CHAPTER II.

Roots.

§ 10. The results of the great etymological labours prosecuted according to the severe rules of the new comparative method on the subject of the languages of Aryan stock, and especially of the wonderfully wide researches of Pott are presented to us collected and set forth with a useful novelty of arrangement in Fick's Vergleichendes wörterbuch der indogermanischen sprachen, a work of which we have already the third edition with some very important additions of the author (Göttingen, 1874-6). It is divided into seven parts contained in three volumes: the 1st (I. 1—258) is devoted to the words of the Indo-Germanic mother-language; as Fick still terms it; the 2nd (I. 259-468) to the words peculiar to the Indo-Iranian (Aryan, according to Fick's nomenclature) linguistic unity; the 3rd (I. 469-843) to the words peculiar to the European linguistic unity; the 4th (II. 1-288) to the words peculiar to the Slavo-Teutonic linguistic unity; the 5th (II. 289—508) to the words peculiar to the Slavo-Teutonic linguistic unity; the 6th (II. 508-701) to the words peculiar to the Lithu-Slavonic linguistic unity, with an appendix (II. 703—84) on the Prusso-Lettic words; lastly, the 7th, which comprises almost the whole of the third volume, gives the words peculiar to the German linguistic unity; the fourth and last volume contains an Appendix (3-120) and numerous indices compiled by Dr. A. Führer. It is certainly to be regretted that Fick has not extended his investigations also to the Keltic family, in order to be able to assign them in his lexicon the place which undoubtedly belongs to them, and that he has contented himself with adding to the third edition just published of

the Vergleichendes wörterbuch the Keltic words with which, 46 thanks to Windisch, the fourth edition of the Grundzüge der griechischen etymologie of G. Curtius (Leipzig, 1873) has been enriched. This lacuna, we repeat, is to be regretted, both as far as concerns the lexicon considered in itself, and as far as relates to the division and subdivisions of the primitive and fundamental language of the Aryans, and the historical problems which are so closely connected with them. Nevertheless, in spite of this defect which the wonderful industry of the author will, we trust, remove from a new edition of his work, we may with Windisch' regard it as one of the most important works which have in the last few years been given to the public on the subject of the Science of Language.

We invite the attention of our readers to the Appendix above mentioned, entitled Roots and root determinatives, which appears to us of no slight moment for the subject to which the present chapter is devoted. The author begins by distinguishing two classes of roots: 1st, roots expressing ideas which only a being conscious of himself can conceive and represent phonetically; 2nd, roots which do not presuppose self-consciousness (interjections, imitations of sounds, children's words), the influence of which on the formation of the Proto-Aryan language Fick reduces to its due limits. And turning his attention to the first and far more important kind, he observes that it is only with the distinction between pronominal roots and verbal roots that the real human language, and the possibility of its development, commence : the thought which is founded on the self-consciousness begins with the capacity for dividing any perception

1 Zeitschr. f. vgl. sprachforsch, single volume in which this lexicon xxi. 385-434. is contained). In our criticisms and quotations it is this edition to which we have adhered.

2 This appendix is found also in the 2nd edition of the Vergleichendes wörterbuch (pp. 927-1044. of the

F

whatever into its two fundamental elements, of distinguishing the author of the action from the action itself, and 47 reuniting the former with the latter." Such a distinction had its phonetic expression in the distinct, but contemporaneous, ereation of syllables denoting ouly the subjects (pronominal roots), and of syllables representing the activities put in operation by the same (verbal roots). From the more and more close union of the one kind with the other kind of roots was produced the Aryan word, a verb or a noun according to the prevalence of the verbal or of the pronominal element.

