CHAPTER XI.

THE FORMATION OF NEW GROUPS.

The effect of sound-change is to produce differences in language where none previously existed; but it likewise tends to cancel existing differences, and to cause forms originally distinct to resemble each other or actually to coincide. Now, symmetry and uniformity are clearly an aid to the memory, when attained by the abolition of useless and purposeless differences. It is, for instance, in English, far simpler to state, and far more easy to remember the statement, that all plurals are formed by adding _s_ to the singular, than that some are formed in _-n_, or _-en_, or by such modifications as _man_, _men_; _foot_, _feet_; etc.: and it is therefore a gain to language when such forms as _shoon_, _eyen_, etc., disappear in favour of such forms as _shoes_, _eyes_, etc. On the other hand, the cancelling of such differences when they serve to mark different functions is naturally disadvantageous and tends to obscurity. When a sound which marked such a functional difference disappears, or when of two words or forms which had different meanings one becomes obsolete, and the other is employed to do service for both, it is clear that language cannot but be the loser by dispensing with an important aid to clearness and distinction. Thus, of the two forms _mot_ and _moste_, the former has now disappeared, and the latter, in the form _must_, serves to indicate both the present and the past tense. The effect of this ambiguity is that where we wish to clearly indicate the past of _must_, we have to employ some idiom in which _must_ has no place; as ‘was obliged to,’ ‘had to,’ ‘was constrained to,’ etc. Similarly, the loss of the plural _s_ in very many French nouns (which _s_, though still written, is seldom sounded) would create ambiguity were it not that the difference of the article attached to the noun marks the difference, and to a large extent remedies the evil; cf. _l’ami_, _les amis_.

The remedy, however, for such obscurity is not always to be found in the context. Sometimes, indeed, the evil brings its own cure; changes arise which enable the necessary distinctions to be once more felt and maintained, creating new forms by analogy with other forms (see Chapter V.): but, on the other hand, it frequently occurs that the evil remains, and a confusion follows in the grouping of the words; which grouping, as we have seen, is all-important in the life history of the members of the group.

We must in this chapter endeavour to study some of the results of this confusion, and consequent re-arrangement in the groups; and to distinguish the cases where similarity caused by phonetic development affects the matter-groups from those where the modal-groups are influenced.

I. i. There are many cases where words connected neither by etymology nor by signification fall into the same form.

Still, in spite of this similarity in form, the words remain perfectly distinct in the linguistic consciousness of a speaker of ordinary intelligence. Such are, _e.g._,--

1. _a. Hale_, in such a phrase as _hale and hearty_. This word is of Scandinavian[94] origin (cf. Icelandic _heill_), and represents the Anglo-Saxon _hál_, to which word we owe the misspelt word _whole_. _b._ _Hale_, ‘to drag,’ found in Middle-English as _halien_.

2. _a. Whole_ = A.S. _hál_; see above. _b. Hole_ = A.S. _hol_, ‘a cave.’[95]

3. _a. Grave_ (A.S. _gráfan_). _b. Grave_ (Fr. _grave_, Lat. _gravem_).[96]

4. _a. Cope_ (O.Fr. _cape_). _b. Cope_ (Dutch _koopen_ = to _bargain, to chaffer, to buy, to vie with_).

5. _a. Stile_ (A.S. _stigel_). _b. Stile_ (commonly misspelt _style_, Lat. _stilum_).

6. _a. Well_, adverb (A.S. _wel_). _b. Well_, noun (A.S. _wella_).

7. _a. Arm_ (Lat. _arma_). _b. Arm_, the limb, cognate with Ger. _arm_.

8. _a. Lay_ (A.S. _lecgan_). _b. Lay_ (O.Fr. _lais_, ‘song’).

9. _a. Pale_ (Fr. _pal_, Lat. _pāum_). _b. Pale_ (Fr. _pâle_, Lat. _pallidum_).

10. _a. Elder_, the tree (A.S. _ellarn_). _b. Elder_, ‘older.’

It would, of course, be possible to extend this list to almost any length; but this would be useless for our purpose, which is to investigate solely those cases in which similarity causes confusion. This happens where the difference in origin and meaning is lost sight of. It is naturally impossible to draw a hard and fast line of demarcation between the case just discussed and that which we are about to exemplify, as one speaker may keep distinct what another may confuse or treat as identical. Still, no one, we may fairly say, unless he be a student of language, or unless he has been expressly informed, is aware that in a phrase like _The ship is bound for London_, the word _bound_ employed by him has absolutely no connection with the past participle of the verb _to bind_. In the first case, _bound_ is of Scandinavian origin, and meant originally _ready_, _prepared_; cf. the Icelandic verb _búa_, perf. part, _búinn_, ‘to prepare.’ Similarly, few ordinary speakers can explain, or indeed realise, the existence of the distinction in meaning between _shed_, ‘a hut’ (a doublet of _shade_), and _shed_ in _water-shed_, when derived from the A.S. _scéadan_; or that between _sheer_, allied to Icelandic _skærr_, ‘bright,’ and _sheer_, akin to Dutch _scheren_, ‘to shave.’ Thus, again, many might suppose that some etymological connection existed between _hide_, ‘a skin’ (A.S. _hýd_, akin to Ger. _haut_), and _hide_, ‘to conceal’ (A.S. _hídan_); while others, when told that _hide_ also served as the name for a certain measure of land, might naturally even suspect some allusion to the famous legend of the foundation of Byrsa or Carthage. The A.S. noun _setl_ (a seat) and the verb _settan_ survive both in the word _settle_ and in _to settle_. In employing, however, the word in ‘to settle a dispute,’ we have a word of very different origin: the A.S. _sacu_, ‘a quarrel,’ ‘dispute,’ ‘lawsuit’ (surviving in ‘for my _sake_’, etc.), existed side by side with a verb _sacan_, ‘to strive,’ or ‘dispute:’ akin to this, we find _saht_, a substantive which owes its meaning, ‘reconciliation,’ to the development _lawsuit_, _adjustment by lawsuit_, etc. Again, derived from this we have the verb _sahtlian_, ‘to reconcile,’ which, at a later period, occurs in the forms _saztlen_ and _sattle_.[97] When this verb ceased to be understood, confusion with the other verb _to settle_ = _to fix_, _to arrange_, arose, and the two forms ‘flowed together, just as two drops of rain running down a window-pane are very likely to run into one.’[98] Another instance of this nature is discussed by Professor Skeat, s.v.; viz., _sound_ = A.S. _sund_, akin to the Ger. _(ge)sund_; _sound_, ‘a strait of the sea,’ and _sound_’ M.E. _soun_, Anglo-Fr. _soun_ or _sun_, Lat. _sonum_.