by the whole body, or that of

1
by the whole eye
Univ. Gram.,
s.
18.
Mansel, Prol. Logic, p. 10.

378
Is
it
>
OF PARTS OF SPEECH.
the impression
[CHAP. XIV.
made on
the house;
it
by the panel of the door,
the retina by a house; by the door of or the pane of the window? Is
These the altitude of the building, or the colour of the brick? questions are endless, and perfectly insoluble, if that which makes an It is object one thing to the mind be not an act of the mind itself."
1
an act of the mind, not accidental, arbitrary, or capricious, but governed by certain laws applicable to their appropriate objects. The laws of space regulate one large class of our conceptions the laws of time regulate others and there is a vast number of our conceptions wholly independent of both these, but governed by the laws either
;
;
No doubt, the laws themselves of our intellectual or spiritual nature. operate at first unconsciously to all of us; and to many persons they
remain through
life
ill-developed,
contributing only to form
weak and wavering
and therefore vague and obscure* opinions, and never probliss,*
ducing
That sober certainty of waking
Application unlimited.
which is felt in contemplating the pure trutfis of science and religion. 452. The mental faculty of conception, though it enables the initio!
to contemplate a portion of
that account limited to
its
conscious existence as one,
is
not on
in
such portion.
a century.
any particular extent or comprehension second of time is as much one, in contemplation,

