of i into oi or ei, but not into o. Thus the root lip, which appears in élipon, assumes the forms leipo and léloipa, and the same scale of vowelchanges may be observed in

liph, aleipho, éloipha, and

pith, peithō, pépoitha.

Hence stoichos presupposes a root stich, and this root would account in Greek for the following derivations:

1, stix, gen. stichós, a row, a line of soldiers. 2, stichos, a row, a line; distich, a couplet.

3, steíchō, éstichon, to march in order, step by step; to mount.

4, stoichos, a row, a file; stoichein, to march in a line.

In German, the same root yields steigen, to step, to mount, and in Sanskrit we find stigh, to mount.

Quite a different root is presupposed by stóchos. As tómos points to a root tam (témno, étamon), or bólos to a root ba? (bélos, ébalon), thus stóchos points to a root stach. This root does not exist in Greek in the form of a verb, and has left behind in the classical language this one formation only, stóchos, mark, point, aim, whence stocházomai, I point, I aim, and similar derivatives. In Gothic, a similar root exists in the verb stiggan, the English to sting.

A third root, closely allied with, yet distinct from, stach, has been more prolific in the classical languages, namely, stig, to stick.1 From it we have slizō, éstigmai, I prick; in Latin, in-stigare, stimulus,

1 Grimm, Deutsche Sprache, p. 853.

V

and stilus (for stiglus, like palus for paglus); Gothic stikan, to stick, German stechen.

The result at which we thus arrive is, that stoicheion has no connection with stóchos, and hence that it cannot, as the dictionaries tell us, have the primary meaning of a small upright rod or pole, or of the gnomon of the sundial. Where stoicheion (as in dekárovv σtoixeîɔv, i. e. noon) is used with reference to the sundial, it means the lines of the shadow following each other in regular succession; the radii, in fact, which constitute the complete series of hours described by the sun's daily course. And this gives us the key to stoicheion, in the sense of elements. Stoicheia are the degrees or steps from one end to the other, the constituent parts of a whole, forming a complete series, whether as hours, or letters, or numbers, or parts of speech, or physical elements, provided always that such elements are held together by a systematic order. This is the only sense in which Aristotle and his predecessors could have used the word for ordinary and for technical purposes; and it corresponds with the explanation proposed by no less an authority than Dionysius Thrax. The first grammarian of Greece gives the following etymology of stoicheia in the sense of letters (§ 7):1-"The same are also called stoicheia, because they have a certain order and arrangement." Why the Romans, who probably became for the first time acquainted with the idea of ele

1 Τὰ δὲ αὐτὰ καὶ στοιχεῖα καλεῖται διὰ τὸ ἔχειν στοῖχόν τινα καὶ τάξιν. 2 The explanation here suggested of stvicheion is confirmed by some remarks of Professor Pott, in the second volume of his Etymologische Forschungen, p. 191, 1861. The same author suggests a derivation of elementum from root li, solvere, with the preposition ê. — L. c., p. 193.

ments through their intercourse with Greek philosophers and grammarians, should have translated stoicheia by elementa is less clear. In the sense of physical elements, the early Greek philosophers used rizómata, roots, in preference to stoicheia, and if elementa stands for alimenta, in the sense of feeders, it may have been intended originally as a rendering of rizómata.

From an historical point of view, letters are not the stoicheia or rizómata of language. The simplest parts into which language can be resolved are the roots, and these themselves cannot be further reduced without destroying the nature of language, which is not mere sound, but always significant sound. There may be roots consisting of one vowel, such as i, to go, in Sanskrit, or ", one, in Chinese; but this would only show that a root may be a letter, not that a letter may be a root. If we attempted to divide roots like the Sk. chi, to collect, or the Chinese tchi, many, into tch and i, we should find that we had left the precincts of language, and entered upon the science of phonetics. Before we do this before we proceed to dissect the phonetic skeleton of human speech, it may be well to say a few words about roots. In my former Lectures I said, intentionally, very little about roots; at least very little about the nature or the origin of roots, because I believed, and still believe, that in the science of language we must accept roots simply as ultimate facts, leaving to the physiologist and the psychologist the question as to the possible sympathetic or reflective action of the five organs of sensuous perception upon the motory nerves of the organs

of speech. It was for that reason that I gave a negative rather than a positive definition of roots, stating that, for my own immediate purposes, I called root or radical whatever, in the words of any language or family of languages, cannot be reduced to a simpler or more original form.

It has been pointed out, however, with great logical acuteness, that, if this definition were true, roots would be mere abstractions, and as such unfit to explain the realities of language. Now, it is perfectly true, that, from one point of view, a root may be considered as a mere abstraction. A root is a cause, and every cause, in the logical acceptation of the word, is an abstraction. As a cause it can claim no

reality, no vulgar reality; if we call real that only which can become the object of sensuous perception. In real language, we never hear a root; we only meet with their effects, namely, with words, whether nouns, adjectives, verbs, or particles. This is the view which the native grammarians of India have taken of Sanskrit roots; and they have taken the greatest pains to show that a root, as such, can never emerge to the surface of real speech; that there it is always a word, an effect, a substance clothed in the garment of grammatical derivatives. The Hindus call a root dhatu, which is derived from the root dha,2 to sup

2 Unâdi Sûtras, i. 70, dudhâñ dhâraṇaposhaṇayoḥ. Hetů, the Sanskrit word for cause, cannot be referred to the same root from which dhâtu is derived; for though dhd forms the participle hita, the i of hi-ta would not be liable to guna before tu. Hetû (Unâdi Sûtras, i. 73) is derived from hi, which Bopp identifies with xiw (Bopp, Glossarium, s. v. hi). This kéw and kivéw are referred by Curtius to the Latin cio, cieo, citus, excito, not however to the Sanskrit hi, but to root si, to sharpen. — Cf. Curtius, G. E., i. P. 118.

port or nourish. They apply the same word to their five elements, which shows that, like the Greeks, they looked upon these elements (earth, water, fire, air, ether), and upon the elements of language, as the supporters and feeders of real things and real words. It is known that, in the fourth century B. c., the Hindus possessed complete lists, not only of their roots, but likewise of all the formative elements, which, by being attached to them, raise the roots into real words.

Thus from a root vid, to know, they would form by means of the suffix ghan, Veda, i. e. knowledge; by means of the suffix trich, vettar, a knower, Greek histōr and i̇stōr. Again, by affixing to the root certain verbal derivatives, they would arrive at vedmi, I know, viveda, I have known, or veda, I know. Besides these derivatives, however, we likewise find in Sanskrit the mere vid, used, particularly in compounds, in the sense of knowing; for instance, dharmavid, a knower of the law. Here, then, the root itself might seem to appear as a word. But such is the logical consistency of Sanskrit grammarians, that they have actually imagined a class of derivative suffixes, the object of which is to be added to a root for the sole purpose of being rejected again. Thus only could the logical conscience of Pâṇini be satisfied. When we should say that a root is used as a noun without any change except those that are

1 In earlier works the meaning of dhâtu is not yet so strictly defined. In the Prâtisâkhya of the Rigveda, xii. 5, a noun is defined as that which signifies a being, a verb as that which signifies being, and as such the verb is identified with the root (Tan nâma yenâbhidadhâti sattvam, tad âkhyântam yena bhâvam, sa dhâtuḥ). In the Nirukta, too, verbs with different verbal terminations are spoken of as dhâtus. - Nighantu, i. 20.