Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/98

76 have seemed as superfluous, in using these forms, to put the subject pronouns a second time before them, as it would seem to us now to say I did loved, for I loved. But the consciousness of the origin of the endings becoming dimmed, and their independent meaning lost from view, they were left to undergo the inevitable process of reduction to a simpler form. As they appear in the Latin, they have suffered a first process of abbreviation, by rejection of the final vowel of each: they have become mus, tis, and nt, as in legimus, legitis, legunt, 'we read, ye read, they read.' The ancient Gothic, the most primitive of the Germanic dialects, exhibits them in a yet succincter form, the first two having been cut down to their initial letter only; thus, ligam, ligith, ligand. Thus far, each ending has, through all its changes, preserved its identity, and is adequate to its office; however mutilated and corrupted in form, they are still well distinguished from one another, and sufficiently characteristic. But it was now coming to be usual to put the pronouns before the verb in speaking. At first added occasionally, for greater emphasis, they had, as the pronominal character of the endings faded altogether from memory, become customary attendants of the verb in all the persons—save as, in the third person, their place was taken by the more varied subjects which that person admits. Since, then, the expressed subjects were of themselves enough to indicate the person, distinctive endings were no longer needed. Under the influence of this consideration, the Anglo-Saxon had reduced all the plural terminations to one—ath in the present, on in the imperfect—saying we licgath, ge licgath, hi licgath. Although this last was, in its inception, much such a blunder as is now committed by the vulgar among ourselves who say I is, says I, and so on, it was adopted and ratified by the community, because it was only a carrying out of the legitimate tendency to neglect and eliminate distinctions which are practically unnecessary; and all the other Germanic dialects have done the same thing, in whole or in part. We, finally, have carried the process to its furthest possible limit, by casting off the suffixes altogether; and with them, in this particular verb, even the final consonant of the root: as we say I lie, so we also say we lie, ye lie, they lie.