[PAGE § 4. Postpositions used instead of prepositions where there is need 5, 6. The correspondences of this section traced through the XI.-Particularising elements are developed according as there is weak concentration of practical aim. The plural number in the noun is favoured by skill in use, and affects the objective part or sub- stance of the noun. Interest in the nature of objects favours the dual number. Concrete fulness of substantive idea renders neces- the African languages (Kafir prefixes 8). the Australian and Tamil, and the languages of Northern Asia and Northern Europe; the radical part goes first as they have to give strong attention XII. Is the inclusive and exclusive first person dual and plural con- nected with need for help in the life of the race? The connection not quite traced through the languages so as to XV.-Utterance of the consonants with strong pressure of breath from § 1. The first of these correspondences traced through the languages DETACHED SINGLENESS OF STEM, AND DETACHED ELEMENTS OF DEFINITION AND CONNECTION, PHONETIC DECAY. MIGRATIONS, MIXTURES, PROGRESS IN KNOWLEDGE, ARTS, AND CIVILISATION. 1, 2. The above correspondence more or less observable in Greek and Latin compared with Sanskrit Development as a fact independent of Darwin's theory Development of the powers of thought in vertebrate animals in connection with the development of their brain. The powers of thinking things, facts, principles, seem to correspond respec- tively to the development of the anterior, middle, and posterior The peculiar endowment in man from which language springs is 380 395 GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE. BOOK II. INDUCTIVE proof of THE CAUSES WHICH HAVE DETERMINED THE STRUCTUre of language. CHAPTER I.-(Continued.) PART II.-GRAMMATICAL SKETCHES, NOTING SPECIALLY THE MAGNITUDE OF THE ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE AND THEIR TENDENCIES TO COMBINE, VIEWED IN CONNECTION WITH THE QUICKNESS OF EXCITABILITY OF THE RACE. Syro-Arabian Languages. 48. That which has always been noted as the peculiar feature of the Syro-Arabian languages is their tendency to express modifications of the verb by internal changes of vocalisation of the verbal stem. In many other languages such internal changes are to be found, but in none others is this form of expressing variations in the idea of fact so largely used. There is a certain approximation to the SyroArabian in this respect in the Tibetan, as may be seen by referring to the remarkable formations given in 36. In these, however, we see a greater singleness of expression; as the verb with its variations does not go beyond the one syllable, but is expressed in one act of utterance which must be prompted by one act of thought. This singleness belongs to the monosyllabic character which marks more or less all the Chinese group of languages. The Syro-Arabian languages in their original and native form, as seen in Arabic, have not a monosyllabic but rather a trisyllabic character; yet all the syllables are by the vocalisation united into an element of speech which is almost as single in the thought which it expresses as the Tibetan monosyllables, for the significance of each vowel in the Syro-Arabian stem belongs not to the syllable which it sounds, but to the whole stem, which consequently is modified, without being broken, by changes in its vowels, VOL. II. A The singleness of thought indeed is, from causes to be mentioned presently, less strict in the Syro-Arabian verb than in the Chinese monosyllable, though in this, too, it is probably not absolute, for the inflected tones (3) involve a change of utterance which probably corresponds to a change of thought within the idea. But in the SyroArabian verb the divided vocalisation, the person, the reflex object, the causative element, express different constituents of the idea. And though they are all fused into a unity by the significance of the vowels, referring each to the whole, they are distinctly present to the consciousness. What is remarkable, however, is that each element, when uttered with a vowel which belongs to the whole, must be thought simultaneously with the whole; so that instead of each part being thought and then combined, it is thought as combined. The mind, as it thinks the whole, resolves it into its constituents, but refuses to break the idea. It cannot be moved to concentrate itself on a part, but shows a prevailing tendency to think the whole as a single object, though that singleness is not so great as in Chinese. The Syro-Arabian singleness is less than the Chinese also in respect of external additions to the stem, which do not partake of its vocalisation. But their not partaking of the vocalisation and the connective elements that are used with them show that they are outside the single idea, and only partially mingled with it as thought passes to them (56, 80, 103). The radical idea itself, however, has remarkable integrity; and to this probably it is due that the Syro-Arabian root seldom has the same consonant for the first and second syllables; for this would be a reduplication of the first consonant of the second syllable, and would convey a sense of the second and third syllables, as constituting the root, and of the root being strengthened by being first partially thought and then thought entire. The doubling of the second or third radical consonant, or the repetition of the second as third, does not suggest the addition of a partial thought of the idea, but rather a strengthening or extension of the single mental act of thinking the idea. Generally when the third radical is the same as the first, it expresses the beginning of a second thought of the radical idea, or else the first radical expresses the end of a first thought of it; and the formation is due to a doubling of the root with a subsequent abbreviation by dropping the beginning or the end of it. Such doubling of the root is permitted by these languages, but a partial thought of it is contrary to their genius. The vocalisation is the most characteristic feature of these languages, and its meaning must be studied before their essential nature can be understood. In many languages a difference is to be seen between verbal roots, which in their original use as verbs have taken up into themselves a sense of the process of being or doing, and other roots to which that process has to be added as an external element. Such a difference has been observed in Japanese (45), and it exists in Tibetan, distinguishing from the other verbs those which are conjugated with internal change. This same difference must exist 1 Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar, sect. 30. 2, d.; Fürst, Lehrgeb. Aram., sect. 161; Dillmann, Gram. Æthiop., p. 101. |