The word welcome in such phrases as I made them welcome is employed as an adjective, as, indeed, it is commonly apprehended to be. It was originally a substantive, and was derived from the infinitive mood of the verb, its meaning being pleasure-comer. The word is popularly supposed to derive from well and come; but the first element in the compound is really related to will—the true sense being the will-comer, i.e. he who comes to please another’s will. (Cf. Ger. willkommen.) The change in meaning seems due to Scandinavian influence, for in the Scandinavian languages the word is really composed of the adjective well and the past participle come; cf. Danish velkommen (welcome).[122]
The expression Quin conscendimus equos (Livy, i. 57) is properly Why do we not mount our horses? but is understood as Let us mount our horses; and in accordance with such usage quin may take after it an imperative, as quin age; or a hortative subjunctive, as quin experiamur? The sense of cur in some cases approximates to that of quod; and hence we find the word followed by a similar construction, in Horace, Ep. I. 8. 9;—irascar amicis, Cur me funesto properent arcere veterno. The O.Fr. car underwent a similar change. Derived from quare it meant, in the first instance, then; as, Cumpainz Rolond, l’oliphant KAR sunez (Chanson de Roland), i.e. Compagnon Roland sonnez DONC l’oliphant;[123] it next came to be used like que or parceque after phrases like la raison est; and it then comes to be used with the conditional and imperative in the sense of utinam (cf. Diez, iii. 214).
In O.Fr. the word par (Latin per) was used for much. It took this sense from its use in combinations like perficere, perraro, etc., but it was detached from the verb, and was habitually used in O.Fr. in such combinations as par fut proz = il fut très preux; and in some cases coupled with other adverbs, like moult and tant; as, tant par fut bels = il était si beau, literally tant beaucoup (Chanson de Roland). The phrase survives in par trop.[124]
The Greek οὐκ οῦν, originally not therefore, like the Latin nonne, serves to introduce a question expecting an affirmative answer. It then comes to be used to introduce direct positive assertions; thus, οὐκοῦν ἐλευθερία ἡμᾶς μένει; from meaning ‘Does not, then, freedom await us?’ comes to mean simply ‘Therefore freedom awaits us.’ The word nanu in Sanskrit has gone through a similar development. Ne in Latin, properly the interrogative particle, comes to be used as the correlative of an:—faciatne an non faciat; or even faciat, necne. Similarly, in Russian, the interrogative particle li comes to be used as the correlative of ili (or); as ugodno-li vam eto? (‘Is this agreeable to you?’); but we then get combinations like dyélaet-li, ili ne dyélaet (‘whether he does it or no’).
The accusative with an infinitive could originally only stand in connection with a transitive verb as long as the accusative of the subject was regarded as the object of the finite verb, as audio te venire; but the accusative and infinitive came to be regarded as a dependent sentence with the accusative as its subject, and then we find the construction after words like gaudeo, horreo (Livy, xxxiv. 4. 3), doleo (Horace, Odes, iv. 4. 62), etc., which can properly speaking take no accusative of the object connected with them; as gaudere, dolere, infitias ire; nay, we find it after combinations such as spem habeo, etc. The accusative and infinitive construction then passes into sentences which depend on another accusative and infinitive, as (1) into relative sentences loosely connected; e.g. mundum censent regi numine Deorum—ex quo illud natura consequi (Cic. de Fin., iii. 19, § 64): (2) into sentences of comparison; e.g. ut feras quasdam nulla mitescere arte sic immitem ejus viri animum esse (Livy, xxxiii. 45): (3) into indirect questions; e.g. quid sese inter pacatos facere, cur in Italiam non revehi (Livy, xxviii. 24);[125] (4) into temporal and causal sentences; e.g. crimina vitanda esse, quia vitari metus non posse (Seneca, Epist., 97. 13). A similar extension of the use is found in Greek.
The possessive cases mine, thine, his, her, its, our, your, their have passed into the category of adjectives, as in the case of Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn? (1 Henry IV., III. iii. 93). The instinct of language regarded mine, thine, etc., as the equivalents of of me, of thee, etc.; and marked the function by the addition of the possessive preposition of, as in this inn of mine. Thus, again, a gerund like killing,[126] from having the same form as the participle, can be used in expressions like the killing a man, instead of the killing of a man.
We not only find that the word which changes its function undergoes the consequent changes in form or in syntax, but it also often happens that, owing to functional changes participated in by a certain group of words, such a group becomes detached, and thereby gains independence enough to influence other words that have cognate meanings. There are in Old English, as in German, many adverbs which are in their origin the genitives singular of strong masculine and neuter substantives, such as dæges (by day); but the origin of the termination has been forgotten, and the s has come to be looked upon as a merely adverbial termination. Consequently we find the adverb nihtes (by night), though niht is really feminine, and its genitive case is properly nihte. Similar formations are hereabouts, inwards, othergates (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, V. i. 198), towards, whereabouts, etc. In the same way, the genitive plural of Anglo-Saxon substantives in -ung (later -ing) could be used adverbially; as,—án-ung-a, án-ing-a, (altogether), genitive plural of ân-ung, a substantive formed from án (one): after this analogy others were formed: as, hedling, afterwards altered to headlong; darkling, etc.
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.