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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 April 2017
Extract
In the outset of the Inquiry, it was observed, that the Greek language is a language of regular structure, forming its roots within itself. Following out this idea, I have, in different parts of the investigation, had recourse to the line of cognates and derivatives, as the surest aids for conducting us to the radical sense of a word, where the immediate root appeared to have fallen into difuse, or the signification had diverged considerably from the primitive idea. The grounds upon which I have thus proceeded, may require elucidation.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , 1805 , pp. 369 - 377
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1805
References
* I Do not here enter at all into the dispute about the origin of the Greek language from the Hebrew, through the medium of the old Pelasgic. In saft, such a derivation does not affect the structure of the language as complete within itfelf; for this derivation, if real, was not partial, but total: it was not the engrasting of parts upon a language already formed, but a transplantation of the whole, in its native form; fo that not only the branches, but the roots, with all their natural ramifications, were carried to, and established in, a new and somewhat different foil. In reasoning, therefore, on the structure of the language, the Greek may justly be reckoned an original language, forming its roots within itself; and the other words from thefe roots, by a regular progression.