of lightning
which doth cease to be
Kiv
\vi'
as
flash
can say
it
lightens 3
may be no than may a
less
contemplated and reasoned upon as one conception,
revolution of the planet newly discovered on the extremi
may reckon as one stun the verge of our system. the poor widow into the Treasury, or
the wealth of Ormus, or of Ind, the gorgeous East, with richest band, Slinw'is (ill her DQgl barbaric Dflj Htd ""M.
all
We
rrofcM east
bj
Or whan
N.iv,
we may
conceive as one the smallest atom
in
the
boundleaj
reation,
and we may and must conceive as one the Almighty
Mt.liij.j.. iiy
whom all things are created. Neither does the conception of Unity exclude a constituent ('as! your eye from the summit of tlie.lun multiplicity of parts, Behold the striking view which once seen will evfl mountain remain impressed ,,n your memory as one magnificent picture! Yel
Power, by
I.
'
made up of numberless
There
of
tin-
objects, beautiful, rich, grand, sublime]
the eye can reach, the whole valltfj Rhone, the lake of Geneva, the noble river Issuing from It, th< 'ii it, banks, the villages, hamlets, cottages, pastures, and ful
id
out, as
far
as
ill
lit nit
the niiglil\
mass
i
o!
the Alps,
crowned
1,\
IWonl
'.Line,
il
nil
it
mow)
peaks,
now mingling
*
4
undistinguishabfj
1
i
.Shakup.,
Book
inl Ink, m. n.
hc
_'.
Milton, Comua, v. 368. Milton, I'm. Lot, I,. 'J, v
'.',
&c.
CHAP. XIV.]
OF PARTS OF SPEECH.
379
with the clouds of rising vapour, now brilliantly illuminated with The vast variety of objects only heightens the rays of the sun.
the solemn feeling of unity, in the grandeur impressed on the whole
scene.
very important distinction of conceptions is that which I Particular 454. and generai have stated in my former treatise dividing them into particular,
general,
and
universal.
particular conception, in the strict and
is that of an object perceived for the first time as occupying a certain limited portion of time or space, or both. This answers nearly to the German Anschauung, which Mr. Mansel renders But it must be remembered that the term " particular" Intuition* is commonly used in a looser sense, to which I shall advert hereafter. The term a general conception answers to the German Begriff, which the learned gentleman last mentioned renders a concept. It is formed by comparing the first particular impression with other similar ones, and deriving thence a general conception similar to all, but differing from each in some one or more points. Thus, when a child sees for the first time a dog, he has a particular conception of an animal of a certain size, form, colour, &c. He afterwards sees one dog differing from the first in size, another differing in form, another in colour ; and the conception resulting in his mind from the whole is that of a Dog, as a species it is a general conception, which not only is not the same with the first, or any subsequent particular conception, but must necessarily differ from them all : and yet, setting aside the points of difference, it is applicable to all the dogs which the child may see in the course of his life. Now it is of the utmost importance to keep in view the difference between a particular conception (Anschauung) and a general conception (Begriff), for many of the disputes which have arisen on what are improperly called abstract ideas, depend on a confusion of these mental operations. 455. Nor is it less important to distinguish between a general and General and umversal In a universal conception, we contemplate a universal conception. a permanent, immutable, necessary law of the mind. This kind of conception I call an Idea, understanding that term in the sense in which it was used by Plato. Aristotle, indeed, seems to confound the universal with the general ; for he says, tori ra fxiv kadoXov tu>v
proper sense,
KpayjxaTiov'
7rifvi;e
ret
he kuO' tKaarov- \iyia
tie
icadoXov fxev, o
fiif.
iiri
TrXeiovuv
" Some things are universals, but others singulars and I call universal that which may be predicated of many things, but singular that which cannot." 8 Now this want of discrimination between the universal and the general leads to great errors in reasoning since these two forms of conception are not only different, but in some respects opposite for
Kartjyopeltrdai-
KaO ZicaaTov ce o
:
universal conceptions are altogether subjective
they furnish not only the laws by which objective conceptions are limited, such as the laws
:
1
Univ. Gram.,
s.
32.
8
Prol. Logic, p. 8.
De
Interpret.,
c.
7.
380
OF PARTS OF BPEECH.
[CHAP. XIV.
of time and space, but also those by which the mind itself lives, and moves, and has its being. They do not result, as general conceptions do, from external experience; but they are the innate powers, which, in their several spheres, render external experience possible. If I had no universal conceptions of right and wrong, of beauty and deformity, of cause and effect, I could never acquire them by the experience of
conceptions, either particular or general.
distinct as
it
The
particular
is
at first as
the
number
ever becomes, and the general differs but gradually from of particulars which it embraces; whilst the Idea is felt
Cause.
little more than an instinct, "a vague appetency towards something, which fills the young poet's eye with tears, he knows not why;" but which gradual lv becomes more and more clear and distinct, as it is the subject of deeper meditation. 456. Whence do we get our idea of Cause? Certainly not from the conceptions of external objects, for these teach us nothing but succession. But there exists in the mind an Idea of power, which is first felt instinctively in the consciousness of our own power over the objects of our will. The will, therefore, we regard as a Cause, and we regard the change in the object as an Effect. Thus, the will to
at first as
1
raise
my ami
is
a cause, and
its
elevation
is
an
effect
and
transfer
my
M
as
Beauty.
persooal experience of causation to external objects, by what .Air. ayski. aptly calls "the universal tendency of men to identify, as far
may
457.
be, other agents
What
in the
more
sees
or leas
it
omttjf animated in
is
with themselves."* It is an Idea with which the mind t

its earliest
is
outward experiences.
itself,
The
child
endearing smile of the mother.

it
In the further course of

until
intellectual
advancement
may develop
the
mind
Becomes n mansion
'I'h.'
for nil lovely Conns,
mi'inoiy
all
is
as a dwelling-place
For
nml
nandi end hvmoskt.'
And,
lastly, in
our highest conceptions of spiritual excellence, beauty

White,
ra.liatlt, sj>otles,
appears
exquisitely pure. 4
Again, what
is
lliqhl !
is,
It
results !'nm the innate idea,
which
it
tin-
human
in
being ha*, that he
from the very nature of
his existence,
is
What
,''</
the lather or mother bids the child do,
eyet to do; and hence the unfortunate little creature, who>e parents send him out to beg or steal, has, at the moment, an
Imperfect idea that he
hi
is
'
Ins
doing right
he
is
in
obej ing
th<
I
nooii
taught that
ly law of winch here are other laws,
known
II
only
tO
hnn by
his
their
means of coercion
the
law
of the
-.si
among
tan
companions, and the law of the land, winch he ll ad aa an enemy. Not much re distinct is the idea ol
Motho TinUrn Abbey.
.
l.
i,
.ii I, i'roleg, Logic, p. 142, Idem, SonoeU, pari I. No. rii,

.

