DISPLACEMENT IN ETYMOLOGICAL GROUPING.
We have already more than once had occasion to point out that, in our
individual vocabularies, two classes of words are inextricably confused.
In the first place, we employ such words and derivatives of words as we
REPRODUCE by the aid of MEMORY, which recalls to us what we have
frequently heard from those with whom we have intercourse. In the second
place, another part of our stock of words and verbal derivatives is
FORMED by us on the MODEL OF OTHER FORMATIONS of the first class.
Only in a very few cases is it possible for any speaker to decide, with
absolute certainty, whether any particular form which he may employ with
perfect familiarity belongs to the former or the latter group. If, for
instance, we hear the simple sentence, ‘He is walking,’ there is nothing
which can help us to determine whether the speaker is merely reproducing
the word _walking_ just as he has learnt it from others, or whether he
is forming the present participle of and from the word ‘(to) walk’ after
the model of other similar derivatives. In the chapter on Analogy, we
considered principally cases falling under the second class, in which
the result of such a process as we have described proved at variance
with other forms already existing in the language, _i.e._ where
_Analogy_ brought about certain changes. The cases in which the result
was the mere production of what we should have reproduced by the simple
aid of memory, we considered as of very small importance for the purpose
of illustrating the operations of Analogy.
But it is far from true that they have no significance. Every time that
we consciously or unconsciously form words ‘by analogy,’ our habit of
doing so is strengthened, and our confidence in the results is
increased; and the more we enter upon domains of thought where we are
comparative strangers, the more confidently and the more consciously do
we proceed ‘to make our own words.’ In this process of word-making, we
follow certain models; in fact, we derive one form from others which
exist in our own vocabulary.
In words and forms reproduced by memory (though only in the case of such
as these) it is, strictly speaking, correct to say of each form--tense,
person, singular or plural, or of each case--that it is derived, not
from what our grammars call the standard forms (such as infinitives or
nominative-singulars), but from the corresponding older form of that
tense, person, etc., in the language as it existed before.
In words and forms produced, not from memory, but by analogy, _i.e._ by
derivation according to a certain model, and from words which already
exist in our own vocabulary, even where our result does not differ from
what we might have produced by memory, it does not at all follow that
our process of derivation has been the same as that by which former
speakers reached their results.
For instance, suppose that there exists a class of adjectives really
derived from verbs. In the course of development of the language, these
verbs approach in form to the cognate nouns, or--for whatever
reason--some of the verbs become obsolete. The effect will be that, in
the consciousness of the ordinary speaker, the adjective appears as
derived from the noun.
It is our object in this chapter to study the phenomenon of such
displacements in the etymological connections and the consequences which
follow therefrom.
A good instance may be found in the history of the suffixes _ble_,
_able_, and their application.[127] Both these suffixes we owe to the
French language, which, in turn, derived them from Latin.
In this latter language we find the suffix _bili-s_, _bilem_, forming
verbal adjectives. Where the stem of the verb ended in a consonant, the
connecting vowel _i_ was inserted: _vend-e-re_, _vend-i-bilis_. Where
the stem ended in a vowel this insertion was of course unnecessary:
_honora-re_, _honora-bilis_, _dele-re_, _delebilis_, _(g)no-scere
no-bilis_, etc. By far the greater number of these words in _ble_ were
derived from verbs in _are_, of which the present participle ends in
_ans_, _antem_. Hence, though the words in _ble_ were in reality not
immediately derived from this participle, a feeling arose that such a
connection existed. Among ‘the matter-groups’ in French their existed
numerous pairs, such as _aimant_, _aimable_, etc. In time, all present
participles in French came to end in this termination _ant_, after which
an adjective in _able_, derived from such participles, nearly always
supplanted the older and correcter forms in _ible_, etc. Hence came
forms like _vendable_, _croyable_, etc.
The suffix _able_, introduced into English in enormously preponderating
numbers, was there at first confined to words of French origin, but
soon, by analysis of such instances as _pass-able_, _agree-able_,
_commend-able_, was treated as an indivisible living suffix, and freely
employed to form analogous adjectives, being attached not only to verbs
taken from French, but finally to native verbs as well, e.g.,
_bearable_, _speakable_, _breakable_. These verbs have often a
substantive of the same form, as in _debat(e)-able_, _rat(e)-able_, etc.
