Each word of the sentence indicates by its own form the character and
relation to the main proposition of the idea it represents. Sanscrit,
Greek and Latin are familiar examples of inflected tongues.
It is possible to suppose that all four of these forms were developed
from some primitive condition of utterance unknown to us, just as
naturalists believe that all organic species were developed out of a
homogeneous protoplasmic mass; but it is as hard to see how any one of
them in its present form could pass over into another, as to
understand how a radiate could change into a mollusk.
§ 12. NATURE OF INCORPORATION.
Of the four plans mentioned, Incorporation is that characteristic of,
though not confined to, American tongues.
It may appear in a higher or a lower grade, but its intention is
everywhere the effort to convey in one word the whole proposition. The
Verb, as that part of speech which especially conveys the synthetic
action of the mental operation, is that which is selected as the stem
of this word-sentence; all the other parts are subordinate
accessories, devoid of syntactic value.
The higher grade of incorporation includes both subject, object and
verb in one word, and if for any reason the object is not included,
the scheme of the sentence is still maintained in the verb, and the
object is placed outside, as in apposition, without case ending, and
under a form different from its original and simple one.
This will readily be understood from the following examples from the
Mexican language.
The sentence _ni-naca-qua_, is one word and means "I, flesh, eat." If
it is desired to express the object independently, the expression
becomes _ni-c-qua-in-nacatl_, "I it eat, the flesh." The termination
_tl_ does not belong to the root of the noun, but is added to show
that it is in an external, and, as it were, unnatural position. Both
the direct and remote object can thus be incorporated, and if they are
not, but separately appended, the scheme of the sentence is still
preserved; as _ni-te-tla-maca_, literally, "I, something, to somebody,
give." How closely these accessories are incorporated is illustrated
by the fact that the tense augments are not added to the stem, but to
the whole word; _o-ni-c-te-maca-e_, "I have given it to somebody;"
when the _o_ is the prefix of the perfect.
In these languages, every element in the sentence, which is not
incorporated in the verb, has, in fact, no syntax at all. The verbal
exhausts all the formal portion of the language. The relations of the
other words are intimated by their position. Thus _ni-tlagotlaz-nequia_,
I wished to love, is literally "I, I shall love, I wished." _Tlagotlaz_,
is the first person singular of the future, _ni-nequia_, I wished, which
is divided, and the future form inserted. The same expression may stand
thus: _ni-c-nequia-tlagotlaz_, where the _c_ is an intercalated relative
pronoun, and the literal rendering is, "I it wished, I shall love."
In the Lule language the construction with an infinitive is simply
that the two verbs follow each other in the same person, as _caic
tucuec_, "I am accustomed to eat," literally, "I am acustomed,[TN-4] I
eat."
None of these devices fullfils[TN-5] all the uses of the infinitive,
and hence they are all inferior to it.
In languages which lack formal elements, the deficiency must be
supplied by the mind. Words are merely placed in juxtaposition, and
their relationship guessed at. Thus, when a language constructs its
cases merely by prefixing prepositions to the unaltered noun, there is
no grammatical form; in the Mbaya language _e-tiboa_ is translated
"through me," but it is really "I, through;" _l'emani_, is rendered
"he wishes," but it is strictly "he, wish."
In such languages the same collocation of words often corresponds to
quite different meanings, as the precise relation of the thoughts is
not defined by any formal elements. This is well illustrated in the
Tupi tongue. The word _uba_ is "father;" with the pronoun of the third
person prefixed it is _tuba_, literally "he, father." This may mean
either "his father," or "he is a father," or "he has a father," just
as the sense of the rest of the sentence requires.
Certainly a language which thus leaves confounded together ideas so
distinct as these, is inferior to one which discriminates them; and
this is why the formal elements of a tongue are so important to
intellectual growth. The Tupis may be an energetic and skillful
people, but with their language they can never take a position as
masters in the realm of ideas.
The absence of the passive in most, if not all, American tongues is
supplied by similar inadequate collocations of words. In Huasteca, for
example, _nana tanin tahjal_, is translated "I am treated by him;"
actually it is, "I, me, treats he." This is not a passive, but simply
the idea of the Ego connected with the idea of another acting upon it.
This is vastly below the level of inflected speech; for it cannot be
too strenuously maintained that the grammatical relations of spoken
language are the more perfect and favorable to intellectual growth,
the more closely they correspond to the logical relations of thought.