CHAP. XIV.]
right
OF PARTS OF SPEECH,
381
by that same law of the
;'
land
to
the formalist,
who
limits
it
.solely
Qui consulta patron, qui

for all
leges,
jnraque servat
have dealings with him inwardly base, mean, or malignant

videt
who
may
perchance find that he
is
hunc omnis domus,
et vicinia tota
Introrsus turpem. 8
Those persons alone
act from the pure idea of right who, in the words of the apostle, ivctucvvvrai to 'ipyov tov vofiov ypairrov kv tcuq 1 " show the work of the law written in t/wir heart*. * uaphiuic; avriov That which is written in the hearts ot men by God is an idea or uni-
versal conception of right, to the purity
and holiness of which human

of conceptions into par- Howexpre88e
law can make but

459. If
it
faint approaches.
be asked
how
far this distinction
ticular, general,
and universal can be expressed in words, I answer, that no vocal expression can be given to conceptions of the first kind. cannot allot separate names to every particular conception but and, in fact, of these to general and universal conceptions we may Thus the English word the great bulk of every language consists. dog alone does not mean merely the particular conception of an animal once seen or heard, but the general conception of a species to which
We
the animal so seen or heard belongs.
So the word
triangle alone
does not
to
mean
all
the particular conception of this or that triangle, rightit
angled, acute, or obtuse, but
which
these belong.
And
means a general conception of the class so the word virtue alone does not
express a conception of this or that virtuous act, but a universal conception applicable to those and
many
others.
460. Conceptions have another distinction, which exists in all human Substantive minds, and which Harris thus clearly describes : " All things what- êctjve. ever exist, either as the energies or affections of some other thing, or If they without being the energies or affections of some other thing. exist as the energies or affections of something else, then are they called Attributes. Thus, to think, is the attribute of a man to be white, of to fly, of an eagle, &c. a swan If they exist not after this manner, then are they called Substances. Thus, man, swan, eagle, &c, are none of them attributes, but all of them substances." 4 " This division of things into substance and accident," says Harris, " seems to have been admitted by philosophers in all ages." * Mr. Tookf, however, as we have seen, considers it immaterial whether we employ the expression of a substance, or an attribute. Yet this distinction is felt by the earliest experience of an infant. He not only feels his personal substantiality, which is permanent, but his temporary and mutable
qualities.
1
He
is
hot or cold, pleased or pained, hungry or satiated

8 Ibid. v.
*
Horat. Epist., L. 1, Ep. 16, v. 41. Koinans, c. ii. v. 15. 5 Ibid. p. 30.
44.
p. 29.
Hermes,
'
382
with nourishment.
the
OF PARTS OF SPEECH.
[CHAP. XIV.
Hence
arise in
language the
Noun
Substantive and
Noun Adjective; though the forms by which they may, in many languages, be widely different. The
certain
are expressed
assertion
that
American languages exist without adjectives, is founded on a misapprehension of the manner in which conceptions of any sort are expressed in speech. The simple conception is always expressed by the root and the root may be mixed up, or not, with various particles,
;
according to the idiom of the particular language. In English, the substance dog and the quality red are expressed by separate radical words; in Latin, the substance dog is expressed by the root can, in cam's, and the quality red is expressed by the root ruf, in rufus ; but the Latin idiom does not here permit the root to be used as a radical word, and, therefore, combines it with a particle, which gives the one
adjective.
the effect of a noun substantive, and the other the effect of a noun "The European adjective, as expressed in the Algonquin
Mr. Howse, " is, in its most simple form, a verb." This shows, not that the Algonquin tribes have no conception of an adjective, nor that they cannot express that conception in speech, but, on the contrary, that they do express it by particles added to the root of a word, which word, by the aid of other particles, expresses also an assertion. Thus, in theCree language, the quality rouml is signified by the root icow ; but the Cree idiom does not allow this root to be exram d separately, as the English word round may; neither does it allow the root to be used with an adjectival particle as the Latin rotundas is but it requires a combination, unknown to the European languages, of the adjectival root with verba] particles, rendering it in effect equal to as woweesu, he is round; uxntxeow, it is rouml, &C. a proposition St)
dialects," says
]
the root
is
kow expresses the

