ON FBOBIiEMS IN INDO-GERMAN PHILOLOGY. 149 



that the insertion wm, which marks the semelfactive verb in Sclavonian, is 

 never found in Sanscrit, Greek, or Latin with any trace of that reduplication 

 which is the proper expression of repeated action. Thus we liave da-ddmi^ 

 hut ap-no-nti ; Si-dw^i, ridr] jii, 'i/rrrifii, hut ^euy-rvfii, cdfx-vri-fii, 'ti;-veofMai, &c.; 

 rjTiTtTb) for TTt-Trerw, but ttit-vo) ; and Latin verbs which insert n, always omit 

 this adjunct in the perfect, their only reduplicated tense ; thus we have tundo, 

 but tutudi. The syntactical contrivance by^ which the Semitic languages 

 express the passive or reflexive voice is also introduced in Sclavonic verbs, 

 which have no etymological mechanism for the purpose, although their per- 

 son-endings are remarkably complete. I have shown elsewhere {Maskil le 

 Sopher, p. 33) that the prefix of the reciprocal hith-pa"htl is the subjective 

 n combined with the objective ilJ*?, and that the passive nipk'hal has for its 



initial the objective J only. The Sclavonic verb absolutely subjoins the re- 

 flexive pronoun sya to all persons of the verb. It is useless to weary you by 

 pursuing this grammatical comparison any farther. Those who have studied 

 the refinements of philology will be able to estimate the argument from 

 these hints, and it would be idle to present the details to those who take no 

 interest in the subject. 



But independently of the arguments deducible from these lexicographical 

 and grammatical coincidences, there are certain phonological peculiarities, 

 common to the Semitic and Sclavonian languages, which seem to me to 

 confirm the view which I have taken of their original contact and congruity. 

 It is well known to the philological student that whole families of languages 

 have been discriminated by the different degrees in which they have main- 

 tained the integrity of their sibilants, or, in other words, by the various sub- 

 stitutes which they have allowed to supersede these more ancient articula- 

 tions. In examining the sibilants of a particular language, we have to con- 

 sider two classes of sounds : the original sibilants, which in secondary 

 states of the idiom degenerate into mere breathings, or are softened into 

 semi-consonants and vowels ; and those palatal sibilants, which are themselves 

 generated by a softening of guttural and dental consonants. The latter class 

 of phsenomena, to which we owe the constant employment of the ^ in Greek, 

 and our own soft g,j, and ch, must be carefully distinguished from the causes 

 which interfere with the permanence of an original assibilation. An example 

 will show the nature of the difference. The substitution of an aspirate for 

 an initial s is one of the main characteristics of the change from old or Pe' 

 lasgian Greek to the classical Hellenism with whicli we are acquainted, and 

 this substitution has very much diminished the use of sibilants in the language. 

 On the contrary, the aversion to palatal sounds on the part of the Hellenes 

 has almost invariably substituted Hi, which is a sibilant, for all the softened 

 gutturals or dentals of the older dialects. This procedure, which a recent 

 philological writer (Schleicher, Sprachvergleicheiide Untersuchiingen, p. 33) 

 has proposed to term Zetacismus, may take place in any language, in which 

 a guttural or dental is affected by an immediate contact with i. But the 

 evanescence of s, or its change into a mere breathing, belongs to a particular 

 state or condition of language, and we may classify idioms according to this 

 phaenomenon. Thus the Pelasgian and Latin as compared with the Greek, 

 the Sanscrit as compared with the Zend, the Erse as compared with the 

 Welsh, retain an initial sibilant, which in the corresponding but later forms 

 of the same language is consistently changed into h. The history of the 

 Greek alphabet, with which we are best acquainted, teaches us that the effect 

 has been to diminish the number of sibilants. In spite of the Zetacismus, 

 the old Sav has vanished, and while p and v have usurped many of the func- 

 tions of 5, usage has deprived I of one of its original employments. If on 



