Lectures on The Science of Language 26

Lectures on The Science of Language 26

j’ai and je chanter-ai nous avons and nous chanterons.

tu as and tu chanter-as vous avez and vous chanterez.

il a and il chanter-a ils ont and ils chanteront.

 

But besides this, we actually find in Spanish and Provençal the apparent

termination of the future used as an independent word and not yet joined

to the infinitive. We find in Spanish, instead of “_lo hare_,” I shall do

it, the more primitive form _hacer lo he_; _i.e._, _facere id habeo_. We

find in Provençal, _dir vos ai_ instead of _je vous dirai_; _dir vos em_

instead of _nous vous dirons_. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the

Romance future was originally a compound of the auxiliary verb _to have_

with an infinitive; and _I have to say_, easily took the meaning of _I

shall say_.

 

Here, then, we see clearly how grammatical forms arise. A Frenchman looks

upon his futures as merely grammatical forms. He has no idea, unless he is

a scholar, that the terminations of his futures are identical with the

auxiliary verb _avoir_. The Roman had no suspicion that _amabo_ was a

compound; but it can be proved to contain an auxiliary verb as clearly as

the French future. The Latin future was destroyed by means of phonetic

corruption. When the final letters lost their distinct pronunciation it

became impossible to keep the imperfect _amabam_ separate from the future

_amabo_. The future was then replaced by dialectical regeneration, for the

use of _habeo_ with an infinitive is found in Latin, in such __EXPRESSION__s

as _habeo dicere_, I have to say, which would imperceptibly glide into I

shall say.(213) In fact, wherever we look we see that, the future is

expressed by means of composition. We have in English _I shall_ and _thou

wilt_, which mean originally _I am bound_ and _thou intendest_. In German

we use _werden_, the Gothic _vairthan_, which means originally to go, to

turn towards. In modern Greek we find thelō, I will, in thelō dōsei, I

shall give. In Roumansch we meet with _vegnir_, to come, forming the

future _veng a vegnir_, I shall come; whereas in French _je viens de

dire_, I come from saying, is equivalent to “I have just said.” The French

_je vais dire_ is almost a future, though originally it is _vado dicere_,

I go to say. The Dorsetshire, “I be gwâin to goo a-pickèn stuones,” is

another case in point. Nor is there any doubt that in the Latin _bo_ of

_amabo_ we have the old auxiliary _bhû_, to be, and in the Greek future in

σω, the old auxiliary _as_, to be.(214)

 

We now go back another step, and ask the question which we asked many

times before, How can a mere _d_ produce so momentous a change as that

from _I love_ to _I loved_? As we have learnt in the meantime that English

goes back to Anglo-Saxon, and is closely related to continental Saxon and

Gothic, we look at once to the Gothic imperfect in order to see whether it

has preserved any traces of the original compound; for, after what we have

seen in the previous cases, we are no doubt prepared to find here, too,

grammatical terminations mere remnants of independent words.

 

In Gothic there is a verb _nasjan_, to nourish. Its preterite is as

follows:—

 

Singular. Dual. Plural.

nas-i-da nas-i-dêdu nas-i-dêdum.

nas-i-dês nas-i-dêtuts nas-i-dêduþ.

nas-i-da —— nas-i-dedun.

 

The subjunctive of the preterite:

 

Singular. Dual. Plural.

nas-i-dêdjau nas-i-dêdeiva nas-i-dêdeima.

nas-i-dêdeis nas-i-dêdeits nas-i-dêdeiþ.

nas-i-dêdi —— nas-i-dêdeina.

 

This is reduced in Anglo-Saxon to:

 

Singular. Plural.

ner-ë-de ner-ë-don.

ner-ë-dest ner-ë-don.

ner-ë-de ner-ë-don.

 

Subjunctive:

 

ner-ë-de ner-ë-don.

ner-ë-de ner-ë-don.

ner-ë-de ner-ë-don.

 

Let us now look to the auxiliary verb _to do_, in Anglo-Saxon:

 

Singular. Plural.

dide didon.

didest didon.

dide didon.

 

If we had only the Anglo-Saxon preterite _nerëde_ and the Anglo-Saxon

_dide_, the identity of the _de_ in _nerëde_ with _dide_ would not be very

apparent. But here you will perceive the advantage which Gothic has over

all other Teutonic dialects for the purposes of grammatical comparison and

analysis. It is in Gothic, and in Gothic in the plural only, that the full

auxiliary _dêdum_, _dêduþ_, _dêdun_ has been preserved. In the Gothic

singular _nasida_, _nasidês_, _nasida_ stand for _nasideda_, _nasidedês_,

_nasideda_. The same contraction has taken place in Anglo-Saxon, not only

in the singular but in the plural also. Yet, such is the similarity

between Gothic and Anglo-Saxon that we cannot doubt their preterites

having been formed on the same last. If there be any truth in inductive

reasoning, there must have been an original Anglo-Saxon preterite,(215)

 

Singular. Plural.

ner-ë-dide ner-ë-didon.

ner-ë-didest ner-ë-didon.

ner-ë-dide ner-ë-didon.

