Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/385

375 with an impersonal verb, and is actually translated by our expression "Me-seems."' For further distinction I will add, that the præterite of þyncan was þûhte, that of þencan, þôhte. History of a language, and of all the languages, which belong to the same race, all these languages being considered only in the light of dialects, mere variations of a theoretic form, is therefore the best refuge we have in any etymological perplexity.

There are in the Teutonic language (embracing all the languages and all their periods from the fourth to the nineteenth century) but two kinds of verbs: the oldest and the youngest are in this alike. The first kind from a capability of forming their præterites out of themselves without the addition of any foreign element may be called strong: the second, add a new conception in the shape of a syllable and are called weak. The strong are again of two kinds. 1, Such as form their præterite by affecting the first consonant of the root, 2, those that affect the vowel, according to a particular relation, and leave the consonant as it was. In the Gothic, two conjugations partake of both forms. The manner in which the first consonant of the root was affected in Gothic was by duplication of it, with an intermediate vowel; and these pure conjugations were four in number; as follows:

1st. salt-a salio. pr. sai-salt. part, salt-ans. 2d. hait-a voco. hai-hait. hait-ans. 3d. stsiut'Si percutioo stai-staut. staut-ans. 4th. slep-a dormio. sai-zlep. slep-ans.

The two which follow both double the first consonant, and change the vowel.

5th. lai-a irrideo. pr, lai-lo part, lai-ans. 6th. gret-a ploro. gai-grot gret-ans.

I have said that in the remaining strong conjugations which from the Gothic to the English of the present day are neither more nor less than six in number, the method of expressing past time is by a change in the vowel, and that these changes are according to a particular relation. This relation I shall proceed to explain in terms of the Gothic, after first shewing the force of the Gothic vowels in Anglo-Saxon. The Teutonic language possesses ten vowels : three short ; a, i, u, Vol. II. No. 5. sB