Chapter CLX: Section I: Derivation of the Articles

1. For the derivation of our article THE, which he calls "_an adjective_," Dr. Webster was satisfied with giving this hint: "Sax. _the_; Dutch, _de_."--_Amer. Dict._ According to Horne Tooke, this definite article of ours, is the Saxon _verb_ "THE," imperative, from THEAN, to _take_; and is nearly equivalent in meaning to _that_ or _those_, because our _that_ is "the past participle of THEAN," and "means _taken_."--_Diversions of Purley_, Vol. ii, p. 49. But this is not very satisfactory. Examining ancient works, we find the word, or something resembling it, or akin to it, written in various forms, as _se, see, ye, te, de, the, thá_, and others that cannot be shown by our modern letters; and, tracing it as one article, or one and the same word, through what we suppose to be the oldest of these forms, in stead of accounting the forms as signs of different roots, we should sooner regard it as originating in the imperative of SEON, _to see_.

2. AN, our indefinite article, is the Saxon _oen, ane, an_, ONE; and, by dropping _n_ before a consonant, becomes _a_. Gawin Douglas, an ancient English writer, wrote _ane_, even before a consonant; as, "_Ane_ book,"--"_Ane_ lang spere,"--"_Ane_ volume."

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--The words of Tooke, concerning the derivation of _That_ and _The_, as nearly as they can be given in our letters, are these: "THAT (in the Anglo-Saxon Thæt, i.e. Thead, Theat) means _taken, assumed_; being merely the past participle of the Anglo-Saxon verb Thean, Thegan, Thion, Thihan, Thicgan, Thigian; sumere, assumere, accipere; to THE, to _get_, to _take_, to _assume_.

'Ill mote he THE That caused me
To make myselfe a frere.'--_Sir T. More's Workes, pag._ 4.

THE (our _article_, as it is called) is the imperative of the same verb Thean: which may very well supply the place of the correspondent Anglo-Saxon article Se, which is the imperative of Seon, videre: for it answers the same purpose in discourse, to say.... _see_ man, or _take_ man."--_Diversions of Purley_, Vol. ii, p. 49.

OBS. 2.--Now, between _Thæt_ and _Theat_, there is a considerable difference of form, for _æ_ and _ea_ are not the same diphthong; and, in the identifying of so many infinitives, as forming but one verb, there is room for error. Nor is it half so probable that these are truly one root, as that our article _The_ is the same, in its origin, as the old Anglo-Saxon _Se_. Dr. Bosworth, in his Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, gives no such word as _Thean_ or _Thegan_, no such participle as _Thead_ or _Theat_, which derivative is perhaps imaginary; but he has inserted together "Thicgan, thicgean, thigan, _to receive, or take_;" and separately, "Theon, _to thrive, or flourish_,"--"Thihan, _to thrive_,"--and "Thion, _to flourish_;" as well as the preterit "Theat, _howled_," from "Theotan, _to howl_." And is it not plain, that the old verb "THE," as used by More, is from Theon, _to thrive_, rather than from Thicgan, _to take_? "Ill mote he THE"--"Ill might he _thrive_," not, "Ill might he _take_."

OBS. 3.--Professor Hart says, "The word _the_ was originally _thæt_, or _that_. In course of time [,] it became abbreviated, and the short form acquired, in usage, a shade of meaning different from the original long one. _That_ is demonstrative with emphasis; _the_ is demonstrative without emphasis."--_Hart's E. Grammar_, p. 32. This derivation of _The_ is quite improbable; because the shortening of a monosyllable of five letters by striking out the third and the fifth, is no usual mode of abbreviation. Bosworth's Dictionary explains THE as "An indeclinable article, often used for all the cases of Se, seo, thæt, especially in adverbial expressions and in corrupt Anglo-Saxon, as in the _Chronicle_ after the year 1138."

OBS. 4--Dr. Latham, in a section which is evidently neither accurate nor self-consistent, teaches us--"that there exist in the present English two powers of the word spelled _t-h-e_, or of the so-called definite article;" then, out of sixteen Anglo-Saxon equivalents, he selects two for the roots of this double-powered _the_; saying, "Hence the _the_ that has originated out of the Anglo-Saxon _thy_ is one word; whilst the _the_ that has originated out of the Anglo-Saxon _the_, [is] another. The latter is the common article: the former the _the_ in expressions like _all the more, all the better--more by all that, better by all that_, and the Latin phrases _eo majus, eo melius_."--_Latham's Hand-Book_, p. 158. This double derivation is liable to many objections. The Hand-Book afterwards says, "That the, in expressions like _all the more, all the better_, &c., is _no article_, has already been shown."--P. 196. But in fact, though _the_ before comparatives or superlatives be no article, Dr. Latham's etymologies prove no such thing; neither does he anywhere tell us what it is. His examples, too, with their interpretations, are all of them fictitious, ambiguous, and otherwise bad. It is uncertain whether he meant his phrases for counterparts to each other or not. If _the_ means "_by that_," or _thereby_, it is an _adverb_; and so is its equivalent "_eo_" denominated by the Latin grammarians. See OBS. 10, under Rule I.