Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/72

Radical stage, in which there is no formal distinction between a root and a word. The agglutination between an Egyptian word and its pronominal suffix is of the lightest possible kind; a particle may, and often does, intervene between them. A recent critic reviewing Rossi's Grammar a few weeks ago, preferred that of Brugsch's to it in consequence of the paradigms of verbs which are to be found in the latter. He might with equal wisdom have found fault with both for omitting the declensions. My own criticism would have been very different. There is, I believe, too much paradigm in Rossi's Grammar. There are no paradigms at all in Egyptian; and those who have inserted such things into their Grammars (I say it with the utmost deference to such admirable scholars as E. de Rougé and Brugsch) have been led astray by their efforts to find in Egyptian what exists in other languages. But each kind of language has its own processes. Hebrew and Arabic verbs can as little be thrown into moods and tenses corresponding to the Greek or Latin verbs, as you can find Pual or Hithpahel forms in French or English. Personal endings are indispensable to the Indo-European and to the Semitic verbs. The Egyptian verb is unchangeable, and has no personal ending properly speaking. The suffix which is sometimes added to it is not really a personal ending. It is put instead of a subject; and when the subject is expressed, the pronominal suffix is and must be omitted. It would