Owing to this, a new displacement such as we are here studying occurred,
and such words, treated _as if_ derived FROM THE NOUN, became the models
for others where _able_ is added to nouns, such as _marketable_,
_clubbable_, _carriageable_,[128] _salable_.
Another suffix, the history of which affords an instance of similar
displacement is _ate_ as verbal formative.[129]
We find in French several past participles, some due to regular
historical development of the popular language, others to deliberate
adoption by the learned classes, all of which differ only from their
Latin prototypes in having lost the termination _us_: e.g., _confusus_,
Fr. _confus_; _contentus_, _content_; _diversus_, _divers_. This analogy
was widely followed in later French in introducing new words from Latin,
and, both classes of French words (_i.e._ the popular survivals and the
later accessions) being adopted in English provided English in its turn
with analogies for adapting similar words directly from Latin by
dropping the termination. This process began about 1400 A.D., and the
Latin termination _atus_ gave English _at_, subsequently _ate_, e.g.
_desolatus_, _desolat_, _desolate_. The transition of these words from
adjectives and participles to verbs is explained by Dr. Murray by a
reference to the fact--
(_a_) That in Old English verbs had been regularly formed from
adjectives: as, _hwit_, _hwitian_ (‘white,’ ‘to whiten’); _wearm_,
_wearmian_ (‘warm,’ ‘to warm,’); etc.
(_b_) That with the loss of the inflections, these verbs became by the
fifteenth century identical in form with the adjectives, e.g., _to
white_, _to warm_.
(_c_) That, as in Latin, so in French, many verbs were formed on
adjectives; whence, again, English received many verbs identical in form
with their adjectives, e.g., _to clear_, _to humble_, _to manifest_.
These verbs, though formed immediately from participial adjectives
already existing in English, answered in form to the past participles of
Latin verbs of the same meaning. It was thus natural to associate them
directly with these Latin verbs, and to view them as their regular
English representatives. This once done, it became the recognised method
of Englishing a Latin verb, to take the past participle stem of the
Latin as the present stem of the English, so that English verbs were now
formed on Latin past participles by mere analogy and without
intervention of a participial adjective; e.g., _fascinate_,
_concatenate_, etc. These English verbs in _ate_ correspond generally
to French verbs in _er_,--e.g., _separate_, Fr. _séparer_; this, in
turn, gave a pattern for the formation of English verbs from
French,--e.g., _isoler_ (Ital. _isolare_, Lat. _insulare_), Eng.
_isolate_, etc.
To this lucid and apparently adequate explanation we must, however, add
another fact, which has demonstrably aided in the formation of the
enormous number of English verbs in _ate_. From the fourteenth century
onward, we find again and again such pairs as _action_ (1330), _to act_
(1384);[130] _affliction_ (1303), _to afflict_ (1393); _adjection_
(1374), _to adject_ (1432); _abjection_ (1410), _to abject_ (1430),
etc.[131]
Such pairs led to the supposition that the verbs were derivable from the
nouns in _tion_ by merely omitting the _ion_, and this was done with
many nouns in _ation_ even where another verb (itself the ground-word
for that form in _ation_) existed by the side of it. Thus we find, e.g.,
_aspiration_ (1398), _to aspire_ (1460), the verb _aspirate_ (1700);
_attestation_ (1547), _to attest_ (1596), _to attestate_ (1625);
_application_ (1493), _to apply_ (1374), _to applicate_ (1531).[132]
The suffix _full_ forms adjectives from nouns: _baleful_, A.S.
_bealofull_ from _bealu_ (woe, harm, mischief); _shameful_, A.S.
_sceamfull_ from _sceam_ (shame). This ending was also added to nouns of
Romance origin; e.g., _powerful_, _fruitful_. In both classes, however,
the word might, in very many cases, be just as well derived from a verb
as from a noun, so that, e.g., _thankful_, which originally undoubtedly
was = _full of thanks_, could equally well be apprehended as _he who
thanks_; _respectful_, as _he who respects_; etc. It is similar with
such words as _harmful_, _delightful_, etc. That such a grouping has
actually been made, is proved by the occurrence of such forms as
_wakeful_, _forgetful_, and the dialectical _urgeful_; so also the form
_weariful_ seems more likely to be interpreted as _that which wearies_,
than as a derivative from the adjective _weary_ as Mätzner seems to take
it.[133] So, again, the form _maisterful_, found in Lydgate and
Chaucer,[134] seems more likely to be taken as ‘he who is always
mastering,’ than ‘as he who is full of master,’ which gives no sense.
