On Assimilation and Adaptation in Congeneric Classes of Words  

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"On Assimilation and Adaptation in Congeneric Classes of Words" (1895) is a text by Maurice Bloomfield.

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY

Vol. XVI, 4. Whole No. 64.

I.— ON ASSIMILATION AND ADAPTATION IN CONGENERIC CLASSES OF WORDS.

The twelfth volume of the American Journal of Philology (1891) contains in its opening pages (1-29) an article by the present writer, entitled 'On Adaptation of Suffixes in Congeneric Classes of Substantives.' This was followed in 1893 by a kindred investigation, 'On the Origin of the So-called Root-determinatives,' an abstract of which was printed in the Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Transactions, vol. XXIV, pp. xxvii ff.; a somewhat fuller presentation of the same subject was subsequently printed in Indogermanische Forschungen, IV 66- 78. The object of the present article is to illustrate these matters by new materials and, in a measure, also by new points of view.

The subject in its broadest and at the same time simplest aspect may be put in the form of a query : What is the influence of the lexical value — as distinguished from morphological structure — of words and expressions upon one another, and what constructive power has this influence in shaping the broader categories of words and expressions ? The answer is, Every word, in so far as it is semantically expressive, may establish, by hap-hazard favoritism, a union between its meaning and any of its sounds, and then send forth this sound (or sounds) upon predatory expeditions into domains where the sound is at first a stranger and parasite. A slight emphasis punctures the placid function of a certain sound-element, and the ripple extends, no one can say how far. The / of Latin gustare, by a delicate process of selection, is charged with the essence of the entire word, and is passed on to its congener taxare, making Romance tastare} Thus German kosten and fasten (English taste) now contain an element t that seems charged with an especial semantic mission, and the minds and mouths of speakers stand ready, upon renewed incita- tion, to extend the use of this t in the same direction. No word may consider itself permanently exempt from the call to pay tribute to some congeneric expression, no matter how distant the semasiological cousinship ; no obscure sound-element, eking out its dim life in a single obscure spot, may not at any moment find itself infused with the elixir of life, until it bursts its confinement and spreads through the vocabulary a lusty brood of descendants. Preparatory to a deepening discussion of the constructive force of the lexical or semasiological values, we may consider all the phenomena treated in these papers under two heads: i) Congeneric words assimilate ; 2) The signification of any word is arbitrarily attached to some sound-element contained in it, and then congeneric names are created by means of this infused or, we might say, irradiated, or inspired element. Only the second process is entitled to the name adaptation; the first may be called congeneric assimilation, or congeneric analogy. Italian licorno 'unicorn,' changed from unicorno by assimilation to its congener lifante = elefante ' elephant,' 2 is not as yet an exhibition of adap- tation. But if the Italians had seized upon this element It as a general prefix which had become so far vitalized as to make it desirable or necessary to place it at the head of newly coined designations of animals, then li has become adapted. This is not a question of numerical relation, since the adaptation frequently extends but to a single case. So M. Br6al reports 3 that the organizers of certain public festivals in Nice promised the public that there should figure among the glories of the pageant not only cavalcades, but also analcades. Here the element -alcades has adapted itself to a certain sphere of action, though it shall never extend beyond this single new word, and perish with the breezy doings which begot it. Adaptation is active, aggressive, creative, at least semi-conscious; assimilation is dormant, passive, not necessarily conscious at all. A mere slip of the tongue in obedience to the faintest reverberation from the parent-word will change unicorno to licorno, produce dialectic English ketch from

1 Cf. Indogermanische Forschungen, IV 70, note.

2 See 'Adaptation,' p. 25, note 3.

3 Memoires de la Societe de Linguistique, vol. VII, p. 24.

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catch in deference to fetch, or will change the name of the city Minneapolis to Minneannapolis (as is sometimes heard), in defer- ence to Indianapolis, Annapolis. Adaptation, on the other hand, may be positively reflective, as e. g. in the following extract, in which the struggle between silver and gold for the control of the currency of the United States has inspired the editor of the Atlanta Constitution (Dec. 13, 1892) to say: "If the goldolaters and the money power propose to control, that fact cannot be made apparent a moment too soon." The editor in question did exactly as the philosopher who coined symbolatry after idolatry (the latter ddaXoXarpela changed by haplology). Chemists, manu- facturers of quack medicines, inventors of new explosives etc., supported by the freemasonry of their respective classes and the acquiescent public, float their -ites and -ales, -ides and -ades, with dire intent : terrorite and americanite have been invented recently to match dynamite} and one feels like drawing the curtain over the indecently profuse offspring of vaseline — the rosalines, the bloomines, the fragelines and the nosulines. The banality of these processes is offset by the startling subtleness of the cate- gories which are accentuated by an adapted suffix : they are often the very stuff that dreams are made of. The sinister electrocution reminds us that the toddling onward steps of our civilization may yield us further a *hydrocution, if perchance the theory that drowning is rather pleasant than otherwise should prevail. The London public and the London papers have created, of recent years, a suffix -eries (plurale tantum), designating public exhibi- tions. It appears to have started with the fisheries exhibition, which was called ' the fisheries ' for short ; next came an exhibition of flowers, which required no violent adaptive process to be turned into ' the ftoweries' '; again, the hygienic or health exhi- bition became 'the heallheries,' and finally the Colonial and Indian exposition appeared as ' the Colinderies,' a word which, the purist would say, ought to turn the very printer's ink vermilion. 2 I have mentioned in the past (Idg. Forsch. IV 71) that I frequently felt tempted to blend the two words quench and squelch in a composite result squench, and that my attention was afterwards drawn to a passage in Page's ' In Ole Virginia,' p. 53, presenting the word in dialect ('she le' me squench my thirst

1 Cf. also melinite, emmcnsite, gelbite, cresilite, panclastite, oxonite, glonoinite.

2 In New Haven, Connecticut, my colleague, Prof. Warren, informs me, the engineers of electric tram-cars have recently blossomed out as motorneers.

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kissin' her hand',)' Again, my attention has been drawn to the occurrence of the word in James Whitcomb Riley's ' Elf-child ' : ' an' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away.' The slang word swipe, which is now heard often, is to my sense clearly a similar product of wipe and sweep and swoop. One can taste the ingredients. English stodgy is in sense a perfect reflection of podgy and stolid. One should note, in connection with all these products, the superior mobility and fusibility of the sound i : it stands ready to form a kind of an inverted affricative with every dental, and blends most readily with explosives, liquids and nasals. In my opinion the portentous number of I. E. word- couplets, one with and the other without s, cases like Goth, stiur : ravpos ; ore'-yoy : reyos, Lat. tego ; er/iiKpdj : fuxpos ', Lith. sparnas : Sk. parna 'wing'; Engl, mash and smash, and countless others are, in part, exhibitions of this semantic mobility of s. 1 The sound is so lightly girded, so easily charged with faint symbolic meaning (cf. von der Gabelentz, Festgruss an Otto von Bohtlingk, pp. 26 ft".; Sprachwissenschaft, pp. 217 ff.), that it must have been added again and again in all periods of I. E. speech upon the slightest provocation, as the faintest echo of words of correlated meaning.

These phenomena are in close touch with reduplication. Redu- plication in early glottogonic periods of language cannot have represented anything more than an attempt to make an idea tarry. It is a rudimentary rhetorical device. In historical periods of I. E. speech the habit ceases in general to be produc- tive, just as the semantic value of the older reduplications is entirely lost. German beben and even Sk. bibheti contain no longer any trace of the early semasy of the reduplication ; the. reduplication is a fossil. 2 The productivity of language becomes

1 Cf. KZ. II 264 ; Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, II 291 ; Curtius, Grie- chische Etymologie 5 , pp. 692 ff.; Meringer, Beitrage zur Geschichte der indo- germanischen Declination, p. 43 (Proceedings of the Vienna Academy, vol. CXXV); Hoffmann, Bezz. Beitr. XVIII 155; Schrijnen, Etude sur le pheno- mene de IV mobile dans les langues classiques, Louvain, 1891 (cf. Indoger- manischer Anzeiger, I 109 ff.).

