subject which is now for some time to occupy us: an inquiry into the modes of linguistic change, and their causes, nearer and remoter.

We have already rudely made one classification of these linguistic changes, founded on the various purpose which they subserve: namely, into such as make new expression, being produced for the designation of conceptions before undesignated; and such as merely alter the form of old expression; or, into additions and alterations. It will, however, suit our purpose better to make a more external division, one depending upon the kind of change rather than upon its object. In carrying this out, it will be practicable to take everywhere sufficient notice of the object also.

We may distinguish, then :—

I. Alterations of the old material of language; change of the words which are still retained as the substance of expression; and this of two kinds or subclasses: 1. change in uttered form; 2. change in content or signification; the two, as we shall see, occurring either independently or in conjunction.

II. Losses of the old material of language, disappearance of what has been in use; and this also of two kinds: 1. loss of complete words; 2. loss of grammatical forms and distinctions.

III. Production of new material; additions to the old stock of a language, in the way of new words or new forms; external expansion of the resources of expression.

This classification is obviously exhaustive; there can be no change in any language which will not fall under one or other of the three classes here laid down.

CHAPTER IV.

GROWTH OF LANGUAGE: CHANGE IN THE OUTER FORM OF WORDS.

Relation of the word to the conception it designates, as conditioning the possibility, and the mutual independence, of its changes of form and meaning. Tendency to ease or economy in changes of form. Abbreviation of words; examples; its agency in form-making; loss of endings. Substitution of one sound for another; examples of vowel and consonant change; Grimm's law; underlying causes of phonetic change; processes of utterance; physical or natural scheme of spoken alphabet; its series and classes; distinction of vowel and consonant; syllabic or articulate character of human speech. General tendencies in phonetic change. Limits to phonetic explanation. Change of form by extension of a prevailing analogy.

In this chapter we have to take up and illustrate the first division of the first class of linguistic changes, that which includes alterations of the uttered and audible forms of words. But first it will be well to call attention anew to certain general principles (already hinted at in the second chapter), which are of fundamental importance as underlying the whole subject of verbal alteration, whether in respect to shape or sense. And we shall best attain our object by discussing a selected example.

Let us take a familiar word, found in most of the languages of modern Europe, and having a well-known history-the word bishop. It comes, as almost every

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one is aware, from the Greek πíσкожоs (episkopos). This, again, is a derivative from the root skep, ‘see, look,' with the prefix epi, at;' and so it means by origin simply 'inspector, overseer;' in the early formative period of the Christian church, it was selected as official designation of the person to whom was committed the oversight of the affairs of a little Christian community and both word and office are still readily recognizable in our bishop and its use. But we have cut down the long title into a briefer one, by dropping its first and last syllables: and we have worked over into new shape most of its constituent sounds: we have changed the first p into a different but closely kindred sound, its corresponding sonant, b; the sk, a sibilant with following palatal mute, has been as it were fused together into the more palatal sibilant, sh, a simple sound, though it is written with two letters, just because of its usual derivation by fusion of two simple sounds into one; and the o-sound of the second syllable has been neutralized into what we usually call the "short u" sound-and the result is our word, with two syllables instead of four, and with five sounds instead of nine, and among those five only two, the consonant p and the vowel i, which were of the nine. The German, in its bischof, has altered even the final p. The French, again, has made out of the same original a very different looking product, évêque, which does not contain a single sound that is found either in the English word or in the German; it comes, by another set of changes, from evesc, for episk. In Spanish, the word is made into obispo, by yet another process, and this is further shortened in the Portuguese bispo. The Danish, finally, shows the extreme of abbreviation, in the monosyllable bisp. While these changes have been

going on, the meaning of the word has been not less altered. The official who was, when first named, merely overseer of the interests of a little band of timid proselytes to a new and proscribed faith, half-expectant martyrs, has risen immensely in dignity and power, along with the rise of the religion to importance, and to preeminence in the state; he has become a consecrated prelate, charged with spiritual and temporal authority through an entire province-a kind of ecclesiastical prince, yet still wearing his old simple title.

From this word, taken as a type, we may learn many things, which a wider induction, from innumerable examples, would only confirm.

First, the name had its origin in a need which arose at a particular time and place in the progress of human history. A new religion came into being, and required organization of its votaries; and this made a call for technical designations of its officials—which, as in all similar cases, were then without difficulty found: not bishop only, but priest and deacon, and so on. The words were, in fact, already in existence, as general terms, ready, like the people who should wear them, to be selected and set apart to this specific office. What should come of it further, whether the new titles should rise to importance and attain wide currency, depended on the after-fate of the system to which they belonged.

Again, the word bishop did not describe, either fully or accurately, the office which it was used to designate. Mere 'looking on' or 'looking over' was not what men expected of the person elected; the barest hint of his official duty is contained in the term. But, imperfect as it may have been as a description, it was sufficient as a designation. The description would have

needed to be a long one, and varied to suit the circumstances of each new place and time; the title answered its desired purpose equally well in all circumstances.

Hence also, as little did the retention of the title depend upon the maintenance of just that kind and degree of relation between its etymological meaning and the office it denominated which had existed at the outset. Even what etymological appropriateness it once possessed was no longer of any account, when once it had become established in use as name of the office. It passed, with the institution to which it belonged, into the keeping and use of great communities which did not speak Greek and had no knowledge of what it originally signified, and it served its purpose with them just as well as if they had understood its whole history. From the moment when it became an accepted sign for a certain thing, its whole career was cut loose from its primitive root; it became, what it has ever since con tinued to be, a conventional sign, and hence an alterable sign, for a certain conception, but a variable and developing conception.

In this fundamental fact, that the uttered sign was a conventional one, bound to the conception signified by it only by a tie of mental association, lay the possibility both of its change of meaning and of its change of form. If the tie were a natural, an internal and necessary one, it would seem to follow that any change in either would have to be accompanied by a change in the other. But in the case taken, while the idea has expanded into greatness, the word has been shrinking in its proportions, and is nowhere more than a fragment of its former self. The only tendency which we can discover in its treatment is a tendency toward