Klein : Clean :: Petit : Petitus.
It shows the extent to which certain ideas are associated. It shows, too, something more; it shows that such an association is capable of being demonstrated from the phenomena of language instead of being a mere à priori speculation on the part of the mental philosopher.
Klein is the German for little; clean is our own English adjective, the English of the Latin word mundus. In German the word is rein.
Now, notwithstanding the difference of meaning in the two tongues, clean and klein are one and the same word. Yet, how are the ideas of cleanliness and littleness connected? The Greek language has the word hypocorisma, meaning a term of endearment, and the adjective hypocoristic. Now, clean-ness, or neat-ness, is one of the elements that make hypocoristic terms (or terms of endearment) applicable. And so is smallness. We talk of pretty little dears, a thousand times, where we talk of pretty big dears once. This, then, explains the connexion; this tells us that clean in English is klein in German, word for word.
You doubt it, perhaps. You shake your head, and say, that the connexion seems somewhat indefinite; that it is just one of those points which can neither be proved nor disproved. Be it so. The evidence can be amended. Observe the words petit and petitus. Petit (in French) is exactly what klein is in German, i. e., little. Petitus (in Latin) is very nearly what clean is in English, i. e., desired, or desirable. That petit comes from petitus is undeniable.
Hence, where the German mode of thought connects the ideas of smallness and cleanness, the Latin connects those of smallness and desirability; so that as petit is to petitus, so is klein to clean. In the diagram this is given in the formula of a sum in the Rule of Three.
The words just noticed explain the connexion of ideas in the case of separate words. The forthcoming help us in a much more difficult investigation. What is the import of such sounds as that of the letter s in the word father-s? It is the sign of the plural number.
Such is the question—such the answer; question and answer connected in the word fathers solely for the sake of illustration. Any other word, and any other sign of case, number, person, or tense, would have done as well.
But is the answer a real one? Is it an answer at all? How come such things as plural numbers, and signs of plural numbers, into language? How the particular plural before us came into being, I cannot say; but I can show how some plurals have. Let us explain the following—