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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12629 ***
+
+LANGUAGE
+
+AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF SPEECH
+
+BY
+EDWARD SAPIR
+
+
+1939
+
+1921
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This little book aims to give a certain perspective on the subject of
+language rather than to assemble facts about it. It has little to say of
+the ultimate psychological basis of speech and gives only enough of the
+actual descriptive or historical facts of particular languages to
+illustrate principles. Its main purpose is to show what I conceive
+language to be, what is its variability in place and time, and what are
+its relations to other fundamental human interests--the problem of
+thought, the nature of the historical process, race, culture, art.
+
+The perspective thus gained will be useful, I hope, both to linguistic
+students and to the outside public that is half inclined to dismiss
+linguistic notions as the private pedantries of essentially idle minds.
+Knowledge of the wider relations of their science is essential to
+professional students of language if they are to be saved from a sterile
+and purely technical attitude. Among contemporary writers of influence
+on liberal thought Croce is one of the very few who have gained an
+understanding of the fundamental significance of language. He has
+pointed out its close relation to the problem of art. I am deeply
+indebted to him for this insight. Quite aside from their intrinsic
+interest, linguistic forms and historical processes have the greatest
+possible diagnostic value for the understanding of some of the more
+difficult and elusive problems in the psychology of thought and in the
+strange, cumulative drift in the life of the human spirit that we call
+history or progress or evolution. This value depends chiefly on the
+unconscious and unrationalized nature of linguistic structure.
+
+I have avoided most of the technical terms and all of the technical
+symbols of the linguistic academy. There is not a single diacritical
+mark in the book. Where possible, the discussion is based on English
+material. It was necessary, however, for the scheme of the book, which
+includes a consideration of the protean forms in which human thought has
+found expression, to quote some exotic instances. For these no apology
+seems necessary. Owing to limitations of space I have had to leave out
+many ideas or principles that I should have liked to touch upon. Other
+points have had to be barely hinted at in a sentence or flying phrase.
+Nevertheless, I trust that enough has here been brought together to
+serve as a stimulus for the more fundamental study of a neglected field.
+
+I desire to express my cordial appreciation of the friendly advice and
+helpful suggestions of a number of friends who have read the work in
+manuscript, notably Profs. A.L. Kroeber and R.H. Lowie of the University
+of California, Prof. W.D. Wallis of Reed College, and Prof. J. Zeitlin
+of the University of Illinois.
+
+EDWARD SAPIR.
+
+OTTAWA, ONT.,
+April 8, 1921.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PREFACE
+
+CHAPTER
+
+  I. INTRODUCTORY: LANGUAGE DEFINED
+
+    Language a cultural, not a biologically inherited, function.
+    Futility of interjectional and sound-imitative theories of the
+    origin of speech. Definition of language. The psycho-physical basis
+    of speech. Concepts and language. Is thought possible without
+    language? Abbreviations and transfers of the speech process. The
+    universality of language.
+
+  II. THE ELEMENTS OF SPEECH
+
+    Sounds not properly elements of speech. Words and significant parts
+    of words (radical elements, grammatical elements). Types of words.
+    The word a formal, not a functional unit. The word has a real
+    psychological existence. The sentence. The cognitive, volitional,
+    and emotional aspects of speech. Feeling-tones of words.
+
+  III. THE SOUNDS OF LANGUAGE
+
+    The vast number of possible sounds. The articulating organs and
+    their share in the production of speech sounds: lungs, glottal
+    cords, nose, mouth and its parts. Vowel articulations. How and where
+    consonants are articulated. The phonetic habits of a language. The
+    "values" of sounds. Phonetic patterns.
+
+  IV. FORM IN LANGUAGE: GRAMMATICAL PROCESSES
+
+    Formal processes as distinct from grammatical functions.
+    Intercrossing of the two points of view. Six main types of
+    grammatical process. Word sequence as a method. Compounding of
+    radical elements. Affixing: prefixes and suffixes; infixes. Internal
+    vocalic change; consonantal change. Reduplication. Functional
+    variations of stress; of pitch.
+
+  V. FORM IN LANGUAGE: GRAMMATICAL CONCEPTS
+
+    Analysis of a typical English sentence. Types of concepts
+    illustrated by it. Inconsistent expression of analogous concepts.
+    How the same sentence may be expressed in other languages with
+    striking differences in the selection and grouping of concepts.
+    Essential and non-essential concepts. The mixing of essential
+    relational concepts with secondary ones of more concrete order. Form
+    for form's sake. Classification of linguistic concepts: basic or
+    concrete, derivational, concrete relational, pure relational.
+    Tendency for these types of concepts to flow into each other.
+    Categories expressed in various grammatical systems. Order and
+    stress as relating principles in the sentence. Concord. Parts of
+    speech: no absolute classification possible; noun and verb.
+
+  VI. TYPES OF LINGUISTIC STRUCTURE
+
+    The possibility of classifying languages. Difficulties.
+    Classification into form-languages and formless languages not valid.
+    Classification according to formal processes used not practicable.
+    Classification according to degree of synthesis. "Inflective" and
+    "agglutinative." Fusion and symbolism as linguistic techniques.
+    Agglutination. "Inflective" a confused term. Threefold
+    classification suggested: what types of concepts are expressed? what
+    is the prevailing technique? what is the degree of synthesis? Four
+    fundamental conceptual types. Examples tabulated. Historical test of
+    the validity of the suggested conceptual classification.
+
+  VII. LANGUAGE AS A HISTORICAL PRODUCT: DRIFT
+
+    Variability of language. Individual and dialectic variations. Time
+    variation or "drift." How dialects arise. Linguistic stocks.
+    Direction or "slope" of linguistic drift. Tendencies illustrated in
+    an English sentence. Hesitations of usage as symptomatic of the
+    direction of drift. Leveling tendencies in English. Weakening of
+    case elements. Tendency to fixed position in the sentence. Drift
+    toward the invariable word.
+
+  VIII. LANGUAGE AS A HISTORICAL PRODUCT: PHONETIC LAW
+
+    Parallels in drift in related languages. Phonetic law as illustrated
+    in the history of certain English and German vowels and consonants.
+    Regularity of phonetic law. Shifting of sounds without destruction
+    of phonetic pattern. Difficulty of explaining the nature of phonetic
+    drifts. Vowel mutation in English and German. Morphological
+    influence on phonetic change. Analogical levelings to offset
+    irregularities produced by phonetic laws. New morphological features
+    due to phonetic change.
+
+  IX. HOW LANGUAGES INFLUENCE EACH OTHER
+
+    Linguistic influences due to cultural contact. Borrowing of words.
+    Resistances to borrowing. Phonetic modification of borrowed words.
+    Phonetic interinfluencings of neighboring languages. Morphological
+    borrowings. Morphological resemblances as vestiges of genetic
+    relationship.
+
+  X. LANGUAGE, RACE, AND CULTURE
+
+    Naïve tendency to consider linguistic, racial, and cultural
+    groupings as congruent. Race and language need not correspond.
+    Cultural and linguistic boundaries not identical. Coincidences
+    between linguistic cleavages and those of language and culture due
+    to historical, not intrinsic psychological, causes. Language does
+    not in any deep sense "reflect" culture.
+
+  XL LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
+
+    Language as the material or medium of literature. Literature may
+    move on the generalized linguistic plane or may be inseparable from
+    specific linguistic conditions. Language as a collective art.
+    Necessary esthetic advantages or limitations in any language. Style
+    as conditioned by inherent features of the language. Prosody as
+    conditioned by the phonetic dynamics of a language.
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+INTRODUCTORY: LANGUAGE DEFINED
+
+
+Speech is so familiar a feature of daily life that we rarely pause to
+define it. It seems as natural to man as walking, and only less so than
+breathing. Yet it needs but a moment's reflection to convince us that
+this naturalness of speech is but an illusory feeling. The process of
+acquiring speech is, in sober fact, an utterly different sort of thing
+from the process of learning to walk. In the case of the latter
+function, culture, in other words, the traditional body of social usage,
+is not seriously brought into play. The child is individually equipped,
+by the complex set of factors that we term biological heredity, to make
+all the needed muscular and nervous adjustments that result in walking.
+Indeed, the very conformation of these muscles and of the appropriate
+parts of the nervous system may be said to be primarily adapted to the
+movements made in walking and in similar activities. In a very real
+sense the normal human being is predestined to walk, not because his
+elders will assist him to learn the art, but because his organism is
+prepared from birth, or even from the moment of conception, to take on
+all those expenditures of nervous energy and all those muscular
+adaptations that result in walking. To put it concisely, walking is an
+inherent, biological function of man.
+
+Not so language. It is of course true that in a certain sense the
+individual is predestined to talk, but that is due entirely to the
+circumstance that he is born not merely in nature, but in the lap of a
+society that is certain, reasonably certain, to lead him to its
+traditions. Eliminate society and there is every reason to believe that
+he will learn to walk, if, indeed, he survives at all. But it is just as
+certain that he will never learn to talk, that is, to communicate ideas
+according to the traditional system of a particular society. Or, again,
+remove the new-born individual from the social environment into which he
+has come and transplant him to an utterly alien one. He will develop the
+art of walking in his new environment very much as he would have
+developed it in the old. But his speech will be completely at variance
+with the speech of his native environment. Walking, then, is a general
+human activity that varies only within circumscribed limits as we pass
+from individual to individual. Its variability is involuntary and
+purposeless. Speech is a human activity that varies without assignable
+limit as we pass from social group to social group, because it is a
+purely historical heritage of the group, the product of long-continued
+social usage. It varies as all creative effort varies--not as
+consciously, perhaps, but none the less as truly as do the religions,
+the beliefs, the customs, and the arts of different peoples. Walking is
+an organic, an instinctive, function (not, of course, itself an
+instinct); speech is a non-instinctive, acquired, "cultural" function.
+
+There is one fact that has frequently tended to prevent the recognition
+of language as a merely conventional system of sound symbols, that has
+seduced the popular mind into attributing to it an instinctive basis
+that it does not really possess. This is the well-known observation that
+under the stress of emotion, say of a sudden twinge of pain or of
+unbridled joy, we do involuntarily give utterance to sounds that the
+hearer interprets as indicative of the emotion itself. But there is all
+the difference in the world between such involuntary expression of
+feeling and the normal type of communication of ideas that is speech.
+The former kind of utterance is indeed instinctive, but it is
+non-symbolic; in other words, the sound of pain or the sound of joy does
+not, as such, indicate the emotion, it does not stand aloof, as it were,
+and announce that such and such an emotion is being felt. What it does
+is to serve as a more or less automatic overflow of the emotional
+energy; in a sense, it is part and parcel of the emotion itself.
+Moreover, such instinctive cries hardly constitute communication in any
+strict sense. They are not addressed to any one, they are merely
+overheard, if heard at all, as the bark of a dog, the sound of
+approaching footsteps, or the rustling of the wind is heard. If they
+convey certain ideas to the hearer, it is only in the very general sense
+in which any and every sound or even any phenomenon in our environment
+may be said to convey an idea to the perceiving mind. If the involuntary
+cry of pain which is conventionally represented by "Oh!" be looked upon
+as a true speech symbol equivalent to some such idea as "I am in great
+pain," it is just as allowable to interpret the appearance of clouds as
+an equivalent symbol that carries the definite message "It is likely to
+rain." A definition of language, however, that is so extended as to
+cover every type of inference becomes utterly meaningless.
+
+The mistake must not be made of identifying our conventional
+interjections (our oh! and ah! and sh!) with the instinctive cries
+themselves. These interjections are merely conventional fixations of the
+natural sounds. They therefore differ widely in various languages in
+accordance with the specific phonetic genius of each of these. As such
+they may be considered an integral portion of speech, in the properly
+cultural sense of the term, being no more identical with the instinctive
+cries themselves than such words as "cuckoo" and "kill-deer" are
+identical with the cries of the birds they denote or than Rossini's
+treatment of a storm in the overture to "William Tell" is in fact a
+storm. In other words, the interjections and sound-imitative words of
+normal speech are related to their natural prototypes as is art, a
+purely social or cultural thing, to nature. It may be objected that,
+though the interjections differ somewhat as we pass from language to
+language, they do nevertheless offer striking family resemblances and
+may therefore be looked upon as having grown up out of a common
+instinctive base. But their case is nowise different from that, say, of
+the varying national modes of pictorial representation. A Japanese
+picture of a hill both differs from and resembles a typical modern
+European painting of the same kind of hill. Both are suggested by and
+both "imitate" the same natural feature. Neither the one nor the other
+is the same thing as, or, in any intelligible sense, a direct outgrowth
+of, this natural feature. The two modes of representation are not
+identical because they proceed from differing historical traditions, are
+executed with differing pictorial techniques. The interjections of
+Japanese and English are, just so, suggested by a common natural
+prototype, the instinctive cries, and are thus unavoidably suggestive of
+each other. They differ, now greatly, now but little, because they are
+builded out of historically diverse materials or techniques, the
+respective linguistic traditions, phonetic systems, speech habits of the
+two peoples. Yet the instinctive cries as such are practically identical
+for all humanity, just as the human skeleton or nervous system is to all
+intents and purposes a "fixed," that is, an only slightly and
+"accidentally" variable, feature of man's organism.
+
+Interjections are among the least important of speech elements. Their
+discussion is valuable mainly because it can be shown that even they,
+avowedly the nearest of all language sounds to instinctive utterance,
+are only superficially of an instinctive nature. Were it therefore
+possible to demonstrate that the whole of language is traceable, in its
+ultimate historical and psychological foundations, to the interjections,
+it would still not follow that language is an instinctive activity. But,
+as a matter of fact, all attempts so to explain the origin of speech
+have been fruitless. There is no tangible evidence, historical or
+otherwise, tending to show that the mass of speech elements and speech
+processes has evolved out of the interjections. These are a very small
+and functionally insignificant proportion of the vocabulary of language;
+at no time and in no linguistic province that we have record of do we
+see a noticeable tendency towards their elaboration into the primary
+warp and woof of language. They are never more, at best, than a
+decorative edging to the ample, complex fabric.
+
+What applies to the interjections applies with even greater force to the
+sound-imitative words. Such words as "whippoorwill," "to mew," "to caw"
+are in no sense natural sounds that man has instinctively or
+automatically reproduced. They are just as truly creations of the human
+mind, flights of the human fancy, as anything else in language. They do
+not directly grow out of nature, they are suggested by it and play with
+it. Hence the onomatopoetic theory of the origin of speech, the theory
+that would explain all speech as a gradual evolution from sounds of an
+imitative character, really brings us no nearer to the instinctive level
+than is language as we know it to-day. As to the theory itself, it is
+scarcely more credible than its interjectional counterpart. It is true
+that a number of words which we do not now feel to have a
+sound-imitative value can be shown to have once had a phonetic form that
+strongly suggests their origin as imitations of natural sounds. Such is
+the English word "to laugh." For all that, it is quite impossible to
+show, nor does it seem intrinsically reasonable to suppose, that more
+than a negligible proportion of the elements of speech or anything at
+all of its formal apparatus is derivable from an onomatopoetic source.
+However much we may be disposed on general principles to assign a
+fundamental importance in the languages of primitive peoples to the
+imitation of natural sounds, the actual fact of the matter is that these
+languages show no particular preference for imitative words. Among the
+most primitive peoples of aboriginal America, the Athabaskan tribes of
+the Mackenzie River speak languages in which such words seem to be
+nearly or entirely absent, while they are used freely enough in
+languages as sophisticated as English and German. Such an instance shows
+how little the essential nature of speech is concerned with the mere
+imitation of things.
+
+The way is now cleared for a serviceable definition of language.
+Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating
+ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily
+produced symbols. These symbols are, in the first instance, auditory and
+they are produced by the so-called "organs of speech." There is no
+discernible instinctive basis in human speech as such, however much
+instinctive expressions and the natural environment may serve as a
+stimulus for the development of certain elements of speech, however much
+instinctive tendencies, motor and other, may give a predetermined range
+or mold to linguistic expression. Such human or animal communication, if
+"communication" it may be called, as is brought about by involuntary,
+instinctive cries is not, in our sense, language at all.
+
+I have just referred to the "organs of speech," and it would seem at
+first blush that this is tantamount to an admission that speech itself
+is an instinctive, biologically predetermined activity. We must not be
+misled by the mere term. There are, properly speaking, no organs of
+speech; there are only organs that are incidentally useful in the
+production of speech sounds. The lungs, the larynx, the palate, the
+nose, the tongue, the teeth, and the lips, are all so utilized, but they
+are no more to be thought of as primary organs of speech than are the
+fingers to be considered as essentially organs of piano-playing or the
+knees as organs of prayer. Speech is not a simple activity that is
+carried on by one or more organs biologically adapted to the purpose. It
+is an extremely complex and ever-shifting network of adjustments--in the
+brain, in the nervous system, and in the articulating and auditory
+organs--tending towards the desired end of communication. The lungs
+developed, roughly speaking, in connection with the necessary
+biological function known as breathing; the nose, as an organ of smell;
+the teeth, as organs useful in breaking up food before it was ready for
+digestion. If, then, these and other organs are being constantly
+utilized in speech, it is only because any organ, once existent and in
+so far as it is subject to voluntary control, can be utilized by man for
+secondary purposes. Physiologically, speech is an overlaid function, or,
+to be more precise, a group of overlaid functions. It gets what service
+it can out of organs and functions, nervous and muscular, that have come
+into being and are maintained for very different ends than its own.
+
+It is true that physiological psychologists speak of the localization of
+speech in the brain. This can only mean that the sounds of speech are
+localized in the auditory tract of the brain, or in some circumscribed
+portion of it, precisely as other classes of sounds are localized; and
+that the motor processes involved in speech (such as the movements of
+the glottal cords in the larynx, the movements of the tongue required to
+pronounce the vowels, lip movements required to articulate certain
+consonants, and numerous others) are localized in the motor tract
+precisely as are all other impulses to special motor activities. In the
+same way control is lodged in the visual tract of the brain over all
+those processes of visual recognition involved in reading. Naturally the
+particular points or clusters of points of localization in the several
+tracts that refer to any element of language are connected in the brain
+by paths of association, so that the outward, or psycho-physical, aspect
+of language, is of a vast network of associated localizations in the
+brain and lower nervous tracts, the auditory localizations being without
+doubt the most fundamental of all for speech. However, a speechsound
+localized in the brain, even when associated with the particular
+movements of the "speech organs" that are required to produce it, is
+very far from being an element of language. It must be further
+associated with some element or group of elements of experience, say a
+visual image or a class of visual images or a feeling of relation,
+before it has even rudimentary linguistic significance. This "element"
+of experience is the content or "meaning" of the linguistic unit; the
+associated auditory, motor, and other cerebral processes that lie
+immediately back of the act of speaking and the act of hearing speech
+are merely a complicated symbol of or signal for these "meanings," of
+which more anon. We see therefore at once that language as such is not
+and cannot be definitely localized, for it consists of a peculiar
+symbolic relation--physiologically an arbitrary one--between all
+possible elements of consciousness on the one hand and certain selected
+elements localized in the auditory, motor, and other cerebral and
+nervous tracts on the other. If language can be said to be definitely
+"localized" in the brain, it is only in that general and rather useless
+sense in which all aspects of consciousness, all human interest and
+activity, may be said to be "in the brain." Hence, we have no recourse
+but to accept language as a fully formed functional system within man's
+psychic or "spiritual" constitution. We cannot define it as an entity in
+psycho-physical terms alone, however much the psycho-physical basis is
+essential to its functioning in the individual.
+
+From the physiologist's or psychologist's point of view we may seem to
+be making an unwarrantable abstraction in desiring to handle the subject
+of speech without constant and explicit reference to that basis.
+However, such an abstraction is justifiable. We can profitably discuss
+the intention, the form, and the history of speech, precisely as we
+discuss the nature of any other phase of human culture--say art or
+religion--as an institutional or cultural entity, leaving the organic
+and psychological mechanisms back of it as something to be taken for
+granted. Accordingly, it must be clearly understood that this
+introduction to the study of speech is not concerned with those aspects
+of physiology and of physiological psychology that underlie speech. Our
+study of language is not to be one of the genesis and operation of a
+concrete mechanism; it is, rather, to be an inquiry into the function
+and form of the arbitrary systems of symbolism that we term languages.
+
+I have already pointed out that the essence of language consists in the
+assigning of conventional, voluntarily articulated, sounds, or of their
+equivalents, to the diverse elements of experience. The word "house" is
+not a linguistic fact if by it is meant merely the acoustic effect
+produced on the ear by its constituent consonants and vowels, pronounced
+in a certain order; nor the motor processes and tactile feelings which
+make up the articulation of the word; nor the visual perception on the
+part of the hearer of this articulation; nor the visual perception of
+the word "house" on the written or printed page; nor the motor processes
+and tactile feelings which enter into the writing of the word; nor the
+memory of any or all of these experiences. It is only when these, and
+possibly still other, associated experiences are automatically
+associated with the image of a house that they begin to take on the
+nature of a symbol, a word, an element of language. But the mere fact of
+such an association is not enough. One might have heard a particular
+word spoken in an individual house under such impressive circumstances
+that neither the word nor the image of the house ever recur in
+consciousness without the other becoming present at the same time. This
+type of association does not constitute speech. The association must be
+a purely symbolic one; in other words, the word must denote, tag off,
+the image, must have no other significance than to serve as a counter to
+refer to it whenever it is necessary or convenient to do so. Such an
+association, voluntary and, in a sense, arbitrary as it is, demands a
+considerable exercise of self-conscious attention. At least to begin
+with, for habit soon makes the association nearly as automatic as any
+and more rapid than most.
+
+But we have traveled a little too fast. Were the symbol "house"--whether
+an auditory, motor, or visual experience or image--attached but to the
+single image of a particular house once seen, it might perhaps, by an
+indulgent criticism, be termed an element of speech, yet it is obvious
+at the outset that speech so constituted would have little or no value
+for purposes of communication. The world of our experiences must be
+enormously simplified and generalized before it is possible to make a
+symbolic inventory of all our experiences of things and relations; and
+this inventory is imperative before we can convey ideas. The elements of
+language, the symbols that ticket off experience, must therefore be
+associated with whole groups, delimited classes, of experience rather
+than with the single experiences themselves. Only so is communication
+possible, for the single experience lodges in an individual
+consciousness and is, strictly speaking, incommunicable. To be
+communicated it needs to be referred to a class which is tacitly
+accepted by the community as an identity. Thus, the single impression
+which I have had of a particular house must be identified with all my
+other impressions of it. Further, my generalized memory or my "notion"
+of this house must be merged with the notions that all other individuals
+who have seen the house have formed of it. The particular experience
+that we started with has now been widened so as to embrace all possible
+impressions or images that sentient beings have formed or may form of
+the house in question. This first simplification of experience is at the
+bottom of a large number of elements of speech, the so-called proper
+nouns or names of single individuals or objects. It is, essentially, the
+type of simplification which underlies, or forms the crude subject of,
+history and art. But we cannot be content with this measure of reduction
+of the infinity of experience. We must cut to the bone of things, we
+must more or less arbitrarily throw whole masses of experience together
+as similar enough to warrant their being looked upon--mistakenly, but
+conveniently--as identical. This house and that house and thousands of
+other phenomena of like character are thought of as having enough in
+common, in spite of great and obvious differences of detail, to be
+classed under the same heading. In other words, the speech element
+"house" is the symbol, first and foremost, not of a single perception,
+nor even of the notion of a particular object, but of a "concept," in
+other words, of a convenient capsule of thought that embraces thousands
+of distinct experiences and that is ready to take in thousands more. If
+the single significant elements of speech are the symbols of concepts,
+the actual flow of speech may be interpreted as a record of the setting
+of these concepts into mutual relations.
+
+The question has often been raised whether thought is possible without
+speech; further, if speech and thought be not but two facets of the same
+psychic process. The question is all the more difficult because it has
+been hedged about by misunderstandings. In the first place, it is well
+to observe that whether or not thought necessitates symbolism, that is
+speech, the flow of language itself is not always indicative of thought.
+We have seen that the typical linguistic element labels a concept. It
+does not follow from this that the use to which language is put is
+always or even mainly conceptual. We are not in ordinary life so much
+concerned with concepts as such as with concrete particularities and
+specific relations. When I say, for instance, "I had a good breakfast
+this morning," it is clear that I am not in the throes of laborious
+thought, that what I have to transmit is hardly more than a pleasurable
+memory symbolically rendered in the grooves of habitual expression. Each
+element in the sentence defines a separate concept or conceptual
+relation or both combined, but the sentence as a whole has no conceptual
+significance whatever. It is somewhat as though a dynamo capable of
+generating enough power to run an elevator were operated almost
+exclusively to feed an electric door-bell. The parallel is more
+suggestive than at first sight appears. Language may be looked upon as
+an instrument capable of running a gamut of psychic uses. Its flow not
+only parallels that of the inner content of consciousness, but parallels
+it on different levels, ranging from the state of mind that is dominated
+by particular images to that in which abstract concepts and their
+relations are alone at the focus of attention and which is ordinarily
+termed reasoning. Thus the outward form only of language is constant;
+its inner meaning, its psychic value or intensity, varies freely with
+attention or the selective interest of the mind, also, needless to say,
+with the mind's general development. From the point of view of
+language, thought may be defined as the highest latent or potential
+content of speech, the content that is obtained by interpreting each of
+the elements in the flow of language as possessed of its very fullest
+conceptual value. From this it follows at once that language and thought
+are not strictly coterminous. At best language can but be the outward
+facet of thought on the highest, most generalized, level of symbolic
+expression. To put our viewpoint somewhat differently, language is
+primarily a pre-rational function. It humbly works up to the thought
+that is latent in, that may eventually be read into, its classifications
+and its forms; it is not, as is generally but naïvely assumed, the final
+label put upon, the finished thought.
+
+Most people, asked if they can think without speech, would probably
+answer, "Yes, but it is not easy for me to do so. Still I know it can be
+done." Language is but a garment! But what if language is not so much a
+garment as a prepared road or groove? It is, indeed, in the highest
+degree likely that language is an instrument originally put to uses
+lower than the conceptual plane and that thought arises as a refined
+interpretation of its content. The product grows, in other words, with
+the instrument, and thought may be no more conceivable, in its genesis
+and daily practice, without speech than is mathematical reasoning
+practicable without the lever of an appropriate mathematical symbolism.
+No one believes that even the most difficult mathematical proposition is
+inherently dependent on an arbitrary set of symbols, but it is
+impossible to suppose that the human mind is capable of arriving at or
+holding such a proposition without the symbolism. The writer, for one,
+is strongly of the opinion that the feeling entertained by so many that
+they can think, or even reason, without language is an illusion. The
+illusion seems to be due to a number of factors. The simplest of these
+is the failure to distinguish between imagery and thought. As a matter
+of fact, no sooner do we try to put an image into conscious relation
+with another than we find ourselves slipping into a silent flow of
+words. Thought may be a natural domain apart from the artificial one of
+speech, but speech would seem to be the only road we know of that leads
+to it. A still more fruitful source of the illusive feeling that
+language may be dispensed with in thought is the common failure to
+realize that language is not identical with its auditory symbolism. The
+auditory symbolism may be replaced, point for point, by a motor or by a
+visual symbolism (many people can read, for instance, in a purely visual
+sense, that is, without the intermediating link of an inner flow of the
+auditory images that correspond to the printed or written words) or by
+still other, more subtle and elusive, types of transfer that are not so
+easy to define. Hence the contention that one thinks without language
+merely because he is not aware of a coexisting auditory imagery is very
+far indeed from being a valid one. One may go so far as to suspect that
+the symbolic expression of thought may in some cases run along outside
+the fringe of the conscious mind, so that the feeling of a free,
+nonlinguistic stream of thought is for minds of a certain type a
+relatively, but only a relatively, justified one. Psycho-physically,
+this would mean that the auditory or equivalent visual or motor centers
+in the brain, together with the appropriate paths of association, that
+are the cerebral equivalent of speech, are touched off so lightly during
+the process of thought as not to rise into consciousness at all. This
+would be a limiting case--thought riding lightly on the submerged crests
+of speech, instead of jogging along with it, hand in hand. The modern
+psychology has shown us how powerfully symbolism is at work in the
+unconscious mind. It is therefore easier to understand at the present
+time than it would have been twenty years ago that the most rarefied
+thought may be but the conscious counterpart of an unconscious
+linguistic symbolism.
+
+One word more as to the relation between language and thought. The point
+of view that we have developed does not by any means preclude the
+possibility of the growth of speech being in a high degree dependent on
+the development of thought. We may assume that language arose
+pre-rationally--just how and on what precise level of mental activity we
+do not know--but we must not imagine that a highly developed system of
+speech symbols worked itself out before the genesis of distinct concepts
+and of thinking, the handling of concepts. We must rather imagine that
+thought processes set in, as a kind of psychic overflow, almost at the
+beginning of linguistic expression; further, that the concept, once
+defined, necessarily reacted on the life of its linguistic symbol,
+encouraging further linguistic growth. We see this complex process of
+the interaction of language and thought actually taking place under our
+eyes. The instrument makes possible the product, the product refines the
+instrument. The birth of a new concept is invariably foreshadowed by a
+more or less strained or extended use of old linguistic material; the
+concept does not attain to individual and independent life until it has
+found a distinctive linguistic embodiment. In most cases the new symbol
+is but a thing wrought from linguistic material already in existence in
+ways mapped out by crushingly despotic precedents. As soon as the word
+is at hand, we instinctively feel, with something of a sigh of relief,
+that the concept is ours for the handling. Not until we own the symbol
+do we feel that we hold a key to the immediate knowledge or
+understanding of the concept. Would we be so ready to die for "liberty,"
+to struggle for "ideals," if the words themselves were not ringing
+within us? And the word, as we know, is not only a key; it may also be a
+fetter.
+
+Language is primarily an auditory system of symbols. In so far as it is
+articulated it is also a motor system, but the motor aspect of speech is
+clearly secondary to the auditory. In normal individuals the impulse to
+speech first takes effect in the sphere of auditory imagery and is then
+transmitted to the motor nerves that control the organs of speech. The
+motor processes and the accompanying motor feelings are not, however,
+the end, the final resting point. They are merely a means and a control
+leading to auditory perception in both speaker and hearer.
+Communication, which is the very object of speech, is successfully
+effected only when the hearer's auditory perceptions are translated into
+the appropriate and intended flow of imagery or thought or both
+combined. Hence the cycle of speech, in so far as we may look upon it as
+a purely external instrument, begins and ends in the realm of sounds.
+The concordance between the initial auditory imagery and the final
+auditory perceptions is the social seal or warrant of the successful
+issue of the process. As we have already seen, the typical course of
+this process may undergo endless modifications or transfers into
+equivalent systems without thereby losing its essential formal
+characteristics.
+
+The most important of these modifications is the abbreviation of the
+speech process involved in thinking. This has doubtless many forms,
+according to the structural or functional peculiarities of the
+individual mind. The least modified form is that known as "talking to
+one's self" or "thinking aloud." Here the speaker and the hearer are
+identified in a single person, who may be said to communicate with
+himself. More significant is the still further abbreviated form in which
+the sounds of speech are not articulated at all. To this belong all the
+varieties of silent speech and of normal thinking. The auditory centers
+alone may be excited; or the impulse to linguistic expression may be
+communicated as well to the motor nerves that communicate with the
+organs of speech but be inhibited either in the muscles of these organs
+or at some point in the motor nerves themselves; or, possibly, the
+auditory centers may be only slightly, if at all, affected, the speech
+process manifesting itself directly in the motor sphere. There must be
+still other types of abbreviation. How common is the excitation of the
+motor nerves in silent speech, in which no audible or visible
+articulations result, is shown by the frequent experience of fatigue in
+the speech organs, particularly in the larynx, after unusually
+stimulating reading or intensive thinking.
+
+All the modifications so far considered are directly patterned on the
+typical process of normal speech. Of very great interest and importance
+is the possibility of transferring the whole system of speech symbolism
+into other terms than those that are involved in the typical process.
+This process, as we have seen, is a matter of sounds and of movements
+intended to produce these sounds. The sense of vision is not brought
+into play. But let us suppose that one not only hears the articulated
+sounds but sees the articulations themselves as they are being executed
+by the speaker. Clearly, if one can only gain a sufficiently high degree
+of adroitness in perceiving these movements of the speech organs, the
+way is opened for a new type of speech symbolism--that in which the
+sound is replaced by the visual image of the articulations that
+correspond to the sound. This sort of system has no great value for most
+of us because we are already possessed of the auditory-motor system of
+which it is at best but an imperfect translation, not all the
+articulations being visible to the eye. However, it is well known what
+excellent use deaf-mutes can make of "reading from the lips" as a
+subsidiary method of apprehending speech. The most important of all
+visual speech symbolisms is, of course, that of the written or printed
+word, to which, on the motor side, corresponds the system of delicately
+adjusted movements which result in the writing or typewriting or other
+graphic method of recording speech. The significant feature for our
+recognition in these new types of symbolism, apart from the fact that
+they are no longer a by-product of normal speech itself, is that each
+element (letter or written word) in the system corresponds to a specific
+element (sound or sound-group or spoken word) in the primary system.
+Written language is thus a point-to-point equivalence, to borrow a
+mathematical phrase, to its spoken counterpart. The written forms are
+secondary symbols of the spoken ones--symbols of symbols--yet so close
+is the correspondence that they may, not only in theory but in the
+actual practice of certain eye-readers and, possibly, in certain types
+of thinking, be entirely substituted for the spoken ones. Yet the
+auditory-motor associations are probably always latent at the least,
+that is, they are unconsciously brought into play. Even those who read
+and think without the slightest use of sound imagery are, at last
+analysis, dependent on it. They are merely handling the circulating
+medium, the money, of visual symbols as a convenient substitute for the
+economic goods and services of the fundamental auditory symbols.
+
+The possibilities of linguistic transfer are practically unlimited. A
+familiar example is the Morse telegraph code, in which the letters of
+written speech are represented by a conventionally fixed sequence of
+longer or shorter ticks. Here the transfer takes place from the written
+word rather than directly from the sounds of spoken speech. The letter
+of the telegraph code is thus a symbol of a symbol of a symbol. It does
+not, of course, in the least follow that the skilled operator, in order
+to arrive at an understanding of a telegraphic message, needs to
+transpose the individual sequence of ticks into a visual image of the
+word before he experiences its normal auditory image. The precise method
+of reading off speech from the telegraphic communication undoubtedly
+varies widely with the individual. It is even conceivable, if not
+exactly likely, that certain operators may have learned to think
+directly, so far as the purely conscious part of the process of thought
+is concerned, in terms of the tick-auditory symbolism or, if they happen
+to have a strong natural bent toward motor symbolism, in terms of the
+correlated tactile-motor symbolism developed in the sending of
+telegraphic messages.
+
+Still another interesting group of transfers are the different gesture
+languages, developed for the use of deaf-mutes, of Trappist monks vowed
+to perpetual silence, or of communicating parties that are within seeing
+distance of each other but are out of earshot. Some of these systems are
+one-to-one equivalences of the normal system of speech; others, like
+military gesture-symbolism or the gesture language of the Plains Indians
+of North America (understood by tribes of mutually unintelligible forms
+of speech) are imperfect transfers, limiting themselves to the rendering
+of such grosser speech elements as are an imperative minimum under
+difficult circumstances. In these latter systems, as in such still more
+imperfect symbolisms as those used at sea or in the woods, it may be
+contended that language no longer properly plays a part but that the
+ideas are directly conveyed by an utterly unrelated symbolic process or
+by a quasi-instinctive imitativeness. Such an interpretation would be
+erroneous. The intelligibility of these vaguer symbolisms can hardly be
+due to anything but their automatic and silent translation into the
+terms of a fuller flow of speech.
+
+We shall no doubt conclude that all voluntary communication of ideas,
+aside from normal speech, is either a transfer, direct or indirect, from
+the typical symbolism of language as spoken and heard or, at the least,
+involves the intermediary of truly linguistic symbolism. This is a fact
+of the highest importance. Auditory imagery and the correlated motor
+imagery leading to articulation are, by whatever devious ways we follow
+the process, the historic fountain-head of all speech and of all
+thinking. One other point is of still greater importance. The ease with
+which speech symbolism can be transferred from one sense to another,
+from technique to technique, itself indicates that the mere sounds of
+speech are not the essential fact of language, which lies rather in the
+classification, in the formal patterning, and in the relating of
+concepts. Once more, language, as a structure, is on its inner face the
+mold of thought. It is this abstracted language, rather more than the
+physical facts of speech, that is to concern us in our inquiry.
+
+There is no more striking general fact about language than its
+universality. One may argue as to whether a particular tribe engages in
+activities that are worthy of the name of religion or of art, but we
+know of no people that is not possessed of a fully developed language.
+The lowliest South African Bushman speaks in the forms of a rich
+symbolic system that is in essence perfectly comparable to the speech of
+the cultivated Frenchman. It goes without saying that the more abstract
+concepts are not nearly so plentifully represented in the language of
+the savage, nor is there the rich terminology and the finer definition
+of nuances that reflect the higher culture. Yet the sort of linguistic
+development that parallels the historic growth of culture and which, in
+its later stages, we associate with literature is, at best, but a
+superficial thing. The fundamental groundwork of language--the
+development of a clear-cut phonetic system, the specific association of
+speech elements with concepts, and the delicate provision for the formal
+expression of all manner of relations--all this meets us rigidly
+perfected and systematized in every language known to us. Many primitive
+languages have a formal richness, a latent luxuriance of expression,
+that eclipses anything known to the languages of modern civilization.
+Even in the mere matter of the inventory of speech the layman must be
+prepared for strange surprises. Popular statements as to the extreme
+poverty of expression to which primitive languages are doomed are simply
+myths. Scarcely less impressive than the universality of speech is its
+almost incredible diversity. Those of us that have studied French or
+German, or, better yet, Latin or Greek, know in what varied forms a
+thought may run. The formal divergences between the English plan and the
+Latin plan, however, are comparatively slight in the perspective of what
+we know of more exotic linguistic patterns. The universality and the
+diversity of speech lead to a significant inference. We are forced to
+believe that language is an immensely ancient heritage of the human
+race, whether or not all forms of speech are the historical outgrowth of
+a single pristine form. It is doubtful if any other cultural asset of
+man, be it the art of drilling for fire or of chipping stone, may lay
+claim to a greater age. I am inclined to believe that it antedated even
+the lowliest developments of material culture, that these developments,
+in fact, were not strictly possible until language, the tool of
+significant expression, had itself taken shape.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE ELEMENTS OF SPEECH
+
+
+We have more than once referred to the "elements of speech," by which we
+understood, roughly speaking, what are ordinarily called "words." We
+must now look more closely at these elements and acquaint ourselves with
+the stuff of language. The very simplest element of speech--and by
+"speech" we shall hence-forth mean the auditory system of speech
+symbolism, the flow of spoken words--is the individual sound, though, as
+we shall see later on, the sound is not itself a simple structure but
+the resultant of a series of independent, yet closely correlated,
+adjustments in the organs of speech. And yet the individual sound is
+not, properly considered, an element of speech at all, for speech is a
+significant function and the sound as such has no significance. It
+happens occasionally that the single sound is an independently
+significant element (such as French _a_ "has" and _à_ "to" or Latin _i_
+"go!"), but such cases are fortuitous coincidences between individual
+sound and significant word. The coincidence is apt to be fortuitous not
+only in theory but in point of actual historic fact; thus, the instances
+cited are merely reduced forms of originally fuller phonetic
+groups--Latin _habet_ and _ad_ and Indo-European _ei_ respectively. If
+language is a structure and if the significant elements of language are
+the bricks of the structure, then the sounds of speech can only be
+compared to the unformed and unburnt clay of which the bricks are
+fashioned. In this chapter we shall have nothing further to do with
+sounds as sounds.
+
+The true, significant elements of language are generally sequences of
+sounds that are either words, significant parts of words, or word
+groupings. What distinguishes each of these elements is that it is the
+outward sign of a specific idea, whether of a single concept or image or
+of a number of such concepts or images definitely connected into a
+whole. The single word may or may not be the simplest significant
+element we have to deal with. The English words _sing_, _sings_,
+_singing_, _singer_ each conveys a perfectly definite and intelligible
+idea, though the idea is disconnected and is therefore functionally of
+no practical value. We recognize immediately that these words are of two
+sorts. The first word, _sing_, is an indivisible phonetic entity
+conveying the notion of a certain specific activity. The other words all
+involve the same fundamental notion but, owing to the addition of other
+phonetic elements, this notion is given a particular twist that modifies
+or more closely defines it. They represent, in a sense, compounded
+concepts that have flowered from the fundamental one. We may, therefore,
+analyze the words _sings_, _singing_, and _singer_ as binary expressions
+involving a fundamental concept, a concept of subject matter (_sing_),
+and a further concept of more abstract order--one of person, number,
+time, condition, function, or of several of these combined.
+
+If we symbolize such a term as _sing_ by the algebraic formula A, we
+shall have to symbolize such terms as _sings_ and _singer_ by the
+formula A + b.[1] The element A may be either a complete and independent
+word (_sing_) or the fundamental substance, the so-called root or
+stem[2] or "radical element" (_sing-_) of a word. The element b (_-s_,
+_-ing_, _-er_) is the indicator of a subsidiary and, as a rule, a more
+abstract concept; in the widest sense of the word "form," it puts upon
+the fundamental concept a formal limitation. We may term it a
+"grammatical element" or affix. As we shall see later on, the
+grammatical element or the grammatical increment, as we had better put
+it, need not be suffixed to the radical element. It may be a prefixed
+element (like the _un-_ of _unsingable_), it may be inserted into the
+very body of the stem (like the _n_ of the Latin _vinco_ "I conquer" as
+contrasted with its absence in _vici_ "I have conquered"), it may be the
+complete or partial repetition of the stem, or it may consist of some
+modification of the inner form of the stem (change of vowel, as in
+_sung_ and _song_; change of consonant as in _dead_ and _death_; change
+of accent; actual abbreviation). Each and every one of these types of
+grammatical element or modification has this peculiarity, that it may
+not, in the vast majority of cases, be used independently but needs to
+be somehow attached to or welded with a radical element in order to
+convey an intelligible notion. We had better, therefore, modify our
+formula, A + b, to A + (b), the round brackets symbolizing the
+incapacity of an element to stand alone. The grammatical element,
+moreover, is not only non-existent except as associated with a radical
+one, it does not even, as a rule, obtain its measure of significance
+unless it is associated with a particular class of radical elements.
+Thus, the _-s_ of English _he hits_ symbolizes an utterly different
+notion from the _-s_ of _books_, merely because _hit_ and _book_ are
+differently classified as to function. We must hasten to observe,
+however, that while the radical element may, on occasion, be identical
+with the word, it does not follow that it may always, or even
+customarily, be used as a word. Thus, the _hort-_ "garden" of such Latin
+forms as _hortus_, _horti_, and _horto_ is as much of an abstraction,
+though one yielding a more easily apprehended significance, than the
+_-ing_ of _singing_. Neither exists as an independently intelligible and
+satisfying element of speech. Both the radical element, as such, and the
+grammatical element, therefore, are reached only by a process of
+abstraction. It seemed proper to symbolize _sing-er_ as A + (b);
+_hort-us_ must be symbolized as (A) + (b).
+
+[Footnote 1: We shall reserve capitals for radical elements.]
+
+[Footnote 2: These words are not here used in a narrowly technical
+sense.]
+
+So far, the first speech element that we have found which we can say
+actually "exists" is the word. Before defining the word, however, we
+must look a little more closely at the type of word that is illustrated
+by _sing_. Are we, after all, justified in identifying it with a radical
+element? Does it represent a simple correspondence between concept and
+linguistic expression? Is the element _sing-_, that we have abstracted
+from _sings_, _singing_, and _singer_ and to which we may justly ascribe
+a general unmodified conceptual value, actually the same linguistic fact
+as the word _sing_? It would almost seem absurd to doubt it, yet a
+little reflection only is needed to convince us that the doubt is
+entirely legitimate. The word _sing_ cannot, as a matter of fact, be
+freely used to refer to its own conceptual content. The existence of
+such evidently related forms as _sang_ and _sung_ at once shows that it
+cannot refer to past time, but that, for at least an important part of
+its range of usage, it is limited to the present. On the other hand, the
+use of _sing_ as an "infinitive" (in such locutions as _to sing_ and _he
+will sing_) does indicate that there is a fairly strong tendency for the
+word _sing_ to represent the full, untrammeled amplitude of a specific
+concept. Yet if _sing_ were, in any adequate sense, the fixed
+expression of the unmodified concept, there should be no room for such
+vocalic aberrations as we find in _sang_ and _sung_ and _song_, nor
+should we find _sing_ specifically used to indicate present time for all
+persons but one (third person singular _sings_).
+
+The truth of the matter is that _sing_ is a kind of twilight word,
+trembling between the status of a true radical element and that of a
+modified word of the type of _singing_. Though it has no outward sign to
+indicate that it conveys more than a generalized idea, we do feel that
+there hangs about it a variable mist of added value. The formula A does
+not seem to represent it so well as A + (0). We might suspect _sing_ of
+belonging to the A + (b) type, with the reservation that the (b) had
+vanished. This report of the "feel" of the word is far from fanciful,
+for historical evidence does, in all earnest, show that _sing_ is in
+origin a number of quite distinct words, of type A + (b), that have
+pooled their separate values. The (b) of each of these has gone as a
+tangible phonetic element; its force, however, lingers on in weakened
+measure. The _sing_ of _I sing_ is the correspondent of the Anglo-Saxon
+_singe_; the infinitive _sing_, of _singan_; the imperative _sing_ of
+_sing_. Ever since the breakdown of English forms that set in about the
+time of the Norman Conquest, our language has been straining towards the
+creation of simple concept-words, unalloyed by formal connotations, but
+it has not yet succeeded in this, apart, possibly, from isolated adverbs
+and other elements of that sort. Were the typical unanalyzable word of
+the language truly a pure concept-word (type A) instead of being of a
+strangely transitional type (type A + [0]), our _sing_ and _work_ and
+_house_ and thousands of others would compare with the genuine
+radical-words of numerous other languages.[3] Such a radical-word, to
+take a random example, is the Nootka[4] word _hamot_ "bone." Our English
+correspondent is only superficially comparable. _Hamot_ means "bone" in
+a quite indefinite sense; to our English word clings the notion of
+singularity. The Nootka Indian can convey the idea of plurality, in one
+of several ways, if he so desires, but he does not need to; _hamot_ may
+do for either singular or plural, should no interest happen to attach to
+the distinction. As soon as we say "bone" (aside from its secondary
+usage to indicate material), we not merely specify the nature of the
+object but we imply, whether we will or no, that there is but one of
+these objects to be considered. And this increment of value makes all
+the difference.
+
+[Footnote 3: It is not a question of the general isolating character of
+such languages as Chinese (see Chapter VI). Radical-words may and do
+occur in languages of all varieties, many of them of a high degree of
+complexity.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Spoken by a group of Indian tribes in Vancouver Island.]
+
+We now know of four distinct formal types of word: A (Nootka _hamot_);
+A + (0) (_sing_, _bone_); A + (b) (_singing_); (A) + (b) (Latin
+_hortus_). There is but one other type that is fundamentally possible:
+A + B, the union of two (or more) independently occurring radical
+elements into a single term. Such a word is the compound _fire-engine_
+or a Sioux form equivalent to _eat-stand_ (i.e., "to eat while
+standing"). It frequently happens, however, that one of the radical
+elements becomes functionally so subordinated to the other that it takes
+on the character of a grammatical element. We may symbolize this by
+A + b, a type that may gradually, by loss of external connection between
+the subordinated element b and its independent counterpart B merge with
+the commoner type A + (b). A word like _beautiful_ is an example of
+A + b, the _-ful_ barely preserving the impress of its lineage. A word
+like _homely_, on the other hand, is clearly of the type A + (b), for no
+one but a linguistic student is aware of the connection between the
+_-ly_ and the independent word _like_.
+
+In actual use, of course, these five (or six) fundamental types may be
+indefinitely complicated in a number of ways. The (0) may have a
+multiple value; in other words, the inherent formal modification of the
+basic notion of the word may affect more than one category. In such a
+Latin word as _cor_ "heart," for instance, not only is a concrete
+concept conveyed, but there cling to the form, which is actually shorter
+than its own radical element (_cord-_), the three distinct, yet
+intertwined, formal concepts of singularity, gender classification
+(neuter), and case (subjective-objective). The complete grammatical
+formula for _cor_ is, then, A + (0) + (0) + (0), though the merely
+external, phonetic formula would be (A)--, (A) indicating the abstracted
+"stem" _cord-_, the minus sign a loss of material. The significant thing
+about such a word as _cor_ is that the three conceptual limitations are
+not merely expressed by implication as the word sinks into place in a
+sentence; they are tied up, for good and all, within the very vitals of
+the word and cannot be eliminated by any possibility of usage.
+
+Other complications result from a manifolding of parts. In a given word
+there may be several elements of the order A (we have already symbolized
+this by the type A + B), of the order (A), of the order b, and of the
+order (b). Finally, the various types may be combined among themselves
+in endless ways. A comparatively simple language like English, or even
+Latin, illustrates but a modest proportion of these theoretical
+possibilities. But if we take our examples freely from the vast
+storehouse of language, from languages exotic as well as from those that
+we are more familiar with, we shall find that there is hardly a
+possibility that is not realized in actual usage. One example will do
+for thousands, one complex type for hundreds of possible types. I select
+it from Paiute, the language of the Indians of the arid plateaus of
+southwestern Utah. The word
+_wii-to-kuchum-punku-rügani-yugwi-va-ntü-m(ü)_[5] is of unusual length
+even for its own language, but it is no psychological monster for all
+that. It means "they who are going to sit and cut up with a knife a
+black cow (_or_ bull)," or, in the order of the Indian elements,
+"knife-black-buffalo-pet-cut up-sit(plur.)-future-participle-animate
+plur." The formula for this word, in accordance with our symbolism,
+would be (F) + (E) + C + d + A + B + (g) + (h) + (i) + (0). It is the
+plural of the future participle of a compound verb "to sit and cut
+up"--A + B. The elements (g)--which denotes futurity--, (h)--a
+participial suffix--, and (i)--indicating the animate plural--are
+grammatical elements which convey nothing when detached. The formula (0)
+is intended to imply that the finished word conveys, in addition to what
+is definitely expressed, a further relational idea, that of
+subjectivity; in other words, the form can only be used as the subject
+of a sentence, not in an objective or other syntactic relation. The
+radical element A ("to cut up"), before entering into combination with
+the coördinate element B ("to sit"), is itself compounded with two
+nominal elements or element-groups--an instrumentally used stem (F)
+("knife"), which may be freely used as the radical element of noun
+forms but cannot be employed as an absolute noun in its given form, and
+an objectively used group--(E) + C + d ("black cow _or_ bull"). This
+group in turn consists of an adjectival radical element (E) ("black"),
+which cannot be independently employed (the absolute notion of "black"
+can be rendered only as the participle of a verb: "black-be-ing"), and
+the compound noun C + d ("buffalo-pet"). The radical element C properly
+means "buffalo," but the element d, properly an independently occurring
+noun meaning "horse" (originally "dog" or "domesticated animal" in
+general), is regularly used as a quasi-subordinate element indicating
+that the animal denoted by the stem to which it is affixed is owned by a
+human being. It will be observed that the whole complex
+(F) + (E) + C + d + A + B is functionally no more than a verbal base,
+corresponding to the _sing-_ of an English form like _singing_; that
+this complex remains verbal in force on the addition of the temporal
+element (g)--this (g), by the way, must not be understood as appended to
+B alone, but to the whole basic complex as a unit--; and that the
+elements (h) + (i) + (0) transform the verbal expression into a formally
+well-defined noun.
