Robert Seymour Conway

“ The truth is that few things add more interest even to the elements of a language than the good salt of a little etymology. But since it has become generally known that the derivations given in the current dictionaries and in many commentaries are based on pious theories framed long before the advent of scientific method, the best teachers are apt to be shy of etymology altogether.
This book is meant to be easily understood by anyone who has learnt enough to find his way about Latin authors with the help of a dictionary. ”

“ Where the current of air is only modified by receiving a vibration from the tongue we get the Liquids, r when the tip of the tongue is vibrated, and l when the sides of the tongue are vibrated; to produce l the front of the tongue is generally set fast against the teeth or palate. Eng. and Lat. r and l are both made with Voice. In modern English the Vibration of r has become very weak, and at the end of a syllable it is hardly heard at all unless a vowel follows. ”

“ Strictly speaking Phonetic Laws have no exceptions: that is to say, a phonetic change affects equally the same sound in all words existing in the language at the time, provided that the sound is under the same conditions in all the words. ”

“ But besides the help which etymology thus gives to interpreting Latin authors, there are many interesting questions which a student meets directly he begins to compare English with Latin, or indeed with any Romance language, but to which the answers have been only recently found, such as the nature of what is called ‘Gender’ (§§ 205–11) , or of the Impersonal Passive (§§ 311–2) . And many well-known stumbling-blocks in Latin usage become natural and interesting as soon as their history is understood; for example the poetical use of the Distributive Numerals (centēnus and the like, § 238) ”

“ English-speaking students especially have much to gain from the study of Latin Etymology. Their own language is so largely based on Latin that their understanding of it is deepened and enlivened by knowing the history of Latin words and idioms; and all the time they are increasing their enjoyment, and consequently their profit, in reading Latin authors. ”

“ When the tongue is at rest and the lips are not moved during the passage of Voice through the mouth, the result is a colourless or “neutral” vowel, very common in unaccented syllables in English, e.g. in the second syllable of such words as suitable, different, memory. This vowel is conveniently denoted by ə, a symbol called ‘schwa,’ from the name of the sound in Hebrew.
§ 30. The vowels are the simplest kind of Sonants. By a Sonant we mean a sound which can by itself be pronounced as a syllable. By a Consonant we mean a sound which cannot be heard unless it is combined with a Sonant. ”

“ A syllable long by nature or position, and preceded by a short syllable, was itself shortened if the accent of the word fell immediately before or immediately after it,—that is, on the preceding short syllable or on the next following syllable. ”

“ By Kindred Languages we mean those which have descended from a common ancestor. Thus what are called Romance languages, Corsican, Sardinian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Roumanian, are kindred languages because they have all descended from Latin. ”

“ They can only be found when beside the word which we wish to explain there exists some other word or words either in the same language or in another kindred language, with which the word can be compared. By comparing two or more kindred words we can generally find out something about the earlier form of each of them. When we compare Lat. gero, haurio with their participles gestus, haustus (and when we have learnt that in Latin -s- between vowels became -r-) , we see that their earlier forms were *geso, [1] *hausio ”

“ Now people once used to suppose that such changes came quite by haphazard; but we know now that in each language at any given time the different sounds were being changed in certain definite ways, and in no others. By finding out these ways of change we can often discover the earlier form of a word, and its earlier meaning also; and when we have done this, we say we have found its Derivation.
§ 2. School-boys and others often wonder what means there are of finding out the derivations of words. ”

“ In Latin however n always became en, so the Latin form is tentus. The Verbal Nouns ending with the suffix -tí-, which was always accented, also show the Weak form of the root, as Gr. φάτις, from the root of Lat. fama, Gr. φᾱμί, φημί, or Gr. πίστις beside πείθω, or Lat. ratis beside rē-ri ‘to think’ (§ 216) .
§ 71. From roots whose Normal form contained ā, ē, or ō, the Weak form in Indo-European had the neutral vowel ə which became short a in Latin (§ 55) . This explains such groups of forms as the following:
Root dhē- (sometimes in a longer form dhēk̑-) ‘to make, put,’ Gr. τί‐θη‐μι, ἔ‐θηκ‐α. ”

