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-alian, as when we render Horace's 'sesquipedalia verba' by 'sesquipedalian words.'

Greek Adjectival Forms.

420. The Greek forms are few:

In -ic, from the Greek -kos.

Examples:-academic, acoustic, æsthetic, analytic, anarchic, arctic, antarctic, apathetic, apologetic, archaic, aromatic, athletic, Atlantic, atomic, authentic, barbaric M, cathartic, caustic, despotic, diatonic, dramatic, dynamic, epic, ethic, gastric, graphic, mimetic, mystic, optic, poetic, polytechnic, pragmatic, pyrotechnic, synoptic, telegraphic, theoretic.

These are roughly distinguishable from those in -ic after the French -ique, by being entirely of Greek material.

Strictly to distinguish the two sets, there needs an historical enquiry into each example severally. The bulk of these adjectives are shared by us with all the great languages of Western Europe, and there is no form that more distinctly represents the general influx of Greek into modern languages and the importance of its contributions towards the formation of a universal terminology.

And -istic, -astic, from the Greek -σTIKý -ασTIKη.

Examples:-antagonistic, characteristic, drastic, enthusiastic, gymnastic, patristic, pleonastic.

Of Adjectival Flexion.

Of Declension-that is, of flectional variations to express Gender, Number, Case-the English adjective has none. A few obscure instances of the adoption of the French plural adjective, as letters patents, cannot be held to constitute an exception to this general statement. This entire freedom of the adjective from Declension makes one of the largest

features of the modern as against the ancient vernacular. In this member of our language the work of deflectionization has been complete. The contrast with Anglosaxon is the more striking, as the old adjective had not only all the apparatus of a declension in three genders, but even a double set of trigeneric inflections, like that which forms the beginner's difficulty in German. There was an Indefinite and a Definite declension, or as they are now generally called, a Strong and a Weak declension. Thus, in order to say 'I recognize a good man, or a good woman, or a good thing '—the adjective would vary three times, thus, 'Ic oncnâwe ænne godne man, oððe ane gode fæmne, oððe an god ding': but if we use the definite article and say, 'I saw the good man, and the good woman, and the good thing'-it would be thus expressed, 'Ic geseah pone godan man, and pa godan fæmne, and þæt gode ping.'

Comparison of Adjectives.

421. Some slight traces remain of that ancient Indo-European -MA superlative, which we see in Greek and Latin, as Bdopos, infimus, primus, optimus, ultimus.

It is a remarkable point of agreement between Mosogothic and Anglosaxon, that these two, almost to the exclusion of the other dialects, have preserved this ancient form. Some specimens of it linger on in English, but masked under a modern guise, as if it had something to do with more and most.

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422. The system of comparison which is common to the whole Gothic family is that in -er and -est.

We English have moved on to a third method, namely by prefixing the adverbs more and most: a method which is also used in Swedish and Danish.

This has gained immensely in modern times upon the elder forms, insomuch that the comparison by -er and -est is rarely used now for words of more than two syllables, and not always for these. In early writers we meet with such long forms as ancienter, eloquenter, honourablest, but in our day such forms are used only for a certain rhetorical effect that they carry with them, or for a sort of humour which they seem to convey.

cunningest.

Does human nature possess any free, volitional, or truly anthropomorphic element, or is it only the cunningest of all Nature's clocks?-Professor Huxley, Lay Sermons, viii.

In an anonymous story-book which purports to represent life in East London, the flectional comparison of long words is a stock feature of the characterisation. A churlish dealer in waste paper, who is something of a reader, talks as follows:

wonderfullest.

I like travels, too, a bit, and now and then I get hold of an interesting Life, but mostly they're about people that nobody ever knew anything about till they were dead, and then somebody makes 'em out to be the wonderfullest people that ever lived.-Episodes in an Obscure Life, vol. ii. ch. viii.

The effect is still more peculiar when a participle is so treated:

startleder.

And yet, if you'll believe me, I once found a fairy story in a blue-book. If I'd found a fairy in it I couldn't have been startleder.—Id. ibid.

Flexional and phrasal comparison are often played off against each other; as

delightfullest... most tedious.

I have here prescribed thee, Reader, the delightfullest task to the Spirit, and the most tedious to the Flesh, that ever men on Earth were imployed in.-R. Baxter, Saints Rest, Introduction to Fourth Part; 1652.

There are a few Anomalous forms of comparison, and they are ancient:

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Cumulate comparatives, in which -er is added to the anomalous form, appear in lesser, worser :

... the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. -Genesis i. 16 (1611).

Now with a general peace the world was blest;

While our's, a world divided from the rest,

A dreadful quiet felt, and worser far

Than arms, a sullen interval of war.

John Dryden, Astræa Redux (1660), init.

Logical function of the Adjective; with a remarkable consequence.

423. Having said so much on adjectival forms, let us now consider the logical character of the adjective, and a practical effect of that logical character upon our habitual conversation. An adjective is plainly of the nature of a predicate, and to select a predicate for a subject is an act of judgment. It is manifest that judgment is more exercised in the utterance of adjectives than in that of substantives. Nay, further, judgment is more exercised in the use of adjectives than even in that of verbs. The verb is indeed an instrument of predication more completely than the adjective is; but then

the verb predicates action while the adjective predicates quality, and quality is harder to discern than action. I say horse from mere memory of my mother-tongue, and we hardly dignify it as an act of judgment if a man uses that word in the right place, and shews that he knows a horse when he sees it. Nor do we call it an exercise of judgment to say that a horse walks, trots, gallops, leaps. But to say good horse, bad horse, sound horse, young horse, is an affair of judgment. A child knows when he sees a garden, and we do not call it an act of judgment (except in technical logic) to exclaim There's a garden. But to use garden adjectively, as when a person comes across a flower, and says it is a garden flower, this is an act of judgment which it takes a botanist to exercise safely. This being so, a speaker runs a greater chance of making a mistake, or of coming into collision with the judgments of others, in the use of adjectives about matters of general interest. Partly from the rarity of good and confident judgment, and partly it may also be from the modesty which social intercourse requires, we perceive this effect, that there is a shyness about the utterance of adjectives. Of original adjectives, I mean; such as can at all carry the air of being the speaker's own. And hence it has come about, that there is in each period or generation, one or more chartered social adjectives which may be used freely and safely. Such adjectives enjoy a sort of empire for the time in which they are current. Their meaning is more or less vague, and it is this quality that fits them for their office. But while it would be hard to define what such an adjective meant, it is nevertheless perfectly well understood.

One of these has been a chief heir-loom from Saxon times, and has made a figure in all stages of the national story. I suppose that no other Saxon adjective is compar

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