+
+[Footnote 5: In this and other examples taken from exotic languages I am
+forced by practical considerations to simplify the actual phonetic
+forms. This should not matter perceptibly, as we are concerned with form
+as such, not with phonetic content.]
+
+It is high time that we decided just what is meant by a word. Our first
+impulse, no doubt, would have been to define the word as the symbolic,
+linguistic counterpart of a single concept. We now know that such a
+definition is impossible. In truth it is impossible to define the word
+from a functional standpoint at all, for the word may be anything from
+the expression of a single concept--concrete or abstract or purely
+relational (as in _of_ or _by_ or _and_)--to the expression of a
+complete thought (as in Latin _dico_ "I say" or, with greater
+elaborateness of form, in a Nootka verb form denoting "I have been
+accustomed to eat twenty round objects [e.g., apples] while engaged in
+[doing so and so]"). In the latter case the word becomes identical with
+the sentence. The word is merely a form, a definitely molded entity that
+takes in as much or as little of the conceptual material of the whole
+thought as the genius of the language cares to allow. Thus it is that
+while the single radical elements and grammatical elements, the carriers
+of isolated concepts, are comparable as we pass from language to
+language, the finished words are not. Radical (or grammatical) element
+and sentence--these are the primary _functional_ units of speech, the
+former as an abstracted minimum, the latter as the esthetically
+satisfying embodiment of a unified thought. The actual _formal_ units of
+speech, the words, may on occasion identify themselves with either of
+the two functional units; more often they mediate between the two
+extremes, embodying one or more radical notions and also one or more
+subsidiary ones. We may put the whole matter in a nutshell by saying
+that the radical and grammatical elements of language, abstracted as
+they are from the realities of speech, respond to the conceptual world
+of science, abstracted as it is from the realities of experience, and
+that the word, the existent unit of living speech, responds to the unit
+of actually apprehended experience, of history, of art. The sentence is
+the logical counterpart of the complete thought only if it be felt as
+made up of the radical and grammatical elements that lurk in the
+recesses of its words. It is the psychological counterpart of
+experience, of art, when it is felt, as indeed it normally is, as the
+finished play of word with word. As the necessity of defining thought
+solely and exclusively for its own sake becomes more urgent, the word
+becomes increasingly irrelevant as a means. We can therefore easily
+understand why the mathematician and the symbolic logician are driven to
+discard the word and to build up their thought with the help of symbols
+which have, each of them, a rigidly unitary value.
+
+But is not the word, one may object, as much of an abstraction as the
+radical element? Is it not as arbitrarily lifted out of the living
+sentence as is the minimum conceptual element out of the word? Some
+students of language have, indeed, looked upon the word as such an
+abstraction, though with very doubtful warrant, it seems to me. It is
+true that in particular cases, especially in some of the highly
+synthetic languages of aboriginal America, it is not always easy to say
+whether a particular element of language is to be interpreted as an
+independent word or as part of a larger word. These transitional cases,
+puzzling as they may be on occasion, do not, however, materially weaken
+the case for the psychological validity of the word. Linguistic
+experience, both as expressed in standardized, written form and as
+tested in daily usage, indicates overwhelmingly that there is not, as a
+rule, the slightest difficulty in bringing the word to consciousness as
+a psychological reality. No more convincing test could be desired than
+this, that the naive Indian, quite unaccustomed to the concept of the
+written word, has nevertheless no serious difficulty in dictating a text
+to a linguistic student word by word; he tends, of course, to run his
+words together as in actual speech, but if he is called to a halt and is
+made to understand what is desired, he can readily isolate the words as
+such, repeating them as units. He regularly refuses, on the other hand,
+to isolate the radical or grammatical element, on the ground that it
+"makes no sense."[6] What, then, is the objective criterion of the word?
+The speaker and hearer feel the word, let us grant, but how shall we
+justify their feeling? If function is not the ultimate criterion of the
+word, what is?
+
+[Footnote 6: These oral experiences, which I have had time and again as
+a field student of American Indian languages, are very neatly confirmed
+by personal experiences of another sort. Twice I have taught intelligent
+young Indians to write their own languages according to the phonetic
+system which I employ. They were taught merely how to render accurately
+the sounds as such. Both had some difficulty in learning to break up a
+word into its constituent sounds, but none whatever in determining the
+words. This they both did with spontaneous and complete accuracy. In the
+hundreds of pages of manuscript Nootka text that I have obtained from
+one of these young Indians the words, whether abstract relational
+entities like English _that_ and _but_ or complex sentence-words like
+the Nootka example quoted above, are, practically without exception,
+isolated precisely as I or any other student would have isolated them.
+Such experiences with naïve speakers and recorders do more to convince
+one of the definitely plastic unity of the word than any amount of
+purely theoretical argument.]
+
+It is easier to ask the question than to answer it. The best that we can
+do is to say that the word is one of the smallest, completely satisfying
+bits of isolated "meaning" into which the sentence resolves itself. It
+cannot be cut into without a disturbance of meaning, one or the other or
+both of the severed parts remaining as a helpless waif on our hands. In
+practice this unpretentious criterion does better service than might be
+supposed. In such a sentence as _It is unthinkable_, it is simply
+impossible to group the elements into any other and smaller "words" than
+the three indicated. _Think_ or _thinkable_ might be isolated, but as
+neither _un-_ nor _-able_ nor _is-un_ yields a measurable satisfaction,
+we are compelled to leave _unthinkable_ as an integral whole, a
+miniature bit of art. Added to the "feel" of the word are frequently,
+but by no means invariably, certain external phonetic characteristics.
+Chief of these is accent. In many, perhaps in most, languages the single
+word is marked by a unifying accent, an emphasis on one of the
+syllables, to which the rest are subordinated. The particular syllable
+that is to be so distinguished is dependent, needless to say, on the
+special genius of the language. The importance of accent as a unifying
+feature of the word is obvious in such English examples as
+_unthinkable_, _characterizing_. The long Paiute word that we have
+analyzed is marked as a rigid phonetic unit by several features, chief
+of which are the accent on its second syllable (_wii'_-"knife") and the
+slurring ("unvoicing," to use the technical phonetic term) of its final
+vowel (_-mü_, animate plural). Such features as accent, cadence, and the
+treatment of consonants and vowels within the body of a word are often
+useful as aids in the external demarcation of the word, but they must by
+no means be interpreted, as is sometimes done, as themselves responsible
+for its psychological existence. They at best but strengthen a feeling
+of unity that is already present on other grounds.
+
+We have already seen that the major functional unit of speech, the
+sentence, has, like the word, a psychological as well as a merely
+logical or abstracted existence. Its definition is not difficult. It is
+the linguistic expression of a proposition. It combines a subject of
+discourse with a statement in regard to this subject. Subject and
+"predicate" may be combined in a single word, as in Latin _dico_; each
+may be expressed independently, as in the English equivalent, _I say_;
+each or either may be so qualified as to lead to complex propositions of
+many sorts. No matter how many of these qualifying elements (words or
+functional parts of words) are introduced, the sentence does not lose
+its feeling of unity so long as each and every one of them falls in
+place as contributory to the definition of either the subject of
+discourse or the core of the predicate[7]. Such a sentence as _The mayor
+of New York is going to deliver a speech of welcome in French_ is
+readily felt as a unified statement, incapable of reduction by the
+transfer of certain of its elements, in their given form, to the
+preceding or following sentences. The contributory ideas of _of New
+York_, _of welcome_, and _in French_ may be eliminated without hurting
+the idiomatic flow of the sentence. _The mayor is going to deliver a
+speech_ is a perfectly intelligible proposition. But further than this
+we cannot go in the process of reduction. We cannot say, for instance,
+_Mayor is going to deliver_.[8] The reduced sentence resolves itself
+into the subject of discourse--_the mayor_--and the predicate--_is going
+to deliver a speech_. It is customary to say that the true subject of
+such a sentence is _mayor_, the true predicate _is going_ or even _is_,
+the other elements being strictly subordinate. Such an analysis,
+however, is purely schematic and is without psychological value. It is
+much better frankly to recognize the fact that either or both of the two
+terms of the sentence-proposition may be incapable of expression in the
+form of single words. There are languages that can convey all that is
+conveyed by _The-mayor is-going-to-deliver-a-speech_ in two words, a
+subject word and a predicate word, but English is not so highly
+synthetic. The point that we are really making here is that underlying
+the finished sentence is a living sentence type, of fixed formal
+characteristics. These fixed types or actual sentence-groundworks may be
+freely overlaid by such additional matter as the speaker or writer cares
+to put on, but they are themselves as rigidly "given" by tradition as
+are the radical and grammatical elements abstracted from the finished
+word. New words may be consciously created from these fundamental
+elements on the analogy of old ones, but hardly new types of words. In
+the same way new sentences are being constantly created, but always on
+strictly traditional lines. The enlarged sentence, however, allows as a
+rule of considerable freedom in the handling of what may be called
+"unessential" parts. It is this margin of freedom which gives us the
+opportunity of individual style.
+
+[Footnote 7: "Coordinate sentences" like _I shall remain but you may go_
+may only doubtfully be considered as truly unified predications, as true
+sentences. They are sentences in a stylistic sense rather than from the
+strictly formal linguistic standpoint. The orthography _I shall remain.
+But you may go_ is as intrinsically justified as _I shall remain. Now
+you may go_. The closer connection in sentiment between the first two
+propositions has led to a conventional visual representation that must
+not deceive the analytic spirit.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Except, possibly, in a newspaper headline. Such headlines,
+however, are language only in a derived sense.]
+
+The habitual association of radical elements, grammatical elements,
+words, and sentences with concepts or groups of concepts related into
+wholes is the fact itself of language. It is important to note that
+there is in all languages a certain randomness of association. Thus, the
+idea of "hide" may be also expressed by the word "conceal," the notion
+of "three times" also by "thrice." The multiple expression of a single
+concept is universally felt as a source of linguistic strength and
+variety, not as a needless extravagance. More irksome is a random
+correspondence between idea and linguistic expression in the field of
+abstract and relational concepts, particularly when the concept is
+embodied in a grammatical element. Thus, the randomness of the
+expression of plurality in such words as _books_, _oxen_, _sheep_, and
+_geese_ is felt to be rather more, I fancy, an unavoidable and
+traditional predicament than a welcome luxuriance. It is obvious that a
+language cannot go beyond a certain point in this randomness. Many
+languages go incredibly far in this respect, it is true, but linguistic
+history shows conclusively that sooner or later the less frequently
+occurring associations are ironed out at the expense of the more vital
+ones. In other words, all languages have an inherent tendency to economy
+of expression. Were this tendency entirely inoperative, there would be
+no grammar. The fact of grammar, a universal trait of language, is
+simply a generalized expression of the feeling that analogous concepts
+and relations are most conveniently symbolized in analogous forms. Were
+a language ever completely "grammatical," it would be a perfect engine
+of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is
+tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak.
+
+Up to the present we have been assuming that the material of language
+reflects merely the world of concepts and, on what I have ventured to
+call the "pre-rational" plane, of images, which are the raw material of
+concepts. We have, in other words, been assuming that language moves
+entirely in the ideational or cognitive sphere. It is time that we
+amplified the picture. The volitional aspect of consciousness also is to
+some extent explicitly provided for in language. Nearly all languages
+have special means for the expression of commands (in the imperative
+forms of the verb, for example) and of desires, unattained or
+unattainable (_Would he might come!_ or _Would he were here!_) The
+emotions, on the whole, seem to be given a less adequate outlet.
+Emotion, indeed, is proverbially inclined to speechlessness. Most, if
+not all, the interjections are to be put to the credit of emotional
+expression, also, it may be, a number of linguistic elements expressing
+certain modalities, such as dubitative or potential forms, which may be
+interpreted as reflecting the emotional states of hesitation or
+doubt--attenuated fear. On the whole, it must be admitted that ideation
+reigns supreme in language, that volition and emotion come in as
+distinctly secondary factors. This, after all, is perfectly
+intelligible. The world of image and concept, the endless and
+ever-shifting picture of objective reality, is the unavoidable
+subject-matter of human communication, for it is only, or mainly, in
+terms of this world that effective action is possible. Desire, purpose,
+emotion are the personal color of the objective world; they are applied
+privately by the individual soul and are of relatively little importance
+to the neighboring one. All this does not mean that volition and emotion
+are not expressed. They are, strictly speaking, never absent from normal
+speech, but their expression is not of a truly linguistic nature. The
+nuances of emphasis, tone, and phrasing, the varying speed and
+continuity of utterance, the accompanying bodily movements, all these
+express something of the inner life of impulse and feeling, but as these
+means of expression are, at last analysis, but modified forms of the
+instinctive utterance that man shares with the lower animals, they
+cannot be considered as forming part of the essential cultural
+conception of language, however much they may be inseparable from its
+actual life. And this instinctive expression of volition and emotion is,
+for the most part, sufficient, often more than sufficient, for the
+purposes of communication.
+
+There are, it is true, certain writers on the psychology of language[9]
+who deny its prevailingly cognitive character but attempt, on the
+contrary, to demonstrate the origin of most linguistic elements within
+the domain of feeling. I confess that I am utterly unable to follow
+them. What there is of truth in their contentions may be summed up, it
+seems to me, by saying that most words, like practically all elements of
+consciousness, have an associated feeling-tone, a mild, yet none the
+less real and at times insidiously powerful, derivative of pleasure or
+pain. This feeling-tone, however, is not as a rule an inherent value in
+the word itself; it is rather a sentimental growth on the word's true
+body, on its conceptual kernel. Not only may the feeling-tone change
+from one age to another (this, of course, is true of the conceptual
+content as well), but it varies remarkably from individual to individual
+according to the personal associations of each, varies, indeed, from
+time to time in a single individual's consciousness as his experiences
+mold him and his moods change. To be sure, there are socially accepted
+feeling-tones, or ranges of feeling-tone, for many words over and above
+the force of individual association, but they are exceedingly variable
+and elusive things at best. They rarely have the rigidity of the
+central, primary fact. We all grant, for instance, that _storm_,
+_tempest_, and _hurricane_, quite aside from their slight differences of
+actual meaning, have distinct feeling-tones, tones that are felt by all
+sensitive speakers and readers of English in a roughly equivalent
+fashion. _Storm_, we feel, is a more general and a decidedly less
+"magnificent" word than the other two; _tempest_ is not only associated
+with the sea but is likely, in the minds of many, to have obtained a
+softened glamour from a specific association with Shakespeare's great
+play; _hurricane_ has a greater forthrightness, a directer ruthlessness
+than its synonyms. Yet the individual's feeling-tones for these words
+are likely to vary enormously. To some _tempest_ and _hurricane_ may
+seem "soft," literary words, the simpler _storm_ having a fresh, rugged
+value which the others do not possess (think of _storm and stress_). If
+we have browsed much in our childhood days in books of the Spanish Main,
+_hurricane_ is likely to have a pleasurably bracing tone; if we have had
+the misfortune to be caught in one, we are not unlikely to feel the word
+as cold, cheerless, sinister.
+
+[Footnote 9: E.g., the brilliant Dutch writer, Jac van Ginneken.]
+
+The feeling-tones of words are of no use, strictly speaking, to science;
+the philosopher, if he desires to arrive at truth rather than merely to
+persuade, finds them his most insidious enemies. But man is rarely
+engaged in pure science, in solid thinking. Generally his mental
+activities are bathed in a warm current of feeling and he seizes upon
+the feeling-tones of words as gentle aids to the desired excitation.
+They are naturally of great value to the literary artist. It is
+interesting to note, however, that even to the artist they are a danger.
+A word whose customary feeling-tone is too unquestioningly accepted
+becomes a plushy bit of furniture, a _cliché_. Every now and then the
+artist has to fight the feeling-tone, to get the word to mean what it
+nakedly and conceptually should mean, depending for the effect of
+feeling on the creative power of an individual juxtaposition of concepts
+or images.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE SOUNDS OF LANGUAGE
+
+
+We have seen that the mere phonetic framework of speech does not
+constitute the inner fact of language and that the single sound of
+articulated speech is not, as such, a linguistic element at all. For all
+that, speech is so inevitably bound up with sounds and their
+articulation that we can hardly avoid giving the subject of phonetics
+some general consideration. Experience has shown that neither the purely
+formal aspects of a language nor the course of its history can be fully
+understood without reference to the sounds in which this form and this
+history are embodied. A detailed survey of phonetics would be both too
+technical for the general reader and too loosely related to our main
+theme to warrant the needed space, but we can well afford to consider a
+few outstanding facts and ideas connected with the sounds of language.
+
+The feeling that the average speaker has of his language is that it is
+built up, acoustically speaking, of a comparatively small number of
+distinct sounds, each of which is rather accurately provided for in the
+current alphabet by one letter or, in a few cases, by two or more
+alternative letters. As for the languages of foreigners, he generally
+feels that, aside from a few striking differences that cannot escape
+even the uncritical ear, the sounds they use are the same as those he is
+familiar with but that there is a mysterious "accent" to these foreign
+languages, a certain unanalyzed phonetic character, apart from the
+sounds as such, that gives them their air of strangeness. This naïve
+feeling is largely illusory on both scores. Phonetic analysis convinces
+one that the number of clearly distinguishable sounds and nuances of
+sounds that are habitually employed by the speakers of a language is far
+greater than they themselves recognize. Probably not one English speaker
+out of a hundred has the remotest idea that the _t_ of a word like
+_sting_ is not at all the same sound as the _t_ of _teem_, the latter
+_t_ having a fullness of "breath release" that is inhibited in the
+former case by the preceding _s_; that the _ea_ of _meat_ is of
+perceptibly shorter duration than the _ea_ of _mead_; or that the final
+_s_ of a word like _heads_ is not the full, buzzing _z_ sound of the _s_
+in such a word as _please_. It is the frequent failure of foreigners,
+who have acquired a practical mastery of English and who have eliminated
+all the cruder phonetic shortcomings of their less careful brethren, to
+observe such minor distinctions that helps to give their English
+pronunciation the curiously elusive "accent" that we all vaguely feel.
+We do not diagnose the "accent" as the total acoustic effect produced by
+a series of slight but specific phonetic errors for the very good reason
+that we have never made clear to ourselves our own phonetic stock in
+trade. If two languages taken at random, say English and Russian, are
+compared as to their phonetic systems, we are more apt than not to find
+that very few of the phonetic elements of the one find an exact analogue
+in the other. Thus, the _t_ of a Russian word like _tam_ "there" is
+neither the English _t_ of _sting_ nor the English _t_ of _teem_. It
+differs from both in its "dental" articulation, in other words, in being
+produced by contact of the tip of the tongue with the upper teeth, not,
+as in English, by contact of the tongue back of the tip with the gum
+ridge above the teeth; moreover, it differs from the _t_ of _teem_ also
+in the absence of a marked "breath release" before the following vowel
+is attached, so that its acoustic effect is of a more precise,
+"metallic" nature than in English. Again, the English _l_ is unknown in
+Russian, which possesses, on the other hand, two distinct _l_-sounds
+that the normal English speaker would find it difficult exactly to
+reproduce--a "hollow," guttural-like _l_ and a "soft," palatalized
+_l_-sound that is only very approximately rendered, in English terms, as
+_ly_. Even so simple and, one would imagine, so invariable a sound as
+_m_ differs in the two languages. In a Russian word like _most_ "bridge"
+the _m_ is not the same as the _m_ of the English word _most_; the lips
+are more fully rounded during its articulation, so that it makes a
+heavier, more resonant impression on the ear. The vowels, needless to
+say, differ completely in English and Russian, hardly any two of them
+being quite the same.
+
+I have gone into these illustrative details, which are of little or no
+specific interest for us, merely in order to provide something of an
+experimental basis to convince ourselves of the tremendous variability
+of speech sounds. Yet a complete inventory of the acoustic resources of
+all the European languages, the languages nearer home, while
+unexpectedly large, would still fall far short of conveying a just idea
+of the true range of human articulation. In many of the languages of
+Asia, Africa, and aboriginal America there are whole classes of sounds
+that most of us have no knowledge of. They are not necessarily more
+difficult of enunciation than sounds more familiar to our ears; they
+merely involve such muscular adjustments of the organs of speech as we
+have never habituated ourselves to. It may be safely said that the total
+number of possible sounds is greatly in excess of those actually in
+use. Indeed, an experienced phonetician should have no difficulty in
+inventing sounds that are unknown to objective investigation. One reason
+why we find it difficult to believe that the range of possible speech
+sounds is indefinitely large is our habit of conceiving the sound as a
+simple, unanalyzable impression instead of as the resultant of a number
+of distinct muscular adjustments that take place simultaneously. A
+slight change in any one of these adjustments gives us a new sound which
+is akin to the old one, because of the continuance of the other
+adjustments, but which is acoustically distinct from it, so sensitive
+has the human ear become to the nuanced play of the vocal mechanism.
+Another reason for our lack of phonetic imagination is the fact that,
+while our ear is delicately responsive to the sounds of speech, the
+muscles of our speech organs have early in life become exclusively
+accustomed to the particular adjustments and systems of adjustment that
+are required to produce the traditional sounds of the language. All or
+nearly all other adjustments have become permanently inhibited, whether
+through inexperience or through gradual elimination. Of course the power
+to produce these inhibited adjustments is not entirely lost, but the
+extreme difficulty we experience in learning the new sounds of foreign
+languages is sufficient evidence of the strange rigidity that has set in
+for most people in the voluntary control of the speech organs. The point
+may be brought home by contrasting the comparative lack of freedom of
+voluntary speech movements with the all but perfect freedom of voluntary
+gesture.[10] Our rigidity in articulation is the price we have had to
+pay for easy mastery of a highly necessary symbolism. One cannot be both
+splendidly free in the random choice of movements and selective with
+deadly certainty.[11]
+
+[Footnote 10: Observe the "voluntary." When we shout or grunt or
+otherwise allow our voices to take care of themselves, as we are likely
+to do when alone in the country on a fine spring day, we are no longer
+fixing vocal adjustments by voluntary control. Under these circumstances
+we are almost certain to hit on speech sounds that we could never learn
+to control in actual speech.]
+
+[Footnote 11: If speech, in its acoustic and articulatory aspect, is
+indeed a rigid system, how comes it, one may plausibly object, that no
+two people speak alike? The answer is simple. All that part of speech
+which falls out of the rigid articulatory framework is not speech in
+idea, but is merely a superadded, more or less instinctively determined
+vocal complication inseparable from speech in practice. All the
+individual color of speech--personal emphasis, speed, personal cadence,
+personal pitch--is a non-linguistic fact, just as the incidental
+expression of desire and emotion are, for the most part, alien to
+linguistic expression. Speech, like all elements of culture, demands
+conceptual selection, inhibition of the randomness of instinctive
+behavior. That its "idea" is never realized as such in practice, its
+carriers being instinctively animated organisms, is of course true of
+each and every aspect of culture.]
+
+There are, then, an indefinitely large number of articulated sounds
+available for the mechanics of speech; any given language makes use of
+an explicit, rigidly economical selection of these rich resources; and
+each of the many possible sounds of speech is conditioned by a number of
+independent muscular adjustments that work together simultaneously
+towards its production. A full account of the activity of each of the
+organs of speech--in so far as its activity has a bearing on
+language--is impossible here, nor can we concern ourselves in a
+systematic way with the classification of sounds on the basis of their
+mechanics.[12] A few bold outlines are all that we can attempt. The
+organs of speech are the lungs and bronchial tubes; the throat,
+particularly that part of it which is known as the larynx or, in popular
+parlance, the "Adam's apple"; the nose; the uvula, which is the soft,
+pointed, and easily movable organ that depends from the rear of the
+palate; the palate, which is divided into a posterior, movable "soft
+palate" or velum and a "hard palate"; the tongue; the teeth; and the
+lips. The palate, lower palate, tongue, teeth, and lips may be looked
+upon as a combined resonance chamber, whose constantly varying shape,
+chiefly due to the extreme mobility of the tongue, is the main factor in
+giving the outgoing breath its precise quality[13] of sound.
+
+[Footnote 12: Purely acoustic classifications, such as more easily
+suggest themselves to a first attempt at analysis, are now in less favor
+among students of phonetics than organic classifications. The latter
+have the advantage of being more objective. Moreover, the acoustic
+quality of a sound is dependent on the articulation, even though in
+linguistic consciousness this quality is the primary, not the secondary,
+fact.]
+
+[Footnote 13: By "quality" is here meant the inherent nature and
+resonance of the sound as such. The general "quality" of the
+individual's voice is another matter altogether. This is chiefly
+determined by the individual anatomical characteristics of the larynx
+and is of no linguistic interest whatever.]
+
+The lungs and bronchial tubes are organs of speech only in so far as
+they supply and conduct the current of outgoing air without which
+audible articulation is impossible. They are not responsible for any
+specific sound or acoustic feature of sounds except, possibly, accent or
+stress. It may be that differences of stress are due to slight
+differences in the contracting force of the lung muscles, but even this
+influence of the lungs is denied by some students, who explain the
+fluctuations of stress that do so much to color speech by reference to
+the more delicate activity of the glottal cords. These glottal cords are
+two small, nearly horizontal, and highly sensitive membranes within the
+larynx, which consists, for the most part, of two large and several
+smaller cartilages and of a number of small muscles that control the
+action of the cords.
+
+The cords, which are attached to the cartilages, are to the human speech
+organs what the two vibrating reeds are to a clarinet or the strings to
+a violin. They are capable of at least three distinct types of movement,
+each of which is of the greatest importance for speech. They may be
+drawn towards or away from each other, they may vibrate like reeds or
+strings, and they may become lax or tense in the direction of their
+length. The last class of these movements allows the cords to vibrate at
+different "lengths" or degrees of tenseness and is responsible for the
+variations in pitch which are present not only in song but in the more
+elusive modulations of ordinary speech. The two other types of glottal
+action determine the nature of the voice, "voice" being a convenient
+term for breath as utilized in speech. If the cords are well apart,
+allowing the breath to escape in unmodified form, we have the condition
+technically known as "voicelessness." All sounds produced under these
+circumstances are "voiceless" sounds. Such are the simple, unmodified
+breath as it passes into the mouth, which is, at least approximately,
+the same as the sound that we write _h_, also a large number of special
+articulations in the mouth chamber, like _p_ and _s_. On the other hand,
+the glottal cords may be brought tight together, without vibrating. When
+this happens, the current of breath is checked for the time being. The
+slight choke or "arrested cough" that is thus made audible is not
+recognized in English as a definite sound but occurs nevertheless not
+infrequently.[14] This momentary check, technically known as a "glottal
+stop," is an integral element of speech in many languages, as Danish,
+Lettish, certain Chinese dialects, and nearly all American Indian
+languages. Between the two extremes of voicelessness, that of
+completely open breath and that of checked breath, lies the position of
+true voice. In this position the cords are close together, but not so
+tightly as to prevent the air from streaming through; the cords are set
+vibrating and a musical tone of varying pitch results. A tone so
+produced is known as a "voiced sound." It may have an indefinite number
+of qualities according to the precise position of the upper organs of
+speech. Our vowels, nasals (such as _m_ and _n_), and such sounds as
+_b_, _z_, and _l_ are all voiced sounds. The most convenient test of a
+voiced sound is the possibility of pronouncing it on any given pitch, in
+other words, of singing on it.[15] The voiced sounds are the most
+clearly audible elements of speech. As such they are the carriers of
+practically all significant differences in stress, pitch, and
+syllabification. The voiceless sounds are articulated noises that break
+up the stream of voice with fleeting moments of silence. Acoustically
+intermediate between the freely unvoiced and the voiced sounds are a
+number of other characteristic types of voicing, such as murmuring and
+whisper.[16] These and still other types of voice are relatively
+unimportant in English and most other European languages, but there are
+languages in which they rise to some prominence in the normal flow of
+speech.
+
+[Footnote 14: As at the end of the snappily pronounced _no!_ (sometimes
+written _nope!_) or in the over-carefully pronounced _at all_, where one
+may hear a slight check between the _t_ and the _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 15: "Singing" is here used in a wide sense. One cannot sing
+continuously on such a sound as _b_ or _d_, but one may easily outline a
+tune on a series of _b_'s or _d_'s in the manner of the plucked
+"pizzicato" on stringed instruments. A series of tones executed on
+continuant consonants, like _m_, _z_, or _l_, gives the effect of
+humming, droning, or buzzing. The sound of "humming," indeed, is nothing
+but a continuous voiced nasal, held on one pitch or varying in pitch, as
+desired.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The whisper of ordinary speech is a combination of
+unvoiced sounds and "whispered" sounds, as the term is understood in
+phonetics.]
+
+The nose is not an active organ of speech, but it is highly important as
+a resonance chamber. It may be disconnected from the mouth, which is
+the other great resonance chamber, by the lifting of the movable part of
+the soft palate so as to shut off the passage of the breath into the
+nasal cavity; or, if the soft palate is allowed to hang down freely and
+unobstructively, so that the breath passes into both the nose and the
+mouth, these make a combined resonance chamber. Such sounds as _b_ and
+_a_ (as in _father_) are voiced "oral" sounds, that is, the voiced
+breath does not receive a nasal resonance. As soon as the soft palate is
+lowered, however, and the nose added as a participating resonance
+chamber, the sounds _b_ and _a_ take on a peculiar "nasal" quality and
+become, respectively, _m_ and the nasalized vowel written _an_ in French
+(e.g., _sang_, _tant_). The only English sounds[17] that normally
+receive a nasal resonance are _m_, _n_, and the _ng_ sound of _sing_.
+Practically all sounds, however, may be nasalized, not only the
+vowels--nasalized vowels are common in all parts of the world--but such
+sounds as _l_ or _z_. Voiceless nasals are perfectly possible. They
+occur, for instance, in Welsh and in quite a number of American Indian
+languages.
+
+[Footnote 17: Aside from the involuntary nasalizing of all voiced sounds
+in the speech of those that talk with a "nasal twang."]
+
+The organs that make up the oral resonance chamber may articulate in two
+ways. The breath, voiced or unvoiced, nasalized or unnasalized, may be
+allowed to pass through the mouth without being checked or impeded at
+any point; or it may be either momentarily checked or allowed to stream
+through a greatly narrowed passage with resulting air friction. There
+are also transitions between the two latter types of articulation. The
+unimpeded breath takes on a particular color or quality in accordance
+with the varying shape of the oral resonance chamber. This shape is
+chiefly determined by the position of the movable parts--the tongue and
+the lips. As the tongue is raised or lowered, retracted or brought
+forward, held tense or lax, and as the lips are pursed ("rounded") in
+varying degree or allowed to keep their position of rest, a large number
+of distinct qualities result. These oral qualities are the vowels. In
+theory their number is infinite, in practice the ear can differentiate
+only a limited, yet a surprisingly large, number of resonance positions.
+Vowels, whether nasalized or not, are normally voiced sounds; in not a
+few languages, however, "voiceless vowels"[18] also occur.
+
+[Footnote 18: These may be also defined as free unvoiced breath with
+varying vocalic timbres. In the long Paiute word quoted on page 31 the
+first _u_ and the final _ü_ are pronounced without voice.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 18 refers to line 1014.]
+
+The remaining oral sounds are generally grouped together as
+"consonants." In them the stream of breath is interfered with in some
+way, so that a lesser resonance results, and a sharper, more incisive
+quality of tone. There are four main types of articulation generally
+recognized within the consonantal group of sounds. The breath may be
+completely stopped for a moment at some definite point in the oral
+cavity. Sounds so produced, like _t_ or _d_ or _p_, are known as "stops"
+or "explosives."[19] Or the breath may be continuously obstructed
+through a narrow passage, not entirely checked. Examples of such
+"spirants" or "fricatives," as they are called, are _s_ and _z_ and _y_.
+The third class of consonants, the "laterals," are semi-stopped. There
+is a true stoppage at the central point of articulation, but the breath
+is allowed to escape through the two side passages or through one of
+them. Our English _d_, for instance, may be readily transformed into
+_l_, which has the voicing and the position of _d_, merely by
+depressing the sides of the tongue on either side of the point of
+contact sufficiently to allow the breath to come through. Laterals are
+possible in many distinct positions. They may be unvoiced (the Welsh
+_ll_ is an example) as well as voiced. Finally, the stoppage of the
+breath may be rapidly intermittent; in other words, the active organ of
+contact--generally the point of the tongue, less often the
+uvula[20]--may be made to vibrate against or near the point of contact.
+These sounds are the "trills" or "rolled consonants," of which the
+normal English _r_ is a none too typical example. They are well
+developed in many languages, however, generally in voiced form,
+sometimes, as in Welsh and Paiute, in unvoiced form as well.
+
+[Footnote 19: Nasalized stops, say _m_ or _n_, can naturally not be
+truly "stopped," as there is no way of checking the stream of breath in
+the nose by a definite articulation.]
+
+[Footnote 20: The lips also may theoretically so articulate. "Labial
+trills," however, are certainly rare in natural speech.]
+
+The oral manner of articulation is naturally not sufficient to define a
+consonant. The place of articulation must also be considered. Contacts
+may be formed at a large number of points, from the root of the tongue
+to the lips. It is not necessary here to go at length into this somewhat
+complicated matter. The contact is either between the root of the tongue
+and the throat,[21] some part of the tongue and a point on the palate
+(as in _k_ or _ch_ or _l_), some part of the tongue and the teeth (as in
+the English _th_ of _thick_ and _then_), the teeth and one of the lips
+(practically always the upper teeth and lower lip, as in _f_), or the
+two lips (as in _p_ or English _w_). The tongue articulations are the
+most complicated of all, as the mobility of the tongue allows various
+points on its surface, say the tip, to articulate against a number of
+opposed points of contact. Hence arise many positions of articulation
+that we are not familiar with, such as the typical "dental" position of
+Russian or Italian _t_ and _d_; or the "cerebral" position of Sanskrit
+and other languages of India, in which the tip of the tongue articulates
+against the hard palate. As there is no break at any point between the
+rims of the teeth back to the uvula nor from the tip of the tongue back
+to its root, it is evident that all the articulations that involve the
+tongue form a continuous organic (and acoustic) series. The positions
+grade into each other, but each language selects a limited number of
+clearly defined positions as characteristic of its consonantal system,
+ignoring transitional or extreme positions. Frequently a language allows
+a certain latitude in the fixing of the required position. This is true,
+for instance, of the English _k_ sound, which is articulated much
+further to the front in a word like _kin_ than in _cool_. We ignore this
+difference, psychologically, as a non-essential, mechanical one. Another
+language might well recognize the difference, or only a slightly greater
+one, as significant, as paralleling the distinction in position between
+the _k_ of _kin_ and the _t_ of _tin_.
+
+[Footnote 21: This position, known as "faucal," is not common.]
+
+The organic classification of speech sounds is a simple matter after
+what we have learned of their production. Any such sound may be put into
+its proper place by the appropriate answer to four main questions:--What
+is the position of the glottal cords during its articulation? Does the
+breath pass into the mouth alone or is it also allowed to stream into
+the nose? Does the breath pass freely through the mouth or is it impeded
+at some point and, if so, in what manner? What are the precise points of
+articulation in the mouth?[22] This fourfold classification of sounds,
+worked out in all its detailed ramifications,[23] is sufficient to
+account for all, or practically all, the sounds of language.[24]
+
+[Footnote 22: "Points of articulation" must be understood to include
+tongue and lip positions of the vowels.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Including, under the fourth category, a number of special
+resonance adjustments that we have not been able to take up
+specifically.]
+
+[Footnote 24: In so far, it should be added, as these sounds are
+expiratory, i.e., pronounced with the outgoing breath. Certain
+languages, like the South African Hottentot and Bushman, have also a
+number of inspiratory sounds, pronounced by sucking in the breath at
+various points of oral contact. These are the so-called "clicks."]
+
+The phonetic habits of a given language are not exhaustively defined by
+stating that it makes use of such and such particular sounds out of the
+all but endless gamut that we have briefly surveyed. There remains the
+important question of the dynamics of these phonetic elements. Two
+languages may, theoretically, be built up of precisely the same series
+of consonants and vowels and yet produce utterly different acoustic
+effects. One of them may not recognize striking variations in the
+lengths or "quantities" of the phonetic elements, the other may note
+such variations most punctiliously (in probably the majority of
+languages long and short vowels are distinguished; in many, as in
+Italian or Swedish or Ojibwa, long consonants are recognized as distinct
+from short ones). Or the one, say English, may be very sensitive to
+relative stresses, while in the other, say French, stress is a very
+minor consideration. Or, again, the pitch differences which are
+inseparable from the actual practice of language may not affect the word
+as such, but, as in English, may be a more or less random or, at best,
+but a rhetorical phenomenon, while in other languages, as in Swedish,
+Lithuanian, Chinese, Siamese, and the majority of African languages,
+they may be more finely graduated and felt as integral characteristics
+of the words themselves. Varying methods of syllabifying are also
+responsible for noteworthy acoustic differences. Most important of all,
+perhaps, are the very different possibilities of combining the phonetic
+elements. Each language has its peculiarities. The _ts_ combination, for
+instance, is found in both English and German, but in English it can
+only occur at the end of a word (as in _hats_), while it occurs freely
+in German as the psychological equivalent of a single sound (as in
+_Zeit_, _Katze_). Some languages allow of great heapings of consonants
+or of vocalic groups (diphthongs), in others no two consonants or no two
+vowels may ever come together. Frequently a sound occurs only in a
+special position or under special phonetic circumstances. In English,
+for instance, the _z_-sound of _azure_ cannot occur initially, while the
+peculiar quality of the _t_ of _sting_ is dependent on its being
+preceded by the _s_. These dynamic factors, in their totality, are as
+important for the proper understanding of the phonetic genius of a
+language as the sound system itself, often far more so.
+
+We have already seen, in an incidental way, that phonetic elements or
+such dynamic features as quantity and stress have varying psychological
+"values." The English _ts_ of _fiats_ is merely a _t_ followed by a
+functionally independent _s_, the _ts_ of the German word _Zeit_ has an
+integral value equivalent, say, to the _t_ of the English word _tide_.
+Again, the _t_ of _time_ is indeed noticeably distinct from that of
+_sting_, but the difference, to the consciousness of an English-speaking
+person, is quite irrelevant. It has no "value." If we compare the
+_t_-sounds of Haida, the Indian language spoken in the Queen Charlotte
+Islands, we find that precisely the same difference of articulation has
+a real value. In such a word as _sting_ "two," the _t_ is pronounced
+precisely as in English, but in _sta_ "from" the _t_ is clearly
+"aspirated," like that of _time_. In other words, an objective
+difference that is irrelevant in English is of functional value in
+Haida; from its own psychological standpoint the _t_ of _sting_ is as
+different from that of _sta_ as, from our standpoint, is the _t_ of
+_time_ from the _d_ of _divine_. Further investigation would yield the
+interesting result that the Haida ear finds the difference between the
+English _t_ of _sting_ and the _d_ of _divine_ as irrelevant as the
+naïve English ear finds that of the _t_-sounds of _sting_ and _time_.
+The objective comparison of sounds in two or more languages is, then, of
+no psychological or historical significance unless these sounds are
+first "weighted," unless their phonetic "values" are determined. These
+values, in turn, flow from the general behavior and functioning of the
+sounds in actual speech.
+
+These considerations as to phonetic value lead to an important
+conception. Back of the purely objective system of sounds that is
+peculiar to a language and which can be arrived at only by a painstaking
+phonetic analysis, there is a more restricted "inner" or "ideal" system
+which, while perhaps equally unconscious as a system to the naïve
+speaker, can far more readily than the other be brought to his
+consciousness as a finished pattern, a psychological mechanism. The
+inner sound-system, overlaid though it may be by the mechanical or the
+irrelevant, is a real and an immensely important principle in the life
+of a language. It may persist as a pattern, involving number, relation,
+and functioning of phonetic elements, long after its phonetic content is
+changed. Two historically related languages or dialects may not have a
+sound in common, but their ideal sound-systems may be identical
+patterns. I would not for a moment wish to imply that this pattern may
+not change. It may shrink or expand or change its functional
+complexion, but its rate of change is infinitely less rapid than that of
+the sounds as such. Every language, then, is characterized as much by
+its ideal system of sounds and by the underlying phonetic pattern
+(system, one might term it, of symbolic atoms) as by a definite
+grammatical structure. Both the phonetic and conceptual structures show
+the instinctive feeling of language for form.[25]
+
+[Footnote 25: The conception of the ideal phonetic system, the phonetic
+pattern, of a language is not as well understood by linguistic students
+as it should be. In this respect the unschooled recorder of language,
+provided he has a good ear and a genuine instinct for language, is often
+at a great advantage as compared with the minute phonetician, who is apt
+to be swamped by his mass of observations. I have already employed my
+experience in teaching Indians to write their own language for its
+testing value in another connection. It yields equally valuable evidence
+here. I found that it was difficult or impossible to teach an Indian to
+make phonetic distinctions that did not correspond to "points in the
+pattern of his language," however these differences might strike our
+objective ear, but that subtle, barely audible, phonetic differences, if
+only they hit the "points in the pattern," were easily and voluntarily
+expressed in writing. In watching my Nootka interpreter write his
+language, I often had the curious feeling that he was transcribing an
+ideal flow of phonetic elements which he heard, inadequately from a
+purely objective standpoint, as the intention of the actual rumble of
+speech.]
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+FORM IN LANGUAGE: GRAMMATICAL PROCESSES
+
+
+The question of form in language presents itself under two aspects. We
+may either consider the formal methods employed by a language, its
+"grammatical processes," or we may ascertain the distribution of
+concepts with reference to formal expression. What are the formal
+patterns of the language? And what types of concepts make up the content
+of these formal patterns? The two points of view are quite distinct. The
+English word _unthinkingly_ is, broadly speaking, formally parallel to
+the word _reformers_, each being built up on a radical element which may
+occur as an independent verb (_think_, _form_), this radical element
+being preceded by an element (_un-_, _re-_) that conveys a definite and
+fairly concrete significance but that cannot be used independently, and
+followed by two elements (_-ing_, _-ly_; _-er_, _-s_) that limit the
+application of the radical concept in a relational sense. This formal
+pattern--(b) + A + (c) + (d)[26]--is a characteristic feature of the
+language. A countless number of functions may be expressed by it; in
+other words, all the possible ideas conveyed by such prefixed and
+suffixed elements, while tending to fall into minor groups, do not
+necessarily form natural, functional systems. There is no logical
+reason, for instance, why the numeral function of _-s_ should be
+formally expressed in a manner that is analogous to the expression of
+the idea conveyed by _-ly_. It is perfectly conceivable that in another
+language the concept of manner (_-ly_) may be treated according to an
+entirely different pattern from that of plurality. The former might have
+to be expressed by an independent word (say, _thus unthinking_), the
+latter by a prefixed element (say, _plural[27]-reform-er_). There are,
+of course, an unlimited number of other possibilities. Even within the
+confines of English alone the relative independence of form and function
+can be made obvious. Thus, the negative idea conveyed by _un-_ can be
+just as adequately expressed by a suffixed element (_-less_) in such a
+word as _thoughtlessly_. Such a twofold formal expression of the
+negative function would be inconceivable in certain languages, say
+Eskimo, where a suffixed element would alone be possible. Again, the
+plural notion conveyed by the _-s_ of _reformers_ is just as definitely
+expressed in the word _geese_, where an utterly distinct method
+is employed. Furthermore, the principle of vocalic change
+(_goose_--_geese_) is by no means confined to the expression of the idea
+of plurality; it may also function as an indicator of difference of time
+(e.g., _sing_--_sang_, _throw_--_threw_). But the expression in English
+of past time is not by any means always bound up with a change of vowel.
+In the great majority of cases the same idea is expressed by means of a
+distinct suffix (_die-d_, _work-ed_). Functionally, _died_ and _sang_
+are analogous; so are _reformers_ and _geese_. Formally, we must arrange
+these words quite otherwise. Both _die-d_ and _re-form-er-s_ employ the
+method of suffixing grammatical elements; both _sang_ and _geese_ have
+grammatical form by virtue of the fact that their vowels differ from the
+vowels of other words with which they are closely related in form and
+meaning (_goose_; _sing_, _sung_).
+
+[Footnote 26: For the symbolism, see chapter II.]
+
+[Footnote 27: "_Plural_" is here a symbol for any prefix indicating
+plurality.]
+
+Every language possesses one or more formal methods or indicating the
+relation of a secondary concept to the main concept of the radical
+element. Some of these grammatical processes, like suffixing, are
+exceedingly wide-spread; others, like vocalic change, are less common
+but far from rare; still others, like accent and consonantal change, are
+somewhat exceptional as functional processes. Not all languages are as
+irregular as English in the assignment of functions to its stock of
+grammatical processes. As a rule, such basic concepts as those of
+plurality and time are rendered by means of one or other method alone,
+but the rule has so many exceptions that we cannot safely lay it down as
+a principle. Wherever we go we are impressed by the fact that pattern is
+one thing, the utilization of pattern quite another. A few further
+examples of the multiple expression of identical functions in other
+languages than English may help to make still more vivid this idea of
+the relative independence of form and function.
+
+In Hebrew, as in other Semitic languages, the verbal idea as such is
+expressed by three, less often by two or four, characteristic
+consonants. Thus, the group _sh-m-r_ expresses the idea of "guarding,"
+the group _g-n-b_ that of "stealing," _n-t-n_ that of "giving."
+Naturally these consonantal sequences are merely abstracted from the
+actual forms. The consonants are held together in different forms by
+characteristic vowels that vary according to the idea that it is desired
+to express. Prefixed and suffixed elements are also frequently used. The
+method of internal vocalic change is exemplified in _shamar_ "he has
+guarded," _shomer_ "guarding," _shamur_ "being guarded," _shmor_ "(to)
+guard." Analogously, _ganab_ "he has stolen," _goneb_ "stealing,"
+_ganub_ "being stolen," _gnob_ "(to) steal." But not all infinitives are
+formed according to the type of _shmor_ and _gnob_ or of other types of
+internal vowel change. Certain verbs suffix a _t_-element for the
+infinitive, e.g., _ten-eth_ "to give," _heyo-th_ "to be." Again, the
+pronominal ideas may be expressed by independent words (e.g., _anoki_
+"I"), by prefixed elements (e.g., _e-shmor_ "I shall guard"), or by
+suffixed elements (e.g., _shamar-ti_ "I have guarded"). In Nass, an
+Indian language of British Columbia, plurals are formed by four distinct
+methods. Most nouns (and verbs) are reduplicated in the plural, that is,
+part of the radical element is repeated, e.g., _gyat_ "person,"
+_gyigyat_ "people." A second method is the use of certain characteristic
+prefixes, e.g., _an'on_ "hand," _ka-an'on_ "hands"; _wai_ "one paddles,"
+_lu-wai_ "several paddle." Still other plurals are formed by means of
+internal vowel change, e.g., _gwula_ "cloak," _gwila_ "cloaks." Finally,
+a fourth class of plurals is constituted by such nouns as suffix a
+grammatical element, e.g., _waky_ "brother," _wakykw_ "brothers."
+
+From such groups of examples as these--and they might be multiplied _ad
+nauseam_--we cannot but conclude that linguistic form may and should be
+studied as types of patterning, apart from the associated functions. We
+are the more justified in this procedure as all languages evince a
+curious instinct for the development of one or more particular
+grammatical processes at the expense of others, tending always to lose
+sight of any explicit functional value that the process may have had in
+the first instance, delighting, it would seem, in the sheer play of its
+means of expression. It does not matter that in such a case as the
+English _goose_--_geese_, _foul_--_defile_, _sing_--_sang_--_sung_ we
+can prove that we are dealing with historically distinct processes,
+that the vocalic alternation of _sing_ and _sang_, for instance, is
+centuries older as a specific type of grammatical process than the
+outwardly parallel one of _goose_ and _geese_. It remains true that
+there is (or was) an inherent tendency in English, at the time such
+forms as _geese_ came into being, for the utilization of vocalic change
+as a significant linguistic method. Failing the precedent set by such
+already existing types of vocalic alternation as _sing_--_sang_--_sung_,
+it is highly doubtful if the detailed conditions that brought about the
+evolution of forms like _teeth_ and _geese_ from _tooth_ and _goose_
+would have been potent enough to allow the native linguistic feeling to
+win through to an acceptance of these new types of plural formation as
+psychologically possible. This feeling for form as such, freely
+expanding along predetermined lines and greatly inhibited in certain
+directions by the lack of controlling types of patterning, should be
+more clearly understood than it seems to be. A general survey of many
+diverse types of languages is needed to give us the proper perspective
+on this point. We saw in the preceding chapter that every language has
+an inner phonetic system of definite pattern. We now learn that it has
+also a definite feeling for patterning on the level of grammatical
+formation. Both of these submerged and powerfully controlling impulses
+to definite form operate as such, regardless of the need for expressing
+particular concepts or of giving consistent external shape to particular
+groups of concepts. It goes without saying that these impulses can find
+realization only in concrete functional expression. We must say
+something to be able to say it in a certain manner.
+
+Let us now take up a little more systematically, however briefly, the
+various grammatical processes that linguistic research has established.
+They may be grouped into six main types: word order; composition;
+affixation, including the use of prefixes, suffixes, and infixes;
+internal modification of the radical or grammatical element, whether
+this affects a vowel or a consonant; reduplication; and accentual
+differences, whether dynamic (stress) or tonal (pitch). There are also
+special quantitative processes, like vocalic lengthening or shortening
+and consonantal doubling, but these may be looked upon as particular
+sub-types of the process of internal modification. Possibly still other
+formal types exist, but they are not likely to be of importance in a
+general survey. It is important to bear in mind that a linguistic
+phenomenon cannot be looked upon as illustrating a definite "process"
+unless it has an inherent functional value. The consonantal change in
+English, for instance, of _book-s_ and _bag-s_ (_s_ in the former, _z_
+in the latter) is of no functional significance. It is a purely
+external, mechanical change induced by the presence of a preceding
+voiceless consonant, _k_, in the former case, of a voiced consonant,
+_g_, in the latter. This mechanical alternation is objectively the same
+as that between the noun _house_ and the verb _to house_. In the latter
+case, however, it has an important grammatical function, that of
+transforming a noun into a verb. The two alternations belong, then, to
+entirely different psychological categories. Only the latter is a true
+illustration of consonantal modification as a grammatical process.
+
+The simplest, at least the most economical, method of conveying some
+sort of grammatical notion is to juxtapose two or more words in a
+definite sequence without making any attempt by inherent modification of
+these words to establish a connection between them. Let us put down two
+simple English words at random, say _sing praise_. This conveys no
+finished thought in English, nor does it clearly establish a relation
+between the idea of singing and that of praising. Nevertheless, it is
+psychologically impossible to hear or see the two words juxtaposed
+without straining to give them some measure of coherent significance.
+The attempt is not likely to yield an entirely satisfactory result, but
+what is significant is that as soon as two or more radical concepts are
+put before the human mind in immediate sequence it strives to bind them
+together with connecting values of some sort. In the case of _sing
+praise_ different individuals are likely to arrive at different
+provisional results. Some of the latent possibilities of the
+juxtaposition, expressed in currently satisfying form, are: _sing praise
+(to him)!_ or _singing praise, praise expressed in a song_ or _to sing
+and praise_ or _one who sings a song of praise_ (compare such English
+compounds as _killjoy_, i.e., _one who kills joy_) or _he sings a song
+of praise (to him)_. The theoretical possibilities in the way of
+rounding out these two concepts into a significant group of concepts or
+even into a finished thought are indefinitely numerous. None of them
+will quite work in English, but there are numerous languages where one
+or other of these amplifying processes is habitual. It depends entirely
+on the genius of the particular language what function is inherently
+involved in a given sequence of words.
