Indian Antiquary Vol 14

SR No.: 032506
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 418
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 140

122
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1885.
is this: that, in the observable history of languages, | the former, but that we have no reason to regard we see abundant instances of the production of them as made in any other way. That is to say, new formative elements, new signs of grammatical this is the only, and the sufficient, method of distinction; and that it is always and only by a explanation of the structural growth of language, reduction to formative or grammatical value which the historical study of language has yet of previously existing material elements of brought to light. Any other, even concurrent one, speech, whence a sound linguistic philosophy must wait for admission until a historical basis forces us to the inference that the same has been has been found for it. Moreover, this kind of the case from the beginning, and that the way to reduction of material elements to a formal value grammatical expression lies only through com- is only one division of the most pervading of all bination. With regard to this point, Professor movements in the development of language. It Kuhn is in a very hopeful state, as appears from is not easy to see why Professor Kuhn should the concluding paragraphs of his paper. He have referred only to the suffixes of our ventures there to raise a word of protest against European languages. Their auxiliaries and formwhat he calls the "hitherto accepted philosophy words are a still closer parallel to the formative of language." The latter, he says, is at a loss to apparatus of less developed tongues and infind out words of condemnation severe enough volve processes of adaptation as gross and coarse for languages guilty of mixing up material and as any that the latter can exhibit. Thus, to form, by applying words of recognizably ma. take the nearest example at hand, the German terial content to those uses for which we provide and English alike have a substantive verb, er. by suffixes --asis to a great extent the case in the pressing the fundamental grammatical relation of tongues of which he has been treating. He, on predication, which is pieced together out of the contrary, is inclined to note their analogy fragments of three verbe having the mate. with such elements in his own language as-thum, rial senses of grow,' stay,' and 'sit' (or else -achaft -heit,-bar, all of them demonstrably breathe): the Romanic tongues have patched material in origin. "Wherever," he adds, "we in 'stand' instead of stay.' And to denote its see suffixes come into being, they come in this temporal and modal relations, they employ various way; and we may with some reason (mit einigem verbs traceable to the material senses of turn,' Rechte) infer that they have in general been thus seize,'be big or strong,' select' (with a probable originated." Here is a very encouraging bit further background of surround'), 'be under penalof independence and good sense; and the author ty' (perhaps ultimately have committed a crime'), has only to go on boldly on the same track to and so on. Our phraseology, too, is crammed escape altogether the shackles of the now pre- with examples of the same kind. What has the valent philosophy of language in Germany, and present accepted philosophy of language to say of to substitute for it the true scientific and his. such expressions, for example, as es fällt mir ein torical method. That philosophy has really as ("it falls in to me') or "it occurs to (i.e. 'runs little to do with the science of language as the against ') me," for that extremely familiar but Hegelian philosophy with geology or zoology. The also transcendentally mysterious act of framing a former is all well in its way, but it does not stand sudden conception ? And is not all our intellectual upon the same plane with the other, and nothing and moral language made up of such grossly but detriment and confusion can come of their material elements ? Of their grossness, the mind mixture. The only justifiable scientific method, in that uses them is totally unconscious, and the the study of language, as in every other branch of intellectual action that underlies them is alike in scientific inquiry, is to reason back from the all those who employ their unending vaxiety. To known to the unknown. And the argument, as bay heap-man instead of men or Männer, to us not long ago stated in the pages of the American who have the latter forms, is of an amusing rudeJournal of Philology, Vol. I. p. 337, runs thus:- ness; 80 would be I shall have been, if employed If in the historical periods of language we see with etymological understanding of its elemente formative elements made by the agglutination of by one accustomed to say fuero; but to one whose independent material words, and do not see them habitual expression it has become, the sense of niade in any other way, and if the grammatical the grammatical relation, of plurality and so forth, relations thus provided for are of the same kind, is in either case just as pure and as integral as is and not less difficult, than those expressed by the that of the synthetic form to its user. Those other formative elements whose history is beyond who have to learn a tongue of ruder structure do our ken, then it necessarily follows, not merely not find the character of their mental apprehenthat we have some reason" to regard the latter sions degraded by it. The process of thought is elementa as having been made in the same way as the same with either instrument. To get at the