Among concrete connotative words, we have already had full opportunity of observing that verbs constitute a principal class. Those words all NOTE some motion or action and CONNOTE an actor. There is the same frequency of occasion to leave out the connotation in the case of this class of connotative words, as in other classes. Accordingly ABSTRACT terms are formed from them, as from the connotative adjectives and substantives. The infinitive mood is such an abstract term; with this peculiarity, that, though it leaves out the connotation of the actor, it retains the connotation of time.[84] 307 It is convenient, however, to have abstract terms from the verbs, which leave out also the connotation of time; such are the substantive amor from amo, timor from timeo, and so on.
[84] The infinitive mood does not always express time. At least, it often expresses it aoristically, without distinction of tense. “To love” is as abstract a name as “love,” “to fear,” as “fear”: they are applied equally to past, present, and future. The infinitives of the past and future, as amavisse, amaturus esse, do, however, include in their signification a particular time.—Ed.
Verbs have not only an active but a passive form. In the passive form, it is not the action, but the bearing of the action, which is NOTED; and not the actor, but the bearer of the action, that is CONNOTED. In this case, also, there is not less frequent occasion to drop the connotation. By the simple contrivance of a slight alteration in the connotative term, the important circumstance of dropping the connotation is marked. In the case of the passive as the active form of verbs, the infinitive mood drops the connotation of the person, but retains that of the time. Other abstract terms, formed from the passive voice, leave out the connotation both of person and time. Thus from legor, there is lectio; from optor, optatio; from dicor, dictio; and so on.
It is to be remarked that the Latin mode of forming abstract terms from verbs, by the termination “tio,” has been adopted to a great extent in English. A large proportion of our abstract terms are thus distinguished; as action, association, imagination, navigation, mensuration, friction, motion, station, faction, legislation, corruption, and many others.
It is also of extreme importance to mark a great defect and imperfection, in this respect, of the Latin language. Such words as lectio, dictio, actio, are derived with equal readiness either from the supine, lectum, dictum, actum; or from the participle, lectus, dictus, actus. The supine is active, the participle, passive. From this circumstance probably it is, that 308 these abstract terms in the Latin language possess both the active and passive signification; and by this most unfortunate ambiguity have proved a fertile source of obscurity and confusion. This defect of the Latin language is the more to be lamented by us, that it has infected our own language; for as we have borrowed from the Latin language a great proportion of our abstract terms, we have transplanted the mischievous equivocation along with them. This ambiguity the Greek language happily avoided: thus it had πρᾶξις and πρᾶγμα the first for the active signification of actio, the latter the passive.[85]
[85] I apprehend that πρᾶγμα is not an abstract but a concrete term, and does not express the attribute of being done, but the thing done—the effect which results from the completed action.—Ed.
Of the abstract terms, of genuine English growth, derived from the concrete names of action, or verbs, the participle of the past tense supplied a great number, merely dropping the adjective, and assuming the substantive form. Thus, weight, a word which we had occasion to notice before, is the participle weighed, with the connotation dropped: stroke is merely struck; the thing struck, the connotation, being left out: thought is the past participle passive of the verb to think, and differs from the participle in nothing, but that the participle, the adjective, has the connotation; the abstract, the substantive, has it not. Whether the concrete, or the abstract, is the term employed, is in such cases always indicated by the context; and, therefore, no particular mark to distinguish them is required.
309 In our non-inflected language, a facility is afforded in forming a non-connotative from the connotative, in the active voice of verbs; because the connotative word is always distinguished by the presence of the persons of the verb, or that of some part of the auxiliary verb. The same word, therefore, answers for the abstract, as for the concrete; it being of course the abstract, when none of the marks of the concrete are present. Thus the word love, is both the verb or the connotative, and the substantive or the non-connotative; thus also fear, walk, ride, stand, fight, smell, taste, sleep, dream, drink, work, breath, and many others.
We have in English, formed from verbs, a great many abstracts or non-connotatives, which terminate in “th,” as truth, health, dearth, stealth, death, strength. It may be disputed whether these words are derived from one part of the verb or another; but, in all other respects, the nature of them is not doubtful. The third person singular of the present, indicative active, ends in “th;” and, therefore, they may be said to be that part of the verb with the connotation dropped. The termination, however, of the past participle is “d,” and we know that “th” and “d,” are the same letter under a slight difference of articulation; and, therefore, they may just as well be derived from the past participle, and as often at least as they have a passive signification, no doubt are. Thus the verb trow, to think, has either troweth, or trowed; from one of which, but more likely from the last, we have truth: the verb to heal, has either healeth, or healed; from one of which, but more likely the last, we have health: the verb to string has stringeth, or stringed; 310 from one of which we have strength; thus from dieth, or died, death; from stealeth, or stealed, stealth; mirth in the same manner, from a verb now out of use; so heighth, length, breadth.[86]
[86] The abstracts in -th belong to a very early stage of the language. We cannot now form words like health, truth, as we can abstracts in -ness. As in the case of adjectives in -en (wooden), and of preterites and participles like fell, fallen, that particular part of the vital energy of the language that produced them, is dead—ossified, as it were; and we cannot exemplify their formation by any process now going on. To account for many of them, we must suppose them formed from roots different from any now existing as separate words—roots from which the corresponding verbs and adjectives that we are acquainted with have been themselves derived by augmentation or other change. This being the case, it is impossible to say with certainty whether the immediate root of any particular abstract in -th was a verb, a noun, or an adjective; and, indeed, the question need hardly be raised, since a primitive root was of the nature of all three.