ABSTRACT
Throughout the world and throughout its known history the shortest and simplest form of the verb is the request for action, the second person singular of the imperative. In the few languages where (as in Semitic and Hamitic) there is a separate form for the masculine and feminine according to the person addressed, it is the masculine. It is true of all the Indo-European tongues that the simplest form of the verb is also the request for action. Modern English is a very different case, for it has lost practically the whole of the grammatical apparatus of the Indo-European verb, but the same remains true. It is true also of the Semitic languages that the shortest and simplest form of the verb represents the second person singular (masculine) of the imperative. These languages represent a different type of inflexion from that of the classical Indo-European.
