utterance. A: the same time, I think similar general conclusions will be arrived at, by comparing any two speeches, the one inflected, the other uninflected, or marked, the one by weak, the other by strong, inflections.

LECTURE XVIII.

GRAMMATICAL INFLECTIONS.

IV.

In order to comprehend and appreciate the nature and extent of the change which English has undergone in the transformation from an inflected to a comparatively uninflected structure, we must cast a glance at the grammatical system of the Anglo-Saxon, from which modern English is chiefly derived. The border-land of the Scandinavian and Teutonic races, whence the Anglo-Saxon invaders of England appear to have emigrated, has always been remarkable for the number of its local dialects, and it is very doubtful whether there is anywhere to be found a district of so narrow extent with so great a multitude of tongues, or rather jargons. The Frisic, which may be said, as a whole, to bear a closer resemblance than any other linguistic group to the English, differs so much in different localities, that the dialects of Frisian parishes, separated only by a narrow arm of the sea, are often quite unintelligible to the inhabitants of each other.* The general ultimate tendency of this confusion

It is not always safe to rely on the vocabularies of philologists who collect words to sustain theories, and therefore we may doubt the accuracy of the gener

of tongues is undoubtedly towards uniformity, out uniformity must be attained by mutual concessions. Each dialect must sacrifice most of its individual peculiarities before a common speech can be framed out of the whole of them. These peculiarities lie much in inflection. The dialects, it may be predicted, will be harmonized by dropping discordant endings; and if the Frisic shall survive long enough to acquire a character of unity, it will be very nearly what the

alizations of most inquirers into the Frisic patois. If we can depend on the testimony of unprejudiced observers, or of the people themselves, there is no such unity of speech among those who employ what, for want of a better term, or to support particular ethnological views, are collectively called the Frisian dialects, as to entitle them to a unity of designation. According to Kohl, the most acute and observant of travellers in Europe, "The commonest things, which are named almost alike all over Europe, receive quite different names in the different Frisic islands. Thus, in Amrum, father is called Aatj; on the Halligs, Baba or Babe; in Sylt, Foder or Vaar; in many districts on the main land Tate; in the eastern part of Föhr, Oti or Ahitj. Although these people live within a couple of [German] miles from each other, these words differ more than père, pater, padre, Vater, and father used for the same purpose by the French, Latins, Italians, Germans, and English, who are separated by hundreds of leagues. We find among the Frisians not only primitive Germanic words, but what may be called common European radicals, which different localities seem to have distributed among them."

"Even the names of their districts and islands are totally different in different dialects. For instance, the island called by the Frisians who speak HighGerman, Sylt, is called by the inhabitants Söl, in Föhr Sol, and in Amrum Sal."

"The people of Amrum call the Frisians Fräsk, with the vowel short; in the southern districts, the word is Freeske, with a long vowel; elsewhere it is pronounced Fraasche." Kohl. II., Chap. XX.

It appears further, from the same excellent writer, that these numerous dialects are intelligible only to the inhabitants of the narrow localities where they are indigenous, and that their variations are too great to permit the grammars and glossaries which have yet appeared to be regarded as any thing more than expositions of the peculiarities of individual patois, and by no means as authorities for the existence of any such general speech as the imaginary Frisic of linguistic theories. The argument for the oneness of these dialects rests chiefly on negatives. It may be said of each of them: it is not Danish nor Dutch, nor Low-German nor High-German, but, at the same time, they all resemble any one of these languages very nearly as much as they do each other. See Lecture II.

English would have been without the introduction of so many words of Romance origin.

Such a process as this the Anglo-Saxon actually underwent in England, and accordingly its flectional system, in the carliest examples which have come down to us, is less complete than in either of the Gothic tongues that contributed to its formation. In fact, the different Angle and Saxon dialects employed in England never thoroughly amalgamated, and there was always much irregularity and confusion in orthography and the use of inflections, so that the accidence of the language, in no stage of it, exhibits the precision and uniformity of that of the Icelandic or the Moso-Gothic.

In giving a general sketch of the grammar of our ancient Anglican speech, I shall not notice local or archaic peculiarities of form, and the statements I make may be considered as applicable to the Anglo-Saxon in the best period of its literature, and, with unimportant exceptions, true of all its distinguishable dialects.

In general, then, we may say that the article, noun, adjective and pronoun were declinable, having different forms for the three genders, for four cases, and for the singular and plural numbers; besides which, the personal pronoun of the first and second persons had a dual, or form exclusively appropriated to the number two. This, in the first person, was wit, we two; in the second, git, you two. The possessive had also a dual. The adjective, as in the other Gothic languages, had two forms of inflection, the one employed when the adjective was used without a determinative, the other when it was preceded by an article or a pronoun agreeing also with the noun. These forms are called, respectively, the indefinite and the definite. Thus, the adjective corresponding to good, used in the definite form singular, or with a

determinative, makes the nominative masculine góda, feminine góde, neuter, góde; the genitive or possessive, gódan, for all the genders. When used without a determina⚫tive, the nominative is gód, for the three genders; the genitive or possessive, gódes, for the masculine and neuter, and gódre for the feminine. The adjective was also regularly compared much as in the modern English augmentative form, but not by more and most.

The verbs had four moods: the indicative, subjunctive, im perative and infinitive, and but two tenses, the present or in definite, used also as a future, and the past. There were, how ever, compound tenses in the active voice, and a passive voice formed as in modern English by the aid of other verbs. In English the auxiliaries are generally used simply as indications of time, as, he will sing, which is merely a future of the verb to sing, like the Latin cantabit; he had sung, the Latin cantaverat. In Saxon, on the other hand, the auxiliary usually retained its independent meaning, and was more rarely employed as a mere determinative. Thus willan, corresponding to our will, when used with an infinitive, did not form a future, but always expressed a purpose, as indeed it still often does, and with the remarkable exception of the verb beon, to be, which is generally future, the Saxon had absolutely no method of expressing the future by any form or combination of verbs, so that the context alone determines the time.

While, then, the English article has but one form for all cases, genders and numbers, the Saxon had ten. Our noun has two forms, one for the nominative and objective, one for the possessive and plural; or, in the few nouns with the strong plural inflection, four, as man, man's, men, men's; generally the Saxon had five or six. The modern adjective