ON THE INFLUENCE OF CHANGE IN FUNCTION ON ANALOGICAL FORMATION.
The careful consideration of such a form as _I breakfasted_ will lead us
to understand another phase in the life history of our words, and in the
development of their syntactical combinations. It is well known that the
word _(to) breakfast_ is really a compound of the verb _to break_ and
the noun _fast_ (ieiunium). Accordingly, we find, about the year 1400
A.D., ‘Ete and be merry, why _breke_ yee nowt your _fast_;’ in 1653,
Izaak Walton wrote, ‘My purpose is to be at Hodsden before I _break_ my
_fast_;’ and as late as 1808, Scott writes in his Marmion, ‘and knight
and squire had _broke_ their _fast_.’[110] In these and similar cases,
the words have retained their full and original meaning of ‘to put an
end to fasting by eating;’ and the natural apprehension of this compound
when employed as a noun was in the sense of the meal whereby this
process is effected after the night’s fasting, _i.e._ the first meal
taken in the day. When once the verb had thus acquired the meaning of
‘to take the first meal in the day,’ and was next applied even in cases
where so little food had been taken before that meal as to be hardly
worth considering a ‘meal,’ the meaning of ‘breaking the fast’ had been
effaced by the new sense of _eating the first_ IMPORTANT _meal of the
day_. The change of meaning, coupled with the change in function,
disconnected the compound from the linguistic groups to which it had
hitherto belonged, and so it came about that, after the analogy of other
verbs formed from nouns, _to breakfast_ was conjugated as a weak verb.
Thus, in 1679, Everard writes, _After breakfasting peaceably_; and about
a century later, the word is used transitively in the sense of ‘to
entertain at breakfast,’ e.g., _They will breakfast you_, or _I was
breakfasted_.[111]
This and all the following examples to be discussed in this chapter
illustrate the point that, in the unconscious grouping of our words into
material and modal groups, it is mainly the function of the word which
causes such grouping; and that a change of function, entailing, as it
does, a change in the grouping, will often expose the word which has
thus altered its meaning to the influence of analogy with other groups,
though as long as it preserved its original meaning it stood quite apart
from them. No doubt, however, similarity of form conduces also sometimes
to this end. The group to which the word once belonged will then follow
its own path of development, while the detached member will go on its
new way.
We have a similar instance in _vouchsafe_: _The king vouches it_ SAUE
(Robert of Brunne, early in fourteenth century), where we should now
say: _The king vouchsafes_. The verb _to backbite_ is most probably a
derivative from the compound nouns _back-biting_ (of which the earliest
instance dates from 1175) and _backbitter_ (which is found as early as
1230); while in the Early English Psalter (A.D. 1300) the past tense is
still formed _bac-bate_. Gower (1393) already formed the past participle
_back bited_.[112] Again, the noun _browbeating_ (from ‘to beat one’s
brows,’ _i.e._ ‘to lower the brows,’ ‘to frown’), found as early as
1581,[113] became, from a compound noun, a simple one with the meaning
of scolding or teasing; and gave rise to a verb _to browbeat_, of which
the earliest known instance dates from 1603. It is, however, doubtful
whether this verb has hitherto been definitely separated from the group
to which etymologically speaking it belongs. The past participle
_brow-beat_ (1803; Jane Porter, Thaddeus) occurs, it is true, but the
more usual form is as yet _browbeaten_.
The most ordinary results of this process are, of course, all the
numerous formations from nouns that have been pressed into the service
of verbs; as, _I box_, _He boxed_; _(to) dust_, _(to) soap_, _(to) dog_,
etc., etc.: in the case of all which, the change of function must have
preceded all forms due to analogy with the groups into which the word
entered solely in consequence of that change. So, again, as long as a
word has an adjectival function, and even when it is used substantively,
but retains its original attributive meaning, it is, in English, not
declined: as _the_ POOR _men_; _the_ POOR _ye have with you always_;
_the_ BLUE _hats_. When, then, only certain individuals belonging to the
class designated by the adjective have to be indicated--and not, as in
the case of _the poor_,--all the individuals possessing the quality of
poverty,--we resort to the addition of the word _ones_: as, _I do not
like those green hats; I prefer the blue_ ONES. As soon, however, as the
word loses its real signification, and passes into a proper noun, it is
at once declined: as, _the Grays_, _the Pettys_, _the Quicklys_; _the
Blues_, _the Liberals_, _the Conservatives_, etc.[114]
It may happen that the position of the accent aids to produce change of
function, as in the case of _prófecto_ (_pró facto_), and in the very
interesting case of _igitur_, which has been shown to be the enclitic
form of _agitur_, originating in the common Plautine phrase (_Quḯd
agitur_) _Quíd igitur_.[115]
The case is similar with the adverbial termination _-ment_ in French and
_-mente_ in Italian, from the Latin _mente_. _Cruellement_ (_crudeli
mente_) and _fièrement_ are intelligible formations; but _solidement_,
_lourdement_, etc., are formed upon their analogy. At first applied only
to adverbs of manner, the termination was transferred to adverbs of time
and space; as, _anciennement_, _largement_. Our English termination
_-ly_ (from _like_) is a familiar instance of the same degradation of
the final syllable: cf. _godlike_, by the side of _godly_.
