The English Language Part 68

[Greek: Ho pra.s.son]=_the actor_, when a male.

[Greek: He pra.s.sousa]=_the actor_, when a female.

[Greek: To pratton]=_the active principle of a thing_.

-- 403. But it is also stated, that, in the English language, the participle is used as a substantive in a greater degree than elsewhere, and that it is used in several cases and in both numbers, _e.g._,

_Rising_ early is healthy, There is health _in rising_ early.

This is the advantage _of rising_ early.

The _risings_ in the North, &c.

Archbishop Whately has some remarks on this substantival power in his Logic.

Some remarks of Mr. R. Taylor, in the Introduction to his edition of Tooke's Diversions of Purley, modify this view. According to these, the _-ing_ in words like _rising_ is not the _-ing_ of the present participle; neither has it originated in the Anglo-Saxon _-end_. It is rather the _-ing_ in words like _morning_, which is anything but a participle of the non-existent verb _morn_, and which has originated in the Anglo-Saxon substantival termination _-ung_. Upon this Rask writes as follows:--"_Gitsung_, _gewilnung_=_desire_; _swutelung_=_manifestation_; _claensung_=_a cleansing_; _sceawung_=_view_, _contemplation_; _eor beofung_=_an earthquake_; _gesomnung_=_an a.s.sembly_. This termination is chiefly used in forming substantives from verbs of the first cla.s.s in _-ian_; as, _halgung_=_consecration_, from _halgian_=_to consecrate_. These verbs are all feminine."--Anglo-Saxon Grammar, p. 107.

Now, whatever may be the theory of the origin of the termination _-ing_ in old phrases like _rising early is healthy_, it cannot apply to expressions of recent introduction. Here the direct origin in _-ung_ is out of the question. {350}

The view, then, that remains to be taken of the forms in question is this:

1. That the older forms in _-ing_ are substantival in origin, and=the Anglo-Saxon _-ung_.

2. That the latter ones are participial, and have been formed on a false a.n.a.logy.

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CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE PAST PARTICIPLE.

-- 404. The participle in _-en_.--In the Anglo-Saxon this participle was declined like the adjectives. Like the adjectives, it is, in the present English, undeclined.

In Anglo-Saxon it always ended in _-en_, as _sungen_, _funden_, _bunden_.

In English this _-en_ is often wanting, as _found_, _bound_; the word _bounden_ being antiquated. Words where the _-en_ is wanting may be viewed in two lights; 1, they may be looked upon as participles that have lost their termination; 2, they may be considered as praeterites with a participial sense.

-- 405. _Drank, drunk, drunken._--With all words wherein the vowel of the plural differs from that of the singular, the participle takes the plural form. To say _I have drunk_, is to use an ambiguous expression; since _drunk_ may be either a participle _minus_ its termination, or a praeterite with a participial sense. To say _I have drank_, is to use a praeterite for a participle. To say _I have drunken_, is to use an unexceptionable form.

In all words with a double form, as _spake_ and _spoke_, _brake_ and _broke_, _clave_ and _clove_, the participle follows the form in _o_, as _spoken_, _broken_, _cloven_. _Spaken_, _braken_, _claven_, are impossible forms. There are degrees in laxity of language, and to say _the spear is broke_ is better than to say _the spear is brake_.

These two statements bear upon the future history of the praeterite. That of the two forms _sang_ and _sung_, one will, in the course of language, become obsolete is nearly certain; and, as the plural form is also that of the participle, it is the plural form which is most likely to be the surviving one. {352}

-- 406. As a general rule, we find the participle in _-en_ wherever the praeterite is strong; indeed, the participle in _-en_ may be called the strong participle, or the participle of the strong conjugation. Still the two forms do not always coincide. In _mow_, _mowed_, _mown_; _sow_, _sowed_, _sown_; and several other words, we find the participle strong, and the praeterite weak. I remember no instances of the converse. This is only another way of saying that the praeterite has a greater tendency to pa.s.s from strong to weak than the participle.

-- 407. In the Latin language the change from _s_ to _r_, and _vice versa_, is very common. We have the double forms _arbor_ and _arbos_, _honor_ and _honos_, &c. Of this change we have a few specimens in English. The words _rear_ and _raise_, as compared with each other, are examples. In Anglo-Saxon a few words undergo a similar change in the plural number of the strong praeterites.

