extended, and is, in fact, often wondrously rich. All, however, which in this manner proceeds from the simple root, still retains the stamp of its relationship, adheres to it, and thus reciprocally bears and supports itself.” I find, however, the inference not established; for from the capability of expressing ideas of relation by internal alteration of the root, how can the capability be deduced of surrounding the (internally unalterable) root indefinitely, with foreign syllables externally added? What kind of stamp of relationship is there between μι, σω, θησόμεθα, and the [G. Ed. p. 111.] roots to which these significative additions are appended ? We therefore recognise in the inflexions of the Sanskṛit family of languages no internal involutions of the root, but elements of themselves significative, and the tracing of the origin of which is the task of scientific grammar. But even if the origin of not a single one of these inflexions could be traced with certainty, still the principle of the formation of grammar, by external addition, would not, for that reason, be the less certain, because, at the first glance, in the majority of inflexions, one discovers at least so much, that they do not belong to the root, but have been added from without. A. W. von Schlegel, also, who, in essential points, assents to the above-mentioned division of languages,[1] gives us to understand, with regard to the so-called
- ↑ Nevertheless, in his work, “Observations sur la langue et la littérature provençales,” p. 14, &c., he gives three classes, viz. Les langues sans aucune structure grammaticale, les langues qui emploient des affixes, et les langues à inflexions. Of the latter, he says: “Je pense, cependant, qu’il faut assigner le premier rang aux langues à inflexions. On pourroit les appeler les langues organiques, parce qu’elles renferment un principe vivant de developpement et d’accroissement, et qu’elles ont seules, si je puis m’exprimer ainsi, une végétation abondante et féconde. Le merveillevx artifice de ces langues est, de former une immense variété de mots, et de marquer la liaison des idées que ces mots désignent, moyennant un assez petit nombre de syllabes qui, considérées séparément, n’ont point de