“ In Latin the Accented syllable was pronounced with greater Stress, but it is possible that there was some raising of the Tone also in the language of polite society. But in the everyday speech of the camps from which all the Romance languages outside Italy arose, the Stress accent was very strong. ”

“ The proper name for the sound of h is therefore what it is called in Greek, namely a ‘rough breathing’; and it is unfortunate that it has popularly come to be called “the aspirate,” since this word is used in Phonetics, as we have seen, to mean something different. ”

“ A syllable of course is long when it contains either a long vowel or a diphthong, or a vowel followed by a consonant which has another consonant following it. Thus in a word like perditus the first syllable is long although the -e- in it is itself a short vowel.
(5) In words which contain two or more syllables before the Accented syllable, there is generally a weaker accent on one of these preceding syllables; in that part of the word this secondary accent is placed just as the chief accent would have been if that part had been a separate word ”

“ THE MAKING OF LATIN
I. THE KEY OF THE RIDDLE
§ 1. Etymology means literally ‘telling the truth’; the name was invented by the Greeks to describe the study of what they called the ‘true,’ that is the original, meaning of words. Tor words are continually changing their meaning; and the form, that is the sound, of words is often changed too. For example, the English word quick now means ‘active, speedy’; but in Queen Elizabeth’s time it meant ‘living,’ as in the Biblical phrase the quick and the dead ”

“ But in the compound word intereă ‘among those things, meanwhile,’ which had become an adverb, the original long -a remained. It was not affected by the phonetic change, because the word had four syllables; and as it had come to be felt merely as an adverb, no longer as a preposition and a pronoun, it was not affected by the analogical change which spread the short -a of the very common disyllabic words ĕă, bonă, mălă, mĕd, tŭă, sŭă through all the neuter plurals of pronouns (like illa) , nouns (like dōna) , and adjectives (like multa) . ”

“ The first result of the recognition of the strictness of Phonetic Laws was to destroy a great number of derivations which had been long taught and of which many still linger in the dictionaries. But the greater knowledge which scientific methods of study have produced, has given us a far larger number of trustworthy derivations than those which it obliged us to discard. ”

“ When the short vowel was e or i or u followed by another vowel (as in párietem, múlierem, Púteoli) the word was not contracted, but the accent was shifted to the Penult, which at a later stage of the language became lengthened. Thus late Latin pariḗtem gave Italian parḗte, Fr. paroi; late Latin Puteṓli gave Italn. Pozzuōli. The restriction of the accent to the three last syllables was completed by these changes which did away with all the cases in which it had stood on the fourth syllable from the end. ”

“ The first kind of change happens unconsciously without the speakers of the language knowing that any change has happened at all. Thus Lat. rēgem became in French roi: and we find that the same change happened to Lat. ē in all words in which it stood in an accented syllable. ”

“ In post-Plautine spoken Latin before Cicero’s time words accented on the Ante-ante-penult suffered syncope of the short syllable following the accented syllable; bálineae became bálneae, puéritia became puértia, cólumine tégimine, etc., became cúlmine tégmine, etc. ”

“ So far as Greek and English are concerned, we shall have to notice a number of their most important Phonetic Laws in the course of our study of Latin.
↑ Observe this convenient use of the asterisk. We attach * to forms which are not actually on record but whose former existence we can infer from other forms which do appear in literature or inscriptions. ”

“ We have the Lengthened grade of the suffix-syllable in Gr. Nominatives like πα‐τήρ ‘father’ and ποι‐μήν ‘shepherd,’ beside the Normal form in the Acc. πα‐τέρ‐α, ποι‐μέν‐α, and the Weak form in the Gen. πα‐τρός and in derivatives like πά‐τρ‐ιος ‘belonging to one’s father,’ ποι‐μν‐ή ‘flock.’ The same variety appears also in the Deflected forms, e.g. in the compound Adj. Nom. εὐπάτωρ ‘well-sprung,’ εὔφρων ‘well-minded, cheerful’ beside the Accusatives εὐπάτορα, εὔφρονα just as in the simple nouns πατήρ, πατέρα and φρήν, φρένα ‘mind.’ Examples of the Lengthened forms appear in Old Lat. ”