;
adjectival conception rough
in
howissu, he
rough howow, it is rough, &c* In the Lenni Lenape Ian verbs ending in elendam indicate a disposition of the mind, as schivoelendam, to be sorry; wulelendam, to be glad,* where the root si/iiir manifestly signifies the quality " sorry," and the root will signi-
Of this root wul, Mr. I'iiconci \r has given and he observes of Lenni LenapO derivative! in general, that "the roots are easily discoverable."* That it is the root which expresses thfl simple conception is further evident liom "in Chinese a character is a substantive, the Chinese cnai
fies
the quality "glad."

;
thirty-four derivative-;
an adjective, a verb]
mat
expresses a conception, without reforit /nut of speech, and its grammatical character is den named chieflj bj the connexion In which it stands."-1 On all tl -r.'iind. il i,elear that the conception of substantial existence is
in abort,
original!'/ t an;/
found
ani'.i
dilleivntlv
men, and is expressed in most Ian from the concept of uttribul quality. Where
*
ll'i'l.,
it
is
p,
',
ZcUbcrgi-r, I'
n.
iluiiiin,
'
Duj
|),
Nana..
|i.
l'.'S.
Chili. (Jriini.,
CHAP. XIV.]
OF PARTS OF SPEECH.
is
383
expressed by separate words, the one other is a noun adjective.

class of
a noun substantive, and the

Pronoun.
401. The name Pronoun is commonly given by grammarians to a woids which represent or stand in the place of nouns. The pronouns personal, as J, thou, &c, stand in the place of nouns substantive, and may be called pronouns substantive: other pronouns, as my, this, wlio, &c, stand in the place of nouns adjective, and may be Pronouns ]>ersonal must be expressed in called pronouns adjective. all languages, either by separate words, or by particles. In English, the pronoun of the first person is expressed by the separate word I in Latin, the same pronoun may be expressed by the separate word More commonly ego ; but this is only used for the sake of emphasis. this pronoun, when connected with a verb, is expressed by the terminating tarticle o, as in amo, I love, where the Latin particle o answers Similar observations are applicable to the to the English word 1. pronouns of the second and third person ; but in these respects the idioms of different languages widely diller, as will be more fully shown Of the personal pronouns, the primary source and origin hereafter. is the conception of the speaker's own person, which, as has been said above, is the very first conception that is fully comprehended by every infant; and Mr, Manskl well observes, that "this self-personality can be analyzed into no simpler elements, for it is itself the simplest of all." 1 cannot, therefore, accede to the doctrine that " all pronouns must have been originally demonstrative," that is, words indicative of particular positions with reference to space as a "primary intuition;* for this is only an inference from the more general proposition, "that every act of consciousness is subordinated to the two conditions of thought, the intuitions of space and time." *
]
The word
of
is
" intuition," indeed,

if it
is
equivocal, and, therefore (as I think),
objectionable; but
be here meant to signify a necessary element every act of consciousness, I apprehend that neither space nor time such an element for neither of them is involved in the simple con;
sciousness of existence.
They
are indeed essential to bodily sensation.

if
But
like
in
how many
states of consciousness
!
when and the where
Not only
do we wholly disregard the we are absorbed in delicious reverie,
Andrew Marvell
in his garden,
Annihilating all that's made To a green thought, in a green shade
;*
of our mental faculties ; foi the subjective precedes the objective. The child has in himself the consciousness, which we express by the words " leocist;" but he can only gain the consciousness " I am here," or " there," by reference to an external
but
in the very earliest exertion
" He knoics" (as Dr. Donaldson has justly said) " that he himself exists, and believes that there is something which is not himworld.
1
3 Ibid. p.
Proleg. Logic, p. 129. 81.
2 *
New
Crutyl., pp. 214, 216.
Marvell's Poems.

