OF LANGUAGES. 



67 



The expression of the comparative degree manifests in 

 many concrete languages a tendency towards concreteness. 

 The Telugu kante and the Tamil kdttilum or pdrkkilum, which 

 are equivalent to our than mean originally if or though seen, 

 being derived respectively from the Telugu kanu and the 

 Tamil kdn or par. The sentence " a dog is bigger than a 

 cat," is expressed as follows : "a cat if seen a dog is big" 

 (pilli kante kukka peddadi or punaiyai kdtpilum {pdrkkilum) ndi 

 peridu). 



" Brother " is, as was seen before, expressed in Chinese by 

 the compound Heung-Te (elder-younger brother) . An abstract 

 term for brother does not exist in Chinese. An equivalent of 

 it can only be formed by uniting the two words which contain 

 the idea of consanguinity, blended though it be with the 

 admixture of age. This combination of two concrete expres- 

 sions is the representative of an abstract term. Other abstract 

 words are formed in a similar manner, e.g., to-sao, " much- 

 little," is equivalent to quantity; chung-king, " heavy-light" to 

 weight. We can also compare with this process the mode which 

 frames the names of a species by joining together the words 

 denoting the individual male and female animal, as juan-jang, 

 the mandarin duck, contains in its first part the word for 

 drake and in the seoond that for duck. 105 



Analogous terms to Heimg-te, and conveying the same 

 meaning, do not, so far as the author's knowledge goes, occur 

 in other concrete languages — for compounds as the Telugu 

 annadammulu can only be used in a plural sense,— but the 

 principle which gives rise to such expressions is acknowledged 

 far and wide. It appears in a different guise in the juxta- 

 position of contrasts, or of affirmatives and negatives, in order 

 to intimate the meaning of indecision, uncertainty, 106 approxi- 



(105) Compare page 55, and the " Chinesische Sprachlehre von W. Schott," 

 Berlin, 1857, page 14. 



(106) Uncertainty is also expressed in the Shan language by combining 

 affirmation and negation, e.g., " perhaps they may go," is rendered thus : an 

 kwah, hwah ; an any Jew ah, angkwah, those who go, go ; those who go not, go 

 not. See : Kev, T. N. Cushing's Shan Grammar, page 54. 



