In the following passages there are three in succession :

.6 :3 and so ; וַיַּעַשׂ אֱלֹהִים אֶת־חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ 25 :1 .Gen וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָא־לָוֹ הָאָדָם 19 :2

ARTICLE IV.

A COMPARISON OF THE GREEK AND LATIN VERBS.

By W. D. Whitney, Yale College, Philolog. Department.

It is proposed to offer here a specimen of what modern philology has done and is doing to illustrate the structure, development, and relationship of languages, by comparing in its light the Greek and Latin verbs. The analysis of these verbs, as being a subject of high and general interest, has been quite fully elaborated by the teachers of the science, and to their works? the student is referred for the full details of what can here be only concisely and generally stated.

The Greek and Latin verbs, as they appear in the classical literature of the two languages, offer so many and so striking points of difference as almost overwhelm and cover from view that fundamental resemblance which evidences their original identity. On a general view the two seem constructed upon quite a different plan, and the Latin

1 Prof. Nordheimer, in his Grammar, §1142, 2. says: "Three words in immediate succession cannot all be accompanied by conjunctive accents, however close their connection may be." He adds in a Note to this as follows: "With the exception of Kadhma (') and T’'lisha K'tanna (*), which, although conjunctives, possess a slight separating power, and hence may be placed before two other conjunctives, or before the officers Pazer (*) and Tlisha Gh’dhola ('), which on account of their weakness do not draw the conjunctives so closely together" It is true that the above rule, thus qualified, will cover a good deal of ground; still such examples as: 2 Sam 21: 2; and so Eccl. 4: 8.

even exclusive of T'lisha K'tanna and Kadhma, may be written in succession, as well as two. And as for that "slight separating power" which he attributes to these two conjunctives, is it not contrary to what is admitted on all hands, and to his own express declaration : " The conjunctive accents are all equal among themselves as regards their power of connection ?" (Grammar, § 48.)

2 As Bopp, comp Grammar; Pott, Etym. Forschungen; Curtius, Die Temp. und Modi im Gr. und Lat. ; from the latter of which especially has been derived a large share of the materials of the following paper.

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Greek and Latin Verbs.

655

verb, without an augment, with traces only of a reduplication, with no dual, no aorist, no optative, a subjunctive independent, in its formation of the indicative, with its meagre array of imperative, infinitive, and participles, and with a passive of entirely distinct origin, seems not only vastly poorer than, but thoroughly diverse from, its Hellenic neighbor and sister. We have then to inquire, how much and what is still actually possessed in common by the two; how far the difference between them is owing to a loss by either of what both originally shared, and how far to a separate development by the two of the resources of formation which both enjoyed, for the purpose either of supplying original deficiencies or compensating subsequent losses; and finally how far such further developments have been prompted by a kindred spirit. It will not, it is believed, be necessary to take up each of these points separately; they will be sufficiently illustrated in the course of a general treatment of the subject.

To commence our comparison, then, with the present indicative. This tense is, of the whole series, the earliest in origin, and the simplest as regards the principle of its formation. It is produced by merely appending to the root, in which is contained the idea of the action, the personal endings, which are personal pronouns indicating the actor; and generally by the aid of a union-vowel, which is only a euphonic insertion, intended to facilitate the combination of root and ending. The present, then, we should expect to find most faithfully preserved, and presenting in the two verbs the closest resemblance; and we are not disappointed; the coincidence is very striking. It is in this tense only that the union-vowel and personal ending, being freed from the special influences, the one of any tense or mode sign, the other of any prefix to the root, are exhibited as modified merely by the general phonetic laws of either language, and it will therefore be worth while to compare them the more particularly. Take the root LEG in both languages. In the first person singular lego, hayo, both for the older form LEG-A-MI (compare, for the ending, us, me), the resemblance is identity, both, like the Gothic liga, having lost the ending, and lengthened the union-vowel. Yet it is certain that at the time of their separation each language possessed the full termination ami, and that each has, independently, made the same mutilation, perhaps under the influence of the common feeling that here if anywhere the ending was unnecessary, and the simple enunciation of the root by the speaker enough to mark the action it signified as being performed by him. In the second person, legis, eyes, each for LEG-A-SI, (compare, for the ending, oé, te,) is first to be noted the different change of the union-vowel. The a of the original language has comparatively seldom been retained un

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changed by the Greek, but mostly appears as either ε or o, governed in its choice between the two by euphonic laws which it is not always possible to detect. Here it is 8, the more common of the two substitutes. The Latin knows nothing of this double change, but more often, as here, simply weakens the a to i. The vowel of the ending, the Latin, as in all similar cases, has given up, while the Greek has transferred it to before the consonant. The third person is legit, heyet, for LEG-A-TI, (compare, for the ending, zó, is-te, Sansk. ta). The union-vowel is as in the last person, but the one form has lost the consonant, the other the vowel of the ending. To the Greek dual the Latin has nothing analogous to offer, having, except in the two nominatives duo and ambo, lost all traces of that number. The first persons plural are legimus, Léroues (Doric: in the common dialects youɛv), for LEG-A-MAS (ending originally, probably, ma-si, I and thou; i. e. we). Here is noticeable a different form of the Greek union-vowel, and the vowel of the Latin ending, each probably due to the influence of the liquid m, μ. In sumus and volumus, the Latin connective has felt the same influence. The Latin is in the next person truer to its original than the Greek, or even than the Sanskrit. The forms are legitis, Leyerɛ (Sansk. tudata) for LEG-A-TAS (ending probably ta-si, with the pronoun repeated in two forms, thou and thou, i. e. ye). In legunt, λéyovri (Doric: commonly Lérovo) for LEG-A-NTI (ending a modification of that of the corresponding person in the singular by an added nasal with an intensive force), occurs the same change of the union-vowel as was noticed in the first person, and for a similar reason, the proximity of the liquid n, v; as to the ending, while the Greek has preserved its final vowel, the Latin again enjoys an advantage in the purer retention of its consonants in the common language. It is plainly Latin verbs of the third conjugation only (wherein, however, are included nearly all the origi nal root-verbs of the language), which admit of so close a comparison with the corresponding Greek class, the barytones. In other classes the usages of the two languages, especially as concerns the union-vowel, are considerably at variance. The class signs of the three Latin conjugations of derivatives, ā, ē, ī, have for the most part crowded out this vowel and taken its place, while in the Greek denominations in άw, έw, ów, the two are found subsisting together. To the Greek conjugations in u, the Latin presents no proper analogies. Sum, volo, edo, eo, fero, in a few of their persons, lack a union-vowel, and in several roots of the first conjugation, as do, sto, no, flo, for, the long a, which is apparently the class sign, is in fact the final vowel of the root, to which the endings are appended without a connective, but for the other peculiarities of the verbs in u, we look among them in vain.

