1912.] LYMAN— NATURE OF THE JAPANESE VERB. 97 



separate word. When, thirty years ago, it was suggested, at a meet- 

 ing of the American Oriental Society, that the Latin infinitive ter- 

 mination re, not only meant thing, as it evidently does, but was con- 

 nected with the Latin word res, it was scornfully and crushingly 

 objected that the infinitive originally ended in se, and was much 

 later changed to re. But what of that? So much the better. It 

 makes yet more clear the close afiinity between j and r, both made in 

 the same part of the mouth, with the attitude of the tongue but 

 slightly changed. The word res may, then, very likely have for- 

 merly been pronounced likewise with an initial s, instead of r ; and, 

 at any rate, the close affinity of the two sounds makes plain the 

 true meaning and origin of the s in the Latin genitive and plural 

 and nominative singular terminations, and in the English possessive 

 and plural terminations. The plural termination may have been 

 originally a doubling of the simple singular form. Of course, 

 those terminations, like the verbal ones, must have been, at first, 

 separate words with a signification of their own. The connection 

 between the not yet united words must have been that of adjective 

 and substantive ; and the like connection, in the case of genitive, or 

 possessive, must have existed between the yet unwelded compound 

 and the name of the thing possessed. For instance : Charles's box 

 was Charles-thing box. LTndoubtedly, the other Latin terminations 

 may eventually find a like rational and simple explanation, with like 

 originally adjectival connection. 



It is nothing against this simple and rational explanation of the 

 Latin infinitive termination re, and the Latin case termination s, and 

 the English possessive and plural s, that even in so grammatically 

 distant a language as Japanese almost precisely the same -sound 

 should be similarly used. Call it a coincidence, if you will, yet, even 

 so, it IS interesting. In the ordinal numbers, hitotsn (one), fiitatsn 

 (two), mitsu (three), etc., the syllable tsu, with a very short u, 

 apparently meant originally thing. In bare counting, hi, fii, mi, etc., 

 that syllable is omited. 



Furthermore, the Japanese possessive particle, or postposition, no, 

 already mentioned, and translated of, is evidently in reality an ab- 

 breviation of the word mono, which means thing, just as those 



