Another suffix abstracted from compounds is prob-
ably to be seen in the Latin adverbs acriter, ferociter,
etc. Breviter seems to have been originally a phrase,
breve iter "by the short road." In course of time the
phrase became a compound breviter, like German
kurzweg and English "straightway." There must have
been other compounds containing the same final element;
perhaps celeriter was one of them; but most of the
adverbs in -ter are based on adjectives which can scarcely
have modified the noun iter. After the origin of the
final member had been forgotten, it was transferred as
a suffix on the basis of such proportions as brevis (geni-
tive) :6rez'jter=acm: acn'ier.' The French future suffix
originated in the same way. Donnerai, finirai were
originally compounds of infinitives with the verb-form
ai "have." Present-day speakers, however, do not
feel the words as compounds, but as derivatives with a
suffix -rai.
Analogical creation sometimes makes a suffix out of
a variation which has arisen through the action of
phonetic laws or in some other way. The distinction

' Audacter, prudenter, etc., may have been shortened lay syncope,
or they may have originated from the relation of the nominative to the
adverb; brevis: breviter =atidax: audacter. Duriter is ioT durum iter, a.nd
aliter may be *aUiter with dissimilative loss. Delbriick {Grundriss, III,
631) thinks that the adverbs in -ter were formed on the model of inter,
praeter, circiter, etc., but I can find no formula to explain the creation of
aliter on the model of circiter. No doubt the two groups of adverbs
reinforced each other, but in origin they must be kept apart.
