Cases are expressed by prepositions; n- belongs to the genitive, but is more frequently omitted. The genitive follows its governing noun; the object without mark of case follows the verb, and the subject always precedes the verb.1 Adjectives are few, and may either precede or follow the noun. They sometimes have the endings i masculine, -a feminine; but are sometimes formed with the connective pronominal prefixes na- masculine, ta- feminine, or ma-, mai- singular, masu- plural. Sometimes, instead of an adjective qualifying a noun, another noun is used, either in apposition to the former or governed by it.2 There is no adjectival expression of degrees of comparison.3 167. The personal pronouns are, in the singular, first, ina masculine, nia or ta feminine; second, ka or kai masculine, ki feminine; third, si, ya, or sa masculine, ta, ita, or tai feminine; in the plural, first mu, second ku, third su, sometimes uttered with final n. In Vei also the first plural is mu. The reflexive element is kan, as kanka, thyself; but with the first singular it is kai.5 The demonstrative elements are wa, na, na, da, which may be variously compounded with each other; the interrogative and relative, mi, meh, wonne, wonna, ena, kaka, wa, da, wodda, wonne; the indefinite, kowha, wosu.6 168. The verb has in some few instances the following derived forms, inceptive -ua, completive -o, passive -u, little used. Some verbs are formed with -sie, which is changed to -sa in the third singular masculine and feminine.7 An actual present is expressed by na between the subject person and the verb, and sometimes a perfect by ka in the same place; a future is expressed by repeating before the verbal stem the final vowel of the subject person; the subject person followed by the verbal stem expresses a perfect.8 There is a verb of existence present or past, na, neh, keh, or with feminine subject t'e; of existence future, samma, with the final vowel of subject person prefixed.9 169. There are very few prepositions or conjunctions, 10 which be certainly little by seed all 170. Examples: (1.) Wondda keh gaskia karami ga iri duka, which is in fact the smallest of all seeds.11 (2.) Da makiya mutum they be men gen. him su neh mutani n sa, and a man's foes are his own people;" da is the same as Tamachek de or d; makiya is plural of makiyi, and man good from good gen. mutani is plural of mutum. (3.) Mutum nagari daga keao n treasure gen. heart he bring out things which pl. good bad man surukumi n sutia ya kao woṣe abubua masu keao, mugu mutum from bad gen. treasure he bring out things bad daga mugu n・ surukumi ya kao woṣe abubua miagu, a man that is 1 Schön, pp. 6, 7. 4 Ibid. p. 14. 7 Ibid. p. 20. 10 Ibid. pp. 29, 30. 2 Ibid. pp. 8, 9. 5 Ibid. p. 15. 11 Ibid. p. 7. 3 Ibid. p. 10. 6 Ibid. p. 16-18. 9 Ibid. pp. 21, 22. good from the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth things which are good, a bad man from the bad treasure bringeth forth bad things;1 not that abubua is plural of abu, miagu plural of mugu. (4.) Ba wonnan which be go inside gen. mouth da keh sua t'iki m· bahki, not that which goeth into the mouth; 2 they fut. allow to teach any who be fiki means belly. (5.) Su u berri ga koya kohwa woddanda keh wish learn 3 soh koyo, they shall be permitted to teach any who is willing to learn; koya and koyo do not tally with the meaning given to -o in 168; woddanda is a remarkable compound of demonstrative elements. any he fut. do will father gen. me (6.) Kohwa si i · yi yirda oba na, whosoever shall do the will of my father.4 171. In the fourth and fifth examples, as well as in the actual present (168), may be observed a tendency to detach from the verbal stem the process of doing or being; and in such a word as masukeao there is an openness of texture, as of parts imperfectly combined. But there is nothing which can be properly regarded as the fragmentariness of pure African speech. The inner plural is still retained; and some of the grammatical elements still betray a SyroArabian affinity. That affinity explains the small degree in which the natural integers of thought are broken into parts, compared with what takes place in the adjacent Negro languages. When Haussa is compared with Arabic and Hebrew there may be observed, along with other much more striking differences, a comparative smallness in the separate thoughts. Such a reduction is to be seen also in Ethiopic and Amharic. For just as the Chinese family, when in Burmese it approaches the quicker thought of India, exhibits in that language a reduction or limitation in the object which the mind thinks in a single act (21, 38), so does the Syro-Arabian manifest the same tendency in Ethiopic and Amharic, as it comes under the influence of African excitability (123, 146); a tendency also to be seen in Haussa, whose affinity to the Syro-Arabian is more remote. Tamachek or Berber is less affected, being spoken by a race which is partially separated by the desert from the genuine African influence. Throughout the five groups into which the races and languages of mankind have been put in this chapter, everywhere the tendency to think small objects in the successive acts of the mind has been found proportional to the readiness of excitability of the race, or, in other words, to the quickness and mobility of their mental action, while the tendency to think large objects has been found proportional to the slowness and persistence of their mental action. The same concomitance of variation of thought and language will be found to prevail in the great family which remains to be studied. 