Page:Nature and Origin of the Noun Genders of the Indo-European Languages.djvu/35

Rh water which has the characteristic that it flows, and in which the flowing is perceptible. This is a function that has nothing whatever to do with the distinction between active and passive. Recognizing this fact, we can understand how the suffix came to be used in all the older Indo-European languages in active as well as in passive forms. He who comprehends all Latin -to- participles under the name perfect "passive" participles makes a false use of this term. This misuse is wide-spread, and unfortunately so in its results, for it gave rise to the belief that the fundamental meaning of -to- was a passive one. In a very similar manner the circumstance that -ā- and -iē- denote the female animal in some of the substantives formed with them, has had the result that we speak of the "feminine" suffix in words like Latin anima, acies. In both cases there is an unjustifiable generalization of a term.

If one examines all the words of the Indo-European languages which are formed with the suffixes -ā-, -iē-(-ī-), he comes readily to the view that the original function of these suffixes was to form abstracts and collectives. This fundamental meaning would, in many cases, be preserved unchanged in all Indo-European languages. It remains in Latin fuga, 'flight', juventa, 'youth',