36 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



The way in which the old materials have been used giving 

 rise to what will here be denominated the grammatic pro- 

 cesses. They are as follows : 



I. The process by combination. Two or more words may 

 be united to form a new one, or to perforin the office of a new 

 one, and four methods or stages of combination may be 

 noted. 



a. By juxtaposition, where the two words are placed to- 

 gether and yet remain as distinct words. This method is 

 illustrated in Chinese, where the words in the combination 

 when taken alone seldom give a clew to their meaning when 

 placed together. 



b. By compounding, where two words are made into one, 

 in which case the original elements of the new word remain 

 in an unmodified condition, as in " house-top," " rain-bow," 

 " tell-tale." 



c. By agglutination, in which case one or more of the ele- 

 ments entering into combination to form the new word is 

 somewhat changed — the elements are fused together. Yet 

 this modification is not so great as to essentially obscure the 

 primitive words, as in " truthful," where we easily recognize 

 the original words " truth " and " full ; " and " holiday," in 

 which " holy " and " day " are recognized. 



d. By inflection. Here one or more of the elements enter- 

 ing into the compound has been so changed that it can 

 scarcely be recognized. There is a constant tendency to 

 economy in speech by which words are gradually shortened 

 as they are spoken by generation after generation. In those 

 words which are combinations of others there are certain 

 elements that wear out more rapidly than others. Where 

 some particular ward is combined with many other different 

 words the* tendency to modify by wear this oft-used element 

 is great, This is more especially the case where- the com- 

 bined word is used in certain categories of combinations, as 

 where particular words are used to denote tense in the verb ; 

 thus, " did " may be used in combination with a verb to de- 

 note past time until it is worn down to the sound of "d." 



