[…] if all formative elements come by accretion and integration, then only that can have been original which is left when these have been stripped off, to the very last one: and what is left is the root; and it is, in our family of language, a monosyllable.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.199

[…] the grandest movement in a growing and improving language is that from more material to more formal uses, whereby both words and phrases take on a less gross and physical meaning, even to the extent of being attenuated into form-words, or, in combination with other elements, into formative elements- both alike indicators of relation.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.222

In our own and the majority of other families of speech, the formative or less indispensable element comes last, and is the one least efficiently conserved by the sense of its importance.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.71-72

In the earliest traceable condition of our language, the use of formative elements was the prevailing means of denoting relations, so much so as to constitute the distinctive characteristic of the common Indo-European language and to explain this feature is to explain Indo-European growth.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.197