The only difference between Chinese and these Sanskrit forms which we have just examined, is that while in Chinese such a form as yudh-i, in the battle, would have for its last element a word clearly meaning middle, and having an independent accent, Sanskrit has lost the consciousness of the original material meaning of the i of the locative, and uses it traditionally as an empty word, as a formal element, as a mere termination.
I also agree with Curtius that during the earliest stage, not of Sanskrit, but of Aryan speech in general, we have to admit two classes of roots, the predicative and demonstrative, and that what we now call the plural of yudh, yudh-as, fighters, was, or may have been, originally a compound consisting of the predicative root yudh, and the demonstrative root, as or sa, possibly repeated twice, meaning “fight-he-he,” or “fight-there-there,” i.e., fighters.
There is another point with regard to the character of this earliest radical stage of the Aryan language, on which formally I should have agreed with Curtius, but where now I begin to feel more doubtful,—I mean the necessarily monosyllabic form of all original roots. There is, no doubt, much to be said for this view. We always like to begin with what is simple. We imagine, as it has been said, that “the simple idea must break forth, like lightning, in a simple body of sound, to be perceived in one single moment.” But, on the other hand, the simple, so far as it is the general, is frequently, to us at least, the last result of repeated complex conceptions, and therefore there is at all events no à priori argument against treating the simplest roots as the latest, rather than the earliest products of language. Languages in a low state of development are rich in words expressive of the most minute differences, they are poor in general expressions, a fact which ought to be taken into account as an important qualification of a remark made by Curtius that language supplies necessaries first, luxuries afterwards (p. 32). I quote the following excellent remarks from Mr. Sayce’s “Principles of comparative Philology” (p. 208): “Among modern savages the individual objects of sense have names enough, while general terms are very rare. The Mohicans have words for cutting various objects, but none to signify cutting simple.”[31] In taking this view we certainly are better able to explain the actual forms of the Aryan roots, viz., by elimination, rather than by composition. If we look for instance, as I did myself formerly, on such roots as yudh, yuj, and yauṭ, as developed from the simpler root yu, or on mardh, marg, mark, marp, mard, smar, as developed from mar, then we are bound to account for the modificatory elements, such as dh, g, k, p, d, s, n, t, r, as remnants of other roots, whether predicative or demonstrative. Thus Curtius compares tar or tra, with tras, tram, trak, trap; tri and tru with trup, trib, taking the final consonants as modificatory letters. But what are these modificatory letters? Every attempt to account for them has failed. If it could be proved that these modificatory elements, which Curtius calls Determinatives, produced always the same modification of meaning, they might then be classed with the verbal suffixes which change simple verbs into causative, desiderative, or intensive verbs. But this is not the case. On the other hand, it would be perfectly intelligible that such roots as mark, marg, mard, mardh, expressing different kinds of crushing, became fixed side by side, that by a process of elimination, their distinguishing features were gradually removed, and the root mar left as the simplest form, expressive of the most general meaning. Without entering here on that process of mutual friction by which I believe that the development of roots can best be explained, we may say at least so much, that whatever process will account for the root yu, will likewise account for the root yuj, nay, that roots like mark or mard are more graphic, expressive, and more easily intelligible than the root mar.
However, if this view of the origin of roots has to be adopted, it need not altogether exclude the other view. In the process of simplification, certain final letters may have become typical, may have seemed invested with a certain function or determinative power, and may therefore have been added independently to other roots, by that powerful imitative tendency which asserts itself again and again through the whole working of language. But however that may be, the sharp line of distinction which Curtius draws between the First Period, represented by simple, and the Second Period represented by derivative roots, seems certainly no longer tenable, least of all as dividing chronologically two distinct periods in the growth of language.
When we approach the Third Period, it might seem that here, at least, there could be no difference of opinion between Professor Curtius and myself. That Third Period represents simply what I called the first setting in of combination, following after the isolating stage. Curtius calls it the primary verbal period, and ascribes to it the origin of such combinatory forms as dấ-ma, give-I, dâ-tva, give-thou, dấ-ta, give-he; dâ-ma-tvi, give-we, dâ-tva-tvi, give-you, dâ-(a)nti, give-they. These verbal forms he considers as much earlier than any attempts at declension in nouns. No one who has read Curtius’ arguments in support of this chronological arrangement would deny their extreme plausibility; but there are grave difficulties which made me hesitate in adopting this hypothetical framework of linguistic chronology. I shall only mention one, which seemed to me insurmountable. We know that during what we called the First Radical Period the sway of phonetic laws was already so firmly established, that, from that period onward to the present day, we can say, with perfect certainty, which phonetic changes are possible, and which are not. It is through these phonetic laws that the most distant past in the history of the Aryan language is connected with the present. It is on them that the whole science of etymology is founded. Only because a certain root has a tenuis, a media, an aspirate, or a sibilant, is it possible to keep it distinct from other roots. If t and s could be interchanged, then the root tar, to cross, would not be distinct from the root sar, to go. If d and dh could vary, then dar, to tear, would run together with dhar, to hold. These phonetic distinctions were firmly established in the radical period, and continue to be maintained, both in the undivided Aryan speech, and in the divided national dialects, such as Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Gothic. How then can we allow an intervening period, during which ma-tvi, could become masi, tva-tvi, thas, and the same tva-tvi appear also as sai? Such changes, always most startling, may have been possible in earlier periods; but when phonetic order had once been established, as it was in what Curtius calls his first and second periods, to admit them as possible, would be, as far as I can judge, to admit a complete anachronism. Of two things one; either we must altogether surrender those chaotic changes which are required for identifying Sanskrit e with Greek μαι, and Greek μαι with mâ-ma, etc., or we must throw them back to a period anterior to the final settlement of the Aryan roots.
