ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin. Otto Jespersen
Читать онлайн.Название Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4057664590428
Автор произведения Otto Jespersen
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
In a subsequent part of this work I shall deal with the tripartition as representing three successive stages in the development of such languages as our own (the nacheinander of Schleicher), and try to show that Schleicher’s view is not borne out by the facts of linguistic history, which give us a totally different picture of development.
From both points of view, then, I think that the classification here considered deserves to be shelved among the hasty generalizations in which the history of every branch of science is unfortunately so rich.
III.—§ 6. Reconstruction.
Probably Schleicher’s most original and important contribution to linguistics was his reconstruction of the Proto-Aryan language, die indogermanische ursprache. The possibility of inferentially constructing this parent language, which to Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, etc., was what Latin was to Italian, Spanish, French, etc., was early in his thoughts (see quotations illustrating the gradual growth of the idea in Oertel, p. 39 f.), but it was not till the first edition of his Compendium that he carried it out in detail, giving there for each separate chapter (vowels, consonants, roots, stem-formation, declension, conjugation) first the Proto-Aryan forms and then those actually found in the different languages, from which the former were inferred. This arrangement has the advantage that the reader everywhere sees the historical evolution in the natural order, beginning with the oldest and then proceeding to the later stages, just as the Romanic scholar begins with Latin and then takes in successive stages Old French, Modern French, etc. But in the case of Proto-Aryan this procedure is apt to deceive the student and make him take these primitive forms as something certain, whose existence reposes on just as good evidence as the forms found in Sanskrit literature or in German or English as spoken in our own days. When he finds some forms given first and used to explain some others, there is some danger of his forgetting that the forms given first have a quite different status to the others, and that their only raison d’être is the desire of a modern linguist to explain existing forms in related languages which present certain similarities as originating from a common original form, which he does not find in his texts and has, therefore, to reconstruct. But apart from this there can be no doubt that the reconstruction of older forms (and the ingenious device, due to Schleicher, of denoting such forms by means of a preposed asterisk to distinguish them from forms actually found) has been in many ways beneficial to historical grammar. Only it may be questioned whether Schleicher did not go too far when he wished to base the whole grammar of all the Aryan languages on such reconstructions, instead of using them now and then to explain single facts.
Schleicher even ventured (and in this he seems to have had no follower) to construct an entire little fable in primitive Aryan: see “Eine fabel in indogermanischer ursprache,” Beiträge zur vergl. sprachforschung, 5. 206 (1868). In the introductory remarks he complains of the difficulty of such attempts, chiefly because of the almost complete lack of particles capable of being inferred from the existing languages, but he seems to have entertained no doubt about the phonetic and grammatical forms of the words he employed. As the fable is not now commonly known, I give it here, with Schleicher’s translation, as a document of this period of comparative linguistics.
AVIS AKVASAS KA
Avis, jasmin varna na ā ast, dadarka akvams, tam, vāgham garum vaghantam, tam, bhāram magham, tam, manum āku bharantam. Avis akvabhjams ā vavakat: kard aghnutai mai vidanti manum akvams agantam.
Akvāsas ā vavakant: krudhi avai, kard aghnutai vividvantsvas: manus patis varnām avisāms karnanti svabhjam gharmam vastram avibhjams ka varnā na asti.
Tat kukruvants avis agram ā bhugat.
[DAS] SCHAF UND [DIE] ROSSE
[Ein] schaf, [auf] welchem wolle nicht war (ein geschorenes schaf) sah rosse, das [einen] schweren wagen fahrend, das [eine] grosse last, das [einen] menschen schnell tragend. [Das] schaf sprach [zu den] rossen: [Das] herz wird beengt [in] mir (es thut mir herzlich leid), sehend [den] menschen [die] rosse treibend.
[Die] rosse sprachen: Höre schaf, [das] herz wird beengt [in den] gesehend-habenden (es thut uns herzlich leid, da wir wissen): [der] mensch, [der] herr macht [die] wolle [der] schafe [zu einem] warmen kleide [für] sich und [den] schafen ist nicht wolle (die schafe aber haben keine wolle mehr, sie werden geschoren; es geht ihnen noch schlechter als den rossen).
Dies gehört habend bog (entwich) [das] schaf [auf das] feld (es machte sich aus dem staube).
The question here naturally arises: Is it possible in the way initiated by Schleicher to reconstruct extinct linguistic stages, and what degree of probability can be attached to the forms thus created by linguists? The answer certainly must be that in some instances the reconstruction may have a very strong degree of probability, namely, if the data on which it is based are unambiguous and the form to be reconstructed is not far removed from that or those actually found; but that otherwise any reconstruction becomes doubtful, and naturally the more so according to the extent of the reconstruction (as when a whole text is constructed) and to the distance in time that intervenes between the known and the unknown stage. If we look at the genitives of Lat. genus and Gr. génos, which are found as generis and génous, it is easy to see that both presuppose a form with s between two vowels, as we see a great many intervocalic s’s becoming r in Latin and disappearing in Greek; but when Schleicher gives as the prototype of both (and of corresponding forms in the other languages) Aryan ganasas, he oversteps the limits of the permissible in so far as he ascribes to the vowels definite sounds not really warranted by the known forms. If we knew the modern Scandinavian languages and English only, we should not hesitate to give to the Proto-Gothonic genitive of the word for ‘mother’ the ending -s, cf. Dan. moders, E. mother’s; but G. der mutter suffices to show that the conclusion is not safe, and as a matter of fact, both in Old Norse and in Old English the genitive of this word is without an s. An analogous case is presented when Schleicher reconstructs the nom. of the word for ‘father’ as patars, because he presupposes -s as the invariable sign of every nom. sg. masc., although in this particular word not a single one of the old languages has -s in the nominative. All Schleicher’s reconstructions are based on the assumption that Primitive Aryan had a very simple structure, only few consonant and fewer vowel sounds, and great regularity in morphology; but, as we shall see, this assumption is completely gratuitous and was exploded only a few years after his death. Gabelentz (Spr 182), therefore, was right when he said, with a certain irony, that the Aryan ursprache had changed beyond recognition in the short time between Schleicher and Brugmann. The moral to be drawn from all this seems to be that hypothetical and starred forms should be used sparingly and with the extremest caution.
With regard to inferential forms denoted by a star, the following note may not be out of place here. Their purely theoretical character is not always realized. An example will illustrate what I mean. If etymological dictionaries give as the origin of F. ménage (OF. maisnage) a Latin form *mansionaticum, the etymology may be correct although such a Latin word may never at any time have been uttered. The word was framed at some date, no one knows exactly when, from the word which at various times had the forms (acc.) mansionem, *masione, maison, by means of the ending which at first had the form -aticum (as in viaticum), and finally (through several intermediate stages) became -age; but at what stage of each the two elements met to make the word which eventually became ménage, no one can tell, so that the only thing really asserted is that if the word had been formed at a very early date (which is far from probable) it would have been mansionaticum. It would, therefore, perhaps be more correct to say that the word is from mansione + -aticum.
III.—§ 7. Curtius, Madvig, and Specialists.