96 LYMAN— NATURE OF THE JAPANESE VERB. [April 12, 



object; and the theme conies first, and is sometimes also the agent, 

 and is indicated by the particle zi'a. For example : In Northampton, 

 the landscapes are fine; "in Northampton" is the theme, or subject 

 of discourse, and in Japanese would be followed by the particle zva, 

 which might be translated, " as to," or " about " ; in English, a slight 

 pause and a comma would take the place of that particle ; in Chinese, 

 there would probably be a slight pause. In many cases, the agent 

 of the action is also the theme, and is followed by zi'a. 



In English and in Chinese, the agent of the verbal action comes 

 first; then, the verb, or verbal noun; then, the object, if any, in con- 

 nection with which the action takes place. The object is the thing 

 aimed at by the whole sentence. In this important respect, there 

 is a strong resemblance between these two languages, which have 

 commonly been considered irreconcilably unlike, and which are, of 

 course, historically extremely distant. Evidently, languages may, 

 in the lapse of ages, through tribal vicissitudes and migrations, un- 

 dergo radical grammatical changes, and pass through stages so 

 wholly unlike their former condition, as to bring them into the same 

 class with languages that had been widely different from them. 



, In Greek and Latin, the agent is the goal at the end of the sen- 

 tence, the ultimate thing described by the whole thesis, or sentence, 

 and is closely welded to the verbal noun in the form of a personal 

 termination; while the object, in the accusative, precedes the verbal 

 noun (for example: Animiim regc, qui nisi paret, imperat). The 

 agent (the so-called subject of the verb), in more precise form pre- 

 cedes the object; and, in general, may be considered the theme, or 

 subject of discourse, and would in Japanese be followed by the 

 particle iva. 



Of course, the personal pronoun that is so welded to the verbal 

 root, in the termination of the verb, was originally a separate word, 

 to which that noun was, as the Japanese verbal noun frequently is, 

 an adjective (striking-I, working-you, loving-he), and, by degrees, 

 in time, became abbreviated and joined to that root in a single word. 

 Of course, too, other terminations were at first separate words, and 

 gradually, in ages of repetition, became completely joined to the root. 

 For example, the termination of the Latin infinitive, re, is undoubt- 

 edly the more or less complete remains of what was originally a 