Sometimes what appears as inflection turns out on examination to be
merely adjunction. Thus in the Mbaya tongue there are such verbal
forms as _daladi_, thou wilt throw, _nilabuite_, he has spun, when the
_d_ is the sign of the future, and the _n_ of the perfect. These look
like inflections; but in fact _d_, is simply a relic of _quide_,
hereafter, later, and _n_ stands in the same relation to _quine_,
which means "and also."
To become true formal elements, all such adjuncts must have completely
lost their independent signification; because if they retain it, their
material content requires qualification and relation just as any other
stem word.
A few American languages may have reached this stage. In the Mexican
there are the terminals _ya_ or _a_ in the imperfect, the augment _o_
in the preterit, and others in the future. In the Tamanaca the present
ends in _a_, the preterit in _e_, the future in _c_. "There is nothing
in either of these tongues to show that these tense signs have
independent meaning, and therefore there is no reason why they should
not be classed with those of the Greek and Sanscrit as true
inflectional elements."[24-*]
§ 13. PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF INCORPORATION.
This Incorporative plan, which may be considered as distinctive of the
American stock of languages, is explained in its psychological origin
by Humboldt, as the result of an _exaltation of the imaginative over
the intellectual elements of mind_. By this method, the linguistic
faculty strives to present to the understanding the whole thought in
the most compact form possible, thus to facilitate its comprehension;
and this it does, because a thought presented in one word is more
vivid and stimulating to the imagination, more individual and
picturesque, than when narrated in a number of words.[25-*]
But the mistake must not be made of supposing that Incorporation is a
_creative act_ of the language-sense, or that its products, the
compounds that it builds, are real words. Humboldt was careful to
impress this distinction, and calls such incorporated compounds
examples of _collocation_ (Zusammensetzung), not of _synthesis_
(Zusammenfassung). On this ground, he doubted, and with justice, the
assertion of Duponceau, that the long words of the Lenape (Delaware)
dialect are formed by an arbitrary selection of the phonetic parts of
a number of words, without reference to the radical syllables.[25-+]
He insisted, as is really the case, that in all instances the
significant syllable or syllables are retained.
§ 14. EFFECT OF INCORPORATION ON COMPOUND SENTENCES.
As has been seen, the theory of Incorporation is to express the whole
proposition, as nearly as possible, in one word; and what part of it
cannot be thus expressed, is left without any syntax whatever. Not
only does this apply to individual words in a sentence, but it extends
to the various clauses of a compound sentence, such as in Aryan
languages show their relation to the leading clauses by means of
prepositions, conjunctions and relative pronouns.
When the methods are analyzed by which the major and minor clauses are
assigned their respective values in these tongues, it is very plain
what difficulties of expression the system of Incorporation involves.
Few of them have any true connecting word of either of the three
classes above mentioned. They depend on scarcely veiled material
words, simply placed in juxtaposition.
It is probable that the prepositions and conjunctions of all
languages were at first significant words, and the degree to which
they have lost their primary significations and have become purely
formal elements expressing relation, is one of the measures of the
grammatical evolution of a tongue. In most American idioms their
origin from substantives is readily recognizable. Frequently these
substantives refer to parts of the body, and this, in passing,
suggests the antiquity of this class of words and their value in
comparison.
In Maya _tan_ means in, toward, among; but it is also the breast or
front of the body. The Mexican has three classes of prepositions--the
first, whose origin from a substantive cannot be detected; the second,
where an unknown and a known element are combined; the third, where
the substantive is perfectly clear. An example of the last mentioned
is _itic_, in, compounded of _ite_, belly, and the locative particle
_c_; the phrase _ilhuicatl itic_, in heaven, is literally "in the
belly of heaven." Precisely the same is the Cakchiquel _pamcah_,
literally, "belly, heaven"=in heaven. In Mexican, _notepotzco_ is
"behind me," literally, "my back, at;" this corresponds again to the
Cakchiquel _chuih_, behind me, from _chi_, at, _u_, my, _vih_,
shoulder-blades. The Mixteca prepositions present the crude nature of
their origin without disguise, _chisi huahi_, belly, house--that is,
in front of the house; _sata huahi_, back, house--behind the house.