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Greek and Latin Verbs.

657 Of the tense of simple past time, the imperfect, the characteristic is the augment. This is explained as having been originally a pronominal adverb, prefixed to the root, and serving to direct the mind to a then, in which the action is to be supposed as in progress. Besides, and in consequence of, this burdening of the root anteriorly, there arose later a weakening modification of the personal endings, which helped to distinguish the secondary or augmented tenses from the primary; compare as with as, & with ev, ov with ovt. Thus was the Greek imperfect constructed. With it is to be ranked likewise the second aorist, for, in the comparatively few verbs in which that tense occurs, it is by origin only the imperfect of the earlier and unamplified form of the root, furnished with the series of moods which belonged to the present of that form, and with its original imperfect signification of continuous past action modified into the aoristic of indefinite and momentary action, to correspond with its own conciseness and quickness of utterance as compared with the new imperfect. Now the Latin, like the Gothic and the Zend, has, in the course of its reduction to its present condition, entirely worn off and lost the augment; in obedience, doubtless, to the same law of compression and brevity whose effect we have already seen in the obliteration of the final vowels of the personal endings. With the augment has of course been lost the whole tense formation of which it was the characteristic, so that of all the simple original imperfects of the Latin language only two, derived from the two roots of the substantive verb, remain, and of these only one has maintained an independent existence. This is eram; for esam, from the root Es. For this a sufficient distinction was won by the retention of the radical vowel e throughout (unless we are to recognize in this vowel the augment itself, or at least a relic of the long a into which augment and radical vowel coalesced, and which offered a stronger resistance to the corrupting tendency than would the augment alone), and by the adoption of a constant union-vowel, like that of the Greek perfect. We have a corresponding formation in Greek with which to compare it, namely, the Ionic imperfect of the same root, ea, are, for loa, oare, etc.; the two are quite identical. The other surviving imperfect of the ancient formation is similarly derived from the root FU (Sansk. BHU),

It may be as well here once for all to direct attention to the Latin and Greek corruptions of an original sibilant between two vowels, which are of so frequent occurrence in either language, and often, as in the case before us, answer to one another; the Latin converting such a sibilant into r, the Greek dropping it entirely. We shall have them to notice more than once hereafter. A familiar illustration, out of the province of the verb, is afforded by the declension of neuters in oc, us; compare yévos, yéve (0), yéve(0)oç, 4, and genus, gene-r-is, gene-r-i.

and is found only in composition, having been made use of for constructing all the other imperfects of the language. As is usual with forms thus compounded, it has suffered great mutilation, and is reduced from its full form, perhaps abhvam, to the bam which the language now offers us. As to the personal endings of this tense there needs to be further noticed only the retention of the consonant belonging to that of the first person singular, in which the two languages remarkably agree.

Of the Greek tenses, the first aorist is most nearly analogous in its origin to this Latin imperfect, being likewise a composition of the root with a preterite of the substantive verb, probably the same σa spoken of above; compare e-dɛıx-σa, ɛ-naídɛv-oα. Each language supplied by this method the want which it most sensibly felt; the Greek having already a simple imperfect for all its verbs, and having been taught by its second aorists to desire a form of similar signification for those verbs in which no second aorist was possible; the Latin, on the other hand, being destitute of imperfects, and having, as will be seen, already provided itself an aorist in another way.

The temporal relation of the perfect, denoting action finished and complete, the Indo-European family symbolically indicated by a repetition of part of the radical syllable, that is to say, by the reduplication. Both the form and the signification of this tense, however, have been variously corrupted by the different members of the family. Its signification no language but the Greek has shown itself able to maintain in original purity. The Latin has given it the functions of the aorist also to perform, so that cecini, for instance, means quite as often, I sang, as I have sung. The Sanskrit and Gothic have gone a step further, and suffered the aorist almost wholly to supplant the original perfect signification. Of the modifications of form, however, euphonic rules lie at the foundation, and here, though no language has remained true to the original ideal of the tense, the delicate ear of the Greek has led him further on the track of corruption than the others have gone, even to the reduction of the reduplication in many cases to the semblance of the augment. Take for example the root SPOND, as originally reduplicated, SPOSPOND: of this the Latin has retained nearly all in its perfect spopond-i; Sanskrit rules would make of the same pospond, Gothic sespond, and Greek finally onord. But the simple Latin perfects are, at the classical period, almost lost from the language. Only about thirty have come down to us with the reduplication, and of these more than one has lost that prefix during the time whereof we possess literary monuments. Nearly fifty more still survive, variously disfigured, either by a total loss of the redupli