ALTERATION OF THE ROOT. 253 



A remark upon the alleged priority of the verbal over the nominal 

 roots may be appropriately inserted here. In many languages, especially 

 the monosyllabic, noun and verb do not distinguish themselves from each 

 other in their exterior form, and even in Klamath we iind words like pata, 

 petila, ndshishl;^a, which are verbs and nouns at the same time, and verbal 

 suffixes which are nominal suffixes also. In many other languages the dis- 

 tinction between the two categories is at least an imperfect one, and must 

 have been more so in their earlier stages of development. When the sen- 

 tence had reached a stage in which the predicative idea in the verb began 

 to distinguish clearly between subject, object, and verb, noun and verb 

 commenced to assume distinctive affixes, and the position of these parts in 

 the sentence became more free. Noun and verb therefore originated simul- 

 taneously, not successively. 



A single instance taken from the present status of tlie Klamath lan- 

 guage may give us an idea how in its earlier stages the two categories 

 could have diffi3red. Ktchal%a means to shine and to emit heat, ktchAk (for 

 ktchalka) motlier-of-pearl shell, ktchalui to he resplendent and to he hot, 

 ktchalta to reverberate, ktchalua to shine and to reflect sunrays, ktchal^ish 

 sunshine and heat of sunrays, sunburn, ktchiilshkash radiance, ktcho'l star, 

 etc. Evidently the root, either simple or thematic, is ktchal {a short), and 

 the idea of heat is secondary to that of light, radiance; but nobody is able 

 to decide whether its original meaning was the nominal one of ray, radiance, 

 or the verbal one of to radiate, or of both at the same time, for both the 

 derivatives are equally long or short in their affixes. If in the minds of 

 the earliest people who formed this language a distinction has existed be- 

 tween the two as a vague feeling, we can no longer follow its traces. Even 

 nouns, to be considered as having been substantives from a very early 

 epoch, as sun, moon, water, fire, were in some languages shown to be deriva- 

 tives of radicals, but not of radicals of a distinct nominal or verbal signifi- 

 cation. 



3. PHONETIC ALTERATION OF THE ROOT. 



Of some languages it has been said that their consonants were com- 

 parable to the skeleton and bones of the animal organism, while their 