2 In the Proc. Am. Or. Soc. for October, 1882 (Journal, vol. XI, p. cxxvi), I have drawn attention to a highly interesting survival of the original function of reduplication in a single present-system in the Veda. The case deserves more attention than it has as yet received. The root bkar ' carry ' shows a distinct functional difference between its two stems bhdra and bibhar. The former is, in the terminology of Slavic grammar, ' perfective,' being regularly followed by the dative, and meaning ' convey ' ; the reduplicated stem bibhar.

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'analytic' rather than 'synthetic,' and a set of analytic devices takes the place of the old synthetic reduplications. English hurly-burly, fiddle-faddle, tittle-taitle, zig-zag, rogey-pogey, Germ. tick-tack, piff paff puff, and the like, are the closest modern approaches to reduplication. English spick and span, by hook and by crook, dance and prance ; Germ, alt und kali, knall und fall, auf schritt und triit, trdume sch'dume, ohne soft und kraft, are in reality reduplicating devices. They are in every sense, too, devices, just as the old reduplication, profoundly influential in shaping both form and meaning. In reckt und schlecht, sckutz und trutz, the singleness of the expression is now absolutely established and guaranteed, because schlecht and trutz by them- selves are no longer words at all in the sense in which they occur in these reduplications in literary New High German. But this reduplication is not only conservative, but also aggressively form- ative, regardless, in a measure, of the individual parts of the reduplication. In Mhg. rasten and resten 'rest' coexist; in Nhg. rasten alone is left. I doubt not but what we may consult such an expression as ohn' rast aber ohn' hast for the explanation of the final outcome. And now, after this has been accomplished, it is to be noted that Germ, hasten and rasten are, to my feeling at least, vastly more congeneric, more correlative, than Engl, rest and haste. The question as to how much plasticity may have been imparted to the lexical value of words by the cloud of formally assonant words, with meanings not too far removed, that hover about them, would form one of the most fruitful and profound investigations in linguistic history. In such a triad as langen, hangen, bangen, the verb hangen has unquestionably been enriched semantically by the mere accident of its possible alliterative pendants. Now, a great deal of congeneric assimila- tion is in reality this alliterative reduplication incompleted, elliptic. The alliterative companion is potential rather than actual. It flits through the mind, and may or may not leave a trace.

Blessed be that comparatively recent change in grammatical sentiment which permits the secure feeling that the modern

on the other hand, is imperfective, being used without the dative in the sense of ' hold, support.' Typical examples are bhdra grnaU vdsuni ' convey goods to the singer' (RV. ix 69. 10); and vdsu bibharsi hdstayoh 'thou holdest wealth in thy hands' (RV. i 55. 8). The distinction is observed without fail, and illustrates most truly the glottogonic value of the reduplication, as a formation which expresses tarrying action or condition.

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linguistic processes were in vogue in older periods of speech. I shall now proceed to show a few instances in which alliterative juxtaposition has proved creative in Vedic and Sanskrit. Vedic iirjasvant means 'rich in food, exuberant, strong,' and is analyz- able on the surface into a stem urjas and the possessive suffix vant. But there is no independent stem tirjas to be found any- where in the language : the simple word without suffix vant is ilrj or urja ' food, strength.' If we look at the connections in which iirjasvant occurs, we find, in the first place, that it keeps company very persistently with the word pdyasvant 'rich in fluid,' obviously a congener with an opposite flavor. Thus e. g. Vaj. S. i 27 iirjasvatl ca 'sipdyasvati ca 'thou art rich in food, and rich in drink' ; AV. ii 29. 5 ilrj am asmd iirjasvatl dhattam p&yo asmdi payasvatl dhattam ' (O heaven and earth,) ye that are rich in food bestow food upon him, ye that are rich in drink bestow drink upon him.' In this passage the simple word ilrj, but the deriv- ative Iirjasvant. In Vait. Su. iii 20 prajdpater bhdgo 'sy arjasvdn payasvdn ' thou art of Prajapati the share, rich in food and rich in drink.' Cf. also AV. iii 12. 2; vii 60. 2; ix 3. 16; xix 46. 6; Maitr. S. iv. 13. 9 (p. 212, 1. 3); Tait. Br. iii 7. 6. 6; 9. 19. 1, 2; £at. Br. i 2. 5. 11 ; 9. 1. 7 ; Vait. Su. xvii 8. In RV. x 169. 1 we find iirjasvant in alliterative juxtaposition, or at least in conscious parallelism, with another congener, pivasvant 'rich in fat': iirja- svatir dshadhlr a rifantdm, pivasvatir jivadhanydli pibantu 'they shall eat herbs rich in nourishment, drink waters rich in fat, life- bestowing.' In addition the language commands at least three other close congeners, midasvant 'rich in fat,' prdyasvant 'rich in enjoyment,' and djasvant 'rich in strength,' all .j-stems with suffix vant: the formation iirjasvant is thus, as it were, a historical necessity, while at the same time the primary word iirj lives on terms of complete intimacy with the primary pdyas, e. g. in the expression, Tait. Br. iii 7. 4. 15, urjam pdyah pinvamand ghrtdm ca ' yielding food, drink and ghee,' where the occasion does not demand the excitement of alliterative duplication.

Of particular interest in connection with the last sketch are certain momentary or opportunistic formations. Anent iirjasvant we can imagine the objection : Does the frequent juxtaposition of iirjasvant with pdyasvant after all prove that the former was made in obedience to the latter ? may not the stem *urjas have had an independent existence, and have perished, after begetting its derivative ? Is not its occurrence in this connection otiose, for

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the very reason that its meaning would naturally establish it in that very connection? We can fortunately point to a number of cases in which the transformation in deference to an alliterative sense occurs a single time in an unequivocal environment, is not, however, taken up by the speakers and writers, and perishes with the single occasion. In AV. ii 10. 1 we read k§etriyat tva nirrtyd . . . muncdmi 'from inherited disease, and destruction do I release thee.' The passage recurs in Tait. Br. ii 5. 6. 1 in the form ksetriyai tva nirrtyai tva . . . muncdmi. Here nirrtyai is the ablative feminine in at, common in the Brahmanas for the more normal Vedic ending as (Whitney, Sk. Gr. 2 , §365 d), and requires no comment. But kqetriya is a masculine a-stem ; there is no feminine, and if there were it would be nom. k$etriyd, abl. k§etri- ydyah or k^etriydydi. 1 Obviously the word is the product of the moment, of the situation, under alliterative impetus. The form is not called for again : it does not succeed in effecting a passage from merely rhetorical to grammatical existence.

A peculiarly interesting case of a momentary formation occurs in the seventh Aflga of the Jainist Siddhanta ; see Weber, Verzeich- niss der Sanskrit- und Prakrit-Handschriften, vol. II, part 2, p. 485. The ordinary word kdya 'body' occurs there in the stem- form kayas, in the expression, Prakrit manasd vayasd kdyasd = Sk. manasd vacasd kdyasd 'with mind, speech and body': kaya has been changed to kayas that it may rhyme with the preceding two ^-sterns, 2 although it is itself a secondary derivative from ka = prajdpati 'the lord of creatures,' i. e. 'coming from the lord of creatures,' and an s-stem from such a derivative is a monstrous thing. The true form of the instrumental occurs in a very similar formula, Bhagavad-Gita, v 1 1 kdyena manasd buddhyd ' with body, mind and intelligence.' Cf. also Childers, Pali Lexicon, s. v. kayo.

Another formation of this kind is the <br. X*y. rhdnt 'small,' RV. x 28. 9: brh&ntam cid rhati randhaydni ' I shall subject even the great to the small.' The material from which this rhdnt, peculiar in form and unquestionable in meaning, has been con- structed is not so obvious. I can imagine it as derived from the root in raghii 'light,' but perhaps drbha 'small,' arbhakd 'quite

1 The scholiast does not hesitate to abstract from ksetriyai the necessary base, nom. kseiri ; to wit, balopadravakarini kacid raksojdtih ksetrt.

2 The case is precisely identical with the formulaic usdso dosdsac ca, AV. xvi 4. 6, where the stem dosi, prompted by its neighbor usds 'dawn,' yields for the nonce a stem dosds 'eve,' which latter never appears again.

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small,' were in the mind of the poet. The fading out of either gh or bh to h occasions no difficulty (cf. grabh : grah, videha and videgha, Cat. Br. i 4. 1. 10, etc.), and, at any rate, whatever radical prototype is at work, there can be no question that brhdnt helped in the formation of rhdnt.