“ In pre-Plautine Latin in all words or word-groups of four or more syllables whose chief accent was on a long syllable, a short unaccented medial vowel was syncopated: *cóntetulī, *conteténdī (§ 298) became contulī, contendī ”

“ All sounds except the vowels are produced by a movement of the organs of the mouth (lips, tongue, uvula) , acting on a stream of either Breath or Voice. The movement interferes with the current in different ways. ”

“ When a current is modified not by a musical vibration, but roughly so that it is either rubbed in passing through a narrow passage, or for a moment altogether stopped and then released, we get the two classes of sounds called Fricatives, or rubbed sounds, and Plosives, sounds with a kind of burst or explosion. ”

“ But the influence of cognate forms often interfered; posterī́diē became postrī́diē; but in posterṓrum, posterarum the short syllable was restored by the influence of the trisyllabic cases like pósterā to which the law did not apply. ”

“ The size, plan and method of the chapters and sections have been influenced by practical experience of teaching the subject to a variety of classes and pupils in Cambridge, Cardiff and Manchester. In choosing both matter and examples I have tried to keep before me the point of view of an intelligent set of boys and girls of about fifteen, as well as the needs of older students ”

“ It is certain that this was the pronunciation given them in early Latin, and that they were still clearly distinct from the long ē in the time of Cicero, though their precise sound then is difficult to determine. § 83. Consonants.
c, g are always hard. ”

“ These Breathed Fricatives remained when they came at the beginning of a word, as in the examples just given, or when they occurred immediately after a syllable bearing the Accent, as in the suffix -th which in English in such words as youth, width, corresponds to -t- in Latin in such words as iuven-ta, senec-ta. We know from Greek and Sanskrit that the syllable preceding this suffix was accented in the parent Indo-European language. So Eng. mother, brother [2] beside Gr. ”

“ For example we find (1) Lat. māter : Eng. mother
(2) Lat. tentus : Gr. τατός, Sans. tatás ‘stretched’ all clearly related also to Gr. τείνω ‘I stretch,’ and Lat. tenor ‘stretch, continuance.’
Similar correspondences occur in a host of other words.
§ 58. The first correspondence becomes clear as soon as we know something of the phonetic changes which happened in early, that is, pro-ethnic [1] Germanic which are called Grimm and Verner’s Law. The second group of words has been shaped by changes caused by Accent in the Indo-European parent language. ”

“ Those used in this book are explained in the course of Chapters II and III. But it is well to state here that after careful consideration I have used the signs q (‘ku’) and ǥ (‘gu’) to denote the ‘Labialising Velars,’ without the rather laborious addition of u̯ which the more advanced student will find necessary when he comes to discuss the relation of these sounds to the ‘Pure Velars.’ In this matter the doctrine to which I incline (§ 173) is simpler, if more agnostic, than the point of view from which Brugmann has surveyed the evidence ”

“ So plicāre instead of *plecere (Gr. πλέκω) or of *plocāre, from expliādre, complicāre. This process is sometimes called Decomposition.
§ 22. The same kind of reasoning by Analogy often conceals the true history of a word. ”

“ But when the Breathed Fricative stood before a vowel which itself bore the accent, the Breathed Fricative became Voiced in early Germanic, and then generally became a Voiced Plosive; so in this case we have regularly Eng. ”

“ In both parts the numbers refer to the sections, unless they are preceded by p. when they refer to pages.
A. INDEX OF MATTERS
Ablaut, 69, 76, 79, 226, 276
Abstract nouns, 209, 215, 243, 292
Accent, meaning of, 62
———, Exspiratory and Musical, 64, 65, 66
——— in Indo-European, 58
——— in Latin, 67, 85, 88
——— in pro-ethnic Italic, 87
———, Secondary, 85
———, signs of, 68
Actitive verbs, 290
Adjective Suffixes. See Suffixes. ”