T
- Takelma (S.W. Oregon), (81) (82) (84) (85) (151) (152) (220)
- Teeth, (48)
- Telegraph code, (20)
- Temperament, (231) (232)
- Tense, (91) (93) (114)
- Teutonic race. See Baltic race.
- Thinking, types of, (17) (18)
- Thought, relation of language to, (12-17) (232) (233)
- Throat, (48)
- Tibetan, (80) (102) (112) (124) (125) (136) (143) (144) (150) (154) (155) (209) (210)
- Time. See Tense.
- Tlingit (S. Alaska), (84) (134) (135) (219) (229)
- T. Indians, (230)
- Tongue, (48)
- Transfer, types of linguistic, (18-21)
- Trills, (53)
- Tsimshian (British Columbia), (70) (80) (81)
- See Nass.
- Turkish, (70) (135) (150) (207) (212)
- Types, linguistic, change of, (153-6)
U
- Ugro-Finnic, (212)
- “Umlaut.” See Mutation, vocalic.
- United States:
- Ural-Altaic languages, (212)
- Uvula, (48) (53)
V
- Values:
- Variations, linguistic:
- Verb, (123) (124) (126)
- syntactic relations expressed in, (115)
- Verhaeren, (245)
- Verse:
- Vocalic change, (26) (61) (64) (76-8)
- See Mutation, vocalic.
- Voice, production of, (50)
- Voiced sounds, (50)
- Voiceless:
- “Voicelessness,” production of, (49)
- Volition expressed in speech, (38) (39)
- Vowels, (52)
W
- Walking, a biological function, (1) (2)
- Washo (Nevada), (81)
- Welsh, (51) (53) (225)
- Westermann, D., (154)
- Whisper, (50)
- Whitman, (239)
- “Whom,” use and drift of, (166-74)
- Word, (25-8)
- Written language, (19) (20)
Y
- Yana (N. California), (69) (70) (74) (76) (96) (105) (111) (112) (126) (150) (155)
- Yiddish, (204)
- Yokuts (S. California), (77) (78)
- Yurok (N.W. California), (229)
- Y. Indians, (228)
Z
- Zaconic dialect of Greek, (162)
Footnote 1:
We shall reserve capitals for radical elements.
Footnote 2:
These words are not here used in a narrowly technical
sense.
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.
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.
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.
Footnote 7:
“Coördinate 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.
Footnote 9:
E.g., the brilliant Dutch writer, Jac van Ginneken.
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.
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.
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.
Footnote 17:
Aside from the involuntary nasalizing of all voiced sounds
in the speech of those that talk with a “nasal twang.”
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.
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.
Footnote 21:
This position, known as “faucal,” is not common.
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.”
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.
Footnote 26:
For the symbolism, see chapter II.
Footnote 27:
“Plural” is here a symbol for any prefix indicating
plurality.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Footnote 42:
See page 49.
Footnote 43:
Spoken in the south-central part of California.
Footnote 44:
See page 50.
Footnote 45:
These orthographies are but makeshifts for simple sounds.
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: This footnote has been renumbered as Footnote 24.
Footnote 50:
An Indian language of Nevada.
Footnote 51:
An Indian language of Oregon.
Footnote 52:
It is not unlikely, however, that these Athabaskan
alternations are primarily tonal in character.
Footnote 53:
Not in its technical sense.
Footnote 54:
It is, of course, an “accident” that -s denotes
plurality in the noun, singularity in the verb.
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.
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.
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”).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Footnote 70:
-si is the third person of the present tense. -hau-
“east” is an affix, not a compounded radical element.
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”).
Footnote 73:
Such as person class, animal class, instrument class,
augmentative class.
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
naïve 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.
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.
Footnote 79:
Ultimately, also historical—say, age to “act that
(one).”
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.
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.