Semantics; Studies in the Science of Meaning

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIII ABSTRACT WORDS AND CONCRETION OF MEANING What it to be understood by Concretion of meaning--Examples drawn from various languages. THE richness of our languages in abstract words is considerable. We shall later on have to investigate the origin of this wealth, and the manner in which it has been the most active instrument of progress. For the moment, we wish to study a fact which I shall call, for lack of a better term, Concretion.1 This is what it is: an abstract word, instead of keeping its abstract sense, instead of rcmaininfeShc exponent of an action, a quality, or a state, becomes the-tTSTrne of a material object. This fact is very frequent; sometimes the modified word preserves both meanings, sometimes, the abstract idea being forgotten, the material signification alone survives. This phenomenon goes as far back as the history of our languages, and continues under our eyes. I shall begin by examples drawn from ancient languages. A very simple suffix which served to form nouns of 1 From the Latin concretio. action was the feminine suffix-ti (nominative-ti-s), which we find in Greek in the shape of-o-i-y in words like yivtns, "birth "; yiwiy," knowledge "; xpfais," custom "; uplris, " decision "; irrujim, "a fall," etc. It is the suffix seen in the Latin ves-tis, "the action of clothing oneself." But from this general meaning it came to mean the object which served that purpose, and vestis was the name of the garment. If vestis is feminine, it dates from the time when it was an abstract noun. Let us take another example borrowed from alimentation. The Latin suffix-tu-s produces abstract substantives like cantus, adspectus, gemitus, conatus, cultus. Among these substantives appears fructus, "the action of enjoyment," from...

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