Читать книгу The Etymology and Syntax of the English Language Explained and Illustrated онлайн

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“The man who?” (which man?) his character follows, “has no music in himself.”

“The city which? (what city?) Romulus built was called Rome.”

“Happy the man whose cautious feet.”

“Happy that man who? his (whose) cautious feet.”

“Light is a body which? (body) moves with great velocity.”

Of these two theories I have no hesitation in adopting the former. My reasons are these. The intention of language is to communicate our sentiments; to express what we think, feel, perceive, or desire. Hence its general character is indicative or assertive. “I believe,” “I wish,” “I see,” are affirmative sentences; and whatever variety of forms the phraseology may assume, they are all strictly significant of assertion, and all resolvable into the language of affirmation. “Go,” “teach,” “read,” are equivalent to, “I desire you to go,” “to teach,” “to read.” “Have you finished your task?” means, when the sentiment is fully expressed, “I desire to know, whether you have finished your task.” Ellipses of this kind are natural. They spring from an eagerness to impart to the vehicle of our thoughts a degree of celerity, suited to the promptitude with which the mind conceives them. Vehemence or passion, impatient of delay, uniformly resorts to them. The assertive form of expression I therefore conceive to be the parent whence every other is derived, and to which it is reducible. If this be the case, no interrogative, conceived purely as such, can claim so early an origin as definite or affirmative terms. Hence we may conclude, that who, which, when, where, were at first used as relatives, and came afterwards, by implication, to denote interrogations.