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 really 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 

 (hoiia) or n^^n {haia) may very probably be derived from an 

 onomatopoeia of respiration. The verb kama, which has the 

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

 koiim^ ' to stand,' passes into the sense of * being.' In 

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

 Indo-European languages are derived, as hiii, sum, am ; Zend, 

 ahmi ; Lithuanic, esmi, Icelandic, em, &c.) is, properly 

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

 tive pronoun sa, the idea meant to be conveyed being simply 

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

 the same purpose, namely, bhu {<!>{) to, fui, &c.) and sthd {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 spiritualization of walking or standing 

 or eating f'\ 



Again, to quote only one other authority : — " 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 any 

 other element of language. It is well known that many 



• I refer the reader to what is said on both these aspects of the verb in 

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

 t Farrar, Origin of Laiigtiage, pp. 105, 106. 



