CHAM MA II 



347 



Bound group (or word, as we may now call it) 

 remains intact, and tlie relation which one won) 

 t<> another in the expression of the entire 

 thought depends on the position of the words, tin* 

 stress, or the pitch of the voice with which each 

 is pronounced, or other more minute condition- \ 

 language of which this is the prevailing character 

 is called isolating,' and Chinese i the best-known 

 t\pe. It seems inadequate, yet the facility with 

 which ideas can l>e expressed in such a language 

 may he seen from the different grammatical values 

 \hich the same sound-group can have in our own 

 language in phrases like 'love is sweet,' 'we feel 

 love,' (iod is love,' ' I love you,' &c. 



Hut nearly all languages udmit of comhiriation 

 mi ire complete than this, whereby two or more 

 words can be joined together, so that a single 

 sound-complex expresses two or more ideas in com- 

 bination e.g. ' free-man,' 'black-bird,' ' thank-ful,' 

 'high-horn,' 'back-bite,' 'ill-treat,' &c. Each of 

 the-.- may form the model for numerous copies; 

 thus, 'thankful' can produce 'youthful,' 'health- 

 ful,' which are later English compounds. Then 

 came hybrid compounds, where the first member is 

 of Latin 9rigin (of course through the Norman), 

 as 'merciful,' 'masterful.' In this last we see 

 that the exact nature of the original compound is 

 obscured, and that ' ful ' gives merely the addi- 

 tional sense of 'like,' as though the compound had 

 been ' masterlike,' which does indeed occur in a 

 briefer form, and with a secondary sense, as 

 'masterly.' This example throws light on the 

 history of all word-formation. A word may cease 

 to l>e felt as a compound commonly through change 

 of form in one or both of its parts, as 'masterly,' 

 where the idea of the skill of a master in some art 

 alone remains ; or ' hussy ' ( house-wife ), where 

 both parts of the compound are lost. Sometimes 

 only one syllable may remain, as in ' lord ' ( loaf- 

 ward ). Often some great change of idea joins with 

 phonetic change in obscuring the nature of a com- 

 pound, as in fortnight ( fourteen-night). Now, when 

 the last part of the compound fulfils certain condi- 

 tions, it may be used in the formation of countless 

 other words : -lie ( like ), which is found in O. E. in 

 'eorth-lic,' *cyne-lic'( earthly, kingly), passes on in 

 its simpler form -ly in 'daily,' 'princely,' &c. ; and 

 -/// is then what grammarians call a suffix, an 

 element which cannot be used alone, but can be 

 added on at pleasure to another word to modify 

 its meaning. The conditions are (1) that the forrii 

 of the so-called suffix must be a convenient one 

 phonetically ; (2) that it must have been in use 



related) have produced no analogous forms in 

 English owing to the rarity of the use of their 

 second member; (3) that the last member must be 

 general in its sense, or at least acquire some general 

 sense in composition. A suffix is especially favoured 

 which can l>e mentally referred to some common 

 word of general sense, though it may really have 

 nothing to do with that word. Thus, in 'credible,' 

 invincible, ' &c. the original suffix -ble (-bili in 

 I.atini i> seen: Imt in many words which come 

 to us through the French, 'probable,' ' amiable,' a 

 preceded the last syllable : thus these words seemed 

 to mean ' able ' to IMJ proved, or to be loved ; and 

 so words like 'knowable,' 'lovable,' 'reliable' 

 sprang up in abundance. Independently of these 

 conditions of the origin of suffixes, it is also nece- 

 sary that the first member of a compound remain 

 unohsciired. Thus, no words have been formed on 

 the jmod -l/V 'orchard' (u-nrt-ynnl), though -ard as 

 a Nonnanr* rench suflix has ' produced derivatives 

 like 'dru 4 ard,' on the analogy of 'bastard,' 

 'wizard.' 