The word _self_ was originally an adjective meaning in Anglo-Saxon and
Middle-English ‘the same,’ and declined in apposition with the noun or
personal pronoun to which it was attached to mark emphasis. It then
stood in the same case, number, and gender, _he selfe_, _his selfes_,
_him selfum_, _hine selfne_, etc., gen. and dat. sing. fem. _hyre
selfre_, etc. The history of the development from this usage to our
present one is not quite clear; but we should remember that the
terminations of the adjective were among the first to wear off
completely, or at least to become confused and indistinct; and, further,
that the accusative of the personal pronouns, was at an early date
merged into the dative. We thus obtain the following schematic
declension:--
SINGULAR.
Nom. _I self_ _thou self_ _he_, _she_, _it self_
Gen. _my self_ _thy self_ _his_, _her_, _his self_
Acc. }
Dat. } _me self_ _thee self_ _him_, _her_, _him self_
PLURAL.
Nom. _they selve_
Gen. _their selve_
Acc. } _them selve_
Dat. }
Now, if we bear in mind that in these combinations the accent fell upon
the word _self_ (or _selve_), and that consequently the proclitic forms
_my_, _me_, and _thy_, _thee_, in the genitive and dative had the same
sound respectively,--and, further, that in the feminine of the third
person singular (_herself_), these two cases were also alike,--it does
not seem strange (1) that these two cases (genitive and dative) became
confused, and (2) that the word _self_ became a noun, as exemplified in
such phrases as _I said it to herself_. Once having changed its
function, the word assumed the flection of the new group to which its
new function had attached it, and a plural form, as of a noun,
arose--_themselves_, _ourselves_, _theirselves_.[116] When once a single
form served in three (genitive, dative, accusative) of the four cases,
it not unnaturally succeeded in ousting the last, and succeeded all the
more easily as _I self_ was, of course, wrong, if _self_ was a noun.
It is not, however, an invariable rule that the new associations into
which a word enters in consequence of its change of function entail a
change of form in the word. In Latin the word _frugi_ was originally the
dative case of a word _frux_, gen. _frugis_, meaning _fruit_, _profit_,
_advantage_; and is actually employed by Plautus, with the full
consciousness of its origin, in the phrase _bonæ frugi esse_ (Asin.,
III. iii. 12). In fact, this use is exactly parallel to the use of
_usui_ in _bono usui estis nulli_, in Plautus, Curculio, l. 499; but in
this case, _usui_, owing to its frequent occurrence, preserved the
memory of its origin fresh. Cicero, however, treats _frugi_ simply as an
indeclinable adjective: _Homines et satis fortes et satis plane frugi et
sobrii_ (In Verrem, v. 27). Instances are also frequent where a change
in meaning brings about a change in syntactical construction. Thus, for
instance, in Latin we find that the nominative _quisque_ is coupled with
the reflective pronoun in the plural almost in the signification of
_singulatim_.[117] In Plautus we find _præsente testibus_ (Amphitruo,
II. ii. 203), and, in Afranius and Terence, _absente nobis_ (Eunuchus,
IV. iii. 7); in these cases the participles approach the characteristics
of prepositions. A similar development gave to the present participle
_considering_ its present prepositional force. _Macte_ is used
similarly. _Age!_ in Latin is used as generally as _Come!_ in English,
irrespective of the number of persons addressed; _cave_ is used in the
same way. _Paucis_ is used for ‘a little’ in _ausculta paucis_ (Terence,
Andria, 536). _Hélas_ is used in French by women equally as by men;
φέρε, ἰδού, in Old Greek, are addressed to either one or many persons
indifferently. In the same way, in late Greek, ὤφελον and ὤφελε were
employed simply as conjunctions, without any consideration of number or
person, the original construction having been Ὀλέσθαι ὤφελον τῇδ’ ἡμέρᾳ
= ‘Would that _I_ had perished on that day!’ In English _albeit_ is used
simply as a conjunction, and _may be_, in the sense of perhaps, is
showing a tendency to fuse into one word, as it is actually written in
American conversational language _mebbe_.