384
self."
'
OF PARTS OF SPEECH.
[CHAP. XIV.
is prior to his belief. conception of person singular must exist in every mind with the least glimmering of reason; but the other personal pronouns ran only be conceived in the social state. These, therefore, may be demonstrative. That sympathy, which is a law of our nature, compels us to ascribe to those with whom we converse a like character of per-
But
his
knowledge
first
the pronoun of the
are ourselves animated. In all languages, found correspondent to our words 1 and In all languages, too, the conception of the person or thing thou. spoken of has appropriate expressions, answering to our lie, she or it, either as separate words, or as involved in other words. The adjectival pronouns, I have elsewhere distinguished as positive and relative.
sonality to that
by which we
therefore, expressions are
The The
positive are either possessive, as mine, thine, &c., or definitive.

definitive are either demonstrative, as this, that
;
whence
in
some
languages comes the definitive article (the), or else partitive or distributive, to which latter belong the numerals: and among the definitives may be reckoned, in some languages, the reflective self. The relative
pronouns are subjunctive, or interrogative.
Of
all
these I shall treat
more
Verb.
distinctly in a future chapter, as I also shall of the articles
and
the numerals.
4G2.
The
parts of speech hitherto considered (except the interjec-
tion) are so far significant, that they serve to express conceptions;
but this (as has been seen) is not sufficient to express a thought, without some further addition; for, as Aristotle observes, " the word man signifies something but not that this something exists or does not exist; but there will be an affirmation or a negation, if something be added."" The something necessary to be added for this purpose is the ])art of speech called in English the Verb, in Latin verbwn, and It includes the copula of the logicians, inasmuch as in Greek Afua. But this it connects the subject of a proposition with its predicate. is not the whole of its functions. I have elsewhere distinguished the In all properties "!' the verb into the essential and the accidental. all languages their essentia] iii ian-'iia.;. i are to be found verbs, and properties are the same; though in accidental properties they may deem essential are the following: Those which widely diffr.
;
1
1.
To
si
L\
To To
gnlfy an attribute of some substance. connect lOCh attnluite with its iroper substance.
i
088ert directly or indirectly
the existence or nonexistence
of the connection.
The Greek
/W}/m, Which agrees in essentials with our verb,

:
is
thus
defined bv Aristotle
/b//iwKo\
<pur,t,
t)
mifAalvi pi*
ti,
AXA* iu\ 8ti
1<rr\v,
,
<f
hvK ftrriv AAX' form Kari-
iw6<pcurti, ibv wpotrrtOfi
ti. !
Int. q,.,
CHAP. X1V.J
OF PARTS OF SPEECH.
;
385
and it is always a sign of that which is part signifies anything alone spoken of something else." 1 By the expression " consignifies time," he intimates, that besides naming a conception, it further signifies
that the conception exists, in time.
For vyida (health) names a

is
conception, and so does vyiaivu (he

signifies further
in health),
but the
latter
that this conception actually exists at
the present
time, as a quality of the person in question.
verb
Again, no part of the (with reference to the sentence in which it is used) to be deemed significant alone. For instance, we cannot say that vyi or And by parity of reason, where airti has a separate signification. the idiom requires the predicated conception to be expressed by two or more words, those words are to be taken (on Aristotle's principle) as forming but one verb. For instance, in the English " he is in health," or, " he is well," the words " is in health," or, " is well," should be taken as forming one verb. Lastly, when the philosopher says that the verb is always a sign of that which is spoken of something else, he means that the conception expressed by the verb is that of an attribute, or predicate, of the subject with which it is connected. I would however observe, that the assertive property of the verb is not to be understood of the word as standing alone, but as resulting from its combination, as a predicate, with its subject ; "for (says Aristotle) as in the mind there are certain notions which are neither false nor true, and others, which must necessarily be either true or false (for truth and falsehood depend on the combination or disunion of notions), so nouns and verbs (alone) may be said to resemble notions, without combination or disunion."* The vague notion which Horne Tooke entertained, but could never explain, that a verb is a noun, and something more, only proved that he neither understood what is meant by a noun, nor what is meant by a verb. As to form, the same root may be employed (if the idiom permit) either as a noun or a verb ; or the same root with certain particles may form a noun, and with certain other particles it may form a verb and as to signification, a verb differs from a noun, not merely by addition (which is not ahvays the case), but by performing a totally different function in the construction of a sentence. So much for the essential properties of a verb in all lanOf the essential properties there are certain modifications, guages. such as mood, tense, person, number, gender which, as they vary in different languages from causes apparently accidental, I have called
is
; ;
accidental properties.
These
shall notice
when
come
to treat
more
fully of the verb.
463.
1
class of
words
called Participles,
from the Latin partem
Panidpic
Interp., c. 3. 2 ""E<rrt 8' Kxrrrfp tv rfj,