It is of particular interest to observe that at times the assimi- lative effect of alliteration or rhyme extends to a case-ending, and that this al literati vely changed case-form may, if the speakers fancy it, be propagated so as to become more or less freely available, to the confusion of the ordinary paradigmatic types. Thus the ablatives of the Vedic stems didytlt and vidydt 'light- ning ' appear in certain Vedic formulas in the curious forms didydt and vidydt. The origin of these forms may be understood, if we observe the environment which gave rise to them. In Vaj. S. xx 2 we have mrlydh pahi vidydt pahi, in Tait. S. i 8. 14. 1 mrtydr ma pahi didydn ma pahi} Considered from a serious gram- matical point of view, vidydt and didydi are the products of proportional analogy, nom. mrtyiih : abl. mrtydh = noms. vidydt, didytlt : x, where x yields vidydt, didydt, instead of the ordinary ablatives vidytltah and didyiitah. In this case the forms never step out from rhetoric into grammar ; they are restricted to these formulas. But in a paper on 'Two Problems in Sanskrit Gram- mar,' Proc. Am. Or. Soc. for December, 1894, I have treated the old problem of the instrumentals in na from stems in man {mahina, varina, prathina, bhiiiift), and have, I believe, shown that they are all likely to have arisen either through formulaic juxtaposition or, what amounts to essentially the same thing, the mental suggestion of one another as each was pronounced. The word mahina means 'with greatness' and is itself a blend of mahna and mahimna 'with greatness,' suggested by metrical conveniences. If we observe the meaning of the other three words we find that varina means ' with extent,' prathina" ' with breadth,' and bhuna, again, 'with greatness.' These are so obviously congeneric with mahina as to suggest at once that they were patterned after it. This is shown strikingly by Tait. S. iv 7. 2. 1 = Maitr. S. ii 11. 2, where three of these four nouns succeed each other in a liturgical formula, and that, too, not in their instrumental form, but in the nominative singular, elimi- nating thus the suspicion that the peculiar form of the instru-

a Cf. Maitr. S. ii 6. 10 and Kath. S., in v. Schroeder's note, for additional variants.

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mental is the cause rather than the effect of their appearance in company. The passage reads, mahimd ca me varimd ca me ■brathimd ca me . . . yajnena kaipantdm ' may greatness, and scope, and breadth . . . form themselves for me with the sacrifice.'

We may now note a case of peculiar interest. It shows that one and the same word may, under proper circumstances, be subjected to congeneric influence more than a single time. In the Suparnakhyana 17. 3 (Ind. Stud. XIV 15) occurs the expres- sion ubhayam sthdsnu jamgamam ' both that which stands and walks.' The form sthdsnu with cerebral s after d is bizarre, and we may at once compare the obviously identical phrases, idam sthdnu jangamam 'that which stands and walks,' Mahabh. xiv 1487 ; Markandeya Purana 48. 38 ; and lokdn sihdnujangamdn, Mahabh. i 1524, 6622 ; ii 469 ; Harivanca 944. The sibilant of sthdqnu has been imported into the word from its congener sthdsnu 'standing,' e. g. sthdsnu cariqnu ca 'that which stands and walks,' Manu i 56; Bhagavata Purana 2. 6. But sthdsnu itself is rather late, occurring neither in the Rig- Veda, nor in the Atharvan, though sthdnil occurs in each, and we are led to suppose that sthdsnu is an earlier product of sthdnil, patterned after its opposite cari^nu. The only difference between sthdsnu and sthdsnu is that the former defers more precisely to well- known phonetic tendencies, avoiding the cerebral sounds after d. Finally, the Vedic sthdnil is itself open to considerable suspicion : its difficult n has been discussed frequently (see e. g. Windisch, KZ. XXVII 168; Bartholomae, Idg. Forsch. Ill 172), but no etymological or historical value should be attached to the cere- bral quality of its nasal, because Vedic carisntl is its opposite congener. If the word had been * sthdnil (with dental n), it would probably have soon accepted the invitation of carisntl to change its dental n to cerebral n. Thus sihdn^, sthdsnu, sthdsnu, all three, are in the last analysis indebted for some of their qual- ities to the opposite cari§ntl, even if our presentation of the order of the processes should stand in need of modification.

My article on 'Adaptation' has been reviewed a number of times, and has been received favorably. Two of the critics, Professor Fick in the Zeitschrift fur deutsches Alterthum, Anzei- ger, XVIII, p. 184, and Professor Meringer in the Anzeiger fur indogermanische Sprach- und Alterthumskunde, vol. II, p. 14, both of whom are well satisfied with the general outcome of my investigation, object strenuously to the opening example of

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congeneric assimilation. The explanation of the Attic nomi- native novs for *was as an imitation of 68ois is regarded by both as untenable. Both make in substance the same objection, which may be stated in Prof. Fick's words : " The designations of hand and foot, eye and ear, arm and leg may operate upon one another, because they are often connected in speech and thought; foot and tooth, on the other hand, are in no especial relation : they are in truth not congeneric." I have no especial interest in saving this single explanation, and should be quite willing to throw it overboard, if the argumentation of these scholars was in any way coercive, and did not, as it seems to me, shear the principle of the greater part of its usefulness. I admit freely that hand and foot are more saliently congeneric than tooth and foot; the former, in fact, are opposites, and opposites are the most con- generic of congeners, 'les extremes se touchent.' Hence the analogy of opposites has been for years a fruitful source of good linguistic analysis ; during all that time congeneric influence has been suspected but rarely for the very reason that it is not so obvious. Precisely in the same way black and white are more vigorously congeneric than black and green, and we may expect hence assimilations of the former two such as I seem to have proved for Germ. *hveita-s, for *hvetya-s, or perhaps rather

• hveidd-s (Verner's law) = fvetd-s, and *svarta-s ('Adaptation,'

p. 16, note 2). Yet color-words in general do assume again and again a common suffix (see ib., pp. 16, 25, and below, p. 433). Meringer, in the very same breath in which he argues against my rapprochement, makes the interesting suggestion that the German

• haubid- for *habid- (cf. Lat. caput-) owes its troublesome u to

augd and ausd, an influence by far less obvious than that which he regards as sufficient for such assimilations. I would draw attention to the fact that Ved. angtl$tha 'thumb, great toe' = Avest. angusta, Ved. 6§tha 'lip,' updstha 'lap,' and Sk. kostha 'abdomen' (cf. Arm. ku§t 'venter') exhibit a case of adaptation of a suffix -stha in four designations of parts of the body removed from one another as far as possible. So also, though in a lesser degree, dsthi 'bone,' sdkthi 'thigh' and a^thi-vdntdu 'the knees,' if they have influenced one another at all, 1 owe their assimilation to the remote idea that these three parts of the body are bony.

1 Cf. Bartholomae, Studien zur indogermanischen Sprachgeschichte, II, p. 103, note 1.

ASSMILA TION AND ADAP TA TION. 4 1 9

Professor H. Zimmer has been good enough to communicate to me a striking case of adaptation of an ending to designations of parts of the body, which seems to me to speak for itself, and exhibits the unity of this category in the minds of the speakers, all logical interpellations notwithstanding. I present his list and his explanation in his own words :

1) Middle-Cymric eskeuam, Neo-Cymric yscyfarn, Cornish scovarn, scovorn, scoforn 'ear,' Arem. Bret, skouarn, skoarn ' oreille.'

2) Middle-Cymr. ascwrn, Neo-Cymr. asgwrn 'bone,' Corn. ascorn 'a bone,' Arem. Bret, askourn 'os.'

3) Middle-Cymr. loscurn, Neo-Cymr. llosgwrn 'tail.'

4) Middle-Breton arzorn, Neo-Bret. arzourn Tendroit ou la main se joint au bras,' 'wrist.'

A comparison of Cymr. Host, Corn, lost, Bret. lost = Erse loss 'tail' with No. 3 (Middle-Cymr. loscurn, Neo-Cymr. llosgwrn) shows that the suffix orn, ourn has been added secondarily. No. 2 also may be compared with Sk. dsthi, asthdn, Gr. oariav.

A Pan-Celtic word is Erse dorn, Gaelic dorn, Manx doarn, Cymr. dwrn, Corn, dorn, Arem. Bret, dourn 'fist, hand' = Gr. 6hap, Ohg. tenarl

This seems to be the starting-point of the ending orn, urn in the Britannic dialects : Arem. Bret, arzourn is equal to ar-dourn 'at the hand, at the fist, wrist.' Cf. Zeuss-Ebel, Grammatica Celtica, 827.

