100 OF THE ROOTS
occurred in other positions, where the annexation of particles of a foreign nature no longer admits of such clear discrimination: one may at least safely assume that the language, on the whole, belongs to this chief race, although in this single point, by admixture or artificial adornment, it has adopted another and a higher character.” We must here preliminarily observe, that, in Sanskṛit and the languages connected with it, the personal terminations of the verbs shew at least as great a similarity to isolated pronouns as in Arabic. How should any language, which expresses the pronominal relations of the verbs by syllables annexed either at the beginning or end of the word, in the choice of these syllables avoid, and not rather select, those which, in their isolated state, also express the corresponding [G. Ed. p. 110.] pronominal ideas? By inflexion, F. von Schlegel understands the internal alteration of the sound of the root, or (p. 35) the internal modification of the root, which he (p. 48) opposes to addition from without. But when from δο or δω, in Greek, comes δίδω-μι, δώ-σω, δο-θησόμεθα, what are the forms μι, σω, θησόμεθα, but palpable external additions to the root, which is not at all internally altered, or only in the quantity of the vowel? If, then, by inflexion, an internal modification of the root is to be understood, the Sanskrit and Greek &c. have in that case—except the reduplication, which is supplied by the elements of the root itself—scarce any inflexion at all to shew. If, however, θησόμεθα is an external modification of the root δο, simply because it is combined with it, touches it, with it expresses a whole; then the idea of sea and continent may be represented as an internal modification of the sea, and vice versâ. P. 50, F. von Schlegel remarks: “In the Indian or Grecian language every root is truly that which the name says, and like a living germ; for since the ideas of relation are denoted by internal alteration, freer room is given for development, the fulness of which can be indefinitely