'
De
Se
<5t
tfSri
if>
ffvvBeffiv kcu
tyvxy, &re fxiv v6i)p.a ai>ev rov aXf\Qtveiv tj \pev8f<r6at, avdyKT] rovrcav inripx^v ddrfpoy '6vrw teal (v rfj (pwyrj, irtpl yap Siaipeffiy tern rb tyevtios t ko.1 rb aK-qOfs. Ta fiiv oiiv bvojxcna
^71/u.aTa
ai/Ta Kal
Interp.,
c.
to
1.
eotue rip
avtv crvvdecrews
ko.1
Siaipeaews
wfi/xari.
De
[g.]
2 c
386
OF PARTS OF SPEECH.
[CHAP. XIV.
capere, as partaking of the
nature of a noun> and also of a verb, is and many other languages, and has been reckoned by most grammarians as a distinct part of speech. Substantially it is a noun adjective differing only from other adjectives by expressing a quality in action, as the man is running or walking differs grammatically from the man is poor, or rich. In various languages it does not exist as a separate word but yet its signification is involved in other words, as in the Cree language " the English adjective, and present and past participles, are expressed by a personal verb:" ex. gr., ach-6oo, " he is moving ;"* ache'-che-gdtdyoo, " it is altered." 3 In
found
in
that
other languages (as in Greek), the participle furnishes separate words to express the attribute of a verb, in all its varieties of time, but
without asserting their existence, as will be more fully shown hereafter.
Adverb.
464. The Adverb is called in Latin adverbium, and in Greek because it serves to modify attributes in their various forms, verbal, adjectival, participial, &c, and even other adverbs, as " he sleeps weU" " he is very wise," he is running swiftly" " he is " Adverbs " (says Dr. Donaldson) " are merely oblique not here" &c. cases of nouns, pronouns, or adjectives, which express generally the
eiripf>T)[ia,
time, place, cause, form, or
manner of an
;
action."
We
find
;
adverbs
in
the Cherokee language, as navi, nearly
usvhi, yesterday
sunalei, to-
morrow. 4 In the Cree language they appear both as separate words, and also as involved in certain verbal forms, as naspach, wrong;
nenaspachooskak, he thwarts me.*
Preposition.
465.
have elsewhere
said, that a
" Preposition
is
a part of speech
employed in a complex sentence, and serving to express the relation in which the conception named by a noun substantive stands to that named by another noun substantive, or asserted by a verb." 7 From the absolute necessity of some such part of speech, it is found either
as a separate word, or as a part of other words, or both, even
in
the
most
In
uncultivated
languages.
in
The
it
vast
number of
derivatives
by
means of impositions
the
Greek,
is
dee
derivatives
through.
i.
language we find both from them, as sdpoo, through; sapoonum, he puts it Wiis/m, around; iitwiskanissoon, I surround myself (with
as connecting
quite unnecessary to mention. separate prepositions, and also
thing)."
'..
'''"jiiiiri,
I
The CoMWUttOltf whether considered

is
words or
sentences,
cultivated.
clearly to
In the
lie
found
in
all
language..,
in dillerenl,
Cree language the\ occur

