Note 91 — Chapter XIX · ORIGIN OF GRAMMATICAL ELEMENTS

I must also mention A. Conrady, Eine indochinesische Causativ-denominativ-bildung (Leipzig, 1896), in which Lepsius’s theory is carried a great step further and it is demonstrated with very great learning that many of the tone relations (a well as modifications of initial sounds) of Chinese and kindred languages find their explanation in the previous existence of prefixes which are now extinct, but which can still be pointed out in Tibetan. Though I ought, therefore, to have spoken of prefixes instead of ‘flexional endings’ above, p. 371, the essence of the contention that prehistoric Chinese must have had a polysyllabic and non-isolating structure is thus borne out by the researches of competent specialists in this field.