Cloth-ing. Stabl-ing. Fir-ing--(fuel).
Nouns in _tion_.
Calculate, calcula-tion. Educate, educa-tion.
Na-tion. Sta-tion. Ora-tion.
This termination has been introduced into our language from the Latin,
and in some instances differs in meaning very little, or not at all,
from that in _ing_. Thus we could say, _calculating_, _educating_, as
well as _calculation_, _education_. Words like _nation_, _station_, &c.
are pure Latin words, differing from the nominative case of those in the
language from which they are derived, only in having an _n_ at the end
of the word.
Nouns in _hood_, (German, _heit_).
Man-hood. Priest-hood.
Hardi-hood. Boy-hood.
These words express the _abstract_ notion, as it is called, of the word
from which they are formed; that is, they express in the most _general_
way possible the state or condition of being a _man_, a _priest_, &c.
They are not very numerous, nor, indeed, are they much used, though they
are well adapted to convey that general notion which we have assigned to
them.
All languages contain certain classes of nouns which are called
_diminutives_, from their being used to express “things of a less kind
or degree.”
Nouns in _ling_ (German, _lein_, in some cases, _ling_).
Gos-ling. Found-ling. Dar-ling. Wit-ling.
(Goose-ling). Suck-ling. (Dear-ling). Duck-ling.
In all these examples a notion of some _smallness_ in the object
mentioned, is clearly recognized by common usage. A _duck-ling_ is a
little duck; and a _wit-ling_ is a man of little wit.
It may here be necessary to make a remark, in order to caution those who
are new at this kind of classification from putting words in the same
class merely because they happen to terminate with certain letters that
are the same. Thus it would be absurd to class under the head of
diminutives such words as, _doubling_, _tippling_, _troubling_, merely
because they appear to terminate in _ling_; they clearly belong to the
words in _ing_, and are formed from the words _double_, _tipple_,
_trouble_.
Nouns in _kin_ (German, _chen_).
Mannikin, a little man, or dwarf.
Wilkin, little Will or William.
Lamb-kin.
Peter-kin, little Peter.
Nouns in _th_.
Strong, strength. Wide, width. Warm, warmth.
Long, length. Deep, depth. Moon, month.
True, truth.
This is a tolerably large class of words, which may be considered as
formed from adjectives by the addition of _th_, and in some cases by
also changing the sound of the vowel, as, strong, strength; deep, depth.
The meaning of these nouns requires no explanation. But though they
belong to the old and genuine forms of our language, we cannot say much
in their favour as far as the ear is concerned. Foreigners occasionally,
as well as some of our own countrymen, find a difficulty in pronouncing
_strength_, a word containing eight letters, with only one vowel to keep
the consonants from quarrelling. It is sometimes incorrectly pronounced
_strenth_.
These words in _th_ may be formed from verbs also, as _birth_, from the
verb _to bear_; but some, as _worth_, have no corresponding word in our
own language from which they may be derived, though in the case of this
word, _worth_, there is in the Latin language a word (_vir_), and in the
Anglo-Saxon a word (_were_), which are the parents of our word _worth_.
From the word _ear_ (to plough), we have the word _earth_, signifying
ploughed land, and still correctly pronounced in many parts of England
as a word of two syllables, _e-arth_. It is written _e-orth_ in the
Anglo-Saxon books, which is exactly the pronunciation that the word
still has in some parts of Lancashire.
Words in _ght_, (German, _cht_).
Flight. Might. Night.
Sight. Tight. Right.
These words are not easy to explain without entering into considerations
foreign to the kind of inquiry that we have thought proper to adopt; nor
is it quite certain that all the words we have given strictly belong to
the same class, though they happen to terminate with the same letters.
We may, however, observe that there is the same relationship between
_fly_ or _flee_, and _flight_, that there is between _see_ and _sight_,
_tie_ and _tight_. The reason why these and other similar words contain
a _g_, is, because the words from which they are formed originally
contained a _g_, or at least some letter akin to _g_. Thus, in German
there is a word _flug_, meaning _flight_, from which is formed another
word _flucht_, which is nearer in form to our own word _flight_.
---------------------