THE NEW CRATYLUS. BOOK III. THE NOUN. CHAPTER I. THE ROOTS OF NOUNS AND VERBS. 206 Definition of a root. 207 The roots of words did not exist separately and before the words in which they are found. 208 Quasi-monosyllabic roots are really compounds. 209 The same remark is applicable to the triliteral roots of the Semitic family. 210 Internal modifications of IndoGermanic roots. 211 I. Reduplication. 212 II. Prefixes consisting of single letters. 213 Some of these are prepositions. 214 III. Assimilation. 215 (1) Assimilation proper and absorption. 216 (2) Substitution of o or for a consonant and i. 217 (3) Introduction or interpolation of symphonic consonants. 218 Digression respecting dußlús and natŋotvnós. 219 (4) Affections of the final consonant of the root. 220 Arbitrary duplications of liquids. 221 Dissimilation and metathesis. 222 IV. Vowel changes. (1) Weight of vowels. 223 (2) Adscititious vocalization. 224 Significance of roots. 225 Metaphysical and historical differences. 226 Dissection of words, in order to arrive at the root. 206 TN a language which, like the Greek, admits of inflexion IN and composition without limit, we find in every word that expresses a conception, whether it be a noun or a verb, some prefix, suffix, or both, common to it and to a great number of other words, from which it essentially differs in meaning; and, when these adjuncts are removed, there generally remains, if the word be not a compound, some single syllable which constitutes its meaning, and which again, with occasional slight modifications, runs through another set of words, differing from the one in question in prefix, suffix, or both, but agreeing with it in the fundamental signification. This ultimate element we call the root, or, if we may be permitted to borrow the terminology of mathematical analysis, and apply it to philology, we may say that every word is a function, the root being the independent variable, and the prefixes and suffixes the constants. 207 When we talk of the roots of words, we do not mean to say that words are derived from them, or that they ever existed separately*. If we did we must fall into the absurdity of deriving all languages from a few primitive syllables, an absurdity for which Murray has been so justly derided. Like the common parts in things generically the same, they are created by our powers of abstraction and generalization, they have only a subjective existence, and to speak otherwise of them would be the excess of realism. Everything is conceived as existing or happening in space or time, and therefore, as has been shown, the element indicating the conception must always have, subjoined to it, some element denoting position, that is, at least one pronominal stem, before it can be considered as a word. That any hypothesis of the separate and primary existence of roots must lead to the merest trifling, is clear from the absurdities into which Lennep and Scheide have fallen, in their attempt to carry out Hemsterhuis's principle, that the primitive verbs consisted of two or three letters, from which the complete words, as we have them, were formed. It is, of course, of the utmost importance that we should analyze and compare words, so as to arrive at their primary elements, just as it is necessary that the philosopher should seek for the real definition; but there is no more truth in saying that the bare roots, which form the materials of inflected language, ever existed separately, than there would be in asserting that the world was once peopled with avtoέxaora, whose fossile remains, forsooth, the geologers have as yet failed to discover. *The subject of roots has been very ably discussed by Pott in his review of Benfey's Wurzellexikon (Jahrbücher f. Wissensch. Kritik, 1840, pp. 623 sqq.). He says with great truth (p. 631) that a root is only a figurative expression, and that it is merely the germ of a family of words, without being a word itself. When we thus deny the separate existence of roots, it may be objected to us, that some languages, the Chinese for instance, are entirely made up of naked roots. But then it must be recollected, that these roots are mutilated words which have in all probability lost their original inflexions, and that we are not speaking of tertiary idioms in which there is no such thing as flexion or etymology, but of perfect languages like those of the Indo-Germanic family, which are based upon monosyllabic roots, adapted for composition, and only appearing in connexion with at least some one pronominal element*. 208 Many syllables terminating with a consonant are called roots of Indo-Germanic words. It must be recollected, however, that no consonant can be pronounced without a vowel, and that every such final consonant of a root was originally a distinct syllable; so that all roots terminating in consonants must be considered as dissylabic, and, therefore, as compound roots. In such compounds not only is the second vowel suppressed, but also, in some cases, the first, and thus too there are apparently monosyllabic roots ending in a vowel, which are nevertheless dissyllabic (see Lepsius, Paläographie, p. 65). An instance to the point is furnished by the root xτε-, the first vowel of which is never inserted in Greek, though it appears distinctly enough in the Semitic synonyms bup, up, bö, Abö, bö, &c. When the second consonant is a liquid, nothing is more common than the metathesis of the vowel, according to the principle mentioned above (§ 107). We have an example in the root yev-, which sometimes appears as yvɛ-: compare έ-yev-ó-μyv, yíyvoμa; genitus, gigno; and the Sanscrit jan, jajnati. In the form ya- of yέ-yaa, &c. the v has evanesced, according to the common practice (above, § 114). It will be understood, then, that when we call dax- the root of dáx-v-∞, τvπ- of Túπ-T-W, φυγ- οἱ φεύγω, πραγ- of πράσσω, κτε- of κτείνω, &c., we are * It is right to mention that, while the true theory, as we consider it, has been carried too far by Bopp, other modern philologers have endeavoured to find a philosophical foundation for what is in fact a reproduction of the antiquated hypothesis (see for example Bunsen, Brit. Assoc. 1847, p. 293). |