Lectures on The Science of Language Part 12

In the grammar of the Turkic languages, on the contrary, we have before us a language of perfectly transparent structure, and a grammar the inner workings of which we can study, as if watching the building of cells in a crystal bee-hive. An eminent orientalist remarked "we might imagine Turkish to be the result of the deliberations of some eminent society of learned men;" but no such society could have devised what the mind of man produced, left to itself in the steppes of Tatary, and guided only by its innate laws, or by an instinctive power as wonderful as any within the realm of nature.

Let us examine a few forms. "To love," in the most general sense of the word, or love, as a root, is in Turkish _sev_. This does not yet mean "to love," which is _sevmek_, or "love" as a substantive, which is _sevgu_ or _sevi_; but it only expresses the general idea of loving in the abstract.

This root, as we remarked before, can never be touched. Whatever syllables may be added for the modification of its meaning, the root itself must stand out in full prominence like a pearl set in diamonds. It must never be changed or broken, a.s.similated or modified, as in the English I fall, I fell, I take, I took, I think, I thought, and similar forms. With this one restriction, however, we are free to treat it at pleasure.

Let us suppose we possessed nothing like our conjugation, but had to express such ideas as I love, thou lovest, and the rest, for the first time. Nothing would seem more natural now than to form an adjective or a participle, meaning "loving," and then add the different p.r.o.nouns, as I loving, thou loving, &c. Exactly this the Turks have done. We need not inquire at present how they produced what we call a participle. It was a task, however, by no means so facile as we now conceive it. In Turkish, one participle is formed by _er_. _Sev_+_er_ would, therefore, mean lov+er or lov+ing. Thou, in Turkish, is _sen_, and as all modificatory syllables are placed at the end of the root, we get _sev-er-sen_, thou lovest. You in Turkish is _siz_; hence _sev-er-siz_, you love. In these cases the p.r.o.nouns and the terminations of the verb coincide exactly. In other persons the coincidences are less complete, because the p.r.o.nominal terminations have sometimes been modified, or, as in the third person singular, _sever_, dropped altogether as unnecessary. A reference to other cognate languages, however, where either the terminations or the p.r.o.nouns themselves have maintained a more primitive form, enables us to say that in the original Turkish verb, all persons of the present were formed by means of p.r.o.nouns appended to this participle _sever_. Instead of "I love, thou lovest, he loves," the Turkish grammarian says, "lover-I, lover-thou, lover."

But these personal terminations are not the same in the imperfect as in the present.

PRESENT. IMPERFECT.

Sever-im, I love, sever-di-m, I loved.

Sever-sen, sever-di-n.

Sever, sever-di.

Sever-iz, sever-di-k (miz).

Sever-siz, sever-di-niz.

Sever-ler, sever-di-ler.

We need not inquire as yet into the origin of the _di_, added to form the imperfect; but it should be stated that in the first person plural of the imperfect a various reading occurs in other Tataric dialects, and that _miz_ is used there instead of _k_. Now, looking at these terminations _m_, _n_, _i_, _miz_, _niz_, and _ler_, we find that they are exactly the same as the possessive p.r.o.nouns used after nouns. As the Italian says _fratelmo_, my brother, and as in Hebrew we say, _El-i_, G.o.d (of) I, _i.e._ my G.o.d, the Tataric languages form the phrases "my house, thy house, his house," by possessive p.r.o.nouns appended to substantives. A Turk says,-

Baba, father, baba-m, my father.

Agha, lord, agha-n, thy lord.

El, hand, el-i, his hand.

Oghlu, son, oghlu-muz, our son.

Ana, mother, ana-niz, your mother.

Kitab, book, kitab-leri, their book.

We may hence infer that in the imperfect these p.r.o.nominal terminations were originally taken in a possessive sense, and that, therefore, what remains after the personal terminations are removed, _sever-di_, was never an adjective or a participle, but must have been originally a substantive capable of receiving terminal possessive p.r.o.nouns; that is, the idea originally expressed by the imperfect could not have been "loving-I," but "love of me."

How then, could this convey the idea of a past tense as contrasted with the present? Let us look to our own language. If desirous to express the perfect, we say, I have loved, _j'ai aime_. This "I have," meant originally, I possess, and in Latin "amicus quem amatum habeo," signified in fact a friend whom I hold dear,-not as yet, whom I _have_ loved. In the course of time, however, these phrases, "I have said, I have loved," took the sense of the perfect, and of time past-and not unnaturally, inasmuch as what I _hold_, or _have_ done, _is_ done;-done, as we say, and past. In place of an auxiliary possessive verb, the Turkish language uses an auxiliary possessive p.r.o.noun to the same effect. "Paying belonging to me,"

equals "I have paid;" in either case a phrase originally possessive, took a temporal signification, and became a past or perfect tense. This, however, is the very anatomy of grammar, and when a Turk says "severdim"

he is, of course, as unconscious of its literal force, "loving belonging to me," as of the circulation of his blood.

