Philology_________________________3714

are considerable differences between lan-
guages in this respect, the total number of
speech sounds in use is not very great.

This may be explained as the result of a
process of unconscious selection. The best
sounds, those most easily produced and dis-
tinguished, are those which have survived.
It is not to be supposed that primitive man
used fewer sounds than his descendants now
employ. The opinion that the earliest his-
torical languages, such as the parent Indo-
European speech, possessed a very simple
vowel system, is no longer maintained. The
simplicity of primitive forms of speech does
not manifest itself in the sound-combina-
tions which they employ.

One of the best established results of
modern investigation into the history of
language is the conclusion that a never-
ending and never-resting process of sound-
change is at work in every language. The
fundamental conditions of this process are
chiefly these:—(i.) What is commonly
called the same pronunciation of a word or
sound really fluctuates within certain limits.
Even the pronunciation of one individual is
only approximately the same at different
times and in different sentences. This opens
the door at once to the shifting or displace-
ment of the pronunciation of any word or
sound. (2). Language is constantly being
transmitted from generation to generation,
and in this process is particularly liable to
alteration. Children acquire the language
of their parents by imitation, and seldom
if ever acquire it perfectly. (3.) Every
speaker is constantly liable to sporadic 'mis-
takes.' For the most part these mistakes
are common to many individuals, and they
may finally supplant what was originally
the 'correct' form. Alterations in the rate
of speech, or a general movement in the
position of the accent, may produce wide-
spread effects. Modern research into the
origin of words and their history has been
greatly influenced by the doctrine of 'roots.'
The roots of a language were got by strip-
ping off all the formative and inflectional
elements in a group of words related in
meaning. The common element in these
words, when there was one, was regarded
as the 'root' from which they were all
derived. A better understanding of the his-
tory of language has greatly shaken this
hypothesis of a primitive root stage at the
beginning of the development.

There are at least two types of word-

Philology

creation which may be regarded as primi-
tive, i. Simple sounds or syllables are re-
peated in the production of such words as
lpapa' and 'mama' (both of these are widely
diffused words and necessarily very old). 2.
Man imitates the cries of animals and the
sounds which he hears in nature. The words
so produced are a subdivision of onomato-
poeic words.

The history of the relation of word forms
to their meanings and of the changes which
take place in the meaning of words is itself
a vast field in philology. The causes of
change arc primarily psychological. His-
torical circumstances may have an important
influence on the course of the development,
but the law according to which change
takes place is invariably psychological. That
being so, the best classification of the phe-
nomena is no doubt one based on the oper-
ative causes of chance—vis. the various laws
of association. A favorite classification is
according to results, distinguishing cases of
the extension or limitation of word mean-
ings from others in which old and new
meanings join side by side. This is not so
instructive as the psychological classifica-
tion, which makes prominent the causes
of change. Every one is familiar with the
manner in which a word acquires a new
meaning because of the analogy perceived
between the object it denotes and some other
object: for example, the 'foot' of a table
or of a hill is m compared with the foot of
an animal, and the word 'foot' thus acquires
a new meaning. The constant use of the
word 'town' for a particular town (say
London) gives the expression 'town' a new
meaning, and so forth. The very same
psychological processes account for the
changes in the meaning of terminations and
grammatical forms in general. Prepositions
and adverbs are frequently nouns in a spe-
cialized sense, which has been acquired from
repeated use in circumstances which sug-
gested more to the mind than the word
originally implied.

It is now generally recognized that it is
inaccurate to suppose that sentences are
possible only after words have been created
to become the materials used in their con-
struction. Sentences expressing certain feel-
ings and wishes and thoughts are at least
as fundamental in speech as words that
name objects. Words as independent ele-
ments, as linguistic facts with a recognized
individuality, are certainly to a large extent