BY E. L. BRANDRETH, ESQ. 163 germs of the later monotheism-so di%icult is it to eradicate old beliefs-just as at the introduction of Christianity among the people of Northern Europe, an equal trust was found to be placed in Christ and in the old heathen gods.’

111.-ON CERTAIN ITALIAN DIMINUTIVES. BY C. B. CAYLEY,ESQ. THEREare several noted discrepancies between the Latin and Italian ways of forming diminutives of nouns. The Latin ellua is a diminutive termination; so is often, but not in- variably, the Italian ello ; for uccello is a (( bird,” and not R “ little bird.” Then there are Italian diminutives ending in etto and in0 : but the termination etto is referred by Diez to a Germanic source; and the Latin inus appears generally to form, not diminutives, but adjectives denoting a general re- lationship-as tmrulpinzcs, leoninw. It is to this termination inus, however, that I would now direct your attention, in the hope of discovering a link between its adjectival and diminu- tival values. Of course the modern diminutives similarly formed are not exclusively Italian, but include many Spanish and French words ending in ino, in (with corresponding feminine forms) ; but I have mostly contented myself with instancing one of these languages, in which both diminutives and augmentatives abound in a peculiar measure. The earliest traces which Diez gives us of this class of diminutives are from Low Latin documents of the eighth and tenth centuries, where he finds domnuliiaus (A.D. 759), and 9alZina (A.D. 912). Again, Muratori quotes the phrase (‘casas et cminus et casalinas ” (A.D. 1029). Domnulinus has only survived in the feminine dmnolina, which is not used literally for ‘‘ little lady,” but as the designation of an animal of the weasel kind. From casalina comes apparently the adjective cmalingo. But I trust to guide you to more antique foundations by the aid of proper names, which in most languages preserve some valuable archaic forms. Thus, if you want old English ways

1 Grimm’a Deutache Myth., p. 6. 164 ON CERTAIN ITALIAN DTMINUTI3rES. of writing web, foot, chapel,” you need turn to nothing more recondite than a Directory for aL Webb, Foote, Chappell.” If you want to see the s which old French nouns retained (as the termination of the nominative singular), you need not go beyond the Christian names ‘(Charles, Georges (in MoIi&re), Hugues, Jules;” and I might give a like account of the English “Charles, Gilea, James,” and even of the family names ‘(Hughes, Jones, Williams, Roberts,” etc., although these are popularly explained as possessine cases. But let us turn in like manner to proper names in Lo ; and we shall see that PaoZino is not only “little Paul,” but an equivalent for the Latin “Paulhua,Iy in which we have not a diminutive, but an eponym-a name that might be bestowed in honour of a Paulue conformably to certain progressive usages. These usages let us observe more closely. Even in common nouns the termination ims may afford an indieation of family re- lations. The Zibertinus waa the son of the libertus-the gallina the female d the gaZZus. The eponyms in inus and other endings begin to appear, I believe, in early Republican times; but they rapidly become more abundant under the Empire, and especially during the fourth and fifth centuries. They sometimes call to remembrance a patron, or no doubt a distant relative, or perhaps a favourite hero; but we may observe several notable cases in which they make bona$de patronymics. Agrippina was the daughter of Agrippa; Carinus (the Emperor) the son of Carus ; Constantinus the son of Constantius ; Probinus (the consul to whom Claudian dedicated a poem) the son of Probus. If there was ever an extensive popular use of such patronymics, it may have led, by the most natural associations of ideas, to the formation of diminutives in inus. If we were accustomed to meet with fathers and sons bearing such names as Probus, Probinus, we should easily learn to think of a Probinus a8 a little Probus. It is in much the same way that we have learnt to me the word children for “ little people,” while we yet under- stand by it a progeny of all ages when we read of ‘(children of Israel,” (‘of men,” etc. It would afterwards be easy to make the word domwlinus “little master,” in imitation of BY C. B. CAYLEY, ESQ. 165

Probinus or the lie; and for other such diminutives lr il n’y a que le premier pas qui cofite.” At what period the names in inw began to have diminutive associations I cannot pretend to ascertain, but the name of Maximinus, which it would be ridiculous to connect with littleness, may indicate the earlieBt limit. For further illustrations the literatiire of the fourth and fifth centuries, however barbarous we may esteem it, is perhaps too archaic to afford us any aid-I mean too much suited to disguise from us the progress of colloquial idioms through its cultivation of authorized phraseology. I can only observe a few modern diminutives which seem to have been long foreshadowed by names that were or may have been patronymic. With “ carino ” compare Carinus, already mentioned ; with Zupicino (used by Dante in a line of the Ugolino canto-

Cacciando i lupi e i lupicini almonte) compare Lupicinus,’ the name of a noted personage at the time when the Goths crossed the Danube. Ursicinus, of whom we read in the time of Julian, reminds us of orsacchino, “bear’s whelp,” though here the syllable ci becomes chi, or rather preserves a hard sound, as inpochi pochissimo from paeici yaucissimus. Domninus (v. Muratori, Ann. A.D. 387) may be not only a patronymic, but a designation like Dominicus and Christina, importing the servant of the Lord ; but as a patronymic and diminutive I should think it was the root of Sp. ni60, “ child,” formed from donnino or don’ino, ’&in0 (compare for the aphaeresis Prov. en=don). The transposition in niiio for Pino would be natural enough, for no Spanish word com- mences with 6. On the other hand, ni6o has been represented as a nursery word formed from the sound ; and if this were a correct view, in0 itself might be a mere fancy termination for diminutives. This is a point to which I will append a small digression; but I must firat turn from my one termination inus or in0 to some analogous terminations, which may fairly be cited to test or to correct my theory. Lupicinus may have been occasionally pronounced with a short penult, as appears from the Spanish form lobexno. 166 ON CERTAIN ITALIAN DIMINTJTIVES.

