CHAPTER XV.
THE WITNESS OF PHILOLOGY (continued).
In the last chapter we have been concerned with the philology of predication. In the present chapter I propose to consider the philology of conception. Of course the distinction is not one that can be very sharply drawn, because, as fully shown in my chapter on Speech, every concept embodies a judgment, and therefore every denominative term is a condensed proposition. Nevertheless, as my opponents have laid so much stress on full or formal predication, as distinguished from conception, I have thought it desirable, as much as possible, to keep these two branches of our subject separate. Therefore, having now disposed of all opposition that can possibly be raised on the ground of formal predication, I will conclude by throwing the light of philology on the origin of material predication, or the passage of receptual denotation into conceptual denomination, as this is shown to have occurred in the pre-historic evolution of the race.
It will be remembered that, under my analysis of the growth of predication, much more stress has been laid in the last chapter than in previous chapters on what I have called the protoplasm of predication as this occurs in the hitherto undifferentiated “sentence-word.” While treating of the psychology of predication in the chapter on Speech, I did not go further back in my analysis than to point out how the “nascent” or “pre-conceptual” propositions of young children are brought about by the mere apposition of denotative terms—such apposition having been shown to be due to sensuous association when under the guidance of the “logic of events.” But when I came to deal with the philology of predication, it became evident that there was even an earlier phase of the faculty in question than that of apposing denotative terms by sensuous association. For, as we have so recently seen, philologists have proved that even before there were any denotative terms respectively significant of objects, qualities, actions, states, or relations, there were sentence-words which combined in one vague mass the meanings afterwards apportioned to substantives, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, &c., with the consequence that the only kind of apposition which could be called into play for the purpose of indicating the particular significance intended to belong to such a word on particular occasions, was the apposition of gesture-signs. Now, I had two reasons for thus postponing our consideration of what is undoubtedly the earliest phase of articulate sign-making. In the first place, it seemed to me that I might more easily lead the reader to a clear understanding of the subject by beginning with a phase of predication which he could most readily appreciate, than by suddenly bringing him into the presence of a germ-like origin which is far from being so readily intelligible. But over and above this desire to proceed from the familiar to the unfamiliar, I had, in the second place, a further and a better reason for not dealing with the ultimate germ of articulate sign-making so long as I was dealing only with the psychology of our subject. This reason was, that in the development of speech as exhibited by the growing child—which, of course, furnishes our only material for a study of the subject from a psychological point of view—the original or germinal phase in question does not appear to be either so marked, so important, or, comparatively speaking, of such prolonged duration as it was in the development of speech in the race. To use biological terms, this the earliest phase in the evolution of speech has been greatly foreshortened in the ontogeny of mankind, as compared with what it appears to have been in the phylogeny. The result, of course, is that we should gain but an inadequate idea of its importance, were we to estimate it by a merely psychological analysis of what we now find in the life-history of the individual.
It is perfectly true, as Professor Max Müller says, that “if an English child says ‘Up,’ that up is, to his mind, noun, verb, and adjective, all in one.” Nevertheless, in a young child, from the very first, there is a marked tendency to observe the distinctions which belong to the principal parts of speech. The earliest words uttered by my own children have always been nouns and proper names, such as “Star,” “Mamma,” “Papa,” “Ilda,” &c.; and although, later on, some of these earliest words might assume the functions of adjectives by being used in apposition with other nouns subsequently acquired (such as “Mamma-ba,” for a sheep, and “Ilda-ba” for a lamb), neither the nouns nor the adjectives came to be used as verbs. It has been previously shown that the use of adjectives is acquired almost as soon as that of substantives; and although the poverty of the child’s vocabulary then often necessitates the adjectives being used as substantives, the substantives as adjectives, and both as rudimentary propositions, still there remains a distinction between them as object-words and quality-words. Similarly, although action-words and condition-words are often forced into the position of object-words and quality-words, it is apparent that the primary idea attaching to them is that which properly belongs to a verb. And, of course, the same remarks apply to relation-words, such as “Up.”
