APPENDIX II.

(ETYMOLOGY.)

OF DERIVATION.

Derivation is a species of Etymology, which explains the various methods by which those derivative words which are not formed by mere grammatical inflections, are deduced from their primitives.

Most of those words which are regarded as primitives in English, may be traced to ulterior sources, and many of them are found to be compounds or derivatives in other languages. A knowledge of the Saxon, Latin, Greek, and French languages, will throw much light on this subject. But as the learner is supposed to be unacquainted with those languages, we shall not go beyond the precincts of our own; except to show him the origin and primitive import of some of our definitive and connecting particles, and to explain the prefixes and terminations which are frequently employed to form English derivatives.

The rude and cursory languages of barbarous nations, to whom literature is unknown, are among those transitory things which by the hand of time are irrecoverably buried in oblivion. The fabric of the English language is undoubtedly of Saxon origin; but what was the form of the language spoken by the Saxons, when about the year 450 they entered Britain, cannot now be known. It was probably a dialect of the Gothic or Teutonic. This Anglo-Saxon dialect, being the nucleus, received large accessions from other tongues of the north, from the Norman French, and from the more polished languages of Rome and Greece, to form the modern English. The speech of our rude and warlike ancestors thus gradually improved, as christianity, civilization, and knowledge, advanced the arts of life in Britain; and as early as the tenth century, it became a language capable of expressing all the sentiments of a civilized people. From the time of Alfred, its progress may be traced by means of writings which remain; but it can scarcely be called English till about the thirteenth century. And for two or three centuries later, it was so different from the modern English, as to be scarcely intelligible to most readers; but, gradually improving by means upon which we cannot here dilate, it at length became what we now find it, a language, copious, strong, refined, and capable of no inconsiderable degree of harmony.

The following is an explanation of the Saxon letters employed below:

DERIVATION OF THE ARTICLES.

1. According to Horne Tooke, THE is the Saxon be from bean to take; and is nearly equivalent in meaning to that or those. We find it written in

ancient works, re, se, see, ye, te, be, and the; and, tracing it through what we suppose to be the oldest of these forms, we rather consider it the imperative of reon to see.

2. AN is the Saxon an, ane, an, ONE; and by dropping n before a consonant becomes a. Gawin Douglas, an ancient English writer, wrote ane, even before a consonant; as, "Ane book"-"Ane lang spere”—“ Ane volume."

DERIVATION OF NOUNS.

In English, Nouns are derived from nouns, from adjectives, from verbs, or from participles.

I. Nouns are derived from nouns:

1. By adding ship, dom, rick, wick, or, ate, hood, or head: as, fellow, fellowship; king, kingdom; bishop, bishoprick; bailiff, bailiwick; senate, senator; tetrarch, tetrarchate; child, childhood; God, Godhead. These generally denote dominion, office, or character.

2. By adding ian: as, music, musician; physic, physician. These generally denote profession.

3. By adding y or ery: as, slave, slavery; fool, foolery; scene, scenery; cutler, cutlery; grocer, grocery. These sometimes denote a state, or habit of action; sometimes, an artificer's wares or shop.

4. By adding age or ade: as, patron, patronage; porter, porterage; band, bandage; lemon, lemonade.

5. By adding kin, let, ling, ock, el, or erel; as, lamb, lambkin; river, rivulet,; duck, duckling; hill, hillock; run, runnel; cock, cockerel. These denote little things, and are called diminutives.

6. By adding ist: as, psalm, psalmist; botany, botanist. These denote persons devoted to, or skilled in, the subject expressed by the primitive. 7. By prefixing an adjective, or another noun, and forming a compound word; as, holiday, foreman, statesman, tradesman.

II. Nouns are derived from adjectives:

1. By adding ness, ity, ship, dom, or hood: as, good, goodness; real, reality; hard, hardship; wise, wisdom; false, falsehood.

2. By changing t into ce or cy: as, radiant, radiance; consequent, consequence; flagrant, flagrancy; current, currency.

3. By changing some of the letters, and adding t or th: as, long, length; broad, breadth; high, height. The nouns included under these three heads, generally denote abstract qualities, and are called abstract nouns.

4. By adding ard: as, drunk, drunkard; dull, dullard. These denote the character of a person

5. By adding ist: as, sensual, sensualist; royal, royalist. These denote persons devoted, addicted, or attached, to something.

III. Nouns are derived from verbs:

1. By adding ment, ance, ure, or age: as, punish, punishment; repent, repentance; forfeit, forfeiture; stow, stowage; equip, equipage.

