Note 85 — Chapter III · THE LAWS OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE, OR THE CREATION OF ROOTS.
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By roots we do not mean words used in the primitive language, but rather “skeletons of articulate sound.” “They are merely the fictions of grammarians to indicate the core of a group of related words.”—Hensleigh Wedgwood’s Etymolog. Dict. p. iii. For some remarks on the nature of roots, see Donaldson’s New Cratyl. bk. iii. ch. 1. Ewald’s Hebrew Gram. § 202. This naked kernel of a family of words is often best found in the youngest dialects, e.g. kind (child) from γίγνομαι, genitum, &c. Grimm, Deutsche Gramm. ii. 5. 3. Bopp. Vgl. Gramm. s. 131.