8 J' A. Fontaine, 



or, in the sense of dcbcr, cf. Las Moccdades del Cid : 



Que he de poner, 710. 



On glancing through the foregoing references it becomes 

 evident that habcr has ceased to be an independent verb in 

 Don Quixote and Las Mocedades del Cid, and is used as such 

 only in a few instances in Hurtado de Mendoza, so that the 

 sixteenth century may be considered as the time of the dis- 

 appearance of Jiaber as a pi'incipal verb. \x\ the above quota- 

 tions I have placed side by side similar sentences, in some of 

 which haber is used, and in others tcner, thus showing that 

 haber and tener could be used indiscriminately, the one for 

 the other, and that no essential difference existed then between 

 those two verbs. Compare : — 



Haber. Tener. 



Avien ventos derechos. Tenyen viento bueno. 



Bueua fija avemos. Tenemos un buen home. 



Un vestido he solo. Que no tiene vestido, etc. 



But at the same time it must be noticed that whenever an 

 abstract idea is to be expressed, as for instance in duelo, dolor, 

 pardon, placer, niicdo, etc., the preference is given, in most 

 cases, to habcr. \\\ fact, I have only noted seventeen instances 

 in which habcr was used to express a concrete idea, and these 

 mostly in the earliest docvmients. Tener was the verb to 

 express concrete conceptions and material possession, though 

 it was also frequently used to express abstract ideas ; so that, 

 in fact, its use was more extensive and varied than that of its 

 rival habcr. This being the case, tener grew in power and in 

 favor, while the reverse was true of haber. Little by little 

 haber ^NdA deprived even of the power of expressing an abstract 

 conception, and left to play the part of a pure inflectional end- 

 ing. Even here it is rivalled by tener; for whenever a par- 

 ticular stress is laid on the verbal notion, tener takes the place 

 of Jiaber. 



Thus, instead of attributing the introduction of new auxili- 

 ary verbs in Spanish and Portuguese to a dislike of the 

 repetition of the same verb, it seems more natural to attri- 



