1. The cancelling of diversities in form or in inflection when such inflection indicated no difference in function must obviously on the whole be set down as a gain to language: simplicity is gained thereby without any loss in clearness. This gain, however, is only effected when the abolition is complete; should the abolition be partial only, simplification may be gained at the expense of a new confusion.
We have an example of such a complete process of cancelling in the terminations er and est in the comparative and superlative of adjectives. In Gothic the comparative was formed either with the suffix iz or ôz, the superlative with ist or with ōst; and, except, indeed, that the forms in iz and ist were more common than those in ôz and ôst, and that the latter are found only with stems in a, no rule can be given for their occurrence. Thus mānags (an a stem) has in its comparative managiz-a, superlative managists; alðeis (ja stem) alðiza, alðists; hardus (u stem), hardiza, hardists; but frôðs, frôdôza, frôdôsts; arms, armôza, armôsts.[104] In Old High German there was a similar uncertainty. Here the z of Gothic appeared as r in the comparatives,[105] and while salîg has for its comparative salîgôro and its superlative salîgôsto, we find (h)reini, (h)reiniro, (h)reinisto.[106] In Anglo-Saxon we find already but a single termination for the comparative, viz. ra; but the two forms of superlative are still extant in ost and est; earm, earmra, earmost; heard, heardra, heardost; but eald, ieldra (with umlaut or modified vowel),[107] ieldest. Our forms hard, harder, hardest; old, older, oldest; silly, sillier, silliest, etc., are clearly a further step in the right direction of simplicity in system.
The convergence is, however, not always complete: sometimes it happens that two systems coincide; and this coincidence may be (1) in ALL FORMS but only in SOME WORDS belonging to each system; or, again, (2) it may manifest itself in ALL WORDS but only in SOME FORMS; and, lastly, this coincidence may affect (3) only SOME WORDS in SOME FORMS of two converging systems.
In the case of (1) the convergence is complete and irrevocable, and words which formerly belonged to one system have simply parted company with it, and have definitely joined the other to which they were assimilated. In the cases, however, of (2) and (3), confusion must arise, and further development must be looked for. We find a good illustration of this confusion and of its development in the history of the Teutonic declensions. In the case of these, as of other Indo-European languages, the declensions differed as the stems of the words terminated in a consonant or a vowel; and amongst the latter, again, we must draw distinctions between the declension of stems in a, (o), i, and u. In the a declension, again, a subdivision arose for pure a, ja, wa, and long ā stems. These different terminations of the stems are, for instance, clearly preserved in Gothic dat. and acc. plur. dags, dagam, dagans; gasts, gastim, gastins; sunus, sunum, sununs; and (with Gothic ō instead of ā) gibā, gibōm, gibōs. In the oldest forms of Scandinavian, the so-called Ur-Norse, also, we find the vowels preserved in the nominative singular, holingar, erilar, etc., gastir, staldir, etc., haukoður, warur:[108] but even in these, the oldest forms of the Teutonic dialects accessible to us, the various systems were confused; and it is the study of Comparative Grammar that we have to thank for the distinction between the different classes; and, again, it is only owing to the light shed on the subject by the comparison with Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit cognates, that we are enabled in some instances to decide to which of these classes any given word belongs. The ‘wearing down’ of the various terminations produced here identity, elsewhere close resemblance of many cases in many words, while in other cases the influence of the preceding letter made itself felt, and a difference in declension arose for the a stems: this difference depending on whether the a was preceded by a consonant i (j) or w. Where phonetic development had caused some of the cases to agree, other cases soon followed suit, and thus we find, for instance, that even in Gothic the entire singular of i declension has already become identical with that of the a stems:—
a stem. i stem. Sing. Nom. dags balgs Gen. dagis balgis Dat. daga balga Acc. dag balg Voc. dag balg Plur. Nom. dagôs balgeis Gen. dagê balgê Dat. dagam balgim Acc. dagans balgins.
