Page:Nature and Origin of the Noun Genders of the Indo-European Languages.djvu/40

30 in Greek. This suffix, whose original meaning is not clear, is found in Greek in names of animals, like, 'stag', ἀσκάλαφος, 'owl', but also in words of entirely different signification, as , 'temple', , 'cuff on the ears', φλήναφος, 'gossip', 'chatter'. The Greek inherited two or three names for animals which had this termination from the time of the Indo-European community. They became models in the Greek language, and a large number of animals received names in -αφος, -αφη, formed on the analogy of these few. On the signification of the words like κρόταφος, which lay outside of this category, the spread of -αφος in the zoological terminology had no influence.

There are still, gentlemen, many other questions which I should answer, and these have no doubt occurred to you in the course of my discussion. Above all, there is the question as to how the Indo-European people came to express distinctions of gender in the forms of the adjectives, as in magnus,-a,-um. I cannot attempt to-day to enter upon these difficult and complex problems. The solution of the main problem does not depend upon them. It is sufficient for me to have shown that it is possible to take a historical view of the noun genders masculine