Lectures on the science of language delivered at the Royal institution of Great Britain, Volume 2Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1861 |
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Page 17
... remains something unexplained is sure to lead to the discovery of our error . There can be no error in nature ; the error must be with This conviction lived in the heart of Aristotle when , in spite of his imperfect knowledge of nature ...
... remains something unexplained is sure to lead to the discovery of our error . There can be no error in nature ; the error must be with This conviction lived in the heart of Aristotle when , in spite of his imperfect knowledge of nature ...
Page 42
... remains is a kind of metamorphic agglomerate which cannot be understood without a most minute microscopic ana- lysis . Here , then , you have an instance of what is meant by phonetic corruption ; and you will perceive how , not only the ...
... remains is a kind of metamorphic agglomerate which cannot be understood without a most minute microscopic ana- lysis . Here , then , you have an instance of what is meant by phonetic corruption ; and you will perceive how , not only the ...
Page 43
... remains of deux and dix . Language , therefore , has entered into a new stage as soon as it submits to the attacks of phonetic change . The life of lan- guage has become benumbed and extinct in those words or portions of words which ...
... remains of deux and dix . Language , therefore , has entered into a new stage as soon as it submits to the attacks of phonetic change . The life of lan- guage has become benumbed and extinct in those words or portions of words which ...
Page 108
... remains a riddle . It is self - evident that each language , in order to be a language , must be able to distinguish the subject from the object , the nominative from the accusative . But how a mere change of termination should suffice ...
... remains a riddle . It is self - evident that each language , in order to be a language , must be able to distinguish the subject from the object , the nominative from the accusative . But how a mere change of termination should suffice ...
Page 109
... remains entirely unexplained . In the same manner we learn that amo means I love , amavi I loved ; but why that tragical change from love to no love should be represented by the simple change of o to avi , or , in English , by the ...
... remains entirely unexplained . In the same manner we learn that amo means I love , amavi I loved ; but why that tragical change from love to no love should be represented by the simple change of o to avi , or , in English , by the ...
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Common terms and phrases
agglutinative ancient Anglo-Saxon Arabic Armenia Arya Aryan family Aryan languages Asia auxiliary verb Brahmans branch brutes Burnouf called Celtic Celts century Chinese classification common origin comparative grammar declension derived dialects Dionysius Thrax distinct distinguished doubt elements empire English express family of speech Finnic formation French genealogical genitive German Gothic grammarians grammatical forms Greek and Latin growth guage Hebrew Hervas High-German human speech idea India inflectional instance Italian Latin Lectures Leibniz likewise literary language literature Low-German means modern Mongolic nations nature never nouns origin of language Persian philosophers phonetic corruption physical sciences plough plural preserved primitive pronouns Provençal race recognised Roman Rome Samoyedic Sanskrit Saxon scholars science of language sense Slavonic speak spoken stage Strabo supposed Tataric terminations Teutonic thou tion translated tribes Tungusic Turanian Turanian family Turanian languages Turkic Turkish Ulfilas Veda verb vowels words Zend Zend-avesta Zoroaster
Popular passages
Page 31 - And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
Page 374 - The 400 or 500 roots which remain as the constituent elements in different families of language are not interjections, nor are they imitations. They are phonetic types BB produced by a power inherent in human nature. They exist, as Plato would say, by nature; though with Plato we should add that, when we say by nature, we mean by the hand of God.* There is a law which runs through nearly the whole of nature, that everything which is struck rings.
Page 373 - If it may be doubted, whether beasts compound and enlarge their ideas that way, to any degree: this, I think, I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having of general ideas, is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes; and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to.
Page 155 - The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists...
Page 58 - ... livelong day, become habituated to a language of their own. The more voluble condescend to the less precocious, and thus, from this infant Babel, proceeds a dialect composed of a host of mongrel words and phrases, joined together without rule, and in the course of a generation the entire character of the language is changed...
Page 361 - The assignation of particular names to denote particular objects, that is, the institution of nouns' substantive, would, probably, be one of the first steps towards the formation of language. Two savages, who had never been taught to speak, but had been bred up remote from the societies of men, would naturally begin to form that language, by which...
Page 362 - It is this application of the name of an individual to a great multitude of objects, whose resemblance naturally recalls the idea of that individual, and of the name which expresses it, that seems originally to have given occasion to the formation of those classes and assortments which, in the schools, are called genera and species.
Page 284 - I am, thou art, he is, we are, you are, they are ; or even the Latin, 's-um, es, es-t, 'su-mus, es-tis, 'sunt.
Page 362 - Could we suppose any person living on the banks of the Thames so ignorant as not to know the general word river but to be acquainted only with the particular word Thames, if he was brought to any other river, would he not readily call it a Thames?
Page 373 - Greek language is logos, but logos means also reason, and alogon was chosen as the name, and the most proper name, for brute. No animal thinks, and no animal speaks, except man. Language and thought are inseparable. Words without thought are dead sounds; thoughts without words are nothing. To think is to speak low ; to speak is to think aloud. The word is the thought incarnate. And now I am afraid I have but a few minutes left to explain the last question of all in our science, namely —How can...