THE WITNESS OF PHILOLOGY. 309 



primitive modes of speech, I should further allow that it 

 raises a formidable difficulty in the otherwise even path of 

 evolutionary explanation. But, as a matter of fact, these 

 writers are no less mistaken about the primitive nature of the 

 substantive verb itself, than they are upon the function which 

 it accidentally discharges in copulation.* In order to prove 

 this, or to show that the substantive verb is reall}' very far 

 from primitive, I will furnish a few extracts from the writings 

 of philological authorities upon the subject. 



" Whatever our a priori estimate of the power of the 

 verb-substantive may be, its origin is traced by philology to 

 very humble and material sources. The Hebrew verbs nin 

 ijioua) or T\\r\ ijuiia) may very probably be derived from an 

 onomatopoeia of respiration. The verb kauia, which has the 

 same sense, means primitively 'to stand out,' and the verb 

 koum, 'to stand,' passes into the sense of 'being.' In 

 Sanskrit, as-ini (from which all the verbs-substantives in the 

 Indo-European languages are derived, as djA, s?im, am ; Zend 

 ahnii ; Lithuanic, esini, Icelandic, em, &c.) is, prop?rl\' 

 speaking, no verbal root, but ' a formation on the demonstra- 

 tive pronoun sa, the idea meant to be conveyed being simpK' 

 that of local presence.' And of the two other roots used for 

 the same purpose, namely, bhn ((p{no,///i, &c.) and st/id {stare, 

 &c.), the first is probably an imitation of breathing, and the 

 second notoriously a physical verb, meaning ' to stand up.' 

 May we not, then, ask with Bunsen, 'What is to be in all 

 languages but the spiritual ization of ivalking or standing 

 or eating?' " t 



Again, to quote only one other authoritj' : — ■" In closing, 

 for the present, the discussion of this extensive subject, it is 

 proposed to make a few remarks upon the so-called verb- 

 substantive, respecting the nature and functions of which 

 there has perhaps been more misapprehension than about an}- 

 other clement of language. It is well known that man\- 



• I refer the reader to what is said on liotii tliosc a-pccts of tin- vcrl> in 

 question by my opponents (see pp. 165-167.) 

 t Farrar, Ori'^in 0/ Language, pp. 105, 106. 