1 Schön, p. 10. 2 Ibid. p. 16. 3 Ibid. p. 17. 4 Ibid. p. 18. VI.-The Indo-European Languages. 1. The Indo-European languages, in their most ancient and original form, differ from the Syro-Arabian in this characteristic principle of their structure, that while the latter take into the thought of the root elements which are closely combined with it in the conception of fact, the former generally add such elements externally to the root, thinking them in a succession of mental acts of which the thought of the root is one; and they scarcely ever think the root except as part of an idea to which the other parts are added externally to form the idea. Now this characteristic difference receives its explanation at once from the law which has been traced in the preceding sections through the languages of the world. For the Indo-European structure is a partial breaking into fragments of integers of thought which SyroArabian keeps entire, a narrowing of the momentary field of view, so as to resolve the idea into a succession of parts which the SyroArabian embraces in one view. And the quicker excitability of mental action which, according to our law, should correspond to this tendency to resolve speech into fragments, is found in fact to exist in the nature of the European compared with that of the Arabian and the Chinese (chap. i., Part I., Sect. V., 1, 5). In the Syro-Arabian family of languages, when affected, as in Ethiopic, with the ready excitability of Africa, there is an approach to the Indo-European treatment of the root as a mere fragment of an idea (V. 123). And in the Chinese family the same is to be observed in Burmese, in which thought is quickened by Indian influence (V. 21). And on the other hand, in those Indo-European languages which were spoken by races of slower mental action, the root tends to be thought with more fulness as a complete idea. For in every case the magnitude of the object which the mind thinks in its single acts varies inversely as the quickness of its action. This, however, remains to be set forth in full in the Indo-European languages, in connection with the other features of their structure; which, however, may be more briefly stated as to those languages which are familiar to every scholar. SANSKRIT. 2. Sanskrit developed the consonants more than the vowels. It had the four mutes and nasal of the post-palatal, palatal, cerebral, dental, and labial orders. The ante-palatals are not in the written alphabet; and though the dentals are often followed by y, they still retain their own character. Of the spirants it had the faucal h, the palatal, ante-palatal, and dental spirants, but no medial spirants except and v; of the vibratiles it had r and l. To these should be added y to represent the vowel r; for though r cannot be properly uttered as a vowel, it may be uttered with a sustained sonancy (202). The Sanskrit vowels are described as involving a very short and a long i; y 1 Williams, Sanskrit Gram., p. 7; Bopp, Gram. Sans., sect. 12. 1 if this be so they ought to be written ri and ri. The cerebral also occurs in the Vedas.1 It is to be observed that the cerebrals and sonant vowel r, Sanskrit has in common with the Dravidian languages, except that the latter is not properly a vowel in the Dravidian languages, as it cannot without a vowel form a syllable. There are euphonic affinities between ante-palatals and cerebrals which might suggest the supposition that the cerebrals were ante-palatals more or less changed in their utterance by Dravidian influence; thus s is ante-palatal, yet its euphonic affinities are cerebral, and the affinity of i for n seems to prove it to be n, yet the other affinities of n are cerebral. The only simple vowels which Sanskrit has are a, i, and u, short and long; but i or i, and u or u, may each be compounded with a, making what is called the Guna of those vowels, namely, e, ō, or with ā making what is called their Vriddhi, namely, the diphthongs āi and āu. In the same way ri and ri make Guna ar and Vriddhi ār. There is no Guna for a, but a is Vriddhi for a. M is a weak nasal, and at the end of a word after a vowel becomes a mere nasalisation called anuswara; any of the nasals following a vowel and coming immediately before a spirant or vibratile in the same word is weakened to this nasalisation. The nasal