An Inquiry Into the Structure and Affinity of the Greek and Latin Languages: With Occasional Comparisons of the Sanskrit and Gothic : and an Appendix, in which the Derivation of the Sanskrit from the Greek is Endeavoured to be Established |
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An Inquiry Into the Structure and Affinity of the Greek and Latin Languages ... George Dunbar No preview available - 2020 |
Common terms and phrases
abbreviated accusative active voice adjectives Æolic afterwards ancient appears Attic Attic dialect augment became changed closing vowel consonants contracted converted dative declension denote deponent verbs derived digamma diphthong Doric dual elided elision employed Eolic evident express feminine formation formed genitive Gothic Grammarians Greek alphabet Greek and Latin Greek language Greek verbs guage guttural aspiration hence Herodotus Homer imperative imperfect instance Ionic dialect iota Lanzi Latin languages Latin verb letter liquid verbs manner masculine middle voice mination mood motion Murray nature neuter nominative nouns observed omitted opinion originally participle passive Pelasgi perf perfect person plural person singular Plur prefixed present preterite probably pronoun quæ remarked Roman Sanskrit says second aorist second future second person shew sigma signifies sound subjoined subjunctive suppose syllable tenses termination third person third plural tion tive tribes vowel writing δὲ ἐν καὶ οἱ
Popular passages
Page 42 - Thus we may conceive how words which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, come to be made use of by men, as the signs of their ideas; not by any natural connexion that there is between particular articulate sounds and certain ideas, for then there would be but one language amongst all men; but by a voluntary imposition, whereby such a word is made arbitrarily the mark of such an idea.
Page 40 - It may also lead us a little towards the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas; and how those which are made use of to stand for actions and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and from obvious sensible ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of our senses...
Page 41 - The comfort and advantage of society not being to be had without communication of thoughts, it was necessary that man should find out some external sensible signs, whereof those invisible ideas, which his thoughts are made up of, might be made known to others.
Page 41 - ... are all words taken from the operations of sensible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. Spirit, in its primary signification, is breath ; angel, a messenger ; and I doubt not, but if we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all languages, the names, 2 I which stand for things that fall not under our senses, to have had their first rise from sensible ideas.
Page 41 - ... sense, have their rise from thence, and from obvious sensible ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of our senses : v, g. to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, instil, disgust, disturbance, tranquillity, &c. are all words taken from the operations of sensible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking.
Page 161 - The voice was kept up, and this inserted vowel gradually slid into union with that which supported the pronoun, and formed with it a long sound, expressive of suspense and incomplete indication. The optative of all tenses had a similar origin. In wishing, we dwell on the word, and give it an unusual emphasis, the sign of strong, lingering, ardent desire.
Page 160 - ... DEDHATI, they hold ; instead of DEDHAWAH, DEDHATHAH, DEDHANTAH ; and DEDHAMAH, DEDHATHA, DEDHANTI. See the whole of the third conjugation of Sanscrit verbs in Wilkins's Grammar, p. 198 — 212, and particularly of DEDHAMI, I hold, and DEDAMI, I give, p. 203. The subjunctive of all Greek, Sanscrit, and Teutonic verbs, arose from laying an emphasis, expressive of the conditional state of the mind, on the last syllable of the verb immediately before the personal pronoun. This emphasis not only drew...
Page 138 - Number, Person, are no parts of the VERB. But these same circumstances frequently accompanying the Verb, are then signified by other words expressive of these circumstances: and again, in some languages, these latter words, by their perpetual recurrence, have coalesced with...
Page 41 - ... might be made known to others. For this purpose nothing was so fit, either for plenty or quickness, as those articulate sounds, which with so much ease and variety he found himself able to make. Thus we may conceive how words which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, come to be made use of by men, as the signs of their ideas; not by any natural connexion that there is between particular articulate sounds and certain ideas, for then there would be but one language amongst all men;...
Page 15 - Nomina verbaque non positu fortuito, sed quadam vi et ratione naturae facta esse, P. Nigidius in Grammaticis Commentariis docet ; rem sane in philosophiae dissertationibus celebrem. Quaeri enim solitum apud philosophos, evmt rci cM/taTa. sint, »; Siesi. In earn rem multa argumenta dicit, cur videri possint verba esse naturalia magis, quam arbitraria. Ex quibus hoc visum est lepidum et festivum :