The conjunctions are equally transparent. "And" in Maya is _yetel_, in
Mexican _ihuan_. One would suppose that such an indispensable
connective would long since have been worn down to an insoluble
entity. On the contrary, both these words retain their perfect
material meaning. _Yetel_ is a compound of _y_, his, _et_, companion,
and _el_, the definite termination of nouns. _Ihuan_ is the
possessive, _i_, and _huan_, associate, companion, used also as a
termination to form a certain class of plurals.
The deficiency in true conjunctions and relative pronouns is met in
many American languages by a reversal of the plan of expression with
us. The relative clause becomes the principal one. There is a certain
logical justice in this; for, if we reflect, it will appear evident
that the major proposition is, in our construction, presented as one
of the conditions of the minor. "I shall drown, if I fall in the
water," means that, of the various results of my falling in the water,
one of them will be that I shall drown. "I followed the road which
you described," means that you described a road, and one of the
results of this act of yours was that I followed it.
This explains the plan of constructing compound sentences in Qquichua.
Instead of saying "I shall follow the road which you describe," the
construction is "You describe, this road I shall follow;" and instead
of "I shall drown if I fall in the water," it would be, "I fall in the
water, I shall drown."
The Mexican language introduces the relative clause by the word _in_,
which is an article and demonstrative pronoun, or, if the proposition
is a conditional one, by _intla_, which really signifies "within
this," and conveys the sense that the major is included within the
conditions of the minor clause. The Cakchiquel conditional particle is
_vue_, if, which appears to be simply the particle of affirmation
"yes," employed to give extension to the minor clause, which, as a
rule, is placed first.
Or a conventional arrangement of words may be adopted which will
convey the idea of certain dependent clauses, as those expressing
similitude, as is often the case in Mexican.
§ 15. THE DUAL IN AMERICAN LANGUAGES.
In his admirable philosophical examination of the dual number in
language, Humboldt laid the foundation of a linguistic theory of
numerals which has not yet received the development it merits. Here he
brings into view the dual and plural endings of a list of American
languages, and explains the motives on which they base the inclusive
and exclusive plurals so common among them. It is, in fact, a species
of pronominal dual confined to the first person in the plural.
This, he goes on to say, is by no means the only dual in these
tongues. Some of them express both the other classes of duals which he
names. Thus, the Totonaca has duals for all objects which appear as
pairs in nature, as the eyes, the ears, the hands, etc.; while the
Araucanian equals the Sanscrit in extending the grammatical expression
of the dual through all parts of speech where it can find proper
application.[27-*]
§ 16. HUMBOLDT'S ESSAY ON THE AMERICAN VERB.
The essay on the American verb translated in the following pages has
never previously appeared in print, either in German or English. The
original MS. is in the Royal Library at Berlin, whence I obtained a
transcript. The author alludes to this essay in several passages of
his printed works, most fully in his "Letter to M. Abel-Remusat"
(1826), in which he says:
"A few years ago, I read before the Berlin Academy a memoir, which has
not been printed, in which I compared a number of American languages
with each other, solely with regard to the manner in which they
express the verb as uniting the subject with the attribute in the
proposition, and from this point of view I assigned them to various
classes. As this trait proves to what degree a language possesses
grammatical forms, or is near to possessing them, it is decisive of
the whole grammar of a tongue."
On reading the memoir, I was so much impressed with the acuteness and
justness of its analysis of American verbal forms that I prepared the
translation which I now submit.
In the more recent studies of the American verb which have appeared
from the pens of Friedrich Müller, J. Hammond Trumbull and Lucien
Adam, we have the same central element of speech subjected to critical
investigation at able hands. But it seems to me that none of them has
approached the topic with the broad, philosophic conceptions which
impress the reader in this essay of Humboldt's. Although sixty years
and more have elapsed since it was written, I am confident that it
will provide ample food for thought to the earnest student of
language.
_On the Verb in American Languages. By Wilhelm von Humboldt[TN-6]
Translated from the unpublished original. By D. G. Brinton, M.D._
You recently had the goodness to give an appreciative hearing to my
essay on The Origin of Grammatical Forms.
I desire to-day to apply the principles which I then stated in general
to a particular grammatical point through a series of languages. I
choose those of America as best suited to such a purpose, and select
the Verb as the most important part of speech, and the central point
of every language. Without entering into an analysis of the different
parts of the verb, I shall confine myself to that which constitutes
its peculiar verbal character--the union of the subject and predicate
of the sentence by means of the notion of Being. This alone forms the
essence of the verb; all other relations, as of persons, tenses, modes
and classes, are merely secondary properties.