Brinton.] t^l'± [March 20, 



admirably observes : " Man does not possess any such thing as 

 an absolutely isolated individuality; the ' I ' and the 'thou' are 

 the essential complements of each other, and would, in their last 

 analysis, be found identical."* 



On these two fundamental conceptions, those of Identity and 

 Relation, or, as they may be expressed more correctly, those of 

 Being and Action, Humboldt builds his doctrines concerning the 

 primitive radicals of language and the fundamental categories of 

 grammar. 



§ 6. Primitive Roots and Grammatical Categories. 



The roots of a language are classified by Humboldt as either 

 objective or subjective, although he considers this far from an 

 exhaustive scheme.f 



The objective roots are usually descriptive, and indicate an 

 origin from a process of mental analysis. They bear the impress 

 of those two attributes which characterize every thought, Being 

 and Action. Every complete objective word must express these 

 two notions. Upon them are founded the fundamental gram- 

 matical categories of the Noun and the Verb ; or to speak more 

 accurately, they lead to the distinction of nominal and verbal 

 themes. 



The characteristic of the Noun is that it expresses Being; of 

 the Yerb that it expresses Action. This distinction is far from 

 absolute in the word itself; in many languages, especially in 

 Chinese and some American languages, there is in the word no 

 discrimination between its verbal and nominal forms ; but the 

 verbal or nominal value of the word is clearly fixed by other 

 means.J 



Another class of objective root-words are the adjective words, 

 or Determinatives. They are a later accession to the list, and by 

 their addition bring the three chief grammatical categories, the 

 Noun, the Yerb and the Adjective, into correlation with the 

 three logical categories of Substance, Action and Quality. 



* Ubi supra, p. 17. Compare Humboldt's words, " Im Ich aber ist von selbst 

 auch das Du gegeben." Ueber die Vers'-hiedetjheit, etc., Bd. vi, s. 115. 



t Ueber dip. Verschiedenheit, etc., Bd. vi, s. 116; and compare Dr. Schasler's dis- 

 cussion of this subject (which is one of the best parts of his book), Die ELemente 

 der Phil. Sprachwissenschaft, etc., ss. 202-14. 



j: Expressed in detail byHumboldt in hxa Lettre d. M, Abel- Remusat sur la nature 

 des formes grammatlcules, etc., Bd. vii, ss. 300-303. 



