52 J' A. Fontaine, 



Latin language had no longer power to restrain the inde- 

 pendent growth of the popular idioms, was carried out by the 

 Romance languages. That decomposition was so thorough 

 that abstract notions and inanimate things that can only 

 express a passive idea, were clad with active forms in such 

 a way that they seem to be the agents of the verbal notion. 



Compare the French expressions : Cc livre se trojtve sur la 

 table ; ce bois se fend difficilement ; ccttc maison se bdtit lente- 

 inettt ; cettc tcrre se desscche ; cette expression s' eniploie ; cette 

 chose se dit ; ce pays se mine, etc., etc. 



Why the Latin abandoned its middle endings would be 

 difficult to say, since we have lost nearly all traces of the 

 languages that surrounded the Latin in its formative period, 

 but that transformation is no more surprising than a great 

 number of other linguistic phenomena. Nor is the use of se 

 for all the persons of passive verbs in Latin inexplainable. 

 The idea contained in the word se (one's self) is of an inde- 

 finite character, and hence se can be connected with any 

 person in any number. This same phenomenon is to be 

 found in Scandinavian dialects, as well as among Romance- 

 speaking people of a certain portion of Switzerland, the 

 Rhato-romonsch. Compare Grammatica clcnientara dil lun- 

 gatg Rhdto-romonsch, scritta da J. A. Biihler, p. 64 : " II 

 pronom ' se' ei en tuttas formas, persunas, modas tuts temps 

 ligiaus vid il verb . . . ridicul ei de voler declinar quel pronom 

 ^ se' a la moda italiana e franzosa, sco p. e.fen mi fidel, tn te 

 fidas, la flexiun de quel pronom ei en el lungatg romonsch 

 buca veguida cultivada e nos ureglia romonscha sa buca vertir 

 pei quel Italianismus." 



Thus we see that in this particular language the reflexive 

 verb takes the reflexive pronoun se in all the persons, in 

 both numbers. The ^^ se'' is now yielding to vie, te, se, and 

 that under the influence of the Italian and of the French. 

 Consequently the reflexive verbs of the Romance languages 

 are nothing but the legitimate representatives of the first 

 Latin type anio-se, with the difference that they have under- 

 gone from the very beginning the change which the Ro- 



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