42 COMPARATIVE LANGUAGE 



ciations, so that we say "the bay forms a crescent," etc., or even 

 "the crescent-shaped moon." In horn, as applied to an instrument 

 for producing sound by blowing, the dominant element was at first 

 the material, but ceased to be so before we could speak of a tin horn, 

 etc. Language is full of "faded metaphors," that is, metaphors 

 which have become so commonplace as no longer to be felt as such 

 (and which therefore are no longer metaphors in the stylistic sense), 

 representing all conceivable types of associations, as between various 

 sense-perceptions (we speak of a sweet smell or a sweet voice as freely 

 as of a sweet taste}, between physical and mental activities or con- 

 ditions (understand, forget, that is, for-get the opposite of get, horror, 

 originally a bristling up of the hair, glad cognate with German glatt, 

 "smooth"), between abstract and concrete (kindness as a quality or 

 a concrete act), subjective and objective (glad of a person, and glad 

 tidings, fear cognate with German Gefahr, "danger "), transitive and 

 intransitive (show cognate with German schauen) , and so on without 

 limit. The most frequent changes in meaning are those which are 

 classified, from the logical standpoint, under the head of specializ- 

 ation, as hound, formerly dog (cf. German Hund), poison from Latin 

 potio, "drink," German Gift, "poison," originally "gift," or gen- 

 eralization, as barn, originally " a storehouse for barley," butcher, 

 originally "one who kills he-goats" (French boucher, from bouc=* 

 buck), smell and reek, both referring originally to the odor of some- 

 thing burning (cf. smoulder and German Rauch), equipped, originally 

 "furnished with horses," etc. Specialization means the restriction 

 of scope through the enlargement of content, caused by the absorp- 

 tion of associated elements, as when from a hunting-hound, that is, 

 a "hunting-dog," hound has absorbed the content of hunting, thus 

 restricting its scope. Generalization, on the other hand, means the 

 enlargement of scope through the narrowing of the content by the 

 ignoring of certain of its elements, as when in barn the notion of 

 barley is lost sight of. 



The most scientific classification of semantic changes is without 

 much doubt the strictly psychological one, according to the character 

 of the associative processes involved, although the comparative 

 grammarian will probably prefer a more external grouping as the 

 best means of presenting the material. 



Syntactical changes exhibit associative processes very similar 

 to those seen in the history of individual words. One construction 

 is modified by another which has some point of contact with it, or 

 there may be complete contaminations of two constructions. A 

 given inflectional form or phrase may change its force to any extent 

 by the gradual shifting of the dominant element. 



But it is unnecessary to illustrate further the intimate connection 



