CHAPTER XIII.

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.