those before whom is brought the view we are defending, we will next proceed to examine in more detail the original monosyllabism of Indo-European language, and see of what character it was.
The roots of our family of languages are divided into two distinct classes: those ultimately indicative of position merely, and those significant of action or quality. The former class are called demonstrative or pronominal roots; the latter class are styled predicative or verbal roots.
The pronominal roots are subjective in their character; they have nothing to do with the inherent qualities of objects, but mark them simply in their relation to the speaker, and primarily their local relation; they give the distinction between the this and the that, the nearer and the remoter object of attention, myself here, you there, and the third person or thing yonder, present or absent. By their nature, they are not severally and permanently attachable to certain objects or classes of objects, nor are they limited in their application; each of them may designate any and every thing, according to the varying relation sustained by the latter to the person or thing with reference to which it is contemplated. Only one thing can be called the sun; only certain objects are white; but there is nothing which may not be I, and you, and it, alternately, as the point from which it is viewed changes. In this universality of their application, as dependent upon relative situation merely, and in the consequent capacity of each of them to designate any object which has its own specific name besides, and so, in a manner, to stand for and represent that other name, lies the essential character of the pronouns.[1] From the pronominal roots come most directly the demonstrative pronouns, of which the personal are individualized forms, and the interrogatives; from these are developed secondarily the possessives and relatives, and the various other subordinate classes. They also generate adverbs of position and of direction. To examine in detail the forms they take, and the variations of
- ↑ Their Hindu title, sarvanâman, 'name for everything, universal designation,' is therefore more directly and fundamentally characteristic than the one we give them, pronoun, 'standing for a name.'
