quasi per magni circum spiracula mundi
exitus introitusque elementis redditus exstat, Lucr. 6, 493;
apes in tectis certatim tenuia cera
spiramenta linunt, Georg. 4, 39.
No difference can be seen in spectamen and spectaculum in these examples: miserum funestumque spectamen aspexi, App. M. 4, 151; potius quam hoc spectaculum viderem, Mil. 38, 103; constitutur in foro Laodiceae spectaculum acerbum et miserum, Verr. I, 76.
CHAPTER V
Suffixes and the Theory of Adaptation
As stated in the introductory chapter, it has been the primary object of this paper to examine certain word-building suffixes for the purpose of finding out, if possible, what the force of the suffixes themselves is, and how the nouns formed with them get their meaning. The material presented has, it is hoped, shown that these nouns are capable of wide semantic variation, the influencing elements being the verb stem and context (the former exerting greater influence than the latter); also that these suffixes overlap with other suffixes in forming words of identical semantic content to such an extent that they cannot be said to have any sort of fundamental meaning whatever. This is the significance of our investigation in so far as semantics is concerned.
But it is possible also to connect our results with another question, the entire solution of which will doubtless never be possible, at least not soon; viz., the theory of the origin of inflection. Nothing but mere suggestion can be made in this direction from the conclusions of this study; the field will need much wider working-over before any thing definite can be asserted.