And here the author proposes to himself one of the most arduous, but most seductive tasks which a philologist can set himself: the analysis of the constitution of the roots. Many of them are considered by the most eminent students of the Science of Language, as some of the so-called simple bodies are by chemists, rather as not yet decomposed than as not decomposable. Now if the portion common to two or more stems, both in their phonetic matter (we ask pardon for the expression) and in their meaning, gives us the right, nay, imposes on us the obligation, of ascending to the root whence both spring, why shall it not be possible and obligatory for us to institute a similar comparison between two or more roots which are related to one another as those stems are, and, by means of the comparison, to discover the most simple root of which they appear to us to be expanded forms? And this analysis would not only serve to furnish us with more exact notions about the first significative elements in the Aryan languages, and in their mother-language, but also, as Bréal' excellently remarked, to bring to light new relations between the ideas of our most ancient forefathers, and perhaps also to reveal new affinities between linguistic stocks. The

1 Bopp, Grammaire comparée des langues indo-européennes .

...

trad... par M. M. Bréal, Paris, 1866-74, ii. xxii.

difficult enterprise has already been attempted here and there, on various principles and methods, with varying extent of investigation and with various results, by several philologists, among whom it may suffice to quote Pott and G. Curtius. The chief result of Fick's investigations, 18 which succeeded to the researches alluded to, is the following proposition: there are in Proto-Aryan and in the dialects which spring from it primary roots, that is to say, no longer decomposable, and secondary roots derived from the primary; these we find formed, 1st, only from simple vowels (a, i, u), 2ndly, from the vowel a+a consonant (ad, ap, as etc.), 3rdly, from a consonant (simple or double) +the vowel a (da, sta, etc.). Every root otherwise formed derived its origin from one of the primary roots just described, and this came about either by means of an alteration of some sound, or by way of reduplication; or owing to the addition of some final element, which Fick calls, with Curtius, 'a root-determinative.' The proof of Fick's theory rests in the fact, certain in his opinion, that all, or nearly all the roots of a structure not agreeing either with the first or the second

1 Pott, Etymologische forschungen auf dem gebiete der indo-germanischen sprachen, etc., LemgoDetmold, 1859-73, Part 2, Section 1, p. 265. sq. Curtius, G., Grundzüge der griechischen etymologie, Leipzig, 1869, pp. 32-71. We should like to notice also a monograph of Hovelacque with the title Racines et éléments simples dans le sistème linguistique indoeuropéen, Paris, 1869.-The author censures modern linguists for following too closely the teaching of the Indian grammarians with respect to roots, which those grammarians did not know how to extract with rigour of method, as not having paid

attention, when they should have done, to the weakening of the vowels. According to Hovelacque every really simple element, verbal or pronominal, of the Indo-European language consists either of a vowel, or of a consonant and a vowel, or of two consonants followed by a vowel, so that the root is in every case an open syllable. Every root in ar is an expanded form of a root in ṛ: in any Indian root whatever, terminating in a consonant, this is the initial sound of a derivative element. These assertions would, in my opinion, need more numerous and stronger proofs than are those adduced by the author.

or the third class of the primary roots may be reduced, without violence either in respect to form or to meaning, to roots comprehended in one of the three classes mentioned. We had better now see, by an examination as 49 detailed as the nature of this work admits, what are the characteristics which, according to Fick, distinguish the secondary from the primary roots.

:

In the first place we observe the changes of the sounds of the primary roots, and, first of all, the weakenings of vowels. We see a weakened to i, whether initial or medial or final; we see it also obscured to ", especially when final and are never primitive in the roots, according to Fick, but spring from a (u sometimes from va).-A phenomenon equally worthy of remark is the strengthening of vowels which appears in their reduplication and increase, but with much greater frequency in the former than in the latter: even before the division of Proto-Aryan it appears that the lengthening of the final a of roots was widely extended; that of i appears altogether foreign to Proto-Aryan; in two cases at least we must believe that of final u to be primitive. The study of the consonantal sounds in the roots discloses: 1st, vanishing of initial s before k, t, p, n, in a certain number of examples; 2nd, metathesis of r, and perhaps also

1 Windisch, in the review quoted of Fick's work, considers this assertion not proven, and in particular the attempt to derive u from va appears to him strange. In the roots related in meaning, and only distinguished from one another by the quality of the vowel, he believes that it may be assumed that this quality was originally not at all determinate, and that, according to the different colouring of the vowel, men wished to express different ideas more

or less closely connected with each other. This mode of expression, observes Windisch, would find its counterpart in the languages of the Semitic stock.

2 The Indian grammarians, as we know, followed in this by many of our philologists, do not admit verbal roots in short a. Schleicher manifested a contrary opinion (Wurzeln auf a im indogermanischen, in the Beiträge, etc., ii. 92-99).