In German we find expressions like _Heb hinten über sich das glas_,
‘Raise your glass high’ (Uhland, Volkslieder) instead of _über dich_. In
the same way we find in Latin _suo loco_, etc.; and in Latin law
formulæ, _Si sui juris sumus_, where we should expect _Si nostri juris
sumus_ (_i.e._ ‘If we stand in our own rights’). In Old Norse a middle
and passive is formed by the aid of a reflective _-sik_ (sese), which
is, of course, properly applicable to the third person only: it appears
later as _-st_; thus, _at kalla_, ‘to call;’ _at kallast_, ‘to be
called.’ In the same way, we have in English the words _(to) bask_ and
_(to) busk_,[118] where the proper meaning of the termination has so
completely died out that it is possible to write _busk ye_. The passive
is similarly formed in the Slavonic languages.
Again, change of meaning influences the construction in the case of
numerous verbs in Latin, which are properly intransitive, but are used
as transitives. Such are _perire_,[119] _deperire_; _demori_, used in
the sense of ‘to be mortally enamoured of;’ _stupere_, ‘to marvel at;’
_ardere_, ‘to love with fire:’ the last-mentioned two words approximate
in sense to _mirari_ and _amare_ respectively, and hence the instinct of
language employs them in the same government.
The verb _to doubt_, in the etymological signification of hesitating
between two beliefs, was, and is still constructed with _whether_. If,
however, Spenser (Faëry Queene) says--
‘That makes them doubt their wits be not their aine,’
it is because the word is employed in this case, as indeed it frequently
is in Shakespeare, in the sense of ‘to fear.’
The verb _to babble_, originally used intransitively, means _to prattle_
or _to chatter_. When, however, it is employed in the sense of ‘to speak
foolish words.’ or of ‘to reveal by talking,’ it is used with an object
in the accusative case, and a passive is formed of it; e.g., _Griefs too
sacred to be babbled to the world_. Again, compound words, as long as
they are felt as such by the speakers, are naturally treated as such;
cf. the Latin word _respublica_, which, though we write it as a single
word, was declined in both its parts, _respublica_, _reipublicæ_, etc.
But, when it had once become an indivisible unit--when the form
_république_ in French, or the English word _republic_, was formed with
its various meanings, all closely resembling, but not identical with,
that of the original compound, the word came to be treated after the
analogy of other nouns, and the same derivatives are formed from it as
from a simple form; cf. _republican_, etc. This fact is, again,
instanced by such forms as _high-spirited_ (high-spirit + ed, and not
high + spirited), _gentleman-like_ (gentleman + like, not gentle +
manlike), _good-natured_ (goodnature + ed, not good + natured).
Similarly, the Latin compound _i_ (a demonstrative pronoun) + _pse_ was
at first declined as _eumpse_ (_e.g._, Plautus, Truc., I. ii. 64),
_eampse_, _eopse_, _eapse_, etc., all which forms are found in
Plautus.[120] When, however, the word came to be looked on as a simple
word, it was declined as such: _ipsum_, _ipsam_, _ipso_, _ipsa_, etc.
In German there are many instances of words compounded with adverbs of
place which are specially instructive as to the way in which a word may
become detached from its previous use by a change of meaning. For
instance, in modern German the usage is to say _wirken_ AUF _etwas_, and
not IN _etwas_, which was the usage even in the last century. In the
same way, we speak of influence _over_ as much as of influence _on_,
showing that we have forgotten the significance of _in_.[121]
The word _welcome_ in such phrases as _I made them welcome_ is employed
as an adjective, as, indeed, it is commonly apprehended to be. It was
originally a substantive, and was derived from the infinitive mood of
the verb, its meaning being _pleasure-comer_. The word is popularly
supposed to derive from _well_ and _come_; but the first element in the
compound is really related to _will_--the true sense being the
_will-comer_, i.e. _he who comes to please another’s will_. (Cf. Ger.
_willkommen_.) The change in meaning seems due to Scandinavian
influence, for in the Scandinavian languages the word is _really_
composed of the adjective _well_ and the past participle _come_; cf.
Danish _velkommen_ (welcome).[122]
The expression _Quin conscendimus equos_ (Livy, i. 57) is properly _Why
do we not mount our horses?_ but is understood as _Let us mount our
horses_; and in accordance with such usage _quin_ may take after it an
imperative, as _quin age_; or a hortative subjunctive, as _quin
experiamur_? The sense of _cur_ in some cases approximates to that of
_quod_; and hence we find the word followed by a similar construction,
in Horace, Ep. I. 8. 9;--_irascar amicis, Cur me funesto properent
arcere veterno_. The O.Fr. _car_ underwent a similar change. Derived
from _quare_ it meant, in the first instance, _then_; as, _Cumpainz
Rolond, l’oliphant_ KAR _sunez_ (Chanson de Roland), i.e. _Compagnon
Roland sonnez_ DONC _l’oliphant_;[123] it next came to be used like
_que_ or _parceque_ after phrases like _la raison est_; and it then
comes to be used with the conditional and imperative in the sense of
_utinam_ (_cf._ Diez, iii. 214).
