PHILOMtLA 



6114 



PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 



garments of wool and sheepskin, 

 prepared food at the fire, and knew 

 something of the earliest metals. 

 They reckoned by months, and 

 counted up to a hundred. But 

 they knew little of agriculture, 

 and had no established political 

 institutions. 



The simplest form of a word is 

 the root, that part of a word which 

 remains after it has been stripped 

 of everything formative and acci- 

 dental. The next stage is the base 

 or stem, in which the root is pre- 

 pared to receive the inflexional 

 suffixes. Thus, da-, i- are roots 

 representing the general ideas of 

 giving, going ; da-tar, giver, with 

 the addition of -tar denoting the 

 agent, is a base. To indicate some 

 special relation of one person or 

 thing and another, an inflexional 

 suffix is added : da-tar-as, of the 

 giver. This form of a word is called 

 a case (Lat. caaus, falling, varia- 

 tion). The number of cases in the 

 parent language was seven : nomi- 

 native, accusative, genitive, dative, 

 locative, ablative, instrumental. 

 The vocative is merely a stem- 

 form. In addition to two numbers, 

 singular and plural, there was a 

 dual, rarely used. The distinction 

 of gender in nouns seems to have 

 been artificial. In the verb, there 

 were originally two voices, active 

 and middle, the latter fulfilling the 

 function of the passive. There were 

 four tenses : present, future, per- 

 fect (imperfect), and aorist, the 

 last three of which might be in- 

 cluded in the general term past ; 

 and four moods, indicative, im- 

 perative, subjunctive, and opta- 

 tive. These inflexional variations 

 can be best studied in highly in- 

 flexional languages, such as Greek 

 and Latin, whereas in analytical 

 languages, such as English, they 

 have left hardly any traces. 

 Causes of Change in Language 



A comparison of the older with 

 the more recent forms of the lan- 

 guages belonging to the Indo- 

 European family, for instance, 

 modern English with that of 

 Alfred's day, shows that great 

 alterations have taken place in the 

 form and meaning of words, and 

 such changes are still going on. 

 The comparative philologist exam- 

 ines these changes and, where 

 possible, accounts for them. (1) 

 Perhaps the most far-reaching in- 

 fluence is simple laziness, the un- 

 conscious desire to make the utter- 

 ance of any particular sound or 

 combination of sounds as easy as 

 possible. And this desire operates 

 in different ways among different 

 peoples, some of whom find it diffi- 

 cult in some cases even impossi- 

 ble to utter a sound which is 

 perfectly easy to others. 



(2) Another cause is Analogy, un- 

 conscious or imperfect imitation. 

 This is seen in such forms as bursted, 

 runned, feels, done (I done it), 

 badder. It also leads to the forma- 

 tion of new verbs from nouns, such 

 as to motor, to telegraph, with past 

 forms motored, telegraphed. Simi- 

 larly, a foreign or unfamiliar word 

 is altered to something which 

 seems, although wrongly, to con- 

 vey a meaning to the speaker, 

 China asters becoming Chinese 

 oysters, Bellerophon Billy Ruffian. 

 The tendency is to introduce new 

 forms based on a real or fancied 

 analogy of the old. Other causes at 

 work are Assimilation, Dissimila- 

 tion, and Indistinct Articulation. 

 Most of these are connected with 

 the mechanism of speech, which 

 belongs to the subject of Phonetics, 

 and are therefore classed under 

 the head of phonetic change. 

 Comparative Philology 



Comparative philology was first 

 rendered possible by Sir William 

 Jones (1746-94), who introduced 

 ancient Sanskrit to European 

 scholars. He correctly established 

 the relationship of Greek and Latin 

 as sister languages, whereas they 

 had previously been regarded as 

 mother and daughter. F. A. Pott 

 (1802-87) was the first to investi- 

 gate scientifically the whole Indo- 

 European group of languages from 

 the standpoint of etymology. The 

 names of A. Schleicher (1821-68), 

 G. Curtius (1820-85), and W. Cors- 

 sen (1820-75), were the most dis- 

 tinguished representatives of what 

 is called, somewhat arbitrarily, 

 the Old school of Philologists. 



