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.]