We are justified in inferring from the English 

 siiUkxes which can be explained an remnant* of 

 words (-fill, -I if, -i/'im, -hood, and the like) that 

 the others whose history can no longer lx? traced 

 had a similar oiigin; and even in extending thix 

 principle to those formative suffixes which reach 

 back to the earliest period of language. It i- a 

 sound axiom that what is in language has Ix-cn and 

 will l>e; it is only by dealing with s|K>ken lan-i 

 that we can infer the nature of those known to us 

 by tradition only. It cannot ! said with certainty 

 that we should assign the same origin to those 

 other suffixes which we call inflectional to which 

 we owe the cases of our nouns, and the persons, 

 ten-cs, and voices of our verbs. The persons, in- 

 deed, of the verbs were, it is most probable, pro- 

 nouns. The m in 'am' represents original 'I, KO 

 ' am ' meant ' exist I," and was a compound of two 

 words, originally as separate as ' I exist ; ' * repre- 

 sented 'thou,' and t (Eng. th in 'loveth,' &c. ) was 

 ' he.' But we cannot say exactly what the tense- 

 suffixes were, though we believe they are the rem- 

 nants of words ; nor what were the case-suffixes 

 of the nouns what, for example, was the * which 

 still marks our genitive case, or the * of our 

 plurals. Hut we know that we can make a ' noun 

 of multitude' by making such a compound as 

 ' man-kind,' and there is no reason why -es (the 

 original form of -s, our plural suffix) may not once 

 have been some such word as 'kind,' and com- 

 pounded in the same manner. Such a history is in 

 accordance with all we know of the processes of 

 language. 



It will be apparent from what has been said that 

 there never was in any language some one period 

 in which its suffixes were made, succeeded by a 

 period in which there was no more growth but 

 only decay. Formation is always going on, though 

 more slowly in languages which are stereotyped by 

 literature. In English we have almost ceased to 

 use our second personal suffix -st, in % lovest,' &c. 

 But that st is itself an English growth : the older 

 English form was *: in the old Mercian Psalter 

 (edited by Mr Sweet in his Oldest English Tests) 

 we find both ' thu dydes' and ' thu dydest,' 'thu 

 bis ' and ' thu hist,' &c. Other Teutonic languages 

 show the same (independent) development. Still 

 more do ' formative suffixes ' go on growing., One 

 of our commoner English suffixes (used to make a 

 diminutive) is -let, seen in comparatively recent 

 words, like 'brooklet,' 'streamlet,' &c. But the 

 form is really a development of the older -et ( the 

 French -ette) in 'helmet,' 'banneret,' 'c}'gnet.' 

 Several of these forms, like 'islet,' 'circlet,' and 

 ' eaglet,' were formed out of nouns which ended in 

 / ; and so new ones were formed ' ring- let,' &c., as 

 though the I had always belonged to the suffix. \Ve 

 are getting a new suffix in -nist, seen in ' tobacco- 

 nist, &c. This is an extension of the old suffix 

 (Greek, through Latin into French ) -ist, in 'jurist.' 

 'dentist,' &c. ; this seems to be due to words where 

 the n belongs to the root-part, as ' mechan-ist,' 

 ' pian-ist,' and other late forms. 



A common method of inflection in language is, 

 not by suffix, but by change of the original vowel : 

 thus, we have 'man,' but plural 'men;' and in 

 verbs we find present 'drink,' preterite 'drank, 1 

 past participle 'drunken.' These can, however, be 

 traced to tne influence in difl'erent ways of lost 

 suffixes. Thus, the old declension of ' man ' was 

 nom. ' matin ; ' gen. ' mannes ; ' dat. ' menn(i) ; ' 

 plur. nom. 'menn(i);' gen. 'manna;' dat. 'imm- 

 niim. ' It is clear that the change of a to e had at 

 first nothing to do with the plural, for it is found 

 in singular and plural alike when i followed : this 

 vowel had the property of modifying in a preced- 

 ing syllable to e. But when the cases were lost, 

 as happened in English mainly through Norman 