According to this view the final sounds -orn of dorn, the word for fist, hand, have by gradual extension captured the desig- nations for joint of the hand, ear, bone and tail, and the logical distance from hand to ear is no less than from foot to tooth. There is enough to show that the vague and the half relevant associations are as much at play in this kind of operation as the sober and matter-of-fact. The group of five Greek words ending in y£ ('Adaptation,' p. 27), united by the common quality of ' hollowness ' : <rvpiy£ 'pipe,' od\myg 'trumpet,' <papvy% 'windpipe,'

Xapuyg 'throat,' <ritr)kvy£ 'cave,' to which I WOUld now add orjpayg

' hollow, cleft,' are certainly due to association of the vague kind. The process borders, in fact, upon popular etymology on the one hand, and symbolic association on the other, and a good deal of latitude must be allowed. For instance, the origin of the ' suffix ' -nga in Sk. (tnga ' horn ' — even the Avestan has srva in srvo-jan 'breaking off the horns (of cattle)' — from dnga 'limb' must be

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regarded in that light 1 : the horn is easily looked upon as a limb — saliently and yet vaguely.

Instead of this doctrinaire restriction as to the lengths to which language might reasonably be permitted to go in this matter, I would point out that the entire semantic community is engaged in these operations, all the way from words having exactly, or nearly exactly, the same meanings to the words or expressions on the very confines of the class. For the sake of convenient survey we may treat such materials in four classes :

I. Words of absolute or nearly absolute identity of meaning.

II. Words belonging to the same general class which, in addi- tion, share some specific semasiological traits that constitute them into a class within a class.

III. Words of opposite meaning.

IV. Congeners in the widest sense.

In the following pages these empirical subdivisions are illus- trated by materials which to a considerable extent are new. Especially in the first division the attempt is made to assemble a rather extensive list of pairs of words, in order to exhibit the scope of these operations. A good deal depends here upon the habit of expectancy, and it will be well at this time to offer as much as possible for consideration.

I. Words of absolute or nearly absolute identity of meaning.

Two I. E. words for 'dung, excrement' are contained in Gr. trump, (TKaros and Sk. fdkrt, faknds. Gr. Konpas corresponds to the last pair as does vbpos to v8a>p, ZSaros, and thus forbids the complete identification of fdkrt with a-Kwp. But the congeneric character of the two words has doubtless had a hand in assigning both to the r-ra-declension. It is possible that this similarity is due merely to their general relation to the body (cf. 'Adaptation,' p. 5), but it is more likely that the two groups have influenced one another because they are names for the same thing. Cf. Pedersen, KZ. XXXII 245, 246.

Lith. saldiis, Obg. sladiiku. % 'sweet' are derivatives from the I. E. stem said 'salt' (J. Schmidt, Indogermanische Neutra, p.

1 Different views are given by Frohde, Bezz. Beitr. X, p. 300; Fick, Verglei- chendes W5rterbuch, I 4 , p. 212 ; Kluge, Festgruss an Otto von BShtlingk, p. 60 ; Meringer, Beitrage zur Geschichte der indogermanischen Declination (Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie in Wien, vol. CXXV), p. 16 (reprint).

2 Cf. its opposite bridukii ' bitter.'

ASSIMILATION AND ADAPTATION. 42 1

182), but they owe, I believe, the particular conformation of their suffix, and the specialization of their meaning, to I. E. svddtis 'sweet.'

It is not possible to maintain the time-honored equation Gr. avr\u)v = Sk. dtmdn 'breath, soul.' The former must be derived from the twice-reduced theme aft) 'breathe.' The latter may be ntmdn from the dissyllabic root an? 'breathe,' or it may be radically related to Germanic *e]>ma in Ohg. dtum, Old Saxon dthom (cf. Old Frisian ethma). At any rate, avT/xfji/ and dtmdn must no longer be identified ; only the common suffix is due to their congeneric character : one was patterned after the other.

The stem dtmdn has entered into affiliation with another word in a very interesting manner. By its side occurs the reduced, or rather mutilated, stem tmdn, phonetically unaccountable. The reduced stem, it may be noted, is semantically defective when compared with the full stem. The primary meaning of dtmdn, ' soul, life's breath,' scarcely appears with the reduced stem at all ; the latter flourishes (especially in the instrumental form tmdnd) in the more faded meaning of 'self,' 1 which is also common with the strong stem dtmdn. Now, there is another word, tanti ' body,' which is again employed, especially in the instrumental, in the sense of 'self.' The following two passages shall of themselves convey to the reader the explanation I have in mind : RV. vi 49. 13 d, rdyfa madema tanva td?id ca 'may we in wealth rejoice, ourselves and our children'; RV. x 148. 1 suvitdm . . . tmdnd tdnd sanuydma tvdtdh 'may we, ourselves and children, obtain prosperity, aided by thee.' Obviously tanvd and tmdnd are interchangeable terms in this connection, and I doubt not that the type tmdn has arisen from dtmdn by giving up its d in deference to its close congener ianii? Cf. further the expression tm&ne tdkdya 'for ourselves and children' (RV. i 114. 6) with tokdsya . . . tanundm 'of ourselves and children' (RV. ix 778. 18) ; tdnaydya tmdne ca 'for our posterity and ourselves' (RV. i 183. 3) with tanvi tdne ca, with the same meaning (RV. vi 46. 12).

'See e. g. Maitr. S. iii 9. 7 (p. 126, 1. 10).

s Possibly aid and comfort may have come to this movement from the large number of words with the opposite meaning 'children, offspring, posterity' beginning with t; namely, (lie, tuj, tokd, tdn, tanas and tdnaya. These as a group are constantly found in juxtaposition with the stems tanti and tmdn in the opposite sense of ' self ; cf. Grassmann's lexicon under each word. A typical example is RV. i 114. 6 tmdne tokuya tdnaydya mrda 'pity ourselves, our children and our posterity,'

422 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.

Ved. atithi 'guest' is compared with Avest. asti 'minister,' and somehow both suggest Goth. gast(t)-s, Obg. gosil and Lat. hosti-s. The two groups may be of congeneric structure, since gast-s, etc., may be referred to an I. E. base *%kot-tki parallel with *ot-thi. The comparison of the two groups is, however, uncertain ; Brug- mann, Indogermanische Forschungen, I 172 ff., makes out a fair case for O. Miiller's (Festus, p. 102) comparison of hos-ti-s with (-evFo-s, which would necessitate a root §hes 'devour' (Vedic gkas). In that case the similarity of dtithi and gasts is fatuous.

The v of the oblique cases of «r (Cret. h-i), lv 'unus, unum,' from the I. E. stem sent 'one,' are supposed to be due to para- digmatic analogy : «/ unquestionably may have propagated its v through the oblique cases, just as Zfjx for diem yields Zijro'r. 1 Nevertheless, it is of interest to observe the other words for 'one' in the language : otvo- [European stem oino- in Lat. oino-s, Lith. v-enas, Goth. ain(a)-s\ and *p.6vFos (jumvos, y.6vos). The domain of the number 'one' is thus largely held by words with «-suffixes, and the possibility must be admitted that they caused the change of *«><5f to eVo's, or aided in bringing it about.

The I. E. words for 'tear' are based upon two congeneric roots with frequently identical suffix-formation ; the speakers rarely forgot the existence of the double opportunity, and the propriety of keeping the two groups in touch with one another. We may assume that the radical elements are ak 'to be sharp* and dak ' bite.' Sk. af-rd-m (I. E. stem *ak-rd-m) is thus to be compared with Goth, tagr (I. E. stem dak-ro-m). Vedic dc-ru, again, is to be compared with 8dn-pv (SdxpvpM, Lat. dacruma). If De Saussure, M6moires de la Society de Linguistique, VII 88 ff., is correct in assuming the lexical identity of Homeric oxpvous and BaKpvods,' then the Greek by itself has the two types I. E. *ak-ru and dak-ru. The change of *dxpv to *6 K pv is supported by the doublet ,1k P is,Skpk (cf. Vedic df-ri-s 'edge'), and lends strength to the derivation of the words for 'tear' without (/from the root ak 'to be sharp.'