+
+Some languages, like Latin, express practically all relations by means
+of modifications within the body of the word itself. In these, sequence
+is apt to be a rhetorical rather than a strictly grammatical principle.
+Whether I say in Latin _hominem femina videt_ or _femina hominem videt_
+or _hominem videt femina_ or _videt femina hominem_ makes little or no
+difference beyond, possibly, a rhetorical or stylistic one. _The woman
+sees the man_ is the identical significance of each of these sentences.
+In Chinook, an Indian language of the Columbia River, one can be equally
+free, for the relation between the verb and the two nouns is as
+inherently fixed as in Latin. The difference between the two languages
+is that, while Latin allows the nouns to establish their relation to
+each other and to the verb, Chinook lays the formal burden entirely on
+the verb, the full content of which is more or less adequately rendered
+by _she-him-sees_. Eliminate the Latin case suffixes (_-a_ and _-em_)
+and the Chinook pronominal prefixes (_she-him-_) and we cannot afford to
+be so indifferent to our word order. We need to husband our resources.
+In other words, word order takes on a real functional value. Latin and
+Chinook are at one extreme. Such languages as Chinese, Siamese, and
+Annamite, in which each and every word, if it is to function properly,
+falls into its assigned place, are at the other extreme. But the
+majority of languages fall between these two extremes. In English, for
+instance, it may make little grammatical difference whether I say
+_yesterday the man saw the dog_ or _the man saw the dog yesterday_, but
+it is not a matter of indifference whether I say _yesterday the man saw
+the dog_ or _yesterday the dog saw the man_ or whether I say _he is
+here_ or _is he here?_ In the one case, of the latter group of examples,
+the vital distinction of subject and object depends entirely on the
+placing of certain words of the sentence, in the latter a slight
+difference of sequence makes all the difference between statement and
+question. It goes without saying that in these cases the English
+principle of word order is as potent a means of expression as is the
+Latin use of case suffixes or of an interrogative particle. There is
+here no question of functional poverty, but of formal economy.
+
+We have already seen something of the process of composition, the
+uniting into a single word of two or more radical elements.
+Psychologically this process is closely allied to that of word order in
+so far as the relation between the elements is implied, not explicitly
+stated. It differs from the mere juxtaposition of words in the sentence
+in that the compounded elements are felt as constituting but parts of a
+single word-organism. Such languages as Chinese and English, in which
+the principle of rigid sequence is well developed, tend not infrequently
+also to the development of compound words. It is but a step from such a
+Chinese word sequence as _jin tak_ "man virtue," i.e., "the virtue of
+men," to such more conventionalized and psychologically unified
+juxtapositions as _t'ien tsz_ "heaven son," i.e., "emperor," or _shui
+fu_ "water man," i.e., "water carrier." In the latter case we may as
+well frankly write _shui-fu_ as a single word, the meaning of the
+compound as a whole being as divergent from the precise etymological
+values of its component elements as is that of our English word
+_typewriter_ from the merely combined values of _type_ and _writer_. In
+English the unity of the word _typewriter_ is further safeguarded by a
+predominant accent on the first syllable and by the possibility of
+adding such a suffixed element as the plural _-s_ to the whole word.
+Chinese also unifies its compounds by means of stress. However, then, in
+its ultimate origins the process of composition may go back to typical
+sequences of words in the sentence, it is now, for the most part, a
+specialized method of expressing relations. French has as rigid a word
+order as English but does not possess anything like its power of
+compounding words into more complex units. On the other hand, classical
+Greek, in spite of its relative freedom in the placing of words, has a
+very considerable bent for the formation of compound terms.
+
+It is curious to observe how greatly languages differ in their ability
+to make use of the process of composition. One would have thought on
+general principles that so simple a device as gives us our _typewriter_
+and _blackbird_ and hosts of other words would be an all but universal
+grammatical process. Such is not the case. There are a great many
+languages, like Eskimo and Nootka and, aside from paltry exceptions, the
+Semitic languages, that cannot compound radical elements. What is even
+stranger is the fact that many of these languages are not in the least
+averse to complex word-formations, but may on the contrary effect a
+synthesis that far surpasses the utmost that Greek and Sanskrit are
+capable of. Such a Nootka word, for instance, as "when, as they say, he
+had been absent for four days" might be expected to embody at least
+three radical elements corresponding to the concepts of "absent,"
+"four," and "day." As a matter of fact the Nootka word is utterly
+incapable of composition in our sense. It is invariably built up out of
+a single radical element and a greater or less number of suffixed
+elements, some of which may have as concrete a significance as the
+radical element itself. In, the particular case we have cited the
+radical element conveys the idea of "four," the notions of "day" and
+"absent" being expressed by suffixes that are as inseparable from the
+radical nucleus of the word as is an English element like _-er_ from the
+_sing_ or _hunt_ of such words as _singer_ and _hunter_. The tendency to
+word synthesis is, then, by no means the same thing as the tendency to
+compounding radical elements, though the latter is not infrequently a
+ready means for the synthetic tendency to work with.
+
+There is a bewildering variety of types of composition. These types
+vary according to function, the nature of the compounded elements, and
+order. In a great many languages composition is confined to what we may
+call the delimiting function, that is, of the two or more compounded
+elements one is given a more precisely qualified significance by the
+others, which contribute nothing to the formal build of the sentence. In
+English, for instance, such compounded elements as _red_ in _redcoat_ or
+_over_ in _overlook_ merely modify the significance of the dominant
+_coat_ or _look_ without in any way sharing, as such, in the predication
+that is expressed by the sentence. Some languages, however, such as
+Iroquois and Nahuatl,[28] employ the method of composition for much
+heavier work than this. In Iroquois, for instance, the composition of a
+noun, in its radical form, with a following verb is a typical method of
+expressing case relations, particularly of the subject or object.
+_I-meat-eat_ for instance, is the regular Iroquois method of expressing
+the sentence _I am eating meat_. In other languages similar forms may
+express local or instrumental or still other relations. Such English
+forms as _killjoy_ and _marplot_ also illustrate the compounding of a
+verb and a noun, but the resulting word has a strictly nominal, not a
+verbal, function. We cannot say _he marplots_. Some languages allow the
+composition of all or nearly all types of elements. Paiute, for
+instance, may compound noun with noun, adjective with noun, verb with
+noun to make a noun, noun with verb to make a verb, adverb with verb,
+verb with verb. Yana, an Indian language of California, can freely
+compound noun with noun and verb with noun, but not verb with verb.
+On the other hand, Iroquois can compound only noun with verb, never
+noun and noun as in English or verb and verb as in so many other
+languages. Finally, each language has its characteristic types of order
+of composition. In English the qualifying element regularly precedes; in
+certain other languages it follows. Sometimes both types are used in the
+same language, as in Yana, where "beef" is "bitter-venison" but
+"deer-liver" is expressed by "liver-deer." The compounded object of a
+verb precedes the verbal element in Paiute, Nahuatl, and Iroquois,
+follows it in Yana, Tsimshian,[29] and the Algonkin languages.
+
+[Footnote 28: The language of the Aztecs, still spoken in large parts of
+Mexico.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Indian language of British Columbia closely related to the
+Nass already cited.]
+
+Of all grammatical processes affixing is incomparably the most
+frequently employed. There are languages, like Chinese and Siamese, that
+make no grammatical use of elements that do not at the same time possess
+an independent value as radical elements, but such languages are
+uncommon. Of the three types of affixing--the use of prefixes, suffixes,
+and infixes--suffixing is much the commonest. Indeed, it is a fair guess
+that suffixes do more of the formative work of language than all other
+methods combined. It is worth noting that there are not a few affixing
+languages that make absolutely no use of prefixed elements but possess a
+complex apparatus of suffixes. Such are Turkish, Hottentot, Eskimo,
+Nootka, and Yana. Some of these, like the three last mentioned, have
+hundreds of suffixed elements, many of them of a concreteness of
+significance that would demand expression in the vast majority of
+languages by means of radical elements. The reverse case, the use of
+prefixed elements to the complete exclusion of suffixes, is far less
+common. A good example is Khmer (or Cambodgian), spoken in French
+Cochin-China, though even here there are obscure traces of old suffixes
+that have ceased to function as such and are now felt to form part of
+the radical element.
+
+A considerable majority of known languages are prefixing and suffixing
+at one and the same time, but the relative importance of the two groups
+of affixed elements naturally varies enormously. In some languages, such
+as Latin and Russian, the suffixes alone relate the word to the rest of
+the sentence, the prefixes being confined to the expression of such
+ideas as delimit the concrete significance of the radical element
+without influencing its bearing in the proposition. A Latin form like
+_remittebantur_ "they were being sent back" may serve as an illustration
+of this type of distribution of elements. The prefixed element _re-_
+"back" merely qualifies to a certain extent the inherent significance of
+the radical element _mitt-_ "send," while the suffixes _-eba-_, _-nt-_,
+and _-ur_ convey the less concrete, more strictly formal, notions of
+time, person, plurality, and passivity.
+
+On the other hand, there are languages, like the Bantu group of Africa
+or the Athabaskan languages[30] of North America, in which the
+grammatically significant elements precede, those that follow the
+radical element forming a relatively dispensable class. The Hupa word
+_te-s-e-ya-te_ "I will go," for example, consists of a radical element
+_-ya-_ "to go," three essential prefixes and a formally subsidiary
+suffix. The element _te-_ indicates that the act takes place here and
+there in space or continuously over space; practically, it has no
+clear-cut significance apart from such verb stems as it is customary to
+connect it with. The second prefixed element, _-s-_, is even less easy
+to define. All we can say is that it is used in verb forms of "definite"
+time and that it marks action as in progress rather than as beginning or
+coming to an end. The third prefix, _-e-_, is a pronominal element, "I,"
+which can be used only in "definite" tenses. It is highly important to
+understand that the use of _-e-_ is conditional on that of _-s-_ or of
+certain alternative prefixes and that _te-_ also is in practice linked
+with _-s-_. The group _te-s-e-ya_ is a firmly knit grammatical unit. The
+suffix _-te_, which indicates the future, is no more necessary to its
+formal balance than is the prefixed _re-_ of the Latin word; it is not
+an element that is capable of standing alone but its function is
+materially delimiting rather than strictly formal.[31]
+
+[Footnote 30: Including such languages as Navaho, Apache, Hupa, Carrier,
+Chipewyan, Loucheux.]
+
+[Footnote 31: This may seem surprising to an English reader. We
+generally think of time as a function that is appropriately expressed in
+a purely formal manner. This notion is due to the bias that Latin
+grammar has given us. As a matter of fact the English future (_I shall
+go_) is not expressed by affixing at all; moreover, it may be expressed
+by the present, as in _to-morrow I leave this place_, where the temporal
+function is inherent in the independent adverb. Though in lesser degree,
+the Hupa _-te_ is as irrelevant to the vital word as is _to-morrow_ to
+the grammatical "feel" of _I leave_.]
+
+It is not always, however, that we can clearly set off the suffixes of a
+language as a group against its prefixes. In probably the majority of
+languages that use both types of affixes each group has both delimiting
+and formal or relational functions. The most that we can say is that a
+language tends to express similar functions in either the one or the
+other manner. If a certain verb expresses a certain tense by suffixing,
+the probability is strong that it expresses its other tenses in an
+analogous fashion and that, indeed, all verbs have suffixed tense
+elements. Similarly, we normally expect to find the pronominal elements,
+so far as they are included in the verb at all, either consistently
+prefixed or suffixed. But these rules are far from absolute. We have
+already seen that Hebrew prefixes its pronominal elements in certain
+cases, suffixes them in others. In Chimariko, an Indian language of
+California, the position of the pronominal affixes depends on the verb;
+they are prefixed for certain verbs, suffixed for others.
+
+It will not be necessary to give many further examples of prefixing and
+suffixing. One of each category will suffice to illustrate their
+formative possibilities. The idea expressed in English by the sentence
+_I came to give it to her_ is rendered in Chinook[32] by
+_i-n-i-a-l-u-d-am_. This word--and it is a thoroughly unified word with
+a clear-cut accent on the first _a_--consists of a radical element,
+_-d-_ "to give," six functionally distinct, if phonetically frail,
+prefixed elements, and a suffix. Of the prefixes, _i-_ indicates
+recently past time; _n-_, the pronominal subject "I"; _-i-_, the
+pronominal object "it";[33] _-a-_, the second pronominal object "her";
+_-l-_, a prepositional element indicating that the preceding pronominal
+prefix is to be understood as an indirect object (_-her-to-_, i.e., "to
+her"); and _-u-_, an element that it is not easy to define
+satisfactorily but which, on the whole, indicates movement away from the
+speaker. The suffixed _-am_ modifies the verbal content in a local
+sense; it adds to the notion conveyed by the radical element that of
+"arriving" or "going (or coming) for that particular purpose." It is
+obvious that in Chinook, as in Hupa, the greater part of the grammatical
+machinery resides in the prefixes rather than in the suffixes.
+
+[Footnote 32: Wishram dialect.]
+
+[Footnote 33: Really "him," but Chinook, like Latin or French, possesses
+grammatical gender. An object may be referred to as "he," "she," or
+"it," according to the characteristic form of its noun.]
+
+A reverse case, one in which the grammatically significant elements
+cluster, as in Latin, at the end of the word is yielded by Fox, one of
+the better known Algonkin languages of the Mississippi Valley. We may
+take the form _eh-kiwi-n-a-m-oht-ati-wa-ch(i)_ "then they together kept
+(him) in flight from them." The radical element here is _kiwi-_, a verb
+stem indicating the general notion of "indefinite movement round about,
+here and there." The prefixed element _eh-_ is hardly more than an
+adverbial particle indicating temporal subordination; it may be
+conveniently rendered as "then." Of the seven suffixes included in this
+highly-wrought word, _-n-_ seems to be merely a phonetic element serving
+to connect the verb stem with the following _-a-_;[34] _-a-_ is a
+"secondary stem"[35] denoting the idea of "flight, to flee"; _-m-_
+denotes causality with reference to an animate object;[36] _-o(ht)-_
+indicates activity done for the subject (the so-called "middle" or
+"medio-passive" voice of Greek); _-(a)ti-_ is a reciprocal element, "one
+another"; _-wa-ch(i)_ is the third person animate plural (_-wa-_,
+plural; _-chi_, more properly personal) of so-called "conjunctive"
+forms. The word may be translated more literally (and yet only
+approximately as to grammatical feeling) as "then they (animate) caused
+some animate being to wander about in flight from one another of
+themselves." Eskimo, Nootka, Yana, and other languages have similarly
+complex arrays of suffixed elements, though the functions performed by
+them and their principles of combination differ widely.
+
+[Footnote 34: This analysis is doubtful. It is likely that _-n-_
+possesses a function that still remains to be ascertained. The Algonkin
+languages are unusually complex and present many unsolved problems of
+detail.]
+
+[Footnote 35: "Secondary stems" are elements which are suffixes from a
+formal point of view, never appearing without the support of a true
+radical element, but whose function is as concrete, to all intents and
+purposes, as that of the radical element itself. Secondary verb stems of
+this type are characteristic of the Algonkin languages and of Yana.]
+
+[Footnote 36: In the Algonkin languages all persons and things are
+conceived of as either animate or inanimate, just as in Latin or German
+they are conceived of as masculine, feminine, or neuter.]
+
+We have reserved the very curious type of affixation known as "infixing"
+for separate illustration. It is utterly unknown in English, unless we
+consider the _-n-_ of _stand_ (contrast _stood_) as an infixed element.
+The earlier Indo-European languages, such as Latin, Greek and Sanskrit,
+made a fairly considerable use of infixed nasals to differentiate the
+present tense of a certain class of verbs from other forms (contrast
+Latin _vinc-o_ "I conquer" with _vic-i_ "I conquered"; Greek _lamb-an-o_
+"I take" with _e-lab-on_ "I took"). There are, however, more striking
+examples of the process, examples in which it has assumed a more clearly
+defined function than in these Latin and Greek cases. It is particularly
+prevalent in many languages of southeastern Asia and of the Malay
+archipelago. Good examples from Khmer (Cambodgian) are _tmeu_ "one who
+walks" and _daneu_ "walking" (verbal noun), both derived from _deu_ "to
+walk." Further examples may be quoted from Bontoc Igorot, a Filipino
+language. Thus, an infixed _-in-_ conveys the idea of the product of an
+accomplished action, e.g., _kayu_ "wood," _kinayu_ "gathered wood."
+Infixes are also freely used in the Bontoc Igorot verb. Thus, an infixed
+_-um-_ is characteristic of many intransitive verbs with personal
+pronominal suffixes, e.g., _sad-_ "to wait," _sumid-ak_ "I wait";
+_kineg_ "silent," _kuminek-ak_ "I am silent." In other verbs it
+indicates futurity, e.g., _tengao-_ "to celebrate a holiday,"
+_tumengao-ak_ "I shall have a holiday." The past tense is frequently
+indicated by an infixed _-in-_; if there is already an infixed _-um-_,
+the two elements combine to _-in-m-_, e.g., _kinminek-ak_ "I am silent."
+Obviously the infixing process has in this (and related) languages the
+same vitality that is possessed by the commoner prefixes and suffixes
+of other languages. The process is also found in a number of aboriginal
+American languages. The Yana plural is sometimes formed by an infixed
+element, e.g., _k'uruwi_ "medicine-men," _k'uwi_ "medicine-man"; in
+Chinook an infixed _-l-_ is used in certain verbs to indicate repeated
+activity, e.g., _ksik'ludelk_ "she keeps looking at him," _iksik'lutk_
+"she looked at him" (radical element _-tk_). A peculiarly interesting
+type of infixation is found in the Siouan languages, in which certain
+verbs insert the pronominal elements into the very body of the radical
+element, e.g., Sioux _cheti_ "to build a fire," _chewati_ "I build a
+fire"; _shuta_ "to miss," _shuunta-pi_ "we miss."
+
+A subsidiary but by no means unimportant grammatical process is that of
+internal vocalic or consonantal change. In some languages, as in English
+(_sing_, _sang_, _sung_, _song_; _goose_, _geese_), the former of these
+has become one of the major methods of indicating fundamental changes of
+grammatical function. At any rate, the process is alive enough to lead
+our children into untrodden ways. We all know of the growing youngster
+who speaks of having _brung_ something, on the analogy of such forms as
+_sung_ and _flung_. In Hebrew, as we have seen, vocalic change is of
+even greater significance than in English. What is true of Hebrew is of
+course true of all other Semitic languages. A few examples of so-called
+"broken" plurals from Arabic[37] will supplement the Hebrew verb forms
+that I have given in another connection. The noun _balad_ "place" has
+the plural form _bilad_;[38] _gild_ "hide" forms the plural _gulud_;
+_ragil_ "man," the plural _rigal_; _shibbak_ "window," the plural
+_shababik_. Very similar phenomena are illustrated by the Hamitic
+languages of Northern Africa, e.g., Shilh[39] _izbil_ "hair," plural
+_izbel_; _a-slem_ "fish," plural _i-slim-en_; _sn_ "to know," _sen_ "to
+be knowing"; _rmi_ "to become tired," _rumni_ "to be tired"; _ttss_[40]
+"to fall asleep," _ttoss_ "to sleep." Strikingly similar to English and
+Greek alternations of the type _sing_--_sang_ and _leip-o_ "I leave,"
+_leloip-a_ "I have left," are such Somali[41] cases as _al_ "I am," _il_
+"I was"; _i-dah-a_ "I say," _i-di_ "I said," _deh_ "say!"
+
+[Footnote 37: Egyptian dialect.]
+
+[Footnote 38: There are changes of accent and vocalic quantity in these
+forms as well, but the requirements of simplicity force us to neglect
+them.]
+
+[Footnote 39: A Berber language of Morocco.]
+
+[Footnote 40: Some of the Berber languages allow consonantal
+combinations that seem unpronounceable to us.]
+
+[Footnote 41: One of the Hamitic languages of eastern Africa.]
+
+Vocalic change is of great significance also in a number of American
+Indian languages. In the Athabaskan group many verbs change the quality
+or quantity of the vowel of the radical element as it changes its tense
+or mode. The Navaho verb for "I put (grain) into a receptacle" is
+_bi-hi-sh-ja_, in which _-ja_ is the radical element; the past tense,
+_bi-hi-ja'_, has a long _a_-vowel, followed by the "glottal stop"[42];
+the future is _bi-h-de-sh-ji_ with complete change of vowel. In other
+types of Navaho verbs the vocalic changes follow different lines, e.g.,
+_yah-a-ni-ye_ "you carry (a pack) into (a stable)"; past, _yah-i-ni-yin_
+(with long _i_ in _-yin_; _-n_ is here used to indicate nasalization);
+future, _yah-a-di-yehl_ (with long _e_). In another Indian language,
+Yokuts[43], vocalic modifications affect both noun and verb forms. Thus,
+_buchong_ "son" forms the plural _bochang-i_ (contrast the objective
+_buchong-a_); _enash_ "grandfather," the plural _inash-a_; the verb
+_engtyim_ "to sleep" forms the continuative _ingetym-ad_ "to be
+sleeping" and the past _ingetym-ash_.
+
+[Footnote 42: See page 49.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 42 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 1534.]
+
+[Footnote 43: Spoken in the south-central part of California.]
+
+Consonantal change as a functional process is probably far less common
+than vocalic modifications, but it is not exactly rare. There is an
+interesting group of cases in English, certain nouns and corresponding
+verbs differing solely in that the final consonant is voiceless or
+voiced. Examples are _wreath_ (with _th_ as in _think_), but _to
+wreathe_ (with _th_ as in _then_); _house_, but _to house_ (with _s_
+pronounced like _z_). That we have a distinct feeling for the
+interchange as a means of distinguishing the noun from the verb is
+indicated by the extension of the principle by many Americans to such a
+noun as _rise_ (e.g., _the rise of democracy_)--pronounced like
+_rice_--in contrast to the verb _to rise_ (_s_ like _z_).
+
+In the Celtic languages the initial consonants undergo several types of
+change according to the grammatical relation that subsists between the
+word itself and the preceding word. Thus, in modern Irish, a word like
+_bo_ "ox" may under the appropriate circumstances, take the forms _bho_
+(pronounce _wo_) or _mo_ (e.g., _an bo_ "the ox," as a subject, but _tir
+na mo_ "land of the oxen," as a possessive plural). In the verb the
+principle has as one of its most striking consequences the "aspiration"
+of initial consonants in the past tense. If a verb begins with _t_, say,
+it changes the _t_ to _th_ (now pronounced _h_) in forms of the past; if
+it begins with _g_, the consonant changes, in analogous forms, to _gh_
+(pronounced like a voiced spirant[44] _g_ or like _y_, according to the
+nature of the following vowel). In modern Irish the principle of
+consonantal change, which began in the oldest period of the language as
+a secondary consequence of certain phonetic conditions, has become one
+of the primary grammatical processes of the language.
+
+[Footnote 44: See page 50.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 44 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 1534.]
+
+Perhaps as remarkable as these Irish phenomena are the consonantal
+interchanges of Ful, an African language of the Soudan. Here we find
+that all nouns belonging to the personal class form the plural by
+changing their initial _g_, _j_, _d_, _b_, _k_, _ch_, and _p_ to _y_ (or
+_w_), _y_, _r_, _w_, _h_, _s_ and _f_ respectively; e.g., _jim-o_
+"companion," _yim-'be_ "companions"; _pio-o_ "beater," _fio-'be_
+"beaters." Curiously enough, nouns that belong to the class of things
+form their singular and plural in exactly reverse fashion, e.g.,
+_yola-re_ "grass-grown place," _jola-je_ "grass-grown places";
+_fitan-du_ "soul," _pital-i_ "souls." In Nootka, to refer to but one
+other language in which the process is found, the _t_ or _tl_[45] of
+many verbal suffixes becomes _hl_ in forms denoting repetition, e.g.,
+_hita-'ato_ "to fall out," _hita-'ahl_ "to keep falling out";
+_mat-achisht-utl_ "to fly on to the water," _mat-achisht-ohl_ "to keep
+flying on to the water." Further, the _hl_ of certain elements changes
+to a peculiar _h_-sound in plural forms, e.g., _yak-ohl_ "sore-faced,"
+_yak-oh_ "sore-faced (people)."
+
+[Footnote 45: These orthographies are but makeshifts for simple sounds.]
+
+Nothing is more natural than the prevalence of reduplication, in other
+words, the repetition of all or part of the radical element. The process
+is generally employed, with self-evident symbolism, to indicate such
+concepts as distribution, plurality, repetition, customary activity,
+increase of size, added intensity, continuance. Even in English it is
+not unknown, though it is not generally accounted one of the typical
+formative devices of our language. Such words as _goody-goody_ and _to
+pooh-pooh_ have become accepted as part of our normal vocabulary, but
+the method of duplication may on occasion be used more freely than is
+indicated by such stereotyped examples. Such locutions as _a big big
+man_ or _Let it cool till it's thick thick_ are far more common,
+especially in the speech of women and children, than our linguistic
+text-books would lead one to suppose. In a class by themselves are the
+really enormous number of words, many of them sound-imitative or
+contemptuous in psychological tone, that consist of duplications with
+either change of the vowel or change of the initial consonant--words of
+the type _sing-song_, _riff-raff_, _wishy-washy_, _harum-skarum_,
+_roly-poly_. Words of this type are all but universal. Such examples as
+the Russian _Chudo-Yudo_ (a dragon), the Chinese _ping-pang_ "rattling
+of rain on the roof,"[46] the Tibetan _kyang-kyong_ "lazy," and the
+Manchu _porpon parpan_ "blear-eyed" are curiously reminiscent, both in
+form and in psychology, of words nearer home. But it can hardly be said
+that the duplicative process is of a distinctively grammatical
+significance in English. We must turn to other languages for
+illustration. Such cases as Hottentot _go-go_ "to look at carefully"
+(from _go_ "to see"), Somali _fen-fen_ "to gnaw at on all sides" (from
+_fen_ "to gnaw at"), Chinook _iwi iwi_ "to look about carefully, to
+examine" (from _iwi_ "to appear"), or Tsimshian _am'am_ "several (are)
+good" (from _am_ "good") do not depart from the natural and fundamental
+range of significance of the process. A more abstract function is
+illustrated in Ewe,[47] in which both infinitives and verbal adjectives
+are formed from verbs by duplication; e.g., _yi_ "to go," _yiyi_ "to go,
+act of going"; _wo_ "to do," _wowo_[48] "done"; _mawomawo_ "not to do"
+(with both duplicated verb stem and duplicated negative particle).
+Causative duplications are characteristic of Hottentot, e.g.,
+_gam-gam_[49] "to cause to tell" (from _gam_ "to tell"). Or the process
+may be used to derive verbs from nouns, as in Hottentot _khoe-khoe_ "to
+talk Hottentot" (from _khoe-b_ "man, Hottentot"), or as in Kwakiutl
+_metmat_ "to eat clams" (radical element _met-_ "clam").
+
+[Footnote 46: Whence our _ping-pong_.]
+
+[Footnote 47: An African language of the Guinea Coast.]
+
+[Footnote 48: In the verbal adjective the tone of the second syllable
+differs from that of the first.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Initial "click" (see page 55, note 15) omitted.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 49 refers to Footnote 24, beginning on
+line 1729.]
+
+The most characteristic examples of reduplication are such as repeat
+only part of the radical element. It would be possible to demonstrate
+the existence of a vast number of formal types of such partial
+duplication, according to whether the process makes use of one or more
+of the radical consonants, preserves or weakens or alters the radical
+vowel, or affects the beginning, the middle, or the end of the radical
+element. The functions are even more exuberantly developed than with
+simple duplication, though the basic notion, at least in origin, is
+nearly always one of repetition or continuance. Examples illustrating
+this fundamental function can be quoted from all parts of the globe.
+Initially reduplicating are, for instance, Shilh _ggen_ "to be sleeping"
+(from _gen_ "to sleep"); Ful _pepeu-'do_ "liar" (i.e., "one who always
+lies"), plural _fefeu-'be_ (from _fewa_ "to lie"); Bontoc Igorot _anak_
+"child," _ananak_ "children"; _kamu-ek_ "I hasten," _kakamu-ek_ "I
+hasten more"; Tsimshian _gyad_ "person," _gyigyad_ "people"; Nass
+_gyibayuk_ "to fly," _gyigyibayuk_ "one who is flying." Psychologically
+comparable, but with the reduplication at the end, are Somali _ur_
+"body," plural _urar_; Hausa _suna_ "name," plural _sunana-ki;_
+Washo[50] _gusu_ "buffalo," _gususu_ "buffaloes"; Takelma[51] _himi-d-_
+"to talk to," _himim-d-_ "to be accustomed to talk to." Even more
+commonly than simple duplication, this partial duplication of the
+radical element has taken on in many languages functions that seem in no
+way related to the idea of increase. The best known examples are
+probably the initial reduplication of our older Indo-European languages,
+which helps to form the perfect tense of many verbs (e.g., Sanskrit
+_dadarsha_ "I have seen," Greek _leloipa_ "I have left," Latin _tetigi_
+"I have touched," Gothic _lelot_ "I have let"). In Nootka reduplication
+of the radical element is often employed in association with certain
+suffixes; e.g., _hluch-_ "woman" forms _hluhluch-'ituhl_ "to dream of a
+woman," _hluhluch-k'ok_ "resembling a woman." Psychologically similar to
+the Greek and Latin examples are many Takelma cases of verbs that
+exhibit two forms of the stem, one employed in the present or past, the
+other in the future and in certain modes and verbal derivatives. The
+former has final reduplication, which is absent in the latter; e.g.,
+_al-yebeb-i'n_ "I show (or showed) to him," _al-yeb-in_ "I shall show
+him."
+
+[Footnote 50: An Indian language of Nevada.]
+
+[Footnote 51: An Indian language of Oregon.]
+
+We come now to the subtlest of all grammatical processes, variations in
+accent, whether of stress or pitch. The chief difficulty in isolating
+accent as a functional process is that it is so often combined with
+alternations in vocalic quantity or quality or complicated by the
+presence of affixed elements that its grammatical value appears as a
+secondary rather than as a primary feature. In Greek, for instance, it
+is characteristic of true verbal forms that they throw the accent back
+as far as the general accentual rules will permit, while nouns may be
+more freely accented. There is thus a striking accentual difference
+between a verbal form like _eluthemen_ "we were released," accented on
+the second syllable of the word, and its participial derivative
+_lutheis_ "released," accented on the last. The presence of the
+characteristic verbal elements _e-_ and _-men_ in the first case and of
+the nominal _-s_ in the second tends to obscure the inherent value of
+the accentual alternation. This value comes out very neatly in such
+English doublets as _to refund_ and _a refund_, _to extract_ and _an
+extract, to come down_ and _a come down_, _to lack luster_ and
+_lack-luster eyes_, in which the difference between the verb and the
+noun is entirely a matter of changing stress. In the Athabaskan
+languages there are not infrequently significant alternations of accent,
+as in Navaho _ta-di-gis_ "you wash yourself" (accented on the second
+syllable), _ta-di-gis_ "he washes himself" (accented on the first).[52]
+
+[Footnote 52: It is not unlikely, however, that these Athabaskan
+alternations are primarily tonal in character.]
+
+Pitch accent may be as functional as stress and is perhaps more often
+so. The mere fact, however, that pitch variations are phonetically
+essential to the language, as in Chinese (e.g., _feng_ "wind" with a
+level tone, _feng_ "to serve" with a falling tone) or as in classical
+Greek (e.g., _lab-on_ "having taken" with a simple or high tone on the
+suffixed participial _-on_, _gunaik-on_ "of women" with a compound or
+falling tone on the case suffix _-on_) does not necessarily constitute a
+functional, or perhaps we had better say grammatical, use of pitch. In
+such cases the pitch is merely inherent in the radical element or affix,
+as any vowel or consonant might be. It is different with such Chinese
+alternations as _chung_ (level) "middle" and _chung_ (falling) "to hit
+the middle"; _mai_ (rising) "to buy" and _mai_ (falling) "to sell";
+_pei_ (falling) "back" and _pei_ (level) "to carry on the back."
+Examples of this type are not exactly common in Chinese and the language
+cannot be said to possess at present a definite feeling for tonal
+differences as symbolic of the distinction between noun and verb.
+
+There are languages, however, in which such differences are of the most
+fundamental grammatical importance. They are particularly common in the
+Soudan. In Ewe, for instance, there are formed from _subo_ "to serve"
+two reduplicated forms, an infinitive _subosubo_ "to serve," with a low
+tone on the first two syllables and a high one on the last two, and an
+adjectival _subosubo_ "serving," in which all the syllables have a high
+tone. Even more striking are cases furnished by Shilluk, one of the
+languages of the headwaters of the Nile. The plural of the noun often
+differs in tone from the singular, e.g., _yit_ (high) "ear" but _yit_
+(low) "ears." In the pronoun three forms may be distinguished by tone
+alone; _e_ "he" has a high tone and is subjective, _-e_ "him" (e.g., _a
+chwol-e_ "he called him") has a low tone and is objective, _-e_ "his"
+(e.g., _wod-e_ "his house") has a middle tone and is possessive. From
+the verbal element _gwed-_ "to write" are formed _gwed-o_ "(he) writes"
+with a low tone, the passive _gwet_ "(it was) written" with a falling
+tone, the imperative _gwet_ "write!" with a rising tone, and the verbal
+noun _gwet_ "writing" with a middle tone. In aboriginal America also
+pitch accent is known to occur as a grammatical process. A good example
+of such a pitch language is Tlingit, spoken by the Indians of the
+southern coast of Alaska. In this language many verbs vary the tone of
+the radical element according to tense; _hun_ "to sell," _sin_ "to
+hide," _tin_ "to see," and numerous other radical elements, if
+low-toned, refer to past time, if high-toned, to the future. Another
+type of function is illustrated by the Takelma forms _hel_ "song," with
+falling pitch, but _hel_ "sing!" with a rising inflection; parallel to
+these forms are _sel_ (falling) "black paint," _sel_ (rising) "paint
+it!" All in all it is clear that pitch accent, like stress and vocalic
+or consonantal modifications, is far less infrequently employed as a
+grammatical process than our own habits of speech would prepare us to
+believe probable.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+FORM IN LANGUAGE: GRAMMATICAL CONCEPTS
+
+
+We have seen that the single word expresses either a simple concept or a
+combination of concepts so interrelated as to form a psychological
+unity. We have, furthermore, briefly reviewed from a strictly formal
+standpoint the main processes that are used by all known languages to
+affect the fundamental concepts--those embodied in unanalyzable words or
+in the radical elements of words--by the modifying or formative
+influence of subsidiary concepts. In this chapter we shall look a little
+more closely into the nature of the world of concepts, in so far as that
+world is reflected and systematized in linguistic structure.
+
+Let us begin with a simple sentence that involves various kinds of
+concepts--_the farmer kills the duckling_. A rough and ready analysis
+discloses here the presence of three distinct and fundamental concepts
+that are brought into connection with each other in a number of ways.
+These three concepts are "farmer" (the subject of discourse), "kill"
+(defining the nature of the activity which the sentence informs us
+about), and "duckling" (another subject[53] of discourse that takes an
+important though somewhat passive part in this activity). We can
+visualize the farmer and the duckling and we have also no difficulty in
+constructing an image of the killing. In other words, the elements
+_farmer_, _kill_, and _duckling_ define concepts of a concrete order.
+
+[Footnote 53: Not in its technical sense.]
+
+But a more careful linguistic analysis soon brings us to see that the
+two subjects of discourse, however simply we may visualize them, are not
+expressed quite as directly, as immediately, as we feel them. A "farmer"
+is in one sense a perfectly unified concept, in another he is "one who
+farms." The concept conveyed by the radical element (_farm-_) is not one
+of personality at all but of an industrial activity (_to farm_), itself
+based on the concept of a particular type of object (_a farm_).
+Similarly, the concept of _duckling_ is at one remove from that which is
+expressed by the radical element of the word, _duck_. This element,
+which may occur as an independent word, refers to a whole class of
+animals, big and little, while _duckling_ is limited in its application
+to the young of that class. The word _farmer_ has an "agentive" suffix
+_-er_ that performs the function of indicating the one that carries out
+a given activity, in this case that of farming. It transforms the verb
+_to farm_ into an agentive noun precisely as it transforms the verbs _to
+sing_, _to paint_, _to teach_ into the corresponding agentive nouns
+_singer_, _painter_, _teacher_. The element _-ling_ is not so freely
+used, but its significance is obvious. It adds to the basic concept the
+notion of smallness (as also in _gosling_, _fledgeling_) or the somewhat
+related notion of "contemptible" (as in _weakling_, _princeling_,
+_hireling_). The agentive _-er_ and the diminutive _-ling_ both convey
+fairly concrete ideas (roughly those of "doer" and "little"), but the
+concreteness is not stressed. They do not so much define distinct
+concepts as mediate between concepts. The _-er_ of _farmer_ does not
+quite say "one who (farms)" it merely indicates that the sort of person
+we call a "farmer" is closely enough associated with activity on a farm
+to be conventionally thought of as always so occupied. He may, as a
+matter of fact, go to town and engage in any pursuit but farming, yet
+his linguistic label remains "farmer." Language here betrays a certain
+helplessness or, if one prefers, a stubborn tendency to look away from
+the immediately suggested function, trusting to the imagination and to
+usage to fill in the transitions of thought and the details of
+application that distinguish one concrete concept (_to farm_) from
+another "derived" one (_farmer_). It would be impossible for any
+language to express every concrete idea by an independent word or
+radical element. The concreteness of experience is infinite, the
+resources of the richest language are strictly limited. It must perforce
+throw countless concepts under the rubric of certain basic ones, using
+other concrete or semi-concrete ideas as functional mediators. The ideas
+expressed by these mediating elements--they may be independent words,
+affixes, or modifications of the radical element--may be called
+"derivational" or "qualifying." Some concrete concepts, such as _kill_,
+are expressed radically; others, such as _farmer_ and _duckling_, are
+expressed derivatively. Corresponding to these two modes of expression
+we have two types of concepts and of linguistic elements, radical
+(_farm_, _kill_, _duck_) and derivational (_-er_, _-ling_). When a word
+(or unified group of words) contains a derivational element (or word)
+the concrete significance of the radical element (_farm-_, _duck-_)
+tends to fade from consciousness and to yield to a new concreteness
+(_farmer_, _duckling_) that is synthetic in expression rather than in
+thought. In our sentence the concepts of _farm_ and _duck_ are not
+really involved at all; they are merely latent, for formal reasons, in
+the linguistic expression.
+
+Returning to this sentence, we feel that the analysis of _farmer_ and
+_duckling_ are practically irrelevant to an understanding of its content
+and entirely irrelevant to a feeling for the structure of the sentence
+as a whole. From the standpoint of the sentence the derivational
+elements _-er_ and _-ling_ are merely details in the local economy of
+two of its terms (_farmer_, _duckling_) that it accepts as units of
+expression. This indifference of the sentence as such to some part of
+the analysis of its words is shown by the fact that if we substitute
+such radical words as _man_ and _chick_ for _farmer_ and _duckling_, we
+obtain a new material content, it is true, but not in the least a new
+structural mold. We can go further and substitute another activity for
+that of "killing," say "taking." The new sentence, _the man takes the
+chick_, is totally different from the first sentence in what it conveys,
+not in how it conveys it. We feel instinctively, without the slightest
+attempt at conscious analysis, that the two sentences fit precisely the
+same pattern, that they are really the same fundamental sentence,
+differing only in their material trappings. In other words, they express
+identical relational concepts in an identical manner. The manner is here
+threefold--the use of an inherently relational word (_the_) in analogous
+positions, the analogous sequence (subject; predicate, consisting of
+verb and object) of the concrete terms of the sentence, and the use of
+the suffixed element _-s_ in the verb.
+
+Change any of these features of the sentence and it becomes modified,
+slightly or seriously, in some purely relational, non-material regard.
+If _the_ is omitted (_farmer kills duckling_, _man takes chick_), the
+sentence becomes impossible; it falls into no recognized formal pattern
+and the two subjects of discourse seem to hang incompletely in the void.
+We feel that there is no relation established between either of them
+and what is already in the minds of the speaker and his auditor. As soon
+as a _the_ is put before the two nouns, we feel relieved. We know that
+the farmer and duckling which the sentence tells us about are the same
+farmer and duckling that we had been talking about or hearing about or
+thinking about some time before. If I meet a man who is not looking at
+and knows nothing about the farmer in question, I am likely to be stared
+at for my pains if I announce to him that "the farmer [what farmer?]
+kills the duckling [didn't know he had any, whoever he is]." If the fact
+nevertheless seems interesting enough to communicate, I should be
+compelled to speak of "_a farmer_ up my way" and of "_a duckling_ of
+his." These little words, _the_ and _a_, have the important function of
+establishing a definite or an indefinite reference.
+
+If I omit the first _the_ and also leave out the suffixed _-s_, I obtain
+an entirely new set of relations. _Farmer, kill the duckling_ implies
+that I am now speaking to the farmer, not merely about him; further,
+that he is not actually killing the bird, but is being ordered by me to
+do so. The subjective relation of the first sentence has become a
+vocative one, one of address, and the activity is conceived in terms of
+command, not of statement. We conclude, therefore, that if the farmer is
+to be merely talked about, the little _the_ must go back into its place
+and the _-s_ must not be removed. The latter element clearly defines, or
+rather helps to define, statement as contrasted with command. I find,
+moreover, that if I wish to speak of several farmers, I cannot say _the
+farmers kills the duckling_, but must say _the farmers kill the
+duckling_. Evidently _-s_ involves the notion of singularity in the
+subject. If the noun is singular, the verb must have a form to
+correspond; if the noun is plural, the verb has another, corresponding
+form.[54] Comparison with such forms as _I kill_ and _you kill_ shows,
+moreover, that the _-s_ has exclusive reference to a person other than
+the speaker or the one spoken to. We conclude, therefore, that it
+connotes a personal relation as well as the notion of singularity. And
+comparison with a sentence like _the farmer killed the duckling_
+indicates that there is implied in this overburdened _-s_ a distinct
+reference to present time. Statement as such and personal reference may
+well be looked upon as inherently relational concepts. Number is
+evidently felt by those who speak English as involving a necessary
+relation, otherwise there would be no reason to express the concept
+twice, in the noun and in the verb. Time also is clearly felt as a
+relational concept; if it were not, we should be allowed to say _the
+farmer killed-s_ to correspond to _the farmer kill-s_. Of the four
+concepts inextricably interwoven in the _-s_ suffix, all are felt as
+relational, two necessarily so. The distinction between a truly
+relational concept and one that is so felt and treated, though it need
+not be in the nature of things, will receive further attention in a
+moment.
+
+[Footnote 54: It is, of course, an "accident" that _-s_ denotes
+plurality in the noun, singularity in the verb.]
+
+Finally, I can radically disturb the relational cut of the sentence by
+changing the order of its elements. If the positions of _farmer_ and
+_kills_ are interchanged, the sentence reads _kills the farmer the
+duckling_, which is most naturally interpreted as an unusual but not
+unintelligible mode of asking the question, _does the farmer kill the
+duckling?_ In this new sentence the act is not conceived as necessarily
+taking place at all. It may or it may not be happening, the implication
+being that the speaker wishes to know the truth of the matter and that
+the person spoken to is expected to give him the information. The
+interrogative sentence possesses an entirely different "modality" from
+the declarative one and implies a markedly different attitude of the
+speaker towards his companion. An even more striking change in personal
+relations is effected if we interchange _the farmer_ and _the duckling_.
+_The duckling kills the farmer_ involves precisely the same subjects of
+discourse and the same type of activity as our first sentence, but the
+roles of these subjects of discourse are now reversed. The duckling has
+turned, like the proverbial worm, or, to put it in grammatical
+terminology, what was "subject" is now "object," what was object is now
+subject.
+
+The following tabular statement analyzes the sentence from the point of
+view of the concepts expressed in it and of the grammatical processes
+employed for their expression.
+
+ I. CONCRETE CONCEPTS:
+    1. First subject of discourse: _farmer_
+    2. Second subject of discourse: _duckling_
+    3. Activity: _kill_
+    ---- analyzable into:
+  A. RADICAL CONCEPTS:
+        1. Verb: _(to) farm_
+        2. Noun: _duck_
+        3. Verb: _kill_
+  B. DERIVATIONAL CONCEPTS:
+        1. Agentive: expressed by suffix _-er_
+        2. Diminutive: expressed by suffix _-ling_
+II. RELATIONAL CONCEPTS:
+    Reference:
+      1. Definiteness of reference to first subject of discourse:
+          expressed by first _the_, which has preposed position
+      2. Definiteness of reference to second subject of discourse:
+          expressed by second _the_, which has preposed position
+    Modality:
+      3. Declarative: expressed by sequence of "subject" plus verb; and
+          implied by suffixed _-s_
+    Personal relations:
+      4. Subjectivity of _farmer_: expressed by position of _farmer_
+          before kills; and by suffixed _-s_
+      5. Objectivity of _duckling_: expressed by position of _duckling_
+          after _kills_
+    Number:
+      6. Singularity of first subject of discourse: expressed by lack of
+          plural suffix in _farmer_; and by suffix _-s_ in following verb
+      7. Singularity of second subject of discourse: expressed by lack
+          of plural suffix in _duckling_
+    Time:
+      8. Present: expressed by lack of preterit suffix in verb; and by
+          suffixed _-s_
+
+In this short sentence of five words there are expressed, therefore,
+thirteen distinct concepts, of which three are radical and concrete, two
+derivational, and eight relational. Perhaps the most striking result of
+the analysis is a renewed realization of the curious lack of accord in
+our language between function and form. The method of suffixing is used
+both for derivational and for relational elements; independent words or
+radical elements express both concrete ideas (objects, activities,
+qualities) and relational ideas (articles like _the_ and _a_; words
+defining case relations, like _of_, _to_, _for_, _with_, _by_; words
+defining local relations, like _in_, _on_, _at_); the same relational
+concept may be expressed more than once (thus, the singularity of
+_farmer_ is both negatively expressed in the noun and positively in the
+verb); and one element may convey a group of interwoven concepts rather
+than one definite concept alone (thus the _-s_ of _kills_ embodies no
+less than four logically independent relations).
+
+Our analysis may seem a bit labored, but only because we are so
+accustomed to our own well-worn grooves of expression that they have
+come to be felt as inevitable. Yet destructive analysis of the familiar
+is the only method of approach to an understanding of fundamentally
+different modes of expression. When one has learned to feel what is
+fortuitous or illogical or unbalanced in the structure of his own
+language, he is already well on the way towards a sympathetic grasp of
+the expression of the various classes of concepts in alien types of
+speech. Not everything that is "outlandish" is intrinsically illogical
+or far-fetched. It is often precisely the familiar that a wider
+perspective reveals as the curiously exceptional. From a purely logical
+standpoint it is obvious that there is no inherent reason why the
+concepts expressed in our sentence should have been singled out,
+treated, and grouped as they have been and not otherwise. The sentence
+is the outgrowth of historical and of unreasoning psychological forces
+rather than of a logical synthesis of elements that have been clearly
+grasped in their individuality. This is the case, to a greater or less
+degree, in all languages, though in the forms of many we find a more
+coherent, a more consistent, reflection than in our English forms of
+that unconscious analysis into individual concepts which is never
+entirely absent from speech, however it may be complicated with or
+overlaid by the more irrational factors.
+
+A cursory examination of other languages, near and far, would soon show
+that some or all of the thirteen concepts that our sentence happens to
+embody may not only be expressed in different form but that they may be
+differently grouped among themselves; that some among them may be
+dispensed with; and that other concepts, not considered worth expressing
+in English idiom, may be treated as absolutely indispensable to the
+intelligible rendering of the proposition. First as to a different
+method of handling such concepts as we have found expressed in the
+English sentence. If we turn to German, we find that in the equivalent
+sentence (_Der Bauer tötet das Entelein_) the definiteness of reference
+expressed by the English _the_ is unavoidably coupled with three other
+concepts--number (both _der_ and _das_ are explicitly singular), case
+(_der_ is subjective; _das_ is subjective or objective, by elimination
+therefore objective), and gender, a new concept of the relational order
+that is not in this case explicitly involved in English (_der_ is
+masculine, _das_ is neuter). Indeed, the chief burden of the expression
+of case, gender, and number is in the German sentence borne by the
+particles of reference rather than by the words that express the
+concrete concepts (_Bauer_, _Entelein_) to which these relational
+concepts ought logically to attach themselves. In the sphere of concrete
+concepts too it is worth noting that the German splits up the idea of
+"killing" into the basic concept of "dead" (_tot_) and the derivational
+one of "causing to do (or be) so and so" (by the method of vocalic
+change, _töt-_); the German _töt-et_ (analytically _tot-_+vowel
+change+_-et_) "causes to be dead" is, approximately, the formal
+equivalent of our _dead-en-s_, though the idiomatic application of this
+latter word is different.[55]
+
+[Footnote 55: "To cause to be dead" or "to cause to die" in the sense of
+"to kill" is an exceedingly wide-spread usage. It is found, for
+instance, also in Nootka and Sioux.]
+
+Wandering still further afield, we may glance at the Yana method of
+expression. Literally translated, the equivalent Yana sentence would
+read something like "kill-s he farmer[56] he to duck-ling," in which
+"he" and "to" are rather awkward English renderings of a general third
+personal pronoun (_he_, _she_, _it_, or _they_) and an objective
+particle which indicates that the following noun is connected with the
+verb otherwise than as subject. The suffixed element in "kill-s"
+corresponds to the English suffix with the important exceptions that it
+makes no reference to the number of the subject and that the statement
+is known to be true, that it is vouched for by the speaker. Number is
+only indirectly expressed in the sentence in so far as there is no
+specific verb suffix indicating plurality of the subject nor specific
+plural elements in the two nouns. Had the statement been made on
+another's authority, a totally different "tense-modal" suffix would have
+had to be used. The pronouns of reference ("he") imply nothing by
+themselves as to number, gender, or case. Gender, indeed, is completely
+absent in Yana as a relational category.
+
+[Footnote 56: Agriculture was not practised by the Yana. The verbal idea
+of "to farm" would probably be expressed in some such synthetic manner
+as "to dig-earth" or "to grow-cause." There are suffixed elements
+corresponding to _-er_ and _-ling_.]