conditional,
ii!,i,
modifications,
copulative,
//</,
I
disjunctive,
;
concessive,
&c,
as
1
1
1
mdna, and;
1 1
nit
Av,-.,y,//(,
Ifj
although; which will be
considered
'
1.
-w,
GreftOnn.,
p.
IWd,
p,
ii.i.i.
\,u CrttyL,
II'
p, 479. Gram., p
an.,
|p.
.'.I.
CHAP. XIV.J
OF PARTS OF SPEECH.
387
to
467. Though a conception, at the first view, may appear to belong TnoMfai any one of the above-mentioned parts of speech, yet it is most
all
necessary, in
languages, to advert to the principle of Transition.
From
the analogies in the action of thought, similar analogies take
and thus one and the same word passes from one Mr. Tooke incurred, on this point, an early and fatal error. In his Letter to J. Dunning, Esq., a.d. 1758, he says, " I deny that any words change their nature in this manner, so as to belong sometimes to one part of speech and sometimes to another, from the different manner of using them." Whereas the whole and sole ground of arranging speech into its grammatical " parts," or what Dr. Donaldson calls its syntagmical parts, consists in " the different manner of using them." Thus the English substantive love may be also used as a verb active, which the French amour cannot and the Latin word amor may be used as a noun substantive,
place in words,
part of speech to another.
or as a verb passive.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. CI.OWKS AND SONS, STAMFORD STREKT.
AND CHARING
CROSS.
r\
BIND-
sect.
MAY 28 1975
PLEASE
DO NOT REMOVE
FROM
THIS
CARDS OR
SLIPS
POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF
TORONTO
LIBRARY
153 S8 1861
Stoddart, (Sir) John The philosophy of language

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THE

^iterartt mifr |pIjLlos0}}J)t,caI Utamtals.

METHOD, by Samcel Taylor

LOGIC and RHETORIC, by Archbishop Whately.

THE VOCABULARY OF PHILOSOPHY,

William Klkmiso, D.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy

in the University of Glasgow.

MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY.

Maurice, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's

THE OCCULT SCIENCES:

OF ianT mils AND

THIKl) KD1TION, MtVllBD

LONDON AND GLASGOW. RICHARD GRIFFIN AND COMPANY. %

work was originally composed

Metropolitana, a publication which was designed to have been

produced under the editorial care

the late Samuel Taylor

scholar, distinguished poet,

profound metaphysician, was unfortunately prevented by

and other adverse circumstances, from carrying the

intended editorship into

He, however, not only devised

the comprehensive plan which was described in the Prospectus

Encyclopaedia, but furnished the original materials fcr a

general introduction, which his friend,

Stoddart, undertook, at the desire of the proprietors, to arrange

uncle was led, from this circumstance, to draw

on Grammar, which, though hastily executed, in the

intervals of a laborious profession,

was deemed by Mr. Cole-

occupy a place in the Encyclopaedia.

was one which had attracted the author's

very early period.

educated at the school in

the Close of Salisbury, an institution attached to the Cathedral,

then taught on the ancient plan of the once

famous WILLIAM Lilly, whose Propria quce martinis and

in prossenti English boys were, for centuries, compelled to

uncle, his godfather,

and had been a ward of the celebrated

Harris, the author of

book Mr. Earle put

into the hands of

godson, then about fourteen years of aye.

and the young student, on opening

had been couched, discovering with surprise that the

which had appeared

to him, of all his scholastic tasks, the driest

and most un meaning, involved many profound speculations of

Of course he was not yet

judge of the correctness of

Mr. Harris's theories; but

he saw enough to convince him that Hermes contained much

had been celebrated by Dr. Lowtli.

His classical pursuits at Christchurch, Oxford, of which oollege

he was elected a Student, somewhat moderated, though they

not wholly extinguish,

work; and the perusal of Hickcs's Thesaurus, in the Bodleian

that the northern

London, to follow the study of the law. he found the

* WOrk which promised great

cultivation of Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and

company with Mr.