I now proceed to point out a second difficulty. If Curtius uses these same personal terminations, masi, tvasi, and anti, as proof positive that they must have been compounded out of ma + tva, and tva-tva, before there were any case terminations, I do not think his argument is quite stringent. Curtius says: “If plural suffixes had existed before the coining of these terminations, we should expect them here, as well as in the noun” (p. 33). But the plural of the pronoun I could never have been formed by a plural suffix, like the plural of horse. I admits of no plural, as little as thou, and hence the plural of these very pronouns in the Aryan language is not formed by the mere addition of a plural termination, but by a new base. We say I, but we; thou but you, and so through all the Aryan languages. According to Curtius himself, masi, the termination of the plural, is not formed by repeating ma, by saying I and I, but by ma and tva, I and thou, the most primitive way, he thinks, of expressing we. The termination of the second person plural might be expressed by repeating thou. “You did it,” might have been rendered by “thou and thou did it;” but hardly by treating thou like a noun, and adding to it a plural termination. The absence of plural terminations, therefore at the end of the personal suffixes of the verbs, does not prove, as far as I can see, that plurals of nouns were unknown when the first, second, and third persons plural of the Aryan verbs were called into existence.
Again, if Curtius says, that “what language has once learnt, it does not forget again, and that therefore if the plural had once found expression in nouns, the verb would have claimed the same distinction,” is true, no doubt, in many cases, but not so generally true as to supply a safe footing for a deductive argument. In so late a formation as the periphrastic future in Sanskrit, we say dâtâ-smaḥ, as it were dator sumus, not dâtâraḥ smaḥ; and in the second person plural of the passive in Latin amamini, though the plural is marked, the gender is always disregarded.
Further, even if we admit with Bopp and Curtius that the terminations of the medium are composed of two pronouns, that the ta of the third person singular stands for ta-ti, to-him-he, that καλύπτεται in fact meant originally hide-himself-he, it does not follow that in such a compound one pronominal element should have taken the termination of the accusative, any more than the other takes the termination of the nominative. The first element in every composition takes necessarily its Pada or thematic form; the second or final element has suffered so much, according to Bopp’s own explanation, that nothing would be easier to explain than the disappearance of a final consonant, if it had existed. The absence of case-terminations in such compounds cannot therefore be used as proof of the non-existence of case-terminations at a time when the medial and other personal endings took their origin. On the contrary, these terminations seem to me to indicate, though I do not say to prove, that the conception of a subjective, as distinct from an objective case, had been fully realized by those who framed them. I do not myself venture to speak very positively of such minute processes of analysis as that which discovers in the Sk. first pers. sing. ind. pres. of the middle, tude, I strike, an original tuda + a + i, tuda + ma + i, tuda + ma + mi, tuda + mâ + ma, but admitting that the middle was formed in that way, and that it meant originally strike-to-me-I, then surely we have in the first mâ an oblique case, and in the compound itself the clearest indication that the distinction between a nominative and an oblique case, whether dative or accusative, was no longer a mystery. Anyhow, and this is the real point at issue, the presence of such compounds as mâ-ma, to-me-I, is in no way a proof that at the time of their formation people could not distinguish between yudh (s), nom., a fighter, and yudh (am), acc., a fighter; and we must wait for more irrefragable evidence before admitting, what would under all circumstances be a most startling conclusion, namely, that the Aryan language was spoken for a long time without case-terminations, but with a complete set of personal terminations, both in the singular and the plural. For though it is quite true that the want of cases could only be felt in a sentence, the same seems to me to apply to personal terminations of the verb. The one, in most languages we know, implies the other, and the very question whether conjugation or declension came first is one of those dangerous questions which take something for granted which has never been proved.
During all this time, according to Curtius, our Aryan language would have consisted of nothing but roots, used for nominal and verbal purposes, but without any purely derivative suffixes, whether verbal or nominal, and without declension. The only advance, in fact, made beyond the purely Chinese standard, would have consisted in a few combinations of personal pronouns with verbal stems, which combinations assumed rapidly a typical character, and led to the formation of a skeleton of conjugation, containing a present, an aorist with an augment, and a reduplicated perfect. Why, during the same period, nominal bases should not have assumed at least some case-terminations, does not appear; and it certainly seems strange that people who could say vak-ti, speak-he, vak-anti, speak-this-he, should not have been able to say vâk-s, whether in the sense of speak-there, i.e., speech or speak-there, i.e., speaker.
The next step which, according to Curtius, the Aryan language had to make, in order to emerge from its purely radical phase, was the creation of bases, both verbal and nominal, by the addition of verbal and nominal suffixes to roots, both primary and secondary. Curtius calls this fourth the Period of the Formation of Themes. The suffixes are very numerous, and it is by them that the Aryan languages have been able to make their limited number of roots supply the vast materials of their dictionary. From bhar, to carry, they formed bhar-a, a carrier, but sometimes also a burden. In addition to bhar-ti, carry-he, they formed bhara-ti, meaning possibly carrying-he. The growth of these early themes may have been very luxuriant, and, as Professor Curtius expresses it, chiefly paraschematic. It may have been left to a later age to assign to that large number of possible synonyms more definite meanings. Thus from φέρω, I carry, we have φορά, the act of carrying, used also in the sense of impetus (being carried away), and of provectus, i.e., what is brought in. Φορός means carrying, but also violent, and lucrative; φέρετρον, an instrument of carrying, means a bier; φαρέτρα, a quiver, for carrying arrows. Φορμός comes to mean a basket; φόρτος, a burden; φορός, tribute.