+
+The Yana sentence has already illustrated the point that certain of our
+supposedly essential concepts may be ignored; both the Yana and the
+German sentence illustrate the further point that certain concepts may
+need expression for which an English-speaking person, or rather the
+English-speaking habit, finds no need whatever. One could go on and give
+endless examples of such deviations from English form, but we shall have
+to content ourselves with a few more indications. In the Chinese
+sentence "Man kill duck," which may be looked upon as the practical
+equivalent of "The man kills the duck," there is by no means present
+for the Chinese consciousness that childish, halting, empty feeling
+which we experience in the literal English translation. The three
+concrete concepts--two objects and an action--are each directly
+expressed by a monosyllabic word which is at the same time a radical
+element; the two relational concepts--"subject" and "object"--are
+expressed solely by the position of the concrete words before and after
+the word of action. And that is all. Definiteness or indefiniteness of
+reference, number, personality as an inherent aspect of the verb, tense,
+not to speak of gender--all these are given no expression in the
+Chinese sentence, which, for all that, is a perfectly adequate
+communication--provided, of course, there is that context, that
+background of mutual understanding that is essential to the complete
+intelligibility of all speech. Nor does this qualification impair our
+argument, for in the English sentence too we leave unexpressed a large
+number of ideas which are either taken for granted or which have been
+developed or are about to be developed in the course of the
+conversation. Nothing has been said, for example, in the English,
+German, Yana, or Chinese sentence as to the place relations of the
+farmer, the duck, the speaker, and the listener. Are the farmer and the
+duck both visible or is one or the other invisible from the point of
+view of the speaker, and are both placed within the horizon of the
+speaker, the listener, or of some indefinite point of reference "off
+yonder"? In other words, to paraphrase awkwardly certain latent
+"demonstrative" ideas, does this farmer (invisible to us but standing
+behind a door not far away from me, you being seated yonder well out of
+reach) kill that duckling (which belongs to you)? or does that farmer
+(who lives in your neighborhood and whom we see over there) kill that
+duckling (that belongs to him)? This type of demonstrative elaboration
+is foreign to our way of thinking, but it would seem very natural,
+indeed unavoidable, to a Kwakiutl Indian.
+
+What, then, are the absolutely essential concepts in speech, the
+concepts that must be expressed if language is to be a satisfactory
+means of communication? Clearly we must have, first of all, a large
+stock of basic or radical concepts, the concrete wherewithal of speech.
+We must have objects, actions, qualities to talk about, and these must
+have their corresponding symbols in independent words or in radical
+elements. No proposition, however abstract its intent, is humanly
+possible without a tying on at one or more points to the concrete world
+of sense. In every intelligible proposition at least two of these
+radical ideas must be expressed, though in exceptional cases one or even
+both may be understood from the context. And, secondly, such relational
+concepts must be expressed as moor the concrete concepts to each other
+and construct a definite, fundamental form of proposition. In this
+fundamental form there must be no doubt as to the nature of the
+relations that obtain between the concrete concepts. We must know what
+concrete concept is directly or indirectly related to what other, and
+how. If we wish to talk of a thing and an action, we must know if they
+are coördinately related to each other (e.g., "He is fond of _wine and
+gambling_"); or if the thing is conceived of as the starting point, the
+"doer" of the action, or, as it is customary to say, the "subject" of
+which the action is predicated; or if, on the contrary, it is the end
+point, the "object" of the action. If I wish to communicate an
+intelligible idea about a farmer, a duckling, and the act of killing, it
+is not enough to state the linguistic symbols for these concrete ideas
+in any order, higgledy-piggledy, trusting that the hearer may construct
+some kind of a relational pattern out of the general probabilities of
+the case. The fundamental syntactic relations must be unambiguously
+expressed. I can afford to be silent on the subject of time and place
+and number and of a host of other possible types of concepts, but I can
+find no way of dodging the issue as to who is doing the killing. There
+is no known language that can or does dodge it, any more than it
+succeeds in saying something without the use of symbols for the concrete
+concepts.
+
+We are thus once more reminded of the distinction between essential or
+unavoidable relational concepts and the dispensable type. The former are
+universally expressed, the latter are but sparsely developed in some
+languages, elaborated with a bewildering exuberance in others. But what
+prevents us from throwing in these "dispensable" or "secondary"
+relational concepts with the large, floating group of derivational,
+qualifying concepts that we have already discussed? Is there, after all
+is said and done, a fundamental difference between a qualifying concept
+like the negative in _unhealthy_ and a relational one like the number
+concept in _books_? If _unhealthy_ may be roughly paraphrased as _not
+healthy_, may not _books_ be just as legitimately paraphrased, barring
+the violence to English idiom, as _several book?_ There are, indeed,
+languages in which the plural, if expressed at all, is conceived of in
+the same sober, restricted, one might almost say casual, spirit in which
+we feel the negative in _unhealthy_. For such languages the number
+concept has no syntactic significance whatever, is not essentially
+conceived of as defining a relation, but falls into the group of
+derivational or even of basic concepts. In English, however, as in
+French, German, Latin, Greek--indeed in all the languages that we have
+most familiarity with--the idea of number is not merely appended to a
+given concept of a thing. It may have something of this merely
+qualifying value, but its force extends far beyond. It infects much else
+in the sentence, molding other concepts, even such as have no
+intelligible relation to number, into forms that are said to correspond
+to or "agree with" the basic concept to which it is attached in the
+first instance. If "a man falls" but "men fall" in English, it is not
+because of any inherent change that has taken place in the nature of the
+action or because the idea of plurality inherent in "men" must, in the
+very nature of ideas, relate itself also to the action performed by
+these men. What we are doing in these sentences is what most languages,
+in greater or less degree and in a hundred varying ways, are in the
+habit of doing--throwing a bold bridge between the two basically
+distinct types of concept, the concrete and the abstractly relational,
+infecting the latter, as it were, with the color and grossness of the
+former. By a certain violence of metaphor the material concept is forced
+to do duty for (or intertwine itself with) the strictly relational.
+
+The case is even more obvious if we take gender as our text. In the two
+English phrases, "The white woman that comes" and "The white men that
+come," we are not reminded that gender, as well as number, may be
+elevated into a secondary relational concept. It would seem a little
+far-fetched to make of masculinity and femininity, crassly material,
+philosophically accidental concepts that they are, a means of relating
+quality and person, person and action, nor would it easily occur to us,
+if we had not studied the classics, that it was anything but absurd to
+inject into two such highly attenuated relational concepts as are
+expressed by "the" and "that" the combined notions of number and sex.
+Yet all this, and more, happens in Latin. _Illa alba femina quae venit_
+and _illi albi homines qui veniunt_, conceptually translated, amount to
+this: _that_-one-feminine-doer[57] one-feminine-_white_-doer
+feminine-doing-one-_woman_ _which_-one-feminine-doer
+other[58]-one-now-_come_; and: _that_-several-masculine-doer
+several-masculine-_white_-doer masculine-doing-several-_man_
+_which_-several-masculine-doer other-several-now-_come_. Each word
+involves no less than four concepts, a radical concept (either properly
+concrete--_white_, _man_, _woman_, _come_--or demonstrative--_that_,
+_which_) and three relational concepts, selected from the categories of
+case, number, gender, person, and tense. Logically, only case[59] (the
+relation of _woman_ or _men_ to a following verb, of _which_ to its
+antecedent, of _that_ and _white_ to _woman_ or _men_, and of _which_ to
+_come_) imperatively demands expression, and that only in connection
+with the concepts directly affected (there is, for instance, no need to
+be informed that the whiteness is a doing or doer's whiteness[60]). The
+other relational concepts are either merely parasitic (gender
+throughout; number in the demonstrative, the adjective, the relative,
+and the verb) or irrelevant to the essential syntactic form of the
+sentence (number in the noun; person; tense). An intelligent and
+sensitive Chinaman, accustomed as he is to cut to the very bone of
+linguistic form, might well say of the Latin sentence, "How pedantically
+imaginative!" It must be difficult for him, when first confronted by the
+illogical complexities of our European languages, to feel at home in an
+attitude that so largely confounds the subject-matter of speech with its
+formal pattern or, to be more accurate, that turns certain fundamentally
+concrete concepts to such attenuated relational uses.
+
+[Footnote 57: "Doer," not "done to." This is a necessarily clumsy tag to
+represent the "nominative" (subjective) in contrast to the "accusative"
+(objective).]
+
+[Footnote 58: I.e., not you or I.]
+
+[Footnote 59: By "case" is here meant not only the subjective-objective
+relation but also that of attribution.]
+
+[Footnote 60: Except in so far as Latin uses this method as a rather
+awkward, roundabout method of establishing the attribution of the color
+to the particular object or person. In effect one cannot in Latin
+directly say that a person is white, merely that what is white is
+identical with the person who is, acts, or is acted upon in such and
+such a manner. In origin the feel of the Latin _illa alba femina_ is
+really "that-one, the-white-one, (namely) the-woman"--three substantive
+ideas that are related to each other by a juxtaposition intended to
+convey an identity. English and Chinese express the attribution directly
+by means of order. In Latin the _illa_ and _alba_ may occupy almost any
+position in the sentence. It is important to observe that the subjective
+form of _illa_ and _alba_, does not truly define a relation of these
+qualifying concepts to _femina_. Such a relation might be formally
+expressed _via_ an attributive case, say the genitive (_woman of
+whiteness_). In Tibetan both the methods of order and of true case
+relation may be employed: _woman white_ (i.e., "white woman") or
+_white-of woman_ (i.e., "woman of whiteness, woman who is white, white
+woman").]
+
+I have exaggerated somewhat the concreteness of our subsidiary or rather
+non-syntactical relational concepts In order that the essential facts
+might come out in bold relief. It goes without saying that a Frenchman
+has no clear sex notion in his mind when he speaks of _un arbre_
+("a-masculine tree") or of _une pomme_ ("a-feminine apple"). Nor have
+we, despite the grammarians, a very vivid sense of the present as
+contrasted with all past and all future time when we say _He comes_.[61]
+This is evident from our use of the present to indicate both future time
+("He comes to-morrow") and general activity unspecified as to time
+("Whenever he comes, I am glad to see him," where "comes" refers to past
+occurrences and possible future ones rather than to present activity).
+In both the French and English instances the primary ideas of sex and
+time have become diluted by form-analogy and by extensions into the
+relational sphere, the concepts ostensibly indicated being now so
+vaguely delimited that it is rather the tyranny of usage than the need
+of their concrete expression that sways us in the selection of this or
+that form. If the thinning-out process continues long enough, we may
+eventually be left with a system of forms on our hands from which all
+the color of life has vanished and which merely persist by inertia,
+duplicating each other's secondary, syntactic functions with endless
+prodigality. Hence, in part, the complex conjugational systems of so
+many languages, in which differences of form are attended by no
+assignable differences of function. There must have been a time, for
+instance, though it antedates our earliest documentary evidence, when
+the type of tense formation represented by _drove_ or _sank_ differed in
+meaning, in however slightly nuanced a degree, from the type (_killed_,
+_worked_) which has now become established in English as the prevailing
+preterit formation, very much as we recognize a valuable distinction at
+present between both these types and the "perfect" (_has driven, has
+killed_) but may have ceased to do so at some point in the future.[62]
+Now form lives longer than its own conceptual content. Both are
+ceaselessly changing, but, on the whole, the form tends to linger on
+when the spirit has flown or changed its being. Irrational form, form
+for form's sake--however we term this tendency to hold on to formal
+distinctions once they have come to be--is as natural to the life of
+language as is the retention of modes of conduct that have long outlived
+the meaning they once had.
+
+[Footnote 61: Aside, naturally, from the life and imminence that may be
+created for such a sentence by a particular context.]
+
+[Footnote 62: This has largely happened in popular French and German,
+where the difference is stylistic rather than functional. The preterits
+are more literary or formal in tone than the perfects.]
+
+There is another powerful tendency which makes for a formal elaboration
+that does not strictly correspond to clear-cut conceptual differences.
+This is the tendency to construct schemes of classification into which
+all the concepts of language must be fitted. Once we have made up our
+minds that all things are either definitely good or bad or definitely
+black or white, it is difficult to get into the frame of mind that
+recognizes that any particular thing may be both good and bad (in other
+words, indifferent) or both black and white (in other words, gray),
+still more difficult to realize that the good-bad or black-white
+categories may not apply at all. Language is in many respects as
+unreasonable and stubborn about its classifications as is such a mind.
+It must have its perfectly exclusive pigeon-holes and will tolerate no
+flying vagrants. Any concept that asks for expression must submit to the
+classificatory rules of the game, just as there are statistical surveys
+in which even the most convinced atheist must perforce be labeled
+Catholic, Protestant, or Jew or get no hearing. In English we have made
+up our minds that all action must be conceived of in reference to three
+standard times. If, therefore, we desire to state a proposition that is
+as true to-morrow as it was yesterday, we have to pretend that the
+present moment may be elongated fore and aft so as to take in all
+eternity.[63] In French we know once for all that an object is masculine
+or feminine, whether it be living or not; just as in many American and
+East Asiatic languages it must be understood to belong to a certain
+form-category (say, ring-round, ball-round, long and slender,
+cylindrical, sheet-like, in mass like sugar) before it can be enumerated
+(e.g., "two ball-class potatoes," "three sheet-class carpets") or even
+said to "be" or "be handled in a definite way" (thus, in the Athabaskan
+languages and in Yana, "to carry" or "throw" a pebble is quite another
+thing than to carry or throw a log, linguistically no less than in terms
+of muscular experience). Such instances might be multiplied at will. It
+is almost as though at some period in the past the unconscious mind of
+the race had made a hasty inventory of experience, committed itself to a
+premature classification that allowed of no revision, and saddled the
+inheritors of its language with a science that they no longer quite
+believed in nor had the strength to overthrow. Dogma, rigidly prescribed
+by tradition, stiffens into formalism. Linguistic categories make up a
+system of surviving dogma--dogma of the unconscious. They are often but
+half real as concepts; their life tends ever to languish away into form
+for form's sake.
+
+[Footnote 63: Hence, "the square root of 4 _is_ 2," precisely as "my
+uncle _is_ here now." There are many "primitive" languages that are more
+philosophical and distinguish between a true "present" and a "customary"
+or "general" tense.]
+
+There is still a third cause for the rise of this non-significant form,
+or rather of non-significant differences of form. This is the mechanical
+operation of phonetic processes, which may bring about formal
+distinctions that have not and never had a corresponding functional
+distinction. Much of the irregularity and general formal complexity of
+our declensional and conjugational systems is due to this process. The
+plural of _hat_ is _hats_, the plural of _self_ is _selves_. In the
+former case we have a true _-s_ symbolizing plurality, in the latter a
+_z_-sound coupled with a change in the radical element of the word of
+_f_ to _v_. Here we have not a falling together of forms that
+originally stood for fairly distinct concepts--as we saw was presumably
+the case with such parallel forms as _drove_ and _worked_--but a merely
+mechanical manifolding of the same formal element without a
+corresponding growth of a new concept. This type of form development,
+therefore, while of the greatest interest for the general history of
+language, does not directly concern us now in our effort to understand
+the nature of grammatical concepts and their tendency to degenerate into
+purely formal counters.
+
+We may now conveniently revise our first classification of concepts as
+expressed in language and suggest the following scheme:
+
+  I. _Basic (Concrete) Concepts_ (such as objects, actions, qualities):
+    normally expressed by independent words or radical elements; involve
+    no relation as such[64]
+
+ II. _Derivational Concepts_ (less concrete, as a rule, than I, more so
+    than III): normally expressed by affixing non-radical elements to
+    radical elements or by inner modification of these; differ from type
+    I in defining ideas that are irrelevant to the proposition as a
+    whole but that give a radical element a particular increment of
+    significance and that are thus inherently related in a specific way
+    to concepts of type I[65]
+
+III. _Concrete Relational Concepts_ (still more abstract, yet not
+    entirely devoid of a measure of concreteness): normally expressed by
+    affixing non-radical elements to radical elements, but generally at
+    a greater remove from these than is the case with elements of type
+    II, or by inner modification of radical elements; differ
+    fundamentally from type II in indicating or implying relations that
+    transcend the particular word to which they are immediately
+    attached, thus leading over to
+
+ IV. _Pure Relational Concepts_ (purely abstract): normally expressed by
+    affixing non-radical elements to radical elements (in which case
+    these concepts are frequently intertwined with those of type III) or
+    by their inner modification, by independent words, or by position;
+    serve to relate the concrete elements of the proposition to each
+    other, thus giving it definite syntactic form.
+
+[Footnote 64: Except, of course, the fundamental selection and contrast
+necessarily implied in defining one concept as against another. "Man"
+and "white" possess an inherent relation to "woman" and "black," but it
+is a relation of conceptual content only and is of no direct interest to
+grammar.]
+
+[Footnote 65: Thus, the _-er_ of _farmer_ may he defined as indicating
+that particular substantive concept (object or thing) that serves as the
+habitual subject of the particular verb to which it is affixed. This
+relation of "subject" (_a farmer farms_) is inherent in and specific to
+the word; it does not exist for the sentence as a whole. In the same way
+the _-ling_ of _duckling_ defines a specific relation of attribution
+that concerns only the radical element, not the sentence.]
+
+The nature of these four classes of concepts as regards their
+concreteness or their power to express syntactic relations may be thus
+symbolized:
+               _
+    Material _/   I. Basic Concepts
+    Content   \_ II. Derivational Concepts
+               _
+    Relation _/ III. Concrete Relational Concepts
+              \_ IV. Pure Relational Concepts
+
+These schemes must not be worshipped as fetiches. In the actual work of
+analysis difficult problems frequently arise and we may well be in doubt
+as to how to group a given set of concepts. This is particularly apt to
+be the case in exotic languages, where we may be quite sure of the
+analysis of the words in a sentence and yet not succeed in acquiring
+that inner "feel" of its structure that enables us to tell infallibly
+what is "material content" and what is "relation." Concepts of class I
+are essential to all speech, also concepts of class IV. Concepts II and
+III are both common, but not essential; particularly group III, which
+represents, in effect, a psychological and formal confusion of types II
+and IV or of types I and IV, is an avoidable class of concepts.
+Logically there is an impassable gulf between I and IV, but the
+illogical, metaphorical genius of speech has wilfully spanned the gulf
+and set up a continuous gamut of concepts and forms that leads
+imperceptibly from the crudest of materialities ("house" or "John
+Smith") to the most subtle of relations. It is particularly significant
+that the unanalyzable independent word belongs in most cases to either
+group I or group IV, rather less commonly to II or III. It is possible
+for a concrete concept, represented by a simple word, to lose its
+material significance entirely and pass over directly into the
+relational sphere without at the same time losing its independence as a
+word. This happens, for instance, in Chinese and Cambodgian when the
+verb "give" is used in an abstract sense as a mere symbol of the
+"indirect objective" relation (e.g., Cambodgian "We make story this give
+all that person who have child," i.e., "We have made this story _for_
+all those that have children").
+
+There are, of course, also not a few instances of transitions between
+groups I and II and I and III, as well as of the less radical one
+between II and III. To the first of these transitions belongs that whole
+class of examples in which the independent word, after passing through
+the preliminary stage of functioning as the secondary or qualifying
+element in a compound, ends up by being a derivational affix pure and
+simple, yet without losing the memory of its former independence. Such
+an element and concept is the _full_ of _teaspoonfull_, which hovers
+psychologically between the status of an independent, radical concept
+(compare _full_) or of a subsidiary element in a compound (cf.
+_brim-full_) and that of a simple suffix (cf. _dutiful_) in which the
+primary concreteness is no longer felt. In general, the more highly
+synthetic our linguistic type, the more difficult and even arbitrary it
+becomes to distinguish groups I and II.
+
+Not only is there a gradual loss of the concrete as we pass through from
+group I to group IV, there is also a constant fading away of the feeling
+of sensible reality within the main groups of linguistic concepts
+themselves. In many languages it becomes almost imperative, therefore,
+to make various sub-classifications, to segregate, for instance, the
+more concrete from the more abstract concepts of group II. Yet we must
+always beware of reading into such abstracter groups that purely formal,
+relational feeling that we can hardly help associating with certain of
+the abstracter concepts which, with us, fall in group III, unless,
+indeed, there is clear evidence to warrant such a reading in. An example
+or two should make clear these all-important distinctions.[66] In Nootka
+we have an unusually large number of derivational affixes (expressing
+concepts of group II). Some of these are quite material in content
+(e.g., "in the house," "to dream of"), others, like an element denoting
+plurality and a diminutive affix, are far more abstract in content. The
+former type are more closely welded with the radical element than the
+latter, which can only be suffixed to formations that have the value of
+complete words. If, therefore, I wish to say "the small fires in the
+house"--and I can do this in one word--I must form the word
+"fire-in-the-house," to which elements corresponding to "small," our
+plural, and "the" are appended. The element indicating the definiteness
+of reference that is implied in our "the" comes at the very end of the
+word. So far, so good. "Fire-in-the-house-the" is an intelligible
+correlate of our "the house-fire."[67] But is the Nootka correlate of
+"the small fires in the house" the true equivalent of an English "_the
+house-firelets_"?[68] By no means. First of all, the plural element
+precedes the diminutive in Nootka: "fire-in-the-house-plural-small-the,"
+in other words "the house-fires-let," which at once reveals the
+important fact that the plural concept is not as abstractly, as
+relationally, felt as in English. A more adequate rendering would be
+"the house-fire-several-let," in which, however, "several" is too gross
+a word, "-let" too choice an element ("small" again is too gross). In
+truth we cannot carry over into English the inherent feeling of the
+Nootka word, which seems to hover somewhere between "the house-firelets"
+and "the house-fire-several-small." But what more than anything else
+cuts off all possibility of comparison between the English _-s_ of
+"house-firelets" and the "-several-small" of the Nootka word is this,
+that in Nootka neither the plural nor the diminutive affix corresponds
+or refers to anything else in the sentence. In English "the
+house-firelets burn" (not "burns"), in Nootka neither verb, nor
+adjective, nor anything else in the proposition is in the least
+concerned with the plurality or the diminutiveness of the fire. Hence,
+while Nootka recognizes a cleavage between concrete and less concrete
+concepts within group II, the less concrete do not transcend the group
+and lead us into that abstracter air into which our plural _-s_ carries
+us. But at any rate, the reader may object, it is something that the
+Nootka plural affix is set apart from the concreter group of affixes;
+and may not the Nootka diminutive have a slenderer, a more elusive
+content than our _-let_ or _-ling_ or the German _-chen_ or _-lein?_[69]
+
+[Footnote 66: It is precisely the failure to feel the "value" or "tone,"
+as distinct from the outer significance, of the concept expressed by a
+given grammatical element that has so often led students to
+misunderstand the nature of languages profoundly alien to their own. Not
+everything that calls itself "tense" or "mode" or "number" or "gender"
+or "person" is genuinely comparable to what we mean by these terms in
+Latin or French.]
+
+[Footnote 67: Suffixed articles occur also in Danish and Swedish and in
+numerous other languages. The Nootka element for "in the house" differs
+from our "house-" in that it is suffixed and cannot occur as an
+independent word; nor is it related to the Nootka word for "house."]
+
+[Footnote 68: Assuming the existence of a word "firelet."]
+
+[Footnote 69: The Nootka diminutive is doubtless more of a
+feeling-element, an element of nuance, than our _-ling_. This is shown
+by the fact that it may be used with verbs as well as with nouns. In
+speaking to a child, one is likely to add the diminutive to any word in
+the sentence, regardless of whether there is an inherent diminutive
+meaning in the word or not.]
+
+Can such a concept as that of plurality ever be classified with the more
+material concepts of group II? Indeed it can be. In Yana the third
+person of the verb makes no formal distinction between singular and
+plural. Nevertheless the plural concept can be, and nearly always is,
+expressed by the suffixing of an element (_-ba-_) to the radical element
+of the verb. "It burns in the east" is rendered by the verb _ya-hau-si_
+"burn-east-s."[70] "They burn in the east" is _ya-ba-hau-si_. Note that
+the plural affix immediately follows the radical element (_ya-_),
+disconnecting it from the local element (_-hau-_). It needs no labored
+argument to prove that the concept of plurality is here hardly less
+concrete than that of location "in the east," and that the Yana form
+corresponds in feeling not so much to our "They burn in the east"
+(_ardunt oriente_) as to a "Burn-several-east-s, it plurally burns in
+the east," an expression which we cannot adequately assimilate for lack
+of the necessary form-grooves into which to run it.
+
+[Footnote 70: _-si_ is the third person of the present tense. _-hau-_
+"east" is an affix, not a compounded radical element.]
+
+But can we go a step farther and dispose of the category of plurality as
+an utterly material idea, one that would make of "books" a "plural
+book," in which the "plural," like the "white" of "white book," falls
+contentedly into group I? Our "many books" and "several books" are
+obviously not cases in point. Even if we could say "many book" and
+"several book" (as we can say "many a book" and "each book"), the plural
+concept would still not emerge as clearly as it should for our argument;
+"many" and "several" are contaminated by certain notions of quantity or
+scale that are not essential to the idea of plurality itself. We must
+turn to central and eastern Asia for the type of expression we are
+seeking. In Tibetan, for instance, _nga-s mi mthong_[71] "I-by man see,
+by me a man is seen, I see a man" may just as well be understood to mean
+"I see men," if there happens to be no reason to emphasize the fact of
+plurality.[72] If the fact is worth expressing, however, I can say
+_nga-s mi rnams mthong_ "by me man plural see," where _rnams_ is the
+perfect conceptual analogue of _-s_ in _books_, divested of all
+relational strings. _Rnams_ follows its noun as would any other
+attributive word--"man plural" (whether two or a million) like "man
+white." No need to bother about his plurality any more than about his
+whiteness unless we insist on the point.
+
+[Footnote 71: These are classical, not modern colloquial, forms.]
+
+[Footnote 72: Just as in English "He has written books" makes no
+commitment on the score of quantity ("a few, several, many").]
+
+What is true of the idea of plurality is naturally just as true of a
+great many other concepts. They do not necessarily belong where we who
+speak English are in the habit of putting them. They may be shifted
+towards I or towards IV, the two poles of linguistic expression. Nor
+dare we look down on the Nootka Indian and the Tibetan for their
+material attitude towards a concept which to us is abstract and
+relational, lest we invite the reproaches of the Frenchman who feels a
+subtlety of relation in _femme blanche_ and _homme blanc_ that he misses
+in the coarser-grained _white woman_ and _white man_. But the Bantu
+Negro, were he a philosopher, might go further and find it strange that
+we put in group II a category, the diminutive, which he strongly feels
+to belong to group III and which he uses, along with a number of other
+classificatory concepts,[73] to relate his subjects and objects,
+attributes and predicates, as a Russian or a German handles his genders
+and, if possible, with an even greater finesse.
+
+[Footnote 73: Such as person class, animal class, instrument class,
+augmentative class.]
+
+It is because our conceptual scheme is a sliding scale rather than a
+philosophical analysis of experience that we cannot say in advance just
+where to put a given concept. We must dispense, in other words, with a
+well-ordered classification of categories. What boots it to put tense
+and mode here or number there when the next language one handles puts
+tense a peg "lower down" (towards I), mode and number a peg "higher up"
+(towards IV)? Nor is there much to be gained in a summary work of this
+kind from a general inventory of the types of concepts generally found
+in groups II, III, and IV. There are too many possibilities. It would be
+interesting to show what are the most typical noun-forming and
+verb-forming elements of group II; how variously nouns may be classified
+(by gender; personal and non-personal; animate and inanimate; by form;
+common and proper); how the concept of number is elaborated (singular
+and plural; singular, dual, and plural; singular, dual, trial, and
+plural; single, distributive, and collective); what tense distinctions
+may be made in verb or noun (the "past," for instance, may be an
+indefinite past, immediate, remote, mythical, completed, prior); how
+delicately certain languages have developed the idea of "aspect"[74]
+(momentaneous, durative, continuative, inceptive, cessative,
+durative-inceptive, iterative, momentaneous-iterative,
+durative-iterative, resultative, and still others); what modalities may
+be recognized (indicative, imperative, potential, dubitative, optative,
+negative, and a host of others[75]); what distinctions of person are
+possible (is "we," for instance, conceived of as a plurality of "I" or
+is it as distinct from "I" as either is from "you" or "he"?--both
+attitudes are illustrated in language; moreover, does "we" include you
+to whom I speak or not?--"inclusive" and "exclusive" forms); what may be
+the general scheme of orientation, the so-called demonstrative
+categories ("this" and "that" in an endless procession of nuances);[76]
+how frequently the form expresses the source or nature of the speaker's
+knowledge (known by actual experience, by hearsay,[77] by inference);
+how the syntactic relations may be expressed in the noun (subjective and
+objective; agentive, instrumental, and person affected;[78] various
+types of "genitive" and indirect relations) and, correspondingly, in the
+verb (active and passive; active and static; transitive and
+intransitive; impersonal, reflexive, reciprocal, indefinite as to
+object, and many other special limitations on the starting-point and
+end-point of the flow of activity). These details, important as many of
+them are to an understanding of the "inner form" of language, yield in
+general significance to the more radical group-distinctions that we have
+set up. It is enough for the general reader to feel that language
+struggles towards two poles of linguistic expression--material content
+and relation--and that these poles tend to be connected by a long series
+of transitional concepts.
+
+[Footnote 74: A term borrowed from Slavic grammar. It indicates the
+lapse of action, its nature from the standpoint of continuity. Our "cry"
+is indefinite as to aspect, "be crying" is durative, "cry put" is
+momentaneous, "burst into tears" is inceptive, "keep crying" is
+continuative, "start in crying" is durative-inceptive, "cry now and
+again" is iterative, "cry out every now and then" or "cry in fits and
+starts" is momentaneous-iterative. "To put on a coat" is momentaneous,
+"to wear a coat" is resultative. As our examples show, aspect is
+expressed in English by all kinds of idiomatic turns rather than by a
+consistently worked out set of grammatical forms. In many languages
+aspect is of far greater formal significance than tense, with which the
+naive student is apt to confuse it.]
+
+[Footnote 75: By "modalities" I do not mean the matter of fact
+statement, say, of negation or uncertainty as such, rather their
+implication in terms of form. There are languages, for instance, which
+have as elaborate an apparatus of negative forms for the verb as Greek
+has of the optative or wish-modality.]
+
+[Footnote 76: Compare page 97.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 76 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 2948.]
+
+[Footnote 77: It is because of this classification of experience that in
+many languages the verb forms which are proper, say, to a mythical
+narration differ from those commonly used in daily intercourse. We leave
+these shades to the context or content ourselves with a more explicit
+and roundabout mode of expression, e.g., "He is dead, as I happen to
+know," "They say he is dead," "He must be dead by the looks of things."]
+
+[Footnote 78: We say "_I_ sleep" and "_I_ go," as well as "_I_ kill
+him," but "he kills _me_." Yet _me_ of the last example is at least as
+close psychologically to _I_ of "I sleep" as is the latter to _I_ of "I
+kill him." It is only by form that we can classify the "I" notion of "I
+sleep" as that of an acting subject. Properly speaking, I am handled by
+forces beyond my control when I sleep just as truly as when some one is
+killing me. Numerous languages differentiate clearly between active
+subject and static subject (_I go_ and _I kill him_ as distinct from _I
+sleep_, _I am good_, _I am killed_) or between transitive subject and
+intransitive subject (_I kill him_ as distinct from _I sleep_, _I am
+good_, _I am killed_, _I go_). The intransitive or static subjects may
+or may not be identical with the object of the transitive verb.]
+
+In dealing with words and their varying forms we have had to anticipate
+much that concerns the sentence as a whole. Every language has its
+special method or methods of binding words into a larger unity. The
+importance of these methods is apt to vary with the complexity of the
+individual word. The more synthetic the language, in other words, the
+more clearly the status of each word in the sentence is indicated by its
+own resources, the less need is there for looking beyond the word to the
+sentence as a whole. The Latin _agit_ "(he) acts" needs no outside help
+to establish its place in a proposition. Whether I say _agit dominus_
+"the master acts" or _sic femina agit_ "thus the woman acts," the net
+result as to the syntactic feel of the _agit_ is practically the same.
+It can only be a verb, the predicate of a proposition, and it can only
+be conceived as a statement of activity carried out by a person (or
+thing) other than you or me. It is not so with such a word as the
+English _act_. _Act_ is a syntactic waif until we have defined its
+status in a proposition--one thing in "they act abominably," quite
+another in "that was a kindly act." The Latin sentence speaks with the
+assurance of its individual members, the English word needs the
+prompting of its fellows. Roughly speaking, to be sure. And yet to say
+that a sufficiently elaborate word-structure compensates for external
+syntactic methods is perilously close to begging the question. The
+elements of the word are related to each other in a specific way and
+follow each other in a rigorously determined sequence. This is
+tantamount to saying that a word which consists of more than a radical
+element is a crystallization of a sentence or of some portion of a
+sentence, that a form like _agit_ is roughly the psychological[79]
+equivalent of a form like _age is_ "act he." Breaking down, then, the
+wall that separates word and sentence, we may ask: What, at last
+analysis, are the fundamental methods of relating word to word and
+element to element, in short, of passing from the isolated notions
+symbolized by each word and by each element to the unified proposition
+that corresponds to a thought?
+
+[Footnote 79: Ultimately, also historical--say, _age to_ "act that
+(one)."]
+
+The answer is simple and is implied in the preceding remarks. The most
+fundamental and the most powerful of all relating methods is the method
+of order. Let us think of some more or less concrete idea, say a color,
+and set down its symbol--_red_; of another concrete idea, say a person
+or object, setting down its symbol--_dog_; finally, of a third concrete
+idea, say an action, setting down its symbol--_run_. It is hardly
+possible to set down these three symbols--_red dog run_--without
+relating them in some way, for example _(the) red dog run(s)_. I am far
+from wishing to state that the proposition has always grown up in this
+analytic manner, merely that the very process of juxtaposing concept to
+concept, symbol to symbol, forces some kind of relational "feeling," if
+nothing else, upon us. To certain syntactic adhesions we are very
+sensitive, for example, to the attributive relation of quality (_red
+dog_) or the subjective relation (_dog run_) or the objective relation
+(_kill dog_), to others we are more indifferent, for example, to the
+attributive relation of circumstance (_to-day red dog run_ or _red dog
+to-day run_ or _red dog run to-day_, all of which are equivalent
+propositions or propositions in embryo). Words and elements, then, once
+they are listed in a certain order, tend not only to establish some kind
+of relation among themselves but are attracted to each other in greater
+or in less degree. It is presumably this very greater or less that
+ultimately leads to those firmly solidified groups of elements (radical
+element or elements plus one or more grammatical elements) that we have
+studied as complex words. They are in all likelihood nothing but
+sequences that have shrunk together and away from other sequences or
+isolated elements in the flow of speech. While they are fully alive, in
+other words, while they are functional at every point, they can keep
+themselves at a psychological distance from their neighbors. As they
+gradually lose much of their life, they fall back into the embrace of
+the sentence as a whole and the sequence of independent words regains
+the importance it had in part transferred to the crystallized groups of
+elements. Speech is thus constantly tightening and loosening its
+sequences. In its highly integrated forms (Latin, Eskimo) the "energy"
+of sequence is largely locked up in complex word formations, it becomes
+transformed into a kind of potential energy that may not be released for
+millennia. In its more analytic forms (Chinese, English) this energy is
+mobile, ready to hand for such service as we demand of it.
+
+There can be little doubt that stress has frequently played a
+controlling influence in the formation of element-groups or complex
+words out of certain sequences in the sentence. Such an English word as
+_withstand_ is merely an old sequence _with stand_, i.e., "against[80]
+stand," in which the unstressed adverb was permanently drawn to the
+following verb and lost its independence as a significant element. In
+the same way French futures of the type _irai_ "(I) shall go" are but
+the resultants of a coalescence of originally independent words: _ir[81]
+a'i_ "to-go I-have," under the influence of a unifying accent. But
+stress has done more than articulate or unify sequences that in their
+own right imply a syntactic relation. Stress is the most natural means
+at our disposal to emphasize a linguistic contrast, to indicate the
+major element in a sequence. Hence we need not be surprised to find that
+accent too, no less than sequence, may serve as the unaided symbol of
+certain relations. Such a contrast as that of _go' between_ ("one who
+goes between") and _to go between'_ may be of quite secondary origin in
+English, but there is every reason to believe that analogous
+distinctions have prevailed at all times in linguistic history. A
+sequence like _see' man_ might imply some type of relation in which
+_see_ qualifies the following word, hence "a seeing man" or "a seen (or
+visible) man," or is its predication, hence "the man sees" or "the man
+is seen," while a sequence like _see man'_ might indicate that the
+accented word in some way limits the application of the first, say as
+direct object, hence "to see a man" or "(he) sees the man." Such
+alternations of relation, as symbolized by varying stresses, are
+important and frequent in a number of languages.[82]
+
+[Footnote 80: For _with_ in the sense of "against," compare German
+_wider_ "against."]
+
+[Footnote 81: Cf. Latin _ire_ "to go"; also our English idiom "I have to
+go," i.e., "must go."]
+
+[Footnote 82: In Chinese no less than in English.]
+
+It is a somewhat venturesome and yet not an altogether unreasonable
+speculation that sees in word order and stress the primary methods for
+the expression of all syntactic relations and looks upon the present
+relational value of specific words and elements as but a secondary
+condition due to a transfer of values. Thus, we may surmise that the
+Latin _-m_ of words like _feminam_, _dominum_, and _civem_ did not
+originally[83] denote that "woman," "master," and "citizen" were
+objectively related to the verb of the proposition but indicated
+something far more concrete,[84] that the objective relation was merely
+implied by the position or accent of the word (radical element)
+immediately preceding the _-m_, and that gradually, as its more concrete
+significance faded away, it took over a syntactic function that did not
+originally belong to it. This sort of evolution by transfer is traceable
+in many instances. Thus, the _of_ in an English phrase like "the law of
+the land" is now as colorless in content, as purely a relational
+indicator as the "genitive" suffix _-is_ in the Latin _lex urbis_ "the
+law of the city." We know, however, that it was originally an adverb of
+considerable concreteness of meaning,[85] "away, moving from," and that
+the syntactic relation was originally expressed by the case form[86] of
+the second noun. As the case form lost its vitality, the adverb took
+over its function. If we are actually justified in assuming that the
+expression of all syntactic relations is ultimately traceable to these
+two unavoidable, dynamic features of speech--sequence and stress[87]--an
+interesting thesis results:--All of the actual content of speech, its
+clusters of vocalic and consonantal sounds, is in origin limited to the
+concrete; relations were originally not expressed in outward form but
+were merely implied and articulated with the help of order and rhythm.
+In other words, relations were intuitively felt and could only "leak
+out" with the help of dynamic factors that themselves move on an
+intuitional plane.
+
+[Footnote 83: By "originally" I mean, of course, some time antedating
+the earliest period of the Indo-European languages that we can get at by
+comparative evidence.]
+
+[Footnote 84: Perhaps it was a noun-classifying element of some sort.]
+
+[Footnote 85: Compare its close historical parallel _off_.]
+
+[Footnote 86: "Ablative" at last analysis.]
+
+[Footnote 87: Very likely pitch should be understood along with stress.]
+
+There is a special method for the expression of relations that has been
+so often evolved in the history of language that we must glance at it
+for a moment. This is the method of "concord" or of like signaling. It
+is based on the same principle as the password or label. All persons or
+objects that answer to the same counter-sign or that bear the same
+imprint are thereby stamped as somehow related. It makes little
+difference, once they are so stamped, where they are to be found or how
+they behave themselves. They are known to belong together. We are
+familiar with the principle of concord in Latin and Greek. Many of us
+have been struck by such relentless rhymes as _vidi ilium bonum dominum_
+"I saw that good master" or _quarum dearum saevarum_ "of which stern
+goddesses." Not that sound-echo, whether in the form of rhyme or of
+alliteration[88] is necessary to concord, though in its most typical and
+original forms concord is nearly always accompanied by sound repetition.
+The essence of the principle is simply this, that words (elements) that
+belong together, particularly if they are syntactic equivalents or are
+related in like fashion to another word or element, are outwardly marked
+by the same or functionally equivalent affixes. The application of the
+principle varies considerably according to the genius of the particular
+language. In Latin and Greek, for instance, there is concord between
+noun and qualifying word (adjective or demonstrative) as regards gender,
+number, and case, between verb and subject only as regards number, and
+no concord between verb and object.
+
+[Footnote 88: As in Bantu or Chinook.]
+
+In Chinook there is a more far-reaching concord between noun, whether
+subject or object, and verb. Every noun is classified according to five
+categories--masculine, feminine, neuter,[89] dual, and plural. "Woman"
+is feminine, "sand" is neuter, "table" is masculine. If, therefore, I
+wish to say "The woman put the sand on the table," I must place in the
+verb certain class or gender prefixes that accord with corresponding
+noun prefixes. The sentence reads then, "The (fem.)-woman she (fem.)-it
+(neut.)-it (masc.)-on-put the (neut.)-sand the (masc.)-table." If "sand"
+is qualified as "much" and "table" as "large," these new ideas are
+expressed as abstract nouns, each with its inherent class-prefix ("much"
+is neuter or feminine, "large" is masculine) and with a possessive
+prefix referring to the qualified noun. Adjective thus calls to noun,
+noun to verb. "The woman put much sand on the large table," therefore,
+takes the form: "The (fem.)-woman she (fem.)-it (neut.)-it
+(masc.)-on-put the (fem.)-thereof (neut.)-quantity the (neut.)-sand the
+(masc.)-thereof (masc.)-largeness the (masc.)-table." The classification
+of "table" as masculine is thus three times insisted on--in the noun, in
+the adjective, and in the verb. In the Bantu languages,[90] the
+principle of concord works very much as in Chinook. In them also nouns
+are classified into a number of categories and are brought into relation
+with adjectives, demonstratives, relative pronouns, and verbs by means
+of prefixed elements that call off the class and make up a complex
+system of concordances. In such a sentence as "That fierce lion who came
+here is dead," the class of "lion," which we may call the animal class,
+would be referred to by concording prefixes no less than six
+times,--with the demonstrative ("that"), the qualifying adjective, the
+noun itself, the relative pronoun, the subjective prefix to the verb of
+the relative clause, and the subjective prefix to the verb of the main
+clause ("is dead"). We recognize in this insistence on external clarity
+of reference the same spirit as moves in the more familiar _illum bonum
+dominum_.
+
+[Footnote 89: Perhaps better "general." The Chinook "neuter" may refer
+to persons as well as things and may also be used as a plural.
+"Masculine" and "feminine," as in German and French, include a great
+number of inanimate nouns.]
+
+[Footnote 90: Spoken in the greater part of the southern half of Africa.
+Chinook is spoken in a number of dialects in the lower Columbia River
+valley. It is impressive to observe how the human mind has arrived at
+the same form of expression in two such historically unconnected
+regions.]
+
+Psychologically the methods of sequence and accent lie at the opposite
+pole to that of concord. Where they are all for implication, for
+subtlety of feeling, concord is impatient of the least ambiguity but
+must have its well-certificated tags at every turn. Concord tends to
+dispense with order. In Latin and Chinook the independent words are free
+in position, less so in Bantu. In both Chinook and Bantu, however, the
+methods of concord and order are equally important for the
+differentiation of subject and object, as the classifying verb prefixes
+refer to subject, object, or indirect object according to the relative
+position they occupy. These examples again bring home to us the
+significant fact that at some point or other order asserts itself in
+every language as the most fundamental of relating principles.
+
+The observant reader has probably been surprised that all this time we
+have had so little to say of the time-honored "parts of speech." The
+reason for this is not far to seek. Our conventional classification of
+words into parts of speech is only a vague, wavering approximation to a
+consistently worked out inventory of experience. We imagine, to begin
+with, that all "verbs" are inherently concerned with action as such,
+that a "noun" is the name of some definite object or personality that
+can be pictured by the mind, that all qualities are necessarily
+expressed by a definite group of words to which we may appropriately
+apply the term "adjective." As soon as we test our vocabulary, we
+discover that the parts of speech are far from corresponding to so
+simple an analysis of reality. We say "it is red" and define "red" as a
+quality-word or adjective. We should consider it strange to think of an
+equivalent of "is red" in which the whole predication (adjective and
+verb of being) is conceived of as a verb in precisely the same way in
+which we think of "extends" or "lies" or "sleeps" as a verb. Yet as soon
+as we give the "durative" notion of being red an inceptive or
+transitional turn, we can avoid the parallel form "it becomes red, it
+turns red" and say "it reddens." No one denies that "reddens" is as good
+a verb as "sleeps" or even "walks." Yet "it is red" is related to "it
+reddens" very much as is "he stands" to "he stands up" or "he rises." It
+is merely a matter of English or of general Indo-European idiom that we
+cannot say "it reds" in the sense of "it is red." There are hundreds of
+languages that can. Indeed there are many that can express what we
+should call an adjective only by making a participle out of a verb.
+"Red" in such languages is merely a derivative "being red," as our
+"sleeping" or "walking" are derivatives of primary verbs.
+
+Just as we can verbify the idea of a quality in such cases as "reddens,"
+so we can represent a quality or an action to ourselves as a thing. We
+speak of "the height of a building" or "the fall of an apple" quite as
+though these ideas were parallel to "the roof of a building" or "the
+skin of an apple," forgetting that the nouns (_height_, _fall_) have not
+ceased to indicate a quality and an act when we have made them speak
+with the accent of mere objects. And just as there are languages that
+make verbs of the great mass of adjectives, so there are others that
+make nouns of them. In Chinook, as we have seen, "the big table" is
+"the-table its-bigness"; in Tibetan the same idea may be expressed by
+"the table of bigness," very much as we may say "a man of wealth"
+instead of "a rich man."
+
+But are there not certain ideas that it is impossible to render except
+by way of such and such parts of speech? What can be done with the "to"
+of "he came to the house"? Well, we can say "he reached the house" and
+dodge the preposition altogether, giving the verb a nuance that absorbs
+the idea of local relation carried by the "to." But let us insist on
+giving independence to this idea of local relation. Must we not then
+hold to the preposition? No, we can make a noun of it. We can say
+something like "he reached the proximity of the house" or "he reached
+the house-locality." Instead of saying "he looked into the glass" we may
+say "he scrutinized the glass-interior." Such expressions are stilted in
+English because they do not easily fit into our formal grooves, but in
+language after language we find that local relations are expressed in
+just this way. The local relation is nominalized. And so we might go on
+examining the various parts of speech and showing how they not merely
+grade into each other but are to an astonishing degree actually
+convertible into each other. The upshot of such an examination would be
+to feel convinced that the "part of speech" reflects not so much our
+intuitive analysis of reality as our ability to compose that reality
+into a variety of formal patterns. A part of speech outside of the
+limitations of syntactic form is but a will o' the wisp. For this reason
+no logical scheme of the parts of speech--their number, nature, and
+necessary confines--is of the slightest interest to the linguist. Each
+language has its own scheme. Everything depends on the formal
+demarcations which it recognizes.
+
+Yet we must not be too destructive. It is well to remember that speech
+consists of a series of propositions. There must be something to talk
+about and something must be said about this subject of discourse once it
+is selected. This distinction is of such fundamental importance that the
+vast majority of languages have emphasized it by creating some sort of
+formal barrier between the two terms of the proposition. The subject of
+discourse is a noun. As the most common subject of discourse is either a
+person or a thing, the noun clusters about concrete concepts of that
+order. As the thing predicated of a subject is generally an activity in
+the widest sense of the word, a passage from one moment of existence to
+another, the form which has been set aside for the business of
+predicating, in other words, the verb, clusters about concepts of
+activity. No language wholly fails to distinguish noun and verb, though
+in particular cases the nature of the distinction may be an elusive one.
+It is different with the other parts of speech. Not one of them is
+imperatively required for the life of language.[91]
+
+[Footnote 91: In Yana the noun and the verb are well distinct, though
+there are certain features that they hold in common which tend to draw
+them nearer to each other than we feel to be possible. But there are,
+strictly speaking, no other parts of speech. The adjective is a verb. So
+are the numeral, the interrogative pronoun (e.g., "to be what?"), and
+certain "conjunctions" and adverbs (e.g., "to be and" and "to be not";
+one says "and-past-I go," i.e., "and I went"). Adverbs and prepositions
+are either nouns or merely derivative affixes in the verb.]
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+TYPES OF LINGUISTIC STRUCTURE
+
+
+So far, in dealing with linguistic form, we have been concerned only
+with single words and with the relations of words in sentences. We have
+not envisaged whole languages as conforming to this or that general
+type. Incidentally we have observed that one language runs to tight-knit
+synthesis where another contents itself with a more analytic, piece-meal
+handling of its elements, or that in one language syntactic relations
+appear pure which in another are combined with certain other notions
+that have something concrete about them, however abstract they may be
+felt to be in practice. In this way we may have obtained some inkling of
+what is meant when we speak of the general form of a language. For it
+must be obvious to any one who has thought about the question at all or
+who has felt something of the spirit of a foreign language that there is
+such a thing as a basic plan, a certain cut, to each language. This type
+or plan or structural "genius" of the language is something much more
+fundamental, much more pervasive, than any single feature of it that we
+can mention, nor can we gain an adequate idea of its nature by a mere
+recital of the sundry facts that make up the grammar of the language.
+When we pass from Latin to Russian, we feel that it is approximately the
+same horizon that bounds our view, even though the near, familiar
+landmarks have changed. When we come to English, we seem to notice that
+the hills have dipped down a little, yet we recognize the general lay
+of the land. And when we have arrived at Chinese, it is an utterly
+different sky that is looking down upon us. We can translate these
+metaphors and say that all languages differ from one another but that
+certain ones differ far more than others. This is tantamount to saying
+that it is possible to group them into morphological types.
+
+Strictly speaking, we know in advance that it is impossible to set up a
+limited number of types that would do full justice to the peculiarities
+of the thousands of languages and dialects spoken on the surface of the
+earth. Like all human institutions, speech is too variable and too
+elusive to be quite safely ticketed. Even if we operate with a minutely
+subdivided scale of types, we may be quite certain that many of our
+languages will need trimming before they fit. To get them into the
+scheme at all it will be necessary to overestimate the significance of
+this or that feature or to ignore, for the time being, certain
+contradictions in their mechanism. Does the difficulty of classification
+prove the uselessness of the task? I do not think so. It would be too
+easy to relieve ourselves of the burden of constructive thinking and to
+take the standpoint that each language has its unique history, therefore
+its unique structure. Such a standpoint expresses only a half truth.
+Just as similar social, economic, and religious institutions have grown
+up in different parts of the world from distinct historical antecedents,
+so also languages, traveling along different roads, have tended to
+converge toward similar forms. Moreover, the historical study of
+language has proven to us beyond all doubt that a language changes not
+only gradually but consistently, that it moves unconsciously from one
+type towards another, and that analogous trends are observable in
+remote quarters of the globe. From this it follows that broadly similar
+morphologies must have been reached by unrelated languages,
+independently and frequently. In assuming the existence of comparable
+types, therefore, we are not gainsaying the individuality of all
+historical processes; we are merely affirming that back of the face of
+history are powerful drifts that move language, like other social
+products, to balanced patterns, in other words, to types. As linguists
+we shall be content to realize that there are these types and that
+certain processes in the life of language tend to modify them. Why
+similar types should be formed, just what is the nature of the forces
+that make them and dissolve them--these questions are more easily asked
+than answered. Perhaps the psychologists of the future will be able to
+give us the ultimate reasons for the formation of linguistic types.
+
+When it comes to the actual task of classification, we find that we have
+no easy road to travel. Various classifications have been suggested, and
+they all contain elements of value. Yet none proves satisfactory. They
+do not so much enfold the known languages in their embrace as force them
+down into narrow, straight-backed seats. The difficulties have been of
+various kinds. First and foremost, it has been difficult to choose a
+point of view. On what basis shall we classify? A language shows us so
+many facets that we may well be puzzled. And is one point of view
+sufficient? Secondly, it is dangerous to generalize from a small number
+of selected languages. To take, as the sum total of our material, Latin,
+Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, and perhaps Eskimo or Sioux as an
+afterthought, is to court disaster. We have no right to assume that a
+sprinkling of exotic types will do to supplement the few languages
+nearer home that we are more immediately interested in. Thirdly, the
+strong craving for a simple formula[92] has been the undoing of
+linguists. There is something irresistible about a method of
+classification that starts with two poles, exemplified, say, by Chinese
+and Latin, clusters what it conveniently can about these poles, and
+throws everything else into a "transitional type." Hence has arisen the
+still popular classification of languages into an "isolating" group, an
+"agglutinative" group, and an "inflective" group. Sometimes the
+languages of the American Indians are made to straggle along as an
+uncomfortable "polysynthetic" rear-guard to the agglutinative languages.