The suffix _less_, originally and still as a rule only added to nouns,
could not have been used with the verb to _daunt_ (--O.Fr. _danter_,
Modern French, _dompter_, Lat. _domitare_, ‘to tame,’) if in such
compounds as _restless_, _sleepless_, _hopeless_, _useless_, the noun
had not been identical in form with the verb.
The history of the suffix _ness_, is also especially instructive for our
purpose. If we go back to the oldest records of the Teutonic languages,
Gothic, we find a noun, _ufarassus_, literally ‘overness,’ used in the
sense of ‘abundance,’ ‘superfluity,’ from _ufar_, ‘over:’ similarly
formed was _ibnassus_, ‘equality,’ from _ibns_--‘even,’ ‘equal.’ This
suffix _assus_ was very frequently added to the _stem of verbs_ which,
in their turn, were derived from nouns. Thus, for instance, besides the
noun--
_lekeis_ (leach), we find _lekinon_ (to cure), _lekinassus_ (leachdom).
_shalks_ (servant), ” _shalkinon_ (to serve), _shalkinassus_ (service).
_gudja_ (priest), ” _gudjinon_ (to be priest), _gudjinassus_ (priesthood).
_frauja_ (Lord), ” _fraujinon_ (to rule), _fraujinassus_ (dominion).
_ðiudans_ (king), ” _ðiudanon_ (to be king), _ðiudinassus_ (kingdom).
In all these and similar cases, however, etymological consciousness
might equally well operate otherwise. It might, for instance, derive a
noun meaning _kingdom_ from another noun denoting _king_, or one meaning
_priesthood_ from one denoting _priest_. That this has been done is
proved by the fact that the _n_ has coalesced completely with the suffix
_assus_, forming _nassus_, or, in its more modern form, _ness_. Even in
Gothic, this coalescence has already been powerful enough to produce
_vaninassus_ (want) from _vans_ (adjective = ‘wanting,’ ‘less;’ found,
_e.g._, in _wanhope_ = ‘lack of hope,’ ‘despair:’ _wanton_, =
‘uneducated,’ ‘untrained,’ ‘unrestricted,’ ‘licentious:’ and _wane_ =
‘to grow less’).
In Anglo-Saxon, adverbs were formed from adjectives by means of the
termination _e_: for instance, _heard_, _hearde_, (‘hard’) ; _sóð_,
_sóðe_, (‘true,’ cf. _soothsayer_ and _forsooth_); _wíd_, _wíde_,
(wide). Adjectives in _lic_ were formed first from nouns: _eorð_,
_eorðlic_, (‘earth,’ ‘earthy’); _gást_, _gastlic_, (‘ghost,’ ‘ghostly’),
etc.; and then, also, from other adjectives, as _heard-heardlic_,
_æðele-æðelic_, (for æðel-lic), etc.
By the side of these adjectives, we naturally find adverbs in _lice_,
normally formed from them by the addition of _e_; as, _æðelice_, etc.;
but as soon as, owing to phonetic decay of the terminations, the
adjectives and adverbs in both sets of words (both in those with and
without _lic_) came respectively to coincide,--when, for instance,
_heard_ and _hearde_ had both become _hard_, and adjectives in _lic_ and
adverbs in _lice_ had both come to terminate in _ly_,--then the
adjective that had never ended in _lic_ came also to be grouped with the
adverb in _lice_, or rather _ly_, and _ly_ became the special and normal
adverbial termination: as in _prettily_, _carelessly_, etc. Thus were
produced a great quantity of adverbs, the adjectives corresponding to
which never had the termination _ly_.
Modern English possesses remnants of all the above original formations;
as, for instance, the adverbs (with loss of adverbial _e_) _hard_, in
‘to hit hard,’ _loud_, in ‘to speak loud,’ etc.; or, again, the
adjectives _heavenly_, _earthly_, _kingly_, _goodly_, etc.