 

And as _ner-ë-dide_ dwindled down to _nerëde_, so _nerëde_ would, in

modern English, become _nered_. The _d_ of the preterite, therefore, which

changes _I love_ into _I loved_ is originally the auxiliary verb _to do_,

and _I loved_ is the same as _I love did_, or _I did love_. In English

dialects, as, for instance, in the Dorset dialect, every preterite, if it

expresses a lasting or repeated action, is formed by _I did_,(216) and a

distinction is thus established between “’e died eesterdae,” and “the

vo’ke did die by scores;” though originally _died_ is the same as _die

did_.

 

It might be asked, however, very properly, how _did_ itself, or the

Anglo-Saxon _dide_, was formed, and how it received the meaning of a

preterite. In _dide_ the final _de_ is not termination, but it is the

root, and the first syllable _di_ is a reduplication of the root, the fact

being that all preterites of old, or, as they are called, strong verbs,

were formed as in Greek and Sanskrit by means of reduplication,

reduplication being one of the principal means by which roots were

invested with a verbal character.(217) The root _do_ in Anglo-Saxon is the

same as the root _thē_ in _tithēmi_ in Greek, and the Sanskrit root _dhâ_

in _dadâdmi_. Anglo-Saxon _dide_ would therefore correspond to Sanskrit

_dadhau_, I placed.

 

Now, in this manner, the whole, or nearly the whole, grammatical framework

of the Aryan or Indo-European languages has been traced back to original

independent words, and even the slightest changes which at first sight

seem so mysterious, such as _foot_ into _feet_, or _I find_ into _I

found_, have been fully accounted for. This is what is called comparative

grammar, or a scientific analysis of all the formal elements of a language

preceded by a comparison of all the varieties which one and the same form

has assumed in the numerous dialects of the Aryan family. The most

important dialects for this purpose are Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and

Gothic; but in many cases Zend, or Celtic, or Slavonic dialects come in to

throw an unexpected light on forms unintelligible in any of the four

principal dialects. The result of such a work as Bopp’s “Comparative

Grammar” of the Aryan languages may be summed up in a few words. The whole

framework of grammar—the elements of derivation, declension, and

conjugation—had become settled before the separation of the Aryan family.

Hence the broad outlines of grammar, in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic,

and the rest, are in reality the same; and the apparent differences can be

explained by phonetic corruption, which is determined by the phonetic

peculiarities of each nation. On the whole, the history of all the Aryan

languages is nothing but a gradual process of decay. After the grammatical

terminations of all these languages have been traced back to their most

primitive form, it is possible, in many instances, to determine their

original meaning. This, however, can be done by means of induction only;

and the period during which, as in the Provençal _dir vos ai_, the

component elements of the old Aryan grammar maintained a separate

existence in the language and the mind of the Aryans had closed, before

Sanskrit was Sanskrit or Greek Greek. That there was such a period we can

doubt as little as we can doubt the real existence of fern forests

previous to the formation of our coal fields. We can do even more. Suppose

we had no remnants of Latin; suppose the very existence of Rome and of

Latin were unknown to us; we might still prove, on the evidence of the six

Romance dialects, that there must have been a time when these dialects

formed the language of a small settlement; nay, by collecting the words

which all these dialects share in common, we might, to a certain extent,

reconstruct the original language, and draw a sketch of the state of

civilization, as reflected by these common words. The same can be done if

we compare Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, and Slavonic. The words

which have as nearly as possible the same form and meaning in all the

languages must have existed before the people, who afterwards formed the

prominent nationalities of the Aryan family, separated; and, if carefully

interpreted, they, too, will serve as evidence as to the state of

civilization attained by the Aryans before they left their common home. It

can be proved, by the evidence of language, that before their separation

the Aryans led the life of agricultural nomads,—a life such as Tacitus

describes that of the ancient Germans. They knew the arts of ploughing, of

making roads, of building ships, of weaving and sewing, of erecting

houses; they had counted at least as far as one hundred. They had

domesticated the most important animals, the cow, the horse, the sheep,

the dog; they were acquainted with the most useful metals, and armed with

iron hatchets, whether for peaceful or warlike purposes. They had

recognized the bonds of blood and the bonds of marriage; they followed

their leaders and kings, and the distinction between right and wrong was

fixed by laws and customs. They were impressed with the idea of a divine

Being, and they invoked it by various names. All this, as I said, can be

proved by the evidence of language. For if you find that languages like

Greek, Latin, Gothic, Celtic, or Slavonic, which, after their first

separation, have had but little contact with Sanskrit, have the same word,

for instance, for _iron_ which exists in Sanskrit, this is proof absolute

that iron was known previous to the Aryan separation. Now, _iron_ is _ais_

in Gothic,