Very similarly the I. E. word for 'day' seems to have pre- empted a duplex radical territory, but under formative conditions which show that the meaning of the word acted as a bond of

1 Professor von Bradke, BeitrSge zur Kenntniss der vorhistorischen Ent- wickelung unseres Sprachstammes, p. 30, note, argues in favor of a pre- Hellenic stem with n, comparing Diana with Aiavy and Janus with stem Znv-.

2 Cf. tSanfivoeic Trote/ioc, II. v 737, with oKpvdeic ird?.e/ioc, II. ix 64.

ASSIMILATION AND ADAPTATION. 423

union between the formations. Vedic dhas 'day' (I. E. stem

• oghes) is closely parallel to the stem * dhotfies 1 in Goth. Dagis-

theus. J. Schmidt, Indogermanische Neutra, p. 151, assumes that the o-stem *dhogho in Goth. dag{a)-s arose from the nominative of the 5-stem *dhoges in dags, which coincided formally with the 0-stems. At any rate, the s-stem is secure, and a total separation of the history of the two words is not likely to take place. Cf. Meringer, Beitr'age zur Geschichte der indogermanischen Decli- nation (Proc. of the Vienna Academy, vol. CXXV), p. 36 of the reprint; Pedersen, KZ. XXXII 250.

Avest. aznqmz=Ved. ahnam 'of days'; Avest. asni=Ved. dhni 'by day,' together with Vedic dkar, point to a heteroclitic Aryan declension azhar, azhnas. The Avestan has by its side another heteroclitic r-w-stem for 'day,' ayar-, ay an- (nom. ay an; gen. loc. sg., ace. pi. ayqri). In a measure the similarity of these words may be due to their character as words designating 'season'; these I have shown ('Adaptation,' p. 19 ff.) evince a marked preference for this type of declension. Yet it seems unlikely that the common, narrower meaning 'day' did not have a hand in the final adjustment of the sound-matter that entered into the words. Cf. J. Schmidt, I.e., 216, note; Fick, Worter- buch, I 4 , pp. 158, 163, 168.

Avestan kamsrsda 'head' (of Ahrimanic beings) may be a blend of two Aryan words,. one represented by Ved. murdhan 'head, peak,' the other by Ved. kaktibh, kaktid 'peak,' kakttikd ' part of the occiput ' ; cf. Lat. caput and cacumen. Thus I had written in the original version of this article, read before the American Philological Association in 1893 ( c ^ Transactions, vol. XXIV, p. xxviii, middle). Bartholomae, Indog. Forsch. V 224, has since made the same suggestion. Possibly the element ka had risen even in I. E. times to the value of an 'initial determin- ative' in this sense, and it is possible, again, that it had been contaminated further, very early, say by the word for 'ear,' aus to kau ; cf. Goth, haudip ' caput ' and Lith. kdukole ' skull.'

Very similarly K&evdos with the rare duplex ablaut-form a-Ko\ovdos may be explained satisfactorily as a blend of a derivative from e\evd (AijXoufla) and the root (probably in Ionic form) I. E. gel, otherwise present in WXXa> (cf. re\c'0a>) and nepi-nX-oixevoi.

1 Note, however, the difference in the guttural aspirates. Avestan aznam points to the I. E. palatal gh ; the connection of Goth, dags with the root dhegh (Ved. dagdhd, Lith. degii) to the I. E. velar $h. Such interchanges are common ; see J. Schmidt, KZ. XXV 125 ff.

424 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.

Pischel, Vedische Studien, II 63 ff., has proved conclusively the existence of a Vedic word pravdt in the sense of 'river' (cf. previously Weber, Ind. Stud. IV 407), from root pru 'flow.' He has gone too far in denying the existence of another pra-vdt in the sense of 'slope.' The formation pravdt 'river,' feminine, is distinctly peculiar ; whatever may be its precise history, its close congener srav&t 'river,' from root sru 'flow,' must have shared in its fate.

The dissyllabic root Sk. caru, carv ' chew ' (see the author in the forthcoming Proc. Am. Or. Soc. for December, 1894 ; Journ., vol. XVI) is flanked by the root bharv 'chew' in Sk. bharvati; Avestan as-bo u rv-a 'eating much.' If caru, carv is proethnic (cf. Fick, I 4 , p. 385), then bharv is likely to have been the borrower of some of the common characters of the two. For a similar vein of adaptation in connection with u of dissyllabic roots, cf. the verbs jurvati 'consume (the enemy),' tiirvati 'overcome (the enemy),' dkurvati 'injure (the enemy),' in the Proceedings, ib., note.

Hiibschmann, Armenische Studien, p. 77, compares Arm. surb with Ved. fubhrd, assuming metathesis. Another word, Ger- manic *subraz, Ohg. sfibar, Mhg. saber 'sauber' tempts us. Even the modern expressions 'sauberes Madchen,' 'saubere Person' are peculiarly near to Vedic fubhrds . . .yiivd RV. ix 14. 5, which might be translated by 'sauberer Junge,' and tanvah ftimbhamanah 'bright bodies' RV. i 165. 5. It is possible to identify all three, fubhrd, surb and subar by assuming that the original proethnic form of the root was seubh 'to be pure,' which, in certain domains of I. E. territory, came under the influence of the congeneric keudh 'to be pure.' The Sanskrit, taken by itself, manifests a strong sympathy between s and f, 1 and the change of subh to fubh in deference to gudk is without objection. There are, in fact, distinct indications of formal contact between the two roots : both are represented by nasal formations which are not very common, gundhaii and gilmbhati, giindhana and gtimbhana. The presence of another congeneric root fuc 'to shine' may have also contributed to the influence of fudh upon subh, and fuc in its turn raises another question. The correspondence between itself and rue is entitled to consideration from the point of view of initial ' determinatives,' precisely as much as g uc , g udh and guih

1 C(. Bloomfield and Spieker, Proc. Am. Or. Soc. for May, 1886, Journal, vol. XIII, p. cxviii ff.

ASSIMILATION' AND ADAPTATION. 425

from the point of final 'determinatives.' Without strain one can imagine that guc is a precipitate from the roots for 'to shine,' beginning with gu and the old I. E. root reuk (Xcvkos, loucmeri)} Barring the last-mentioned root, the etymologies of the entire group are wanting : Fick, I 4 , p. 428, derives Sk. gudh from an I. E. kuendh, comparing Gr. KaBapos, but the latter claims Sk. githird 'loose' with better right. We can take it for granted that the group did not come about without congeneric influence, though there is nothing coercive about any of these suggestions in detail.

The Vedic root gam ' to exert oneself is absolutely synonymous with gram. In RV. viii 56. 6 we have granttya sunvdte 'to him that exerts himself and presses (the soma)'; in RV. i 141. 10; iv 31. 8, etc., we have gagamanaya sunvdte, in the same sense. This recalls couplets like Lat. frango : Sk. bhandjmi ' break ' ; Lat. fungor, Sk. bhunktt : Goth, bmkjan 'brauche' (see below). In the later Sanskrit a third root klam, identical with gram in meaning and inflection, appears; this would seem to be a Pra- kritic form of gram, unless, indeed, it is a mixed product of klig ' distress' and gram, in the manner of bhyas from bhi and iras (cf. Idg. Forsch. IV 71 ; ZDMG. XLVIII 573, note). This, again, throws light upon the origin of the 'root-determinatives,' and so do the three Vedic roots gras, bhas,ghas 'devour,' the last two with the notable derivative adjectives k§u and -psu ' food.'

A 'suffix' -ilsa figures in the single Vedic noun piyu§a 'biest- ings, sap' (Whitney, Sk. Gr. 2 1197 c). The suffix may be elimi- nated from all serious morphological considerations without any great flight of fancy: the word may be a derivative from root/? 'swell,' patterned after yn§a 'broth.' Similarly guguluka, in guguluka-ydtu (RV. vii 104. 22) 'name of a demon,' lit. 'he that practices sorcery with the guguluka-bird,' fern, guguluka (Maitr. S. iii 14. 17), is likely to have been constructed under the influence of tlliika 'owl.'

1 Triads of roots, one of which stands, as it were, in the middle, are likely to have arisen at all periods of speech in the manner of Ved. bhyas ' fear,' from bhi and tras (cf. Idg. Forsch. IV 71 ; ZDMG. XLVIII 573). Thus:

Ved. bhi : bhyas : tras ' fear.'