is partly absorbed by the vowel (202), and its breath partly taken by the spirant or vibratile. V, when immediately preceded in a word by any other consonant than r, is pronounced w. The cerebral consonants are rarely found at the beginning of words.3 There is no accent in ordinary speech, and each word runs into the next, a final vowel of the former either combining with an initial vowel of the latter or becoming a semi-vowel before it; but if a as initial of a word follows a final é or ō it is dropped; if a final è or ō comes before any other initial vowel but a, è is changed to ay, ō to av, and the y or v is dropped if the initial be that of another word, but retained if it be that of an affix.5 Sanskrit utterance was indolent, and deficient in versatility, as appears from the extent to which it weakened the consonants and slurred over the transitions of utterance by changing concurrent elements. The tenues, as well as x', s, and s, being called hard, and the other consonants soft, a tenuis at the end of a word or stem generally becomes unaspirated medial before a soft or vowel initial; and a medial at the end becomes unaspirated tenuis before a hard initial, throwing back its aspiration if it be aspirate on an initial g, d, or b; but a nasal initial generally turns into a nasal a preceding final consonant; t or d at the end of a word is assimilated by an initial k', g', or l; t ord at the end of a word being followed by an initial x', both the final and the initial become k'; k' or g' at the end of a stem before t, ť, or 8, becomes k; d' at the end of a stem becomes d, and b becomes b before tor t, and these become d'; if n at the end of a word is followed by an initial k', t, or t, then x', s, or s, is inserted between 2 Ibid. p. 5. 3 Ibid. pp. 9, 10. 5 Ibid. p. 22-24. 1 Williams, p. 8. 4 Ibid. p. 14. (177), and n becomes anuswara; s or r at the end of a word becomes a mere breathing before an initial k, k', p, p', x' or s, or at the end of a sentence; s at the end of a word, preceded by a, becomes u before a soft consonant or a, and combines with the a preceding it into ō, but before any vowel except a it is dropped; also if the initial is a instead of a soft consonant this a is dropped; s at the end of a word, preceded by a before a soft consonant or a vowel, is dropped; s at the end of a word, preceded by any other vowel but a or a, and followed by a soft consonant or a vowel, becomes r, unless the following initial ber, in which case the s is dropped, and the preceding vowel is lengthened; the pronouns sas and esas drop the final s before any consonant; h at the end of a stem beginning with d becomes g before t or t, and the t or t becomes d; h at the end of a stem not beginning with d or n is dropped before t or t, and the radical vowel lengthened, t or t becomes d'; r at the end of a word before a tenuis becomes spirant; r at the end of a word preceded by a, and followed by r, is dropped; x'at the end of a stem before t or t becomes s, and the tort becomes cerebral; x' or s at the end of a stem before ď becomes d, and the d becomes d; s at the end of a stem before ď becomes d, s before s becomes t. At the end of a word, or at the end of a stem before an affix beginning with a consonant, concurrent consonants are not permitted, an aspirated consonant drops its aspiration, h becomes k or t, a palatal becomes guttural or cerebral, x' and s become either k or t.1 3. The noun has three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter, and three numbers, singular, dual, and plural. Nominal stems ending in a are apt to express the feminine gender by lengthening a; the feminine gender is also expressed by -; some stem endings, as -ti, are exclusively feminine, others, as -ana, -twa, -ya, -tra, neuter; others of all genders. The Sanskrit root, in becoming a nominal or verbal stem, often affects its vowel with Guna or Vriddhi, that is, combines with it a or ā (2). This change cannot be explained on euphonic principles. It is no doubt expressive of a greater fulness in the thought of the root when embodied in certain stems than as thought in the abstract or in other stems. The vowel a is suggestive of strength by reason of its large volume of breath and the additional action of the chest which its utterance brings into play; whereas i reduces this to a minimum, and if used on account of this property will express weakness. A long vowel or Vriddhi may bring into notice the quiescence of the organs of the mouth while it is being uttered, and is then expressive of quiescence or relaxation. Nominal stems may be divided into the following eight classes, comprising different formations, which may be illustrated by single examples: I. Masculine and neuter stems in -a, feminine in -ā and -ī. (1.) From roots div shine, deva a deity, yug' join, yog'a joining; X'ub' shine, x'ub'a beautiful, xub'ā fem.; kṛi do, kāraka doer, 1 Williams, pp. 26-38, 124-126; Bopp, Gram. Sans., p. 36-62. |