AN GAODHAL.
725
ledge of anything, the image, photograph, stamp,
impression, or whatever you like to call it, of that
thing on our brain, is called an idea. We have so
to speak changed the material object into brain-cur¬
rency and we use the counters as we would the
things they represent. We abstract, compare,
judge, by the helps of and with these ideas, and
we would pass to others the coins our brain mind
has stamped we make use of certain other devices
called words. They are the bill of exchange in the
commerce of mind with mind and as bills represent
money and as money represent value so words rep¬
resent ideas and ideas represent things. Now ideas
are not independent one of the other but like the
things they represent they fall naturally into
groups. Thus I see a man give another a dollar.
His act produces in me the idea of giving, I see the
dollar and recognize in it immediately a gift and
the person giving suggests the notion giver. The
three things represented all spring from a common
stock, so do the words which stand for these things.
Thus give giver, gift, the part gif (v) is common
to the three words just as the notion of donation is
common to the three ideas and this part is what
conveys the essential idea and is therefore what I
mean by the term Root.
2. In the above example you will have remarked
the means taken to evolve the elementary notion of
donation contained in the sound Gif. Certain syl¬
lables wers added accompanied by changes in
the body of the Root resulting in give, giver,
gift. Each of these terminations, e, er, t, added
something to the fundamental notion by which it
came to stand for certain defined things, confin¬
ed it to the act of giving, er to the agent in this
act, and to the thing which was the object of the
act. The idea is no longer hazy and ill defined but
is cut off and well distinguished from all others and
becomes as distinct from the general notion as the
individual represented is distinct from the class in
which he is contained. This is what is called a
determination of the radical idea to a precise con¬
ception the pinning down of the notion contained
in the root to one single definite clear thought and
the word expressing this precise and well defined
concept is known as the stem. Stems then are
modifications of the roots by internal changes by
the addition of terminations or by both converting
the radical idea into the precise conception in¬
tended.
3. It will be remarked that as yet this conception
is expressed absolutely and without reference to
other conceptions. However, as the usual work
of our mind is to compare ideas, we have to go a
step further, and express the relation of the idea to
other ideas. Take the expression the "giver's hand,"
here we have a certain relation, namely possession
expressed by another termination, or, as it is call¬
ed, inflection 's. Again, if we relate the idea give
to time past we get gave which is a change in the
body of the word but is also called inflection. In¬
flections therefore are formed in the very same way
as stem terminations and comprise all these add¬
itions to and changes in a stem to denote its rela¬
tion to other ideas,
4. In nouns, and it is of nouns we treat here,
there are two great classes of relations which are
generly denoted by inflections. In the example
given above, "the giver's hand," the relationship
of possession is expressed — in Latin we can say
dedit datori, he gave to the giver, where the ter¬
mination expresses the person who receives and
so on. These and the like terminations are called
case-endings and case is the name for the relation
the noun bears to other words.
5. The second great class of relations consists
of those which the stem-idea bears to unity, wheth¬
er for example the word represents one, two, three
or more individuals e. g., man, men,
cos a foot, dhá chois two feet, cosa feet,
and the changes representing this fall under num¬
ber.
6. Declension is the process by which the sever¬
al cases and numbers of a word are formed and as
you see from the definition of case and number it
must consist in the addini on of certain endings to
or changes in a common base or stem.
7. Lastly we come to Gender which is the rela¬
tion which the word bears or is supposed to bear
to sex. We may say here "that Gender is no nat¬
ral distinction in language," feminine nouns were
originally nothing but a class of nouns with a diff¬
erent termination, in fact a special base (stem);
whereas masculine and neuter nouns were formed
from one common base and differ only in the nom¬
natives and in the plural nominatives and accusa¬
tives. So if we decline bonus, bona,
bonum (maith) we must remember that
bona is not an inflection of a masculine stem, as
boni, the genitive is cf. maith, maithe,)
there is a base bono from which is formed the masc.
bonus (originally bono-s) and the neuter bonum
(bono-m), and another distinct base bona, from
which the nom bona is shortened, and bona (bona-
i) is formed; and this by use came to be restricted
to goodness in a woman. *
To sum up. In a word three stages can be dis¬
tinguished, 1st the Root or radical portions of
words. There contain the essential idea but in
their nude form never enter into the current use of
language. It must however be borne in mind that
though "our analysis ends with roots, and to us,
roots are the beginning of the speech of our race
......... they were not the beginnings to our fore¬
fathers ........ There is no new thing under the sun
......... speech grew and decayed then as now .........
Roots are not the beginning of speech ........ They
are only excellent tables to show that a lot of words
form one class and another lot a distinct class and
that the two classes must not be mixed. But Roots
are nothing more. || 2nd, we have the word itself
in its simple and uninflected state, formed if a
primitive, from a root, if a derivative, from a
pre-existing primitive by certain changes. 3rd, the
word itself as it appears in ordinary speech modi¬
fied by inflections which represent either the defi¬
nite qualifications of the idea as gender and number
of nouns, or its relations of agreement or subordi¬
nation as persons and moods of verbs. † For ex¬
ample in the Latin word dominus we have the first
stage or Root dom — second stage or stem dom-ino,
third stage or inflected word dom-ino-s = dominus,
which is the word as it appears when subject of a
setence. §
§2. FIRST PRINCIPLES.
If stems and suffixes and inflections had always
remained and recognizable, our work would not be
* Peile Philology ch. V. §30.
|| ib. ch. IV. §15.
† Greene. Hebrew Gram. §67.
§ McSweney Introductin te Windisch's Compen¬
dium.