In O.Fr. the word _par_ (Latin _per_) was used for _much_. It took this
sense from its use in combinations like _perficere_, _perraro_, etc.,
but it was detached from the verb, and was habitually used in O.Fr. in
such combinations as _par fut proz_ = _il fut très preux_; and in some
cases coupled with other adverbs, like _moult_ and _tant_; as, _tant par
fut bels_ = _il était si beau_, literally _tant beaucoup_ (Chanson de
Roland). The phrase survives in _par trop_[124].
The Greek οὐκ οῦν, originally _not therefore_, like the Latin _nonne_,
serves to introduce a question expecting an affirmative answer. It then
comes to be used to introduce direct positive assertions; thus, οὐκοῦν
ἐλευθερία ἡμᾶς μένει; from meaning ‘Does not, then, freedom await us?’
comes to mean simply ‘Therefore freedom awaits us.’ The word _nanu_ in
Sanskrit has gone through a similar development. _Ne_ in Latin, properly
the interrogative particle, comes to be used as the correlative of
_an_:--_faciatne an non faciat_; or even _faciat, necne_. Similarly, in
Russian, the interrogative particle _li_ comes to be used as the
correlative of _ili_ (or); as _ugodno-li vam eto?_ (‘Is this agreeable
to you?’); but we then get combinations like _dyélaet-li, ili ne
dyélaet_ (‘whether he does it or no’).
The accusative with an infinitive could originally only stand in
connection with a transitive verb as long as the accusative of the
subject was regarded as the object of the finite verb, as _audio te
venire_; but the accusative and infinitive came to be regarded as a
dependent sentence with the accusative as its subject, and then we find
the construction after words like _gaudeo_, _horreo_ (Livy, xxxiv. 4.
3), _doleo_ (Horace, Odes, iv. 4. 62), etc., which can properly speaking
take no accusative of the object connected with them; as _gaudere_,
_dolere_, _infitias ire_; nay, we find it after combinations such as
_spem habeo_, etc. The accusative and infinitive construction then
passes into sentences which depend on another accusative and infinitive,
as (1) into relative sentences loosely connected; e.g. _mundum censent
regi numine Deorum--ex quo illud natura consequi_ (Cic. de Fin., iii.
19, § 64): (2) into sentences of comparison; e.g. _ut feras quasdam
nulla mitescere arte sic immitem ejus viri animum esse_ (Livy, xxxiii.
45): (3) into indirect questions; e.g. _quid sese inter pacatos facere,
cur in Italiam non revehi_ (Livy, xxviii. 24);[125] (4) into temporal
and causal sentences; e.g. _crimina vitanda esse, quia vitari metus non
posse_ (Seneca, Epist., 97. 13). A similar extension of the use is found
in Greek.
The possessive cases _mine_, _thine_, _his_, _her_, _its_, _our_,
_your_, _their_ have passed into the category of adjectives, as in the
case of _Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?_ (1 Henry IV., III.
iii. 93). The instinct of language regarded _mine_, _thine_, etc., as
the equivalents of _of me_, _of thee_, etc.; and marked the function by
the addition of the possessive preposition _of_, as in _this inn of
mine_. Thus, again, a gerund like _killing_,[126] from having the same
form as the participle, can be used in expressions like _the killing a
man_, instead of _the killing of a man_.
We not only find that the word which changes its function undergoes the
consequent changes in form or in syntax, but it also often happens that,
owing to functional changes participated in by a certain group of words,
such a group becomes detached, and thereby gains independence enough to
influence other words that have cognate meanings. There are in Old
English, as in German, many adverbs which are in their origin the
genitives singular of strong masculine and neuter substantives, such as
_dæges_ (_by day_); but the origin of the termination has been
forgotten, and the _s_ has come to be looked upon as a merely adverbial
termination. Consequently we find the adverb _nihtes_ (_by night_),
though _niht_ is really feminine, and its genitive case is properly
_nihte_. Similar formations are _hereabouts_, _inwards_, _othergates_
(Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, V. i. 198), _towards_, _whereabouts_, etc.
In the same way, the genitive plural of Anglo-Saxon substantives in
_-ung_ (later _-ing_) could be used adverbially; as,--_án-ung-a_,
_án-ing-a_, (altogether), genitive plural of _ân-ung_, a substantive
formed from _án_ (one): after this analogy others were formed: as,
_hedling_, afterwards altered to _headlong_; _darkling_, etc.