+There is justification for the use of all of these terms, though not
+perhaps in quite the spirit in which they are commonly employed. In any
+case it is very difficult to assign all known languages to one or other
+of these groups, the more so as they are not mutually exclusive. A
+language may be both agglutinative and inflective, or inflective and
+polysynthetic, or even polysynthetic and isolating, as we shall see a
+little later on.
+
+[Footnote 92: If possible, a triune formula.]
+
+There is a fourth reason why the classification of languages has
+generally proved a fruitless undertaking. It is probably the most
+powerful deterrent of all to clear thinking. This is the evolutionary
+prejudice which instilled itself into the social sciences towards the
+middle of the last century and which is only now beginning to abate its
+tyrannical hold on our mind. Intermingled with this scientific prejudice
+and largely anticipating it was another, a more human one. The vast
+majority of linguistic theorists themselves spoke languages of a certain
+type, of which the most fully developed varieties were the Latin and
+Greek that they had learned in their childhood. It was not difficult
+for them to be persuaded that these familiar languages represented the
+"highest" development that speech had yet attained and that all other
+types were but steps on the way to this beloved "inflective" type.
+Whatever conformed to the pattern of Sanskrit and Greek and Latin and
+German was accepted as expressive of the "highest," whatever departed
+from it was frowned upon as a shortcoming or was at best an interesting
+aberration.[93] Now any classification that starts with preconceived
+values or that works up to sentimental satisfactions is self-condemned
+as unscientific. A linguist that insists on talking about the Latin type
+of morphology as though it were necessarily the high-water mark of
+linguistic development is like the zoölogist that sees in the organic
+world a huge conspiracy to evolve the race-horse or the Jersey cow.
+Language in its fundamental forms is the symbolic expression of human
+intuitions. These may shape themselves in a hundred ways, regardless of
+the material advancement or backwardness of the people that handle the
+forms, of which, it need hardly be said, they are in the main
+unconscious. If, therefore, we wish to understand language in its true
+inwardness we must disabuse our minds of preferred "values"[94] and
+accustom ourselves to look upon English and Hottentot with the same
+cool, yet interested, detachment.
+
+[Footnote 93: One celebrated American writer on culture and language
+delivered himself of the dictum that, estimable as the speakers of
+agglutinative languages might be, it was nevertheless a crime for an
+inflecting woman to marry an agglutinating man. Tremendous spiritual
+values were evidently at stake. Champions of the "inflective" languages
+are wont to glory in the very irrationalities of Latin and Greek, except
+when it suits them to emphasize their profoundly "logical" character.
+Yet the sober logic of Turkish or Chinese leaves them cold. The glorious
+irrationalities and formal complexities of many "savage" languages they
+have no stomach for. Sentimentalists are difficult people.]
+
+[Footnote 94: I have in mind valuations of form as such. Whether or not
+a language has a large and useful vocabulary is another matter. The
+actual size of a vocabulary at a given time is not a thing of real
+interest to the linguist, as all languages have the resources at their
+disposal for the creation of new words, should need for them arise.
+Furthermore, we are not in the least concerned with whether or not a
+language is of great practical value or is the medium of a great
+culture. All these considerations, important from other standpoints,
+have nothing to do with form value.]
+
+We come back to our first difficulty. What point of view shall we adopt
+for our classification? After all that we have said about grammatical
+form in the preceding chapter, it is clear that we cannot now make the
+distinction between form languages and formless languages that used to
+appeal to some of the older writers. Every language can and must express
+the fundamental syntactic relations even though there is not a single
+affix to be found in its vocabulary. We conclude that every language is
+a form language. Aside from the expression of pure relation a language
+may, of course, be "formless"--formless, that is, in the mechanical and
+rather superficial sense that it is not encumbered by the use of
+non-radical elements. The attempt has sometimes been made to formulate a
+distinction on the basis of "inner form." Chinese, for instance, has no
+formal elements pure and simple, no "outer form," but it evidences a
+keen sense of relations, of the difference between subject and object,
+attribute and predicate, and so on. In other words, it has an "inner
+form" in the same sense in which Latin possesses it, though it is
+outwardly "formless" where Latin is outwardly "formal." On the other
+hand, there are supposed to be languages[95] which have no true grasp of
+the fundamental relations but content themselves with the more or less
+minute expression of material ideas, sometimes with an exuberant
+display of "outer form," leaving the pure relations to be merely
+inferred from the context. I am strongly inclined to believe that this
+supposed "inner formlessness" of certain languages is an illusion. It
+may well be that in these languages the relations are not expressed in
+as immaterial a way as in Chinese or even as in Latin,[96] or that the
+principle of order is subject to greater fluctuations than in Chinese,
+or that a tendency to complex derivations relieves the language of the
+necessity of expressing certain relations as explicitly as a more
+analytic language would have them expressed.[97] All this does not mean
+that the languages in question have not a true feeling for the
+fundamental relations. We shall therefore not be able to use the notion
+of "inner formlessness," except in the greatly modified sense that
+syntactic relations may be fused with notions of another order. To this
+criterion of classification we shall have to return a little later.
+
+[Footnote 95: E.g., Malay, Polynesian.]
+
+[Footnote 96: Where, as we have seen, the syntactic relations are by no
+means free from an alloy of the concrete.]
+
+[Footnote 97: Very much as an English _cod-liver oil_ dodges to some
+extent the task of explicitly defining the relations of the three nouns.
+Contrast French _huile de foie de morue_ "oil of liver of cod."]
+
+More justifiable would be a classification according to the formal
+processes[98] most typically developed in the language. Those languages
+that always identify the word with the radical element would be set off
+as an "isolating" group against such as either affix modifying elements
+(affixing languages) or possess the power to change the significance of
+the radical element by internal changes (reduplication; vocalic and
+consonantal change; changes in quantity, stress, and pitch). The latter
+type might be not inaptly termed "symbolic" languages.[99] The affixing
+languages would naturally subdivide themselves into such as are
+prevailingly prefixing, like Bantu or Tlingit, and such as are mainly or
+entirely suffixing, like Eskimo or Algonkin or Latin. There are two
+serious difficulties with this fourfold classification (isolating,
+prefixing, suffixing, symbolic). In the first place, most languages fall
+into more than one of these groups. The Semitic languages, for instance,
+are prefixing, suffixing, and symbolic at one and the same time. In the
+second place, the classification in its bare form is superficial. It
+would throw together languages that differ utterly in spirit merely
+because of a certain external formal resemblance. There is clearly a
+world of difference between a prefixing language like Cambodgian, which
+limits itself, so far as its prefixes (and infixes) are concerned, to
+the expression of derivational concepts, and the Bantu languages, in
+which the prefixed elements have a far-reaching significance as symbols
+of syntactic relations. The classification has much greater value if it
+is taken to refer to the expression of relational concepts[100] alone.
+In this modified form we shall return to it as a subsidiary criterion.
+We shall find that the terms "isolating," "affixing," and "symbolic"
+have a real value. But instead of distinguishing between prefixing and
+suffixing languages, we shall find that it is of superior interest to
+make another distinction, one that is based on the relative firmness
+with which the affixed elements are united with the core of the
+word.[101]
+
+[Footnote 98: See Chapter IV.]
+
+[Footnote 99: There is probably a real psychological connection between
+symbolism and such significant alternations as _drink_, _drank_, _drunk_
+or Chinese _mai_ (with rising tone) "to buy" and _mai_ (with falling
+tone) "to sell." The unconscious tendency toward symbolism is justly
+emphasized by recent psychological literature. Personally I feel that
+the passage from _sing_ to _sang_ has very much the same feeling as the
+alternation of symbolic colors--e.g., green for safe, red for danger.
+But we probably differ greatly as to the intensity with which we feel
+symbolism in linguistic changes of this type.]
+
+[Footnote 100: Pure or "concrete relational." See Chapter V.]
+
+[Footnote 101: In spite of my reluctance to emphasize the difference
+between a prefixing and a suffixing language, I feel that there is more
+involved in this difference than linguists have generally recognized. It
+seems to me that there is a rather important psychological distinction
+between a language that settles the formal status of a radical element
+before announcing it--and this, in effect, is what such languages as
+Tlingit and Chinook and Bantu are in the habit of doing--and one that
+begins with the concrete nucleus of a word and defines the status of
+this nucleus by successive limitations, each curtailing in some degree
+the generality of all that precedes. The spirit of the former method has
+something diagrammatic or architectural about it, the latter is a method
+of pruning afterthoughts. In the more highly wrought prefixing languages
+the word is apt to affect us as a crystallization of floating elements,
+the words of the typical suffixing languages (Turkish, Eskimo, Nootka)
+are "determinative" formations, each added element determining the form
+of the whole anew. It is so difficult in practice to apply these
+elusive, yet important, distinctions that an elementary study has no
+recourse but to ignore them.]
+
+There is another very useful set of distinctions that can be made, but
+these too must not be applied exclusively, or our classification will
+again be superficial. I refer to the notions of "analytic," "synthetic,"
+and "polysynthetic." The terms explain themselves. An analytic language
+is one that either does not combine concepts into single words at all
+(Chinese) or does so economically (English, French). In an analytic
+language the sentence is always of prime importance, the word is of
+minor interest. In a synthetic language (Latin, Arabic, Finnish) the
+concepts cluster more thickly, the words are more richly chambered, but
+there is a tendency, on the whole, to keep the range of concrete
+significance in the single word down to a moderate compass. A
+polysynthetic language, as its name implies, is more than ordinarily
+synthetic. The elaboration of the word is extreme. Concepts which we
+should never dream of treating in a subordinate fashion are symbolized
+by derivational affixes or "symbolic" changes in the radical element,
+while the more abstract notions, including the syntactic relations, may
+also be conveyed by the word. A polysynthetic language illustrates no
+principles that are not already exemplified in the more familiar
+synthetic languages. It is related to them very much as a synthetic
+language is related to our own analytic English.[102] The three terms
+are purely quantitative--and relative, that is, a language may be
+"analytic" from one standpoint, "synthetic" from another. I believe the
+terms are more useful in defining certain drifts than as absolute
+counters. It is often illuminating to point out that a language has been
+becoming more and more analytic in the course of its history or that it
+shows signs of having crystallized from a simple analytic base into a
+highly synthetic form.[103]
+
+[Footnote 102: English, however, is only analytic in tendency.
+Relatively to French, it is still fairly synthetic, at least in certain
+aspects.]
+
+[Footnote 103: The former process is demonstrable for English, French,
+Danish, Tibetan, Chinese, and a host of other languages. The latter
+tendency may be proven, I believe, for a number of American Indian
+languages, e.g., Chinook, Navaho. Underneath their present moderately
+polysynthetic form is discernible an analytic base that in the one case
+may be roughly described as English-like, in the other, Tibetan-like.]
+
+We now come to the difference between an "inflective" and an
+"agglutinative" language. As I have already remarked, the distinction is
+a useful, even a necessary, one, but it has been generally obscured by a
+number of irrelevancies and by the unavailing effort to make the terms
+cover all languages that are not, like Chinese, of a definitely
+isolating cast. The meaning that we had best assign to the term
+"inflective" can be gained by considering very briefly what are some of
+the basic features of Latin and Greek that have been looked upon as
+peculiar to the inflective languages. First of all, they are synthetic
+rather than analytic. This does not help us much. Relatively to many
+another language that resembles them in broad structural respects, Latin
+and Greek are not notably synthetic; on the other hand, their modern
+descendants, Italian and Modern Greek, while far more analytic[104] than
+they, have not departed so widely in structural outlines as to warrant
+their being put in a distinct major group. An inflective language, we
+must insist, may be analytic, synthetic, or polysynthetic.
+
+[Footnote 104: This applies more particularly to the Romance group:
+Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Roumanian. Modern Greek is not so
+clearly analytic.]
+
+Latin and Greek are mainly affixing in their method, with the emphasis
+heavily on suffixing. The agglutinative languages are just as typically
+affixing as they, some among them favoring prefixes, others running to
+the use of suffixes. Affixing alone does not define inflection. Possibly
+everything depends on just what kind of affixing we have to deal with.
+If we compare our English words _farmer_ and _goodness_ with such words
+as _height_ and _depth_, we cannot fail to be struck by a notable
+difference in the affixing technique of the two sets. The _-er_ and
+_-ness_ are affixed quite mechanically to radical elements which are at
+the same time independent words (_farm_, _good_). They are in no sense
+independently significant elements, but they convey their meaning
+(agentive, abstract quality) with unfailing directness. Their use is
+simple and regular and we should have no difficulty in appending them to
+any verb or to any adjective, however recent in origin. From a verb _to
+camouflage_ we may form the noun _camouflager_ "one who camouflages,"
+from an adjective _jazzy_ proceeds with perfect ease the noun
+_jazziness_. It is different with _height_ and _depth_. Functionally
+they are related to _high_ and _deep_ precisely as is _goodness_ to
+_good_, but the degree of coalescence between radical element and affix
+is greater. Radical element and affix, while measurably distinct, cannot
+be torn apart quite so readily as could the _good_ and _-ness_ of
+_goodness_. The _-t_ of _height_ is not the typical form of the affix
+(compare _strength_, _length_, _filth_, _breadth_, _youth_), while
+_dep-_ is not identical with _deep_. We may designate the two types of
+affixing as "fusing" and "juxtaposing." The juxtaposing technique we may
+call an "agglutinative" one, if we like.
+
+Is the fusing technique thereby set off as the essence of inflection? I
+am afraid that we have not yet reached our goal. If our language were
+crammed full of coalescences of the type of _depth_, but if, on the
+other hand, it used the plural independently of verb concord (e.g., _the
+books falls_ like _the book falls_, or _the book fall_ like _the books
+fall_), the personal endings independently of tense (e.g., _the book
+fells_ like _the book falls_, or _the book fall_ like _the book fell_),
+and the pronouns independently of case (e.g., _I see he_ like _he sees
+me_, or _him see the man_ like _the man sees him_), we should hesitate
+to describe it as inflective. The mere fact of fusion does not seem to
+satisfy us as a clear indication of the inflective process. There are,
+indeed, a large number of languages that fuse radical element and affix
+in as complete and intricate a fashion as one could hope to find
+anywhere without thereby giving signs of that particular kind of
+formalism that marks off such languages as Latin and Greek as
+inflective.
+
+What is true of fusion is equally true of the "symbolic" processes.[105]
+There are linguists that speak of alternations like _drink_ and _drank_
+as though they represented the high-water mark of inflection, a kind of
+spiritualized essence of pure inflective form. In such Greek forms,
+nevertheless, as _pepomph-a_ "I have sent," as contrasted with _pemp-o_
+"I send," with its trebly symbolic change of the radical element
+(reduplicating _pe-_, change of _e_ to _o_, change of _p_ to _ph_), it
+is rather the peculiar alternation of the first person singular _-a_ of
+the perfect with the _-o_ of the present that gives them their
+inflective cast. Nothing could be more erroneous than to imagine that
+symbolic changes of the radical element, even for the expression of such
+abstract concepts as those of number and tense, is always associated
+with the syntactic peculiarities of an inflective language. If by an
+"agglutinative" language we mean one that affixes according to the
+juxtaposing technique, then we can only say that there are hundreds of
+fusing and symbolic languages--non-agglutinative by definition--that
+are, for all that, quite alien in spirit to the inflective type of Latin
+and Greek. We can call such languages inflective, if we like, but we
+must then be prepared to revise radically our notion of inflective form.
+
+[Footnote 105: See pages 133, 134.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 105 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 4081.]
+
+It is necessary to understand that fusion of the radical element and the
+affix may be taken in a broader psychological sense than I have yet
+indicated. If every noun plural in English were of the type of _book_:
+_books_, if there were not such conflicting patterns as _deer_: _deer_,
+_ox_: _oxen_, _goose_: _geese_ to complicate the general form picture of
+plurality, there is little doubt that the fusion of the elements _book_
+and _-s_ into the unified word _books_ would be felt as a little less
+complete than it actually is. One reasons, or feels, unconsciously about
+the matter somewhat as follows:--If the form pattern represented by the
+word _books_ is identical, as far as use is concerned, with that of the
+word _oxen_, the pluralizing elements _-s_ and _-en_ cannot have quite
+so definite, quite so autonomous, a value as we might at first be
+inclined to suppose. They are plural elements only in so far as
+plurality is predicated of certain selected concepts. The words _books_
+and _oxen_ are therefore a little other than mechanical combinations of
+the symbol of a thing (_book_, _ox_) and a clear symbol of plurality.
+There is a slight psychological uncertainty or haze about the juncture
+in _book-s_ and _ox-en_. A little of the force of _-s_ and _-en_ is
+anticipated by, or appropriated by, the words _book_ and _ox_
+themselves, just as the conceptual force of _-th_ in _dep-th_ is
+appreciably weaker than that of _-ness_ in _good-ness_ in spite of the
+functional parallelism between _depth_ and _goodness_. Where there is
+uncertainty about the juncture, where the affixed element cannot rightly
+claim to possess its full share of significance, the unity of the
+complete word is more strongly emphasized. The mind must rest on
+something. If it cannot linger on the constituent elements, it hastens
+all the more eagerly to the acceptance of the word as a whole. A word
+like _goodness_ illustrates "agglutination," _books_ "regular fusion,"
+_depth_ "irregular fusion," _geese_ "symbolic fusion" or
+"symbolism."[106]
+
+[Footnote 106: The following formulae may prove useful to those that are
+mathematically inclined. Agglutination: c = a + b; regular fusion:
+c = a + (b - x) + x; irregular fusion: c = (a - x) + (b - y) + (x + y);
+symbolism: c = (a - x) + x. I do not wish to imply that there is any
+mystic value in the process of fusion. It is quite likely to have
+developed as a purely mechanical product of phonetic forces that brought
+about irregularities of various sorts.]
+
+The psychological distinctness of the affixed elements in an
+agglutinative term may be even more marked than in the _-ness_ of
+_goodness_. To be strictly accurate, the significance of the _-ness_ is
+not quite as inherently determined, as autonomous, as it might be. It
+is at the mercy of the preceding radical element to this extent, that it
+requires to be preceded by a particular type of such element, an
+adjective. Its own power is thus, in a manner, checked in advance. The
+fusion here, however, is so vague and elementary, so much a matter of
+course in the great majority of all cases of affixing, that it is
+natural to overlook its reality and to emphasize rather the juxtaposing
+or agglutinative nature of the affixing process. If the _-ness_ could be
+affixed as an abstractive element to each and every type of radical
+element, if we could say _fightness_ ("the act or quality of fighting")
+or _waterness_ ("the quality or state of water") or _awayness_ ("the
+state of being away") as we can say _goodness_ ("the state of being
+good"), we should have moved appreciably nearer the agglutinative pole.
+A language that runs to synthesis of this loose-jointed sort may be
+looked upon as an example of the ideal agglutinative type, particularly
+if the concepts expressed by the agglutinated elements are relational
+or, at the least, belong to the abstracter class of derivational ideas.
+
+Instructive forms may be cited from Nootka. We shall return to our "fire
+in the house."[107] The Nootka word _inikw-ihl_ "fire in the house" is
+not as definitely formalized a word as its translation, suggests. The
+radical element _inikw-_ "fire" is really as much of a verbal as of a
+nominal term; it may be rendered now by "fire," now by "burn," according
+to the syntactic exigencies of the sentence. The derivational element
+_-ihl_ "in the house" does not mitigate this vagueness or generality;
+_inikw-ihl_ is still "fire in the house" or "burn in the house." It may
+be definitely nominalized or verbalized by the affixing of elements that
+are exclusively nominal or verbal in force. For example,
+_inikw-ihl-'i_, with its suffixed article, is a clear-cut nominal form:
+"the burning in the house, the fire in the house"; _inikw-ihl-ma_, with
+its indicative suffix, is just as clearly verbal: "it burns in the
+house." How weak must be the degree of fusion between "fire in the
+house" and the nominalizing or verbalizing suffix is apparent from the
+fact that the formally indifferent _inikwihl_ is not an abstraction
+gained by analysis but a full-fledged word, ready for use in the
+sentence. The nominalizing _-'i_ and the indicative _-ma_ are not fused
+form-affixes, they are simply additions of formal import. But we can
+continue to hold the verbal or nominal nature of _inikwihl_ in abeyance
+long before we reach the _-'i_ or _-ma_. We can pluralize it:
+_inikw-ihl-'minih_; it is still either "fires in the house" or "burn
+plurally in the house." We can diminutivize this plural:
+_inikw-ihl-'minih-'is_, "little fires in the house" or "burn plurally
+and slightly in the house." What if we add the preterit tense suffix
+_-it_? Is not _inikw-ihl-'minih-'is-it_ necessarily a verb: "several
+small fires were burning in the house"? It is not. It may still be
+nominalized; _inikwihl'minih'isit-'i_ means "the former small fires in
+the house, the little fires that were once burning in the house." It is
+not an unambiguous verb until it is given a form that excludes every
+other possibility, as in the indicative _inikwihl-minih'isit-a_ "several
+small fires were burning in the house." We recognize at once that the
+elements _-ihl_, _-'minih_, _-'is_, and _-it_, quite aside from the
+relatively concrete or abstract nature of their content and aside,
+further, from the degree of their outer (phonetic) cohesion with the
+elements that precede them, have a psychological independence that our
+own affixes never have. They are typically agglutinated elements, though
+they have no greater external independence, are no more capable of
+living apart from the radical element to which they are suffixed, than
+the _-ness_ and _goodness_ or the _-s_ of _books_. It does not follow
+that an agglutinative language may not make use of the principle of
+fusion, both external and psychological, or even of symbolism to a
+considerable extent. It is a question of tendency. Is the formative
+slant clearly towards the agglutinative method? Then the language is
+"agglutinative." As such, it may be prefixing or suffixing, analytic,
+synthetic, or polysynthetic.
+
+[Footnote 107: See page 110.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 107 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 3331.]
+
+To return to inflection. An inflective language like Latin or Greek uses
+the method of fusion, and this fusion has an inner psychological as well
+as an outer phonetic meaning. But it is not enough that the fusion
+operate merely in the sphere of derivational concepts (group II),[108]
+it must involve the syntactic relations, which may either be expressed
+in unalloyed form (group IV) or, as in Latin and Greek, as "concrete
+relational concepts" (group III).[109] As far as Latin and Greek are
+concerned, their inflection consists essentially of the fusing of
+elements that express logically impure relational concepts with radical
+elements and with elements expressing derivational concepts. Both fusion
+as a general method and the expression of relational concepts in the
+word are necessary to the notion of "inflection."
+
+[Footnote 108: See Chapter V.]
+
+[Footnote 109: If we deny the application of the term "inflective" to
+fusing languages that express the syntactic relations in pure form, that
+is, without the admixture of such concepts as number, gender, and tense,
+merely because such admixture is familiar to us in Latin and Greek, we
+make of "inflection" an even more arbitrary concept than it need be. At
+the same time it is true that the method of fusion itself tends to break
+down the wall between our conceptual groups II and IV, to create group
+III. Yet the possibility of such "inflective" languages should not be
+denied. In modern Tibetan, for instance, in which concepts of group II
+are but weakly expressed, if at all, and in which the relational
+concepts (e.g., the genitive, the agentive or instrumental) are
+expressed without alloy of the material, we get many interesting
+examples of fusion, even of symbolism. _Mi di_, e.g., "man this, the
+man" is an absolutive form which may be used as the subject of an
+intransitive verb. When the verb is transitive (really passive), the
+(logical) subject has to take the agentive form. _Mi di_ then becomes
+_mi di_ "by the man," the vowel of the demonstrative pronoun (or
+article) being merely lengthened. (There is probably also a change in
+the tone of the syllable.) This, of course, is of the very essence of
+inflection. It is an amusing commentary on the insufficiency of our
+current linguistic classification, which considers "inflective" and
+"isolating" as worlds asunder, that modern Tibetan may be not inaptly
+described as an isolating language, aside from such examples of fusion
+and symbolism as the foregoing.]
+
+But to have thus defined inflection is to doubt the value of the term as
+descriptive of a major class. Why emphasize both a technique and a
+particular content at one and the same time? Surely we should be clear
+in our minds as to whether we set more store by one or the other.
+"Fusional" and "symbolic" contrast with "agglutinative," which is not on
+a par with "inflective" at all. What are we to do with the fusional and
+symbolic languages that do not express relational concepts in the word
+but leave them to the sentence? And are we not to distinguish between
+agglutinative languages that express these same concepts in the word--in
+so far inflective-like--and those that do not? We dismissed the scale:
+analytic, synthetic, polysynthetic, as too merely quantitative for our
+purpose. Isolating, affixing, symbolic--this also seemed insufficient
+for the reason that it laid too much stress on technical externals.
+Isolating, agglutinative, fusional, and symbolic is a preferable scheme,
+but still skirts the external. We shall do best, it seems to me, to hold
+to "inflective" as a valuable suggestion for a broader and more
+consistently developed scheme, as a hint for a classification based on
+the nature of the concepts expressed by the language. The other two
+classifications, the first based on degree of synthesis, the second on
+degree of fusion, may be retained as intercrossing schemes that give us
+the opportunity to subdivide our main conceptual types.
+
+It is well to recall that all languages must needs express radical
+concepts (group I) and relational ideas (group IV). Of the two other
+large groups of concepts--derivational (group II) and mixed relational
+(group III)--both may be absent, both present, or only one present. This
+gives us at once a simple, incisive, and absolutely inclusive method of
+classifying all known languages. They are:
+
+A. Such as express only concepts of groups I and IV; in other words,
+languages that keep the syntactic relations pure and that do not possess
+the power to modify the significance of their radical elements by means
+of affixes or internal changes.[110] We may call these _Pure-relational
+non-deriving languages_ or, more tersely, _Simple Pure-relational
+languages_. These are the languages that cut most to the bone of
+linguistic expression.
+
+B. Such as express concepts of groups I, II, and IV; in other words,
+languages that keep the syntactic relations pure and that also possess
+the power to modify the significance of their radical elements by means
+of affixes or internal changes. These are the _Pure-relational deriving
+languages_ or _Complex Pure-relational languages_.
+
+C. Such as express concepts of groups I and III;[111] in other words,
+languages in which the syntactic relations are expressed in necessary
+connection with concepts that are not utterly devoid of concrete
+significance but that do not, apart from such mixture, possess the power
+to modify the significance of their radical elements by means of affixes
+or internal changes.[112] These are the _Mixed-relational non-deriving
+languages_ or _Simple Mixed-relational languages_.
+
+D. Such as express concepts of groups I, II, and III; in other words,
+languages in which the syntactic relations are expressed in mixed form,
+as in C, and that also possess the power to modify the significance of
+their radical elements by means of affixes or internal changes. These
+are the _Mixed-relational deriving languages_ or _Complex
+Mixed-relational languages_. Here belong the "inflective" languages that
+we are most familiar with as well as a great many "agglutinative"
+languages, some "polysynthetic," others merely synthetic.
+
+[Footnote 110: I am eliminating entirely the possibility of compounding
+two or more radical elements into single words or word-like phrases (see
+pages 67-70). To expressly consider compounding in the present survey of
+types would be to complicate our problem unduly. Most languages that
+possess no derivational affixes of any sort may nevertheless freely
+compound radical elements (independent words). Such compounds often have
+a fixity that simulates the unity of single words.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 110 refers to the three paragraphs
+beginning on line 2066.]
+
+[Footnote 111: We may assume that in these languages and in those of
+type D all or most of the relational concepts are expressed in "mixed"
+form, that such a concept as that of subjectivity, for instance, cannot
+be expressed without simultaneously involving number or gender or that
+an active verb form must be possessed of a definite tense. Hence group
+III will be understood to include, or rather absorb, group IV.
+Theoretically, of course, certain relational concepts may be expressed
+pure, others mixed, but in practice it will not be found easy to make
+the distinction.]
+
+[Footnote 112: The line between types C and D cannot be very sharply
+drawn. It is a matter largely of degree. A language of markedly
+mixed-relational type, but of little power of derivation pure and
+simple, such as Bantu or French, may be conveniently put into type C,
+even though it is not devoid of a number of derivational affixes.
+Roughly speaking, languages of type C may be considered as highly
+analytic ("purified") forms of type D.]
+
+This conceptual classification of languages, I must repeat, does not
+attempt to take account of the technical externals of language. It
+answers, in effect, two fundamental questions concerning the
+translation of concepts into linguistic symbols. Does the language, in
+the first place, keep its radical concepts pure or does it build up its
+concrete ideas by an aggregation of inseparable elements (types A and C
+_versus_ types B and D)? And, in the second place, does it keep the
+basic relational concepts, such as are absolutely unavoidable in the
+ordering of a proposition, free of an admixture of the concrete or not
+(types A and B _versus_ types C and D)? The second question, it seems to
+me, is the more fundamental of the two. We can therefore simplify our
+classification and present it in the following form:
+                       _
+ I. Pure-relational  _/  A. Simple
+    Languages         \_ B. Complex
+                       _
+II. Mixed-relational _/  C. Simple
+    Languages         \_ D. Complex
+
+The classification is too sweeping and too broad for an easy,
+descriptive survey of the many varieties of human speech. It needs to be
+amplified. Each of the types A, B, C, D may be subdivided into an
+agglutinative, a fusional, and a symbolic sub-type, according to the
+prevailing method of modification of the radical element. In type A we
+distinguish in addition an isolating sub-type, characterized by the
+absence of all affixes and modifications of the radical element. In the
+isolating languages the syntactic relations are expressed by the
+position of the words in the sentence. This is also true of many
+languages of type B, the terms "agglutinative," "fusional," and
+"symbolic" applying in their case merely to the treatment of the
+derivational, not the relational, concepts. Such languages could be
+termed "agglutinative-isolating," "fusional-isolating" and
+"symbolic-isolating."
+
+This brings up the important general consideration that the method of
+handling one group of concepts need not in the least be identical with
+that used for another. Compound terms could be used to indicate this
+difference, if desired, the first element of the compound referring to
+the treatment of the concepts of group II, the second to that of the
+concepts of groups III and IV. An "agglutinative" language would
+normally be taken to mean one that agglutinates all of its affixed
+elements or that does so to a preponderating extent. In an
+"agglutinative-fusional" language the derivational elements are
+agglutinated, perhaps in the form of prefixes, while the relational
+elements (pure or mixed) are fused with the radical element, possibly as
+another set of prefixes following the first set or in the
+form of suffixes or as part prefixes and part suffixes. By a
+"fusional-agglutinative" language we would understand one that fuses its
+derivational elements but allows a greater independence to those that
+indicate relations. All these and similar distinctions are not merely
+theoretical possibilities, they can be abundantly illustrated from the
+descriptive facts of linguistic morphology. Further, should it prove
+desirable to insist on the degree of elaboration of the word, the terms
+"analytic," "synthetic," and "polysynthetic" can be added as descriptive
+terms. It goes without saying that languages of type A are necessarily
+analytic and that languages of type C also are prevailingly analytic and
+are not likely to develop beyond the synthetic stage.
+
+But we must not make too much of terminology. Much depends on the
+relative emphasis laid on this or that feature or point of view. The
+method of classifying languages here developed has this great
+advantage, that it can be refined or simplified according to the needs
+of a particular discussion. The degree of synthesis may be entirely
+ignored; "fusion" and "symbolism" may often be combined with advantage
+under the head of "fusion"; even the difference between agglutination
+and fusion may, if desired, be set aside as either too difficult to draw
+or as irrelevant to the issue. Languages, after all, are exceedingly
+complex historical structures. It is of less importance to put each
+language in a neat pigeon-hole than to have evolved a flexible method
+which enables us to place it, from two or three independent standpoints,
+relatively to another language. All this is not to deny that certain
+linguistic types are more stable and frequently represented than others
+that are just as possible from a theoretical standpoint. But we are too
+ill-informed as yet of the structural spirit of great numbers of
+languages to have the right to frame a classification that is other than
+flexible and experimental.
+
+The reader will gain a somewhat livelier idea of the possibilities of
+linguistic morphology by glancing down the subjoined analytical table of
+selected types. The columns II, III, IV refer to the groups of concepts
+so numbered in the preceding chapter. The letters _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_
+refer respectively to the processes of isolation (position in the
+sentence), agglutination, fusion, and symbolism. Where more than one
+technique is employed, they are put in the order of their
+importance.[113]
+
+[Footnote 113: In defining the type to which a language belongs one must
+be careful not to be misled by structural features which are mere
+survivals of an older stage, which have no productive life and do not
+enter into the unconscious patterning of the language. All languages are
+littered with such petrified bodies. The English _-ster_ of _spinster_
+and _Webster_ is an old agentive suffix, but, as far as the feeling of
+the present English-speaking generation is concerned, it cannot be said
+to really exist at all; _spinster_ and _Webster_ have been completely
+disconnected from the etymological group of _spin_ and of _weave (web)_.
+Similarly, there are hosts of related words in Chinese which differ in
+the initial consonant, the vowel, the tone, or in the presence or
+absence of a final consonant. Even where the Chinaman feels the
+etymological relationship, as in certain cases he can hardly help doing,
+he can assign no particular function to the phonetic variation as such.
+Hence it forms no live feature of the language-mechanism and must be
+ignored in defining the general form of the language. The caution is all
+the more necessary, as it is precisely the foreigner, who approaches a
+new language with a certain prying inquisitiveness, that is most apt to
+see life in vestigial features which the native is either completely
+unaware of or feels merely as dead form.]
+
+Note.--Parentheses indicate a weak development of the process in
+question.
+
++----------------+---+----+---+--------------+----------+--------------+
+|Fundamental Type"II |III |IV |Technique     "Synthesis "Examples      |
++----------------+---+----+---+--------------+----------+--------------+
+|       A        "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|(Simple Pure-   "-- |--  |a  |Isolating     "Analytic  "Chinese;      |
+| relational)    "   |    |   |              "          "Annamite      |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "(d)|--  |a,b|Isolating     "Analytic  "Ewe           |
+|                "   |    |   |(weakly       "          "(Guinea Coast)|
+|                "   |    |   |agglutinative)"          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "(b)|--  |a, |Agglutinative "Analytic  "Modern Tibetan|
+|                "   |    |b,c|(mildly       "          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |agglutinative-"          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |fusional)     "          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|       B        "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|(Complex Pure-  "b, |--  |a  |Agglutinative-"Analytic  "Polynesian    |
+| relational)    "(d)|    |   |isolating     "          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "b  |--  |a, |Agglutinative-"Polysyn-  "Haida         |
+|                "   |    |(b)|isolating     "thetic    "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "c  |--  |a  |Fusional-     "Analytic  "Cambodgian    |
+|                "   |    |   |isolating     "          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "b  |--  |b  |Agglutinative "Synthetic "Turkish       |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "b,d|(b) |b  |Agglutinative "Polysyn-  "Yana (N.      |
+|                "   |    |   |(symbolic     "thetic    "California)   |
+|                "   |    |   |tinge)        "          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "c, |--  |a,b|Fusional-     "Synthetic "Classical     |
+|                "d, |    |   |agglutinative "(mildly)  "Tibetan       |
+|                "(b)|    |   |(symbolic     "          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |tinge)        "          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "b  |--  |c  |Agglutinative-"Synthetic "Sioux         |
+|                "   |    |   |fusional      "(mildly   "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "polysyn-  "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "thetic)   "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "c  |--  |c  |Fusional      "Synthetic "Salinan (S.W. |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "California)   |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "d,c|(d) |d, |Symbolic      "Analytic  "Shilluk       |
+|                "   |    |c,a|              "          "(Upper Nile)  |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|       C        "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|(Simple Mixed-  "(b)|b   |-- |Agglutinative "Synthetic "Bantu         |
+| relational)    "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "(c)|c,  |a  |Fusional      "Analytic  "French[114]   |
+|                "   |(d) |   |              "(mildly   "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "synthetic)"              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|       D        "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|(Complex Mixed- "b, |b   |b  |Agglutinative "Polysyn-  "Nootka        |
+| relational)    "c,d|    |   |              "thetic    "(Vancouver    |
+|                "   |    |   |              "(symbolic "Island)[115]  |
+|                "   |    |   |              "tinge)    "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "c, |b   |-- |Fusional-     "Polysyn-  "Chinook (lower|
+|                "(d)|    |   |agglutinative "thetic    "Columbia R.)  |
+|                "   |    |   |              "(mildly)  "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "c, |c,  |-- |Fusional      "Polysyn-  "Algonkin      |
+|                "(d)|(d),|   |              "thetic    "              |
+|                "   |(b) |   |              "          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "c  |c,d |a  |Fusional      "Analytic  "English       |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "c,d|c,d |-- |Fusional      "Synthetic "Latin, Greek, |
+|                "   |    |   |(symbolic     "          "Sanskrit      |
+|                "   |    |   |tinge)        "          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "c, |c,d |(a)|Fusional      "Synthetic "Takelma       |
+|                "b,d|    |   |(strongly     "          "(S.W. Oregon) |
+|                "   |    |   |symbolic)     "          "              |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "              |
+|                "d,c|c,d |(a)|Symbolic-     "Synthetic "Semitic       |
+|                "   |    |   |fusional      "          "(Arabic,      |
+|                "   |    |   |              "          "Hebrew)       |
++----------------+---+----+---+--------------+----------+--------------+
+
+[Footnote 114: Might nearly as well have come under D.]
+
+[Footnote 115: Very nearly complex pure-relational.]
+
+I need hardly point out that these examples are far from exhausting the
+possibilities of linguistic structure. Nor that the fact that two
+languages are similarly classified does not necessarily mean that they
+present a great similarity on the surface. We are here concerned with
+the most fundamental and generalized features of the spirit, the
+technique, and the degree of elaboration of a given language.
+Nevertheless, in numerous instances we may observe this highly
+suggestive and remarkable fact, that languages that fall into the same
+class have a way of paralleling each other in many details or in
+structural features not envisaged by the scheme of classification. Thus,
+a most interesting parallel could be drawn on structural lines between
+Takelma and Greek,[116] languages that are as geographically remote from
+each other and as unconnected in a historical sense as two languages
+selected at random can well be. Their similarity goes beyond the
+generalized facts registered in the table. It would almost seem that
+linguistic features that are easily thinkable apart from each other,
+that seem to have no necessary connection in theory, have nevertheless a
+tendency to cluster or to follow together in the wake of some deep,
+controlling impulse to form that dominates their drift. If, therefore,
+we can only be sure of the intuitive similarity of two given languages,
+of their possession of the same submerged form-feeling, we need not be
+too much surprised to find that they seek and avoid certain linguistic
+developments in common. We are at present very far from able to define
+just what these fundamental form intuitions are. We can only feel them
+rather vaguely at best and must content ourselves for the most part with
+noting their symptoms. These symptoms are being garnered in our
+descriptive and historical grammars of diverse languages. Some day, it
+may be, we shall be able to read from them the great underlying
+ground-plans.
+
+[Footnote 116: Not Greek specifically, of course, but as a typical
+representative of Indo-European.]
+
+Such a purely technical classification of languages as the current one
+into "isolating," "agglutinative," and "inflective" (read "fusional")
+cannot claim to have great value as an entering wedge into the discovery
+of the intuitional forms of language. I do not know whether the
+suggested classification into four conceptual groups is likely to drive
+deeper or not. My own feeling is that it does, but classifications, neat
+constructions of the speculative mind, are slippery things. They have to
+be tested at every possible opportunity before they have the right to
+cry for acceptance. Meanwhile we may take some encouragement from the
+application of a rather curious, yet simple, historical test. Languages
+are in constant process of change, but it is only reasonable to suppose
+that they tend to preserve longest what is most fundamental in their
+structure. Now if we take great groups of genetically related
+languages,[117] we find that as we pass from one to another or trace the
+course of their development we frequently encounter a gradual change of
+morphological type. This is not surprising, for there is no reason why a
+language should remain permanently true to its original form. It is
+interesting, however, to note that of the three intercrossing
+classifications represented in our table (conceptual type, technique,
+and degree of synthesis), it is the degree of synthesis that seems to
+change most readily, that the technique is modifiable but far less
+readily so, and that the conceptual type tends to persist the longest of
+all.
+
+[Footnote 117: Such, in other words, as can be shown by documentary or
+comparative evidence to have been derived from a common source. See
+Chapter VII.]
+
+The illustrative material gathered in the table is far too scanty to
+serve as a real basis of proof, but it is highly suggestive as far as it
+goes. The only changes of conceptual type within groups of related
+languages that are to be gleaned from the table are of B to A (Shilluk
+as contrasted with Ewe;[118] Classical Tibetan as contrasted with Modern
+Tibetan and Chinese) and of D to C (French as contrasted with
+Latin[119]). But types A : B and C : D are respectively related to each
+other as a simple and a complex form of a still more fundamental type
+(pure-relational, mixed-relational). Of a passage from a pure-relational
+to a mixed-relational type or _vice versa_ I can give no convincing
+examples.
+
+[Footnote 118: These are far-eastern and far-western representatives of
+the "Soudan" group recently proposed by D. Westermann. The genetic
+relationship between Ewe and Shilluk is exceedingly remote at best.]
+
+[Footnote 119: This case is doubtful at that. I have put French in C
+rather than in D with considerable misgivings. Everything depends on how
+one evaluates elements like _-al_ in _national_, _-té_ in _bonté_, or
+_re-_ in _retourner_. They are common enough, but are they as alive, as
+little petrified or bookish, as our English _-ness_ and _-ful_ and
+_un-_?]
+
+The table shows clearly enough how little relative permanence there is
+in the technical features of language. That highly synthetic languages
+(Latin; Sanskrit) have frequently broken down into analytic forms
+(French; Bengali) or that agglutinative languages (Finnish) have in
+many instances gradually taken on "inflective" features are well-known
+facts, but the natural inference does not seem to have been often drawn
+that possibly the contrast between synthetic and analytic or
+agglutinative and "inflective" (fusional) is not so fundamental after
+all. Turning to the Indo-Chinese languages, we find that Chinese is as
+near to being a perfectly isolating language as any example we are
+likely to find, while Classical Tibetan has not only fusional but strong
+symbolic features (e.g., _g-tong-ba_ "to give," past _b-tang_, future
+_gtang_, imperative _thong_); but both are pure-relational languages.
+Ewe is either isolating or only barely agglutinative, while Shilluk,
+though soberly analytic, is one of the most definitely symbolic
+languages I know; both of these Soudanese languages are pure-relational.
+The relationship between Polynesian and Cambodgian is remote, though
+practically certain; while the latter has more markedly fusional
+features than the former,[120] both conform to the complex
+pure-relational type. Yana and Salinan are superficially very dissimilar
+languages. Yana is highly polysynthetic and quite typically
+agglutinative, Salinan is no more synthetic than and as irregularly and
+compactly fusional ("inflective") as Latin; both are pure-relational,
+Chinook and Takelma, remotely related languages of Oregon, have diverged
+very far from each other, not only as regards technique and synthesis in
+general but in almost all the details of their structure; both are
+complex mixed-relational languages, though in very different ways. Facts
+such as these seem to lend color to the suspicion that in the contrast
+of pure-relational and mixed-relational (or concrete-relational) we are
+confronted by something deeper, more far-reaching, than the contrast of
+isolating, agglutinative, and fusional.[121]
+
+[Footnote 120: In spite of its more isolating cast.]
+
+[Footnote 121: In a book of this sort it is naturally impossible to give
+an adequate idea of linguistic structure in its varying forms. Only a
+few schematic indications are possible. A separate volume would be
+needed to breathe life into the scheme. Such a volume would point out
+the salient structural characteristics of a number of languages, so
+selected as to give the reader an insight into the formal economy of
+strikingly divergent types.]
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+LANGUAGE AS A HISTORICAL PRODUCT: DRIFT
+
+
+Every one knows that language is variable. Two individuals of the same
+generation and locality, speaking precisely the same dialect and moving
+in the same social circles, are never absolutely at one in their speech
+habits. A minute investigation of the speech of each individual would
+reveal countless differences of detail--in choice of words, in sentence
+structure, in the relative frequency with which particular forms or
+combinations of words are used, in the pronunciation of particular
+vowels and consonants and of combinations of vowels and consonants, in
+all those features, such as speed, stress, and tone, that give life to
+spoken language. In a sense they speak slightly divergent dialects of
+the same language rather than identically the same language.
+
+There is an important difference, however, between individual and
+dialectic variations. If we take two closely related dialects, say
+English as spoken by the "middle classes" of London and English as
+spoken by the average New Yorker, we observe that, however much the
+individual speakers in each city differ from each other, the body of
+Londoners forms a compact, relatively unified group in contrast to the
+body of New Yorkers. The individual variations are swamped in or
+absorbed by certain major agreements--say of pronunciation and
+vocabulary--which stand out very strongly when the language of the
+group as a whole is contrasted with that of the other group. This means
+that there is something like an ideal linguistic entity dominating the
+speech habits of the members of each group, that the sense of almost
+unlimited freedom which each individual feels in the use of his language
+is held in leash by a tacitly directing norm. One individual plays on
+the norm in a way peculiar to himself, the next individual is nearer the
+dead average in that particular respect in which the first speaker most
+characteristically departs from it but in turn diverges from the average
+in a way peculiar to himself, and so on. What keeps the individual's
+variations from rising to dialectic importance is not merely the fact
+that they are in any event of small moment--there are well-marked
+dialectic variations that are of no greater magnitude than individual
+variations within a dialect--it is chiefly that they are silently
+"corrected" or canceled by the consensus of usage. If all the speakers
+of a given dialect were arranged in order in accordance with the degree
+of their conformity to average usage, there is little doubt that they
+would constitute a very finely intergrading series clustered about a
+well-defined center or norm. The differences between any two neighboring
+speakers of the series[122] would be negligible for any but the most
+microscopic linguistic research. The differences between the outer-most
+members of the series are sure to be considerable, in all likelihood
+considerable enough to measure up to a true dialectic variation. What
+prevents us from saying that these untypical individuals speak distinct
+dialects is that their peculiarities, as a unified whole, are not
+referable to another norm than the norm of their own series.
+
+[Footnote 122: In so far as they do not fall out of the normal speech
+group by reason of a marked speech defect or because they are isolated
+foreigners that have acquired the language late in life.]
+
+If the speech of any member of the series could actually be made to fit
+into another dialect series,[123] we should have no true barriers
+between dialects (and languages) at all. We should merely have a
+continuous series of individual variations extending over the whole
+range of a historically unified linguistic area, and the cutting up of
+this large area (in some cases embracing parts of several continents)
+into distinct dialects and languages would be an essentially arbitrary
+proceeding with no warrant save that of practical convenience. But such
+a conception of the nature of dialectic variation does not correspond to
+the facts as we know them. Isolated individuals may be found who speak a
+compromise between two dialects of a language, and if their number and
+importance increases they may even end by creating a new dialectic norm
+of their own, a dialect in which the extreme peculiarities of the parent
+dialects are ironed out. In course of time the compromise dialect may
+absorb the parents, though more frequently these will tend to linger
+indefinitely as marginal forms of the enlarged dialect area. But such
+phenomena--and they are common enough in the history of language--are
+evidently quite secondary. They are closely linked with such social
+developments as the rise of nationality, the formation of literatures
+that aim to have more than a local appeal, the movement of rural
+populations into the cities, and all those other tendencies that break
+up the intense localism that unsophisticated man has always found
+natural.
+
+[Footnote 123: Observe that we are speaking of an individual's speech as
+a whole. It is not a question of isolating some particular peculiarity
+of pronunciation or usage and noting its resemblance to or identity with
+a feature in another dialect.]
+
+The explanation of primary dialectic differences is still to seek. It
+is evidently not enough to say that if a dialect or language is spoken
+in two distinct localities or by two distinct social strata it naturally
+takes on distinctive forms, which in time come to be divergent enough to
+deserve the name of dialects. This is certainly true as far as it goes.
+Dialects do belong, in the first instance, to very definitely
+circumscribed social groups, homogeneous enough to secure the common
+feeling and purpose needed to create a norm. But the embarrassing
+question immediately arises, If all the individual variations within a
+dialect are being constantly leveled out to the dialectic norm, if there
+is no appreciable tendency for the individual's peculiarities to
+initiate a dialectic schism, why should we have dialectic variations at
+all? Ought not the norm, wherever and whenever threatened, automatically
+to reassert itself? Ought not the individual variations of each
+locality, even in the absence of intercourse between them, to cancel out
+to the same accepted speech average?
+
+If individual variations "on a flat" were the only kind of variability
+in language, I believe we should be at a loss to explain why and how
+dialects arise, why it is that a linguistic prototype gradually breaks
+up into a number of mutually unintelligible languages. But language is
+not merely something that is spread out in space, as it were--a series
+of reflections in individual minds of one and the same timeless picture.
+Language moves down time in a current of its own making. It has a drift.
+If there were no breaking up of a language into dialects, if each
+language continued as a firm, self-contained unity, it would still be
+constantly moving away from any assignable norm, developing new features
+unceasingly and gradually transforming itself into a language so
+different from its starting point as to be in effect a new language. Now
+dialects arise not because of the mere fact of individual variation but
+because two or more groups of individuals have become sufficiently
+disconnected to drift apart, or independently, instead of together. So
+long as they keep strictly together, no amount of individual variation
+would lead to the formation of dialects. In practice, of course, no
+language can be spread over a vast territory or even over a considerable
+area without showing dialectic variations, for it is impossible to keep
+a large population from segregating itself into local groups, the
+language of each of which tends to drift independently. Under cultural
+conditions such as apparently prevail to-day, conditions that fight
+localism at every turn, the tendency to dialectic cleavage is being
+constantly counteracted and in part "corrected" by the uniformizing
+factors already referred to. Yet even in so young a country as America
+the dialectic differences are not inconsiderable.
+
+Under primitive conditions the political groups are small, the tendency
+to localism exceedingly strong. It is natural, therefore, that the
+languages of primitive folk or of non-urban populations in general are
+differentiated into a great number of dialects. There are parts of the
+globe where almost every village has its own dialect. The life of the
+geographically limited community is narrow and intense; its speech is
+correspondingly peculiar to itself. It is exceedingly doubtful if a
+language will ever be spoken over a wide area without multiplying itself
+dialectically. No sooner are the old dialects ironed out by compromises
+or ousted by the spread and influence of the one dialect which is
+culturally predominant when a new crop of dialects arises to undo the
+leveling work of the past. This is precisely what happened in Greece,
+for instance. In classical antiquity there were spoken a large number of
+local dialects, several of which are represented in the literature. As
+the cultural supremacy of Athens grew, its dialect, the Attic, spread at
+the expense of the rest, until, in the so-called Hellenistic period
+following the Macedonian conquest, the Attic dialect, in the vulgarized
+form known as the "Koine," became the standard speech of all Greece. But
+this linguistic uniformity[124] did not long continue. During the two
+millennia that separate the Greek of to-day from its classical prototype
+the Koine gradually split up into a number of dialects. Now Greece is as
+richly diversified in speech as in the time of Homer, though the present
+local dialects, aside from those of Attica itself, are not the lineal
+descendants of the old dialects of pre-Alexandrian days.[125] The
+experience of Greece is not exceptional. Old dialects are being
+continually wiped out only to make room for new ones. Languages can
+change at so many points of phonetics, morphology, and vocabulary that
+it is not surprising that once the linguistic community is broken it
+should slip off in different directions. It would be too much to expect
+a locally diversified language to develop along strictly parallel lines.