I. E. ued : ueq : seq ' speak.'

I. E. drem : dretf : dheu ' run.'

Ved \ ("d^ : (uc : rue ' shine.' ' J fubh

426 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.

The following instances invite judgment on the same lines: Avest. fi?r?tzt and Sk. setu 'bridge' with the none too common suffix tu may have been patterned one after the other ; likewise Avest. doi\ra and Sk. netra ' eye.' * The cerebral in Ved. katd 'pit,' doubtless a popular form of karta (gdrta) 'pit,' may account for the cerebral in kSvata 'pit' (cf. Fick, I*, p. 375). And, again, kivata and avatd have surely been in the same mold. Ved. kubjd 'hunchbacked' has a hand in the formation of Sk. nyubja 'crooked-backed.' The Dhatupatha reports a root k$vid ' sweat,' which looks as though it had been modelled after svid 'sweat.' 2 The initial k§ may have been derived from root k§ar 'flow.'

There are indeed an enormous number of I. E. words of abso- lutely identical meaning which differ from one another, either by an additional sound, possessed by one, absent in the other, or by a sound so different in one, as compared with the other, that phonetic adjustment has hitherto failed to harmonize them. In the following a collection is attempted which lays claim neither to completeness nor to criticism sufficiently thorough to warrant the belief that all represent congeneric formations. The list is intended to be suggestive rather than conclusive : arrangements of linguistic materials from the semantic point of view are almost entirely wanting, and there is little danger of offering too much in this direction.

Words for parts of the body are so picturesque and full of salience that we may expect to find them figuring prominently in such a list. Thus the words for 'stomach,' 'abdomen,' and the like, seem to have been cut out of different lexical cloth, but with the same suffixal trimming : Gr. yaorijp, Lat. venter, Goth, qtyr-s in /aus-giprs 'with empty stomach,' Ved. jathdra 'stomach' (cf. Goth, kilpei 'womb') cannot be referred to the same proethnic word, but nothing forbids the assumption that they were coined from different radical materials with the same suffix. Ved. jaih&ra, again, coquets with udard 'womb,' which, in its turn, supported by YAth.vedaras 'stomach,' Gr. SSepot 'belly' (Hesych.), itrrpos 'belly,' calls up emepov, eyre pa 'entrails' and Lat. uterus?

1 These cases repeat the formative principle which seems to have furnished with identical suffixes such pairs as Goth, himins : ovpavdg (Kluge) and Old Norse konungr : fi.va.% (Fick, Anzeiger f. deutsch. Alterth. XVIII 185).

2 The Dhatupatha defines both as employed in snehanamocanayoh. 3 Cf. Bartholomae, Idg. Forsch. Ill 164, note.

ASSIMILATION AND ADAPTATION. 427

For the words for 'liver' Joh. Schmidt, Pluralbildungen, etc., p. 199, suggests Ijtkrt as the common I. E. predecessor. This is after all nothing but a perplexed composite photograph of the separate I. E. words, some of which begin with / (Arm. leard, Ohg. lebara, Ags. lifer, Old Norse lifr, Old Pruss. lagno) and some with i (Sk. ydkrt, Zend yakard, Gr. frap, Lat. jecur, Lith. jeknos). Here again it seems probable that two I. E. words, betraying their closely congeneric character in their suffixes, have left their descendants variously in the individual languages ; the etyma of both forms are profoundly obscure. 1

Not less vain, in the opinion of the writer, are the attempts to solder together all the words for 'tongue' in our family of speech. Doubtless it is true that with all their Protean variety they suggest one another, and this suggestiveness has led investigators again and again, and very naturally, to fuse all the materials into a single prototype. Very recently two such attempts have be^n put on record — one by Johansson, Idg. Forsch. II 1, the other by Collitz, ' The Aryan Name of the Tongue,' in the Studies of the Oriental Club of Philadelphia. Both discussions are extremely ingenious and valuable, but the start-form which each scholar arrives at is again a composite photograph. Johansson presents

• zdnghu, zdnghua; Collitz dtyghu, dlnghvd? Aside from the

cacophony of these soi-disant words, as to which ears and mouths may differ, it seems unlikely that the materials which have entered into each sum should have passed through the ages so free from the effects of popular etymology as to make their direct employment phonetically a safe procedure. In the Vedic dialect, and probably in Indo-Iranian (Aryan), the word for 'tongue' has without doubt established an alliance with the word for ' spoon,' Ved.Juku*; in Latin lingua the effect of lingere is obvious; in the Germanic languages tongue and long, zunge and zange have not, perhaps, been without influence upon each other. Meringer, 1. c, p. 38, arranges the representatives of 'tongue' under three

1 From the point of view of the German we may note the genuine rapport of ' liver ' and ' lung.' The derivation of the latter is again obscure.

s To this may be added Fick's start -form, dnzhua (Vergleichendes W6rter- buch, I*, p. 71).

3 Cf. Pischel, Vedische Studien, II no ft; Collitz, I.e., p. 5, note. Lat. ligula ' spoon ' appears in lexical works as lingula, with evident attachment to lingua (lingula ' little tongue ') or lingere ' lick.' Cf. Gust. Meyer, Idg. Forsch. II 368.

428 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.

start-forms: *<nghu, *d-nghva and *s-nghva (or *s-ighva), and imagines that the first of these was modified by prefixes. But prefixes, thus broadly launched, are indicators of perplexity : all that is needful is to suppose that there was one creation of a word for 'tongue' with the final complex -ghva; popular etymologies and new formations from various radical materials with this 'suffix' -ghva, in the manner of Romance iasiare after gustare, may have done the rest. Other parts of the body, represented by doublets that have not as yet been harmonized are Sk. kldman : Gr. ir\fvp.a>v, Lat. pulmo 1 ; Aryan zhrd (I. E. gkrd), in Sk. hfd : I. E. krd, in Lat. cord-, etc.; Obg. kosti : Sk. dsihi 'bone'; Lat. lien (Cels. 2. 7. 8) : Gr. o-n-X^, Ved. plihdn 'spleen' 2 ; possibly Horn, dyoordr 'flat of the hand' : Ved. hdsta, Avest. zasta 'hand'; possibly (with Meringer, 1. c, p. 41) a theme Sk. cak$- : ak§- 'eye' 3 ; I. E. ghenu, in Sk. hdnu, Avest. zanva : I. E. genu, it! yepv-s, genu-lnus, Goth, kinnus 'chin' (cf. Fick, I*, p. 53).* Meringer, 1. c, p. 41, compares also koK^v 'thigh-bone' (cf. Obg. koleno 'knee') with &>\ivr) 'elbow.'

Other cases of words with identical meanings which betray their congeneric character in formative similarity are : Sk. kfmis, Lith. klrmis (I. E. qrmis) : Lat. vermis, Ohg. wurm 'worm' 5 ; I. E. rsen and ursen ' male animal ' (Idg. Forsch. IV 73) ; Lat. aper : Lat. caper, Gr. Kanpos (<rvs Kanpos) ' goat, boar ' (Fick, I 4 , pp.

362, 376); vs : air 'sow' (ibid. 141, 392); ifivs and ipis : K\ep.pvs

'tortoise'; I. E. trozdos, in Old Norse ]>rosl (Primitive Germanic \rastaz~) : I. E.; trozdos, in Lith. strdzdas 'thrush.' We may note that this list consists of names of animals which are pecu- liarly liable to affect one another. Cf. also perhaps the following pairs: Vedic kapi : Germ, affe 'ape,' and Sk. vamrd, vamrl : Avest. maoiri 'ant' (Fick, I 4 , pp. no, 519); Ved. karkd, Gr. napicivos : Obg. rakii 'crab.'

Other pairs are : Lith. szvendrai : nindre (lindre) ' reed ' (cf.

'Lat./ does not ordinarily = I. E. g; hence qUffmon is problematic. Gr. wvEv/iav after irvsii/ia illustrates the mobility of such a word.

• Lat. lien has been explained as spli{.h)en, but spl is unchanged in splendeo ;

the analogy of stlocus, locus; stlis, lis is therefore illusory.

3 Cf. perhaps similarly Goth, hausjan ' hear ' : auso ' ear.'

4 This example, of course, should not, for the present, be discussed apart from the cases like ey& : Ved. ahdm, Avest. azsm ; cf. v. Fierlinger, KZ. XXVII 478, note ; Brugmann, Grundriss, I 349.

