22 PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON THE 
The remarkable paragoge of xa, which appears in the vulgar form of the first 
aorist passive, éypddOyxa for éypadOnv, appears to have arisen from an illiterate 
confusion of the terminations of the past forms of the active and passive voice. 
Proposition XXIV.—The process of partial disintegration and recon- 
struction to which modern Greek, like Italian and French, owes its birth, is 
governed by a law, which seems to belong naturally to all human speech 
under similar circumstances, what I may call the LAw of SIMPLIFICATION and 
REGULARISATION. All language, by the natural action of the human mind, is con- 
structed originally on the principle of likeness and analogy; but when, by the 
mixing of diverse tribes, or from other causes, irregularities and anomalies have 
once got a place in it, which disregard or contradict its characteristic analogies, 
the establishment of a classical norm of speech, by a succession of authoritative 
writers, may stereotype such irregularities as a recognised part of the language 
for an indefinite period. ‘Thus in English, the irregular plurals—fragments, by 
the way, of an old regularity—men, women, oxen, and a few others, remain fixed ; 
and so in Greek, the aoristic forms in xa, eOnxa, édwxa, jHKa, contrary to the 
general rule of verbal formation. But so soon as the firm control of intellectual 
authority is weakened, as by the removal of some artificial constraint, the 
popular ear falls back on the familiar analogy, and abolishes the anomaly ; 
and thus in modern Greek, €@nxa becomes eOeca, eSwxa, Owed, avéyvav, avéyvoca 
(also in ancient Ionic), and so forth. A familiar example of this tendency is 
the seéd for seen, coomed for come, &c., of the common people in England. 
Similarly we find in Greek é¢épOyv from dépw, Badpevos for BeBynpévos, kaherpevos 
for xexdnuévos. To the same category belongs the total abolition of all verbs 
in pu, the relic, as is well known, of the oldest form of the verb in the Aryan 
languages. Thus, as early as the New Testament epoch, from the general use 
of €oTyxa as a present, the new regular form o7ékw had been produced, which 
is the only form of the old to7nw. now used in the Greek tongue. So for 
SiSop. we have now Sie, for rn, a secondary verb, Oérw, formed from the 
verbal adjective Oerés, like aoraréw (1 Cor. iv. 11) from doraros, and otarés, 
for ddinut, advo, and for rapioTnm, tapioraivw (Rom. xii. 1). So much for 
the verbs. Among the nouns this tendency displays itself most strikingly, as 
in Italian, in the habit of taking the objective case of nouns of the third de- 
clension, and turning it into a new nominative, to be declined after the fashion 
of the first or second declension.* Thus,— 
7) entépa, from = pyrnp. 
n medudoa, “ TEOLAS. 
n ayehada, s ayehds. 
* CornewaL. Lewis, in his essay on the Romanic Languages (2d edit., 1862, p. 91), while tracing 
this tendency to prefer the accusative case through all the Romanic languages, says that “ heis unable to 