+If once the speech of a locality has begun to drift on its own account,
+it is practically certain to move further and further away from its
+linguistic fellows. Failing the retarding effect of dialectic
+interinfluences, which I have already touched upon, a group of dialects
+is bound to diverge on the whole, each from all of the others.
+
+[Footnote 124: It is doubtful if we have the right to speak of
+linguistic uniformity even during the predominance of the Koine. It is
+hardly conceivable that when the various groups of non-Attic Greeks took
+on the Koine they did not at once tinge it with dialectic peculiarities
+induced by their previous speech habits.]
+
+[Footnote 125: The Zaconic dialect of Lacedaemon is the sole exception.
+It is not derived from the Koine, but stems directly from the Doric
+dialect of Sparta.]
+
+In course of time each dialect itself splits up into sub-dialects, which
+gradually take on the dignity of dialects proper while the primary
+dialects develop into mutually unintelligible languages. And so the
+budding process continues, until the divergences become so great that
+none but a linguistic student, armed with his documentary evidence and
+with his comparative or reconstructive method, would infer that the
+languages in question were genealogically related, represented
+independent lines of development, in other words, from a remote and
+common starting point. Yet it is as certain as any historical fact can
+be that languages so little resembling each other as Modern Irish,
+English, Italian, Greek, Russian, Armenian, Persian, and Bengali are but
+end-points in the present of drifts that converge to a meeting-point in
+the dim past. There is naturally no reason to believe that this earliest
+"Indo-European" (or "Aryan") prototype which we can in part reconstruct,
+in part but dimly guess at, is itself other than a single "dialect" of a
+group that has either become largely extinct or is now further
+represented by languages too divergent for us, with our limited means,
+to recognize as clear kin.[126]
+
+[Footnote 126: Though indications are not lacking of what these remoter
+kin of the Indo-European languages may be. This is disputed ground,
+however, and hardly fit subject for a purely general study of speech.]
+
+All languages that are known to be genetically related, i.e., to be
+divergent forms of a single prototype, may be considered as constituting
+a "linguistic stock." There is nothing final about a linguistic stock.
+When we set it up, we merely say, in effect, that thus far we can go
+and no farther. At any point in the progress of our researches an
+unexpected ray of light may reveal the "stock" as but a "dialect" of a
+larger group. The terms dialect, language, branch, stock--it goes
+without saying--are purely relative terms. They are convertible as our
+perspective widens or contracts.[127] It would be vain to speculate as
+to whether or not we shall ever be able to demonstrate that all
+languages stem from a common source. Of late years linguists have been
+able to make larger historical syntheses than were at one time deemed
+feasible, just as students of culture have been able to show historical
+connections between culture areas or institutions that were at one time
+believed to be totally isolated from each other. The human world is
+contracting not only prospectively but to the backward-probing eye of
+culture-history. Nevertheless we are as yet far from able to reduce the
+riot of spoken languages to a small number of "stocks." We must still
+operate with a quite considerable number of these stocks. Some of them,
+like Indo-European or Indo-Chinese, are spoken over tremendous reaches;
+others, like Basque,[128] have a curiously restricted range and are in
+all likelihood but dwindling remnants of groups that were at one time
+more widely distributed. As for the single or multiple origin of speech,
+it is likely enough that language as a human institution (or, if one
+prefers, as a human "faculty") developed but once in the history of the
+race, that all the complex history of language is a unique cultural
+event. Such a theory constructed "on general principles" is of no real
+interest, however, to linguistic science. What lies beyond the
+demonstrable must be left to the philosopher or the romancer.
+
+[Footnote 127: "Dialect" in contrast to an accepted literary norm is a
+use of the term that we are not considering.]
+
+[Footnote 128: Spoken in France and Spain in the region of the
+Pyrenees.]
+
+We must return to the conception of "drift" in language. If the
+historical changes that take place in a language, if the vast
+accumulation of minute modifications which in time results in the
+complete remodeling of the language, are not in essence identical with
+the individual variations that we note on every hand about us, if these
+variations are born only to die without a trace, while the equally
+minute, or even minuter, changes that make up the drift are forever
+imprinted on the history of the language, are we not imputing to this
+history a certain mystical quality? Are we not giving language a power
+to change of its own accord over and above the involuntary tendency of
+individuals to vary the norm? And if this drift of language is not
+merely the familiar set of individual variations seen in vertical
+perspective, that is historically, instead of horizontally, that is in
+daily experience, what is it? Language exists only in so far as it is
+actually used--spoken and heard, written and read. What significant
+changes take place in it must exist, to begin with, as individual
+variations. This is perfectly true, and yet it by no means follows that
+the general drift of language can be understood[129] from an exhaustive
+descriptive study of these variations alone. They themselves are random
+phenomena,[130] like the waves of the sea, moving backward and forward
+in purposeless flux. The linguistic drift has direction. In other words,
+only those individual variations embody it or carry it which move in a
+certain direction, just as only certain wave movements in the bay
+outline the tide. The drift of a language is constituted by the
+unconscious selection on the part of its speakers of those individual
+variations that are cumulative in some special direction. This direction
+may be inferred, in the main, from the past history of the language. In
+the long run any new feature of the drift becomes part and parcel of the
+common, accepted speech, but for a long time it may exist as a mere
+tendency in the speech of a few, perhaps of a despised few. As we look
+about us and observe current usage, it is not likely to occur to us that
+our language has a "slope," that the changes of the next few centuries
+are in a sense prefigured in certain obscure tendencies of the present
+and that these changes, when consummated, will be seen to be but
+continuations of changes that have been already effected. We feel rather
+that our language is practically a fixed system and that what slight
+changes are destined to take place in it are as likely to move in one
+direction as another. The feeling is fallacious. Our very uncertainty as
+to the impending details of change makes the eventual consistency of
+their direction all the more impressive.
+
+[Footnote 129: Or rather apprehended, for we do not, in sober fact,
+entirely understand it as yet.]
+
+[Footnote 130: Not ultimately random, of course, only relatively so.]
+
+Sometimes we can feel where the drift is taking us even while we
+struggle against it. Probably the majority of those who read these words
+feel that it is quite "incorrect" to say "Who did you see?" We readers
+of many books are still very careful to say "Whom did you see?" but we
+feel a little uncomfortable (uncomfortably proud, it may be) in the
+process. We are likely to avoid the locution altogether and to say "Who
+was it you saw?" conserving literary tradition (the "whom") with the
+dignity of silence.[131] The folk makes no apology. "Whom did you see?"
+might do for an epitaph, but "Who did you see?" is the natural form for
+an eager inquiry. It is of course the uncontrolled speech of the folk to
+which we must look for advance information as to the general linguistic
+movement. It is safe to prophesy that within a couple of hundred years
+from to-day not even the most learned jurist will be saying "Whom did
+you see?" By that time the "whom" will be as delightfully archaic as the
+Elizabethan "his" for "its."[132] No logical or historical argument will
+avail to save this hapless "whom." The demonstration "I: me = he: him =
+who: whom" will be convincing in theory and will go unheeded in
+practice.
+
+[Footnote 131: In relative clauses too we tend to avoid the objective
+form of "who." Instead of "The man whom I saw" we are likely to say "The
+man that I saw" or "The man I saw."]
+
+[Footnote 132: "Its" was at one time as impertinent a departure as the
+"who" of "Who did you see?" It forced itself into English because the
+old cleavage between masculine, feminine, and neuter was being slowly
+and powerfully supplemented by a new one between thing-class and
+animate-class. The latter classification proved too vital to allow usage
+to couple males and things ("his") as against females ("her"). The form
+"its" had to be created on the analogy of words like "man's," to satisfy
+the growing form feeling. The drift was strong enough to sanction a
+grammatical blunder.]
+
+Even now we may go so far as to say that the majority of us are secretly
+wishing they could say "Who did you see?" It would be a weight off their
+unconscious minds if some divine authority, overruling the lifted finger
+of the pedagogue, gave them _carte blanche_. But we cannot too frankly
+anticipate the drift and maintain caste. We must affect ignorance
+of whither we are going and rest content with our mental
+conflict--uncomfortable conscious acceptance of the "whom," unconscious
+desire for the "who."[133] Meanwhile we indulge our sneaking desire for
+the forbidden locution by the use of the "who" in certain twilight cases
+in which we can cover up our fault by a bit of unconscious special
+pleading. Imagine that some one drops the remark when you are not
+listening attentively, "John Smith is coming to-night." You have not
+caught the name and ask, not "Whom did you say?" but "Who did you say?"
+There is likely to be a little hesitation in the choice of the form, but
+the precedent of usages like "Whom did you see?" will probably not seem
+quite strong enough to induce a "Whom did you say?" Not quite relevant
+enough, the grammarian may remark, for a sentence like "Who did you
+say?" is not strictly analogous to "Whom did you see?" or "Whom did you
+mean?" It is rather an abbreviated form of some such sentence as "Who,
+did you say, is coming to-night?" This is the special pleading that I
+have referred to, and it has a certain logic on its side. Yet the case
+is more hollow than the grammarian thinks it to be, for in reply to such
+a query as "You're a good hand at bridge, John, aren't you?" John, a
+little taken aback, might mutter "Did you say me?" hardly "Did you say
+I?" Yet the logic for the latter ("Did you say I was a good hand at
+bridge?") is evident. The real point is that there is not enough
+vitality in the "whom" to carry it over such little difficulties
+as a "me" can compass without a thought. The proportion
+"I : me = he : him = who : whom" is logically and historically sound, but
+psychologically shaky. "Whom did you see?" is correct, but there is
+something false about its correctness.
+
+[Footnote 133: Psychoanalysts will recognize the mechanism. The
+mechanisms of "repression of impulse" and of its symptomatic
+symbolization can be illustrated in the most unexpected corners of
+individual and group psychology. A more general psychology than Freud's
+will eventually prove them to be as applicable to the groping for
+abstract form, the logical or esthetic ordering of experience, as to the
+life of the fundamental instincts.]
+
+It is worth looking into the reason for our curious reluctance to use
+locutions involving the word "whom" particularly in its interrogative
+sense. The only distinctively objective forms which we still possess in
+English are _me_, _him_, _her_ (a little blurred because of its identity
+with the possessive _her_), _us_, _them_, and _whom_. In all other cases
+the objective has come to be identical with the subjective--that is, in
+outer form, for we are not now taking account of position in the
+sentence. We observe immediately in looking through the list of
+objective forms that _whom_ is psychologically isolated. _Me_, _him_,
+_her_, _us_, and _them_ form a solid, well-integrated group of objective
+personal pronouns parallel to the subjective series _I_, _he_, _she_,
+_we_, _they_. The forms _who_ and _whom_ are technically "pronouns" but
+they are not felt to be in the same box as the personal pronouns. _Whom_
+has clearly a weak position, an exposed flank, for words of a feather
+tend to flock together, and if one strays behind, it is likely to incur
+danger of life. Now the other interrogative and relative pronouns
+(_which_, _what_, _that_), with which _whom_ should properly flock, do
+not distinguish the subjective and objective forms. It is
+psychologically unsound to draw the line of form cleavage between _whom_
+and the personal pronouns on the one side, the remaining interrogative
+and relative pronouns on the other. The form groups should be
+symmetrically related to, if not identical with, the function groups.
+Had _which_, _what_, and _that_ objective forms parallel to _whom_, the
+position of this last would be more secure. As it is, there is something
+unesthetic about the word. It suggests a form pattern which is not
+filled out by its fellows. The only way to remedy the irregularity of
+form distribution is to abandon the _whom_ altogether for we have lost
+the power to create new objective forms and cannot remodel our
+_which_-_what_-_that_ group so as to make it parallel with the smaller
+group _who-whom_. Once this is done, _who_ joins its flock and our
+unconscious desire for form symmetry is satisfied. We do not secretly
+chafe at "Whom did you see?" without reason.[134]
+
+[Footnote 134: Note that it is different with _whose_. This has not the
+support of analogous possessive forms in its own functional group, but
+the analogical power of the great body of possessives of nouns (_man's_,
+_boy's_) as well as of certain personal pronouns (_his_, _its_; as
+predicated possessive also _hers_, _yours_, _theirs_) is sufficient to
+give it vitality.]
+
+But the drift away from _whom_ has still other determinants. The words
+_who_ and _whom_ in their interrogative sense are psychologically
+related not merely to the pronouns _which_ and _what_, but to a group of
+interrogative adverbs--_where_, _when_, _how_--all of which are
+invariable and generally emphatic. I believe it is safe to infer that
+there is a rather strong feeling in English that the interrogative
+pronoun or adverb, typically an emphatic element in the sentence, should
+be invariable. The inflective _-m_ of _whom_ is felt as a drag upon the
+rhetorical effectiveness of the word. It needs to be eliminated if the
+interrogative pronoun is to receive all its latent power. There is still
+a third, and a very powerful, reason for the avoidance of _whom_. The
+contrast between the subjective and objective series of personal
+pronouns (_I_, _he_, _she_, _we_, _they_: _me_, _him_, _her_, _us_,
+_them_) is in English associated with a difference of position. We say
+_I see the man_ but _the man sees me_; _he told him_, never _him he
+told_ or _him told he_. Such usages as the last two are distinctly
+poetic and archaic; they are opposed to the present drift of the
+language. Even in the interrogative one does not say _Him did you see?_
+It is only in sentences of the type _Whom did you see?_ that an
+inflected objective before the verb is now used at all. On the other
+hand, the order in _Whom did you see?_ is imperative because of its
+interrogative form; the interrogative pronoun or adverb normally comes
+first in the sentence (_What are you doing?_ _When did he go?_ _Where
+are you from?_). In the "whom" of _Whom did you see?_ there is
+concealed, therefore, a conflict between the order proper to a sentence
+containing an inflected objective and the order natural to a sentence
+with an interrogative pronoun or adverb. The solution _Did you see
+whom?_ or _You saw whom?_[135] is too contrary to the idiomatic drift of
+our language to receive acceptance. The more radical solution _Who did
+you see?_ is the one the language is gradually making for.
+
+[Footnote 135: Aside from certain idiomatic usages, as when _You saw
+whom?_ is equivalent to _You saw so and so and that so and so is who?_
+In such sentences _whom_ is pronounced high and lingeringly to emphasize
+the fact that the person just referred to by the listener is not known
+or recognized.]
+
+These three conflicts--on the score of form grouping, of rhetorical
+emphasis, and of order--are supplemented by a fourth difficulty. The
+emphatic _whom_, with its heavy build (half-long vowel followed by
+labial consonant), should contrast with a lightly tripping syllable
+immediately following. In _whom did_, however, we have an involuntary
+retardation that makes the locution sound "clumsy." This clumsiness is a
+phonetic verdict, quite apart from the dissatisfaction due to the
+grammatical factors which we have analyzed. The same prosodic objection
+does not apply to such parallel locutions as _what did_ and _when did_.
+The vowels of _what_ and _when_ are shorter and their final consonants
+melt easily into the following _d_, which is pronounced in the same
+tongue position as _t_ and _n_. Our instinct for appropriate rhythms
+makes it as difficult for us to feel content with _whom did_ as for a
+poet to use words like _dreamed_ and _hummed_ in a rapid line. Neither
+common feeling nor the poet's choice need be at all conscious. It may be
+that not all are equally sensitive to the rhythmic flow of speech, but
+it is probable that rhythm is an unconscious linguistic determinant even
+with those who set little store by its artistic use. In any event the
+poet's rhythms can only be a more sensitive and stylicized application
+of rhythmic tendencies that are characteristic of the daily speech of
+his people.
+
+We have discovered no less than four factors which enter into our subtle
+disinclination to say "Whom did you see?" The uneducated folk that says
+"Who did you see?" with no twinge of conscience has a more acute flair
+for the genuine drift of the language than its students. Naturally the
+four restraining factors do not operate independently. Their separate
+energies, if we may make bold to use a mechanical concept, are
+"canalized" into a single force. This force or minute embodiment of the
+general drift of the language is psychologically registered as a slight
+hesitation in using the word _whom_. The hesitation is likely to be
+quite unconscious, though it may be readily acknowledged when attention
+is called to it. The analysis is certain to be unconscious, or rather
+unknown, to the normal speaker.[136] How, then, can we be certain in
+such an analysis as we have undertaken that all of the assigned
+determinants are really operative and not merely some one of them?
+Certainly they are not equally powerful in all cases. Their values are
+variable, rising and falling according to the individual and the
+locution.[137] But that they really exist, each in its own right, may
+sometimes be tested by the method of elimination. If one or other of the
+factors is missing and we observe a slight diminution in the
+corresponding psychological reaction ("hesitation" in our case), we may
+conclude that the factor is in other uses genuinely positive. The second
+of our four factors applies only to the interrogative use of _whom_, the
+fourth factor applies with more force to the interrogative than to the
+relative. We can therefore understand why a sentence like _Is he the man
+whom you referred to?_ though not as idiomatic as _Is he the man (that)
+you referred to?_ (remember that it sins against counts one and three),
+is still not as difficult to reconcile with our innate feeling for
+English expression as _Whom did you see?_ If we eliminate the fourth
+factor from the interrogative usage,[138] say in _Whom are you looking
+at?_ where the vowel following _whom_ relieves this word of its phonetic
+weight, we can observe, if I am not mistaken, a lesser reluctance to use
+the _whom_. _Who are you looking at?_ might even sound slightly
+offensive to ears that welcome _Who did you see?_
+
+[Footnote 136: Students of language cannot be entirely normal in their
+attitude towards their own speech. Perhaps it would be better to say
+"naïve" than "normal."]
+
+[Footnote 137: It is probably this _variability of value_ in the
+significant compounds of a general linguistic drift that is responsible
+for the rise of dialectic variations. Each dialect continues the general
+drift of the common parent, but has not been able to hold fast to
+constant values for each component of the drift. Deviations as to the
+drift itself, at first slight, later cumulative, are therefore
+unavoidable.]
+
+[Footnote 138: Most sentences beginning with interrogative _whom_ are
+likely to be followed by _did_ or _does_, _do_. Yet not all.]
+
+We may set up a scale of "hesitation values" somewhat after this
+fashion:
+
+Value 1: factors 1, 3. "The man whom I referred to."
+Value 2: factors 1, 3, 4. "The man whom they referred to."
+Value 3: factors 1, 2, 3. "Whom are you looking at?"
+Value 4: factors 1, 2, 3, 4. "Whom did you see?"
+
+We may venture to surmise that while _whom_ will ultimately disappear
+from English speech, locutions of the type _Whom did you see?_ will be
+obsolete when phrases like _The man whom I referred to_ are still in
+lingering use. It is impossible to be certain, however, for we can never
+tell if we have isolated all the determinants of a drift. In our
+particular case we have ignored what may well prove to be a controlling
+factor in the history of _who_ and _whom_ in the relative sense. This is
+the unconscious desire to leave these words to their interrogative
+function and to concentrate on _that_ or mere word order as expressions
+of the relative (e.g., _The man that I referred to_ or _The man I
+referred to_). This drift, which does not directly concern the use of
+_whom_ as such (merely of _whom_ as a form of _who_), may have made the
+relative _who_ obsolete before the other factors affecting relative
+_whom_ have run their course. A consideration like this is instructive
+because it indicates that knowledge of the general drift of a language
+is insufficient to enable us to see clearly what the drift is heading
+for. We need to know something of the relative potencies and speeds of
+the components of the drift.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say that the particular drifts involved in the
+use of _whom_ are of interest to us not for their own sake but as
+symptoms of larger tendencies at work in the language. At least three
+drifts of major importance are discernible. Each of these has operated
+for centuries, each is at work in other parts of our linguistic
+mechanism, each is almost certain to continue for centuries, possibly
+millennia. The first is the familiar tendency to level the distinction
+between the subjective and the objective, itself but a late chapter in
+the steady reduction of the old Indo-European system of syntactic cases.
+This system, which is at present best preserved in Lithuanian,[139] was
+already considerably reduced in the old Germanic language of which
+English, Dutch, German, Danish, and Swedish are modern dialectic forms.
+The seven Indo-European cases (nominative genitive, dative, accusative,
+ablative, locative, instrumental) had been already reduced to four
+(nominative genitive, dative, accusative). We know this from a careful
+comparison of and reconstruction based on the oldest Germanic dialects
+of which we still have records (Gothic, Old Icelandic, Old High German,
+Anglo-Saxon). In the group of West Germanic dialects, for the study of
+which Old High German, Anglo-Saxon, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon are our
+oldest and most valuable sources, we still have these four cases, but
+the phonetic form of the case syllables is already greatly reduced and
+in certain paradigms particular cases have coalesced. The case system is
+practically intact but it is evidently moving towards further
+disintegration. Within the Anglo-Saxon and early Middle English period
+there took place further changes in the same direction. The phonetic
+form of the case syllables became still further reduced and the
+distinction between the accusative and the dative finally disappeared.
+The new "objective" is really an amalgam of old accusative and dative
+forms; thus, _him_, the old dative (we still say _I give him the book_,
+not "abbreviated" from _I give to him_; compare Gothic _imma_, modern
+German _ihm_), took over the functions of the old accusative
+(Anglo-Saxon _hine_; compare Gothic _ina_, Modern German _ihn_) and
+dative. The distinction between the nominative and accusative was
+nibbled away by phonetic processes and morphological levelings until
+only certain pronouns retained distinctive subjective and objective
+forms.
+
+[Footnote 139: Better, indeed, than in our oldest Latin and Greek
+records. The old Indo-Iranian languages alone (Sanskrit, Avestan) show
+an equally or more archaic status of the Indo-European parent tongue as
+regards case forms.]
+
+In later medieval and in modern times there have been comparatively few
+apparent changes in our case system apart from the gradual replacement
+of _thou_--_thee_ (singular) and subjective _ye_--objective _you_
+(plural) by a single undifferentiated form _you_. All the while,
+however, the case system, such as it is (subjective-objective, really
+absolutive, and possessive in nouns; subjective, objective, and
+possessive in certain pronouns) has been steadily weakening in
+psychological respects. At present it is more seriously undermined than
+most of us realize. The possessive has little vitality except in the
+pronoun and in animate nouns. Theoretically we can still say _the moon's
+phases_ or _a newspaper's vogue_; practically we limit ourselves pretty
+much to analytic locutions like _the phases of the moon_ and _the vogue
+of a newspaper_. The drift is clearly toward the limitation, of
+possessive forms to animate nouns. All the possessive pronominal forms
+except _its_ and, in part, _their_ and _theirs_, are also animate. It is
+significant that _theirs_ is hardly ever used in reference to inanimate
+nouns, that there is some reluctance to so use _their_, and that _its_
+also is beginning to give way to _of it_. _The appearance of it_ or _the
+looks of it_ is more in the current of the language than _its
+appearance_. It is curiously significant that _its young_ (referring to
+an animal's cubs) is idiomatically preferable to _the young of it_. The
+form is only ostensibly neuter, in feeling it is animate;
+psychologically it belongs with _his children_, not with _the pieces of
+it_. Can it be that so common a word as _its_ is actually beginning to
+be difficult? Is it too doomed to disappear? It would be rash to say
+that it shows signs of approaching obsolescence, but that it is steadily
+weakening is fairly clear.[140] In any event, it is not too much to say
+that there is a strong drift towards the restriction of the inflected
+possessive forms to animate nouns and pronouns.
+
+[Footnote 140: Should _its_ eventually drop out, it will have had a
+curious history. It will have played the rôle of a stop-gap between
+_his_ in its non-personal use (see footnote 11, page 167) and the later
+analytic of _it_.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 140 refers to Footnote 132, beginning on
+line 5142.]
+
+How is it with the alternation of subjective and objective in the
+pronoun? Granted that _whom_ is a weak sister, that the two cases have
+been leveled in _you_ (in _it_, _that_, and _what_ they were never
+distinct, so far as we can tell[141]), and that _her_ as an objective is
+a trifle weak because of its formal identity with the possessive _her_,
+is there any reason to doubt the vitality of such alternations as _I see
+the man_ and _the man sees me_? Surely the distinction between
+subjective _I_ and objective _me_, between subjective _he_ and objective
+_him_, and correspondingly for other personal pronouns, belongs to the
+very core of the language. We can throw _whom_ to the dogs, somehow make
+shift to do without an _its_, but to level _I_ and _me_ to a single
+case--would that not be to un-English our language beyond recognition?
+There is no drift toward such horrors as _Me see him_ or _I see he_.
+True, the phonetic disparity between _I_ and _me_, _he_ and _him_, _we_
+and _us_, has been too great for any serious possibility of form
+leveling. It does not follow that the case distinction as such is still
+vital. One of the most insidious peculiarities of a linguistic drift is
+that where it cannot destroy what lies in its way it renders it
+innocuous by washing the old significance out of it. It turns its very
+enemies to its own uses. This brings us to the second of the major
+drifts, the tendency to fixed position in the sentence, determined by
+the syntactic relation of the word.
+
+[Footnote 141: Except in so far as _that_ has absorbed other
+functions than such as originally belonged to it. It was only a
+nominative-accusative neuter to begin with.]
+
+We need not go into the history of this all-important drift. It is
+enough to know that as the inflected forms of English became scantier,
+as the syntactic relations were more and more inadequately expressed by
+the forms of the words themselves, position in the sentence gradually
+took over functions originally foreign to it. _The man_ in _the man sees
+the dog_ is subjective; in _the dog sees the man_, objective. Strictly
+parallel to these sentences are _he sees the dog_ and _the dog sees
+him_. Are the subjective value of _he_ and the objective value of _him_
+entirely, or even mainly, dependent on the difference of form? I doubt
+it. We could hold to such a view if it were possible to say _the dog
+sees he_ or _him sees the dog_. It was once possible to say such things,
+but we have lost the power. In other words, at least part of the case
+feeling in _he_ and _him_ is to be credited to their position before or
+after the verb. May it not be, then, that _he_ and _him_, _we_ and _us_,
+are not so much subjective and objective forms as pre-verbal and
+post-verbal[142] forms, very much as _my_ and _mine_ are now pre-nominal
+and post-nominal forms of the possessive (_my father_ but _father mine_;
+_it is my book_ but _the book is mine_)? That this interpretation
+corresponds to the actual drift of the English language is again
+indicated by the language of the folk. The folk says _it is me_, not _it
+is I_, which is "correct" but just as falsely so as the _whom did you
+see_? that we have analyzed. _I'm the one_, _it's me_; _we're the ones_,
+_it's us that will win out_--such are the live parallelisms in English
+to-day. There is little doubt that _it is I_ will one day be as
+impossible in English as _c'est je_, for _c'est moi_, is now in French.
+
+[Footnote 142: Aside from the interrogative: _am I?_ _is he?_ Emphasis
+counts for something. There is a strong tendency for the old "objective"
+forms to bear a stronger stress than the "subjective" forms. This is why
+the stress in locutions like _He didn't go, did he?_ and _isn't he?_ is
+thrown back on the verb; it is not a matter of logical emphasis.]
+
+How differently our _I_: _me_ feels than in Chaucer's day is shown by
+the Chaucerian _it am I_. Here the distinctively subjective aspect of
+the _I_ was enough to influence the form of the preceding verb in spite
+of the introductory _it_; Chaucer's locution clearly felt more like a
+Latin _sum ego_ than a modern _it is I_ or colloquial _it is me_. We
+have a curious bit of further evidence to prove that the English
+personal pronouns have lost some share of their original syntactic
+force. Were _he_ and _she_ subjective forms pure and simple, were they
+not striving, so to speak, to become caseless absolutives, like _man_ or
+any other noun, we should not have been able to coin such compounds as
+_he-goat_ and _she-goat_, words that are psychologically analogous to
+_bull-moose_ and _mother-bear_. Again, in inquiring about a new-born
+baby, we ask _Is it a he or a she?_ quite as though _he_ and _she_ were
+the equivalents of _male_ and _female_ or _boy_ and _girl_. All in all,
+we may conclude that our English case system is weaker than it looks and
+that, in one way or another, it is destined to get itself reduced to an
+absolutive (caseless) form for all nouns and pronouns but those that are
+animate. Animate nouns and pronouns are sure to have distinctive
+possessive forms for an indefinitely long period.
+
+Meanwhile observe that the old alignment of case forms is being invaded
+by two new categories--a positional category (pre-verbal, post-verbal)
+and a classificatory category (animate, inanimate). The facts that in
+the possessive animate nouns and pronouns are destined to be more and
+more sharply distinguished from inanimate nouns and pronouns (_the
+man's_, but _of the house_; _his_, but _of it_) and that, on the whole,
+it is only animate pronouns that distinguish pre-verbal and post-verbal
+forms[143] are of the greatest theoretical interest. They show that,
+however the language strive for a more and more analytic form, it is by
+no means manifesting a drift toward the expression of "pure" relational
+concepts in the Indo-Chinese manner.[144] The insistence on the
+concreteness of the relational concepts is clearly stronger than the
+destructive power of the most sweeping and persistent drifts that we
+know of in the history and prehistory of our language.
+
+[Footnote 143: _They_: _them_ as an inanimate group may be looked upon
+as a kind of borrowing from the animate, to which, in feeling, it more
+properly belongs.]
+
+[Footnote 144: See page 155.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 144 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 4795.]
+
+The drift toward the abolition of most case distinctions and the
+correlative drift toward position as an all-important grammatical method
+are accompanied, in a sense dominated, by the last of the three major
+drifts that I have referred to. This is the drift toward the invariable
+word. In analyzing the "whom" sentence I pointed out that the rhetorical
+emphasis natural to an interrogative pronoun lost something by its form
+variability (_who_, _whose_, _whom_). This striving for a simple,
+unnuanced correspondence between idea and word, as invariable as may be,
+is very strong in English. It accounts for a number of tendencies which
+at first sight seem unconnected. Certain well-established forms, like
+the present third person singular _-s_ of _works_ or the plural _-s_ of
+_books_, have resisted the drift to invariable words, possibly because
+they symbolize certain stronger form cravings that we do not yet fully
+understand. It is interesting to note that derivations that get away
+sufficiently from the concrete notion of the radical word to exist as
+independent conceptual centers are not affected by this elusive drift.
+As soon as the derivation runs danger of being felt as a mere nuancing
+of, a finicky play on, the primary concept, it tends to be absorbed by
+the radical word, to disappear as such. English words crave spaces
+between them, they do not like to huddle in clusters of slightly
+divergent centers of meaning, each edging a little away from the rest.
+_Goodness_, a noun of quality, almost a noun of relation, that takes its
+cue from the concrete idea of "good" without necessarily predicating
+that quality (e.g., _I do not think much of his goodness_) is
+sufficiently spaced from _good_ itself not to need fear absorption.
+Similarly, _unable_ can hold its own against _able_ because it destroys
+the latter's sphere of influence; _unable_ is psychologically as
+distinct from _able_ as is _blundering_ or _stupid_. It is different
+with adverbs in _-ly_. These lean too heavily on their adjectives to
+have the kind of vitality that English demands of its words. _Do it
+quickly!_ drags psychologically. The nuance expressed by _quickly_ is
+too close to that of _quick_, their circles of concreteness are too
+nearly the same, for the two words to feel comfortable together. The
+adverbs in _-ly_ are likely to go to the wall in the not too distant
+future for this very reason and in face of their obvious usefulness.
+Another instance of the sacrifice of highly useful forms to this
+impatience of nuancing is the group _whence_, _whither_, _hence_,
+_hither_, _thence_, _thither_. They could not persist in live usage
+because they impinged too solidly upon the circles of meaning
+represented by the words _where_, _here_ and _there_. In saying
+_whither_ we feel too keenly that we repeat all of _where_. That we add
+to _where_ an important nuance of direction irritates rather than
+satisfies. We prefer to merge the static and the directive (_Where do
+you live?_ like _Where are you going?_) or, if need be, to overdo a
+little the concept of direction (_Where are you running to?_).
+
+Now it is highly symptomatic of the nature of the drift away from word
+clusters that we do not object to nuances as such, we object to having
+the nuances formally earmarked for us. As a matter of fact our
+vocabulary is rich in near-synonyms and in groups of words that are
+psychologically near relatives, but these near-synonyms and these groups
+do not hang together by reason of etymology. We are satisfied with
+_believe_ and _credible_ just because they keep aloof from each other.
+_Good_ and _well_ go better together than _quick_ and _quickly_. The
+English vocabulary is a rich medley because each English word wants its
+own castle. Has English long been peculiarly receptive to foreign words
+because it craves the staking out of as many word areas as possible, or,
+conversely, has the mechanical imposition of a flood of French and Latin
+loan-words, unrooted in our earlier tradition, so dulled our feeling for
+the possibilities of our native resources that we are allowing these to
+shrink by default? I suspect that both propositions are true. Each feeds
+on the other. I do not think it likely, however, that the borrowings in
+English have been as mechanical and external a process as they are
+generally represented to have been. There was something about the
+English drift as early as the period following the Norman Conquest that
+welcomed the new words. They were a compensation for something that was
+weakening within.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+LANGUAGE AS A HISTORICAL PRODUCT: PHONETIC LAW
+
+
+I have preferred to take up in some detail the analysis of our
+hesitation in using a locution like "Whom did you see?" and to point to
+some of the English drifts, particular and general, that are implied by
+this hesitation than to discuss linguistic change in the abstract. What
+is true of the particular idiom that we started with is true of
+everything else in language. Nothing is perfectly static. Every word,
+every grammatical element, every locution, every sound and accent is a
+slowly changing configuration, molded by the invisible and impersonal
+drift that is the life of language. The evidence is overwhelming that
+this drift has a certain consistent direction. Its speed varies
+enormously according to circumstances that it is not always easy to
+define. We have already seen that Lithuanian is to-day nearer its
+Indo-European prototype than was the hypothetical Germanic mother-tongue
+five hundred or a thousand years before Christ. German has moved more
+slowly than English; in some respects it stands roughly midway between
+English and Anglo-Saxon, in others it has of course diverged from the
+Anglo-Saxon line. When I pointed out in the preceding chapter that
+dialects formed because a language broken up into local segments could
+not move along the same drift in all of these segments, I meant of
+course that it could not move along identically the same drift. The
+general drift of a language has its depths. At the surface the current
+is relatively fast. In certain features dialects drift apart rapidly. By
+that very fact these features betray themselves as less fundamental to
+the genius of the language than the more slowly modifiable features in
+which the dialects keep together long after they have grown to be
+mutually alien forms of speech. But this is not all. The momentum of the
+more fundamental, the pre-dialectic, drift is often such that languages
+long disconnected will pass through the same or strikingly similar
+phases. In many such cases it is perfectly clear that there could have
+been no dialectic interinfluencing.
+
+These parallelisms in drift may operate in the phonetic as well as in
+the morphological sphere, or they may affect both at the same time. Here
+is an interesting example. The English type of plural represented by
+_foot_: _feet_, _mouse_: _mice_ is strictly parallel to the German
+_Fuss_: _Füsse_, _Maus_: _Mäuse_. One would be inclined to surmise that
+these dialectic forms go back to old Germanic or West-Germanic
+alternations of the same type. But the documentary evidence shows
+conclusively that there could have been no plurals of this type in
+primitive Germanic. There is no trace of such vocalic mutation
+("umlaut") in Gothic, our most archaic Germanic language. More
+significant still is the fact that it does not appear in our oldest Old
+High German texts and begins to develop only at the very end of the Old
+High German period (circa 1000 A.D.). In the Middle High German period
+the mutation was carried through in all dialects. The typical Old High
+German forms are singular _fuoss_, plural _fuossi_;[145] singular _mus_,
+plural _musi_. The corresponding Middle High German forms are _fuoss_,
+_füesse_; _mus_, _müse_. Modern German _Fuss_: _Füsse_, _Maus_: _Mäuse_
+are the regular developments of these medieval forms. Turning to
+Anglo-Saxon, we find that our modern English forms correspond to _fot_,
+_fet_; _mus_, _mys_.[146] These forms are already in use in the earliest
+English monuments that we possess, dating from the eighth century, and
+thus antedate the Middle High German forms by three hundred years or
+more. In other words, on this particular point it took German at least
+three hundred years to catch up with a phonetic-morphological drift[147]
+that had long been under way in English. The mere fact that the affected
+vowels of related words (Old High German _uo_, Anglo-Saxon _o_) are not
+always the same shows that the affection took place at different periods
+in German and English.[148] There was evidently some general tendency or
+group of tendencies at work in early Germanic, long before English and
+German had developed as such, that eventually drove both of these
+dialects along closely parallel paths.
+
+[Footnote 145: I have changed the Old and Middle High German orthography
+slightly in order to bring it into accord with modern usage. These
+purely orthographical changes are immaterial. The _u_ of _mus_ is a long
+vowel, very nearly like the _oo_ of English _moose_.]
+
+[Footnote 146: The vowels of these four words are long; _o_ as in
+_rode_, _e_ like _a_ of _fade_, _u_ like _oo_ of _brood_, _y_ like
+German _ü_.]
+
+[Footnote 147: Or rather stage in a drift.]
+
+[Footnote 148: Anglo-Saxon _fet_ is "unrounded" from an older _föt_,
+which is phonetically related to _fot_ precisely as is _mys_ (i.e.,
+_müs_) to _mus_. Middle High German _ue_ (Modern German _u_) did not
+develop from an "umlauted" prototype of Old High German _uo_ and
+Anglo-Saxon _o_, but was based directly on the dialectic _uo_. The
+unaffected prototype was long _o_. Had this been affected in the
+earliest Germanic or West-Germanic period, we should have had a
+pre-German alternation _fot_: _föti_; this older _ö_ could not well have
+resulted in _ue_. Fortunately we do not need inferential evidence in
+this case, yet inferential comparative methods, if handled with care,
+may be exceedingly useful. They are indeed indispensable to the
+historian of language.]
+
+How did such strikingly individual alternations as _fot_: _fet_,
+_fuoss_: _füesse_ develop? We have now reached what is probably the
+most central problem in linguistic history, gradual phonetic change.
+"Phonetic laws" make up a large and fundamental share of the
+subject-matter of linguistics. Their influence reaches far beyond the
+proper sphere of phonetics and invades that of morphology, as we shall
+see. A drift that begins as a slight phonetic readjustment or
+unsettlement may in the course of millennia bring about the most
+profound structural changes. The mere fact, for instance, that there is
+a growing tendency to throw the stress automatically on the first
+syllable of a word may eventually change the fundamental type of the
+language, reducing its final syllables to zero and driving it to the use
+of more and more analytical or symbolic[149] methods. The English
+phonetic laws involved in the rise of the words _foot_, _feet_, _mouse_
+and _mice_ from their early West-Germanic prototypes _fot_, _foti_,
+_mus_, _musi_[150] may be briefly summarized as follows:
+
+[Footnote 149: See page 133.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 149 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 4081.]
+
+[Footnote 150: Primitive Germanic _fot(s)_, _fotiz_, _mus_, _musiz_;
+Indo-European _pods_, _podes_, _mus_, _muses_. The vowels of the first
+syllables are all long.]
+
+1. In _foti_ "feet" the long _o_ was colored by the following _i_ to
+long _ö_, that is, _o_ kept its lip-rounded quality and its middle
+height of tongue position but anticipated the front tongue position of
+the _i_; _ö_ is the resulting compromise. This assimilatory change was
+regular, i.e., every accented long _o_ followed by an _i_ in the
+following syllable automatically developed to long _ö_; hence _tothi_
+"teeth" became _töthi_, _fodian_ "to feed" became _födian_. At first
+there is no doubt the alternation between _o_ and _ö_ was not felt as
+intrinsically significant. It could only have been an unconscious
+mechanical adjustment such as may be observed in the speech of many
+to-day who modify the "oo" sound of words like _you_ and _few_ in the
+direction of German _ü_ without, however, actually departing far enough
+from the "oo" vowel to prevent their acceptance of _who_ and _you_ as
+satisfactory rhyming words. Later on the quality of the _ö_ vowel must
+have departed widely enough from that of _o_ to enable _ö_ to rise in
+consciousness[151] as a neatly distinct vowel. As soon as this happened,
+the expression of plurality in _föti_, _töthi_, and analogous words
+became symbolic and fusional, not merely fusional.
+
+[Footnote 151: Or in that unconscious sound patterning which is ever on
+the point of becoming conscious. See page 57.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 151 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 1797.]
+
+2. In _musi_ "mice" the long _u_ was colored by the following _i_ to
+long _ü_. This change also was regular; _lusi_ "lice" became _lüsi_,
+_kui_ "cows" became _küi_ (later simplified to _kü_; still preserved as
+_ki-_ in _kine_), _fulian_ "to make foul" became _fülian_ (still
+preserved as _-file_ in _defile_). The psychology of this phonetic law
+is entirely analogous to that of 1.
+
+3. The old drift toward reducing final syllables, a rhythmic consequence
+of the strong Germanic stress on the first syllable, now manifested
+itself. The final _-i_, originally an important functional element, had
+long lost a great share of its value, transferred as that was to the
+symbolic vowel change (_o_: _ö_). It had little power of resistance,
+therefore, to the drift. It became dulled to a colorless _-e_; _föti_
+became _föte_.
+
+4. The weak _-e_ finally disappeared. Probably the forms _föte_ and
+_föt_ long coexisted as prosodic variants according to the rhythmic
+requirements of the sentence, very much as _Füsse_ and _Füss'_ now
+coexist in German.
+
+5. The _ö_ of _föt_ became "unrounded" to long _e_ (our present _a_ of
+_fade_). The alternation of _fot_: _foti_, transitionally _fot_: _föti_,
+_föte_, _föt_, now appears as _fot_: _fet_. Analogously, _töth_ appears
+as _teth_, _födian_ as _fedian_, later _fedan_. The new long _e_-vowel
+"fell together" with the older _e_-vowel already existent (e.g., _her_
+"here," _he_ "he"). Henceforward the two are merged and their later
+history is in common. Thus our present _he_ has the same vowel as
+_feet_, _teeth_, and _feed_. In other words, the old sound pattern _o_,
+_e_, after an interim of _o_, _ö_, _e_, reappeared as _o_, _e_, except
+that now the _e_ had greater "weight" than before.
+
+6. _Fot_: _fet_, _mus_: _müs_ (written _mys_) are the typical forms of
+Anglo-Saxon literature. At the very end of the Anglo-Saxon period, say
+about 1050 to 1100 A.D., the _ü_, whether long or short, became
+unrounded to _i_. _Mys_ was then pronounced _mis_ with long _i_ (rhyming
+with present _niece_). The change is analogous to 5, but takes place
+several centuries later.
+
+7. In Chaucer's day (circa 1350-1400 A.D.) the forms were still
+_fot_: _fet_ (written _foot_, _feet_) and _mus_: _mis_ (written very
+variably, but _mous_, _myse_ are typical). About 1500 all the long
+_i_-vowels, whether original (as in _write_, _ride_, _wine_) or
+unrounded from Anglo-Saxon _ü_ (as in _hide_, _bride_, _mice_,
+_defile_), became diphthongized to _ei_ (i.e., _e_ of _met_ + short
+_i_). Shakespeare pronounced _mice_ as _meis_ (almost the same as the
+present Cockney pronunciation of _mace_).
+
+8. About the same time the long _u_-vowels were diphthongized to _ou_
+(i.e., _o_ of present Scotch _not_ + _u_ of _full_). The Chaucerian
+_mus_: _mis_ now appears as the Shakespearean _mous_: _meis_. This
+change may have manifested itself somewhat later than 7; all English
+dialects have diphthongized old Germanic long _i_,[152] but the long
+undiphthongized _u_ is still preserved in Lowland Scotch, in which
+_house_ and _mouse_ rhyme with our _loose_. 7 and 8 are analogous
+developments, as were 5 and 6; 8 apparently lags behind 7 as 6,
+centuries earlier, lagged behind 7.
+
+[Footnote 152: As have most Dutch and German dialects.]
+
+9. Some time before 1550 the long _e_ of _fet_ (written _feet_) took the
+position that had been vacated by the old long _i_, now diphthongized
+(see 7), i.e., _e_ took the higher tongue position of _i_. Our (and
+Shakespeare's) "long _e_" is, then, phonetically the same as the old
+long _i_. _Feet_ now rhymed with the old _write_ and the present _beat_.
+
+10. About the same time the long _o_ of _fot_ (written _foot_) took the
+position that had been vacated by the old long _u_, now diphthongized
+(see 8), i.e., _o_ took the higher tongue position of _u_. Our (and
+Shakespeare's) "long _oo_" is phonetically the same as the old long _u_.
+_Foot_ now rhymed with the old _out_ and the present _boot_. To
+summarize 7 to 10, Shakespeare pronounced _meis_, _mous_, _fit_, _fut_,
+of which _meis_ and _mous_ would affect our ears as a rather "mincing"
+rendering of our present _mice_ and _mouse_, _fit_ would sound
+practically identical with (but probably a bit more "drawled" than) our
+present _feet_, while _foot_, rhyming with _boot_, would now be set down
+as "broad Scotch."
+
+11. Gradually the first vowel of the diphthong in _mice_ (see 7) was
+retracted and lowered in position. The resulting diphthong now varies in
+different English dialects, but _ai_ (i.e., _a_ of _father_, but
+shorter, + short _i_) may be taken as a fairly accurate rendering of its
+average quality.[153] What we now call the "long _i_" (of words like
+_ride, bite, mice_) is, of course, an _ai_-diphthong. _Mice_ is now
+pronounced _mais_.
+
+[Footnote 153: At least in America.]
+
+12. Analogously to 11, the first vowel of the diphthong in _mouse_ (see
+8) was unrounded and lowered in position. The resulting diphthong may be
+phonetically rendered _au_, though it too varies considerably according
+to dialect. _Mouse_, then, is now pronounced _maus_.
+
+13. The vowel of _foot_ (see 10) became "open" in quality and shorter in
+quantity, i.e., it fell together with the old short _u_-vowel of words
+like _full_, _wolf_, _wool_. This change has taken place in a number of
+words with an originally long _u_ (Chaucerian long close _o_), such as
+_forsook_, _hook_, _book_, _look_, _rook_, _shook_, all of which
+formerly had the vowel of _boot_. The older vowel, however, is still
+preserved in most words of this class, such as _fool_, _moon_, _spool_,
+_stoop_. It is highly significant of the nature of the slow spread of a
+"phonetic law" that there is local vacillation at present in several
+words. One hears _roof_, _soot_, and _hoop_, for instance, both with the
+"long" vowel of _boot_ and the "short" of _foot_. It is impossible now,
+in other words, to state in a definitive manner what is the "phonetic
+law" that regulated the change of the older _foot_ (rhyming with _boot_)
+to the present _foot_. We know that there is a strong drift towards the
+short, open vowel of _foot_, but whether or not all the old "long _oo_"
+words will eventually be affected we cannot presume to say. If they all,
+or practically all, are taken by the drift, phonetic law 13 will be as
+"regular," as sweeping, as most of the twelve that have preceded it. If
+not, it may eventually be possible, if past experience is a safe guide,
+to show that the modified words form a natural phonetic group, that is,
+that the "law" will have operated under certain definable limiting
+conditions, e.g., that all words ending in a voiceless consonant (such
+as _p_, _t_, _k_, _f_) were affected (e.g., _hoof_, _foot_, _look_,
+_roof_), but that all words ending in the _oo_-vowel or in a voiced
+consonant remained unaffected (e.g., _do_, _food_, _move_, _fool_).
+Whatever the upshot, we may be reasonably certain that when the
+"phonetic law" has run its course, the distribution of "long" and
+"short" vowels in the old _oo_-words will not seem quite as erratic as
+at the present transitional moment.[154] We learn, incidentally, the
+fundamental fact that phonetic laws do not work with spontaneous
+automatism, that they are simply a formula for a consummated drift that
+sets in at a psychologically exposed point and gradually worms its way
+through a gamut of phonetically analogous forms.
+
+[Footnote 154: It is possible that other than purely phonetic factors
+are also at work in the history of these vowels.]
+
+It will be instructive to set down a table of form sequences, a kind of
+gross history of the words _foot_, _feet_, _mouse_, _mice_ for the last
+1500 years:[155]
+
+[Footnote 155: The orthography is roughly phonetic. Pronounce all
+accented vowels long except where otherwise indicated, unaccented vowels
+short; give continental values to vowels, not present English ones.]
+
+   I. _fot_: _foti_; _mus_: _musi_ (West Germanic)
+  II. _fot_: _föti_; _mus_: _müsi_
+ III. _fot_: _föte_; _mus_: _müse_
+  IV. _fot_: _föt_; _mus_: _müs_
+   V. _fot_: _fet_; _mus_: _müs_ (Anglo-Saxon)
+  VI. _fot_: _fet_; _mus_: _mis_(Chaucer)
+ VII. _fot_: _fet_; _mous_: _meis_
+VIII. _fut_ (rhymes with _boot_): _fit_; _mous_: _meis_ (Shakespeare)
+  IX. _fut_: _fit_; _maus_: _mais_
+   X. _fut_ (rhymes with _put_): _fit_; _maus_: _mais_ (English of 1900)
+
+It will not be necessary to list the phonetic laws that
+gradually differentiated the modern German equivalents
+of the original West Germanic forms from their
+English cognates. The following table gives a rough
+idea of the form sequences in German:[156]
+
+[Footnote 156: After I. the numbers are not meant to correspond
+chronologically to those of the English table. The orthography is again
+roughly phonetic.]
+
+   I. _fot_: _foti_; _mus_: _musi_ (West Germanic)
+  II. _foss_:[157] _fossi_; _mus_: _musi_
+ III. _fuoss_: _fuossi_; _mus_: _musi_ (Old High German)
+  IV. _fuoss_: _füessi_; _mus_: _müsi_
+   V. _fuoss_: _füesse_; _mus_: _müse_ (Middle High German)
+  VI. _fuoss_: _füesse_; _mus_: _müze_[158]
+ VII. _fuos_: _füese_; _mus_: _müze_
+VIII. _fuos_: _füese_; _mous_: _möüze_
+  IX. _fus_: _füse_; _mous_: _möüze_ (Luther)
+   X. _fus_: _füse_; _maus_: _moize_ (German of 1900)
+
+[Footnote 157: I use _ss_ to indicate a peculiar long, voiceless
+_s_-sound that was etymologically and phonetically distinct from the old
+Germanic _s_. It always goes back to an old _t_. In the old sources it
+is generally written as a variant of _z_, though it is not to be
+confused with the modern German _z_ (= _ts_). It was probably a dental
+(lisped) _s_.]
+
+[Footnote 158: _Z_ is to be understood as French or English _z_, not in
+its German use. Strictly speaking, this "z" (intervocalic _-s-_) was not
+voiced but was a soft voiceless sound, a sibilant intermediate between
+our _s_ and _z_. In modern North German it has become voiced to _z_. It
+is important not to confound this _s_--_z_ with the voiceless
+intervocalic _s_ that soon arose from the older lisped _ss_. In Modern
+German (aside from certain dialects), old _s_ and _ss_ are not now
+differentiated when final (_Maus_ and _Fuss_ have identical sibilants),
+but can still be distinguished as voiced and voiceless _s_ between
+vowels (_Mäuse_ and _Füsse_).]
