belongs to the case ending by itself: and as the requirements of language become more complicated, they become more and more necessary to distinctness and accuracy in language. Hence they are often used in prose where they would be omitted in poetry1; and it is always the case which determines the meaning of the preposition, not vice versa.

In modern Greek, and in the derivatives of Latin, prepositions have almost superseded cases; and the growing tendency to use them appears in the New Testament, where they are far more numerous than in classical Greek2; and in e. g. the practice of the Emperor Augustus3, who made use of them in order to speak as clearly as possible. We are told that he preferred to say 'impendere in aliquam rem,' 'includere in carmine' (instead of 'alicui rei,' 'carmine'). The tendency is found often enough in earlier times, e. g. 'ad carnificem dare' (Ter.), ' Fulgorem reverentur ab auro' (Verg.).

(ii.) From the difficulty of retaining distinctions of tense comes the use of active auxiliary verbs. In the passive voice sum was always so employed; and traces of a similar use e.g. of dare are found in phrases like inventum dabo, Ter. And. iv. I. 59, vasta dabo=vastabo, Verg. Aen. i. 63; ix. 323. Habere and tenere (avoir, avere; Spanish tengo, tenere) must have been so used in later dialectical pronunciation; we have perhaps an anticipation of this in the classical expertum, cognitum habeo. The passive auxiliary construction with sum, etc. is obtained by an easy resolution of any tense in that voice: but the propriety of the active habeo or teneo is not so obvious. It may, however, have been extended by analogy from cases in which such analysis was correct to others in which it could not be so employed with strict accuracy.

1 e.g. ab, ad, with ablat. or accus. of motion; or ab with 'ablativus agentis.'

e. g. oliovoiv ånò тŵv fixíwv, eat of the crumbs,' where classical Greek would employ the 'partitive genitive' alone. See Farrar's Greek Syntax, pp. 86, 87.

3 Praecipuam curam duxit sensum animi quam apertissime exprimere; quod quo facilius exprimeret, aut nec ubi lectorem vel auditorem turbaret et moraretur, nec prepositiones verbis addere, neque conjunctiones iterare

(iii.) Next to these changes, founded on pronunciation and on the substitution of prepositions and auxiliary verbs for noun and verb inflections, the usage of the definite and indefinite article seems the most considerable step in the transmutation of Latin into its derivative languages. The development of the definite article from a demonstrative pronoun, which is seen in the Romanic forms il, lo, etc., derived from Latin ille, took place in Greek at an early period, but within historical observation1; for we see it beginning in the Homeric poems in the use, beside the demonstrative os, of a parallel form & also demonstrative, but in certain collocations suggesting the later use as definite article, e. g. d ἄρ ̓ ἀμείβετο Πάλλας ̓Αθήνη, etc. The Greek language thus gained an important element of precision, and facility for the combination and grammatical handling of abstract ideas, e. g. by the article with infinitive or neuter adjective; and though little or no attempt seems to have been made in the literary dialect of Rome to create a corresponding means of precision by an analogous employment of the Latin demonstrative pronoun, there are not wanting signs that the necessity for it was felt and partly acted upon in popular language, by the employment of ille and unus with the force of a definite and indefinite article respectively2. Were this not the case, the evidence of the Romanic languages would be sufficient proof that, at all events in the provincial idioms of the later Empire, this usage had become more or less established. The same development of definite article from demonstrative seems to have taken place in the Teutonic languages; for in German der (like ôs, ó) is

dubitavit, quae detractae afferunt aliquid obscuritatis etsi gratiam augent.' Suetonius, Vita Octaviani,' lxxxvi.

N.B. The last words of this quotation recognise the fact that analytic languages gain in accuracy what they lose in conciseness.

On the history and usages of the Greek article see Curtius' Greek Grammar, §§ 365-391; Clyde's Greek Syntax, §§ 3-9. The latter book is a very valuable aid to the student of Greek grammar.

2 The theory of grammarians in this matter seems to have gone contrary to the practice of those who spoke and used the language. Quinctilian (I. O. i. 4. 19) says, 'Noster sermo articulos non desiderat;' and Scaliger called the article otiosum loquacissimae gentis instrumentum,' 'articulus nobis est nullus et Graecis superfluus.'

demonstrative, relative, and definite article; and in English that and which are often interchangeable.

For further suggestions upon the relation of the Romanic languages to Latin, the reader may consult Max Müller's Lectures, Series I. Lecture v. and Hallam's Middle Ages, chap. IX. part I.

CHAPTER III.

CLASSIFICATION OF SOUNDS.

phonetic

THE division of sounds and of the letters representing them in Principles of the alphabets of different languages, according to the organs of change. the human voice by which the sounds are produced, is the basis upon which enquiries into the mutual connection of languages, and all etymology, must ultimately rest. In tracing the original form or the common element of words or their inflections in one or more languages, we are retracing the course of 'phonetic change; the changes i.e. in the sounds and the letters representing them, by which, while languages are in daily use as media of oral communication, variety or degeneration from simple and primitive forms have been produced. The principle of this phonetic change is the endeavour, conscious or unconscious, to secure ease of articulation. 'All articulate sounds are produced by effort, by expenditure of muscular energy in the throat, lungs, and mouth. This effort, like every other that man makes, he has an instinctive disposition to seek relief from, to avoid we may call it laziness, or we may call it economy: it is in fact either the one or the other, according to the circumstances of each particular case. It is laziness when it gives up more than it gains; it is economy when it gains more than it abandons.'

Ease of articulation is secured in the majority of cases by substituting a sound easier to pronounce for one which is found difficult a weaker for a stronger sound: and (with some few

Physical conditions of

voice.

exceptions) it is a safe rule in etymology that harder sounds are not derived from easier, nor a word which has retained a strong sound from one which exhibits a correspondingly weak sound; nor, therefore, a language in which individual forms retain strong sounds from a language whose corresponding forms retain weaker sounds. Thus (to take a simple instance) such forms as silva, sus, video, vinum beside vλŋ, îs, ideîv, oivos, go far to prove what has already been demonstrated upon the evidence of inflections (above, p. 16), that Latin cannot have been derived from Greek, having retained in these words the sounds s and v (F), which Greek has lost, or represents only by an aspirate.

But what are hard or strong, and easy or weak sounds? and how is the relative strength of sounds determined? Obviously by the physical conditions of their utterance. Hard sounds are those which require greater physical effort on the part of the organs of speech, easier sounds those which require less effort. The table given on p. 29 exhibits the sounds arranged according to the physical conditions of their production: and without a minute investigation of those physical conditions (for which the student is referred to Max Müller's Lectures, Series II. Lect. iii. on "The Physiological Alphabet'), a brief statement of them is necessary for the explanation of the terms employed.

The voice, then, is a continuous stream of air from the lungs, the human changed as it leaves the 'larynx' (i.e. the upper end of the trachea or windpipe) into vocal sound by the vibration of two ligaments called chordae vocales, and modified by the different positions, or interrupted and compressed by various actions of the uvula, tongue, palate, teeth, and lips, which thus become organs of voice1.

1 For a fuller description of the instruments of the human voice, see Max Müller's Lectures, Series II. Lect. iii. (pp. 109-114, 2nd ed.), and Farrar's 'Chapters on Language,' ch. vii. pp. 84, 85: When we are speaking we are in reality playing on a musical instrument, and a more perfect instrument than ever was invented by man.' The larynx, with its cartilages and muscles, forms, in point of fact, a combination of musical instruments; it is at once a trumpet, an organ, a hautboy, a flageolet, and an Aeolian harp. The air passing upwards and downwards through the larynx and trachea forms its analogy with the wind-instruments; the