It is unnecessary, and perhaps impossible, to describe the whole process of the formation of languages; but we may reason from the nature of things that the necessary parts of speech would be the first formed; and it is very evident from etymology that all the others are derived from these, either by abbreviation or combination. The necessary parts of speech are the noun and verb; and perhaps we may add the article. Pronouns are not necessary, but from their utility, must be a very early invention.
That the noun and verb are the only parts of speech, absolutely necessary for a communication of ideas among rude nations, will be obvious to any person who considers their manner of life, and the small number of their necessary ideas. Their employments are war and hunting; and indeed some tribes are so situated as to have no occupation but that of procuring subsistence. How few must be the ideas of a people, whose sole employment is to catch fish, and take wild beasts for food! Such nations, and even some much farther advanced towards civilization, use few or no prepositions, adverbs and conjunctions, in their intercourse with each other, and very few adjectives. Some tribes of savages in America use no adjectives at all; but express qualities by a particular form of the verb; or rather blend the affirmation and quality into one word.[86] They have, it is said, some connecting words in their own languages, some of which have advanced towards copiousness and variety. But when they attempt to speak English, they use nouns and verbs long before they obtain any knowlege of the particles. They speak in this manner, go, way—— sun, shine—— tree, fall—— give, Uncas, rum; with great deliberation and a short pause between the words. They omit the connectives and the abbreviations, which may be called the "wings of Mercury." Thus it is evident, that, among such nations, a few nouns and verbs will answer the purposes of language.
Many of this kind of expressions remain in the English language to this day. Go away is the savage phrase with the article a, derived perhaps from one, or what is more probable, added merely to express the sound, made in the transition from one word to the other, for if we attend to the manner in which we pronounce these or two similar words, we shall observe that we involuntarily form the sound expressed by a or aw. In some such manner are formed astray, awhile, adown, aground, ashore, above, abaft, among, and many others. They are usually called adverbs and prepositions; but they are neither more nor less than nouns or verbs, with the prefix a.[87] That all the words called adverbs and prepositions, are derived in like manner, from the principal parts of language, the noun and verb, is not demonstrable; but that most of them are so derived, etymology clearly proves.
HORNE TOOKE's THEORY of the PARTICLES.
This theory derives great strength from analizing the words called conjunctions. It will perhaps surprize those who have not attended to this subject, to hear it asserted, that the little conjunction if, is a verb in the Imperative Mode. That this is the fact can no more be controverted than any point of history, or any truth that our senses present to the mind. If is radically the same word as give; it was in the Saxon Infinitive, gifan, and in the Imperative, like other Saxon verbs, lost the an; being written gif. This is the word in its purity; but in different dialects of the same radical tongue, we find it written gife, giff, gi, yf, yef, and yeve. Chaucer used y instead of g.[88]
"Unto the devil rough and blake of hewe
Yeve I thy body and my panne also."
Freres Tale, 7204.
But the true Imperative is gif, as in the Sad Shepherd. Act 2. Sc. 2.
——"My largesse
Hath lotted her to be your brother's mistress
Gif she can be reclaimed; gif not, his prey."
This is the origin of the conjunction if; and it answers, in sense and derivation to the Latin si, which is but a contraction of sit. Thus what we denominate the Subjunctive mode is resolvable into the Indicative. "If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments," is resolvable in this manner; "Give, (give the following fact, or suppose it) ye love me, ye will keep my commandments." Or thus, "Ye love me, give that, ye will keep my commandments." But on this I shall be more particular when I come to speak of errors in the use of verbs.