Take, for instance, the cases of pre-conceptual predication which were previously quoted from Mr. Sully, namely, “Bow-wow” = “That is a dog;” “Ot” = “This milk is hot;” “Dow” = “My plaything is down;” “Dit ki” = “Sister is crying;” “Dit naughty” = “Sister is naughty;” “Dit dow ga” = “Sister is down on the grass.” In all these cases it is evident that the child is displaying a true perception of the different functions which severally belong to the different parts of speech; and so far as psychological analysis alone could carry us, there would be nothing to show that the forcing of one part of speech into the office of another, which so frequently occurs at this age, is due to anything more than the exigencies of expression where as yet there are scarcely any words for the conveyance of meaning of any kind. Therefore, on grounds of psychological analysis alone, I do not see that we are justified in arguing from these facts that a young child has no appreciation of the difference between the functions of the different parts of speech—any more than we should were we to argue that a grown man has no such appreciation when he extends the meaning of a substantive (such as “pocket”) so as to embrace the function of an adjective on the one hand (e.g. “pocket-book”), and of a verb on the other (e.g. “he cannoned off the white, and pocketed the red”). What may be termed this grammatical abuse of words becomes an absolute necessity where the vocabulary is small, as we well know when trying to express ourselves in a foreign language with which we are but slightly acquainted. And, of course, the smaller the vocabulary, the greater is such necessity; so that it is greatest of all when an infant is only just emerging from its infancy. Therefore, as just remarked, on grounds of psychological analysis alone, I do not think we should be justified in concluding that the first-speaking child has no appreciation of what we understand by parts of speech; and it is on account of the uncertainty which here obtains as between necessity and incapacity, that I reserved my consideration of “sentence-words” for the independent light which has been thrown upon them by the science of comparative philology.
Now, when investigated by this light, it appears, as already observed, that the protoplasmic condition of language prior to its differentiation into parts of speech was of much longer duration in the race than, relatively speaking, it is in the individual. Moreover, it appears to have been of relatively much greater importance to the subsequent development of language. How, then, is this difference to be explained? I think the explanation is sufficiently simple. An infant of to-day is born into the medium of already-spoken language; and long before it is itself able to imitate the words which it hears, it is well able to understand a large number of them. Consequently, while still literally an infant, the use of grammatical forms is being constantly borne in upon its mind; and, therefore, it is not at all surprising that, when it first begins to use articulate signs, it should already be in possession of some amount of knowledge of their distinctive meanings as names of objects, qualities, actions, states, or relations. Indeed, it is only as such that the infant has acquired its knowledge of these signs at all; and hence, if there is any wonder in the matter, it is that the first-speaking child should exhibit so much vagueness as it does in the matter of grammatical distinction.
But how vastly different must have been the case of primitive man! The infant, as a child of to-day, finds a grammar already made to its use, and one which it is bound to learn with the first learning of denotative names. But the infant, as an adult in primeval time, was under the necessity of slowly elaborating his grammar together with his denotative names; and this, as we have previously seen, he only could do by the aid of gesture and grimace. Therefore, while the acquisition of names and forms of speech by infantile man must have been thus in chief part dependent on gesture and grimace, the acquisition by the infantile child is now not only independent of gesture and grimace, but actively inimical to both. The already-constructed grammar of speech is the evolutionary substitute of gesture, from which it originally arose; and, hence, so soon as a child of to-day begins to speak, gesture-signs begin at once to be starved out by grammatical forms. But in the history of the race gesture-signs were the nursing-mothers of grammatical forms; and the more that their progeny grew, the greater must have been the variety of functions which the parents were called upon to perform. In other words, during the infancy of our race the growth of articulate language must not only have depended, but also reacted upon that of gesture-signs—increasing their number, their intricacy, and their refinement, up to the time when grammatical forms were sufficiently far evolved to admit of the gesture-signs becoming gradually dispensed with. Then, of course, Saturn-like, gesticulation was devoured by its own offspring; the relations between signs appealing to the eye and to the ear became gradually reversed; and, as is now the case with every growing child, the language of formal utterance sapped the life of its more informal progenitor.