The Latin language is reasonably furnished with diminu- tives, but far less abundantly than the Italian. But for derivative proper names the Latin has the most numerous special resources, comprising not merely the termination inus, but the equally common ianus and also entius. On the other hand, the old Italian family names abound in all manner of diminutive terminations. There are Ubaldi with Ubaldini, Tebaldi with Tebaldelli, etc. This makes it probable that at one time all these terminations-ini, elli, etti, otti, ucci, etc.- were capable of a patronymic acceptation, and served perhaps to distinguish younger branches of a clan. Then eEEi was first a diminutive (plural) termination, and afterwards, as it seems, patronymic. Need this hinder us, I should ask you, from supposing that ini, by an opposite process, has had first a patronymic, and since then a diminutive acceptation ? The Greek language has many diminutives in LOU, like PL/~L~Y; and yet LOP (neut. wu) seems to be a mere adjectival termination, like inus added to common nouns. But here, alm, such eponyms as Dionysios from Dionysos seem to offer a connecting link between the adjectival and diminutival usages. The diminutive import of &no might easily have been ex- tended to enxo for entius, or iano for ianus. But entius mostly supposes a primitive ending in em, as Prudentius, Innocentius, come from Prudene, Innocens ; nevertheless Magnentius is a real patronymic to Magnus, and Masentius apparently comes from Maximus. The termination Mnus seems to be so largely appropriated to local adjectives like Italianu that it would hardly have borne another uaage. There was perhaps another reamn why in0 should have been used for diminutives in preference to iano. Let us return to the question whether the sound has that suggestivenesa or natural appropriateness which has been attributed to the word niGo. That there are words made directly from imitative articu- lations I am not inclined to believe, except in a few unim- portant or unfruitful instancea. It is easier to make new worda from old, and has been so in all historic periods. I say nothing of the primitive languages of humanity, for I BY C. B. CAYLEY, ESQ. 167 doubt whether we can approach them, even through Sanskrit roots, except in the manner of the poet, who says : I am but three feet nearer heaven Than when I was a boy.” On the other hand, most languages readily present words whose sound seems to echo their sense even to the popular ear ; and we ought not to overlook the indirect causes which may be answerable for this phenomenon. Perhaps a sugges- tive sound leads us to prefer a word before other synonyms ; perhaps the sound affects the associations, and ultimately the meaning ; (and thus seethe has ceased to be an exact synonym of boil, Ger. sieden, and has earned a new use, which can hardly be extended to the participle sodden) ; perhaps the senm affects the pronunciation, however much this is con- trolled by dialectic analogies. The upshot is, that many words commonly instanced as onomatopoetic seem to me to contain a mixture of effective and non-effective elements. The Ger- man word dumpf is an excellent one for a hollow muffled sound; but the effective elements are the u, m, and per- haps the pf; not the d, which has, I won’t say a prejudicial, but a neutral power. In the same way, then, and subject to the general reflections I have made, I think in0 an elegant and suggestive termination for diminutives ; but I think this In account of the long i, and not of the following letter or letters. I might my the like of the Spanish termination ito, the historic counterpart of Ital. etto. Why, then, is i so suggestive ? The vowels differ from each other in tone-not the dominant tone of the voice, but the subtones combined with it by the resonances of the oral cavity. Now the highest tone belongs to i, and the lowest to u ; the manifold varieties of e, 0, constituting so many gradual approaches to these ex- tremes. It is thus possible to associate u, 0, with the voice of a man, and i, e, with childish or feminine voices, which are commonly higher. In this way the diminutive termina- tion in0 presents a striking and agreeable contrast to the augmentative one-compare donnicina with donnone :

‘I Cospetto ehe tu sei un be1 donnone.” 168 ON CERTAJN ITALIAN DIMINUTIVES.

I might also find traces of a certain gravitation of feminine terminations to i, and masculine to u, as in Gr. oq, q (first e, then i) ; Latin m, and the Hebrew pronouns hii' he, h? she (NYt, "7) It is true that a is a common feminine termina- tion, and this is not a high vowel in itself, but high in com- parison to o and u. In Sanskrit z is a common feminine termination ; it is perhaps formed from ia or ya, which would begin with the same high tone. But in the older forms of the Aryan languages the tendency to characterize masculine and feminine nouns by similar short and long vowels, like a, a, requires the application of another principle, which I may venture to discuss hereafter.

IT.-NOTES OF THE CHANGES MADE BY FOUR YOUNG CHILDREN IN PRONOUNCING ENGLISH WORDS (A.D. 1863-1873). By JAMESM. MENZIM,ESQ.

BEINGconvinced that the great changes which are produced in languages are maidy due to the attack which is made on words by children when they are beginning to speak, and to the adoption by their elders of the alterations which are thus effected, I undertook to observe and write down every variation in the pronunciation of words which was made by such children I have had the opportunity of hearing when they were learning to speak. Complete ob- servation was limited to the ease of three individuals; but I made an examination of two other cw, one of which was, I believe, nearly exhaustive; the other by no means so. The period during which my observation was main- tained in the case of the first three individuals extended from the time when the child began to utter articulate sounds to the age of five or six years, by which period nearly every peculiarity of pronunciation had disappeared, and each word was uttered accurately and distinctly. I shall now give the variations which I took down.