FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   >>  
"convenience or necessity" sometimes lead us to swerve from the ordinary rules of the formulation of language, as well as to import words bodily, and, according to MR. HICKSON'S views of the origin of _news_, without reference to context, meaning, part of speech, or anything else? Why may we not have the liberty of forming a plural noun _news_ from the adjective _new_, though we have never used the singular _new_ as a noun, when the French have indulged themselves with the plural noun of adjective formation, _les nouvelles_, without feeling themselves compelled to make _une nouvelle_ a part of their language? Why may we not form a plural noun _news_ from _new_, to express the same idea which in Latin is expressed by _nova_, and in French by _les nouvelles_? Why may not goods be a plural noun formed from the adjective _good_, exactly as the Romans formed _bona_ and the Germans have formed _Gueter_? Why does MR. HICKSON compel us to treat goods as singular, and make us go back to the Gothic? Does he say that _die Gueter_, the German for _goods_ or _possessions_, is singular? Why too must riches be singular, and be the French word _richesse_ imported into our language? Why may we not have a plural noun _riches_, as the Romans had _divitae_, and the Germans have _die Reichthumer_? and what if _riches_ be irregularly formed from the adjective _rich_? Are there, MR. HICKSON, no irregularities in the formation of a language? Is this really so? If "from convenience or necessity" words are and may be imported from foreign languages bodily into our own, why might not our forefathers, feeling the convenience or necessity of having words corresponding to _bona_, _nova_, _divitiae_, have formed _goods_, _news_, _riches_, from _good_, _new_, _rich_? _News_ must be singular, says MR. HICKSON; but _means_ "is beyond all dispute plural," for Shakspeare talks of "a mean:" with _news_, however, there is the slight difficulty of the absence of the noun _new_ to start from. Why is the absence of the singular an insuperable difficulty in the way of the formation of a plural noun from an adjective, any more than of plural nouns otherwise formed, which have no singulars, as _clothes_, _measles_, _alms_, &c. What says MR. HICKSON of these words? Are they all singular nouns and imported from other languages? for he admits no other irregularity in the formation of a language. 2. _Noise._--I agree with MR. HICKSON that the old deriv
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   >>  



Top keywords:

plural

 
singular
 

formed

 
HICKSON
 

language

 

adjective

 
formation
 

riches

 

French

 

imported


necessity

 
convenience
 

absence

 

difficulty

 

Germans

 

languages

 

Romans

 
Gueter
 

nouvelles

 

bodily


feeling

 

slight

 

formulation

 

Shakspeare

 

dispute

 
import
 
foreign
 

divitiae

 
forefathers
 

swerve


admits
 

irregularity

 

insuperable

 

clothes

 
measles
 

singulars

 

ordinary

 

irregularities

 
liberty
 

forming


compel

 
Gothic
 

express

 

nouvelle

 

compelled

 
indulged
 

expressed

 
irregularly
 

Reichthumer

 

divitae