+
+We cannot even begin to ferret out and discuss all the psychological
+problems that are concealed behind these bland tables. Their general
+parallelism is obvious. Indeed we might say that to-day the English and
+German forms resemble each other more than does either set the West
+Germanic prototypes from which each is independently derived. Each table
+illustrates the tendency to reduction of unaccented syllables, the
+vocalic modification of the radical element under the influence of the
+following vowel, the rise in tongue position of the long middle vowels
+(English _o_ to _u_, _e_ to _i_; German _o_ to _uo_ to _u_, _üe_ to
+_ü_), the diphthongizing of the old high vowels (English _i_ to _ei_ to
+_ai_; English and German _u_ to _ou_ to _au_; German _ü_ to _öü_ to
+_oi_). These dialectic parallels cannot be accidental. They are rooted
+in a common, pre-dialectic drift.
+
+Phonetic changes are "regular." All but one (English table, X.), and
+that as yet uncompleted, of the particular phonetic laws represented in
+our tables affect all examples of the sound in question or, if the
+phonetic change is conditional, all examples of the same sound that are
+analogously circumstanced.[159] An example of the first type of change
+is the passage in English of all old long _i_-vowels to diphthongal _ai_
+via _ei_. The passage could hardly have been sudden or automatic, but it
+was rapid enough to prevent an irregularity of development due to cross
+drifts. The second type of change is illustrated in the development of
+Anglo-Saxon long _o_ to long _e_, via _ö_, under the influence of a
+following _i_. In the first case we may say that _au_ mechanically
+replaced long _u_, in the second that the old long _o_ "split" into two
+sounds--long _o_, eventually _u_, and long _e_, eventually _i_. The
+former type of change did no violence to the old phonetic pattern, the
+formal distribution of sounds into groups; the latter type rearranged
+the pattern somewhat. If neither of the two sounds into which an old one
+"splits" is a new sound, it means that there has been a phonetic
+leveling, that two groups of words, each with a distinct sound or sound
+combination, have fallen together into one group. This kind of leveling
+is quite frequent in the history of language. In English, for instance,
+we have seen that all the old long _ü_-vowels, after they had become
+unrounded, were indistinguishable from the mass of long _i_-vowels. This
+meant that the long _i_-vowel became a more heavily weighted point of
+the phonetic pattern than before. It is curious to observe how often
+languages have striven to drive originally distinct sounds into certain
+favorite positions, regardless of resulting confusions.[160] In Modern
+Greek, for instance, the vowel _i_ is the historical resultant of no
+less than ten etymologically distinct vowels (long and short) and
+diphthongs of the classical speech of Athens. There is, then, good
+evidence to show that there are general phonetic drifts toward
+particular sounds.
+
+[Footnote 159: In practice phonetic laws have their exceptions, but more
+intensive study almost invariably shows that these exceptions are more
+apparent than real. They are generally due to the disturbing influence
+of morphological groupings or to special psychological reasons which
+inhibit the normal progress of the phonetic drift. It is remarkable with
+how few exceptions one need operate in linguistic history, aside from
+"analogical leveling" (morphological replacement).]
+
+[Footnote 160: These confusions are more theoretical than real, however.
+A language has countless methods of avoiding practical ambiguities.]
+
+More often the phonetic drift is of a more general character. It is not
+so much a movement toward a particular set of sounds as toward
+particular types of articulation. The vowels tend to become higher or
+lower, the diphthongs tend to coalesce into monophthongs, the voiceless
+consonants tend to become voiced, stops tend to become spirants. As a
+matter of fact, practically all the phonetic laws enumerated in the two
+tables are but specific instances of such far-reaching phonetic drifts.
+The raising of English long _o_ to _u_ and of long _e_ to _i_, for
+instance, was part of a general tendency to raise the position of the
+long vowels, just as the change of _t_ to _ss_ in Old High German was
+part of a general tendency to make voiceless spirants of the old
+voiceless stopped consonants. A single sound change, even if there is no
+phonetic leveling, generally threatens to upset the old phonetic pattern
+because it brings about a disharmony in the grouping of sounds. To
+reëstablish the old pattern without going back on the drift the only
+possible method is to have the other sounds of the series shift in
+analogous fashion. If, for some reason or other, _p_ becomes shifted to
+its voiced correspondent _b_, the old series _p_, _t_, _k_ appears in
+the unsymmetrical form _b_, _t_, _k_. Such a series is, in phonetic
+effect, not the equivalent of the old series, however it may answer to
+it in etymology. The general phonetic pattern is impaired to that
+extent. But if _t_ and _k_ are also shifted to their voiced
+correspondents _d_ and _g_, the old series is reëstablished in a new
+form: _b_, _d_, _g_. The pattern as such is preserved, or restored.
+_Provided that_ the new series _b_, _d_, _g_ does not become confused
+with an old series _b_, _d_, _g_ of distinct historical antecedents. If
+there is no such older series, the creation of a _b_, _d_, _g_ series
+causes no difficulties. If there is, the old patterning of sounds can be
+kept intact only by shifting the old _b_, _d_, _g_ sounds in some way.
+They may become aspirated to _bh_, _dh_, _gh_ or spirantized or
+nasalized or they may develop any other peculiarity that keeps them
+intact as a series and serves to differentiate them from other series.
+And this sort of shifting about without loss of pattern, or with a
+minimum loss of it, is probably the most important tendency in the
+history of speech sounds. Phonetic leveling and "splitting" counteract
+it to some extent but, on the whole, it remains the central unconscious
+regulator of the course and speed of sound changes.
+
+The desire to hold on to a pattern, the tendency to "correct" a
+disturbance by an elaborate chain of supplementary changes, often spread
+over centuries or even millennia--these psychic undercurrents of
+language are exceedingly difficult to understand in terms of individual
+psychology, though there can be no denial of their historical reality.
+What is the primary cause of the unsettling of a phonetic pattern and
+what is the cumulative force that selects these or those particular
+variations of the individual on which to float the pattern readjustments
+we hardly know. Many linguistic students have made the fatal error of
+thinking of sound change as a quasi-physiological instead of as a
+strictly psychological phenomenon, or they have tried to dispose of the
+problem by bandying such catchwords as "the tendency to increased ease
+of articulation" or "the cumulative result of faulty perception" (on the
+part of children, say, in learning to speak). These easy explanations
+will not do. "Ease of articulation" may enter in as a factor, but it is
+a rather subjective concept at best. Indians find hopelessly difficult
+sounds and sound combinations that are simple to us; one language
+encourages a phonetic drift that another does everything to fight.
+"Faulty perception" does not explain that impressive drift in speech
+sounds which I have insisted upon. It is much better to admit that we do
+not yet understand the primary cause or causes of the slow drift in
+phonetics, though we can frequently point to contributing factors. It is
+likely that we shall not advance seriously until we study the
+intuitional bases of speech. How can we understand the nature of the
+drift that frays and reforms phonetic patterns when we have never
+thought of studying sound patterning as such and the "weights" and
+psychic relations of the single elements (the individual sounds) in
+these patterns?
+
+Every linguist knows that phonetic change is frequently followed by
+morphological rearrangements, but he is apt to assume that morphology
+exercises little or no influence on the course of phonetic history. I am
+inclined to believe that our present tendency to isolate phonetics and
+grammar as mutually irrelevant linguistic provinces is unfortunate.
+There are likely to be fundamental relations between them and their
+respective histories that we do not yet fully grasp. After all, if
+speech sounds exist merely because they are the symbolic carriers of
+significant concepts and groupings of concepts, why may not a strong
+drift or a permanent feature in the conceptual sphere exercise a
+furthering or retarding influence on the phonetic drift? I believe that
+such influences may be demonstrated and that they deserve far more
+careful study than they have received.
+
+This brings us back to our unanswered question: How is it that both
+English and German developed the curious alternation of unmodified vowel
+in the singular (_foot_, _Fuss_) and modified vowel in the plural
+(_feet_, _Füsse_)? Was the pre-Anglo-Saxon alternation of _fot_ and
+_föti_ an absolutely mechanical matter, without other than incidental
+morphological interest? It is always so represented, and, indeed, all
+the external facts support such a view. The change from _o_ to _ö_,
+later _e_, is by no means peculiar to the plural. It is found also in
+the dative singular (_fet_), for it too goes back to an older _foti_.
+Moreover, _fet_ of the plural applies only to the nominative and
+accusative; the genitive has _fota_, the dative _fotum_. Only centuries
+later was the alternation of _o_ and _e_ reinterpreted as a means of
+distinguishing number; _o_ was generalized for the singular, _e_ for the
+plural. Only when this reassortment of forms took place[161] was the
+modern symbolic value of the _foot_: _feet_ alternation clearly
+established. Again, we must not forget that _o_ was modified to _ö (e)_
+in all manner of other grammatical and derivative formations. Thus, a
+pre-Anglo-Saxon _hohan_ (later _hon_) "to hang" corresponded to a
+_höhith_, _hehith_ (later _hehth_) "hangs"; to _dom_ "doom," _blod_
+"blood," and _fod_ "food" corresponded the verbal derivatives _dömian_
+(later _deman_) "to deem," _blödian_ (later _bledan_) "to bleed," and
+_födian_ (later _fedan_) "to feed." All this seems to point to the
+purely mechanical nature of the modification of _o_ to _ö_ to _e_. So
+many unrelated functions were ultimately served by the vocalic change
+that we cannot believe that it was motivated by any one of them.
+
+[Footnote 161: A type of adjustment generally referred to as "analogical
+leveling."]
+
+The German facts are entirely analogous. Only later in the history of
+the language was the vocalic alternation made significant for number.
+And yet consider the following facts. The change of _foti_ to _föti_
+antedated that of _föti_ to _föte_, _föt_. This may be looked upon as a
+"lucky accident," for if _foti_ had become _fote_, _fot_ before the _-i_
+had had the chance to exert a retroactive influence on the _o_, there
+would have been no difference between the singular and the plural. This
+would have been anomalous in Anglo-Saxon for a masculine noun. But was
+the sequence of phonetic changes an "accident"? Consider two further
+facts. All the Germanic languages were familiar with vocalic change as
+possessed of functional significance. Alternations like _sing_, _sang_,
+_sung_ (Anglo-Saxon _singan_, _sang_, _sungen_) were ingrained in the
+linguistic consciousness. Further, the tendency toward the weakening of
+final syllables was very strong even then and had been manifesting
+itself in one way and another for centuries. I believe that these
+further facts help us to understand the actual sequence of phonetic
+changes. We may go so far as to say that the _o_ (and _u_) could afford
+to stay the change to _ö_ (and _ü_) until the destructive drift had
+advanced to the point where failure to modify the vowel would soon
+result in morphological embarrassment. At a certain moment the _-i_
+ending of the plural (and analogous endings with _i_ in other
+formations) was felt to be too weak to quite bear its functional burden.
+The unconscious Anglo-Saxon mind, if I may be allowed a somewhat summary
+way of putting the complex facts, was glad of the opportunity afforded
+by certain individual variations, until then automatically canceled out,
+to have some share of the burden thrown on them. These particular
+variations won through because they so beautifully allowed the general
+phonetic drift to take its course without unsettling the morphological
+contours of the language. And the presence of symbolic variation
+(_sing_, _sang_, _sung_) acted as an attracting force on the rise of a
+new variation of similar character. All these factors were equally true
+of the German vocalic shift. Owing to the fact that the destructive
+phonetic drift was proceeding at a slower rate in German than in
+English, the preservative change of _uo_ to _üe_ (_u_ to _ü_) did not
+need to set in until 300 years or more after the analogous English
+change. Nor did it. And this is to my mind a highly significant fact.
+Phonetic changes may sometimes be unconsciously encouraged in order to
+keep intact the psychological spaces between words and word forms. The
+general drift seizes upon those individual sound variations that help to
+preserve the morphological balance or to lead to the new balance that
+the language is striving for.
+
+I would suggest, then, that phonetic change is compacted of at least
+three basic strands: (1) A general drift in one direction, concerning
+the nature of which we know almost nothing but which may be suspected to
+be of prevailingly dynamic character (tendencies, e.g., to greater or
+less stress, greater or less voicing of elements); (2) A readjusting
+tendency which aims to preserve or restore the fundamental phonetic
+pattern of the language; (3) A preservative tendency which sets in when
+a too serious morphological unsettlement is threatened by the main
+drift. I do not imagine for a moment that it is always possible to
+separate these strands or that this purely schematic statement does
+justice to the complex forces that guide the phonetic drift. The
+phonetic pattern of a language is not invariable, but it changes far
+less readily than the sounds that compose it. Every phonetic element
+that it possesses may change radically and yet the pattern remain
+unaffected. It would be absurd to claim that our present English pattern
+is identical with the old Indo-European one, yet it is impressive to
+note that even at this late day the English series of initial
+consonants:
+
+_p_  _t_  _k_
+_b_  _d_  _g_
+_f_  _th_ _h_
+
+corresponds point for point to the Sanskrit series:
+
+_b_  _d_  _g_
+_bh_ _dh_ _gh_
+_p_  _t_  _k_
+
+The relation between phonetic pattern and individual sound is roughly
+parallel to that which obtains between the morphologic type of a
+language and one of its specific morphological features. Both phonetic
+pattern and fundamental type are exceedingly conservative, all
+superficial appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Which is more
+so we cannot say. I suspect that they hang together in a way that we
+cannot at present quite understand.
+
+If all the phonetic changes brought about by the phonetic drift were
+allowed to stand, it is probable that most languages would present such
+irregularities of morphological contour as to lose touch with their
+formal ground-plan. Sound changes work mechanically. Hence they are
+likely to affect a whole morphological group here--this does not
+matter--, only part of a morphological group there--and this may be
+disturbing. Thus, the old Anglo-Saxon paradigm:
+
+          Sing.                   Plur.
+N. Ac.    _fot_                   _fet_ (older _foti_)
+G.        _fotes_                 _fota_
+D.        _fet_ (older _foti_)    _fotum_
+
+could not long stand unmodified. The _o_--_e_ alternation was welcome in
+so far as it roughly distinguished the singular from the plural. The
+dative singular _fet_, however, though justified historically, was soon
+felt to be an intrusive feature. The analogy of simpler and more
+numerously represented paradigms created the form _fote_ (compare, e.g.,
+_fisc_ "fish," dative singular _fisce_). _Fet_ as a dative becomes
+obsolete. The singular now had _o_ throughout. But this very fact made
+the genitive and dative _o_-forms of the plural seem out of place. The
+nominative and accusative _fet_ was naturally far more frequently in use
+than were the corresponding forms of the genitive and dative. These, in
+the end, could not but follow the analogy of _fet_. At the very
+beginning of the Middle English period, therefore, we find that the old
+paradigm has yielded to a more regular one:
+
+          Sing.      Plur.
+N. Ac.   *_fot_     *_fet_
+G.       *_fotes_    _fete_
+D.        _fote_     _feten_
+
+The starred forms are the old nucleus around which the new paradigm is
+built. The unstarred forms are not genealogical kin of their formal
+prototypes. They are analogical replacements.
+
+The history of the English language teems with such levelings or
+extensions. _Elder_ and _eldest_ were at one time the only possible
+comparative and superlative forms of _old_ (compare German _alt_,
+_älter_, _der älteste_; the vowel following the _old-_, _alt-_ was
+originally an _i_, which modified the quality of the stem vowel). The
+general analogy of the vast majority of English adjectives, however, has
+caused the replacement of the forms _elder_ and _eldest_ by the forms
+with unmodified vowel, _older_ and _oldest_. _Elder_ and _eldest_
+survive only as somewhat archaic terms for the older and oldest brother
+or sister. This illustrates the tendency for words that are
+psychologically disconnected from their etymological or formal group to
+preserve traces of phonetic laws that have otherwise left no
+recognizable trace or to preserve a vestige of a morphological process
+that has long lost its vitality. A careful study of these survivals or
+atrophied forms is not without value for the reconstruction of the
+earlier history of a language or for suggestive hints as to its remoter
+affiliations.
+
+Analogy may not only refashion forms within the confines of a related
+cluster of forms (a "paradigm") but may extend its influence far beyond.
+Of a number of functionally equivalent elements, for instance, only one
+may survive, the rest yielding to its constantly widening influence.
+This is what happened with the English _-s_ plural. Originally confined
+to a particular class of masculines, though an important class, the _-s_
+plural was gradually generalized for all nouns but a mere handful that
+still illustrate plural types now all but extinct (_foot_: feet,
+_goose_: _geese_, _tooth_: _teeth_, _mouse_: _mice_, _louse_: _lice_;
+_ox_: _oxen_; _child_: _children_; _sheep_: _sheep_, _deer_: _deer_).
+Thus analogy not only regularizes irregularities that have come in the
+wake of phonetic processes but introduces disturbances, generally in
+favor of greater simplicity or regularity, in a long established system
+of forms. These analogical adjustments are practically always symptoms
+of the general morphological drift of the language.
+
+A morphological feature that appears as the incidental consequence of a
+phonetic process, like the English plural with modified vowel, may
+spread by analogy no less readily than old features that owe their
+origin to other than phonetic causes. Once the _e_-vowel of Middle
+English _fet_ had become confined to the plural, there was no
+theoretical reason why alternations of the type _fot_: _fet_ and
+_mus_: _mis_ might not have become established as a productive type of
+number distinction in the noun. As a matter of fact, it did not so
+become established. The _fot_: _fet_ type of plural secured but a
+momentary foothold. It was swept into being by one of the surface drifts
+of the language, to be swept aside in the Middle English period by the
+more powerful drift toward the use of simple distinctive forms. It was
+too late in the day for our language to be seriously interested in such
+pretty symbolisms as _foot_: _feet_. What examples of the type arose
+legitimately, in other words _via_ purely phonetic processes, were
+tolerated for a time, but the type as such never had a serious future.
+
+It was different in German. The whole series of phonetic changes
+comprised under the term "umlaut," of which _u_: _ü_ and _au_: _oi_
+(written _äu_) are but specific examples, struck the German language at
+a time when the general drift to morphological simplification was not so
+strong but that the resulting formal types (e.g., _Fuss_: _Füsse_;
+_fallen_ "to fall": _fällen_ "to fell"; _Horn_ "horn": _Gehörne_ "group
+of horns"; _Haus_ "house": _Häuslein_ "little house") could keep
+themselves intact and even extend to forms that did not legitimately
+come within their sphere of influence. "Umlaut" is still a very live
+symbolic process in German, possibly more alive to-day than in medieval
+times. Such analogical plurals as _Baum_ "tree": _Bäume_ (contrast
+Middle High German _boum_: _boume_) and derivatives as _lachen_ "to
+laugh": _Gelächter_ "laughter" (contrast Middle High German _gelach_)
+show that vocalic mutation has won through to the status of a productive
+morphologic process. Some of the dialects have even gone further than
+standard German, at least in certain respects. In Yiddish,[162] for
+instance, "umlaut" plurals have been formed where there are no Middle
+High German prototypes or modern literary parallels, e.g., _tog_ "day":
+_teg_ "days" (but German _Tag_: _Tage_) on the analogy of _gast_
+"guest": _gest_ "guests" (German _Gast_: _Gäste_), _shuch_[163] "shoe":
+_shich_ "shoes" (but German _Schuh_: _Schuhe_) on the analogy of _fus_
+"foot": _fis_ "feet." It is possible that "umlaut" will run its course
+and cease to operate as a live functional process in German, but that
+time is still distant. Meanwhile all consciousness of the merely
+phonetic nature of "umlaut" vanished centuries ago. It is now a strictly
+morphological process, not in the least a mechanical phonetic
+adjustment. We have in it a splendid example of how a simple phonetic
+law, meaningless in itself, may eventually color or transform large
+reaches of the morphology of a language.
+
+[Footnote 162: Isolated from other German dialects in the late fifteenth
+and early sixteenth centuries. It is therefore a good test for gauging
+the strength of the tendency to "umlaut," particularly as it has
+developed a strong drift towards analytic methods.]
+
+[Footnote 163: _Ch_ as in German _Buch_.]
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+HOW LANGUAGES INFLUENCE EACH OTHER
+
+
+Languages, like cultures, are rarely sufficient unto themselves. The
+necessities of intercourse bring the speakers of one language into
+direct or indirect contact with those of neighboring or culturally
+dominant languages. The intercourse may be friendly or hostile. It may
+move on the humdrum plane of business and trade relations or it may
+consist of a borrowing or interchange of spiritual goods--art, science,
+religion. It would be difficult to point to a completely isolated
+language or dialect, least of all among the primitive peoples. The tribe
+is often so small that intermarriages with alien tribes that speak other
+dialects or even totally unrelated languages are not uncommon. It may
+even be doubted whether intermarriage, intertribal trade, and general
+cultural interchanges are not of greater relative significance on
+primitive levels than on our own. Whatever the degree or nature of
+contact between neighboring peoples, it is generally sufficient to lead
+to some kind of linguistic interinfluencing. Frequently the influence
+runs heavily in one direction. The language of a people that is looked
+upon as a center of culture is naturally far more likely to exert an
+appreciable influence on other languages spoken in its vicinity than to
+be influenced by them. Chinese has flooded the vocabularies of Corean,
+Japanese, and Annamite for centuries, but has received nothing in
+return. In the western Europe of medieval and modern times French has
+exercised a similar, though probably a less overwhelming, influence.
+English borrowed an immense number of words from the French of the
+Norman invaders, later also from the court French of Isle de France,
+appropriated a certain number of affixed elements of derivational value
+(e.g., _-ess_ of _princess_, _-ard_ of _drunkard_, _-ty_ of _royalty_),
+may have been somewhat stimulated in its general analytic drift by
+contact with French,[164] and even allowed French to modify its phonetic
+pattern slightly (e.g., initial _v_ and _j_ in words like _veal_ and
+_judge_; in words of Anglo-Saxon origin _v_ and _j_ can only occur after
+vowels, e.g., _over_, _hedge_). But English has exerted practically no
+influence on French.
+
+[Footnote 164: The earlier students of English, however, grossly
+exaggerated the general "disintegrating" effect of French on middle
+English. English was moving fast toward a more analytic structure long
+before the French influence set in.]
+
+The simplest kind of influence that one language may exert on another is
+the "borrowing" of words. When there is cultural borrowing there is
+always the likelihood that the associated words may be borrowed too.
+When the early Germanic peoples of northern Europe first learned of
+wine-culture and of paved streets from their commercial or warlike
+contact with the Romans, it was only natural that they should adopt the
+Latin words for the strange beverage (_vinum_, English _wine_, German
+_Wein_) and the unfamiliar type of road (_strata [via]_, English
+_street_, German _Strasse_). Later, when Christianity was introduced
+into England, a number of associated words, such as _bishop_ and
+_angel_, found their way into English. And so the process has continued
+uninterruptedly down to the present day, each cultural wave bringing to
+the language a new deposit of loan-words. The careful study of such
+loan-words constitutes an interesting commentary on the history of
+culture. One can almost estimate the rôle which various peoples have
+played in the development and spread of cultural ideas by taking note of
+the extent to which their vocabularies have filtered into those of other
+peoples. When we realize that an educated Japanese can hardly frame a
+single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources, that to
+this day Siamese and Burmese and Cambodgian bear the unmistakable
+imprint of the Sanskrit and Pali that came in with Hindu Buddhism
+centuries ago, or that whether we argue for or against the teaching of
+Latin and Greek our argument is sure to be studded with words that have
+come to us from Rome and Athens, we get some inkling of what early
+Chinese culture and Buddhism and classical Mediterranean civilization
+have meant in the world's history. There are just five languages that
+have had an overwhelming significance as carriers of culture. They are
+classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. In comparison
+with these even such culturally important languages as Hebrew and French
+sink into a secondary position. It is a little disappointing to learn
+that the general cultural influence of English has so far been all but
+negligible. The English language itself is spreading because the English
+have colonized immense territories. But there is nothing to show that it
+is anywhere entering into the lexical heart of other languages as French
+has colored the English complexion or as Arabic has permeated Persian
+and Turkish. This fact alone is significant of the power of nationalism,
+cultural as well as political, during the last century. There are now
+psychological resistances to borrowing, or rather to new sources of
+borrowing,[165] that were not greatly alive in the Middle Ages or during
+the Renaissance.
+
+[Footnote 165: For we still name our new scientific instruments and
+patent medicines from Greek and Latin.]
+
+Are there resistances of a more intimate nature to the borrowing of
+words? It is generally assumed that the nature and extent of borrowing
+depend entirely on the historical facts of culture relation; that if
+German, for instance, has borrowed less copiously than English from
+Latin and French it is only because Germany has had less intimate
+relations than England with the culture spheres of classical Rome and
+France. This is true to a considerable extent, but it is not the whole
+truth. We must not exaggerate the physical importance of the Norman
+invasion nor underrate the significance of the fact that Germany's
+central geographical position made it peculiarly sensitive to French
+influences all through the Middle Ages, to humanistic influences in the
+latter fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and again to the
+powerful French influences of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
+It seems very probable that the psychological attitude of the borrowing
+language itself towards linguistic material has much to do with its
+receptivity to foreign words. English has long been striving for the
+completely unified, unanalyzed word, regardless of whether it is
+monosyllabic or polysyllabic. Such words as _credible_, _certitude_,
+_intangible_ are entirely welcome in English because each represents a
+unitary, well-nuanced idea and because their formal analysis
+(_cred-ible_, _cert-itude_, _in-tang-ible_) is not a necessary act of
+the unconscious mind (_cred-_, _cert-_, and _tang-_ have no real
+existence in English comparable to that of _good-_ in _goodness_). A
+word like _intangible_, once it is acclimated, is nearly as simple a
+psychological entity as any radical monosyllable (say _vague_, _thin_,
+_grasp_). In German, however, polysyllabic words strive to analyze
+themselves into significant elements. Hence vast numbers of French and
+Latin words, borrowed at the height of certain cultural influences,
+could not maintain themselves in the language. Latin-German words like
+_kredibel_ "credible" and French-German words like _reussieren_ "to
+succeed" offered nothing that the unconscious mind could assimilate to
+its customary method of feeling and handling words. It is as though this
+unconscious mind said: "I am perfectly willing to accept _kredibel_ if
+you will just tell me what you mean by _kred-_." Hence German has
+generally found it easier to create new words out of its own resources,
+as the necessity for them arose.
+
+The psychological contrast between English and German as regards the
+treatment of foreign material is a contrast that may be studied in all
+parts of the world. The Athabaskan languages of America are spoken by
+peoples that have had astonishingly varied cultural contacts, yet
+nowhere do we find that an Athabaskan dialect has borrowed at all
+freely[166] from a neighboring language. These languages have always
+found it easier to create new words by compounding afresh elements ready
+to hand. They have for this reason been highly resistant to receiving
+the linguistic impress of the external cultural experiences of their
+speakers. Cambodgian and Tibetan offer a highly instructive contrast in
+their reaction to Sanskrit influence. Both are analytic languages, each
+totally different from the highly-wrought, inflective language of India.
+Cambodgian is isolating, but, unlike Chinese, it contains many
+polysyllabic words whose etymological analysis does not matter. Like
+English, therefore, in its relation to French and Latin, it welcomed
+immense numbers of Sanskrit loan-words, many of which are in common use
+to-day. There was no psychological resistance to them. Classical Tibetan
+literature was a slavish adaptation of Hindu Buddhist literature and
+nowhere has Buddhism implanted itself more firmly than in Tibet, yet it
+is strange how few Sanskrit words have found their way into the
+language. Tibetan was highly resistant to the polysyllabic words of
+Sanskrit because they could not automatically fall into significant
+syllables, as they should have in order to satisfy the Tibetan feeling
+for form. Tibetan was therefore driven to translating the great majority
+of these Sanskrit words into native equivalents. The Tibetan craving for
+form was satisfied, though the literally translated foreign terms must
+often have done violence to genuine Tibetan idiom. Even the proper names
+of the Sanskrit originals were carefully translated, element for
+element, into Tibetan; e.g., _Suryagarbha_ "Sun-bosomed" was carefully
+Tibetanized into _Nyi-mai snying-po_ "Sun-of heart-the, the heart (or
+essence) of the sun." The study of how a language reacts to the presence
+of foreign words--rejecting them, translating them, or freely accepting
+them--may throw much valuable light on its innate formal tendencies.
+
+[Footnote 166: One might all but say, "has borrowed at all."]
+
+The borrowing of foreign words always entails their phonetic
+modification. There are sure to be foreign sounds or accentual
+peculiarities that do not fit the native phonetic habits. They are then
+so changed as to do as little violence as possible to these habits.
+Frequently we have phonetic compromises. Such an English word as the
+recently introduced _camouflage_, as now ordinarily pronounced,
+corresponds to the typical phonetic usage of neither English nor French.
+The aspirated _k_, the obscure vowel of the second syllable, the precise
+quality of the _l_ and of the last _a_, and, above all, the strong
+accent on the first syllable, are all the results of unconscious
+assimilation to our English habits of pronunciation. They differentiate
+our _camouflage_ clearly from the same word as pronounced by the
+French. On the other hand, the long, heavy vowel in the third syllable
+and the final position of the "zh" sound (like _z_ in _azure_) are
+distinctly un-English, just as, in Middle English, the initial _j_ and
+_v_[167] must have been felt at first as not strictly in accord with
+English usage, though the strangeness has worn off by now. In all four
+of these cases--initial _j_, initial _v_, final "zh," and unaccented _a_
+of _father_--English has not taken on a new sound but has merely
+extended the use of an old one.
+
+[Footnote 167: See page 206.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 167 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 6329.]
+
+Occasionally a new sound is introduced, but it is likely to melt away
+before long. In Chaucer's day the old Anglo-Saxon _ü_ (written _y_) had
+long become unrounded to _i_, but a new set of _ü_-vowels had come in
+from the French (in such words as _due_, _value_, _nature_). The new _ü_
+did not long hold its own; it became diphthongized to _iu_ and was
+amalgamated with the native _iw_ of words like _new_ and _slew_.
+Eventually this diphthong appears as _yu_, with change of stress--_dew_
+(from Anglo-Saxon _deaw_) like _due_ (Chaucerian _dü_). Facts like these
+show how stubbornly a language resists radical tampering with its
+phonetic pattern.
+
+Nevertheless, we know that languages do influence each other in phonetic
+respects, and that quite aside from the taking over of foreign sounds
+with borrowed words. One of the most curious facts that linguistics has
+to note is the occurrence of striking phonetic parallels in totally
+unrelated or very remotely related languages of a restricted
+geographical area. These parallels become especially impressive when
+they are seen contrastively from a wide phonetic perspective. Here are a
+few examples. The Germanic languages as a whole have not developed
+nasalized vowels. Certain Upper German (Suabian) dialects, however,
+have now nasalized vowels in lieu of the older vowel + nasal consonant
+(_n_). Is it only accidental that these dialects are spoken in proximity
+to French, which makes abundant use of nasalized vowels? Again, there
+are certain general phonetic features that mark off Dutch and Flemish in
+contrast, say, to North German and Scandinavian dialects. One of these
+is the presence of unaspirated voiceless stops (_p_, _t_, _k_), which
+have a precise, metallic quality reminiscent of the corresponding French
+sounds, but which contrast with the stronger, aspirated stops of
+English, North German, and Danish. Even if we assume that the
+unaspirated stops are more archaic, that they are the unmodified
+descendants of the old Germanic consonants, is it not perhaps a
+significant historical fact that the Dutch dialects, neighbors of
+French, were inhibited from modifying these consonants in accordance
+with what seems to have been a general Germanic phonetic drift? Even
+more striking than these instances is the peculiar resemblance, in
+certain special phonetic respects, of Russian and other Slavic languages
+to the unrelated Ural-Altaic languages[168] of the Volga region. The
+peculiar, dull vowel, for instance, known in Russian as "yeri"[169] has
+Ural-Altaic analogues, but is entirely wanting in Germanic, Greek,
+Armenian, and Indo-Iranian, the nearest Indo-European congeners of
+Slavic. We may at least suspect that the Slavic vowel is not
+historically unconnected with its Ural-Altaic parallels. One of the most
+puzzling cases of phonetic parallelism is afforded by a large number of
+American Indian languages spoken west of the Rockies. Even at the most
+radical estimate there are at least four totally unrelated linguistic
+stocks represented in the region from southern Alaska to central
+California. Nevertheless all, or practically all, the languages of this
+immense area have some important phonetic features in common. Chief of
+these is the presence of a "glottalized" series of stopped consonants of
+very distinctive formation and of quite unusual acoustic effect.[170] In
+the northern part of the area all the languages, whether related or not,
+also possess various voiceless _l_-sounds and a series of "velar"
+(back-guttural) stopped consonants which are etymologically distinct
+from the ordinary _k_-series. It is difficult to believe that three such
+peculiar phonetic features as I have mentioned could have evolved
+independently in neighboring groups of languages.
+
+[Footnote 168: Ugro-Finnic and Turkish (Tartar)]
+
+[Footnote 169: Probably, in Sweet's terminology, high-back (or, better,
+between back and "mixed" positions)-narrow-unrounded. It generally
+corresponds to an Indo-European long _u_.]
+
+[Footnote 170: There seem to be analogous or partly analogous sounds in
+certain languages of the Caucasus.]
+
+How are we to explain these and hundreds of similar phonetic
+convergences? In particular cases we may really be dealing with archaic
+similarities due to a genetic relationship that it is beyond our present
+power to demonstrate. But this interpretation will not get us far. It
+must be ruled entirely out of court, for instance, in two of the three
+European examples I have instanced; both nasalized vowels and the Slavic
+"yeri" are demonstrably of secondary origin in Indo-European. However we
+envisage the process in detail, we cannot avoid the inference that there
+is a tendency for speech sounds or certain distinctive manners of
+articulation to spread over a continuous area in somewhat the same way
+that elements of culture ray out from a geographical center. We may
+suppose that individual variations arising at linguistic
+borderlands--whether by the unconscious suggestive influence of foreign
+speech habits or by the actual transfer of foreign sounds into the
+speech of bilingual individuals--have gradually been incorporated into
+the phonetic drift of a language. So long as its main phonetic concern
+is the preservation of its sound patterning, not of its sounds as such,
+there is really no reason why a language may not unconsciously
+assimilate foreign sounds that have succeeded in worming their way into
+its gamut of individual variations, provided always that these new
+variations (or reinforced old variations) are in the direction of the
+native drift.
+
+A simple illustration will throw light on this conception. Let us
+suppose that two neighboring and unrelated languages, A and B, each
+possess voiceless _l_-sounds (compare Welsh _ll_). We surmise that this
+is not an accident. Perhaps comparative study reveals the fact that in
+language A the voiceless _l_-sounds correspond to a sibilant series in
+other related languages, that an old alternation _s_: _sh_ has been
+shifted to the new alternation _l_ (voiceless): _s_.[171] Does it follow
+that the voiceless _l_ of language B has had the same history? Not in
+the least. Perhaps B has a strong tendency toward audible breath release
+at the end of a word, so that the final _l_, like a final vowel, was
+originally followed by a marked aspiration. Individuals perhaps tended
+to anticipate a little the voiceless release and to "unvoice" the latter
+part of the final _l_-sound (very much as the _l_ of English words like
+_felt_ tends to be partly voiceless in anticipation of the voicelessness
+of the _t_). Yet this final _l_ with its latent tendency to unvoicing
+might never have actually developed into a fully voiceless _l_ had not
+the presence of voiceless _l_-sounds in A acted as an unconscious
+stimulus or suggestive push toward a more radical change in the line of
+B's own drift. Once the final voiceless _l_ emerged, its alternation in
+related words with medial voiced _l_ is very likely to have led to its
+analogical spread. The result would be that both A and B have an
+important phonetic trait in common. Eventually their phonetic systems,
+judged as mere assemblages of sounds, might even become completely
+assimilated to each other, though this is an extreme case hardly ever
+realized in practice. The highly significant thing about such phonetic
+interinfluencings is the strong tendency of each language to keep its
+phonetic pattern intact. So long as the respective alignments of the
+similar sounds is different, so long as they have differing "values" and
+"weights" in the unrelated languages, these languages cannot be said to
+have diverged materially from the line of their inherent drift. In
+phonetics, as in vocabulary, we must be careful not to exaggerate the
+importance of interlinguistic influences.
+
+[Footnote 171: This can actually be demonstrated for one of the
+Athabaskan dialects of the Yukon.]
+
+I have already pointed out in passing that English has taken over a
+certain number of morphological elements from French. English also uses
+a number of affixes that are derived from Latin and Greek. Some of these
+foreign elements, like the _-ize_ of _materialize_ or the _-able_ of
+_breakable_, are even productive to-day. Such examples as these are
+hardly true evidences of a morphological influence exerted by one
+language on another. Setting aside the fact that they belong to the
+sphere of derivational concepts and do not touch the central
+morphological problem of the expression of relational ideas, they have
+added nothing to the structural peculiarities of our language. English
+was already prepared for the relation of _pity_ to _piteous_ by such a
+native pair as _luck_ and _lucky_; _material_ and _materialize_ merely
+swelled the ranks of a form pattern familiar from such instances as
+_wide_ and _widen_. In other words, the morphological influence exerted
+by foreign languages on English, if it is to be gauged by such examples
+as I have cited, is hardly different in kind from the mere borrowing of
+words. The introduction of the suffix _-ize_ made hardly more difference
+to the essential build of the language than did the mere fact that it
+incorporated a given number of words. Had English evolved a new future
+on the model of the synthetic future in French or had it borrowed from
+Latin and Greek their employment of reduplication as a functional device
+(Latin _tango_: _tetigi_; Greek _leipo_: _leloipa_), we should have the
+right to speak of true morphological influence. But such far-reaching
+influences are not demonstrable. Within the whole course of the history
+of the English language we can hardly point to one important
+morphological change that was not determined by the native drift, though
+here and there we may surmise that this drift was hastened a little by
+the suggestive influence of French forms.[172]
+
+[Footnote 172: In the sphere of syntax one may point to certain French
+and Latin influences, but it is doubtful if they ever reached deeper
+than the written language. Much of this type of influence belongs rather
+to literary style than to morphology proper.]
+
+It is important to realize the continuous, self-contained morphological
+development of English and the very modest extent to which its
+fundamental build has been affected by influences from without. The
+history of the English language has sometimes been represented as though
+it relapsed into a kind of chaos on the arrival of the Normans, who
+proceeded to play nine-pins with the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Students are
+more conservative today. That a far-reaching analytic development may
+take place without such external foreign influence as English was
+subjected to is clear from the history of Danish, which has gone even
+further than English in certain leveling tendencies. English may be
+conveniently used as an _a fortiori_ test. It was flooded with French
+loan-words during the later Middle Ages, at a time when its drift toward
+the analytic type was especially strong. It was therefore changing
+rapidly both within and on the surface. The wonder, then, is not that it
+took on a number of external morphological features, mere accretions on
+its concrete inventory, but that, exposed as it was to remolding
+influences, it remained so true to its own type and historic drift. The
+experience gained from the study of the English language is strengthened
+by all that we know of documented linguistic history. Nowhere do we find
+any but superficial morphological interinfluencings. We may infer one of
+several things from this:--That a really serious morphological influence
+is not, perhaps, impossible, but that its operation is so slow that it
+has hardly ever had the chance to incorporate itself in the relatively
+small portion of linguistic history that lies open to inspection; or
+that there are certain favorable conditions that make for profound
+morphological disturbances from without, say a peculiar instability of
+linguistic type or an unusual degree of cultural contact, conditions
+that do not happen to be realized in our documentary material; or,
+finally, that we have not the right to assume that a language may easily
+exert a remolding morphological influence on another.
+
+Meanwhile we are confronted by the baffling fact that important traits
+of morphology are frequently found distributed among widely differing
+languages within a large area, so widely differing, indeed, that it is
+customary to consider them genetically unrelated. Sometimes we may
+suspect that the resemblance is due to a mere convergence, that a
+similar morphological feature has grown up independently in unrelated
+languages. Yet certain morphological distributions are too specific in
+character to be so lightly dismissed. There must be some historical
+factor to account for them. Now it should be remembered that the concept
+of a "linguistic stock" is never definitive[173] in an exclusive sense.
+We can only say, with reasonable certainty, that such and such languages
+are descended from a common source, but we cannot say that such and such
+other languages are not genetically related. All we can do is to say
+that the evidence for relationship is not cumulative enough to make the
+inference of common origin absolutely necessary. May it not be, then,
+that many instances of morphological similarity between divergent
+languages of a restricted area are merely the last vestiges of a
+community of type and phonetic substance that the destructive work of
+diverging drifts has now made unrecognizable? There is probably still
+enough lexical and morphological resemblance between modern English and
+Irish to enable us to make out a fairly conclusive case for their
+genetic relationship on the basis of the present-day descriptive
+evidence alone. It is true that the case would seem weak in comparison
+to the case that we can actually make with the help of the historical
+and the comparative data that we possess. It would not be a bad case
+nevertheless. In another two or three millennia, however, the points of
+resemblance are likely to have become so obliterated that English and
+Irish, in the absence of all but their own descriptive evidence, will
+have to be set down as "unrelated" languages. They will still have in
+common certain fundamental morphological features, but it will be
+difficult to know how to evaluate them. Only in the light of the
+contrastive perspective afforded by still more divergent languages, such
+as Basque and Finnish, will these vestigial resemblances receive their
+true historic value.
+
+[Footnote 173: See page 163.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 173 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 5037.]
+
+I cannot but suspect that many of the more significant distributions of
+morphological similarities are to be explained as just such vestiges.
+The theory of "borrowing" seems totally inadequate to explain those
+fundamental features of structure, hidden away in the very core of the
+linguistic complex, that have been pointed out as common, say, to
+Semitic and Hamitic, to the various Soudanese languages, to
+Malayo-Polynesian and Mon-Khmer[174] and Munda,[175] to Athabaskan and
+Tlingit and Haida. We must not allow ourselves to be frightened away by
+the timidity of the specialists, who are often notably lacking in the
+sense of what I have called "contrastive perspective."
+
+[Footnote 174: A group of languages spoken in southeastern Asia, of
+which Khmer (Cambodgian) is the best known representative.]
+
+[Footnote 175: A group of languages spoken in northeastern India.]
+
+Attempts have sometimes been made to explain the distribution of these
+fundamental structural features by the theory of diffusion. We know that
+myths, religious ideas, types of social organization, industrial
+devices, and other features of culture may spread from point to point,
+gradually making themselves at home in cultures to which they were at
+one time alien. We also know that words may be diffused no less freely
+than cultural elements, that sounds also may be "borrowed," and that
+even morphological elements may be taken over. We may go further and
+recognize that certain languages have, in all probability, taken on
+structural features owing to the suggestive influence of neighboring
+languages. An examination of such cases,[176] however, almost invariably
+reveals the significant fact that they are but superficial additions on
+the morphological kernel of the language. So long as such direct
+historical testimony as we have gives us no really convincing examples
+of profound morphological influence by diffusion, we shall do well not
+to put too much reliance in diffusion theories. On the whole, therefore,
+we shall ascribe the major concordances and divergences in linguistic
+form--phonetic pattern and morphology--to the autonomous drift of
+language, not to the complicating effect of single, diffused features
+that cluster now this way, now that. Language is probably the most
+self-contained, the most massively resistant of all social phenomena. It
+is easier to kill it off than to disintegrate its individual form.
+
+[Footnote 176: I have in mind, e.g., the presence of postpositions in
+Upper Chinook, a feature that is clearly due to the influence of
+neighboring Sahaptin languages; or the use by Takelma of instrumental
+prefixes, which are likely to have been suggested by neighboring "Hokan"
+languages (Shasta, Karok).]
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+LANGUAGE, RACE AND CULTURE
+
+
+Language has a setting. The people that speak it belong to a race (or a
+number of races), that is, to a group which is set off by physical
+characteristics from other groups. Again, language does not exist apart
+from culture, that is, from the socially inherited assemblage of
+practices and beliefs that determines the texture of our lives.
+Anthropologists have been in the habit of studying man under the three
+rubrics of race, language, and culture. One of the first things they do
+with a natural area like Africa or the South Seas is to map it out from
+this threefold point of view. These maps answer the questions: What and
+where are the major divisions of the human animal, biologically
+considered (e.g., Congo Negro, Egyptian White; Australian Black,
+Polynesian)? What are the most inclusive linguistic groupings, the
+"linguistic stocks," and what is the distribution of each (e.g., the
+Hamitic languages of northern Africa, the Bantu languages of the south;
+the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Indonesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and
+Polynesia)? How do the peoples of the given area divide themselves as
+cultural beings? what are the outstanding "cultural areas" and what are
+the dominant ideas in each (e.g., the Mohammedan north of Africa; the
+primitive hunting, non-agricultural culture of the Bushmen in the south;
+the culture of the Australian natives, poor in physical respects but
+richly developed in ceremonialism; the more advanced and highly
+specialized culture of Polynesia)?
+
+The man in the street does not stop to analyze his position in the
+general scheme of humanity. He feels that he is the representative of
+some strongly integrated portion of humanity--now thought of as a
+"nationality," now as a "race"--and that everything that pertains to him
+as a typical representative of this large group somehow belongs
+together. If he is an Englishman, he feels himself to be a member of the
+"Anglo-Saxon" race, the "genius" of which race has fashioned the English
+language and the "Anglo-Saxon" culture of which the language is the
+expression. Science is colder. It inquires if these three types of
+classification--racial, linguistic, and cultural--are congruent, if
+their association is an inherently necessary one or is merely a matter
+of external history. The answer to the inquiry is not encouraging to
+"race" sentimentalists. Historians and anthropologists find that races,
+languages, and cultures are not distributed in parallel fashion, that
+their areas of distribution intercross in the most bewildering fashion,
+and that the history of each is apt to follow a distinctive course.
+Races intermingle in a way that languages do not. On the other hand,
+languages may spread far beyond their original home, invading the
+territory of new races and of new culture spheres. A language may even
+die out in its primary area and live on among peoples violently hostile
+to the persons of its original speakers. Further, the accidents of
+history are constantly rearranging the borders of culture areas without
+necessarily effacing the existing linguistic cleavages. If we can once
+thoroughly convince ourselves that race, in its only intelligible, that
+is biological, sense, is supremely indifferent to the history of
+languages and cultures, that these are no more directly explainable on
+the score of race than on that of the laws of physics and chemistry, we
+shall have gained a viewpoint that allows a certain interest to such
+mystic slogans as Slavophilism, Anglo-Saxondom, Teutonism, and the Latin
+genius but that quite refuses to be taken in by any of them. A careful
+study of linguistic distributions and of the history of such
+distributions is one of the driest of commentaries on these sentimental
+creeds.
+
+That a group of languages need not in the least correspond to a racial
+group or a culture area is easily demonstrated. We may even show how a
+single language intercrosses with race and culture lines. The English
+language is not spoken by a unified race. In the United States there are
+several millions of negroes who know no other language. It is their
+mother-tongue, the formal vesture of their inmost thoughts and
+sentiments. It is as much their property, as inalienably "theirs," as
+the King of England's. Nor do the English-speaking whites of America
+constitute a definite race except by way of contrast to the negroes. Of
+the three fundamental white races in Europe generally recognized by
+physical anthropologists--the Baltic or North European, the Alpine, and
+the Mediterranean--each has numerous English-speaking representatives in
+America. But does not the historical core of English-speaking peoples,
+those relatively "unmixed" populations that still reside in England and
+its colonies, represent a race, pure and single? I cannot see that the
+evidence points that way. The English people are an amalgam of many
+distinct strains. Besides the old "Anglo-Saxon," in other words North
+German, element which is conventionally represented as the basic
+strain, the English blood comprises Norman French,[177] Scandinavian,
+"Celtic,"[178] and pre-Celtic elements. If by "English" we mean also
+Scotch and Irish,[179] then the term "Celtic" is loosely used for at
+least two quite distinct racial elements--the short, dark-complexioned
+type of Wales and the taller, lighter, often ruddy-haired type of the
+Highlands and parts of Ireland. Even if we confine ourselves to the
+Saxon element, which, needless to say, nowhere appears "pure," we are
+not at the end of our troubles. We may roughly identify this strain with
+the racial type now predominant in southern Denmark and adjoining parts
+of northern Germany. If so, we must content ourselves with the
+reflection that while the English language is historically most closely
+affiliated with Frisian, in second degree with the other West Germanic
+dialects (Low Saxon or "Plattdeutsch," Dutch, High German), only in
+third degree with Scandinavian, the specific "Saxon" racial type that
+overran England in the fifth and sixth centuries was largely the same as
+that now represented by the Danes, who speak a Scandinavian language,
+while the High German-speaking population of central and southern
+Germany[180] is markedly distinct.
+
+[Footnote 177: Itself an amalgam of North "French" and Scandinavian
+elements.]
+
+[Footnote 178: The "Celtic" blood of what is now England and Wales is by
+no means confined to the Celtic-speaking regions--Wales and, until
+recently, Cornwall. There is every reason to believe that the invading
+Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes) did not exterminate the
+Brythonic Celts of England nor yet drive them altogether into Wales and
+Cornwall (there has been far too much "driving" of conquered peoples
+into mountain fastnesses and land's ends in our histories), but simply
+intermingled with them and imposed their rule and language upon them.]
+
+[Footnote 179: In practice these three peoples can hardly be kept
+altogether distinct. The terms have rather a local-sentimental than a
+clearly racial value. Intermarriage has gone on steadily for centuries
+and it is only in certain outlying regions that we get relatively pure
+types, e.g., the Highland Scotch of the Hebrides. In America, English,
+Scotch, and Irish strands have become inextricably interwoven.]
+
+[Footnote 180: The High German now spoken in northern Germany is not of
+great age, but is due to the spread of standardized German, based on
+Upper Saxon, a High German dialect, at the expense of "Plattdeutsch."]
+
+But what if we ignore these finer distinctions and simply assume that
+the "Teutonic" or Baltic or North European racial type coincided in its
+distribution with that of the Germanic languages? Are we not on safe
+ground then? No, we are now in hotter water than ever. First of all, the
+mass of the German-speaking population (central and southern Germany,
+German Switzerland, German Austria) do not belong to the tall,
+blond-haired, long-headed[181] "Teutonic" race at all, but to the
+shorter, darker-complexioned, short-headed[182] Alpine race, of which
+the central population of France, the French Swiss, and many of the
+western and northern Slavs (e.g., Bohemians and Poles) are equally good
+representatives. The distribution of these "Alpine" populations
+corresponds in part to that of the old continental "Celts," whose
+language has everywhere given way to Italic, Germanic, and Slavic
+pressure. We shall do well to avoid speaking of a "Celtic race," but if
+we were driven to give the term a content, it would probably be more
+appropriate to apply it to, roughly, the western portion of the Alpine
+peoples than to the two island types that I referred to before. These
+latter were certainly "Celticized," in speech and, partly, in blood,
+precisely as, centuries later, most of England and part of Scotland was
+"Teutonized" by the Angles and Saxons. Linguistically speaking, the
+"Celts" of to-day (Irish Gaelic, Manx, Scotch Gaelic, Welsh, Breton) are
+Celtic and most of the Germans of to-day are Germanic precisely as the
+American Negro, Americanized Jew, Minnesota Swede, and German-American
+are "English." But, secondly, the Baltic race was, and is, by no means
+an exclusively Germanic-speaking people. The northernmost "Celts," such
+as the Highland Scotch, are in all probability a specialized offshoot of
+this race. What these people spoke before they were Celticized nobody
+knows, but there is nothing whatever to indicate that they spoke a
+Germanic language. Their language may quite well have been as remote
+from any known Indo-European idiom as are Basque and Turkish to-day.