The most ingenious part of Turkish is undoubtedly the verb. Like Greek and Sanskrit, it exhibits a variety of moods and tenses, sufficient to express the nicest shades of doubt, of surmise, of hope, and supposition. In all these forms the root remains intact, and sounds like a key-note through all the various modulations produced by the changes of person, number, mood, and time. But there is one feature so peculiar to the Turkish verb, that no a.n.a.logy can be found in any of the Aryan languages-the power of producing new verbal bases by the mere addition of certain letters, which give to every verb a negative, or causative, or reflexive, or reciprocal meaning.

_Sev-mek_, for instance, as a simple root, means to love. By adding _in_, we obtain a reflexive verb, _sev-in-mek_, which means to love oneself, or rather, to rejoice, to be happy. This may now be conjugated through all moods and tenses, _sevin_ being in every respect equal to a new root. By adding _ish_ we form a reciprocal verb, _sev-ish-mek_, to love one another.

To each of these three forms a causative sense may be imparted by the addition of the syllable _dir_. Thus,

I. _sev-mek_, to love, becomes IV. _sev-dir-mek_, to cause to love.

II. _sev-in-mek_, to rejoice, becomes V. _sev-in-dir-mek_, to cause to rejoice.

III. _sev-ish-mek_, to love one another, becomes VI.

_sev-ish-dir-mek_, to cause one to love one another.

Each of these six forms may again be turned into a pa.s.sive by the addition of _il_. Thus,

I. _sev-mek_, to love, becomes VII. _sev-il-mek_, to be loved.

II. _sev-in-mek_, to rejoice, becomes VIII. _sev-in-il-mek_, to be rejoiced at.

III. _sev-ish-mek_, to love one another, becomes IX.

_sev-ish-il-mek_, not translatable.

IV. _sev-dir-mek_, to cause one to love, becomes X.

_sev-dir-il-mek_, to be brought to love.

V. _sev-in-dir-mek_, to cause to rejoice, becomes XI.

_sev-in-dir-il-mek_, to be made to rejoice.

VI. _sev-ish-dir-mek_, to cause them to love one another, becomes XII. _sev-ish-dir-il-mek_, to be brought to love one another.

This, however, is by no means the whole verbal contingent at the command of a Turkish grammarian. Every one of these twelve secondary or tertiary roots may again be turned into a negative by the mere addition of _me_.

Thus, _sev-mek_, to love, becomes _sev-me-mek_, not to love. And if it is necessary to express the impossibility of loving, the Turk has a new root at hand to convey even that idea. Thus while _sev-me-mek_ denies only the fact of loving, _sev-eme-mek_, denies its possibility, and means not to be able to love. By the addition of these two modificatory syllables, the numbers of derivative roots is at once raised to thirty-six. Thus,

I. _sev-mek_, to love, becomes XIII. _sev-me-mek_, not to love.

II. _sev-in-mek_, to rejoice, becomes XIV. _sev-in-me-mek_, not to rejoice.

III. _sev-ish-mek_, to love one another, becomes XV.

_sev-ish-me-mek_, not to love one another.

IV. _sev-dir-mek_, to cause to love, becomes XVI.

_sev-dir-me-mek_, not to cause one to love.

V. _sev-in-dir-mek_, to cause to rejoice, becomes XVII.

_sev-in-dir-me-mek_, not to cause one to rejoice.

VI. _sev-ish-dir-mek_, to cause them to love one another, becomes XVIII. _sev-ish-dir-me-mek_, not to cause them to love one another.

VII. _sev-il-mek_, to be loved, becomes XIX. _sev-il-me-mek_, not to be loved.

VIII. _sev-in-il-mek_, to be rejoiced at, becomes XX.

_sev-in-il-me-mek_, not to be the object of rejoicing.

IX. _sev-ish-il-mek_, if it was used, would become XXI.

_sev-ish-il-me-mek_; neither form being translatable.

X. _sev-dir-il-mek_, to be brought to love, becomes XXII.

_sev-dir-il-me-mek_, not to be brought to love.

XI. _sev-in-dir-il-mek_, to be made to rejoice, becomes XXIII.

_sev-in-dir-il-me-mek_, not to be made to rejoice.