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



extremely ancient common language, leading back towards the 

 original human language and even towards the utterances of brute 

 animals. Evidently, the earliest languages must have had their 

 words connected purely as adjectives and substantives, as is still 

 common in English, and is universally the case with the parts of 

 compounds. The English language shows that the grammar of a 

 language may within a few hundred years become radically changed; 

 and, in spite of historical and geographical remoteness, has acquired 

 grammatical resemblance to Chinese. 