As a consequence of this, numerous words which cognate languages prove to belong to the i declension are nevertheless entirely declined like a stems in Gothic; and even in the very few Gothic texts which we possess, and though these are derived from one source only, we meet with words evidencing the fact that Ulfilas himself (or, it may be, his copyist) was sometimes confused as to the declension usually followed by some word in his own language. Thus, in case of wêgs (a wave), we find norm plur. wêgôs, but dat. plur. wêgim; so too, the dat. plur. of aiws is aiwam, while the accus. is aiwins. In Old High German the coincidence in termination between these two schemes goes further, and extends over all cases; but since—in such words as had a, o, or u, in the preceding syllable—umlaut had been produced in the plural by the i of the stem, only those words whose stem vowel would not admit of umlaut or modification became throughout identical with the a declension. Where the reverse was the case, the words naturally remained distinct in the plural, and a further development arose; viz. that this umlaut in the plural began to be regarded as a sign of that number, and to be used for the purpose of marking it even in words whose etymology afforded no justification for the change, e.g. in hand, hände, which word originally belonged to the u declension. See also our remarks in Chapter V. pp. 87 and foll.
2. So far, in every case which we have discussed, we have had to do with similarity arising from phonetic development of forms with identical functions: one or more cases of one system converged with the same cases in another system. Often, however, this same phonetic development creates a similarity between forms which were originally distinct and served distinct purposes; and we have a good instance of this in our personal pronouns, and one which is instructive as to the consequences of this phenomenon:— The Gothic ik meina mis mik ðu ðeina ðus ðuk weis unsara uns uns jus izwara izwis izwis already shows no difference in the forms of accusative and dative plural; but in Anglo-Saxon we find that a further stage has been reached:— In ic mín mé mé ðú ðín ðé ðé wé úser ús ús gé eówer eów eów we see (though separate forms for accusative still occur) that dative and accusative have become identical throughout, and so it is in the modern language with— I mine me thou thine thee we our us ye (you) your you The double form of the nominative ye (you), and more especially the history of the pronoun for the third person, illustrate one of the consequences of such coincidence, viz. that the language-producing community becomes accustomed to use the same form for certain sets of functions, and transfers this similarity to cases which it would not reach—or, at least, has not yet reached—by the aid of phonetic development alone. Let us consider first the pronoun of the third person. In Anglo-Saxon we find— Sing. Masc. Fem. Neuter. Nom. hé heó hit Gen. his hire his Dat. him hire him Acc. hine hí hit. The forms which we now use for the plural are derived from a different stem,[109] which in Anglo-Saxon gave us the following plural for all three genders:— Nom. ðá Gen. ðára, or ðǽra Dat. ðǽm Acc. ðá and here we find distinct forms for dative and accusative, the latter of which has now disappeared, so that here, too (as in the case of the other personal pronouns), we use one form only (the original dative form) for both dative and accusative. But we have only reached this stage after a period of confusion and uncertainty, during which the historically correct form of the accusative and the new form (that of the old dative) strove for permanence.
It is the very marked difference between ic (I) and me (accus.), ðu (thou) and ðe, we and us, which has protected the members of these pairs from becoming identical in form, notwithstanding the important fact that such a process had long since identified the nominative and accusative of all nouns and adjectives. To this influence, indeed, ye and you (both of which, when unemphatic, become ye, where e is pronounced as in the before a consonant) have succumbed.
Not only in this way, moreover, does such convergence of forms with different functions show its effect: it also causes the ordinary speaker to lose sight of such difference in function altogether. As students of Latin, and especially teachers of that language, know by sad experience, it is extremely hard for the untrained English mind to realise the function of the accusative case; and the difference between this case and the dative may be fairly described as non-existent for the Englishman who has not learnt it from the study of other languages. This, again, influences syntax, so that a phrase like I showed him the room can be turned in the passive into The room was shown (to) him, etc., or He was shown the room, etc.