On reading the memoir, I was so much impressed with the acuteness and justness of its analysis of American verbal forms that I prepared the translation which I now submit.
In the more recent studies of the American verb which have appeared from the pens of Friedrich Müller, J. Hammond Trumbull and Lucien Adam, we have the same central element of speech subjected to critical investigation at able hands. But it seems to me that none of them has approached the topic with the broad, philosophic conceptions which impress the reader in this essay of Humboldt’s. Although sixty years and more have elapsed since it was written, I am confident that it will provide ample food for thought to the earnest student of language.
On the Verb in American Languages. By Wilhelm von Humboldt
Translated from the unpublished original. By D. G. Brinton, M.D.
You recently had the goodness to give an appreciative hearing to my essay on The Origin of Grammatical Forms.
I desire to-day to apply the principles which I then stated in general to a particular grammatical point through a series of languages. I choose those of America as best suited to such a purpose, and select the Verb as the most important part of speech, and the central point of every language. Without entering into an analysis of the different parts of the verb, I shall confine myself to that which constitutes its peculiar verbal character—the union of the subject and predicate of the sentence by means of the notion of Being. This alone forms the essence of the verb; all other relations, as of persons, tenses, modes and classes, are merely secondary properties.
The question to be answered is therefore:—
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?