349 
2. That we find nothing about shining or burning, whereas in 
these Proto-Aryan roots of which Professor Noire is so fond, and 
to which he seems almost exclusively to have directed his atten- 
tion, as if they had supplied a pattern to the world, we find cor, 
44 to shine,” and ha, 44 to burn ; ” an eloquent commentary on his 
preposterous statement that 44 primitive man was dumb in the 
face of light.” 
3. That verb-forms are older than noun-forms. On this point 
let us, waiving argument for once, appeal to authority. Pro- 
fessor Sayce observes : — 
44 From an analysis of Aryan it has been inferred that all roots 
were originally verbal. This is certainly the case in the Indo- 
European, so far as our facts allow us to see. . . . Hence it 
might be supposed [and it evidently is supposed by Noire] that 
the verbal nature of radicals was a fact which held good not only 
of Aryan, but of all other human languages. Not so, however. 
In this case we cannot appeal to Turanian ; for though Accadian 
seems to have nominal as well as verbal roots, our data do not 
carry us back to their original content and meaning, and they 
may have been a combination of nominal and verbal elements. 
[Most probably.] But, like the idioms of Polynesia, the Semitic 
languages refer us to nominal roots as decidedly as the Aryan do 
to verbal ones. The Semitic verb presupposes a noun, just as 
much as the converse is the case in Aryan. Here, then, the 
conception of the object lay at the bottom of the language ; sub- 
jective action being left out of sight. 
Chavee, again, to quote another view, places at the base of 
Aryan speech pronoun-adverbs and verb-nouns.f Here we have 
a 44 combination of nominal and verbal elements,” such as Prof. 
Sayce thinks Akkadian very probably presented. 
Canon Farrar, the thorough-going supporter of onomato- 
poeia, advances various arguments to show that the naming of 
animals was the first effort of speech, J in which case nominal 
forms, of course, preceded verbal forms ; he believes with 
Harnett § that 44 all language is reducible to roots, which are 
either the basis of abstract nouns, or are pronouns denoting 
relations of place.” He even thinks it 44 inconceivable ” that 
men should have used a word meaning 44 to shine ” before they 
named the sun. 
Take, again, the case of an isolating language. 44 In Chinese 
* Principles of Comparative Philology , 79, 80. 
f Ideologic, 33. 
4 Language and Languages, 1878, cap. iii. 
§ Essay on the Nature and Analysis of the Verb. 