2. By changing the termination of the verb, into se, ce, sion, tion, ation, or ition; as, expand, expanse, expansion; pretend, pretence, pretension; invent, invention; create, creation; omit, omission; provide, provision; reform, reformation; oppose, opposition. These denote the act of doing, or the thing done.

3. By adding er or or: as, hunt, hunter; write, writer; collect, collector. These generally denote the doer.

4. Nouns and verbs are sometimes alike in orthography, but different in pronunciation: as, a house, to house; a reb'el, to rebel'; a record, to record'. Sometimes they are wholly alike, and are distinguished only by the construction: as, love, to love; fear, to fear; sleep, to sleep.

IV. Nouns are often derived from participles in ing. Such nouns are usually distinguished from participles, only by their construction: as, a meeting, the understanding, murmurings, disputings.

DERIVATION OF ADJECTIVES.

In English, Adjectives are derived from nouns, from adjectives, from verbs, or from participles.

I. Adjectives are derived from nouns :

1. By adding ous, ious, cous, y, ly, ic, al, ical, or ine: (sometimes with an omission or change of some of the final letters:) as, danger, dangerous; glory, glorious; right, righteous; rock, rocky; cost, costly; poet, poetic; nation, national; method, methodical; vertex, vertical; clergy, clerical; adamant, adamantine. Adjectives thus formed, generally apply the properties of their primitives, to the nouns to which they relate.

2. By adding ful: as, fear, fearful; cheer, cheerful; grace, graceful. These denote abundance.

3. By adding some: as, burden, burdensome; game, gamesome. These denote plenty, but with some diminution.

4. By adding en as, oak, oaken; silk, silken. These generally denote the matter of which a thing is made.

5. By adding ly or ish: as, friend, friendly; child, childish. These denote resemblance; for ly signifies like.

6. By adding able or ible: as, fashion, fashionable; access, accessible. But these terminations are generally added to verbs.

7. By adding less: as, house, houseless; death, deathless. These denote privation or exemption.

8. Adjectives from proper names, take various terminations: as, America, American; England, English; Dane, Danish; Portugal, Portuguese; Plato, Platonic.

9. By adding ed: as, saint, sainted; bigot, bigoted. These are participial, and are often joined with other adjectives to form compounds; as, threesided, bare-footed, long-eared, hundred-handed, flat-nosed.

10. Nouns are often converted into adjectives, without change of termination: as, paper currency, a gold chain.

II. Adjectives are derived from adjectives:

1. By adding ish or some: as, white, whitish; lone, lonesome. These denote quality with diminution.

2. By prefixing dis, in, or un: as, honest, dishonest; consistent, inconsistent; wise, unwise. These express a negation of the quality denoted by their primitives.

3. By adding y or ly: as, swarth, swarthy; good, goodly. Of these there are but few; for almost all derivatives of the latter form, are adverbs.

III. Adjectives are derived from verbs:

1. By adding able or ible: (sometimes with a change of some of the final letters:) as, perish, perishable; vary, variable; convert, convertible; divide, divisible. These denote susceptibility.

2. By adding ive or ory: (sometimes with a change of some of the final letters:) as, elect, elective; interrogate, interrogative, interrogatory; defend, defensive; defame, defamatory.

3. Words ending in ate, are mostly verbs: but some of them may be ́employed as adjectives, in the same form, especially in poetry: as, reprobate, complicate.

IV. Adjectives are derived from participles:

1. By prefixing un: as, unyielding, unregarded, undeserved.

2. By combining the participle with some word which does not belong to the verb; as, way-faring, hollow-sounding, long-drawn.

3. Participles often become adjectives without change of form. Such adjectives are distinguished from participles only by the construction: as, A lasting ornament"-" The starving chymist"-"Words of learned length."

DERIVATION OF THE PRONOUNS.

The English pronouns are all of Saxon origin. The following appears to be their derivation :

The plurals and oblique cases do not all appear to be regular derivatives from the nominative singular. Many of these pronouns, as well as a vast number of other words of frequent use in the language, were variously written by the old English and Anglo-Saxon authors. He who traces the history of our language will meet with them under all the following forms, and perhaps more:

1. I, J, Y, y, ŷ, 1, ic, che, ich, 1c,—MY, mi, min, MINE, myne, myn, mŷn,—ME, mee, me;-WE, wee, ve, pe,—OUR or OUR oure, une-Us, ous, vs, ur.

