ciple minus its termination, or a præterite with a participial To say I have drank, is to use a præterite for a participle. To say I have drunken, is to use an unexcep- .

sense.

tionable form.

§ 482. In all words with a double form, as spake and spoke, break and broke, clave and clove, the participle follows the form in o-spoken, broken, cloven. Spaken, braken, claven, are impossible forms. There are degrees of laxity in language, and to say the spear is broke is better than to say the spear is brake. These two statements bear upon the future history of the præterite. That of the two forms sang and sung, one will, in the course of language, become obsolete, is nearly certain; and, as the plural form is also that of the participle, it is the plural form which is most likely to be the surviving

one.

Present. Præterite. Participle. | Present. Præterite. Participle.

§ 483. Sodden from seethe.—The d is Anglo-Saxon.

It was found in three other words besides.

§ 484. Forlorn.—In the Latin language the change from s to r, and vice versa, is very common. We have the double forms arbor and arbos, honor and honos, &c. Of this change we have a few specimens in English, e. g. rear and raise. In Anglo-Saxon a few words undergo a similar change in the plural number of the so-called strong præterites.

Ceóse, I choose; ceâs, I chose; curon, we chose; gecoren, chosen.
Forleóse, I lose; forleás, I lost; forluron, we lost; forloren, lost.
Hreose, I rush; hreás, I rushed; hruron, we rushed; gehroren,
rushed.

This accounts for the participial form forlorn or lost, in New High-German verloren. In Milton's lines,

the piercing air

Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire.

Paradise Lost, b. ii.

we have a form from the Anglo-Saxon participle gefroren

= frozen.

CHAPTER XXXV.

PAST PARTICIPLE.-
:.—FORM -ED, -D, OR -T.

§ 485. THE participle in -d, -t, or -ed.—In the AngloSaxon this participle differed from the præterite, inasmuch as it ended in -ed or -t; whereas the præterite ended in -ode, de, or -te-as lufode, bærnde, dypte, præterites; gelufod, barned, dypt, participles. As the ejection of the e reduces words like barned and barnde to the same form, it is easy to account for the present identity of form between the weak præterites and the participles in -d: e.g. I moved, I have moved, &c. The original difference, however, should be remembered.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

PARTICIPLES.- -THE PREFIX GE-.

§ 486. In the older writers, and in works written, like Thomson's Castle of Indolence, in imitation of them, we find prefixed to the præterite participle the letter y-, as yclept called; yclad clothed; ydrad dreaded.

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The following are the chief facts and the current opinion concerning this prefix:

1. It has grown out of the fuller forms ge-: AngloSaxon ge- Old Saxon, gi-: Moso-Gothic, ga-: Old High-German, ka-, cha-, ga-, ki-, gi-.

2. It occurs in each and all of the Teutonic;

3. It occurs, with a few fragmentary exceptions, in none of the Scandinavian, languages.

4. In Anglo-Saxon, it occasionally indicates a difference of sense; as haten called, ge-hâten promised; boren borne, ge-boren = born.

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5. It occurs in nouns as well as verbs.

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6. Its power, in the case of nouns, is generally some idea of association or collection.-Mœso-Gothic, sinps a journey, ga-sinpa a companion; Old High-German, perc = hill; ki-perki (ge-birge) = a range of hills.

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7. But it has also a frequentative power; a frequentative power which is, in all probability, secondary to its collective power; since things which recur frequently recur with a tendency to collection or association. In Middle High-German, ge-rassel rustling; ge-rumpel= c-rumple.

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8. And it has also the power of expressing the possession of a quality.

In the latest parts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (which ends with the reign of Stephen) we find, inter alia, the absence of this prefix in all participles except one; that one being ge-haten;-a word which, in the Northumbrian dialect, was the last to lose its characterististic initial. Word for word, ge-haten hight called. Sense for sense, it = y-clept, which also means called: a word which is not yet quite obsolete.

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PART V.

SYNTAX.

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CHAPTER I.

ON SYNTAX IN GENERAL.

§ 487. THE Word Syntax is derived from the Greek syn with, or together, and taxis = arrangement. It treats of the arrangement of words, and the principles upon which they are put together so as to form sentences. It deals with groups or combinations; in this respect differing from Etymology, which deals with individual words only. Composition belongs as much to Syntax as to Etymology; for it has already been stated that it is not always an easy matter to distinguish between two separate words and a compound. A crow is a black bird. It is not, however, a black-bird. The criterion is the accent. When the two words are equally accented, the result is a pair of separate words, connected with one another, according to the rules of Syntax; as the crow is a black bird. When the two words are unequally accented, the result is a Compound; as the black-bird is akin to the thrush.

§ 488. Construction and Syntax have much the same meaning. We speak of the rules of Syntax, and of the