We find in French several past participles, some due to regular historical development of the popular language, others to deliberate adoption by the learned classes, all of which differ only from their Latin prototypes in having lost the termination us: e.g., confusus, Fr. confus; contentus, content; diversus, divers. This analogy was widely followed in later French in introducing new words from Latin, and, both classes of French words (i.e. the popular survivals and the later accessions) being adopted in English provided English in its turn with analogies for adapting similar words directly from Latin by dropping the termination. This process began about 1400 A.D., and the Latin termination atus gave English at, subsequently ate, e.g. desolatus, desolat, desolate. The transition of these words from adjectives and participles to verbs is explained by Dr. Murray by a reference to the fact—
(a) That in Old English verbs had been regularly formed from adjectives: as, hwit, hwitian (‘white,’ ‘to whiten’); wearm, wearmian (‘warm,’ ‘to warm,’); etc.
(b) That with the loss of the inflections, these verbs became by the fifteenth century identical in form with the adjectives, e.g., to white, to warm.
(c) That, as in Latin, so in French, many verbs were formed on adjectives; whence, again, English received many verbs identical in form with their adjectives, e.g., to clear, to humble, to manifest.
These verbs, though formed immediately from participial adjectives already existing in English, answered in form to the past participles of Latin verbs of the same meaning. It was thus natural to associate them directly with these Latin verbs, and to view them as their regular English representatives. This once done, it became the recognised method of Englishing a Latin verb, to take the past participle stem of the Latin as the present stem of the English, so that English verbs were now formed on Latin past participles by mere analogy and without intervention of a participial adjective; e.g., fascinate, concatenate, etc. These English verbs in ate correspond generally to French verbs in er,—e.g., separate, Fr. séparer; this, in turn, gave a pattern for the formation of English verbs from French,—e.g., isoler (Ital. isolare, Lat. insulare), Eng. isolate, etc.
To this lucid and apparently adequate explanation we must, however, add another fact, which has demonstrably aided in the formation of the enormous number of English verbs in ate. From the fourteenth century onward, we find again and again such pairs as action (1330), to act (1384);[130] affliction (1303), to afflict (1393); adjection (1374), to adject (1432); abjection (1410), to abject (1430), etc.[131]
Such pairs led to the supposition that the verbs were derivable from the nouns in tion by merely omitting the ion, and this was done with many nouns in ation even where another verb (itself the ground-word for that form in ation) existed by the side of it. Thus we find, e.g., aspiration (1398), to aspire (1460), the verb aspirate (1700); attestation (1547), to attest (1596), to attestate (1625); application (1493), to apply (1374), to applicate (1531).[132]
The suffix full forms adjectives from nouns: baleful, A.S. bealofull from bealu (woe, harm, mischief); shameful, A.S. sceamfull from sceam (shame). This ending was also added to nouns of Romance origin; e.g., powerful, fruitful. In both classes, however, the word might, in very many cases, be just as well derived from a verb as from a noun, so that, e.g., thankful, which originally undoubtedly was = full of thanks, could equally well be apprehended as he who thanks; respectful, as he who respects; etc. It is similar with such words as harmful, delightful, etc. That such a grouping has actually been made, is proved by the occurrence of such forms as wakeful, forgetful, and the dialectical urgeful; so also the form weariful seems more likely to be interpreted as that which wearies, than as a derivative from the adjective weary as Mätzner seems to take it.[133] So, again, the form maisterful, found in Lydgate and Chaucer,[134] seems more likely to be taken as ‘he who is always mastering,’ than ‘as he who is full of master,’ which gives no sense. The suffix less, originally and still as a rule only added to nouns, could not have been used with the verb to daunt (—O.Fr. danter, Modern French, dompter, Lat. domitare, ‘to tame,’) if in such compounds as restless, sleepless, hopeless, useless, the noun had not been identical in form with the verb.
The history of the suffix ness, is also especially instructive for our purpose. If we go back to the oldest records of the Teutonic languages, Gothic, we find a noun, ufarassus, literally ‘overness,’ used in the sense of ‘abundance,’ ‘superfluity,’ from ufar, ‘over:’ similarly formed was ibnassus, ‘equality,’ from ibns—‘even,’ ‘equal.’ This suffix assus was very frequently added to the stem of verbs which, in their turn, were derived from nouns. Thus, for instance, besides the noun—
lekeis (leach), we find lekinon (to cure), lekinassus (leachdom). shalks (servant), ” shalkinon (to serve), shalkinassus (service). gudja (priest), ” gudjinon (to be priest), gudjinassus (priesthood). frauja (Lord), ” fraujinon (to rule), fraujinassus (dominion). ðiudans (king), ” ðiudanon (to be king), ðiudinassus (kingdom).