through analogy, and are therefore of especial value with regard to establishing rules of purely phonetic development. (c) In syntactical analogy the mental, connexion between the two series of constructions between which the change takes place is generally still more conspicuous. The connexion may be one of similar or of contrasted meaning. In Latin, adjectives of fullness, like other adjectives, no doubt originally were followed by the genitive case, participles, on the other hand, were followed by the instrumental ablative. Thus Plautus in the Antularza 813 and elsewhere could say aulam anri ptenam, “ a pot full of gold, ” or 802 aulam onnstam aura, “ a pot laden with gold.” From these the transition was easy to the construction anlam onustam auri, as if in English one should say (as was possible in Earlier English), “ a pot laden of gold.” In English, contrasted words often tend to assimilate their syntactical constructions. Thus, the adjectives like and szmzlar are followed by the preposition to (though in Modern English tzke need have no preposition), and upon the analogy of such Words, dzjerent and averse, with which correct speakers and writers couple from, are by no means rarely followed by to. Nor is it uncommon to hear or to see dtjer with instead of dijer from, upon the analogy of agree wzth. Curiously enough, Latin, from which dzjer is descended, is found to follow the same analogy even in good writers Thus Cicero (A cademzca Pr. ii. 143) combines drsszdere with cum, as later does Seneca (Epzstutae, 18. 1). (d) In the development of analogy in meaning, similarity of sound is often the effective cause. Thus impertinent is properly irrelevant, not to the point, and is still so used in legal language; its more common signification of “ saucy” arises from its accidental resemblance in sound to pert, a word which curiously enough has reversed its meaning, being now used in the sense of mat-apert, while the Old French apert, aspert (a confusion of Lat. apertus, “ open, ” with expertus, “ skilled ”), meant both “ open ” and “ skilful.” Thus from very early times the verbs fly and jiee have been confused, though they are of entirely different origins. When Middle English began to lose its verb endings in -en, it was very easy for the verb teren, “ teach, ” and lernen, “ learn, ” to be confused. Hence frequently in Elizabethan English tearn stands side by side with teache in the same signification. Cf. Tottell's Miscellany, p. 129 (Arber): “ I would not have it thought hereby
The dolphin swimme I meane to teache-Nor
yet to learn the Fawcon file:
I rowe not so farre past my reache.”
It is true that the distinction between phonetic and analogical change has always been acknowledged in comparative philology. At the same time it cannot be denied that analogical changes were for a long time treated with a certain disdain and contempt, as deviations from the only course of development then allowed to be truly “ organic ” and natural, namely, that of gradual phonetic change (hence the epithet “ false ” so constantly attached to analogy in former times). Amongst those who have recently contributed most towards a more correct evaluation of analogy as a motive power in language, Professor Whitney must be mentioned in the first place. In Germany Professor Scherer (Zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, 1868) was the first to apply analogy as a principle of explanation on a larger scale, but in a wilful and unsystematic way. Hence he failed to produce an immediate and lasting impression, and the merit of having introduced into the practice of modern comparative philology a strictly systematic consideration of both phonetic and analogic changes as co-ordinate factors in the development of language rests with Professor Leskien of Leipzig, and a number of younger scholars who had more or less The New . . .
5c, ,, m, experienced his personal influence. Amongst these Brugmann, Osthoff and Paul rank foremost as the most vigorous and successful defenders of the new method, the correctness of which has since been practically acknowledged by most of the leading philologists of all shades of opinion. While the syntax of individual languages was one of the first features which attracted the grammarians' attention, at any rate in so far as particular authors differed from a given standard, it is only in very recent times that syntax has received methodical treatment from the comparative point of view. It may indeed be said that almost the
whole fabric of the comparative syntax of the Indo-European languages as it exists to-day has been reared by one man—Professor Berthold Delbruck of Jena. In a series of brilliant studies beginning with a pamphlet on the Locative, Ablative, and Instrumental, published in 1867, and continued in his Syntacticat Researches (Syntaktzsche Forschnngen) in five volumes, comprising a treatment of the conjunctive and optative moods in Sanskrit and Greek (1871), the theory of the Sanskrit tenses (1877), the order of words in early Sanskrit prose (Qatapatha Brahmana, 1878), the foundations of Greek syntax (1879), and the syntax of the oldest Sanskrit (Altzndzsche Syntax), dealing exclusively with the literature of the Vedas and Brahmanas (1888), Professor Delbruck laid the foundations for his treatment of comparative syntax in three volumes (1893, 1897, 1900), which has formed the completion of Brugmann's Grundriss der vergtezchenden Grammatzk der 'indogermanischen Spraehen. The only work by another hand (on a large department of the subject) which deserves to be mentioned by the side of Delbruck's studies is the small treatise by Hubschmann on the theory of the cases (Zur Casustehre, 1875) For the comparative neglect of this field of investigation there are several reasons. The earlier philologists had so much to do in determining the languages which should be included within the Indo-European group, and in organizing the field of research as a whole, that it is not to be wondered at if they were unable to devote much attention to syntax. In the 'seventies, when attention began to be more directed towards comparative syntax, the remarkable discoveries made by Verner with regard to accentuation, and by Brugmann, Collitz and others with regard to the phonology of the Indo-European languages, again distracted attention from the subject. Moreover, the research in itself is infinitely more difficult than that into sounds and forms, for the latter may be carried on by the help of grammars and dictionaries with a comparatively small knowledge of the literature of any individual language, while on the other hand the study of syntax is impossible without a thorough and intimate knowledge of the literature and modes of expression in each separate language. It is not, therefore, matter for wonder that Delbruck has confined himself in the investigation of syntax to a part only of the languages whose sounds and forms are discussed by Brugmann in the earlier volumes of the Grundriss. To cover the whole ground is beyond the powers of a single man, and there is a great lack of preliminary studies on the syntax of many of the languages.
One of the most difficult problems connected with syntax, but primarily, as it appears, a question of morphology, is the origin of grammatical gender. It cannot be said to be an advantage to the languages which possess it, while languages which, like English, have dropped it except for an occasional metaphor, suffer no loss. Nor is the problem confined to the history of gender in the substantive. Even more perplexing is the introduction of gender into the adjective. The pronouns of the first and second persons, which are certainly very old, show no trace of gender; the pronouns of the third person, which are more of the nature of deictic adjectives, generally possess it. To the question how grammatical gender arose in the substantive, the answer was till comparatively recently supposed to be that primitive man was given greatly fo personification, endowing inanimate things with life and attributing to them influences benign or the reverse upon his own existence. The answer is not quite sufficient, for though this tendency to personification, which philologists have perhaps unduly decried or altogether denied, might account for life being attributed to inanimate objects, it hardly explains why some should be treated as masculine and others as feminine. Nor is it true, as has also been suggested, that in the case of the lower animals the generic name for the larger and stronger animals is masculine and that for the smaller or weaker feminine. In both Greek and Latin the wolf
