ARTICLES. In the later development of lan guages, logical fulness and accuracy are attained at the expense of conciseness and delicacy; and if not before, at least in this stage the small words called articles are uniformly produced. If we confined our view to the languages which are derived from Latin, we might easily believe that the presence of these parts of speech is a symptom and proof that the later and logical stage is already reached : for in French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, deri vatives from the Latin tile and UMW fulfil the part of the English the and a. Nor is the lesson taught by the Greek language apparently very different : for in its earliest extant specimens (the poems of Homer) the word O, rd, is far oftener used as a demonstrative or relative pronoun, than as the definite article. We seem to be able to trace its growth and establishment in this later function ; and we are tempted to infer from its appearing so much earlier in Greek than in Latin, that this is owing to the earlier development of logical acute ness in the Greek mind. Finally, in modern Greek, the old numeral sir, 1.v6s, one, has given birth to a new indefinite article gram, perfectly analogous to the Italian uno, French zin, and English a.
We are here perhaps in danger of building up a theory too rapidly. It is true that in languages generally, the early and poetical style is defective in articles, while the late prosaic, and logical style is even redundant with them. Nevertheless, we cannot safely infer a high logical cultivation, much less the attainment of the secondary stage of develop ment, from the presence of articles in a language. Hebrew has possessed a definite article as long as it can be traced back ; but it would be too much to impute it to an unusually strong and premature argumentative acuteness in the nations of Canaan, whose speech the family of Isaac adopted. That there is a germ of truth in this matter we believe ; but until the relation of the Syro-Arabian to the older languages which they supplanted is better understood, it is hazardous to engage in any of these speculations.
So much can be stated as fact. If a language has as yet no definite article, it will gradually form one out of its demonstrative pronoun, provided that it be not tied down to a fixed state by imitating classical models. Under the same circumstances, there is a tendency to generate an indefinite article out of the numeral one. Closely akin to the last is the use of the word that properly means single, in the sense of the indefinite article—a change which can be traced in the Bagdad dialect of Arabic.
In the Hebrew language the definite article, as printed in our books, appears under the form ii (ha), accompanied by a redoubling of the following consonant, if it be such a consonant as Hebrew euphony allows to be doubled. It is not to be questioned that the real word, when isolated, was (hal), corresponding to the Arabic ji (dl or el), especially as the final 1 in the Arabic article also is, in numerous cases, assimilated to the consonant which follows. The Hebrews have one demonstrative form 191 (elle) these, which approaches remarkably near to the Arabic ; and there is some reason for regarding as a composite, or at least an elongated form,. of which Nyr; (ha) he, is the root. To this attach themselves two different consonants to denote the ideas of THAT and THIS, L and DH, which latter becomes z or Din different dialects. The DH is found in pure Arabic (as, indeed in English, strange to think !); but in Hebrew it is z, in Chaldee D, in German D, in Greek T; though, in these Eu ropean tongues the idea of THAT predominates over THIS. The L is found in Latin (life, that) ; and the old Latin words olli, oltra, are thought to indicate that yon, yonder, is its primitive sense.
Just so, r,t6n(hrini) for ultra, beyond. As regards the form of the Hebrew article, it thus appears that the root ho or hit first took to itself the ter minating 4 and then in pronunciation gradually rubbed it off again.