LANGUAGE. 
surprised to find tlie term howl employed 
to denote the exclamations of pain, and 
even of sorrow. By a similar, but more 
obvious procedure, the words dog, field, 
placed together, denoted hunting. Our 
readers will be able, even in the present 
refined period of our language, to trace 
numerous instances in which the names of 
intellectual things have been obviously 
transferred from sensible things ; and to 
those who have attended to the subject it 
will not appear too much to affirm, that in 
every instance where a word is not the 
name of a sensible object, it has acquired 
its present force by a gradual transition 
from its primary application to sensible ob- 
jects. In every known language the tran- 
sition has been begun ; but it is only among 
the more refined that it has been complete : 
in our own, we find abundance of instances 
in almost every intermediate stage of the 
progress, as well as in its termination. 
10. Language would proceed but awk- 
wardly without those wheels which have 
been gradually made for it; but all which 
can be thought necessary for communica- 
tion, are the noun and the verb ; and even 
of the latter the necessity may be justly 
doubted. We think it next to certain that 
the whole of what is now (by association) 
implied or denoted by the verb, beyond 
what is denoted by the acknowledged 
noun, was originally mere inference from 
the juxta position of the verb-noun with 
another noun. Men fight are names, and 
are still acknowledged as such ; placed 
together, especially if accompanied by dis- 
tinguishing tones of voice, it would be natu- 
rally inferred that the speaker intended to 
raise in his hearer’s mind that belief which 
exists in his own ; in other words, to direct 
his hearer to make a connection which cir- 
cumstances has formed in his own mind. 
By degrees, at least in some nations, some of 
those names which were frequently thus em- 
ployed with the inference of affirmation, be- 
came somewhat appropriated to convey this 
inference, and the inference would then be 
made whenever such a word was employed ; 
but in the earliest stages of language, the great 
body of verbs must have been merely nouns, 
and in the more simple languages many of 
those words which are employed as verbs 
(i. e. conveying the inference of affirmation) 
are still immediately recognised as nouns. 
In the Chinese very few names are appro- 
priated as verbs, but are used indiscrimi- 
nately, and without any change of form, 
either as nouns or as verbs : in the Hebrevv, 
the root (which does not, like, every part of 
the indicative in the Greek and Latin 
verbs, include a pronoun) is a simple name, 
and is in many cases used as a noun ; and 
in our own language many names are used ei- 
ther as nouns or as verbs. When we have ad- 
vanced to the frequent use and gradual ap- 
propriation of some names to convey the 
inference of affirmation, the rest is easy 
and almost certain. With respect to the 
simple affirmation, the subject of it would, 
in the case of the first and second persons, 
always be a pronoun, and, in the same dis- 
trict, the same pronoun. This, where spo- 
ken language made material progress, would 
gradually coalesce with the verb ; and the 
word so formed would be completely in- 
vested with the verbal character, and never 
be employed but with the inference of 
affirmation. The same might also be the 
case respecting the third person , but the 
coalescence would in this instance be more 
slowly formed, and in some languages where 
the coalescence took place in the other 
persons it did not in this : it must however 
be admitted tliat in others the contrary is 
the fact. But we have already enlarged on 
these points as much as our limits will per- 
mit ; and we therefore beg our readers to 
refer to Grammar, § 29, 33, for some ad- 
ditional remarks respecting those changes 
which the verb has undergone in order to 
make it more expressive. 
10. AVedonot think it necessary to enter 
any farther into the subject of tlie origin 
of oral language. It can scarcely be doubt- 
ed by those who have studied the nature 
of the other parts of speech by means of 
the light which the researches of Mr. 
Tooke have afforded, that all have been 
derived from the noun and the verb : and 
admitting this, all that is incumbent upon 
those who profess to show the original 
causes of language is to present a probable 
origin of those classes of words. In those 
procedures which have been here stated, 
there is nothing which supposes metaphy- 
sical research or much observation ; and to 
render any procedure probable, it must 
wear the marks of simplicity. In the pre- 
sent period of the language, we see the 
grammarian pointing out the analogies 
which are found to exist in language, and 
thence proceeding to the formation of new 
words upon those analogies ; this is art ; 
but the early formers of language, in their 
inventions followed only the dictates of 
circumstances, and whatever regularity we 
may perceive in their inventions, must be 
