New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-02-02
MR.. MARSH on THE ENGLISH LIN
GTdGE.

Prof MARSH commenced his lecture on Weines-
dsy last BY a notice of the discussions which
have been put foith tie priority of the parts Of
speech, the noun, the adjective aud Inc verb. Ias
noun he said could hardly exist without the verb or
the verb staout the roun. English granmarisns
generally included the adjective with tbs under the
name o. the noun adjective, manifest absurdty The
Germans gave 10 the rerb the name Of kduPtcort or
ze,tvort chcf royd or timcirord. This last ilog
ics for the verb often contained indication Of tine,
in Geru al as well a. in English. In the phrases Iet
gshe morren mach Philadelphia and an going 10 Phi
odelpLa Tomorrow the idea Of the time contained
not in the verb, out in the mOrgea, the tomorrow.
The ADeo-Saxon had 10 other way of expressing
future time Mr.. Bowen, whose Dictionary of the
Yoiubs language was being published by the Smith.
sopan Institution stated hst in that language there
was no future tense. In the period Of recuperstioa
Of the Saxon language after the Norman conquest had
deprived il Of It's terninstlon. many nouns were used
as verbs, first probably, by the cOuquerors. Foreign
ers often ddt this now most people the Continent lad
heard Oh ambitious waiter in answering ring sag did
you bell Thi. was confined to Saxon words with very
few exceptions 10 station TO prorisoA TO post and
Milton used 10 sgiI0Je Tie ending which We added
to verbs to express the agent, was common to all the
Scandinavian and Romance languages, and we applied
il unfortunately to ali verbal roots. He thought that
we Nigh, gain even by adopting it in the ace ofthe
Latin termination 10 or. Str Was a Saxon feminine
.ermnation ancently uearer masculine and Ue5-
ster feminine. S0RgSter was then feminine and our
wori ,ongst esS was double feminine, auo 60 also
was .e0mstress. SpiHster was the only example left
of this feminine termination. The diL astive Ing IS
in gosing daring, being driven GU: by the pres
EFT paItciple Of verbs ending IN / and ic. very
large proportion of the nouns ending in ness ha1
become obsolete. Everybody felt the necessity for
such word ss eae honm, nt but We stu hesi,sted 20
afix the French termination to the Saxon verb. OF
the 300 nouns ending in meat scarcely more than
dozen were SsxOr. Our nssparable pretAes mas and
an had decued in uss We had lost many such words
as uacunnihg and unrigM We restricted CERTAIN
meanings of certain words to oLe OF the numbers 50
making vast difference between Bi9HHtr ard mas
ners, and making t1at severe ret0rt when 1t was
asked great lawyer had acquired his fortune by his
practice, al d the answer was: "les, BY his Prac'
tices. 1t singular that the future tease OF verbs
should be dropped when the Latin changed into the
Romance and tue Greek int0 the Romaic, and ITS
place be supplied by -uxiares. TINS too, was con-
peced with the fact that the Gothic languages
had future form of the verb aud suggested specua
ton a. to the habits life Of the speaking those
language. Was II because to the Northern nations
the present full OF stern necessities, the psst OF
hard realities and The future too doubul to justify the
u,e of words indicating even hopel The use OF ibe
verbal prefix b. not counenaccedi nothing but tie
want of good synonym had enabled Mr. Jeflersoa's
word 6tlittle, to succeed The verbal ending tE vas
now employed only for adjectves expressing the sen
suous formerly such verbs goodeH and WoTSsH were
used D,soarte vas ttll used bat hearten had given
place TO encourage. The sutjunctve was fsst gong
out of use as was also the compound past tense. The
phrases INTENDED 10 60 and INTENDED 10 hare gone
did not necessarily imply the same thing, but he
thought tie simple form would entirely uPplsnt the
other