Blair Collection > Celtic studies

On Boots, Stems, and Derivatives. 15
affixed to tlie stem. These grammatical sisns are the derivational
and inflexional elements.
The chai'acteristic signs by which the stem becomes a verb,
are the personal endings fxi, ai, ti; m, s, t, etc.: root t, stem
£1, verb tifii, — iM being the personal ending for the first person
sing. ind. ; Skr. root tiid, stem tuda, verb tuda-si, — si being
the ending of the second person sing. ind. As Dr. Ebel's
paper does not deal with the verb, I shall confine myself exclu-
sively to nouns. The characteristic signs by which nouns are
formed are the gender and case endings. The vocative, from
its natm-e, ought to present us with the pure nominal stem, but
in the actual language this is not generally the case ; and hence
it is found more convenient to assume the nominative as the basis
of analysis.
One of the most characteristic distinctions between objects is
that which life affords, and accordingly the sign, by the affixation
of which to the stem the nominative form of the noim is pro-
duced, is a gender sign. For living objects, the sign primitively
affixed to noun-stems in the Indo-Em'opcan languages was s.
Some scholars hold that neuter nouns were distinguished by t,
which they consider possesses a certain power of symbolizing
lifeless or inert bodies. But the evidence that t was ever used,
except in pronominal declension, as a sign of the neuter gender, is
very doubtful. The Gothic neut. adjective-ending ata is, accord-
ing to Bopp, merely a suffixed pronoun. Mankind has, however,
at all times, figuratively endowed certain lifeless objects with Ufe,
and abstract conceptions, such as justice, \'irtue, etc., are ex-
pressed by words of masculine or feminine gender, according as
our fancy chooses to consider them of the one or other sex ; the
names which are used to symbolize these objects or abstract con-
ceptions take, accordingly, the sign of living objects.
The nominative sign s has, however, been but imperfectly pre-
served ; in the Sanskrit it is usually softened to h ; the feminine
forms, which incline to vocalic auslaut with long vowels, seem
to have thrown it off, apparently with the object of marking
the distinction of the sexes. This tendency to have vocalic
auslaut is well shown in the adjectives having the endings in
the Sanskrit, as, «, am; in the Greek, og, a (rj), ov. Even mas-
culine forms often lose the s. In the Zend and Lat. it is frequently
dropped altogether. In the Gothic it is generally only preserved
in masculine substantives with vocalic stems, and in masculine
adjectives and pronouns. In the O.H.G. the substantives have
altogether lost it, while in adjectives and pronouns it has become i\
The neutral t of the pronominal forms has to a great extent
been lost. In the Greek it does not occur at all ; in the Latin it has