5 Cf. also Gr. l\(uv^ 'worm, tape-worm,' which again seems to be radically independent.

ASSIMILATION AND ADAPTATION. 429

Fick, I 4 , pp. 428, 506) 1 ; Lith. kaszus, Obg. kosi (I. E. qoso-) : Ved. kd$a, ko'fa (I. E. qouso-~) 'basket, box'; Hesychian tya&pov' <t>ai8p6v, Lith. skaidriis : <p<u8p6c = Lith. g'edras ' clear ' (Fick, Bezz. Beitr. XVIII 143 ff.) ; Obg. dobr&:Ved. bkadr& 'good'; Lith. Mgas : Ved. dirgha 'long' 2 ; bindu 'drop,' modified by popular etymology to bhindii (root bhid ' cut '), TS. vi 6. 3. 5, and Apast. Cr. xiii 20. 11 : indu 'drop'; I. E. stem ghem in Gr. x 'to milk' : I. E. stem %elg 'milk,' flanked by Hesychian fiahskeyC ap,(\ya 4 ; I. E. root seus 'to be dry,' in Ved. fuqka, Avestan huska 'dry' : I. E. eus 'burn,' in Ved. dsati, Gr. eu<», Lat. uro, etc.; Gr. l\Kn (selko) 'draw' (cf. Lat. sulcus 'furrow') : Lith. velkU 'draw'; I. E. root meld in Ags. meltan 'melt' : I. E. root smeld in Ohg. smelzan ' smelt ' ; Sk. root ardh ' prosper ' : vardh ' grow,' and connected with them I. E. ?dhud- 'high, steep,' in Lat. arduus, Ved. urdhvd, Avest. 3r3&va : I. E. ufdhud- in Gr. fopdfos, $op66s (Fick, Anz., 1. c, p. 185); Ved. var:vba>p 'water' (ibid.); Lat. velle : Gr. sU'Xo) : Gr. SeWopai, fioiXopai 'will' 5 (Fick, Anz., 1. c); the rough breathing (5) in tjarai (Ved. asfe) is due to <?8 (sed) 'sit'; Ohg. bim 'am' from I. E. root bheua is modelled after forms of the I. E. root es, Goth, im 'am' (cf. Brugmann, Grundriss, II 908); Lat. frango : Ved. bhaj (bhandjmi) 'break'; European root bhreu& in Lat. fruor (*frugv-or), fructus, Goth, brukjan (Nhg. brauche) : I. E. root bkeu& in Lat. fungor, Ved. bkuhkie" ; Goth. skulan : Ohg. sulen (cf. Johansson in Paul and Braune's Beitrage, XIV, p. 295); I. E. root siu : I. E. root su 'sew' (Gust. Meyer, Albanesische Studien III : Proc. Vienna Acad. CXXV, p. 41 ff.) ; V&d.jlv'alu : Avest. jyatu 'life' (Fick, I 4 198, 201) ; Ohg. winistar :

1 Cf. the broader group, Ved. vetasd ' reed,' atasd 'jungle,' and, more remotely, ydvasa 'grass' and avasd 'fodder,' Obg. ovisu 'oats.'

2 Cf. also Achem. dranga : Lat. longus, Goth, laggs (Meringer, 1. c, p. 35).

3 Cf. also Ved. gr&ma ' village.'

4 We may imagine fiadeteyei a blend of SeTiy and /3Aay, S and /3 being the treatment of I. E. gig and $lg respectively, according to the usual habits of velars in Greek.

5 Brugmann, Grundriss, II 862, explains the length of the augment in r/Pov'AofiJfv (as well as in the congeneric words rjfieKXjov and r)&vn>ap.r)v) as imported from rfie%,w : sdeTM.

430 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.

Lat. sinister 'left'; I. E. alio- in Lat. alius, etc. : I. E. an{o- in Ved. anyd, etc., 'other'; Ved. cdnas, Avest. cano : Ved. vdnas, Lat. Venus ' attachment, favor ' ; Gr. fioaxos : Sa-xos ' shoot ' ; p.d\evpov : SKevpov 'meal.' 1

Of pronominal, adverbial and prepositional words we may group the following pairs : the Vedic demonstratives syd, sya, tydd : sd, sa, tdd (I. E. so, sti, tdd) ; the former pair is likely to be a blend of I. E. sd and to, etc. Greek (6v is more than likely a blend of <rw with I. E. qom (Lat. com) : the vowel of <rvv, £iv is of obscure origin. Cf. further I. E. poti : proti in Ved.prdti, Gr. irpori : Avest. paiti, Gr. jj-ot/ ; Lat. super : Ved. updri, Gr. imzip ; Gr, eS : : Ved. sii (cf. v&su).

II. Words belonging to the same general class which, in addi- tion, share some specific semasiological traits that constitute them into a class within a class.

That is, words belonging to the same class frequently call up for congeneric assimilation those members of "that class which stand related to them by more special traits. Thus, of parts of the body, those of the head are especially prone to influence one another; hence augo and auso 'eye and ear' in Gothic. The Greek pair \dpvy£ and <f>dpvy£ not only belong to that broader group which designates 'hollowness' ending in y|, but, more narrowly, their closer lexical intimacy as contiguous parts of the body betrays itself in every sound except the initial. Cf. also Mhg. lers 'penis' : ars; Ved. pak§d 'wing' : kdkqa 'armpit' (cf. Lat. coxa 'hip'). For Ved. ffhga and dnga see above. Greek aijSmv and x«>u8o>!< (Lat. hirundo) are not only birds, but more narrowly, and by distinction, 'birds of song.' Germ, mils and lus 'mouse and louse' are not only united by the common bond of 'designations of animals,' but they are both 'varmint,' 'unge-

1 A number of couplets whose explanation may be sought, more doubtfully, in the direction indicated can be gleaned from Meringer's tract: Germ. McAsel-.Ved. i(t (p. 43); Goth, arbaty : Lith. ddrbas 'work'; Ohg. narva : Old Norse i/rr, Ved. drus 'wound, scar' (pp. 46, 47) ; yvofyoq : 6v6(poc : Kvtyai; : vi<jx>e (p. 40; cf. Pott, KZ. XXVI 137). With the last group cf. also Lith. debesh. Does Neo-Hell. ytepvu = 'flay' contain a suggestion of yv^C 'naked'? Note also English mash . smash; squirt \ spirt; whir (cf. Germ. schwirren) : whit ; Germ, rupfen : zup/en (and cf. their opposite tupfen, be- tupfen); schwanken : wanken ; wispern (Eng. whisper) : pispern ; Germ, sehreitcn (Ags. scridan) : Eng. stride ; Eng. citizen owes its z to denizen.

ASSIMILATION AND ADAPTATION. 43 1

ziefer.' Similarly Germ, hulan owes its h to husar 1 ; the two are not only 'kinds of soldiery,' but more narrowly 'cavalry.' Ved. raj aid, Lat. argentum 'silver' shows an I. E. suffix to which is repeated in the words for ' gold,' Goth. gul\, Obg. zlaio, Sk. kd%a-ka (cf. also Gr. xpvo-os for xpurios) : these two are not only 'metals,' but 'the precious metals.' 2

III. Words of opposite meaning.

Opposites exercise the same influence upon one another as identical congeners. Just as Ved. kubjd 'hunchbacked' seems to betray in its final sounds its lexical relation to Sk. ny-ubja ' crooked -back,' so also urubjd 'wide open' is the opposite of kubjd. The 'suffix' ubja here makes a distinct show of adapting itself to the twin idea of 'curving' and 'straightening out.' 3 To the hosts of well-known examples we may add Ved. tdyii ' thief : payil 'guardian'; frpos and yfapfo 'dry' : vr\p6s 'damp'; Vedic pagcfrtdt 'behind' is probably formed secondarily from pagcft ' behind ' to match purdstdt ' in front.' For the relation between cariqnii on the one hand, and sthdnti, sthdsnu and stkd§nu on the other, see above.

Nhg. 'freund und feind' are combined in alliteration: the correspondence between the two words runs through to Gothic

1 See Paul, Ueber vocalische Aspiration und reinen Vokaleinsatz, Programm (Hamburg, 1888), p. 40.

2 The suffix of this category is identical with the widely diffused suffix -to in color words ; cf. Ved. hdrita, Avest. mirita ' yellow.' These metals are doubt- less named after their color. Nevertheless, it remains true that just these two, and not others, are formed in this way, and it is likely that one was formed after the direct pattern of the other.

