From the question of monosyllabic roots the next step should be the principle of word formation or derivation ; but a preliminary matter presents itself. There are those who would divide languages into genera, and claim for each a special formation. Thus we read of monosylla bic and polysyllabic languages, languages with triconsonantal roots, a synthetic or analytic method of formation, words formed by agglutina tion and others by internal change of the root syllable or syllables ; and lastly, affixes are treated by this writer as having in themselves no signification, by another as expressing the additional idea which their addition carries to the root-syllable or simpler word. In all this there appears to be a very large proportion of error. A deeper examination of languages will perhaps always lead to a common result, that the roots were originally of one syllable, and that longer words are formed by the agglutination of such roots, with the understanding, however, that the affixed syllables, though in themselves originally roots, play commonly a less important part in the construction of the composite word. It may be useful to point to the causes which have given cur rency to the errors we have been speaking of. To begin with the Chinese language and others commonly classified with it, we are told that it is a monosyllabic language," incapable of composition and con sequently without organism, without grammar" (Bopp., V. G., s. 108, and A. W. v. Schlegel, ibid.). In other words we are taught to believe that it is altogether like those one-syllable stories which are considerately placed before the eyes of the child, when it takes its first lessons in reading. Unfortunately our knowledge of Chinese was first obtained through a medium which produced much distortion. The distance of the country and the opposition of Chinese authorities to all intercourse with foreigners, were serious obstacles to the attainment of accurate information. Many of our Chinese scholars made their studies of the language at Singapore instead of China; and of those who have had opportunities for a nearer view, too ninny have found, even at Macao, but very imperfect means of mingling with educated natives. Again, what we commonly call Chinese seems to stand to the languages generally spoken in that country, much as Latin did a few centuries ago to the vulgar tongue of Italy or France. In other words it is rather a dead than a living tongue. But there has been a still greater hindrance in the channel through which Chinese is studied. Our scholars have learnt it, ae scholars always love to do, through books, rather than by oral communication. Thus, they have allowed themselves to be led astray by what is merely an accident of the written Language. The characters being monosyllabic, they have hastily assumed the language to be the same ; and thus Europeans commonly believe that the Chinese have been contented with a form of speech which, by its mere monotony, would have dispirited any other race of beings ; while some have thought that this painful monotony may be, in native practice, partially corrected by the mysterious influ ence of the so-called four tones. Such views are upset by the simple testimony of one who had the best opportunities of obtaining exact knowledge, the late English consul at Ningpo, Mr. Robert Thom. From him we learn that the Chinese, like our own tongue, though rich in monosyllabic words, has no scarcity of disyllables and polysyllables. In the preface to his ' Chinese Speaker' (Part. 1, Ningpo, 1846,) he directs one who would learn the language to try to get an intelligent native of Pekin to read the Chinese and to follow him on the English side of the page (that is the side with the Chinese written in English characters, and having an interlinear English translation) "as a clerk follows the parson in church ;" and he goes on to say, that such a student " cannot fail to observe, as he reads along, that many words are disyllables and not a few polysyllables ; that some are accented on the ultimate, others on the penult, and others again on the antepenult, &c." Indeed 31r. Thom was prevented from marking the said accents solely by the paucity of accentuated letters at his command. A short example from his book may be of use :— he'd Kwan-hwa lai tao shim-mo-t! ne ? Now-a-man in learning the Mandarine languago what is his object? Those who deny to the Chinese a grammar, seem to have started with wrong notions of what grammar is in their own language, and on that account alone have failed to find in Chinese that of which they were in search. The merest inspection of a Chinese grammar tells us that a certain syllable tai, or in Mandarine more commonly t1, affixed to a substantive, serves to express the relation which Europeans denote by the term "genitive case," that another syllable, tic for example, added may imply plurality, and so on with the other secondary notions of grammar. Thus Iti-tdi sing," the origin. of things," iren-rvang-tdi la shun, purity of the virtue of the Wen-vvang," or more literally, for the Chinese genitive always precedes, "the Wen-vvang's virtue's purity," tif denoting " virtue," and shun, So again, b'in is "a man," §in-tic, "men." It is also true that at times the mere proximity of two words is sufficient to express a relation between them without the formal employment of a special particle. So with us, the nominative and accusative are sufficiently pointed out by their mere position, whereas in Greek and Latin, a suitable affix is required for the office. So again we say moonlight, when we mean tho " moon's light." But it may by some be thought detrimental to what is here mid, that the syllables which the Chinese employ as affixes, have an original meaning of their own; for example, that the particle com monly meal, as above said, to denote the genitival relation, is at times titoyed as a verb equivalent to the prOcisci, In other words, onus of " departure." But here we have only a proof that the Chinese grammar is lees corrupted, purer, more simple, than our (mu; and we may further appeal to this instance in support of the doctrine, that all affixes were in origin themselves roots. It may also be noted that the °minden c if the genitival suffix though common in ordinary Chinese, occurs most rarely (" fast nien:als," says F.ndlicher)
In the Marine dialect. In truth, the further we trace a buying° back, the more certain are we to find the suffixes exprmsed, as in MAI:Ives twat, which is but a corruption of ilteoweereeer. Thus in the German smed-eiolicht„ the middle syllable may well be regarded as iirtually a genitive/ suffix, a bettor theory surely than that which regents it as a euphonic insertion.
