First, let us consider speech. It can be measured.[254] In this
respect, speech is a quantity, but not in so far as it is speech, whose
nature is to be significant, as the noun, or the verb.[255] The vocal
air is the matter of the word, as it also is of the noun and the verb,
all which constitute the language. The word is principally an impulse
launched on the air, but it is not a simple impulse; because it is
articulated it somehow fashions the air; consequently it is a deed,
but a significant one. It might be reasonably said that this movement
and impulse constitute a deed, and that the movement which follows is
a modification, or rather that the first movement is the deed, and the
second movement is the modification of another, or rather that the deed
refers to the subject, and the modification is in the subject. If the
word consisted not in the impulse, but in the air, there would result
from the significant characteristic of the expressive impulse two
distinct entities, and no longer a single category.