Through what form of grammatical notation do the languages under
consideration indicate that subject and predicate are to be united by
means of the notion of Being?
I believe I have shown with sufficient clearness that a language may
have a great diversity of apparent forms, and may express all
grammatical relations with definiteness, and yet when taken as a whole
it may lack true grammatical form. From this arises an essential and
real graduated difference between languages. This difference, however,
has nothing to do with the question whether particular languages
employ exclusively agglutination or inflection, as all began with
agglutination; but in the languages of the higher class, it became in
its effects on the mind, identical with inflection.
As languages of the higher class, one has but to name the cultivated
idioms of Asia and Europe, Sanscrit, Greek and Latin, in order to
apply to them the above statement. It is still more necessary,
however, to understand thoroughly the structure of those languages
which are on a lower plane, partly because this will convince us of
the correctness of the classification, partly because these tongues
are less generally known.
It is enough to take up some single leading grammatical relation. I
select for this purpose the verb as the most important part of speech,
with which most of the others come into relation, and which completes
the formation of the sentence, the grammatical purpose of all
language--and often embraces it wholly in itself. But I shall confine
myself solely to that which makes the verb a verb, the characteristic
notation of its peculiar verbal nature. In every language this point
is the most important and the most difficult, and cannot be made too
clear to throw light upon the whole of the language. Linguistic
character can be ascertained through this point in the shortest and
most certain manner.
The verb is the union of the subject and predicate of the sentence by
means of the notion of Being; yet not of every predicate. The
attribute which is united to the substance by the verb must be an
energic one, a participial. The substance is represented in the verb
as in motion, as connecting the Being with the energic attribute. By
means of this representation, and the peculiar nature of the
attribute, the verb is distinguished from the mere logical copula,
with which it is liable to be confounded if these ideas are not
understood. If the verb is explained merely as a synthesis of Being
with any other attribute, then the origin of the tenses cannot be
wholly derived from one idea, for the idea of time alone would allow
only a three-fold distinction. Moreover, in such case the true and
efficient nature of the verb is misunderstood. In the sentence, "The
man is good," the verb is not a synthesis of the adjective "good" with
the substantive, but it is a participial of the energic attribute "to
be good," which contains a condition, having beginning, middle and
end, and consequently resembles an action. Fully analyzed, the
sentence would be, "He is being good." Where the substantive verb
stands without a visible predicate, as in the sentence, "I am," then
the verb "to be" has itself as the object of a synthesis, "I am
being." But as rude nations would find this difficult to comprehend,
the verb "to be" is either entirely lacking, as in many American
languages, or else it has an original material sense, and is
confounded with "to stand," "to give," "to eat," etc., and thus
indicates Being as identical with the most familiar occupations.
The subject, the substance represented as in action, may be one
independent of the speakers, or it may be identical with one of them,
and this identity is expressed by the pronouns. From this arises the
persons. The energic attribute may exert its action in various manners
in the substance or between two substances; this gives rise to the
forms or classes of verbs. Their action must be confined to a given
point or period of time. The Being may be understood as definite or
indefinite, etc., and in this is the origin of modes. Being is
inseparably connected with the notation of time. This, united with the
fixation of the point or period of time of an action, forms the
tenses. No verb, therefore, can be conceived as without persons and
tenses, modes and classes; yet these qualities do not constitute its
essence, but arise from the latter, which itself is the synthesis
brought about by the notion of Being. The signs of these qualities
must be made to appear in the grammatical notation of the verb, but in
such a manner that they appear dependent on its nature, making one
with it.
The energic attribute, which aids in forming the verb, may be a real
movement or action, as going, coming, living, working, etc., or merely
a qualitative Being, as a being beautiful, good, mortal, or immortal.
In the former case, we have a real attributive verb, in the latter a
substantive verb, in which an attribute is considered as at rest,
hence as an adjective. Although in both cases the nature of the verb
is the same, yet in many languages this difference leads to a
corresponding variety in grammatical notation.
In accordance with these ideas culled from universal grammar, the
forms of the conjugations in the various languages will now be
considered.
I have taken as a basis for this investigation as many American
languages as I thought sufficient for the purpose, and as would not make
the survey oppressive by their number; but as I do not name all of them,
and pay still less attention to pointing out in what other groups of
languages the peculiarities named occur, it must be understood that what
is here said is not intended as a characterization of American
languages. This is reserved for another study.
In order to judge how closely these languages approach grammatical
perfection in this point, we must take as our criterion that condition
of speech where there is a class of words, which possess verbal power,
and are at the same time separated by a definite form from all other
parts of speech. With reference to this condition as the highest, we
must arrange in various grades all other structural forms or
paraphrases of the verb.
The notion of Being, which constitutes the basis and the essence of
the verb, can be indicated either,