Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/285

VII.] man, German mein-en, our I mean): distinct analogies lead us to see in it a development—probably through a derivative noun, of which it is the denominative—of the older root mā, meaning either 'to make' or 'to measure;' a designation for the mental process having been won by figuratively regarding it as a mental manufacture or production, or else as an ideal mensuration of the object of thought, a passing from point to point of it, in estimation of its dimension and quality. Some linguistic scholars go much farther than others in their attempts at analyzing the Indo-European roots, and referring them to more primitive elements; all the methods of secondary origin which we have illustrated above have been sought for and thought to be recognized among them; and there are those who are unwilling to believe that any absolutely original root can have ended otherwise than in a vowel, or begun with more than a single consonant, and who therefore regard all radical syllables not conforming with their norm as the product of composition or fusion with formative elements. We need not here enter into the question as to the justice of these extreme views, or a criticism of the work of the root-analysts; we are compelled at any rate to concede that the results of growth are to be seen among even the earliest traceable historical roots; that we must be cautious how we claim ultimateness for any given radical syllable, unless we can succeed in establishing an ultimate and necessary tie between it and the idea it represents; and that the search after the absolutely original in human speech is a task of the most obscure and recondite character.

But these concessions do not impair our claim that the inflective structure of Indo-European speech is built up upon a historical foundation of monosyllabic roots. If the particular roots to which our analysis brings us are not in all cases the products of our ancestors' first attempts at articulation, they are at any rate of the same kind with these, and represent to us the incipient stage of speech. If in every dissyllable whose history we can trace we recognize a compound structure, if in every nominal and verbal form we find a formative element which gives it character as