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All formation of words is originally a process of composition. An element significant in itself is added to another significant element, and thus the meaning of the two is combined. No other combination is possible for the formation either of inflections or of stems. Thus, in
After the development of Inflection, however, that one of several kindred words which seemed the simplest was regarded as the
In course of time the real or apparent relations of many words became confused, so that nouns and adjectives once supposed to come from nouns were often assigned to verbs, and others once supposed to come from verbs were assigned to nouns.
Further, since the language was constantly changing, many words went out of use, and do not occur in the literature as we have it. Thus many Derivatives survive of which the Primitive is lost.
Finally, since all conscious word-formation is imitative, intermediate steps in derivation were sometimes omitted, and occasionally apparent Derivatives occur for which no proper Primitive ever existed.