Only in a very few cases is it possible for any speaker to decide, with absolute certainty, whether any particular form which he may employ with perfect familiarity belongs to the former or the latter group. If, for instance, we hear the simple sentence, ‘He is walking,’ there is nothing which can help us to determine whether the speaker is merely reproducing the word walking just as he has learnt it from others, or whether he is forming the present participle of and from the word ‘(to) walk’ after the model of other similar derivatives. In the chapter on Analogy, we considered principally cases falling under the second class, in which the result of such a process as we have described proved at variance with other forms already existing in the language, i.e. where Analogy brought about certain changes. The cases in which the result was the mere production of what we should have reproduced by the simple aid of memory, we considered as of very small importance for the purpose of illustrating the operations of Analogy.
But it is far from true that they have no significance. Every time that we consciously or unconsciously form words ‘by analogy,’ our habit of doing so is strengthened, and our confidence in the results is increased; and the more we enter upon domains of thought where we are comparative strangers, the more confidently and the more consciously do we proceed ‘to make our own words.’ In this process of word-making, we follow certain models; in fact, we derive one form from others which exist in our own vocabulary.
In words and forms reproduced by memory (though only in the case of such as these) it is, strictly speaking, correct to say of each form—tense, person, singular or plural, or of each case—that it is derived, not from what our grammars call the standard forms (such as infinitives or nominative-singulars), but from the corresponding older form of that tense, person, etc., in the language as it existed before.
In words and forms produced, not from memory, but by analogy, i.e. by derivation according to a certain model, and from words which already exist in our own vocabulary, even where our result does not differ from what we might have produced by memory, it does not at all follow that our process of derivation has been the same as that by which former speakers reached their results.
For instance, suppose that there exists a class of adjectives really derived from verbs. In the course of development of the language, these verbs approach in form to the cognate nouns, or—for whatever reason—some of the verbs become obsolete. The effect will be that, in the consciousness of the ordinary speaker, the adjective appears as derived from the noun.
It is our object in this chapter to study the phenomenon of such displacements in the etymological connections and the consequences which follow therefrom.
A good instance may be found in the history of the suffixes ble, able, and their application.[127] Both these suffixes we owe to the French language, which, in turn, derived them from Latin.
In this latter language we find the suffix bili-s, bilem, forming verbal adjectives. Where the stem of the verb ended in a consonant, the connecting vowel i was inserted: vend-e-re, vend-i-bilis. Where the stem ended in a vowel this insertion was of course unnecessary: honora-re, honora-bilis, dele-re, delebilis, (g)no-scere no-bilis, etc. By far the greater number of these words in ble were derived from verbs in are, of which the present participle ends in ans, antem. Hence, though the words in ble were in reality not immediately derived from this participle, a feeling arose that such a connection existed. Among ‘the matter-groups’ in French their existed numerous pairs, such as aimant, aimable, etc. In time, all present participles in French came to end in this termination ant, after which an adjective in able, derived from such participles, nearly always supplanted the older and correcter forms in ible, etc. Hence came forms like vendable, croyable, etc.
The suffix able, introduced into English in enormously preponderating numbers, was there at first confined to words of French origin, but soon, by analysis of such instances as pass-able, agree-able, commend-able, was treated as an indivisible living suffix, and freely employed to form analogous adjectives, being attached not only to verbs taken from French, but finally to native verbs as well, e.g., bearable, speakable, breakable. These verbs have often a substantive of the same form, as in debat(e)-able, rat(e)-able, etc. Owing to this, a new displacement such as we are here studying occurred, and such words, treated as if derived FROM THE NOUN, became the models for others where able is added to nouns, such as marketable, clubbable, carriageable,[128] salable.
Another suffix, the history of which affords an instance of similar displacement is ate as verbal formative.[129]