PART IV.
ETYMOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE PROVINCE OF ETYMOLOGY.
[§ 176]. The word etymology, derived from the Greek, in the current language of scholars and grammarians, has a double meaning. At times it is used in a wide, and at times in a restricted sense.
If in the English language we take such a word as fathers, we are enabled to divide it into two parts; in other words, to reduce it into two elements. By comparing it with the word father, we see that the s is neither part nor parcel of the original word. Hence the word is capable of being analysed; father being the original primitive word, and s the secondary superadded termination. From the word father, the word fathers is derived, or (changing the expression) deduced, or descended. What has been said of the word fathers may also be said of fatherly, fatherlike, fatherless, &c. Now, from the word father, all these words (fathers, fatherly, fatherlike, and fatherless) differ in form and in meaning. To become such a word as fathers, &c., the
word father is changed. Of changes of this sort, it is the province of etymology to take cognizance.
[§ 177]. Compared with the form fathers, the word father is the older form of the two. The word father is a word current in this the nineteenth century. The same word is found much earlier, under different forms, and in different languages. Thus, in the Latin language, the form was pater; in Greek, πατήρ. Now, with father and fathers, the change takes place within the same language, whilst the change that takes place between pater and father takes place within different languages. Of changes of this latter kind it is, also, the province of etymology to take cognizance.
[§ 178]. In its widest signification, etymology takes cognizance of the changes of the form of words. However, as the etymology that compares the forms fathers and father is different from the etymology that compares father and pater, we have, of etymology, two sorts: one dealing with the changes of form that words undergo in one and the same language (father, fathers), the other dealing with the changes that words undergo in passing from one language to another (pater, father).