2. THOU, thoue, thow, thowe, thu, su,-THY, thi, thin, THINE thyne, thyn, din,—THEE, the, de;-YE, yee, ze, zee, ze,—YOUR or YOURS, youre, zour, sour, зoure, eopen,-You, youe, yow, zou, zou, ou, uh, eor.

3. HE, hee, hie, hi, he,—HIS, hise, is, hys, hyse, ys, ŷs, hys, hyr,-HIM, hine, hen, hyne, hym, hým, im, him;--THEY, thay, thei, the, tha, thai, thii, yai, hi, hii, hy, his, hi-THEIR or THEIRS, ther, theyr, theyrs, thair, thare, hare, here, her, hire, hina, seoлa,-THEM, theym, thaym, thaim, thame, tham, em, hem, heom, hom.

4. SHE, shee, sche, scho, sho, rcæ, reo, heo,—HER, [possessive,] hur, hir, hire, hyr, hyre, hyne, hyra, heɲa,-HER, [objec tive,] hir, hire, hen.

5. IT, itt, hyt, hytt, yt, ye, hit, ie, hit. According to Horne Tooke, this pronoun is from the perfect participle of hæcan, to name, and signifies the said; but Dr. Alexander Murray makes it the neuter of a declinable adjective, "he, heo, hita, this."Hist. Lang. v. i. 315.

The relatives are derived from the same source, and have passed through similar changes, or varieties in orthography; as,

1. WHO, ho, wha, hwa, qua, quha, hpa,—WHOSE, whos, quhois, quhais, quhase, hrær,-WHOм, whom, quhum, quhome, hwom, hram.

2. WH HICH, whiche, whyche, whilch, wych, quilch, quilk, quhilk, hwilc, hpilc.

3. WHAT, hwat, hwæt, hwet, quhat, quthat, qua that, hwa that, hra bæ. This pronoun appears to have been originally

a compound of who and that, though the Anglo-Saxons wrote it as one word, hræe. Its compound signification strengthens this idea of its formation.

4. THAT, dat, dæt, te. Horne Tooke supposes this word (as well as the article the) to have been originally the perfect participle of sean, to take.

From its various uses, the word that is called sometimes a pronoun, sometimes an adjective, and sometimes a conjunction; but, in respect to derivation, it is, doubtless, one and the saine.--As an adjective it was formerly applicable to a plural noun; as, "That holy ordres."

Dr. Martin.

DERIVATION OF VERBS.

In English, Verbs are derived from nouns, from adjectives, or from verbs.

I. Verbs are derived from nouns.

1. By adding ize, ise, en, or ate; as, author, authorize; method, methodise; length, lengthen; origin, originate. The termination ize is of Greek origin; and ise of French: the former only should be employed in forming English derivatives.

2. By changing a consonant, or by adding mute e: as, advice, advise; bath, bathe; breath, breathe.

II. Verbs are derived from adjectives:

1. By adding en, atc, or ize; as, deep, deepen; domestic, domesticate; civil, civilize.

2. Many adjectives become verbs, without change of form: as, warm, to warm; dry, to dry; black, to black; forward, to forward

III. Verbs are derived from verbs:

By prefixing a, be, dis, for, fore, mis, over, out, un, under, up, or with: as, rise, arise; sprinkle, besprinkle; own, disown; bid, forbid; see, foresee; take, mistake; look, overlook; run, outrun; fasten, unfasten; go, undergo hold, uphold; draw, withdraw.

DERIVATION OF PARTICIPLES.

All English Participles are derived from English verbs, in the manner ex、 plained under the head of Etymology, and when foreign participles are introduced into our language, they are not participles with us, but belong to some other part of speech.

DERIVATION OF ADVERBS.

1. In English, many Adverbs are derived from adjectives by adding ly, which is an abbreviation for like: as, candid, candidly; sordid, sordidly Most adverbs of manner are thus formed.

2. Many adverbs are compounds formed from two or more English words; as, herein, thereby, to-day, always, already, elsewhere, sometimes, wherewithal. The formation and the meaning of these are in general sufficiently obvious.

3. About seventy adverbs are formed by means of the prefix a; as, Abreast, abroad, across, afresh, away, ago, awry, astray.

4. Needs is a contraction of need is; prithee, of I pray thee; alone, of all one; only, of one like; anon, of in one [instant;] never, of ne ever; [not ever.]

5. Very is from the French veray or vrai, true; still, is from the imperative of the Saxon rcellan, to put; else is from the imperative of aleran, to dismiss. Rather is the comparative of the ancient rath, soon.