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Syntax and Etymology: The Impersonals of Emotion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Edwin W. Fay
Edwin W. Fay
Affiliation:
University of texas, June–July, 1915.
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Extract

The present essay, reposing on phenomena of derivation and semantics, will attempt to establish a more objective basis for the syntax of the impersonals. As a matter of syntax, the subject is of vital interest for the living Germanic tongues, and with these the essay begins. It will continue with a discussion of the phenomena of the Latin impersonals, and seek, by the help of living English usage, to establish upon a correct psychological basis the definition and derivation of the least elusive impersonals of emotion in Sanskrit and Latin.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 1917 , pp. 88 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1917

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References

page 88 note 1 For a previous study of the Latin impersonals see my ‘Etymology and Slang’ (AJPh. XXI. 197–199), wherein the psychological and semantic factors were more successfully attacked than the derivational. As regards the importance of correlating syntax and etymology, see my paper with that title in C.Q. VII. 202–207.

page 88 note 2 ‘At top of all, hunger (eldest, strongest of the passions) predominant’ (Lamb, Elia essay on Christ's Hospital).

page 90 note 1 For the relation of the direct object to the dative-locative object (dative of aim-and-reach) cf. English strikes the table with strikes on the table.

page 92 note 1 I would derive Lat. paene from the locative * paemni (m lost by law, Schmidt's, Sonanten-theorie, p. 113)Google Scholar ; est paene occisus would have meant ‘was in-a-scratch (shave) -of being killed,’ cf. Eng. in-an-ace-of = ‘almost.’

page 93 note 1 This is the root of Eng. thwaite ‘copse, clearing’; cf. also thwite and whittle.