+Again, to the east of the Scandinavians are non-Germanic members of the
+race--the Finns and related peoples, speaking languages that are not
+definitely known to be related to Indo-European at all.
+
+[Footnote 181: "Dolichocephalic."]
+
+[Footnote 182: "Brachycephalic."]
+
+We cannot stop here. The geographical position of the Germanic languages
+is such[183] as to make it highly probable that they represent but an
+outlying transfer of an Indo-European dialect (possibly a Celto-Italic
+prototype) to a Baltic people speaking a language or a group of
+languages that was alien to Indo-European.[184] Not only, then, is
+English not spoken by a unified race at present but its prototype, more
+likely than not, was originally a foreign language to the race with
+which English is more particularly associated. We need not seriously
+entertain the idea that English or the group of languages to which it
+belongs is in any intelligible sense the expression of race, that there
+are embedded in it qualities that reflect the temperament or "genius" of
+a particular breed of human beings.
+
+[Footnote 183: By working back from such data as we possess we can make
+it probable that these languages were originally confined to a
+comparatively small area in northern Germany and Scandinavia. This area
+is clearly marginal to the total area of distribution of the
+Indo-European-speaking peoples. Their center of gravity, say 1000 B.C.,
+seems to have lain in southern Russia.]
+
+[Footnote 184: While this is only a theory, the technical evidence for
+it is stronger than one might suppose. There are a surprising number of
+common and characteristic Germanic words which cannot be connected with
+known Indo-European radical elements and which may well be survivals of
+the hypothetical pre-Germanic language; such are _house_, _stone_,
+_sea_, _wife_ (German _Haus_, _Stein_, _See_, _Weib_).]
+
+Many other, and more striking, examples of the lack of correspondence
+between race and language could be given if space permitted. One
+instance will do for many. The Malayo-Polynesian languages form a
+well-defined group that takes in the southern end of the Malay Peninsula
+and the tremendous island world to the south and east (except Australia
+and the greater part of New Guinea). In this vast region we find
+represented no less than three distinct races--the Negro-like Papuans of
+New Guinea and Melanesia, the Malay race of Indonesia, and the
+Polynesians of the outer islands. The Polynesians and Malays all speak
+languages of the Malayo-Polynesian group, while the languages of the
+Papuans belong partly to this group (Melanesian), partly to the
+unrelated languages ("Papuan") of New Guinea.[185] In spite of the fact
+that the greatest race cleavage in this region lies between the Papuans
+and the Polynesians, the major linguistic division is of Malayan on the
+one side, Melanesian and Polynesian on the other.
+
+[Footnote 185: Only the easternmost part of this island is occupied by
+Melanesian-speaking Papuans.]
+
+As with race, so with culture. Particularly in more primitive levels,
+where the secondarily unifying power of the "national"[186] ideal does
+not arise to disturb the flow of what we might call natural
+distributions, is it easy to show that language and culture are not
+intrinsically associated. Totally unrelated languages share in one
+culture, closely related languages--even a single language--belong to
+distinct culture spheres. There are many excellent examples in
+aboriginal America. The Athabaskan languages form as clearly unified, as
+structurally specialized, a group as any that I know of.[187] The
+speakers of these languages belong to four distinct culture areas--the
+simple hunting culture of western Canada and the interior of Alaska
+(Loucheux, Chipewyan), the buffalo culture of the Plains (Sarcee), the
+highly ritualized culture of the southwest (Navaho), and the peculiarly
+specialized culture of northwestern California (Hupa). The cultural
+adaptability of the Athabaskan-speaking peoples is in the strangest
+contrast to the inaccessibility to foreign influences of the languages
+themselves.[188] The Hupa Indians are very typical of the culture area
+to which they belong. Culturally identical with them are the neighboring
+Yurok and Karok. There is the liveliest intertribal intercourse between
+the Hupa, Yurok, and Karok, so much so that all three generally attend
+an important religious ceremony given by any one of them. It is
+difficult to say what elements in their combined culture belong in
+origin to this tribe or that, so much at one are they in communal
+action, feeling, and thought. But their languages are not merely alien
+to each other; they belong to three of the major American linguistic
+groups, each with an immense distribution on the northern continent.
+Hupa, as we have seen, is Athabaskan and, as such, is also distantly
+related to Haida (Queen Charlotte Islands) and Tlingit (southern
+Alaska); Yurok is one of the two isolated Californian languages of the
+Algonkin stock, the center of gravity of which lies in the region of the
+Great Lakes; Karok is the northernmost member of the Hokan group, which
+stretches far to the south beyond the confines of California and has
+remoter relatives along the Gulf of Mexico.
+
+[Footnote 186: A "nationality" is a major, sentimentally unified, group.
+The historical factors that lead to the feeling of national unity are
+various--political, cultural, linguistic, geographic, sometimes
+specifically religious. True racial factors also may enter in, though
+the accent on "race" has generally a psychological rather than a
+strictly biological value. In an area dominated by the national
+sentiment there is a tendency for language and culture to become uniform
+and specific, so that linguistic and cultural boundaries at least tend
+to coincide. Even at best, however, the linguistic unification is never
+absolute, while the cultural unity is apt to be superficial, of a
+quasi-political nature, rather than deep and far-reaching.]
+
+[Footnote 187: The Semitic languages, idiosyncratic as they are, are no
+more definitely ear-marked.]
+
+[Footnote 188: See page 209.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 188 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 6448.]
+
+Returning to English, most of us would readily admit, I believe, that
+the community of language between Great Britain and the United States is
+far from arguing a like community of culture. It is customary to say
+that they possess a common "Anglo-Saxon" cultural heritage, but are not
+many significant differences in life and feeling obscured by the
+tendency of the "cultured" to take this common heritage too much for
+granted? In so far as America is still specifically "English," it is
+only colonially or vestigially so; its prevailing cultural drift is
+partly towards autonomous and distinctive developments, partly towards
+immersion in the larger European culture of which that of England is
+only a particular facet. We cannot deny that the possession of a common
+language is still and will long continue to be a smoother of the way to
+a mutual cultural understanding between England and America, but it is
+very clear that other factors, some of them rapidly cumulative, are
+working powerfully to counteract this leveling influence. A common
+language cannot indefinitely set the seal on a common culture when the
+geographical, political, and economic determinants of the culture are no
+longer the same throughout its area.
+
+Language, race, and culture are not necessarily correlated. This does
+not mean that they never are. There is some tendency, as a matter of
+fact, for racial and cultural lines of cleavage to correspond to
+linguistic ones, though in any given case the latter may not be of the
+same degree of importance as the others. Thus, there is a fairly
+definite line of cleavage between the Polynesian languages, race, and
+culture on the one hand and those of the Melanesians on the other, in
+spite of a considerable amount of overlapping.[189] The racial and
+cultural division, however, particularly the former, are of major
+importance, while the linguistic division is of quite minor
+significance, the Polynesian languages constituting hardly more than a
+special dialectic subdivision of the combined Melanesian-Polynesian
+group. Still clearer-cut coincidences of cleavage may be found. The
+language, race, and culture of the Eskimo are markedly distinct from
+those of their neighbors;[190] in southern Africa the language, race,
+and culture of the Bushmen offer an even stronger contrast to those of
+their Bantu neighbors. Coincidences of this sort are of the greatest
+significance, of course, but this significance is not one of inherent
+psychological relation between the three factors of race, language, and
+culture. The coincidences of cleavage point merely to a readily
+intelligible historical association. If the Bantu and Bushmen are so
+sharply differentiated in all respects, the reason is simply that the
+former are relatively recent arrivals in southern Africa. The two
+peoples developed in complete isolation from each other; their present
+propinquity is too recent for the slow process of cultural and racial
+assimilation to have set in very powerfully. As we go back in time, we
+shall have to assume that relatively scanty populations occupied large
+territories for untold generations and that contact with other masses of
+population was not as insistent and prolonged as it later became. The
+geographical and historical isolation that brought about race
+differentiations was naturally favorable also to far-reaching variations
+in language and culture. The very fact that races and cultures which are
+brought into historical contact tend to assimilate in the long run,
+while neighboring languages assimilate each other only casually and in
+superficial respects[191], indicates that there is no profound causal
+relation between the development of language and the specific
+development of race and of culture.
+
+[Footnote 189: The Fijians, for instance, while of Papuan (negroid)
+race, are Polynesian rather than Melanesian in their cultural and
+linguistic affinities.]
+
+[Footnote 190: Though even here there is some significant overlapping.
+The southernmost Eskimo of Alaska were assimilated in culture to their
+Tlingit neighbors. In northeastern Siberia, too, there is no sharp
+cultural line between the Eskimo and the Chukchi.]
+
+[Footnote 191: The supersession of one language by another is of course
+not truly a matter of linguistic assimilation.]
+
+But surely, the wary reader will object, there must be some relation
+between language and culture, and between language and at least that
+intangible aspect of race that we call "temperament". Is it not
+inconceivable that the particular collective qualities of mind that have
+fashioned a culture are not precisely the same as were responsible for
+the growth of a particular linguistic morphology? This question takes us
+into the heart of the most difficult problems of social psychology. It
+is doubtful if any one has yet attained to sufficient clarity on the
+nature of the historical process and on the ultimate psychological
+factors involved in linguistic and cultural drifts to answer it
+intelligently. I can only very briefly set forth my own views, or rather
+my general attitude. It would be very difficult to prove that
+"temperament", the general emotional disposition of a people[192], is
+basically responsible for the slant and drift of a culture, however much
+it may manifest itself in an individual's handling of the elements of
+that culture. But granted that temperament has a certain value for the
+shaping of culture, difficult though it be to say just how, it does not
+follow that it has the same value for the shaping of language. It is
+impossible to show that the form of a language has the slightest
+connection with national temperament. Its line of variation, its drift,
+runs inexorably in the channel ordained for it by its historic
+antecedents; it is as regardless of the feelings and sentiments of its
+speakers as is the course of a river of the atmospheric humors of the
+landscape. I am convinced that it is futile to look in linguistic
+structure for differences corresponding to the temperamental variations
+which are supposed to be correlated with race. In this connection it is
+well to remember that the emotional aspect of our psychic life is but
+meagerly expressed in the build of language[193].
+
+[Footnote 192: "Temperament" is a difficult term to work with. A great
+deal of what is loosely charged to national "temperament" is really
+nothing but customary behavior, the effect of traditional ideals of
+conduct. In a culture, for instance, that does not look kindly upon
+demonstrativeness, the natural tendency to the display of emotion
+becomes more than normally inhibited. It would be quite misleading to
+argue from the customary inhibition, a cultural fact, to the native
+temperament. But ordinarily we can get at human conduct only as it is
+culturally modified. Temperament in the raw is a highly elusive thing.]
+
+[Footnote 193: See pages 39, 40.]
+
+[Transcriber's note: Footnote 193 refers to the paragraph beginning on
+line 1256.]
+
+Language and our thought-grooves are inextricably interwoven, are, in a
+sense, one and the same. As there is nothing to show that there are
+significant racial differences in the fundamental conformation of
+thought, it follows that the infinite variability of linguistic form,
+another name for the infinite variability of the actual process of
+thought, cannot be an index of such significant racial differences. This
+is only apparently a paradox. The latent content of all languages is the
+same--the intuitive _science_ of experience. It is the manifest form
+that is never twice the same, for this form, which we call linguistic
+morphology, is nothing more nor less than a collective _art_ of thought,
+an art denuded of the irrelevancies of individual sentiment. At last
+analysis, then, language can no more flow from race as such than can the
+sonnet form.
+
+Nor can I believe that culture and language are in any true sense
+causally related. Culture may be defined as _what_ a society does and
+thinks. Language is a particular _how_ of thought. It is difficult to
+see what particular causal relations may be expected to subsist between
+a selected inventory of experience (culture, a significant selection
+made by society) and the particular manner in which the society
+expresses all experience. The drift of culture, another way of saying
+history, is a complex series of changes in society's selected
+inventory--additions, losses, changes of emphasis and relation. The
+drift of language is not properly concerned with changes of content at
+all, merely with changes in formal expression. It is possible, in
+thought, to change every sound, word, and concrete concept of a language
+without changing its inner actuality in the least, just as one can pour
+into a fixed mold water or plaster or molten gold. If it can be shown
+that culture has an innate form, a series of contours, quite apart from
+subject-matter of any description whatsoever, we have a something in
+culture that may serve as a term of comparison with and possibly a
+means of relating it to language. But until such purely formal patterns
+of culture are discovered and laid bare, we shall do well to hold the
+drifts of language and of culture to be non-comparable and unrelated
+processes. From this it follows that all attempts to connect particular
+types of linguistic morphology with certain correlated stages of
+cultural development are vain. Rightly understood, such correlations are
+rubbish. The merest _coup d'oeil_ verifies our theoretical argument on
+this point. Both simple and complex types of language of an indefinite
+number of varieties may be found spoken at any desired level of cultural
+advance. When it comes to linguistic form, Plato walks with the
+Macedonian swineherd, Confucius with the head-hunting savage of Assam.
+
+It goes without saying that the mere content of language is intimately
+related to culture. A society that has no knowledge of theosophy need
+have no name for it; aborigines that had never seen or heard of a horse
+were compelled to invent or borrow a word for the animal when they made
+his acquaintance. In the sense that the vocabulary of a language more or
+less faithfully reflects the culture whose purposes it serves it is
+perfectly true that the history of language and the history of culture
+move along parallel lines. But this superficial and extraneous kind of
+parallelism is of no real interest to the linguist except in so far as
+the growth or borrowing of new words incidentally throws light on the
+formal trends of the language. The linguistic student should never make
+the mistake of identifying a language with its dictionary.
+
+If both this and the preceding chapter have been largely negative in
+their contentions, I believe that they have been healthily so. There is
+perhaps no better way to learn the essential nature of speech than to
+realize what it is not and what it does not do. Its superficial
+connections with other historic processes are so close that it needs to
+be shaken free of them if we are to see it in its own right. Everything
+that we have so far seen to be true of language points to the fact that
+it is the most significant and colossal work that the human spirit has
+evolved--nothing short of a finished form of expression for all
+communicable experience. This form may be endlessly varied by the
+individual without thereby losing its distinctive contours; and it is
+constantly reshaping itself as is all art. Language is the most massive
+and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of
+unconscious generations.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
+
+
+Languages are more to us than systems of thought-transference. They are
+invisible garments that drape themselves about our spirit and give a
+predetermined form to all its symbolic expression. When the expression
+is of unusual significance, we call it literature.[194] Art is so
+personal an expression that we do not like to feel that it is bound to
+predetermined form of any sort. The possibilities of individual
+expression are infinite, language in particular is the most fluid of
+mediums. Yet some limitation there must be to this freedom, some
+resistance of the medium. In great art there is the illusion of absolute
+freedom. The formal restraints imposed by the material--paint, black and
+white, marble, piano tones, or whatever it may be--are not perceived; it
+is as though there were a limitless margin of elbow-room between the
+artist's fullest utilization of form and the most that the material is
+innately capable of. The artist has intuitively surrendered to the
+inescapable tyranny of the material, made its brute nature fuse easily
+with his conception.[195] The material "disappears" precisely because
+there is nothing in the artist's conception to indicate that any other
+material exists. For the time being, he, and we with him, move in the
+artistic medium as a fish moves in the water, oblivious of the existence
+of an alien atmosphere. No sooner, however, does the artist transgress
+the law of his medium than we realize with a start that there is a
+medium to obey.
+
+[Footnote 194: I can hardly stop to define just what kind of expression
+is "significant" enough to be called art or literature. Besides, I do
+not exactly know. We shall have to take literature for granted.]
+
+[Footnote 195: This "intuitive surrender" has nothing to do with
+subservience to artistic convention. More than one revolt in modern art
+has been dominated by the desire to get out of the material just what it
+is really capable of. The impressionist wants light and color because
+paint can give him just these; "literature" in painting, the sentimental
+suggestion of a "story," is offensive to him because he does not want
+the virtue of his particular form to be dimmed by shadows from another
+medium. Similarly, the poet, as never before, insists that words mean
+just what they really mean.]
+
+Language is the medium of literature as marble or bronze or clay are the
+materials of the sculptor. Since every language has its distinctive
+peculiarities, the innate formal limitations--and possibilities--of one
+literature are never quite the same as those of another. The literature
+fashioned out of the form and substance of a language has the color and
+the texture of its matrix. The literary artist may never be conscious of
+just how he is hindered or helped or otherwise guided by the matrix, but
+when it is a question of translating his work into another language, the
+nature of the original matrix manifests itself at once. All his effects
+have been calculated, or intuitively felt, with reference to the formal
+"genius" of his own language; they cannot be carried over without loss
+or modification. Croce[196] is therefore perfectly right in saying that
+a work of literary art can never be translated. Nevertheless literature
+does get itself translated, sometimes with astonishing adequacy. This
+brings up the question whether in the art of literature there are not
+intertwined two distinct kinds or levels of art--a generalized,
+non-linguistic art, which can be transferred without loss into an alien
+linguistic medium, and a specifically linguistic art that is not
+transferable.[197] I believe the distinction is entirely valid, though
+we never get the two levels pure in practice. Literature moves in
+language as a medium, but that medium comprises two layers, the latent
+content of language--our intuitive record of experience--and the
+particular conformation of a given language--the specific how of our
+record of experience. Literature that draws its sustenance mainly--never
+entirely--from the lower level, say a play of Shakespeare's, is
+translatable without too great a loss of character. If it moves in the
+upper rather than in the lower level--a fair example is a lyric of
+Swinburne's--it is as good as untranslatable. Both types of literary
+expression may be great or mediocre.
+
+[Footnote 196: See Benedetto Croce, "Aesthetic."]
+
+[Footnote 197: The question of the transferability of art productions
+seems to me to be of genuine theoretic interest. For all that we speak
+of the sacrosanct uniqueness of a given art work, we know very well,
+though we do not always admit it, that not all productions are equally
+intractable to transference. A Chopin étude is inviolate; it moves
+altogether in the world of piano tone. A Bach fugue is transferable into
+another set of musical timbres without serious loss of esthetic
+significance. Chopin plays with the language of the piano as though no
+other language existed (the medium "disappears"); Bach speaks the
+language of the piano as a handy means of giving outward expression to a
+conception wrought in the generalized language of tone.]
+
+There is really no mystery in the distinction. It can be clarified a
+little by comparing literature with science. A scientific truth is
+impersonal, in its essence it is untinctured by the particular
+linguistic medium in which it finds expression. It can as readily
+deliver its message in Chinese[198] as in English. Nevertheless it must
+have some expression, and that expression must needs be a linguistic
+one. Indeed the apprehension of the scientific truth is itself a
+linguistic process, for thought is nothing but language denuded of its
+outward garb. The proper medium of scientific expression is therefore a
+generalized language that may be defined as a symbolic algebra of which
+all known languages are translations. One can adequately translate
+scientific literature because the original scientific expression is
+itself a translation. Literary expression is personal and concrete, but
+this does not mean that its significance is altogether bound up with the
+accidental qualities of the medium. A truly deep symbolism, for
+instance, does not depend on the verbal associations of a particular
+language but rests securely on an intuitive basis that underlies all
+linguistic expression. The artist's "intuition," to use Croce's term, is
+immediately fashioned out of a generalized human experience--thought and
+feeling--of which his own individual experience is a highly personalized
+selection. The thought relations in this deeper level have no specific
+linguistic vesture; the rhythms are free, not bound, in the first
+instance, to the traditional rhythms of the artist's language. Certain
+artists whose spirit moves largely in the non-linguistic (better, in the
+generalized linguistic) layer even find a certain difficulty in getting
+themselves expressed in the rigidly set terms of their accepted idiom.
+One feels that they are unconsciously striving for a generalized art
+language, a literary algebra, that is related to the sum of all known
+languages as a perfect mathematical symbolism is related to all the
+roundabout reports of mathematical relations that normal speech is
+capable of conveying. Their art expression is frequently strained, it
+sounds at times like a translation from an unknown original--which,
+indeed, is precisely what it is. These artists--Whitmans and
+Brownings--impress us rather by the greatness of their spirit than the
+felicity of their art. Their relative failure is of the greatest
+diagnostic value as an index of the pervasive presence in literature of
+a larger, more intuitive linguistic medium than any particular language.
+
+[Footnote 198: Provided, of course, Chinese is careful to provide itself
+with the necessary scientific vocabulary. Like any other language, it
+can do so without serious difficulty if the need arises.]
+
+Nevertheless, human expression being what it is, the greatest--or shall
+we say the most satisfying--literary artists, the Shakespeares and
+Heines, are those who have known subconsciously to fit or trim the
+deeper intuition to the provincial accents of their daily speech. In
+them there is no effect of strain. Their personal "intuition" appears as
+a completed synthesis of the absolute art of intuition and the innate,
+specialized art of the linguistic medium. With Heine, for instance, one
+is under the illusion that the universe speaks German. The material
+"disappears."
+
+Every language is itself a collective art of expression. There is
+concealed in it a particular set of esthetic factors--phonetic,
+rhythmic, symbolic, morphological--which it does not completely share
+with any other language. These factors may either merge their potencies
+with those of that unknown, absolute language to which I have
+referred--this is the method of Shakespeare and Heine--or they may weave
+a private, technical art fabric of their own, the innate art of the
+language intensified or sublimated. The latter type, the more
+technically "literary" art of Swinburne and of hosts of delicate "minor"
+poets, is too fragile for endurance. It is built out of spiritualized
+material, not out of spirit. The successes of the Swinburnes are as
+valuable for diagnostic purposes as the semi-failures of the Brownings.
+They show to what extent literary art may lean on the collective art of
+the language itself. The more extreme technical practitioners may so
+over-individualize this collective art as to make it almost unendurable.
+One is not always thankful to have one's flesh and blood frozen to
+ivory.
+
+An artist must utilize the native esthetic resources of his speech. He
+may be thankful if the given palette of colors is rich, if the
+springboard is light. But he deserves no special credit for felicities
+that are the language's own. We must take for granted this language with
+all its qualities of flexibility or rigidity and see the artist's work
+in relation to it. A cathedral on the lowlands is higher than a stick on
+Mont Blanc. In other words, we must not commit the folly of admiring a
+French sonnet because the vowels are more sonorous than our own or of
+condemning Nietzsche's prose because it harbors in its texture
+combinations of consonants that would affright on English soil. To so
+judge literature would be tantamount to loving "Tristan und Isolde"
+because one is fond of the timbre of horns. There are certain things
+that one language can do supremely well which it would be almost vain
+for another to attempt. Generally there are compensations. The vocalism
+of English is an inherently drabber thing than the vowel scale of
+French, yet English compensates for this drawback by its greater
+rhythmical alertness. It is even doubtful if the innate sonority of a
+phonetic system counts for as much, as esthetic determinant, as the
+relations between the sounds, the total gamut of their similarities and
+contrasts. As long as the artist has the wherewithal to lay out his
+sequences and rhythms, it matters little what are the sensuous qualities
+of the elements of his material.
+
+The phonetic groundwork of a language, however, is only one of the
+features that give its literature a certain direction. Far more
+important are its morphological peculiarities. It makes a great deal of
+difference for the development of style if the language can or cannot
+create compound words, if its structure is synthetic or analytic, if the
+words of its sentences have considerable freedom of position or are
+compelled to fall into a rigidly determined sequence. The major
+characteristics of style, in so far as style is a technical matter of
+the building and placing of words, are given by the language itself,
+quite as inescapably, indeed, as the general acoustic effect of verse is
+given by the sounds and natural accents of the language. These necessary
+fundamentals of style are hardly felt by the artist to constrain his
+individuality of expression. They rather point the way to those
+stylistic developments that most suit the natural bent of the language.
+It is not in the least likely that a truly great style can seriously
+oppose itself to the basic form patterns of the language. It not only
+incorporates them, it builds on them. The merit of such a style as W.H.
+Hudson's or George Moore's[199] is that it does with ease and economy
+what the language is always trying to do. Carlylese, though individual
+and vigorous, is yet not style; it is a Teutonic mannerism. Nor is the
+prose of Milton and his contemporaries strictly English; it is
+semi-Latin done into magnificent English words.
+
+[Footnote 199: Aside from individual peculiarities of diction, the
+selection and evaluation of particular words as such.]
+
+It is strange how long it has taken the European literatures to learn
+that style is not an absolute, a something that is to be imposed on the
+language from Greek or Latin models, but merely the language itself,
+running in its natural grooves, and with enough of an individual accent
+to allow the artist's personality to be felt as a presence, not as an
+acrobat. We understand more clearly now that what is effective and
+beautiful in one language is a vice in another. Latin and Eskimo, with
+their highly inflected forms, lend themselves to an elaborately periodic
+structure that would be boring in English. English allows, even demands,
+a looseness that would be insipid in Chinese. And Chinese, with its
+unmodified words and rigid sequences, has a compactness of phrase, a
+terse parallelism, and a silent suggestiveness that would be too tart,
+too mathematical, for the English genius. While we cannot assimilate the
+luxurious periods of Latin nor the pointilliste style of the Chinese
+classics, we can enter sympathetically into the spirit of these alien
+techniques.
+
+I believe that any English poet of to-day would be thankful for the
+concision that a Chinese poetaster attains without effort. Here is an
+example:[200]
+
+[Footnote 200: Not by any means a great poem, merely a bit of occasional
+verse written by a young Chinese friend of mine when he left Shanghai
+for Canada.]
+
+Wu-river[201] stream mouth evening sun sink,
+North look Liao-Tung,[202] not see home.
+Steam whistle several noise, sky-earth boundless,
+Float float one reed out Middle-Kingdom.
+
+[Footnote 201: The old name of the country about the mouth of the
+Yangtsze.]
+
+[Footnote 202: A province of Manchuria.]
+
+These twenty-eight syllables may be clumsily interpreted: "At the mouth
+of the Yangtsze River, as the sun is about to sink, I look north toward
+Liao-Tung but do not see my home. The steam-whistle shrills several
+times on the boundless expanse where meet sky and earth. The steamer,
+floating gently like a hollow reed, sails out of the Middle
+Kingdom."[203] But we must not envy Chinese its terseness unduly. Our
+more sprawling mode of expression is capable of its own beauties, and
+the more compact luxuriance of Latin style has its loveliness too.
+There are almost as many natural ideals of literary style as there are
+languages. Most of these are merely potential, awaiting the hand of
+artists who will never come. And yet in the recorded texts of primitive
+tradition and song there are many passages of unique vigor and beauty.
+The structure of the language often forces an assemblage of concepts
+that impresses us as a stylistic discovery. Single Algonkin words are
+like tiny imagist poems. We must be careful not to exaggerate a
+freshness of content that is at least half due to our freshness of
+approach, but the possibility is indicated none the less of utterly
+alien literary styles, each distinctive with its disclosure of the
+search of the human spirit for beautiful form.
+
+[Footnote 203: I.e., China.]
+
+Probably nothing better illustrates the formal dependence of literature
+on language than the prosodic aspect of poetry. Quantitative verse was
+entirely natural to the Greeks, not merely because poetry grew up in
+connection with the chant and the dance,[204] but because alternations
+of long and short syllables were keenly live facts in the daily economy
+of the language. The tonal accents, which were only secondarily stress
+phenomena, helped to give the syllable its quantitative individuality.
+When the Greek meters were carried over into Latin verse, there was
+comparatively little strain, for Latin too was characterized by an acute
+awareness of quantitative distinctions. However, the Latin accent was
+more markedly stressed than that of Greek. Probably, therefore, the
+purely quantitative meters modeled after the Greek were felt as a shade
+more artificial than in the language of their origin. The attempt to
+cast English verse into Latin and Greek molds has never been successful.
+The dynamic basis of English is not quantity,[205] but stress, the
+alternation of accented and unaccented syllables. This fact gives
+English verse an entirely different slant and has determined the
+development of its poetic forms, is still responsible for the evolution
+of new forms. Neither stress nor syllabic weight is a very keen
+psychologic factor in the dynamics of French. The syllable has great
+inherent sonority and does not fluctuate significantly as to quantity
+and stress. Quantitative or accentual metrics would be as artificial in
+French as stress metrics in classical Greek or quantitative or purely
+syllabic metrics in English. French prosody was compelled to develop on
+the basis of unit syllable-groups. Assonance, later rhyme, could not but
+prove a welcome, an all but necessary, means of articulating or
+sectioning the somewhat spineless flow of sonorous syllables. English
+was hospitable to the French suggestion of rhyme, but did not seriously
+need it in its rhythmic economy. Hence rhyme has always been strictly
+subordinated to stress as a somewhat decorative feature and has been
+frequently dispensed with. It is no psychologic accident that rhyme came
+later into English than in French and is leaving it sooner.[206] Chinese
+verse has developed along very much the same lines as French verse. The
+syllable is an even more integral and sonorous unit than in French,
+while quantity and stress are too uncertain to form the basis of a
+metric system. Syllable-groups--so and so many syllables per rhythmic
+unit--and rhyme are therefore two of the controlling factors in Chinese
+prosody. The third factor, the alternation of syllables with level tone
+and syllables with inflected (rising or falling) tone, is peculiar to
+Chinese.
+
+[Footnote 204: Poetry everywhere is inseparable in its origins from the
+singing voice and the measure of the dance. Yet accentual and syllabic
+types of verse, rather than quantitative verse, seem to be the
+prevailing norms.]
+
+[Footnote 205: Quantitative distinctions exist as an objective fact.
+They have not the same inner, psychological value that they had in
+Greek.]
+
+[Footnote 206: Verhaeren was no slave to the Alexandrine, yet he
+remarked to Symons, _à propos_ of the translation of _Les Aubes_, that
+while he approved of the use of rhymeless verse in the English version,
+he found it "meaningless" in French.]
+
+To summarize, Latin and Greek verse depends on the principle of
+contrasting weights; English verse, on the principle of contrasting
+stresses; French verse, on the principles of number and echo; Chinese
+verse, on the principles of number, echo, and contrasting pitches. Each
+of these rhythmic systems proceeds from the unconscious dynamic habit of
+the language, falling from the lips of the folk. Study carefully the
+phonetic system of a language, above all its dynamic features, and you
+can tell what kind of a verse it has developed--or, if history has
+played pranks with its phychology, what kind of verse it should have
+developed and some day will.
+
+Whatever be the sounds, accents, and forms of a language, however these
+lay hands on the shape of its literature, there is a subtle law of
+compensations that gives the artist space. If he is squeezed a bit here,
+he can swing a free arm there. And generally he has rope enough to hang
+himself with, if he must. It is not strange that this should be so.
+Language is itself the collective art of expression, a summary of
+thousands upon thousands of individual intuitions. The individual goes
+lost in the collective creation, but his personal expression has left
+some trace in a certain give and flexibility that are inherent in all
+collective works of the human spirit. The language is ready, or can be
+quickly made ready, to define the artist's individuality. If no
+literary artist appears, it is not essentially because the language is
+too weak an instrument, it is because the culture of the people is not
+favorable to the growth of such personality as seeks a truly individual
+verbal expression.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+_Note_. Italicized entries are names of languages or groups of languages.
+
+
+A
+
+Abbreviation of stem,
+Accent, stress,
+  as grammatical process,
+  importance of,
+  metrical value of
+"Accent,"
+"Adam's apple,"
+Adjective,
+Affixation,
+Affixing languages,
+African languages, pitch in,
+Agglutination,
+Agglutinative languages,
+Agglutinative-fusional,
+Agglutinative-isolating,
+_Algonkin_ languages (N. Amer.),
+Alpine race,
+Analogical leveling,
+Analytic tendency,
+Angles,
+_Anglo-Saxon_,
+Anglo-Saxon:
+  culture,
+  race,
+_Annamite_ (S.E. Asia),
+_Apache_ (N. Amer.),
+_Arabic_,
+_Armenian_,
+Art,
+  language as,
+  transferability of,
+Articulation:
+  ease of,
+  types of, drift toward,
+Articulations:
+  laryngeal,
+  manner of consonantal,
+  nasal,
+  oral,
+  place of consonantal,
+  vocalic,
+_Aryan_. See _Indo-European_.
+Aspect,
+Association of concepts and speech elements,
+Associations fundamental to speech,
+_Athabaskan_ languages (N. Amer.),
+Athabaskans, cultures of,
+_Attic_ dialect,
+Attribution,
+Auditory cycle in language,
+Australian culture,
+_Avestan_,
+
+
+B
+
+Bach,
+Baltic race,
+_Bantu_ languages (Africa),
+Bantus,
+_Basque_ (Pyrenees),
+_Bengali_ (India),
+_Berber_. See _Hamitic_.
+Bohemians,
+_Bontoc Igorot_ (Philippines),
+Borrowing, morphological,
+Borrowing, word,
+  phonetic adaptation in,
+  resistances to,
+_Breton_,
+Bronchial tubes,
+Browning,
+Buddhism, influence of,
+_Burmese_,
+_Bushman_ (S. Africa),
+Bushmen,
+
+
+C
+
+_Cambodgian_ (S.E. Asia),
+Carlyle,
+_Carrier_ (British Columbia),
+Case,
+  See _Attribution_; _Object_; _Personal relations_; _Subject_.
+Case-system, history of,
+Caucasus, languages of,
+Celtic. See _Celts_.
+_Celtic_ languages,
+Celts,
+  Brythonic,
+"Cerebral" articulations,
+Chaucer, English of,
+_Chimariko_ (N. California),
+_Chinese_:
+  absence of affixes,
+  analytic character,
+  attribution,
+  compounds,
+  grammatical concepts illustrated,
+  influence,
+  "inner form,",
+  pitch accent,
+  radical words,
+  relational use of material words,
+  sounds,
+  stress,
+  structure,
+  style,
+  survivals, morphological,
+  symbolism,
+  verse,
+  word duplication,
+  word order,
+_Chinook_ (N. Amer.),
+_Chipewyan_ (N. Amer.),
+  C. Indians,
+Chopin,
+Christianity, influence of,
+Chukchi,
+Classification:
+  of concepts, rigid,
+  of linguistic types,
+  See _Structure, linguistic_.
+"Clicks,"
+Composition,
+  absence of, in certain languages,
+  types of,
+  word order as related to,
+Concepts,
+Concepts, grammatical:
+  analysis of, in sentence,
+  classification of,
+  concrete,
+  concrete relational,
+  concreteness in, varying degree of,
+  derivational,
+  derivational, abstract,
+  essential,
+  grouping of, non-logical,
+  lack of expression of certain,
+  pure relational,
+  radical,
+  redistribution of,
+  relational,
+  thinning-out of significance of,
+  types of,
+  typical categories of,
+  See _Structure, linguistic_.
+Concord,
+Concrete concepts. See _Concepts_.
+Conflict,
+Consonantal change,
+Consonants,
+  combinations of,
+Coördinate sentences,
+_Corean_,
+Croce, Benedetto,
+Culture,
+  language and,
+  language as aspect of,
+  language, race and,
+  reflection of history of, in language,
+Culture areas,
+
+
+D
+
+_Danish_,
+Demonstrative ideas,
+Dental articulations,
+Derivational concepts. See _Concepts_.
+Determinative structure,
+Dialects:
+  causes of,
+  compromise between,
+  distinctness of,
+  drifts in, diverging,
+  drifts in, parallel,
+  splitting up of,
+  unity of,
+Diffusion, morphological,
+Diphthongs,
+Drift, linguistic,
+  components of,
+  determinants of, in English,
+  direction of,
+  direction of, illustrated in English,
+  examples of general, in English,
+  parallelisms in,
+  speed of,
+  See _Phonetic Law_; _Phonetic processes_.
+Duplication of words,
+_Dutch_,
+
+
+E
+
+Elements of speech,
+Emotion, expression of:
+  involuntary,
+  linguistic,
+_English_:
+  agentive suffix,
+  analogical leveling,
+  analytic tendency,
+  animate and inanimate,
+  aspect,
+  attribution,
+  case, history of,
+  compounds,
+  concepts, grammatical, in sentence,
+  concepts, passage of concrete into derivational,
+  consonantal change,
+  culture of speakers of,
+  desire, expression of,
+  diminutive suffix,
+  drift,
+  duplication, word,
+  esthetic qualities,
+  feeling-tone,
+  form, word,
+  French influence on,
+  function and form,
+  fusing and juxtaposing,
+  gender,
+  Greek influence on,
+  influence of,
+  influence on, morphological, lack of deep,
+  interrogative words,
+  invariable words, tendency to,
+  infixing,
+  Latin influence on,
+  loan-words,
+  modality,
+  number,
+  order, word,
+  parts of speech,
+  patterning, formal,
+  personal relations,
+  phonetic drifts, history of,
+  phonetic leveling,
+  phonetic pattern,
+  plurality,
+  race of speakers of,
+  reference, definiteness of,
+  relational words,
+  relations, genetic,
+  rhythm,
+  sentence, analysis of,
+  sentence, dependence of word on,
+  sound-imitative words,
+  sounds,
+  stress and pitch,
+  structure,
+  survivals, morphological,
+  symbolism,
+  syntactic adhesions,
+  syntactic values, transfer of,
+  tense,
+  verb, syntactic relations of,
+  verse,
+  vocalic change,
+  word and element, analysis of,
+_English, Middle_,
+English people,
+_Eskimo_,
+Eskimos,
+_Ewe_ (Guinea coast, Africa),
+Expiratory sounds,
+"Explosives,"
+
+
+F
+
+Faucal position,
+Feeling-tones of words,
+Fijians,
+_Finnish_,
+Finns,
+_Flemish_,
+"Foot, feet" (English), history of,
+Form, cultural,
+  feeling of language for,
+  "inner,"
+Form, linguistic:
+  conservatism of,
+  differences of, mechanical origin of,
+  elaboration of, reasons for,
+  function and, independence of,
+  grammatical concepts embodied in,
+  grammatical processes embodying,
+  permanence of different aspects of, relative,
+  twofold consideration of,
+  See _Structure, linguistic_.
+Form-classes,
+  See _Gender_.
+Formal units of speech,
+"Formlessness, inner,"
+_Fox_ (N. Amer.),
+_French_:
+  analytical tendency,
+  esthetic qualities,
+  gender,
+  influence,
+  order, word,
+  plurality,
+  sounds,
+  sounds as words, single,
+  stress,
+  structure,
+  tense forms,
+  verse,
+French, Norman,
+French people,
+Freud,
+Fricatives,
+_Frisian_,
+_Ful_ (Soudan),
+Function, independence of form and,
+Functional units of speech,
+Fusion,
+Fusional languages,
+  See _Fusion_.
+Fusional-agglutinative,
+Fusional-isolating,
+"Fuss, Füsse" (German), history of,
+
+
+G
+
+_Gaelic_,
+Gender,
+_German_:
+  French influence on,
+  grammatical
+  concepts in sentence,
+  Latin influence on,
+  phonetic drifts, history of,
+  plurality,
+  relations,
+  sound-imitative words,
+  sounds,
+  tense forms,
+  "umlaut,"
+  unanalyzable words, resistance to,
+_German, High_,
+_German, Middle High_,
+_German, Old High_,
+_Germanic_ languages,
+_Germanic, West_,
+Germans,
+Gesture languages,
+Ginneken, Jac van,
+Glottal cords,
+  action of,
+Glottal stop,
+_Gothic_,
+Grammar,
+Grammatical element,
+Grammatical concepts. See _Concepts, grammatical_.
+Grammatical processes:
+  classified by, languages,
+  particular, development by each language of,
+  types of,
+  variety of, use in one language of,
+_Greek_, dialectic history of,
+_Greek, classical_:
+  affixing,
+  compounds,
+  concord,
+  infixing,
+  influence,
+  pitch accent,
+  plurality,
+  reduplicated perfects,
+  stress,
+  structure,
+  synthetic character,
+  verse,
+_Greek, modern_,
+
+
+H
+
+_Haida_ (British Columbia),
+_Hamitic_ languages (N. Africa),
+_Hausa_ (Soudan),
+_Hebrew_,
+Heine,
+Hesitation,
+History, linguistic,
+_Hokan_ languages (N. Amer.),
+_Hottentot_ (S. Africa),
+Hudson, W.H.,
+Humming,
+_Hupa_ (N. California),
+Hupa Indians,
+
+
+I
+
+_Icelandic, Old_,
+India, languages of,
+Indians, American, languages of,
+  See also _Algonkin_; _Athabaskan_; _Chimariko_; _Chinook_; _Eskimo_;
+      _Fox_; _Haida_; _Hokan_; _Hupa_; _Iroquois_; _Karok_; _Kwakiutl_;
+      _Nahuatl_; _Nass_; _Navaho_; _Nootka_; _Ojibwa_; _Paiute_;
+      _Sahaptin_; _Salinan_; _Shasta_; _Siouan_; _Sioux_; _Takelma_;
+      _Tlingit_; _Tsimshian_; _Washo_; _Yana_; _Yokuts_; _Yurok_.
+_Indo-Chinese_ languages,
+_Indo-European_,
+_Indo-Iranian_ languages,
+Infixes,
+Inflection. See _Inflective languages_.
+Inflective languages,
+Influence:
+  cultural, reflected in language,
+  morphological, of alien language,
+  phonetic, of alien language,
+Inspiratory sounds,
+Interjections,
+Irish,
+_Irish_,
+_Iroquois_ (N. Amer.),
+Isolating languages,
+_Italian_,
+"Its," history of,
+
+
+J
+
+_Japanese_,
+Jutes,
+Juxtaposing. See _Agglutination_.
+
+
+K
+
+_Karok_ (N. California),
+  K. Indians,
+_Khmer_. See _Cambodgian_.
+Knowledge, source of, as grammatical category,
+_Koine_,
+_Kwakiutl_ (British Columbia),
+
+
+L
+
+Labial trills,
+Language:
+  associations in,
+  associations underlying elements of,
+  auditory cycle in,
+  concepts expressed in,
+  a cultural function,
+  definition of,
+  diversity of,
+  elements of,
+  emotion expressed in,
+  feeling-tones in,
+  grammatical concepts of,
+  grammatical processes of,
+  historical aspects of,
+  imitations of sounds, not evolved from,
+  influences on, exotic,
+  interjections, not evolved from,
+  literature and,
+  modifications and transfers of typical form of,
+  an "overlaid" function,
+  psycho-physical basis of,
+  race, culture and,
+  simplification of experience in,
+  sounds of,
+  structure of,
+  thought and,
+  universality of,
+  variability of,
+  volition expressed in,
+Larynx,
+Lateral sounds,
+_Latin_:
+  attribution,
+  concord,
+  infixing,
+  influence of,
+  objective _-m_,
+  order of words,
+  plurality,
+  prefixes and suffixes,
+  reduplicated perfects,
+  relational concepts expressed,
+  sentence-word,
+  sound as word in, single,
+  structure,
+  style,
+  suffixing character,
+  syntactic nature of sentence,
+  synthetic character,
+  verse,
+  word and element in, analysis of,
+_Lettish_,
+Leveling, phonetic,
+  See _Analogical leveling_.
+Lips,
+  action of,
+Literature:
+  compensations in, formal,
+  language and,
+  levels in, linguistic,
+  medium of, language as,
+  science and,
+Literature, determinants of:
+  linguistic,
+  metrical,
+  morphological,
+  phonetic,
+_Lithuanian_,
+Localism,
+Localization of speech,
+_Loucheux_ (N. Amer.),
+  L. Indians,
+Lungs,
+Luther, German of,
+
+
+M
+
+_Malay_,
+  M. race,
+_Malayan_,
+_Malayo-Polynesian_ languages,
+_Manchu_,
+_Manx_,
+"Maus, Mäuse" (German), history of,
+Mediterranean race,
+_Melanesian_ languages,
+Meter. See _Verse_.
+Milton,
+Mixed-relational languages,
+  complex,
+  simple,
+Modality,
+_Mon-Khmer_ (S.E. Asia),
+Moore, George,
+Morphological features, diffusion of,
+Morphology. See _Structure, linguistic_.
+"Mouse, mice" (English), history of,
+_Munda_ languages (E. India),
+Murmuring,
+Mutation, vocalic,
+
+
+N
+
+_Nahuatl_ (Mexico),
+Nasal sounds,
+"Nasal twang,"
+Nasalized stops,
+_Nass_ (British Columbia),
+Nationality,
+_Navaho_ (Arizona, New Mexico),
+  N. Indians,
+Nietzsche,
+_Nootka_ (Vancouver Id.),
+Nose,
+  action of,
+Noun,
+Nouns, classification of,
+Number,
+  See _Plurality_.
+
+
+O
+
+Object,
+  See _Personal relations_.
+_Ojibwa_ (N, Amer.),
+Onomatopoetic theory of origin of speech,
+Oral sounds,
+Order, word,
+  composition as related to,
+  fixed, English tendency,
+  sentence molded by,
+  significance of, fundamental,
+Organs of speech,
+  action of,
+
+
+P
+
+_Paiute_ (N. Amer.),
+Palate,
+  action of soft,
+  articulations of,
+_Pali_ (India),
+_Papuan_ languages,
+Papuans,
+Parts of speech,
+Pattern:
+  formal,
+  phonetic,
+_Persian_,
+Person,
+Personal relations,
+Phonetic adaptation,
+Phonetic diffusion,
+Phonetic law:
+  basis of,
+  direction of,
+  examples of,
+  influence of, on morphology,
+  influence of morphology on,
+  regularity of,
+  significance of,
+  spread of, slow,
+  See _Leveling, phonetic_; _Pattern, phonetic_.
+Phonetic processes,
+  form caused by, differences of,
+  parallel drifts in,
+Pitch, grammatical use of,
+  metrical use of,
+  production of,
+  significant differences in,
+Plains Indians, gesture language of,
+"Plattdeutsch,"
+Plurality:
+  classification of concept of, variable,
+  a concrete relational category,
+  a derivational or radical concept,
+  expression of, multiple,
+  See _Number_.
+Poles,
+_Polynesian_,
+Polynesians,
+Polysynthetic languages,
+_Portuguese_,
+Predicate,
+Prefixes,
+Prefixing languages,
+Preposition,
+Psycho-physical aspect of speech,
+Pure-relational languages,
+  complex,
+  simple,
+
+
+Q
+
+Qualifying concepts. See _Concepts, derivational_.
+Quality:
+  of speech sounds,
+  of individual's voice,
+Quantity of speech sounds,
+
+
+R
+
+Race,
+  language and, lack of correspondence between,
+  language and, theoretical relation between,
+  language as correlated with, English,
+  language, culture and, correspondence between,
+  language, culture and, independence of,
+Radical concepts. See _Concepts_.
+Radical element,
+Radical word,
+"Reading from the lips,"
+Reduplication,
+Reference, definite and indefinite,
+Repetition of stem,
+  See _Reduplication_.
+Repression of impulse,
+Rhyme,
+Rolled consonants,
+_Romance_ languages,
+Root,
+_Roumanian_,
+Rounded vowels,
+_Russian_,
+
+
+S
+
+_Sahaptin_ languages (N. Amer.),
+_Salinan_ (S.W. California),
+_Sanskrit_ (India),
+Sarcee Indians,
+_Saxon_:
+  _Low_,
+  _Old_,
+  _Upper_,
+Saxons,
+_Scandinavian_,
+  See _Danish_; _Icelandic_; _Swedish_.
+Scandinavians,
+Scotch,
+_Scotch, Lowland_,
+_Semitic languages_,
+Sentence,
+  binding words into, methods of,
+  stress in, influence of,
+  word-order in,
+Sequence. See _Order of words_.
+Shakespeare:
+  art of,
+  English of,
+_Shasta_ (N. California),
+_Shilh_ (Morocco),
+_Shilluk_ (Nile headwaters),
+_Siamese_,
+Singing,
+_Siouan_ languages (N. Amer.),
+_Sioux_ (Dakota),
+_Slavic_ languages,
+Slavs,
+_Somali_ (E. Africa),
+_Soudanese_ languages,
+Sound-imitative words,
+Sounds of speech,
+  adjustments involved in, muscular,
+  adjustments involved in certain, inhibition of,
+  basic importance of,
+  classification of,
+  combinations of,
+  conditioned appearance of,
+  dynamics of,
+  illusory feelings in regard to,
+  "inner" or "ideal" system of,
+  place in phonetic pattern of,
+  production of,
+  values of, psychological,
+  variability of,
+_Spanish_,
+Speech. See _Language_.
+Spirants,
+Splitting of sounds,
+Stem,
+Stock, linguistic,
+Stopped consonants (_or_ stops),
+Stress. See _Accent_.
+Structure, linguistic,
+  conservatism of,
+  differences of,
+  intuitional forms of,
+Structure, linguistic, types of:
+  classification of, by character of concepts,
+  by degree of fusion,
+  by degree of synthesis,
+  by formal processes,
+  from threefold standpoint,
+  into "formal" and "formless,"
+  classifying, difficulties in,
+  examples of,
+  mixed,
+  reality of,
+  validity of conceptual, historical test of,
+Style,
+Subject,
+  See _Personal relations_.
+Subject of discourse,
+Suffixes,
+Suffixing,
+Suffixing languages,
+Survivals, morphological,
+_Swedish_,
+Swinburne,
+Swiss, French,
+Syllabifying,
+Symbolic languages,
+Symbolic processes,
+Symbolic-fusional,
+Symbolic-isolating,
+Symons,
+Syntactic adhesions,
+Syntactic relations:
+  primary methods of expressing,
+  transfer of values in,
+  See _Concepts, relational_; _Concord_; _Order, word_; _Personal
+      relations_; _Sentence_.
+Synthetic tendency,
+
+
+T
+
+_Takelma_ (S.W. Oregon),
+Teeth,
+  articulations of,
+Telegraph code,
+Temperament,
+Tense,
+Teutonic race. See _Baltic race_.
+Thinking, types of,
+Thought, relation of language to,
+Throat,
+  articulations of,
+_Tibetan_,
+Time. See _Tense_.
+_Tlingit_ (S. Alaska),
+  T. Indians,
+Tongue,
+  action of,
+Transfer, types of linguistic,
+Trills,
+_Tsimshian_ (British Columbia),
+  See _Nass_.
+_Turkish_,
+Types, linguistic, change of,
+  See _Structure, linguistic_.
+
+
+U
+
+_Ugro-Finnic_,
+"Umlaut." See _Mutation, vocalic_.
+United States:
+  culture in,
+  race in,
+_Ural-Altaic_ languages,
+Uvula,
+
+
+V
+
+Values:
+  "hesitation,"
+  morphologic,
+  phonetic,
+  variability in, of components of drift,
+Variations, linguistic:
+  dialect,
+  historical,
+  individual,
+Verb,
+  syntactic relations expressed in,
+Verhaeren,
+Verse:
+  accentual,
+  linguistic determinants of,
+  quantitative,
+  syllabic,
+Vocalic change,
+  See _Mutation, vocalic_.
+Voice, production of,
+Voiced sounds,
+Voiceless:
+  laterals,
+  nasals,
+  sounds,
+  trills,
+  vowels,
+"Voicelessness," production of,
+Volition expressed in speech,
+Vowels,
+
+
+W
+
+Walking, a biological function,
+_Washo_ (Nevada),
+_Welsh_,
+Westermann, D.,
+Whisper,
+Whitman,
+"Whom," use and drift of,
+Word,
+  definition of,
+  syntactic origin of complex,
+  "twilight" type of,
+  types of, formal,
+Written language,
+
+
+Y
+
+_Yana_ (N. California),
+_Yiddish_,
+_Yokuts_ (S. California),
+_Yurok_ (N.W. California),
+  Y. Indians,
+
+
+Z
+
+_Zaconic_ dialect of Greek,
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Language, by Edward Sapir
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12629 ***