3 At times it is difficult to say whether the assimilation takes place from the point of view of identity or oppositeness. ' Sun and moon ' are built up in part upon two I. E. rhyming stems sven and men (see Kick, I 4 , pp. 107, 153), and may thus far be felt as opposites ; but in Goth, sunna, mlna and stairno (the latter from ster, itself distinctly suggestive of sver in Avest. hvan 'sun') the class identity rather than oppositeness is felt by the speakers. To the proethnic word for 'yesterday,' Ved. hyds, Avest. zyo, Gr. rfh, Lat. hes-ternus , Goth, gis-tra, the Vedic adds as pendants cvds ' to-morrow ' and sadyds ' at the present day ' : each is an opposite of the other two, and as a class they repre- sent a necessarily faltering and limited attempt at establishing a relative chronology, with the present day as the starting-point. The spirit is willing, but the lexicon is weak, and German Ubermorgen, vorgestern are the best that can be produced by way of extending this time-relation ; Eng. ' the day after to-morrow,' ' the day before yesterday' show how expensive the attempt may become.

43 2 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.

frijond and fijond. In Old English and Middle English the words keep pace: O. E./reond, feond, M. E. /rend, /end. But the correspondence runs through the entire history of the two I. E. roots pri 'love' and pi 'hate' (weak forms): Ved. piyaii, Goth. fijan 'hate' : Obg. prijati, Goth. /rijon 'care for' (cf. Ved. priyd ' fond, beloved ') ; Lat. pejus ' worse ' : Sk. firiyas ' more beloved.' It seems very unlikely that this correspondence is merely alliterative. But here is a suggestion of more than usual seductiveness. The I. E. root per means 'to fill' primarily, but in the Vedic dialect a large number of its derivatives mean ' to give, to make presents' to': pr-nd-ti 'he gives,' pilrtd 'the stipend of the Brahman,' parti 'the act of giving.' We may assume that prl is derived from this root, but not with the meaningless 'deter- minative' l, but as a modification of the root per (pr), in deference to its semantic opposite/?.

In Sk. ru§td means 'angry,' tu$d 'pleased' (cf. rtiqyati and tiisyati), respectively from the roots reus and teus. There is no reason to doubt that the congeneric character of the two words was felt in proethnic times: Lith. rus-ta-s 'fierce' and Obg. po-tuch-nati 'quiescere' guarantee the existence of the pair. Another instance of verbal opposites which have exercised influ- ence upon one another may be : Sk. purnd, Avest. pprsna ' full ' : Sk. %nd, Avest. una 'wanting.' The use of the rarer participial suffix no in both need not be accidental. For Germ, rasten and hasten see above ; for the parallelism between I. E. keitai (Ved. (He, Keirai) and I. E. estai (Ved. aste, rjtrrai) see Brugmann, Grdr. II 891-2.

IV. Congeners in the widest sense.

The broad categories of nominal and verbal word-making are the most fruitful field of congeneric assimilation and adaptation. Not only those which readily suggest themselves, such as desig- nations of animals, plants, colors, parts of the body, etc., but also such as are hardly categorized consciously at all, as e. g. the Greek words which share the quality of hollowness, mentioned above (p. 419), or the words in -eries, formed to designate exhi- bitions (above, p. 411). Professor E. W. Fay draws my attention to the interesting rhyming triplet, Germ, heu, streu and spreu. The connective idea is 'dry grass.' The materials in this cate- gory are destined in the immediate future to accumulate very largely, to the great advantage of speech-history. I shall present

ASSIMILATION AND ADAPTATION. 433

here some observations of this sort, some of which may claim the merit of novelty. Nhg. wacholder 'juniper,' 1 Ohg. hiefaltra 'wild brier,' Ohg. mazsaltra 'massholder, maple,' Ohg. affaltra, apholtra 'apple tree,' direct attention to the existence at a very early Germanic period of a 'suffix' altra, designating shrubs and trees. For the last three cf. Brugmann, Grundriss, II 99 ff. The element -tra, -der is 'tree'; the syllable al preceding it seems borrowed from the combination affal-tra, aphol-tra, i. e. it belongs by rights only to the word ' apple, apfel.' I have drawn attention above (p. 429, note) to the development of another suffix for certain plants: I. E. so in Ved. vetasd 'reed,' atasd 'jungle/ ydvasa 'grass,' avasd 'fodder' = Obg. ovisu 'oats.' I. E. d£ru, dru 'tree' seems to correspond with European vidhu 'wood' (Fick, I 4 554), Ved. svdru 'post' (Fick, I 4 , p. 154), and Lat. veru 'spit,' Gr. Papves' fieVSpa (Fick, I*, p. 404). The suffix u seems to continue a certain productivity in that direction in Ved. pt(u{-ddru), putu{-ddru) = deva-daru ' deodar tree,' and cipu(-drti), AV. vi 127. 2. In addition to these the stem perqu in Lat. quercu, for which see Hirth, Idg. Forsch. I 479 ff.

In the domain of designations of animals we may note the groups, Gr. IktIvos 'kite' (cf. Ved. gyend 'eagle'), exivos and e X ivog 'hedge-hog,' and K np<ivos 'crab'; Ved. ja§d and jha§& 'water- animal,' yava§a and y£vd§a 'noxious insect,' kdskasa 'noxious insect,' and perhaps dhvahkqa 'crow.' To the Greek names of birds with £ in the nominative add T«Vp(| and rirpa^ 'grouse' (cf.

Sk. tittiri 'partridge' and Gr. rirapos, rirvpos, raripas, raripoi).

See 'Adaptation,' p. 17. Fick (I*, pp. 88, 488) assumes upon the basis of Gr. <j>ijm] 'a kind of eagle,' Sk. bhdsa 'bird of prey' an I. E. stem bhans- which rhymes with ghans- ' goose.'

To the long list of designations of parts of the body that avail themselves of the r-w-declension, I would now add Gr. akUpavov 'elbow,' \eKpava' tow aynaivas (Hesych.), Lat. lacertus 'arm,' Lith. alkilne 'elbow.' The I. E. declension seems to have been oleqr : shqnds. The Greek forms are blends of the stems of the casus recti and obliqui ; cf. Lat. jecinoris and the like. Among the words for color, Ved. fitihgd 'white ' (extended from giti 'white'), pingd 'reddish brown,' sdrdnga and sdrangd 'variegated,' and pifdhga 'reddish brown' exhibit an undoubted adaptation of the ending -hga to words of color (cf. 'Adaptation,' p. 25). Cf. also

x Mhg. wlckolter (wackandiP), recholter= wacholder; see KZ. XXXII 257.

434 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.

Ved. citrd 'whitish,' Ohg. heilar 'heiter' : fvitrd 'bright,' Lith. szvitr-uti 'sparkle'; and Ved. kddru 'reddish brown' : babhril 'reddish brown.' An interesting additional case of the attraction of an outside word to the category of nouns of relationship in ar (cf. 'Adaptation,' p. 23) is Ved. vdvfriar 'favorite,' genitive vdvatur, RV. viii 1. 8, 16. The stem ordinarily is masc. vdvata, fem. vdvatd. One of the two occurrences of vdvatur, RV. viii 1. 16, explains the formation without comment : a tv ddyd sadhd- stutim vdvttuh sdkhyur a gahi 'come hither to-day to the chorus of praise, instituted by thy favorite friend.' The word sdkhi 'friend,' which itself has joined secondarily the band of words for relationship in ar, has recruited in this one hymn the word vdvata; cf. our remarks on the r61e of alliteration in these processes, above.

Less salient lexical categories are suggested by Ved. drapsd 'drop' : titsa 'spring, well'; Avest. garanu 'itch' (Ved. grdhrni 'eager') : Avest. la/nu 'fever'; Ved. kilasa 'leprosy' : balasa ' consumption of the throat' The English word visitation has assumed a pejorative value, following perhaps words like tribu- lation, consternation, or others ; similarly, German schimpfieren helps to advance the movement of the French suffix ieren in cujonieren, maltraitieren, sekieren towards adaptation as a

pejorative.

Maurice Bloomfield.