Ceose, _I choose_; ceas, _I chose_; curon, _we chose_; gecoren, _chosen_.

Forleose, _I lose_; forleas, _I lost_; forluron, _we lost_; forloren, _lost_.

Hreose, _I rush_; hreas, _I rushed_; hruron, _we rushed_; gehroren, _rushed_.

This accounts for the participial form _forlorn_, or _lost_, in New High German _verloren_. In Milton's lines,

---- the piercing air Burns _frore_, and cold performs the effect of fire.

_Paradise Lost_, b. ii.

we have a form from the Anglo-Saxon participle _gefroren_=_frozen_.

-- 408. The participle in _-d_, _-t_, or _-ed_.--In the Anglo-Saxon this participle was declined like the adjective. Like the adjective, it is, in the present English, undeclined.

In Anglo-Saxon it differed in form from the praeterite, inasmuch as it ended in _-ed_, or _-t_, whereas the praeterite ended in _-ode_, _-de_, or _-te_: as, _lufode_, _baernde_, _dypte_, praeterites; _gelufod_, _baerned_, _dypt_, participles.

As the ejection of the _e_ reduces words like _baerned_ and _baernde_ to the same form, it is easy to account for the present {353} ident.i.ty of form between the weak praeterites and the participles in _-d_: _e. g._, _I moved_, _I have moved_, &c.

-- 409. In the older writers, and in works written, like Thomson's Castle of Indolence, in imitation of them, we find prefixed to the praeterite participle the letter _y-_, as _yclept_=_called_: _yclad_=_clothed_: _ydrad_=_dreaded_.

The following are the chief facts and the current opinion concerning this prefix:--

1. It has grown out of the fuller forms _ge-_: Anglo-Saxon, _ge-_: Old Saxon, _gi-_: Moeso-Gothic, _ga-_: Old High German, _ka-_, _cha-_, _ga-_, _ki-_, _gi-_.

2. It occurs in each and all of the Germanic languages of the Gothic stock.

3. It occurs, with a few fragmentary exceptions, in none of the Scandinavian languages of the Gothic stock.

4. In Anglo-Saxon it occasionally indicates a difference of sense; as _haten_=_called_, _ge_-haten=_promised_, _boren_=_borne_, _ge_-boren=_born_.

5. It occurs in nouns as well as verbs.

6. Its power, in the case of nouns, is generally some idea of _a.s.sociation_, or _collection_.--Moeso-Gothic, _sins_=_a journey_, _ga-sina_=_a companion_; Old High German, _perc_=_hill_; _ki-perki_ (_ge-birge_)=_a range of hills_.

7. But it has also a _frequentative_ power; a frequentative power which is, in all probability, secondary to its collective power: since things which recur frequently recur with a tendency to collection or a.s.sociation; Middle High German, _ge-ra.s.sel_=_rustling_; _ge-rumpel_=_c-rumple_.

8. And it has also the power of expressing the possession of a quality.

_Anglo-Saxon._ _English._ _Anglo-Saxon._ _Latin._ Feax _Hair_ _Ge_-feax _Comatus_.

Heorte _Heart_ _Ge_-heort _Cordatus_.

Stence _Odour_ _Ge_-stence _Odorus_.

This power is also a collective, since every quality is a.s.sociated with the object that possesses it: _a sea with waves_=_a wavy sea_. {354}

9. Hence it is probable that the _ga-_, _ki-_, or _gi-_, Gothic, is the _c.u.m_ of Latin languages. Such is Grimm's view, as given in Deutsche Grammatik, i. 1016.

Concerning this, it may be said that it is deficient in an essential point.

It does not show how the participle past is collective. Undoubtedly it may be said that every such participle is in the condition of words like _ge-feax_ and _ge-heort_; _i. e._, that they imply an a.s.sociation between the object and the action or state. But this does not seem to be Grimm's view; he rather suggests that the _ge-_ may have been a prefix to verbs in general, originally attached to all their forms, but finally abandoned everywhere except in the case of the participle. The theory of this prefix has yet to a.s.sume a satisfactory form.

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