But while we would ascribe the Elise theory of the monneyllahle eharacter of Chinese to the fact of our approaching the lauguage through its et,dleharium, so we have the converse error in the habit of attributing a specially polysyllabic or polysyuthetie character to Basque and the languages of North Americo'. Hera there is, or rather was, no written language, and the traveller had no choice but to take down what a native spoke, as he spoke it, and of course with many of what we usually regard as separate words, all jumbled together In one confused mars. We need search for DO better example than the poly syllabic term employed by the Axtecka hi addressing a priest, as given under this word in the GEOGDAPIIICAL DIVISION of this Cyclopedia. Shakspere, and the inhabitants of Iceland, use for this purpose, the sufficiently short term, " Sir," but the Mexican layman addressed the priest as nothuemeAluideopiseaolt:ia, which, being interpreted by Cisrigero, amounted to : no, " my," tiozos Ile, mahui:tie, " revered," " god-keeper," tatli," father." But the most formidable exception to this asserted law of mono syllabic roots is seen in the Semitic family, especially the Arabic and Hebrew, where it is maintained that all ultimate words are of two syllables, and contain three consonants. Nay, some continental scholars of the present day, carry their theory of Hebrew roots to the extreme point of denying it the possession of any vowel, so that ktt, according to them, is the root of the class of words signifying " kill." Such theorists seem to forget that spoken language has a priority over written language, for surely if they would picture to themselves the time when Hebrew was not yet written, they would find themselves in a" rc ductio ad absurdum," when declaring that to be a root which is con fessedly unpronounceable. No doubt in Hebrew, as we now have it, the vowels are very variable, so that for example, we find kG(11 denotes " killing," and killed." The Greeks too have such varieties as roie, town, raliaal; but this has not induced our classical scholars to exhibit the root of this aeries of words as VA. As to the variation of vowels within the limits of a root word, some remarks will presently be made; but to the doctrine that the roots of the Hebrew were originally disyllabic, we may oppose the strong belief of some of the ablest Hebrew scholars that this appearance is due solely to the fact, that secondary forma have supplanted the original simple stems. Soldierly in our language bellow, reckon, hates, begin, wallow, have pretty well usurped the places of the obsolete verbs, bell, reek, list, gin, well ; and similarly in Latin, sona-re, tone-re, lara-re, senti-re, cense-re, nuti.ri, might have primed for simple verbs, had not some of the older writers preserved for us such form as ton-intau, lar-ere, while the existence at an early date of such verbal bases as een- " puncture," " counting by prick of pin," sea- " fool," rats- " measure,' is esta blished by derivatives, as spa, erw-lram, the Homeric I-Kir-re; by the pert ab.,seloeite, ob.; and by menses, menoor, oetsuoirs, and silo (that is sues-ta), "a mile-stone," se to nay. But perhaps the most Instructive example of disyllabic verbs simulating primary verbs, occurs In Ilindestam, where the native grammarians lay it down as a general law that the simplest verbs, as in I lebrew, are disyllabic; yet the modern character of such a formation is at once establialsol by the consideration that the great body of this language lea deecersled from the Sanskrit, in which the monosyllable form of primary webs is undisputed.
The change of vowel In MN and L4141 belongs to a question which more conveniently considered presently, when the law of a ted vowels comes under consideration.
But it is not uncommon for philologers to imagine to themselves a distinction between what they are pleased to call synthetical and analytical languages. Thus they would contrast the habit of seine laturuagemto express secondary Ideas by affixes, as ',atria, patron, :crib°, serttem, orripai, Ac., with ethers, especially of modern date, which prefer to employ prepositions or torah -pronouns in the nominative or auxiliary earls; but It will be seen In the sequel that there is no substantial distinction between a caxwending and a prepo sition, that auxiliary vette are • niploycd in those affixes which belong to perfect tenon, and that the final letters of scribe, ser;Lii, are PS completely prArepplue In origin as the I and you which an Englishman prefixes to hi. wens. The real distinction is, that in the one ease the !auk words l'.-.' de, In the others follow, unless helmd any stress be Lid upon the corrupted form which often characterises affixes. Yet even here the distInctiou is not very marked, the letters Li iu alibi, stair, rob's, being as fully pronounced as our own by, the o of seribo scarcely more abbreviated than our own /, while I'm afraid, I 're dose, tell him, I'd like to know, have cut down the verbs am, here, will would, as far as possible short of annihilation. But take such a case of contrast as he did lore compared with he loved. When wo trace the latter form upward, we find in the Anglo-Saxon he !orate ; and If we ascend a step higher in the history of our language, so as to enter the domain of the Gothic, the oldest specimen of the German family, we feud good evidence that such a form as loreded existed, but of course with the regular personal endings, which belong to the Gothic preterite, attached. (Grimm's 'Cr.,' I. 840.) Thus the contrast is reduced to he lorc-daf as opposed to he did lore ; in other words, we have but a different arrangement of the same elements.