Schleicher' s investigations were 

 directed towards the formulation of 

 laws to which the sounds of those 

 languages were subject, and by 

 which the changes in them were 

 governed. Curtius devoted his at- 

 tention mainly to Greek, while 

 Corssen confined himself to Latin 

 and the old Italian dialects: F. Max 

 Muller (1823-1900) popularised the 

 results of philological study for the 

 ordinary student. Some of his 

 theories did not meet with general 

 acceptance, and his views on the 

 nature of language and its changes 

 are quite at variance with those 

 of W. D. Whitney (1827-94), whose 

 work on the Life and Growth of 

 Language gave a new impulse to 

 the study. 



The New school of philology, 

 represented by Brugmann, Osthoff, 

 Paul, and Delbruck, in reality only 

 differed from the Old in the extent 

 to which it carried out already 

 acknowledged principles. Valu- 

 able discoveries were made by 

 Brugmann and Grassmann in re- 

 gard to the primitive vowel system 

 and the aspirates, while Verncr 



proved that many apparent ex- 

 ceptions to Grimm's law were the 

 result of the accentuation of the 

 vowel in the Indo-European word. 

 Briefly the principles of the New 

 school are that, while the Old 

 school admitted sporadic (isolated) 

 changes, Phonetic Laws are on the 

 contrary absolutely fixed and sub- 

 ject to no exceptions. 



A younger branch of philology, 

 as yet in its infancy, dealing with 

 the development of the meanings 

 of words, has received the name 

 Semasiology or Semantics (q.v.). 



Bibliography. The Life and 

 Growth of Language, W. D. Whit- 

 ney, 1875 ; Primer of Philology, J. 

 Peile, 2nd ed. 1877; Elements of 

 the Comparative Grammar of the 

 Indo-Germanic Languages, C. Bnig- 

 mann, Eng. trans. 1888^95 ; Seman- 

 tics, M. Br6al, Eng. trans. H. Cust, 

 1900 ; A History of Language, H. 

 Sweet, 2nd ed. 1901; A Short 

 Manual of Comparative Philology, 

 P. Giles, 2nd ed. 1901 ; An Intro- 

 duction to Comparative Philology, 

 J. M. Edmonds, 1906. 



Philomela (Gr., lover of song). 

 In Greek mythology, daughter of 

 Pandion, king of Athens. Dis- 

 honoured by Tereus, a Thracian 

 prince who had married her sister 

 Procne, Philomela, together with 

 her sister, took revenge by serving 

 up to Tereus the flesh of his own son 

 Itys. Procne and Philomela, pur- 

 sued by Tereus with an axe, in re- 

 sponse to their prayers were trans- 

 formed into a nightingale and a 

 swallow, while Tereus became a 

 hoopoe. According to another 

 version, Philomela becomes the 

 nightingale, and in poetry her name 

 in English, Philomel, is a synonym 

 for that bird. Pron. Fillo-meela. 



Philopoemen (c. 252-183 B.C.). 

 Greek general and patriot, known 

 as " the last of the Greeks." Born 

 at Megalopolis, he devoted him- 

 self as a young man to military 

 studies, and fought with distinction 

 at the battle of Sellasia, 222. In 

 208 he was elected general of the 

 Achaean League (q.v. ), and brought 

 its members to a high standard of 

 military efficiency. His technical 

 military reforms bore excellent 

 fruit the same year, in the form of 

 a defeat of. the Spartans, near Man- 

 tinea. Recognizing the power of 

 the Romans, he. avoided conflicts 

 with them, and used his influence 

 to mitigate the severity of their 

 measures. He took Sparta in 188, 

 and abolished the institutions of 

 Lycurgus. During a Messenian 

 revolt he was captured and com- 

 pelled to take poison. 



Philosopher's Stone. One of 



the chief objects of search in 

 alchemy (q.v.). It was a supposed 

 substance that had the power of 

 turning base metals into gold. 



