no TRANSACTIONS iSqQ-'oO 



Take an example from our own language. If any one 

 were asked the sense of the word "up," he would probably 

 say that it signified position or movement away from 

 the earth's centre' of gravity. Were he then asked to ex- 

 plain the use of the wOrd in such expressions as "to finish upi,'' 

 " to do up," " to round up," " to size up," he might be a little 

 at a loss to show how they exemplified the meaning first given. 

 On some occasion the word must have been applied to some par- 

 ticular verb in order to fill out its meaning, and, seeming to answer 

 the purpose, it was applied to others. In the inflectional languages 

 certain modifying elements have been not only appended to roots 

 or stems, but have been so completely incorporated with them, 

 that it is now, in most cases, impossible to say what they origin- 

 ally were, or what, if any, independent significance they ever 

 had. Brugmann in his "Comparative Grammar of the Indo- 

 Germanic Languages," a work of the highest authority, states 

 the case as follows : ' ' All the developments of language denoted 

 by the terms stem-formation and inflexion are based upon one 

 common principle, the juxtaposition and more or less 

 intimate fusion of elements which were originally independent. 

 By this process units of speech were formed which in later ages 

 became the types on which new words were made. Many such 

 types or standard forms were in use long before the dissolution of 

 the pro-ethnic Indo-Germanic community." A "stem" may 

 either be a simple root, or a root with some permanent addition 

 to it, to which the inflexional sufiix is further added. It is very 

 difiicult in certain cases to say whether a given stem is compound 

 or not. Words, like people, are not always as simple as they 

 look. Take a few samples from our own language. Who at 

 first sight would say that the word ' ' cull ' ' was a compound ? 

 People who think that all short and pithy words in the language 

 must be of native origin, would likely pick out the word ' ' cull ' ' 

 as an illustration of the strength and brevity of our Saxon roots. 

 In point of fact, " cull " is a compound word of Latin origin ; it 

 comes from the Latin "colligere" through the French "cueillir." 



leurs prototypes s'etaient trouves spontanement investis kl'origine." There is 

 a fine example of spontaneous reduplication in the word "teetotaler"; and 

 the tendency is exhibited in the story of the Western man who asked an 

 English traveller how he had left "Alfred A. Tennyson and Thomas T, 

 Carlyle," adding "They kin sling ink them fellows, they kin." 



